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New Year’s Weekend Survival Kit

Published: Dec 30, 2022
Category: Weekend

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This weekend will be joyous for those who love college football, which has scheduled its premier bowls on December 31 and January 2. And for pro football fans, on New Year’s Day…. 10 games! In many homes across America, there will be men who wish they had been given catheters for Christmas.

Be of good cheer — there’s no reason you need to flee the testosterone orgy on the screen. You can a) go outside and take a long walk. b) visit friends. (I’ve heard the rumor that people can be quite wonderful.) c) Eddie Vedder. At the Kennedy Center. Honoring U2. He sang two songs, but the song that mattered is “One.” You know it:

One love, one blood
One life, you got to do what you should
One life, with each other
Sisters, brothers
One life but we’re not the same
We get to carry each other, carry each other

In this performance, Vedder was singing the song of our lives, and he knew it and totally expressed it. A transcendent moment. Halfway through, I felt a heart-to-heart communication — when the show ended, I had a shot of Bulleit and wrote and wrote. Suggestion: play it loud, or through headphones, and see what it does for you.

Some suggestions:

MOVIES AND STREAMING
EMILY THE CRIMINAL
This film is so far above big, expensive, self-important films that I almost want to say it was the best American movie I saw this year. You know Aubrey Plaza (in the photograph, above) because she was in “White Lotus.” Here she’s deep in student debt, with a criminal record that makes it harder for her to get a real job that pays real money. So….
The preview.
The Times review.
The Amazon Prime video link.

SHE SAID
This time, Bernstein and Woodward are female, and Harvey Weinstein is Nixon. And this movie is as thrilling as “All the President’s Men.”
My review of the book.
The preview.
An expensive video to rent on Amazon Prime, but cheaper than going to a theater (if you can find one that’s showing it)

FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE
My review of the novel.
The New Yorker review https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/02/how-fleishman-is-in-trouble-ditches-the-cliches-of-the-female-midlife-crisis
The preview.
Streaming on Hulu.

STREAMING FOR CHILDREN
MATILDA THE MUSICAL
The Times review:
Bitterness never tasted so sweet as it does in “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical,” a jolt of sour candy guaranteed to make you grin.
The preview.
To watch on Netflix.

PARENTS & GRANDPARENTS, TELL THE KIDS: WHEN TEENS TAKE FENTANYL…DEATH IN 60 SECONDS
“Fentanyl is so potent that teens, particularly teens who have never used an opioid before and have no tolerance to them, can die really quickly. We’re talking within seconds to minutes.”
— Dr. Scott Hadland, chief of adolescent and young adult medicine at Boston’s Mass General for Children Hospital.

TWO SENSATIONALLY GOOD NOVELS
SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE
It’s just 128 pages. It’s been nominated for every possible award.
My review and buy links.

TRUST
I haven’t reviewed the Hernan Diaz novel, but I’ve read it — all 400 pages of it! — and I agree: It’s one of the 10 best books of the year.
Read an excerpt.
To buy the book from Amazon, click here.
To buy the Kindle edition, click here.

FOR THOSE WHO CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THE ROYALS
THE PALACE PAPERS: INSIDE THE HOUSE OF WINDSOR — THE TRUTH AND THE TURMOIL
As Tina Brown has said, “This is a book Meghan Markle wishes she could have read four years ago.”
My review and buy links.

RANDOM PLEASURES

DOLLY PARTON, LINDA RONSTADT AND EMMYLOU HARRIS SING NEIL YOUNG’S “AFTER THE GOLD RUSH
Click to watch/listen.

THIS GOES OUT TO THE LOVERS AMONG YOU
The Beach Boys, “God Only Knows.”
A rare live video.

Amen. Best ever New Year.