Social Media Linkdump July 2024

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If you’re looking for a great movie to watch on July 4th, try BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (1946), the Oscar-winning drama about WW2 soldiers coming home to USA and finding that the society they remembered had changed. It’s a long old-fashioned story full of drama and heartbreak, but still great! FREE TO STREAM ON KANOPY, AMAZON PRIME, PEACOCK, HOOPLAH.

MOVIE RECOMMENDATION: “Problemista” (on MAX) is a surreal comedy about an El Salvadoran immigrant with dreams to design toys in NYC. While awaiting word on his internship (and work visa), he works for a crazy woman (played by Tilda Swinton!) trying to get her husband’s paintings at a major art gallery. It’s crazy and surprising and hilarious — stylistically it reminds me of AMELIE and BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. Swinton will surely get an Oscar nomination for this one, and the writer/director/star Julio Torres is an amazing talent. Former SNL writer, he’s also done comedy specials and has two comedy series on MAX. I was laughing the whole time.

FLED TO AUSTIN! Just wanted to say that Mom and I survived the Houston hurricane. We live in Katy (West Houston), and Monday morning we were in the direct path of the hurricane. As it happens, it was somewhat bad for 5 hours, and then everything was fine. Weather was good and cool, no damage really. But power was still out – and unlikely to return for a while. Also, irritatingly, cell phone coverage was nonexistent – although a few miles away (I was later to learn), it worked perfectly. With little chance of electricity returning, we decided to visit my sister in Austin and to wait for power to come back. Frankly this hurricane was not that bad, and it’s astonishing that Houston (considered the energy capital of the world or at least the USA), can’t figure out how to make their electric grid more reliable for a hurricane nowhere near as bad as it could have been. 6-9 hours of no power – sure we can tolerate that during a weather event(barely). But when you talk about 1 or maybe 2 days – or who knows?! – I stop blaming the weather event and start blaming the political apparatus.

STRANDED DAY 2 IN AUSTIN. Killing time while waiting for electricity to be restored back home in Houston. Mom and I go out for breakfast … AGAIN! We went to the same place as yesterday, wearing shirts gifted to us by my sister Maureen (who had just returned from NY). Mom had French toast; I had an egg frittata and coffee. We spent 50% of the time complaining about Centerpoint Energy, 20% talking about the hot weather, 15% talking about Mom’s grandchildren, 10% talking about national politics and 5% talking about the other customers. Luckily we had time to snap this photo while Mom was talking to a native New Yorker who admitted that she was finally getting used to the hot Texas weather. Mom and I have been here for decades … and still have never gotten used to the high summer temperatures — (sigh!)

NETFLIX RECOMMENDATION: “Big Eyes” is a fascinating story based on the life of painter Margaret Keene who painted pictures of expressive children who had big eyes and how her husband ended up taking credit for her paintings and commercial success. Interesting plot and characters – and a terrific final scene. Also, topnotch acting by Amy Adams – who always excels. I was pleasantly surprised to find the movie directed by Tim Burton, and I was struck by the compositional beauty and radiant colors in almost every scene. Every scene of this movie could have been a painting. No spoilers, but I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that the real-life artist herself appeared in a scene near the beginning of the movie. She was the old woman sitting at a park bench relaxing….. and looking at nobody in particular.

Every time I watch this funny nutty song in the Popeye movie, I fall in love with Olive Oyl all over again. RIP Shelley Duvall. I haven’t seen all the things Duvall has done — but I wanted to mention the Faerie Tale Theater she started in the 1980s — where A list actors reenact satirical versions of fairy tales. It’s great fun for the entire family! By the way, HE NEEDS ME and other songs in the Popeye movie were written by the great Harry Nillson. Here’s another gem from the movie.

MOVIE RECOMMENDATION (Apple+ Only) TETRIS (2023) tells the crazy and entertaining story of the race by a game company to obtain a license for the Tetris videogame from the Soviet government in the 1980s right before Gorbachev lost power. The movie captured the uncertainty and chaos and deception of trying to do business in the late Soviet world and how suspiciously the Soviets viewed Western businesses (and vice versa). Actually a lot of the backstabbing occurred between the two Western companies competing to get an exclusive license. Never did I imagine that a movie about business negotiations would be so exciting, so sad and so hilarious.

