[Note: This material is for education or entertainment only. It does not constitute investment advice of any kind. See a licensed investment professional for investment advice.] In the last fifty years, stock market expansions were driven by developments in technology half the time, and periods of excessive leverage every time. Today’s continued market expansion (featuring regular new highs amid inflation, global turmoil, and a deficit that has already increased by 1.5 trillion in only six months), is the answer to the riddle–borrowed from J. R. R. Tolkien and The Hobbit. The traditional answer is a human: it first crawls on all fours, then learns to walk on two, then uses a cane later on. This market is using a cane. The chart above shows the NASDAQ

ONCE AGAIN, having found a recent Ray Fiennes period piece on Amazon, I briefly read the synopsis, then ordered it. It’s World War I and a small town in England needs a choral director. He’s highly qualified for the job, but he harbors pro-German sentiments.  And perhaps there are other things as well. Another lovely UK film with a great actor and supporting cast. You get to go back in time and experience  rural English tradition and lifestyle four generations ago. Music was a social experience and a cohesive one. I had to pay a few bucks to rent it as it was only made last year. Money well spent. WRH

  IN MY FAVORITE Ryan Gosling film (and probably my favorite Sci-Fi film), he plays a replicant, a humanoid in BladeRunner 2049.  In this film, which is softer Sci-Fi, he plays a brilliant underachiever who “merely” teaches science. When a strange stellar deterioration (sick stars to cut through the science) threatens life in our solar system and beyond, some very serious people show up and cite his published works on highly relevant material. The rest is imaginative and yet satisfying; any serious Sci-Fi fan will, like any film lover, suspend their disbelief a little in exchange for a story that ventures far from home but never betrays its Earthborn heart. WRH

[Author’s Note: Mom went to her rest on Dec. 14th 2022 at 90 years of age. I composed a tribute to her shortly after that; here’s the link: https://www.moviesmarketsandmore.com/paean-for-a-country-girl-or-faith-family-community-learning-and-little-baseball/ This piece, Mercy, is a reader favorite as well as one of my own. A couple of days ago, I returned to cemetery, planted and watered some flowers….and remembered to pray.] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ IN MY MOTHER’S kitchen, and taped to the door of a cabinet where cups and plates are kept, is a laminated Catholic Diocese card. The card is divided into two distinct sections. The top part is titled The Corporal Works of Mercy. The “works” are ministrations to be made and observations to be kept in caring for –to name some of them–the poor, the

  MICHELE PFEIFER has been a dream to watch on screen since she starred opposite Sean Connery in The Russia House. She works with Kurt Russell in this, but it’s her show (I won’t say why here). The contrast here is the epitome of metropolis, New York City, against the epitome of western retreat, Southwestern Montana on the Madison River. It pits the sounds of nature against the sounds of bluster, and the sight of stars against blinking lights atop skyscrapers. It is more of Taylor Sheridan’s craft of dialogue, adventure and modern pioneers in a newfound frontier experience. I heard it called a “chick flick,” but dismissed that idea. It’s about finding and sharing places, not cities. It’s about who you are when you step

  LITERATURE AND SOCIETY dance a duet and take turns leading.  It isn’t always apparent that changes in Art are a response to changes in society and culture  or whether the order is reversed. Yet the very “ominous” poem, The Second Coming by Yeats was written just after WWI, the “war to end all wars” (https://www.moviesmarketsandmore.com/twilight-in-the-land-of-more/). And Orwell’s dystopian 1984 (published 1949) was a response to totalitarianism before, during, and after WWII (https://www.moviesmarketsandmore.com/orwells-1984-is-the-book-of-our-time-a-canticle-for-eric-blair/ ). In the Roaring Twenties, the male and privileged romanticism of Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were the rage. By the end of the Depression, the mantle of social authority was transferred to the destitute masses in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath or the more haunted existences of the Deep South revealed in