1. By the time I reached the end of Aimee Nezhukumatathil's book, World of Wonders, I wanted to go back and start reading it again. Not only did I want to go back and try to secure in my memory the factual words she wrote about fireflies, dancing frogs, dragon fruit, corpse flowers, red-spotted newts, and touch-me-nots, and many other natural wonders, but I wanted to immerse myself in again in the poetry of her short prose pieces and further relish her vision of the connectedness of all things. She examines connectedness in the scientific and ecological sense, but even more intriguing to me was how each flower, animal, insect, and every other living thing was connected to the story of her life. These wonders of nature instruct Nezhukumatathil how to be in the world, how to navigate microaggressions directed at her for being brown skinned, to relish marriage and being a mother, to be resilient in the face of moving repeatedly from place to another in her youth and young adulthood, and to immerse herself in the dance and cycles of life.
Here's an example. Nezhukumatathil writes: "If a white girl tries to tell you what your brown skin can and cannot wear for makeup, just remember the smile of the axolotl. The best thing to do in that situation is just smile and smile, even if your smile is thin. The tighter your smile, the tougher you become" (43). Nezhukumatathil's meditation on the axolotl develops connections between this amphibian and lipstick, a buffoon on her tenure committee, keeping her mouth shut, human activity causing extinction, and, remarkably, the formation of galaxies. Let me repeat -- Aimee Nezhukumatathil's sees these apparently disparate elements of life as connected and connects them to each other by reflecting upon the axolotl. It's the mode of thinking and writing that gives this book its coherence.
Her mind at work is a wonder.
2. Combining the green curry braise leftover yesterday from braising a pork roast yesterday with some green beans and spinach, a few small Yukon gold potatoes, a handful of cooked rice, and pieces of pork resulted in a delicious stew, unlike any I'd ever eaten before.
3. Writer and director Tom McCarthy has brought to life three movies I love: The Station Agent, The Visitor, and Spotlight. On a whim tonight, when I thought I would return to Midnight Diner before going to sleep, I watched Spotlight again. This story of a group of Boston Globe reporters investigating priests sexually abusing children and the accompanying cover up is riveting. So is this film's cast. When this movie concluded, along with feeling the emotional power of the story's subject matter, I also felt the power of the movie's superb ensemble, particularly Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber, and (my favorite) Michael Keaton -- but every actor, whether in a large or small role, was superb. I now want to watch The Visitor again, one of my very favorite "dead character come to life again" movies and watch the brilliant Richard Jenkins and the commanding Hiam Abbass.
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