What i’m digging

musings on music, film, books, art, and pretty things.

2025

February 2025

Viewing:

03 - Finished watching The Farewell. One of my new favorite cultural-learning family dramas. Heavy ideas with lots of laughter and personality.

03 - Finished The Wild Robot. Slow start (several days ago), but kept picking up steam and making me care. Beautiful little arc combining WALL-E, Inside Out, and Up, amidst other classics about friendship and family.

Slow Horses (just me). Season 4. Maybe my least favorite season so far, but…that’s like choosing a favorite ice cream flavor when you have a half dozen delicious choices in front of you. Superb ensemble. Also: started up Money Heist again, after a year-long absence or so (on series 2 now).

Reading:

07 - Started Flora & Ulysses with the younger boys. Accidentally read seven straight chapters. We’re into it.

06 - Finished The Phantom Tollbooth with our 5- and 8-year old. Been savoring its magical words and images. Still holds up from its 1960 publication.

January 2025

Viewing:

Conclave. Delicious writing and the same level of ensemble performances.
Avengers: Endgame, spread out over multiple evenings. Aaah, the agony and suspense!

30 - Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea. What a pair of…beautiful, beautiful odes to place, to relationships, to individuality and imagination and kindness and strength and resilience and humor…we all watched together, in serialized form over a couple weeks, and they hold up so well from childhood. Our second time through with kids.

29 - Finally finished Dune 2 with Olders. Quite a journey. I enjoyed, cannot speak for all the audience. My respect for Zendaya as an actor continues to slowly grow.

Reading:

A Confederacy of Dunces. Still working my through and loving.

A Court of Thorns and Roses. Yep, had to try it. Definitely stronger writing than I was expecting.

Becca absorbed in Upworthy collection and The Last Thing He Wrote. I pounce on the latter when she’s not around, perpetually a few chapters behind.

Nightbitch. Whew. Nothing quite like it. Am I more understanding and respectful of what it means to be a mom?

Listening:

Beethoven on vinyl, Herb Alpert - yeah, the one with that cover :), kids singing Eminem
Led Zeppelin - debut (1969) and II (1969)
lot of Duke Ellington

Selected Readings with kids:

The Phantom Tollbooth (with me), The Carnivorous Carnival (with Becca)

Away With Words! Wise and Witty Poems for Language Lovers by Mary Ann Hoberman, art by Perry Hoberman (2022)
Bear Wants to Sing - Written by Cray Fagan, illustrated by Dena Seiferling (2021)
Earl the Squirrel by Don Freeman (2005)
Elsie’s Bird - Jane Yolen & David Small (2010)
I Am the Storm - Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple, Art by Kristen and Kevin Howdeshell (2020)
Twelve Days of Winter - Sherri Maret, illustrated by Thomas Hilley (2022)
What You Need To Be Warm: A Poem of Welcome - Neil Gaiman (2023)
When I Wake Up - Seth Fishman, illustrated by Jessica Bagley (2021)