Even at a relatively young age, you begin to have an idea of
where children may be headed. Joshua is passionate about watching and participating
in sports, and somehow he may well find a way to have that interest play a
major role in his life. Both Ella and Eliana say they want to be teachers, but
that is, after all, the main working women they see. Maya says she wants to be
an artist, and I posted one of her drawings here last week. Julia may be a bit
young, but watching her determination on the following video, we may finally be
watching a budding musician.
Tuesday evening we went to the 92nd Street Y to
see Amy Poehler interviewing Seth Meyers. As expected, this was over an hour of
endless laughs. Although some of it was too rapid-fire for me to absorb, what I
did catch was really funny. The catalyst for this speaking engagement was that Ms.
Poehler has recently published a memoir, Yes Please, which I believe was
released for general sale the next day. Along with the tickets came two signed
first editions. We are anxious to read it.
Wednesday afternoon I had to go into the City for my monthly
injection, so Barry and I met when that was done and decided to take in a
movie. We saw “Dear White People.” Here is what A.O. Scott had to say:
“Dear White People” is the name of Justin
Simien’s first feature film, and I’ll say right away that it is as smart and
fearless a debut as I have seen from an American filmmaker in quite some time:
knowing but not snarky, self-aware but not solipsistic, open to influence and
confident in its own originality. It’s a clever campus comedy that juggles a
handful of hot potatoes — race, sex, privilege, power — with elegant agility
and only an occasional fumble. You want to see this movie, and you will want to
talk about it afterward, even if the conversation feels a little awkward. If it
doesn’t, you’re doing it wrong. There is great enjoyment to be found here, and
very little comfort.
Reading this today (I had not before) I have to say it is really
on the mark. There were many characters and I had a bit of trouble keeping them
all straight, but the messages were quite clear, and at the end they showed
newspaper clips and pictures of groups of students from universities across the
country demonstrating that the issues the movie raises are still very much a
part of campus life. Blacks constituted only a small minority of the students
at the University of Rochester in the early 1970s, and they largely kept to
themselves for reasons I could not entirely understand. So this movie was
interesting for me.
It began to rain as we were leaving the movie theater and
driving up the West Side Highway, but the sun was trying to shine through, and
a beautiful rainbow formed over the Hudson River. I was able to take a picture
because we were sitting in traffic, but it was still difficult to get a good
one from behind the glass.
Be well, all.
Love,
Rebecca
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