Interview

Word of the day : doxology
                                            : a usually liturgical expression of praise to God 

Well, Julia is in Chicago today for a job interview - and God if I don't hope that she gets it.  It will be Gabriel and I all day, which equals A LOT OF FUN.  (Swinging - not that kind, pervs - cartoons, walks, Honey Bunches of Oats...)

I was so glad Louisville won the Tourney.  I like Michigan a lot, but I was glad Louisville prevailed: what a terrific game it was, one of the best Championship games of the last decade or so.  All Hail Luke Hancock! 
Too bad I thought Michigan would win - my tourney predictions were as follows: Correct 45 ; Incorrect 22
Brief Reviews:

- Phil Spector (2012), David Mamet's HBO film about the relationship between Spector and his defense attorney Linda Kenney Baden in the days before Spector goes on trial for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson in 2003, is an intelligent but at times pointless examination of the ambiguity of a deluded man.  The movie suffers from writer-director Mamet's typical elliptical, stagy dialogue.  As Spector, Al Pacino is flamboyantly watchful and can mesmerize when he gets some great dialogue to chew on; ass Baden, Helen Mirren is intense and focused, with a spot-on American accent.  The movie is short, but I never really figured out what the point of it was. 

- North Face (2008),a German film that follows the true-life 1936 exploits of four mountaineers (one German pair, one Austrian pair) to climb the notorious, intimidating north face of the Swiss Alps - the Eiger.  The first hour of the film, which features a subplot involving a newspaper reporter who grew up with the German climbers Kurz and Hinterstoisser and hopes to write a breakthrough story of the pair's ascent up the Eiger, is more involving, at least for me, than the second half.  The sound effects, production design, and location shooting are all first-rate; the film's rugged, muscular second half, in which Bad Things Happen, actually was a little boring for me.  If anything, it will give promising director Philipp Stolzl, a chance to make English-language films. 

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I want to start getting more into classical music.  I used to be more into it and had more classical CDs (when I actually owned CDs) but, thanks to Liberal Arts, I have a goal - to be able to successfully identify these:

http://www.greatestclassicalmusicever.com/50GreatestPieces/