Simba-sama made it to 2026, but just barely. It matters. His real name was just Simba, but he was wise, so it made sense to add “sama,” an honorific signifying high rank and wisdom, to that name. “Sensei” would have worked, too, because he taught the several other cats in Risa’s house how to be cats.
Hook, the absolutely star-studded film directed by Stephen Spielberg, has received mixed reviews from critics since its release in 1991. I still can’t figure out why. One could have given the Academy Award for Best Actor to Dustin Hoffman, and Best Supporting Actor to Robin Williams.
Time passes quickly in a busy life, so it oughtn’t surprise me that 1989 was as long ago as it is. But surprise me it does.
I suppose there is a psychological essay to be written about it, on the order of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief. In both, the first stage is denial. “No, I’m not really getting a cold…”
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, as you probably know.
I have a little trouble with Thanksgiving because it suggests that we don’t need to give thanks every other day, which we do. Nor is proper gratitude to our Creator conveyed by eating too much, drinking, and watching large men beat each other up over a football.
George Washington, we are told by Ken Burns’s latest documentary series, was a (mostly) great man and a terrible general. He was inspiring, yes, but an awful tactician. Oh, and unforgivably he was a slaveholder.
When I was small, living on a small farm near a college town, my father fell for an idea proffered by the Ralston Purina Company of Checkerboard Square in St. Louis.
“Best Of Both Worlds,” part 1 was the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that concluded its third season, and its heart — the capture of Jean-Luc Picard by the Borg, and his transformation into “Locutus” — is resolved in Season 4’s opening part 2. But the next episode, “Family,” in essence is the third part of the episode, and deserves to be remembered as such.
It was the day that I stopped forever my weekly visit to Kroger.
The COVID-19 epidemic was underway, and we were advised to stay away from each other. It was cold, and the forecast was that an ice storm would hit about sundown (made an hour earlier each year for no good reason by the switch to standard time).
It reflects me as much as him. But isn’t family truly the shared experience of knowing and enjoying one another? He likes Gracie Abrams, so I put “That’s So True” on the list, because I like it, too. She’s like a Jewish Taylor Swift; even to say it like that feels like a massive compliment. And I truly hope no one has lingering bitterness toward director J.J. Abrams; Gracie is his daughter.