It’s late, so no question today…long day! Good day, though. We watched the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much for the podcast. We’re back on that Hitch! It was a good one. A really good one. Underrated, I think. Is it quite up to the heights he reaches with North by Northwest or Vertigo? No. But it’s close. Really, really close. He was almost there.

We also had a spirited discussion about whether or not you can craft “strangeness” with time and effort, or if its just something some people have and others don’t. And by strangeness, I mean it in a way that Dan Simmons referred to it — it’s not a forced or deliberate thing, but its essential to anything truly brilliant and transportive. It’s the feeling, he puts it, that one is in the hands of an intelligence that is about to teach you things you didn’t even know about yourself. Strangeness is what expands our mind, our reality, when we encounter it.

I think it is craft. Hard work. Josh thinks it’s something you’re born with, or you aren’t. Dan Simmons agrees with Josh, I think, so I’m outnumbered there. But…I don’t agree with them. And I can’t prove it. But neither can they. So, here we are. What do you think?

Tommen is with us. I got all my work done. The week of release is over. And the holiday. I’m ready for normalcy…which I know won’t come next week until after the infernal election. Sigh. But…I’m close. And those are just excuses.

Night night.