In the news
January 17th's Friday Five were all based on recent news items. I was in New York for the past five days and read a lot of Times Square news crawls, so I was actually up to speed on the celebrity deaths and cancer-causing booze. I'm not sure I think much of 2025 so far.
Anyhow, though late, I have come through with some answers. Ready?
1. Has the death of a famous person (not connected to you personally) ever made you cry?
Yes. The one that springs immediately to mind is Alan Rickman, who died around this time nine years ago. At the time, I was in NYC for the annual Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend, and someone shared the news from their phone as we were out on an organized walk. It came from out of nowhere, and I had always loved his work, and, yeah, the tears just started.
2. Have you ever sent money as relief aid after a disaster?
That's a harder question to answer. When I was with the Man, we'd've made those decisions together, and I just can't recall for sure. Did we give to the Red Cross after Katrina? Maybe. But both of us are more of the kind of person who just makes donations to preferred charities at fixed intervals, rather than specifically in the wake of a crisis.
That said, I did start giving money to political causes after Trump's first election, which is somewhat like relief aid after disaster.
3. How will the recent declaration affirming alcoholic beverages as cancer-causing affect your consumption?
I'm not a big drinker, so not at all. I will still have my wine when I want it, which is hardly ever.
I'm also over 60 and maybe just a little bit weary of everything. I have no death wish, but, having got this far, I also don't feel obliged to try to live forever.
4. What is the most bizarre (or difficult to understand) movie you've seen?
Everything Everywhere All At Once and Wings of Desire probably tie for that honor, and I loved them both. Also, neither of them is that un-gettable, so clearly I need to broaden my horizons.
5. How willing and able are you to separate art from artist when a musician, actor, writer, or other creator is discovered to have behaved very badly?
In theory, I'm very willing and, more to the point, often able. The longer ago they lived, the easier it is to do, which certainly makes things less fraught for a classical-lover like myself. And the farther the creator is behind the scenes of my experience of the work, the easier it is. It helps in this regard that I'm the sort of person who can enjoy a creation without becoming remotely curious about its creator -- perhaps because I am not an artist myself?
Now, I'm not saying I never invest in creators. I remember my fondness for C.S. Lewis' writing turning into a full-blown interest in all of "the Inklings" when I was young, and then of course we all know about my almost life-long Guareschi obsession. But I am a super-Sherlockian without caring much at all about Arthur Conan Doyle, adore Star Trek without ever thinking about Roddenberry, love the Jeeves stories without feeling the remotest need to be an apologist for Wodehouse's wartime activities, etc. So I'm pretty good at separating the person from the output, as long as I respond to the output.
However, I've confessed in this very blog to sometimes having trouble with this issue in the case of *performers* I really like. Case in point: the comedian John Mulaney was a huge favorite of mine, and he still is, but I won't pretend it hasn't been different since his divorce. Mulaney's stand-up was (and remains) the kind that implicitly invites the audience into his world -- an admittedly stylized, but still clearly reality-based one in which, for years, his first wife was a character and their relationship a major feature. "Getting" his stand-up was predicated in no small part on accepting the invitation into his life and investing in the picture he painted of their quirky domestic contentment. Of course, Mr. Mulaney wrestles with some major demons, and if my not being unreservedly happy for him in his new life somehow represents my not wanting to see him conquer said demons, I certainly wouldn't want to be guilty of that! But the fact is that you can only experience art as yourself, and my own history makes "men who ditch their wives" a particular stumbling block for me. I'm over the feeling of betrayal that all the online scolds proclaimed I wasn't entitled to feel, and I do still watch just about everything with Mulaney in it, but I guard my heart now.
So, will I ever read Neil Gaiman again? Well, I never read him before (look, there's a lot of stuff out there to read, and I'm not a big fantasy-head), so I expect that's how I'll continue (cf. my attitude toward J.K. Rowling). Will I ever be able to watch a filmed version of his work without thinking, "Ick, ick, ick" the whole time? Yes, I suspect so, just like I have listened to Wagner, watched old movies written by or featuring people who named names to HUAC, voted for Bill Clinton, used Microsoft products, eaten the occasional Chick-fil-A sandwich, and practiced institutional Christianity for the whole of my adulthood, all without much cognitive dissonance. Life is complicated, and so is the human psyche.
