7/13
the recently released album of folkie david bowie demos, especially the way on "janine" that bowie just cheekily goes into a straight rip-off of the coda of "hey jude"
walking miso along the trail last night and listening to the band's version of "i shall be released," which is so thick and creamy, a pecan pie of a song
after dinner, inspired by the background movie list in sarah's most recent newsletter, watching /mission impossible III/, which is on amazon prime video and which i would describe as a hot sloppy pizza of a movie
the propulsive quality of the movies, which is symbolized in microcosm by the burning fuse of the introduction and also by the way that the majority of the movie is tom cruise running as fast as he can, and you think of the number of takes he has to do and it must be so much running
and yet how they are so comfortable, in some way, the grain and rhythm of that kind of 90s action movie, or the way that a civilization that stages fake car crashes is decadent in its confidence, how one character says "there's a fine line between bold and stupid"
the way that the leap of faith, a common trope in these movies, is like confidence made religion
the characters riding on a speedboat victory lap through venice wearing very dated looking sunglasses
the alien confidence of tom cruise, especially fascinating in this role because it seems like (as plot requires) he is always making mistakes or bad decisions, but it's okay because he always snatches victory from the jaws of defeat
how when a character tells him that defibrillating keri russell to disable an explosive in her head could stop her heart and he shoots back " fine, it'll stop her heart and then i'll start it again" like imagine feeling that way about a decision
you know he's not going to die and that makes you feel a little bit like you're not going to die, either, a contact high, an easy grace. it's like how people talk about drinking your own koolaid and tom cruise is like on a permanent high dose extended release patch of his own koolaid
phillip seymour hoffman (RIP), who at one point says the line "i always spill red wine on my expensive custom-made shirt"
the bit early on where tom cruise rescues keri russell and then they're trying to escape and he tosses her a pistol and she catches it and starts shooting and it's a glimpse of a weird alternate universe version of /the americans/
the absolutely absurd scenery chewing lines of laurence fishburne's black ops bureaucrat, which include "it's unacceptable that chocolate makes you fat, but i've had more than my share, and guess what?" and "what i /will/ lose sleep over—and i love my sleep—" and "i bullshit you not, i will bleed on the flag to make sure the stripes stay red"
we bought an cheesecake made of 6 different flavors of cheesecake which was on sale at the bakery