Saturday, February 20, 2021

Nomadland

 I was curious and anxious (in a good way) to watch Nomadland, but a few minutes in I became even more  anxious (in a not-so-good way.)  it’s a heavy lift during a dark time but a must see movie. Almost a docudrama, as Frances McDormand acts in situations with actual “Rubber Road Tramps”, it definitely cuts too close to the bone as you reflect how near many of us —native and immigrant—American dreamers have come to financial disaster at some point in our lives and makes one wonder what the future holds for the next generations. That it was directed by an immigrant American (Chloe Zhao) gives it even more depth and emotion. At the outset of the tech era, they described the computer in the home and workplace as blurring work and leisure. Nomadland , and the 21st century economic reality for many it portrays, shows a world where “travel” and survival are inexorably mixed, in a sort of non-violent boomer prequel to “Mad Max”, an alternative society that is at once social and supportive but highly individualistic.


Anthony Napoli
Beacon, NY


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Current Reading

  • Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War- Tony Horwitz
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  • Hitch-22: A Memoir - Christopher Hitchens
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  • Dead Funny: Humor in Nazi Germany - Rudolph Herzog
  • Exile on Main Street - Robert Greenfield
  • Among the Truthers - A Journey Among America's Growing Conspiracist Underworld - Jonathan Kay
  • Paradise Lost - John Milton
  • What Is Your Dangerous Idea? Thinking the Unthinkable - John Brockman
  • Notes from the Edge Times - Daniel Pinchbeck
  • Fringe-ology: How I Can't Explain Away the Unexplainable- Steve Volk
  • Un Juif pour l'exemple (translated as A Jew Must Die )- Jacques Cheesex
  • The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
  • Pale King - David Foster Wallce
  • David Bowie: Starman bio - Paul Trynka
  • Tobacco Stained Mountain Goat - Andrez Bergen
  • The Future of Nostalgia -Svetlana Boym
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  • FIrst as Tragedy Next as Farce - Slavoj Zizek
  • How to Survive a Robot Uprising - Daniel Wilson
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  • Eichmann in Jerusalem - Hannah Arendt
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  • Coast of Utopia - Tom Stoppard
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  • Burning Down the Masters' House - Jayson Blair
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  • The Palace Thief - Ethan Canin
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  • Studio A - The Bob Dylan Reader

Current Listening

  • Alexi Murdoch Wait
  • Wilco Summer Teeth
  • Wilco The Album
  • Carmina Burana - Ray Manzarek (& Michael Riesmann)
  • Polyrock - Polyrock
  • 96 Tears - Garland Jeffries
  • Ghost of a Chance Garland Jeffries
  • Yellow Magic Orchestra
  • Mustang Sally Buddy Guy
  • John Lee Hooker
  • Black and White Years
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  • 100 Days 100 Nites - Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
  • DYLAN: 3 disc Greatest...
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  • Wild Palms - Soundtrack -Ryuichi Sakamoto
  • Dinah Washington - Best of..
  • Commander Cody& His Lost Planet Airmen Live at Armadillo