Three Beautiful Things 07-09-2024: Lab Report Looks Good, Movies Set in Times Square, The Opening of *The Player*

1. I have a Wednesday, July 10th, 11:30 appointment to visit with the transplant team at Providence Sacred Heart. In preparation for this appointment, I had blood work done on Monday and I read the results today. As I examined the results the doctors always focus on the most, I saw that my creatinine levels are stable, my potassium and magnesium levels are in range, and last week's slight increase in my tacrolimus dosage seemed to work -- the level of tacrolimus in my bloodstream came up. I'll find out on Wednesday if it's at a level the doctor is satisfied with and whether my dosage will change again. 

It looked to me as if my bout with Covid has not affected my kidney function. I hope I'm right. 

I anticipate a positive visit to the transplant clinic on July 10th. 

2. I had a lot of fun looking at trailers for movies featured on the Criterion Channel that are set in NYCity's Times Square. My first visit to NYCity was in 2012 and, by then, Times Square had been gentrified -- some would say Disney-fied! Many of these older movies, like, say, Midnight Cowboy, are set in the Times Square of 40-50 and more years ago. They are gritty. I look forward to watching some of them, especially a documentary that came out in 1999 that documents the transformation of Times Square. It's entitled, The Gods of Times Square.  

3. Today, a movie account in my Facebook feed raised the question, "What is your favorite opening shot in a movie?" Several people answered that their favorite was the eight minute opening uncut, tracking shot that sets Robert Altman's The Player in motion. It's a movie I love and I immediately went to the Criterion Channel and punched it up and watched that opening sequence a couple or three times. 

Watching Altman's fluid and jazzy direction of that opening scene and watching the focus of the entire movie be established in those eight minutes excited me again and took me back to the thrill, thirty-two years ago (!), when I watched The Player in the cinemaplex in Springfield, OR and thrived on the jolts of pleasure and astonishment I experienced watching that movie unfold.