About 30 months ago, I left Arizona after having lived there more than half my life. I had grown up in Racine, Wisconsin, and when I left for Arizona to go to graduate school, I had just turned 26.  A marriage, a divorce, and a couple careers later I was 55; my work-life was changing and my father’s health was failing. The decision to move back to Racine was made easier through a series of ever-longer visits back “home,” to the same house I grew up in, the nearby Great Lake, the change of seasons, the mix of industry and farming, and the community that somehow still knew me. Twenty years ago, in conversation with  Karen P______, an AA friend, I heard some words that

I am beginning to see Michael Lewis, author of the book that formed the basis for the film, as one of the most important authors of the 21st century. I have only read a few of his books, but I already know him the way I know other very good writers: when I read his books, I despair at the excesses and folly he makes accessible and visible (not everything he covers is simple or overt), and I take hope and inspiration while his protagonists (real people) act as proof that conscience and virtue are still at large in the world. The full title of his book is The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. It has as a backdrop the events leading up to

People who know I used to be an investment advisor do not ask me whether they should buy or sell. Most people want to know why the market is doing what it is doing. And they are right to ask that; if the cause is seen as temporary, they would probably hold. If the cause appears to be more fundamental or “secular,” they consider reducing exposure to falling stocks. Okay, so why is the market falling? The single biggest reason stocks are falling right now, is because China’s economy is stalling out. Some context first: China has been the fastest growing major economy in the world for years. Their contribution to global growth has eclipsed even the US for years now because even though their

Quentin Tarantino’s latest, The Hateful Eight, baffles me. I don’t understand how the same person who created compelling dialogue, inventive plots, and delightful characters in several other of his works, could have made this very expensive B movie. But then, as I consider this statement I realize that all his movies are simply B movies that graduate as part of some clever reconstruction. To his credit, he made some memorable films with his “mosaic” style. He assembled, arranged, and remanufactured the most potent, quirkiest, and fun (for him certainly) outtakes from B movies–often diverse genres of them at that–such that the resulting composition held together. But since Inglourious Basterds, which featured several exceptional acting segments, he has been mixing his plots with revisionist racial and

Brooklyn is exactly the kind of UK film that makes me swoon. The combination of drama, scenery, acting, and music always seems tempered against sensation–unlike so many US films. In UK films, as with Brooklyn, there’s usually the scope of history and some perspective to dwell upon, and the pace and tone are restrained and somber enough to remind you that past communication was done mostly through letters, and dockside goodbyes implied years (at least) of separation. In the early 1950s, a young Irish woman leaves for New York and lands in an Irish enclave in Brooklyn. The clothes, cars and conventions of the day are a thrill to see, but the real thrill is to watch a reserved girl become a more worldly and