Life management
😐
I had a surprise freelance job last week, so no taxes. But this week!
Movies
😎
Tuesday I saw Black Panther with my geek meetup. I rate it 6/5. I’d been looking forward to it as a potentially good example of Afrofuturism, and I was not disappointed. In fact, I found myself thinking about it for days after, which to me is the sign of a good movie. Because of its themes I feel even less qualified to evaluate and comment on it than other movies, but it feels like a complex one that rewards rewatching, so I’ll probably do that. One thing I will say about it is that I’ve never felt so much sympathy for a villain. I was also happy to see Letitia Wright from Black Mirror.
Fiction
🤔
I finished “The Mist” from Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew collection and decided to listen to the rest. It’s a nice collection for getting a sense of the variety in his stories. It’s not all monsters. It’s not even all horror. My favorites so far are “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut,” “The Jaunt,” and “Word Processor of the Gods.” “The Raft” is probably what I would’ve expected from Stephen King before I read anything by him.
Thinking
😎
Friday I picked up Rethinking the Fifth Discipline by Robert Louis Flood. Even though it’s a critique of another book (The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge), I’m probably going to use it as my introduction to the details of systems thinking. It’s relatively recent, summarizes some major systems theorists, and advances the field with insights from complexity theory. Kind of an obscure book, but it was somehow at a local used bookstore.
Socializing
🙂
Picking up my systems thinking book on Friday took me past Jeremy’s workplace, so we came with me to the bookstore. We discovered there was an Applebee’s nearby, and since the one near us closed years ago, after the bookstore we had dinner there. It wasn’t the best maintained building, but the waitress was friendly and the food was delicious.
Death
🤔
Saturday I went to my friend Rex’s memorial service. Yet again I was surprised by how much I learned from the eulogies. I knew he’d been in the army but not that he’d jumped out of airplanes, and I didn’t know he went on mission trips to Uganda. And I didn’t know just how much he was loved. His church was interesting, a Messianic Anglican church with a charismatic flavor. There was a sprinkling of Hebrew, and I learned of the Tree of Life Bible translation.
I also saw Black Panther! Loved it! I plan to see it again!