Derik Badman's Journal

The doves on the porch are trying to build another new nest. They seem to be to a certain extent acclimated to my presence. They fly up and sit and stare at a me a bit from the railing or the rafters, and go about their business. Sadly they are really bad at the business of making nests. They put up a few twigs and then the twigs all fall down and they start over. Now the one seems to be grooming the other one's neck. Still kind of amazed up close how lovely the blue is around their eyes. And I can't figure why they have to make noise when they are flying.

Spent yesterday doing very little beyond sitting on the couch watching movies and tv. I watched Olivier Assayas' Non-Fiction which was a quintessential stereotyped French film: a bunch of bourgeoise couples talking a lot about politics and literature and having affairs. But in that respect it was quite interesting. A lot of the talk was about the future of publishing books and auto-fiction, which I found interesting. The arguments were such that it was hard to figure where Assayas actually agrees with any of it, which I think is a strength of the movie. It wasn't as good as The Clouds of Sils Maria though, partially, perhaps, because the novelist character (who writes thinly veiled auto-fiction, was pretty insufferable throughout and at no point could I figure why either his wife or lover put up with him.

Also rewatched The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence over the past two days. One issue with the plot really bothered me this time though. The town is being bullied by one mean bandit (Liberty Valence) and his two toadies. The sheriff is incompetent, and it ends up coming down to a shootout between the bandit and Jimmy Stewart's lawyer character. All the townsfolk seem to be against the bandit, they know he's murdered, robbed, and beat up people, yet none of them (except the tough guy John Wayne character) do anything about it. If the whole town just came out with their shotguns or rifles or what-have-you to back up the lawyer, it would have been no problem at all. In one of the other westerns I really like that is basically what happens, though I can't right now remember which. Of course if that happened, it would ruin the whole rest of the plot.

Still making my way through and really enjoying The Book of the New Sun, just reading a few chapters at a time. As it is another fantasy series I have not read yet, but that I've heard tons of good things about for years, I ordered a copy of the first Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peake.