PicoBlog

“I don’t want to wait anymore, Leo. I want to die.” — Béatrice Dalle, Trouble Every Day When director Claire Denis brought Trouble Every Day to the festival circuit in 2001, it was greeted with a response that could kindly be called ambivalence but more accurately called hostility. I’ve always been proud that this film was the first that ever blurbed one of my reviews, though I’ve always understood that this was because nearly every other critic in America at the time, with the notable exception of Glenn Kenny in Premiere, absolutely detested it.

“You’ve very nice hands. You’ve beautiful hands.” — Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin Michel Faber’s 2000 novel Under the Skin is about Isserley, an extraterrestrial sent to Scotland in the surgically altered form of a human woman, a disguise she uses to kidnap hitchhikers, who are then delivered to her fellow aliens. Back home, humans are fattened and processed into an expensive delicacy known as “Vodsels”—a name inspired by the Dutch word for “food.

Cardinal sin was slippery well before Adam Silver reached for it. In Lutheranism, sin splits in two: venial and mortal. In Eastern Orthodoxy, a sin is a sin is a sin. In Catholicism, as I’m sure you’re aware, there are levels to it. Any sin can be ramped up with intent, downplayed by circumstance, forgiven through confession. There’s mortal sin — not the same but sort of — on a scale of missing mass to murder.

Professor Venki Ramakrishnan, a Nobel laureate for his work on unraveling the structure of function of the ribosome, has written a new book WHY WE DIE which is outstanding. Among many posts and recognitions for his extraordinary work in molecular biology, Venki has been President of the Royal Society, knighted in 2012, and was made a Member of the Order of Merit in 2022. He is a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology research institute in Cambridge, UK.

When you’ve got as long a drinking history as New York, a city that is home to so many great bars and talented bartenders, you’re going to produce a good share of iconic cocktails. Last year at this time, I indulged in a little experiment, drawing on my decades of experience as a Gotham barfly to tally New York’s most emblematic mixed drinks. I called it “The New York 50,” settling upon that figure as a nice round number.

Engage…. with my bombastically bloated bank account! Patrick Stewart playing Jean-Luc Picard is back for the sci-fi attack in Star Trek: Picard - and next season most of the legacy Next Generation cast will be joining him to co-start in the Paramount + show’s last season. Great. We can’t wait. Let’s all celebrate. But…. What are they worth in the real world? Jonathan Frakes, Levar Burton, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden and Martina Sirtis.

NEW STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This newsletter aggressively spoils things. A little drinking game I like to play when watching any film or TV show is to pay attention to how it depicts, well, drinking—or social substance use in general. You can tell immediately when a writer or creator doesn’t really use any substances themselves, because their depiction will be weirdly, strangely off. I love it when people stride into bars on TV shows and order “a beer” or “a Scotch,” as if there weren’t 5,000 examples of each, in various categories and at various price points.

Share “The trick, it seems to us, if one is to be a successful long-term investor, is to recognize the sources of enduring business success, get in early and own enough to make a difference. Which raises two questions: what are the sources of success and second, if these are so readily recognized up front why are they not discounted in prices already?” - Nick Sleep My favorite chapter in William Green’s book Richer, Wiser, Happier is the story of Nicholas Sleep and his partner Qais ‘Zak’ Zakaria, two young analysts with strong opinions about the investment industry who started their own partnership, Nomad Investment Partners.

Hi, all. As always, my advice remains, “Ignore the polls.” Polls don’t vote. People do. And when they do, Joe Biden performs well—and Trump underperforms. Real people. Real votes. Real results. Democrats win. Consistently. Over the weekend, the NYTimes published results of polling that sent some readers into a tailspin. Throughout the weekend, I received a steady stream of stories about the NYTimes poll, rebuttals, and commentary. Those emails were accompanied by triple exclamation points, sad emojis, and entreaties to “Please address.