With that in mind, Robert Bidinotto‘s novel Hunter: A Thriller hit the spot. I found the writing crisp, the characters interesting, and the interplay of plot and theme to be tight and compelling. I was far more moved than I expected to be, particularly by the love relationship between Dylan Hunter and Annie Woods. They wrestled with real challenges, and seeing how they resolved them reminded me why I like romantic realism so much: it inspires you to want to live your own life as fully and heroically as possible.

Bidinotto’s mastery of his craft is evident. As a sometimes-writer myself, I got the feeling a few times that he must have really enjoyed the writing process, because in certain passages I got the distinct sense of a sharp mind at work and at play. I think he must’ve loved writing this book.

Ayn Rand wrote, “Don’t work for my happiness, my brothers — show me yours — show me that it is possible — show me your achievement — and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.” I read the novel intermittently over the course of about three days, and on the last morning, as I finished the final chapter, my feeling toward the author was: Thank you for showing us your achievement.

It has given me courage for mine.

I’m not sure our personal tastes overlap that much — other than a shared hatred for Woody Allen — but here are a few of my all-time favorite movies that people usually haven’t heard of:

Dangerous Beauty (complete with Randian courtroom speech at the end), The Lost City (Andy Garcia’s love letter to Havana), Off the Map (meditative and gorgeous, can’t peel my eyes away), Tucker: The Man and His Dream (highly stylized, blatantly inspiring Objectivist fare), Vanilla Sky (surreal with a cryonics theme), and Waking the Dead (with Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connelly — absolutely not to be missed).

And if you haven’t seen Rob Roy yet … it’s Liam Neeson at the top of his form.

All of these DVDs are in my “once a year” category.

Tonight, while working, I’ve really enjoyed listening to their albums Street Gospels and Sounding a Mosaic.

Rhythmic, upbeat, groovy. Not normally a reggae kind of guy, but their music is catchy.

The song “When the Night Feels My Song” (from Mosaic) is a good one to sample, to get a feel for their music. …Although I think I like Gospels slightly better, as a collection of songs. So try “Midnight Rockers” off that album, instead.

I particularly like the plain-spokenness and integrity of those intelligent men who were involved in founding the United States of America.

Paul Giamatti, who plays John Adams, brings a wonderful sensibility to his role. Had Adams been played by someone less geeky — someone more charismatic, like Daniel Day Lewis or Tom Cruise — I believe the story would have been far less meaningful.

Giamatti’s performance makes it clear that Adams was no Obama-style rock-star; he was a more ordinary, though clearly intelligent, man who stood at a crossroads in history and understood the challenge before him, to which he must rise personally.

One week soon, I hope to write a review of this miniseries for the Atlasphere.

On a semi-related note, something about the video below reminds me of the sort of no-bullshit address that could have been delivered, on a completely different subject, to Congress in the late 1700s.

(h/t Jordan Zimmerman for the video)

UPDATE: On the other hand, here’s a pretty good smackdown from commenter “myseed” over at LiveJournal:

If it’s just a rights issue, I understand, but most of his argument seems to be bitching about CFLs themselves…nevermind the fact we’ve been surrounded by fluorescent, mercury-filled bulbs for years with all the same “restrictions” he’s described. We’ve just gotten more terrified of litigation as a society, so this is the first time it’s all being spelled out. He’s acting like the fact that he is seeing the warnings for the first time means they’re new.

And half of the “procedure” he outlined would be the same for regular incandescent bulbs, since it was dealing with how to pick up broken glass and store it such that no one gets injured. And as far as I know, EPA guidelines for disposal of objects are not “laws” and are never enforced — they are just guidelines. No one stops us from throwing out our alkaline batteries, which we shouldn’t do.

And made in China? So what, so is everything else and has been for years. If he really doesn’t like it, why doesn’t he try and get someone to build a factory for the bulbs in Texas? Photo fading? All light fades photos, even incandescents it’s the amount of UV that you need to monitor, and you can get CFLs with different degrees of UV emission. And as for the expense, you pay for the bulb many times over in life span and reduced energy costs — even if they only get to half of their expected lifespan. (As long as you don’t break them…then it is too bad about the mercury.) Then there’s his “pollute the landfill, of all things” comment, which is a whole other discussion.

Kind of a silly argument all around, so narrowly focused on details that he fails to make the legitimate argument he could have about freedom of choice and governmental reach.

I have (and love) We the Living‘s album Heights of the Heavens — which gets a strong 4 out of 5 stars, in my book — and would enjoy seeing them record more acoustic pieces.

Roney and his band-mates are huge fans of Atlas Shrugged, incidentally.

I discovered her two albums Twentythree (2005) and Hello (2008) a few days ago, and I can’t stop listening.

Highly, highly recommended.

She’s a bit more country than Sarah, and a bit less hokey-folksy than Norah Jones. But she gives great melody with a terrific voice. (Oops, did I just say that?) She actually does a dead-ringer for Norah in the song “Blindfold.”

If you do give her a listen, I would enjoy hearing what you think.

Amazon makes it easy to sample all her songs, but a good one to start with is “Always Feel This Way” from the album Twentythree.

Tristan Prettyman

Tonight it occurred to me that, in addition to being immensely valuable to me for spiritual reasons, the list is also quite easy to share with friends and readers of Mudita Journal.

Perhaps some of you would be interested.

So I’ve put the list online, here.

I expect to update the list from time to time, so I’ve added a link at the top of the right sidebar as well.

In his review, I think Ebert really nailed what makes this movie tick. Here’s a key paragraph that gives a particularly good feel for the movie:

Campbell Scott is an actor, and as a director he is able to trust his actors entirely. If they are doing their jobs, we will watch, no matter if the story centers on a man sitting at a table and everyone else essentially waiting for him to get up. The life force bubbling inside young Bo, suggested by de Angelis in a performance of unstudied grace, lets us know things will change, if only because she continues to push at life. “Off the Map” is visually beautiful as a portrait of lives in the middle of emptiness, but it’s not about the New Mexico scenery. It’s about feelings that shift among people who are good enough, curious enough or just maybe tired enough to let that happen.

If you have any real appreciation in life for stillness, or mindful reflection, I recommend the movie highly.

Here are links for watching the trailer, adding the movie to your Netflix queue, or buying the movie from Amazon.

Huh.

She also has the same morning e-mail problem that I do.

That video clip is pretty funny, as well. But part of what makes it so full of integrity is that he finds ways of being funny, while talking about Britney Spears and alcoholism, without being mean-spirited.

More stand-up comics like this one, please.