(1) There is, I have to admit, a soft spot in my heart for pedants. Even for those individuals who allow their pedantry to bleed into casual conversation. Osbourne Cox points out to a guest at his dinner party who complains of being afflicted by "lactose reflux": "You either have lactose intolerance or acid reflux". And he was right, of course: There is no middle ground. About these things there can be no compromise.
(2) If I had an extended list of favourite actresses, it's likely that Tilda Swinton would be on it. If this were a Disney production she would be a supremely intelligent reptile, the wicked witch, the evil stepmother always ready with an acerbic comment, all her cognitive gears clicking away with inexorable, unremitting malice.
(3) We do not know ourselves completely. We never do. The people around us listen to our earnest lies and self-justifying fables and think "How empty he is! How evident are his limitations!" (and often with justification) - but we are granted only limited access to these truths, only a limited degree of self-awareness.
(4) Because we find before us such a bewildering array of choices (as we tackle the project of self-creation) we often find ourselves overcome by the illusion of control. Each of us, the commercials tell us, can become the person we want to be. If we are not beautiful it is because we have failed to make ourselves so.
(5) The Coens live in my universe. Everyone is quirky. Our rationality, our field of clarity, is just a small clearing surrounded by the darkness of ignorance, stupidity and dysfunctional cognition. People lie next to each other in the gloom and speak at cross purposes. Nobody listens. Nobody understands.
(6) Brad Pitt emerges from a closet with an idiotic grin on his face and gets his brains blown out. I wonder how that works for the family. Graphic Cinematic Death. It must be hard to stop the image from playing over and over in your head, from intruding in your dreams. This is a possible conformation of Brad Pitt's skull. This is a thing that could happen.
