February 2024 – Leapin’

Watching

Chinatown – One of those great movies I managed not to see when it came out (in 1974). Nominated for a truckload of Academy Awards but won only for Best Original Screenplay (Robert Towne). (Godfather Part II won for best picture.) This is peak Jack Nicholson. John Huston at his finest as well. And a dozen character actors that I’ve seen a million times including James Hong who today is 94 and still working.

The Conversation – Another gem from 1974 that I missed. Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola it contains a who’s who of early 70s actors led by Gene Hackman in the lead. Cindy Williams, Frederick Forrest, Alan Garfield, Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, John Cazale, Teri Garr. A creepy story about a professional eavesdropper who gets in too deep.

Old Boy – A 1994 Korean film. A man seeks revenge for being imprisoned for 15 years. Very violent and grisly. Intense. And just plain weird. Surprisingly it shares a plot twist with Chinatown.

The Greatest Night in Pop – A documentary about the making of the charity song We Are the World. Way better than expected. Just one great vocal performance after another from exhausted singers, recorded in one night after an awards show. Somehow Quincy Jones and his recording crew blended it all together seamlessly using analog methods.

True Detective, Night Country – Season four of the anthology series. This season’s version is set during the dark days of winter in a coal mining town on the North Shore of Alaska. Great acting with Jodie Foster in the lead. Very creepy. Reminded me a bit of Twin Peaks.

The Marvels – Another confusing mess from Marvel. The story is inane but, at times, humorous. I am a huge Bree Larson fan and she was very good when she wasn’t superheroing. Also, Iman Vellani as the teenaged, Pakistani-American Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms. Marvel is quite good.

The Two Popes – Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce in the kind of movie they just don’t make anymore. A two-hour conversation. Quite a bit better than My Dinner with Andre. Excellent.

True Detective Season One. Had to re-watch it. Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey at their best. Weird. Violent. Set along the southern coast of Louisiana. Time is a flat circle.

Reading

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Peak Dickens. Life was a bitch if you were poor in mid-19th Century England. So many characters and plot twists. I was surprised at how much I liked it. Like so many of his books, it was originally published in serial form in a magazine. I could imagine readers eager to read the next episode.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. David Copperfield re-imagined for the 1990s and 2000s in Appalachia. The poverty and dead end aspects of Dickens’s novel are augmented by the opioid crisis. Brilliant but super depressing.

200 Hard New York Times Crosswords – I solved 97 of the first 100 and then they became much harder. I probably batted .500 for the second 100.

Riding

Another month of riding 30 miles per day, mostly on The Tank, my Surly Crosscheck Thankfully, the rear tire is finally losing its tread so I can justify buying new rubber. Two new Panaracer tires arrived on leap day. Let’s see if they improve the ride.

As far as mileage is concerned, I rode 747 miles. (I rode 730 miles last February with one fewer day.) BIg Nellie did 80 miles in the basement. Little Nellie chipped in 91. The Mule took the month off. The Tank did the rest, hitting 29,000 miles along the way. I also breached the 178,000 mile mark on my four bikes.

I’ve started thinking about my summer tour. I can’t say I am feeling enthusiastic. Hopefully, warmer weather will get my head in the game. For now it looks like I’ll be doing a DC to New Orleans (Or Little Rock) ride. This would be a combination of the Trans American and Great Rivers South routes from Adventure Cycling.