Just don't ask me if I'll be buying a ticket to Sutton Foster's next show (yeah, Hugh was a stinker, too, but she's the one I was a fan of).
Anyhow, though late, I have come through with some answers. Ready?
1. Has the death of a famous person (not connected to you personally) ever made you cry?
Yes. The one that springs immediately to mind is Alan Rickman, who died around this time nine years ago. At the time, I was in NYC for the annual Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend, and someone shared the news from their phone as we were out on an organized walk. It came from out of nowhere, and I had always loved his work, and, yeah, the tears just started.
2. Have you ever sent money as relief aid after a disaster?
That's a harder question to answer. When I was with the Man, we'd've made those decisions together, and I just can't recall for sure. Did we give to the Red Cross after Katrina? Maybe. But both of us are more of the kind of person who just makes donations to preferred charities at fixed intervals, rather than specifically in the wake of a crisis.
That said, I did start giving money to political causes after Trump's first election, which is somewhat like relief aid after disaster.
3. How will the recent declaration affirming alcoholic beverages as cancer-causing affect your consumption?
I'm not a big drinker, so not at all. I will still have my wine when I want it, which is hardly ever.
I'm also over 60 and maybe just a little bit weary of everything. I have no death wish, but, having got this far, I also don't feel obliged to try to live forever.
4. What is the most bizarre (or difficult to understand) movie you've seen?
Everything Everywhere All At Once and Wings of Desire probably tie for that honor, and I loved them both. Also, neither of them is that un-gettable, so clearly I need to broaden my horizons.
5. How willing and able are you to separate art from artist when a musician, actor, writer, or other creator is discovered to have behaved very badly?
In theory, I'm very willing and, more to the point, often able. The longer ago they lived, the easier it is to do, which certainly makes things less fraught for a classical-lover like myself. And the farther the creator is behind the scenes of my experience of the work, the easier it is. It helps in this regard that I'm the sort of person who can enjoy a creation without becoming remotely curious about its creator -- perhaps because I am not an artist myself?
Now, I'm not saying I never invest in creators. I remember my fondness for C.S. Lewis' writing turning into a full-blown interest in all of "the Inklings" when I was young, and then of course we all know about my almost life-long Guareschi obsession. But I am a super-Sherlockian without caring much at all about Arthur Conan Doyle, adore Star Trek without ever thinking about Roddenberry, love the Jeeves stories without feeling the remotest need to be an apologist for Wodehouse's wartime activities, etc. So I'm pretty good at separating the person from the output, as long as I respond to the output.
However, I've confessed in this very blog to sometimes having trouble with this issue in the case of *performers* I really like. Case in point: the comedian John Mulaney was a huge favorite of mine, and he still is, but I won't pretend it hasn't been different since his divorce. Mulaney's stand-up was (and remains) the kind that implicitly invites the audience into his world -- an admittedly stylized, but still clearly reality-based one in which, for years, his first wife was a character and their relationship a major feature. "Getting" his stand-up was predicated in no small part on accepting the invitation into his life and investing in the picture he painted of their quirky domestic contentment. Of course, Mr. Mulaney wrestles with some major demons, and if my not being unreservedly happy for him in his new life somehow represents my not wanting to see him conquer said demons, I certainly wouldn't want to be guilty of that! But the fact is that you can only experience art as yourself, and my own history makes "men who ditch their wives" a particular stumbling block for me. I'm over the feeling of betrayal that all the online scolds proclaimed I wasn't entitled to feel, and I do still watch just about everything with Mulaney in it, but I guard my heart now.
So, will I ever read Neil Gaiman again? Well, I never read him before (look, there's a lot of stuff out there to read, and I'm not a big fantasy-head), so I expect that's how I'll continue (cf. my attitude toward J.K. Rowling). Will I ever be able to watch a filmed version of his work without thinking, "Ick, ick, ick" the whole time? Yes, I suspect so, just like I have listened to Wagner, watched old movies written by or featuring people who named names to HUAC, voted for Bill Clinton, used Microsoft products, eaten the occasional Chick-fil-A sandwich, and practiced institutional Christianity for the whole of my adulthood, all without much cognitive dissonance. Life is complicated, and so is the human psyche.
Just don't ask me if I'll be buying a ticket to Sutton Foster's next show (yeah, Hugh was a stinker, too, but she's the one I was a fan of).