Michael Keaton makes a better Batman and a better Viagra spokesman than Christian Bale. Bale makes a better Brit, barely.

Robert Pinsky looks 80 in the scalp and 30 in the face. What more could a crusty poet ask for? Maybe a MacArthur Grant.

Edwin Booth could play Hamlet at Fenway Park. Such vocal resonance! Such a hulking physique! Such a fucked up little brother…maybe he should have taken a break from touring every now n’ again…you know, to connect…

Beware of films you found compelling at 17. Watch them in your twenties with a few smart-alecky grad school friends, and you could find yourself eating crow. Just off the top of my head I’d put Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut and The Big Lebowski in this category. Watch them alone before you invite a crowd. Vet your palette.

Returning to Robinson Jeffers for a moment…did he ever write a love poem? Did he have what we might call a life partner? Or did he date an eagle? Or a canyon? Surprising also that a Presbyterian minister would subsidize his son. The Chamber of Commerce at prayer ranks idleness as a cardinal sin, worse than blasphemy–or maybe the worst kind.

You wonder if Wooster Group actors fear for their safety during lightning storms. Heard an NPR report that said headsets may conduct lightning, often frying folks. Wooster Group actors, of course, take direction on headsets during each performance. What if lightning struck? What if the show stopped? What if Dumbo, Brooklyn lost its luster–or at the very least lost Wilhem Dafoe?

I bet Zelda Fitzgerald snuck booze in the nuthouse. I bet her estate hits me for libel. I bet she wasn’t even nuts. I bet Save Me the Waltz reads better than anything Jean Rhys spit out. I bet she could dance like hell.

They should clean the couches at Providence’s Cable Car Cinema. In this era of diminished consumer confidence, I find myself eating popcorn kernels stuck in the cushions. They should use the vacuum before every screening. They should protect me from myself.

Jeffrey Wright owned Basquiat in the movie. Basquiat missed with a lot of pictures, but when he drew bananas they usually turned out okay.

We read about separate spheres. Mayors in death-metal bands. Yoga instructors who chain smoke. Children who read. These aberrations frighten me. Anything can happen, it seems, and hardly any of it’s good. Hold someone.

Great article in the Sunday Projo about strife in the Middletown Council. Do they ride horses to meetings? Ever try a horse tranquilizer with your whiskey? Which Elizabethan writer could drink the most whiskey and stay on a bull for longer than 8 seconds? I vote for Marlowe–baddest ass of them all. Clumsy sonnets. Dirty deeds. Dull razors…

Joan Baez will die without a wrinkle. She should grow her hair a little longer. Joni Mitchell should cut hers–it’s getting a wee bit threadbare. And she should drop another acoustic record. That electronica disc embarrassed everyone a couple years ago, except her apparently.

If you had to choose between roads with no potholes and roads with no guardrails, which would you choose? Would you ever bathe in a deep, deep pothole after a storm, if things came to that? Would you come to me on the side of the road if I sent a naked picture to your phone? Would you wrap me up?

Punch my ticket for the Bon Iver bandwagon. Great stuff. Great, masculine falsetto. Great live sets, if YouTube’s any indication.

Gus Van Sant’s Cobain biopic sucks. Ain’t never seen it, just heard shitty reviews from reputable sources. Never understood Cobain, with the exception of “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for His Son.” A quieter track, something you could play for a hip grandma. All the matrons of Back Bay, in fact, have it on their i-pods. Right next to Van Morrison.