… first star I see tonight ...

In the mailbox here in Okieland this snowy, wet Odin's day of.January 25th, 2023 ...

Today is the 149th anniversary of W. Somerset Maugham's birth. The novelist, playwright, and short story writer was born on this day in 1874 Paris. His historic reputation rests primarily on four novels: The Razor's Edge, Of Human Bondage, The Moon And Sixpence, and Cakes and Ale. These and many short stories were adapted into film. He died in 1965 at the age of 91.

Virginia Woolf was also born on this day, 141 years ago. Her birthplace was Kensington, England in 1882. In her lifetime she published more than 200 reviews and essays and three now famous novels: Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Orlando. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.

Yesterday, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released its nominations for the 2022 Oscar awards. Cnet provided a list of the best pix nominations and links to possible viewing online (IMO a terrible way to watch a movie). That said my faves thus far were Tar (Tár was named "Best Picture of the Year" by more critics than any other film released in 2022), and The Banshees of Inisherin received nine nominations for the 95th Academy Awards. The Academy seems to be slowly waking up to the value of film as a collectively created art-form and not just a way to make a buck, even if it takes million$ to make one. Paper and pencil are still, almost, affordable.