7/18/2021> Post #900. We've been on a kick lately of '80s movies w/ renegade journihilists in war-torn countries, which there seems to be a lot of:

• Salvador (1986)—Oliver stone film w/ James Wood + Jim Belushi as gonzo journihilists in El Salvador
• The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)—unfortunately it's got Mel Gibson (as Ozzie journalist in Indonesia), but Linda Hunt steals the show (as a dwarf man)
• Killing Fields (1984)—this 1 is in Cambodia, but again, it ain't the Hollywood leading man (Sam Waterson) but the sidekick Dith Pran, played by Haing S. Ngor (who had no acting experience) who steals the show. We looked him up after + he won best supporting Oscar, which coincidentally was handed to him by Linda Hunt, who had won it the year before for The Year of Living Dangerously. And although the wiki page neglects to mention it, Spalding Gray is in the movie, a minor role, but memorable.
• Under Fire (1983)—this is the only 1 where the maverick "periodista" (Nick Nolte) doesn't have a sidekick, although Ed Harris comes in + out as a mercenary + Gene Hackman is the elder cuckold anchorman whose ex-girlfriend Nolte steals.

What about the '80s spawned this theme? And as we've previously pondered, what was it about the American psyche in the '80s that gave rise to movies/shows where men/boys find bodies of dead women near bodies of water or railroad tracks? Also re-watched Superman I + II which were better than we remembered (at least I), or at least the plot points seem more interesting then all these stupid super-hero movies they have nowadays (which we admittedly haven't seen any of). Last night rewatched The Conversation and Earth Girls are Easy.

Exactly a month until departure. Getting our ducks in a row.

7/20> Big part of ducks we got to get in a row is to take stock of Calamari inventory to hand off to Garielle Lutz next week as she's kind enough to help out as librarian when we go to Bologna.

Speaking of Garielle, we've been reading the The Complete Lutz (that was the title we suggested to Gian when we proposed Tyrant take on the book), or at least the new stories we haven't read yet. We considered bringing it w/ us to Bologna, but it's not the kind of book u can read in 1 sitting but better to dip into every so often. Besides, we got Worsted, so will bring that instead. The Complete Lutz is definitely worthy of being bumped to the top of our Desert Island books, only problem is it requires us redoing the graphics + we didn't design that page so well as far as rearranging the order of books. Looking at the list now there's a lot of things we wd change, we shd probably redo it 1 of these days. A lot has been said about Lutz + her use of language but 1 quality of her writing that is overlooked is the otherworldly level of insight into the mundane (but most meaningful) details of humun existence. Every sentence is quoteable, but at the same time nothing should be quoted out of context so as not to sever the line-to-line consecution. Just read the book.