STILL IN AUSTIN, STILL WAITING. 4 days have gone by since we left West Houston after losing power at the house. Still no electricity. I guess that power outages lasting 2-4 days has become the new normal..

THINK OF THE TREES: This comment (found on a longer blogpost about the power outage) offers a lot of insight about how managing trees properly can reduce the amount of power outages.

I’d like to offer you my husband Frank Thompson’s unique perspective as the owner of a tree service in NW Houston. (Interestingly, Ike was the inception of our business back in 2008!)
Here are his ideas about why such a “wind-friendly” hurricane as Beryl (compared to Ike) has caused so much tree damage and subsequent power outage:
1. 10+ year history of extreme weather conditions has weakened the region’s trees, especially the older ones: The severe droughts of many years back, Harvey’s flooding that covered trees with water for days, the extreme freezes of recent years, more floods, and most recently last summer’s extreme heat/drought conditions have all contributed to weakening the area’s trees and their root systems. Declining trees are also more susceptible to disease, destructive insects, and fungus. Ike did a lot of damage from high winds and twisters, but trees in general were stronger then than they are now.
2. Recent heavy rains of May and June have soaked the ground, and Houston’s tall trees with poor root systems and dense interior canopies became prone to tipping. That’s why we’re seeing so many huge trees down roots-and-all during Beryl. That was not as much a problem with Ike. I wonder what the devastation would have been this week had Beryl been a Cat 3? I shudder to think.
3. Fewer and fewer people are taking care of their trees because of our inflationary economy. It is expensive to: thin trees to reduce wind sail, to trim them back well away from power lines, and also to remove them entirely. People just don’t budget for trees, and when they have a need, it’s unaffordable. And as living things, tree problems always get worse with time. If our current economy continues, trees will be more and more problematic during storms, and power outages will increase. Comparing Ike and Beryl, trees were very likely better-maintained during Ike than what we are seeing now in preparation for the 2024 hurricane system.
4. So where do energy distributers fit into all of this? They need to know the facts above and increase their own tree-maintenance of power lines accordingly. They need to be MUCH more pro-active. With so many trees in decline, they need to increase their distance requirements for tree lines from power lines. And yes, underground lines would solve the tree problem.
We’re no scientists over here, and the opinions above are purely based on experience, so you can take them with a grain of salt if you like; but if we’re going to have more storms this summer, we believe people will see more of the same (and worse) when bigger winds come our way. Yes, a lot of trees are gone, but the one’s still standing have suffered the same

Longtime humor columnist Ken Hoffman passes away. I totally forgotten about how great a columnist he was. Apparently he jumped ship in 2017 from the Chronicle for Houston Culture Map. Here’s the (Gifted) Houston Chronicle obituary. Here’s the salute to Hoffman’s wacky humor by David Gow.

His last column was about the incompetence of Centerpoint Energy for managing the power outages during Beryl hurricane. I look forward to catching up on his column archives on Culture Map. I’m afraid I haven’t really been paying attention to Culture Map (which looks like a well put together news and entertainment website).

CONFESSIONS OF A GEOGRAPHY NERD: Here’s an entertaining & inspiring 30 minute speech that Minnesota governor Tim Walz recent gave about geography and GIS tools. Walz (a former high school geography teacher) genuinely believes that a better understanding of maps and geography makes for better government. Walz made this speech a week before Biden withdrew from the race … and now he’s being seriously considered as a vice-presidential candidate! I’d love to see it happen!

RARE MONTY PYTHON: I only recently learned about this hilarious comedy sketch — where the pope gives artistic feedback to Michelangelo for his unusual painting of the Last Supper.

I confess: I am hopelessly addicted to Will & Grace compilation clips on Youtube. Not linking for fear of promoting bad behavior.


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