March 5, 2026: Halloween decorations along foggy Jerome Blvd. in Racine, Wisconsin.
Another Week: Number 167
Sometimes I enjoy a night of particularly sound sleep and feel an extra quart of serotonin coursing through my tranquil system. This was the case on Sunday morning, as the lessons I received in my dreams fizzed away upon waking. There was some sort of fascinating lecture on relationships, complete with colorful Venn diagrams illustrating attention as conical beams of light.
Meanwhile, America’s war in Iran pounded on, with three U.S. troops killed as a result. On Monday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tried to pull a Jedi mind trick on the nation by declaring “We didn’t start this war” two days after we started this war. Hegseth was enraged that reporters at his press conference had the nerve to question him.
Next, Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that Donald J. Trump had no choice but to follow Israel’s lead into war — only to later reverse himself incoherently. On Friday, Trump told CNN that Cuba is next.
I felt sorry for Col. Jack Jacobs, who, contributing analysis on MS NOW, described the war as a “game of drones” and got no reaction whatsoever.
I walked 3.21 miles this week in Thursday’s fog — listening to an entertaining installment of Katy Tur’s MS NOW show, during which it was not clear whether Kristi Noem, speaking in Nashville, was aware that she and Corey Lewandowski had both been booted by Trump.
On Friday morning, I heard thunder for the first time in a while as light rainstorms dropped .75 inches all day. Late Friday night, I used Flightradar24 to track my sister and brother-in-law’s Lufthansa plane as it taxied around O’Hare and eventually took off. From my upstairs window, I watched it come toward me, then turn under the waning gibbous moon headed out across Lake Michigan for Frankfort, Germany.
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American Masters: Becoming Helen Keller
On Monday night at my mom’s, I chose an American Masters documentary hiding in her DVR cloud and threatening to expire: Becoming Helen Keller, from 2021.
At its outset, the film correctly guessed that The Miracle Worker constituted everything I knew about Helen Keller.
I remember being baffled as a kid trying to consider how a deafblind person could even begin to navigate life. This 86-minute bio did an excellent job of desanctifying Keller and fleshing her out into a remarkable American.
Keller’s writings and political activism were especially impressive. She had a keen sense of media, resourcefully using vaudeville performances to spread awareness and earn money.
Mom paid careful attention the whole time.
Oklahoma! (1955)
My mom has loved the movie musical Oklahoma! all my life. She owned a boxed set of 45 rpm records of the soundtrack, and she will spontaneously sing the tunes in her excellent voice whenever the mood strikes her.
We’ve been suffering a streak of duds in our recent movie-roulette sessions, so I resorted to this favorite in her cloud DVR, recorded from Turner Classic Movies.
We’ve both seen this film many times before, but revisiting it revealed some new facets.
For one thing, I never realized that Eddie Albert’s character, a peddler named Ali Hakim, was supposed to be from Persia. Albert barely even tried to fake a vaguely foreign accent. Also, I finally recognized Gloria Grahame — Ado Annie, the girl who “Cain’t Say No” — as the adult Violet Bick in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Most memorably, while I always knew the Jud Fry character was dark, this time Rod Steiger’s performance really gave me creepy chills, even as Gordon MacRae was mocking him in song.
Mom still finds Shirley Jones absolutely lovely — but this time the dream/ballet segment of the movie agitated her by going on “way too long.”
What tickled my mother the most was the way old Aunt Eller danced and kicked her legs. I showed her Charlotte Greenwood’s Wikipedia bio, which quotes her describing herself as the “only woman in the world who could kick a giraffe in the eye.” Greenwood was 65 when they made Oklahoma!
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