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I loved “Song Song Blue," a 2025 movie starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as a Neil Diamond tribute act from Milwaukee around 1990, based on a real-life couple.

This is not a sentence expected I would ever write.

The music is great — as the characters point out, everybody loves Neil Diamond. And the movie wisely does not patronize the characters, or ridicule them, or treat them as camp. It respects the characters and loves them. Jackman is great, but that’s no suprise. I’ve seen him in a few movies and I just expect him to be great. Hudson was a pleasant surprise — “Almost Famous,” released in 2000, is one of my favorite movies, and she is fantastic in that, but I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything since. In “Almost Famous,” she was a precocious teenager and in “Song Song Blue” she’s a middle-aged single mother, world-weary but still upbeat.

The first half of the movie is happy and light as a cloud. Midway through we hit pause and as we stood up to get a snack, I said, “Nothing bad better happen to these people!" Two minutes after we returned to the movie, something terrible does happen and then another near the end. I highly recommend “Song Sung Blue” — but keep a box of Kleenex close.

I realized recently that I enjoy running errands. Buying gas, going to the store, picking up groceries. I would’ve made a great 1950s housewife

I thought I looked badass walking the dog this morning, but then I got in the car, glanced at myself in the rearview mirror and saw the front brim of my hat was pushed up the entire time. So instead of looking badass, I looked like a simple country cousin from the Beverly Hillbillies.

Also, I was wearing black socks with shorts.

How should we remember Trump once he leaves the White House? Medieval Venice offers one answer for what to do with Trump’s image and name that he’s plastered everywhere. “There are certainly odd historical parallels between an 80-year-old leader attempting to take over a republic because he felt personally insulted and our current political situation.” By David M. Perry at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Was the Declaration of Independence Better Before the Edits? Not a great headline on this excellent article; it’s actually a history of the writing of the Declaration and subsequent generations' interpretation of the document, up to and including Abraham Lincoln (whom a college literature professor of mine said was the only American President who was also one of the greatest writers in the English language.)

By Jill Lepore, who is always worth reading and listening to on podcasts, on the New Yorker.

I recently rewatched “Animal House,” a movie I absolutely adore, and was talking to a friend about it and how The Young People don’t get that movie. “It’s stupid and offensive!” they say, and I respond, “Yes! And it was stupid and offensive then too! And it was great!”

My friend said, “Yes, back then we liked being offended.” And I said, “Yes! That’s exactly right!”

I never really thought of it that way before. Being offended can be hilarious, if you’re of the right mindset. Many of us love offensive comedy the way many love horror movies — nobody actually loves being chased around by a guy in a leather mask in a chainsaw but make a movie out of that and it becomes a cult classic.

And speaking of offensive: I rewatched “Animal House” in 5- and 10-minute bursts on my iPhone over the course of a week or two, which will be highly offensive to cinephiles.

Selecting text on the iPhone is both easy AND enjoyable.

— Nobody, never