Go back to those gold soundz 🌟🌟🌟

New year, new playlists

I google all my problems. What's the hottest 'hood in Chicago? Best cures for pharyngitis (I know, I'm a doctor..). Who the hell is Boutros Boutros-Ghali?*

The Academy Awards are a source of perennial frustration. Worthy movies and performances lose out to well-liked films about filmmaking that sweep multiple categories out of virtue of their popularity (The Artist, Birdman, La La Land). I mean if you ask a bunch of orthopedists if bones are important, what do you think is going to happen?

Paterson

A gripping account of Paterson (name), bus driver and secret poet, and the careful choices of his life in Paterson, NJ (place). This location is both a substitute for any American town, but the details also so specific to this somehow fascinating place. We get to look through the eyes of a poet, living poetically, noticing unhurriedly. Each day building a rhythm, that repeats and builds. On the seventh day, a climax so completely devastating, and what comes after, poignant, life-affirming, like watching water fall.

Moonlight

A gay kid bullied without knowing why, born into a world of drugs and prison, discovering a surrogate home. A teenager, subject to both a great tragedy and an ultimate kindness. And a hardened man reconciling identity, sexuality, masculinity. Seamlessly, poetically woven together by three actors in the visually stunning backdrop of the housing projects and isolated beaches of Miami. Every scene, shot, dialogue evocative and sharp. A rare masterpiece about a forgotten person.

One of the great joys of living in a major city is dining at a variety of establishments. In exchange for the multicultural cuisines available to us, we export diabetes and hypertension via fast food conglomerates to the rest of the world. I clearly can't help those poor souls, but damn if I haven't been eating like a king lately. Here are three places in Brooklyn's Chinatown, 8th ave.