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1) I wrote last year about the movie The Big Year, which was about birders trying to break a record in seeing the most birds that year. When I told my partner I was trying to pass 1000 wins at Solo on BGA he said, "So this is your Big Year." ( Read more... )

2) I confess I don't really follow the Oscars race or even nominees since I only see movies once in a while and usually well after they've been released, but I thought this was an interesting summation. I was particularly struck by the discussion of costs, and how chasing Oscar prestige outranks movie ticket sales, since so many potential contenders crowd into the end of year period. This almost guarantees many people will miss a number of them.

What was interesting about this survey is the data on how people have changed their opinions of last year's Oscar nominees. "Americans are much more likely now than they were last year to say they love "A Complete Unknown" (51%, up from 39%). They’re less likely to say they love "Dune: Part 2" (43%, down from 53%)."

3) On the same day in which NPR's 1A did a show on the value of acknowledging mistakes, someone also posted about The Ctrl-Z Award’ to honor researchers who correct the scientific record. This latter seems like a much needed antidote to our times (and can also be immeasurably helpful). I hope it does well.

RE: the 1A episode, here's a quote: "So, you know, theoretically, you could make a decision that was the wrong decision, but if it doesn't have a bad outcome, you're not even judging it as a mistake half the time. And that that's actually potentially the difference between a little mistake and a big mistake...we talk about this three act structure, what happened before the mistake, the mistake itself, and then how we deal with the mistake thereafter...It's not the crime. It's the cover up. Right? And that's an act three problem. But because people haven't gone through the process of saying, okay, what actually happened in act one, act two, and and now how am I gonna deal with it in act three? They make an even bigger one."

The fear of error is also talked about here: "what I see in the therapy room is sometimes it can take folks a while to really come around to admit to themselves actually that a mistake even happened because there's so much shame. It gets kind of locked up because as we've been discussing, as a culture, we do a terrible job of admitting to ourselves and to others that mistakes actually are how you learn. And so we get have so much shame that's wrapped up in it. And from that end, when there's shame, depression, anxiety, trauma, you know, are not far behind. So talking through mistakes, processing mistakes, learning not to avoid coming around to kind of, unpacking the Russian doll, if we stick with that metaphor, that's a huge piece of therapy." I can really recommend reading the episode transcript (you can also listen to the show).

4) What these incidents made me think of was fear on the Internet. "One of the phrases we like is curious, not furious. And so whether you're thinking about yourself, oh, I'm so angry at myself. Why did I do this? Or you see someone else make a mistake and you're kind of angry that they did it. The more that you can use curiosity as opposed to anger, I think we would all get along a little better. And then to your point, it's so helpful to talk with someone else. We believe you have to talk your mistakes to death. And it's helpful to write about them, sure, if you really don't have anyone with whom you can speak."( Read more... )

5) And speaking of mistakes, it's nice to have unexpected support even when you make them. ( Read more... )

1) I am starting plans for a fall foliage road trip in October through Michigan. Anyone have any recommendations?

2) Following up on what I wrote about in my last post, I watched several episodes of Paradise S2. I'm not sure why I'm still watching this. ( Spoilers )

3) By contrast, I saw the Muppet Show (special? Apparently a one-off?) and found it a delight. Disney has definitely struggled in finding a way to utilize the Muppets and two shows have now failed. I'm glad they tried to do something different with them, and I rather liked the show where they were trying to make a more realistic "behind the scenes" Muppet show.

But maybe these days a return to the past would be particularly welcome (and surely there's still a lot of appeal for kids). I've got to imagine they've got a potential guest list a mile long. My partner and I kept thinking that some of the puppeteers must have been filled with glee at being able to recreate this show.

It did make me laugh when Sabrina Carpenter said she'd watched the show, her parents had watched the show, and her grandparents had watched the show. We'd be rather young to be her grandparents but, yeah, 50th anniversary after all.

4) I found the first of my top 3 shows of the year last month when we watched How to Get to Heaven from Belfast. I'd quite enjoyed Derry Girls, so was interested in trying this. I found it had a lot of the fun from Derry with an added mystery at the center. ( Read more... )

5) When in his latest charity auction batch Stephen Colbert listed a Lord of the Rings sword that had been on the stage wall, we couldn't believe he'd be selling such a thing at any price. Turns out it's a replica of the actual sword used in the film, which he already has (and he joked he would be buried with). Even so, I figured it would go for a lot, and it's going to be well over $25,000. His neckties are going for over $1000.