Watching and reading

The entertainment of Nicolas Winding Refn movies is watching him get away with it. Copenhagen Cowboy is shaping up like the girl who fell to Earth; it also puts me in mind of Leo P Kelley's novel The Earth Tripper. I like seeing someone just do their thing. Steven Soderbergh enjoys similar agency. Both directors hire composer Cliff Martinez for their soundtracks.

Mary Gaitskill's Veronica is the best novel I read last year. I've stalled on Cormac McCarthy's The Passenger although parts of it are excellent. I finally tracked down a paperback edition of Seicho Matsumoto's Points and Lines.

Articles I read include Conan O'Brien on The Simpsons' Monorail episode; Mia Sato and James Vincent on AI flooding Google's search algorithm; Jada Jones on Sony's new Walkman; and Phillips P OBrien on rethinking 20th century views of Russian military power.