This Week In Not Surfing

1. Someone in a position of curatorial power at Delta Airlines must be kind enough to consider the 2008 Gleason/Fiennes/Farrell fest In Bruges a cinema classic. This decision maker is equally inclined to make sure you have at least two Tom Hanks vehicles to sate your flying hours. And while I have never actually clicked on In Bruges, or, say, Sleepless in Seattle on my seatback monitor, I’ve spent hours gratefully repeatedly watching these films over other passengers shoulders.

 2. I spend a week shuttling between Dallas and Ft. Worth, the high rises and the stock yards. Nothing funny happens to me there. Not a single moment of a-ha-that’s-hilarious. Meandering between earnestness, pride, graciousness and a sort of vague distrust, I find this part of the world singularly serious in its self-estimation. Big thoughts. Big plans. Big traditions. Big problems. And while this kind of anti-glibness would probably normally unsettle me and my winking, irony filled, cynical East Coast urban outlook, it instead fills me with a sense of comfort, even if for a load of reasons I find puzzling. Short-termism always battles long-termism, the middle brother traditionally feeling adrift. It’s all a matter of perspective. I just wish something would make me chuckle.

 3. At what point will a bureau be founded that offers specious scores on our social media presence the way they offer specious scores on our credit? Better burnish your image, it’ll take years to correct that missed posting.

4. Standing in line behind someone laboriously trying to sort out exactly which lottery ticket to buy at the bodega is the 4th circle of hell.

 5. I say, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Bonds.” He says, “Mr. Bonds died in ’58. I’m Pete.”

 6. If you read one newspaper article today, read the whole of the New York Times Sunday Styles section from July 3rd 2016. Bill Cunningham is as legendarily lovely as anyone ever. A taste of greatness.