urbantrappistblogastery

One main factor in my decision to move to Washington rather than Fairbanks was my hope in cities. Or rather, in multiplicities. Not to say that Alaska lacks variety (catch salmon/hypothermia! hunt moose/civilization! see glaciers/Russia!), but an international hub like the District offers uncountable (and, sometimes, unsavory) possibilities. Just ask [...]

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that I am a sucker for anything that is unabashedly, unrealistically beautiful (excepting photoshopped cover girls). From magical novels by Salman Rushdie or Gabriel Garcia Marquez to amplified art by Georges Rouault or Vincent van Gogh to ultravivid films like Amèlie or The Fall, works of astonishment [...]

As the World Churns (drama about the war of ice cream moguls)
Malice in the Chalice (documentary on the evolution of communion rituals - intinction, the rail, closed or open, etc)
The Matrices (physicists try to explain the concept of a multiverse to Keanu Reeves who tries to explain kung fu. in slow motion.)
Strays of Our [...]

Thanks to Netflix (the greatest thing in film since technicolor), I watched Into Great Silence, an experience of the Grande Chartreuse Carthusian monastery, an austere order pitched in the French Alps that happens to make delicious liqueur. It’s so good (and chromatically distinctive) that the grassy yellow elixir inspired a crayon. You [...]