palmeryyz

[palmeryyz]

It’s #blackhistorymonth and we’ve got some great additions to @littlefreelibrary Charter 171662 on Westmount Ave. just north of Rogers Road. Be sure to check it out #takeabookleaveabook #read #readmorebooks

[palmeryyz]

I’m almost ashamed to say it’s taken me 15 years to watch this film, it’s so good and unpredictable. I’m still thinking about it.

[palmeryyz]

Toby is looking like a #stoic in this shot but did #snow #zoomies right after I took the pic ⛄️

[palmeryyz]

This makes you appreciate that coffee even more.

[palmeryyz]

In December on a walk in #Berlin to the post office, the lights from Jünemann’s Pantoffeleck below street level caught our eye and lulled us in to see a large wall of #handmade #slippers.

[palmeryyz]

Yesterday’s sunrise in cold Toronto helped usher in the day on a positive note.

[palmeryyz]

Into Thin Air is a remarkable account of an unthinkable event and the people that shaped its outcome. I was constantly turning to Wikipedia to learn of the players’ backgrounds and fate, Krakauer’s portrait was that riveting. Every time I feel a cold bite at my fingers or nose, or feel exhausted in subzero Toronto, I am sobered by the reality many others willingly endure at staggering heights. Thank you Jon Krakauer for having the guts to write this real book about an unimaginable event and world. #everest #mounteverest #jonkrakauer #intothinair #books #nonfiction

[palmeryyz]

January, culturally, environmentally and sometimes politically can be the cruelest month. I was reminded of this on the 15th day of 2025 when David Lynch, the creator of some of the most remarkable, strange and breathtaking cinema, passed away at the age of 78.

His passing was just five days after the anniversary of the death of another man who fell to Earth, David Bowie - who left us nine years ago.

The sadness from the passing of these two great people has been compounded by the frigid temperatures experienced lately (January 15-21 is historically the coldest week of winter) and positively numbing events happening in the United States.

My posts about Bowie's death anniversary prompted a friend to lend me a book entitled Andrew Potter on Decline - Stagnation, Nostalgia and Why Every Year is the Worst One Ever.

My friend lent me the book because it whimsically ties the beginning of this decline to Bowie's death in 2016. Through chapters on Progress, Stagnation, Politics, Reason and the Pandemic, Potter convincingly connects the dots showing the degrading effects of populism, isolationism, totalitarianism and other toxic isms.

The book was published in 2021, before Trump's second term and the exponential rise of artificial intelligence, but its message is just as profound.

The loss of David Lynch in 2025 just days before Trump's second inauguration left me feeling doubly lost.

Not only had Lynch pulled me into the sometimes strange and wonderful world of cinema with films like Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, which I had enjoyed immensely in their early days at the New Yorker repetory theatre in London, Ontario. But he also helped through a difficult read when I saw Dune, and was lulled back into Frank Herbert's science fiction masterpiece.

Like Bowie's music (and film work for that matter), Lynch's films were a treasure to me. On a grander scale, after reading Potter's book, I worried that Lynch's passing is marking an even steeper decline for the future.

But I was buoyed by a clip of an interview with musician/spoken word artist Henry Rollins that speaks to this challenging time.

"This is not a time to be dismayed. This is punk rock time. This is what Joe Strummer trained you for. It is now time to go. You're a good person, that means more now than ever," Rollins said. "You can be thunderous in your own life and being cool to the eight people around you. And it rubs off...goodness is viral."