A Day in My Life -

“A Complete Unknown” the Second Time

‘A Complete Unknown’ the Movie

I went to see A Complete Unknown when it was first released early in 2025. Although I enjoyed seeing the movie, it made me realize how little I actually knew about Bob Dylan and his illustrious career. As a result, I did not feel that I got the most out of seeing it as I could have.

Music was great. Acting by Timothée Chalamet was superb and I think he is better looking than Dylan. I have a feeling he is going to be someone who will be doing more great film work in the future.

The acting throughout the entire movie is very good led by Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and Elle Fanning as Sylvia Russo. Barbaro and Russo bring their associations with Chalamet’s Dylan to a level where the romance is well displayed. Especially impressive is one scene at the Newport Folk Festival where Baez and Dylan sing a duet of “It Ain’t Me Babe.” You can just feel the chemistry between them boiling over.This is one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

Beautiful cinematography also makes this a good movie to see.

Some Research Helped

As mentioned in the start of this writing, I realized how little I knew about Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and folk music of that time. I wanted to see it again. But before I did that, I decided to do a little research. The research helped me gain a better understanding of many of the components of the movie.

So, his past Friday, I found A Complete Unknown on Hulu. I took the evening to watch it for my second time. And I am happy to report, I enjoyed it even more the second time I saw it. Pieces of Dylan’s work and life were more understandable.

Dylan Goes Electric

I do remember when Dylan went electric and how it upset many people. I wasn’t enough of a follower of his or folk music to be that concerned when it happened. I just kind of thought “oh ok, what was the big fuss?” But it is through this movie that the whole situation gets explained and now I understand why that happened.

March 28, 2025

Sumi and Sada Tamura under the Cherry Blossoms in Washington, D.C. – March 28, 1925
via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

On March 28, 2025, there were a lot of national and international issues that affected today. Here are the three which were of most interest to me.

March 28, 2025 Stock Market Take a Hit

Dow Jones closed down 715.80 points or 1.69% to 41,583.90.

S&P 500 down 1.9% to 5,580.94. This marks the fifth time in the last six weeks.

Nasdaq Composite down 2.7% to 17,322.99.

Canada Feels the Relationship with the United States Has Changed

President Trump reported on a phone call with new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, this being their first call. Trump said the call was “extremely productive.”

Carney said “Trump respected Canada’s sovereignty both in private and public, but added the relationship has changed.”

“It is clear that the United States is no longer a reliable partner. It is probable now that by negotiating we will able to restore an element of trust but we cannot go back,” Carney said.

Vance Changes Greenland Plans

Things did not go well for Mrs. Vance and the Vice-President in their Greenland visit.

Headline for this article: U.S. officials went door-to-door in Greenland to find anyone who wanted to be visited by the Vances. They found no one.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-officials-went-door-door-180606208.html

Greenland itself is rich with rare earth minerals, which are essential components in the production of cellphones, batteries, and other consumer technologies. – from the above mentioned article.

I wonder if that has anything to do with Trump’s and Vance’s sudden interest in Greenland?

March 28, 2025 Summary

All in all, this was a very active day for news. Watching these items were all related to the economy of which I have a special interest. But there was also more fall out from the Signal incident where Atlantic magazine Editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added onto what should have been a closed and private chat. I doubt we have heard the end of that one.

The President on President’s Day

From Instagram – the first dogs’ account – Champ and Major

The past few days I’ve been wanting to write a blog post every day but I don’t know something just kind of got in the way. So maybe it’s better that I just left to go try to start with something today.

What’s been the problem the past few days? Well it was obviously the trial held for former President Trump that was in the Senate. There were so many questions that this trial brought about that it was mindblowing. One has to wonder what ethics were involved with the people who were sitting as the jurors, that is, the senators. How did they see this? Did they really vote because they believed that this the charge was not Constitutional? Did they really believe that it was unconstitutional and if it was unconstitutional could it not have gone up to the supreme court for a final decision.

I guess the one good thing about this trial ending on Saturday is that it has ended. Does our country really have to keep going over the terrible offense of January 6 when the capital was stormed? Baby boomers were notorious for protest. I can remember when they used to take over the offices of college presidents. We were considered a very radical generation. But we didn’t go this far. We didn’t go into the capital and actually try to take over the government. There were some who wanted to overthrow the government and claimed they would do it. But nothing came close to what we saw back on January 6. I am happy that this is over. Please do look forward.

December 14, 2020 A Very Historic Day

This needs to be recorded because it was a historic day today.

The vaccine from Pfizer to combat CoVid 19 was shipped out and injections were given.
The Electoral College voting and certifications took place – Joseph Biden was declared the winner of the Presidential Election and Kamala Harris was named official winner as Vice President.

Some days you just need to declare big and that’s all you need to say.

The Empty Hanger

Yuck! That’s the first word that came to mind when I saw this picture. I can’t believe how yucky my front of the house container area looks right now. But the empty hanger is so representative of life during the pandemic. Things that I was used to be able to get easily are not so easy to get anymore. I always have a begonia plant hanging from that iron stand. This year, I found one hanging basket for purchase which I put back when I noticed that it was already starting to go into problem growing.

So why not get a few begonias and make my own? I cannot find a hanging plastic planter to buy. And I can’t find reasonably sized bags of dirt. I really don’t need a full truckload delivered for one plant.

I went to Farms View market which normally has tons of hanging baskets to buy. There were about 6 left for sale none of which was what I wanted. They did have flats of begonias but nothing to plant them in.

It took me well over a month to find the hose connectors that I needed so I could clean up the deck and outside furniture. People working at Lowe’s and Home Depot told me that with people being home, everyone was working on their lawns and plants. And yes, my own house does look better than usual this year because of work I’ve done. Except for this darn empty hanger.

Today I’m heading out to try to find tissues, paper towels, and Lysol. These items are hard to get right now. Yes, basics that were never a problem even before a snow storm now are. So maybe I will be lucky and find a hanging begonia plant to finally hang on that darned empty hanger.

Why Not Start Now?

Maybe it is appropriate to open like this being that this blog is being started as I am in the 4th month of the fallout from CoVid-19 which has turned the entire world upside down. Things that used to be a part of my life are no longer. Some are gone for good and some may return. Some will be tossed out purposely by me since I don’t think they work very well anymore for me.

I’ve started a few blogs in my life, but this is probably the strangest way I have ever opened one up. The photo of the Bailey’s Irish Cream sitting on my kitchen counter is probably not the best picture I have ever posted. First off, the subject of the photo isn’t well presented. Do you really need to see the knobs of the counters or the K on the counter mug? Probably not. And why show liquor to open a blog?

When we first started in March, we here in New Jersey went into full lockdown. Looking back at my calendar, I wrote “Gov. Murphy issued ‘stay at home’ order” on March 21. Earlier that week, I had been to George Street Playhouse to see a live show, Conscience, and then had a small medical procedure done at Morristown Memorial Hospital. And that was it.

From then on, all of my in person college classes went fully online using the college’s Blackboard system and ZOOM. I have done classes remotely but not in this fashion with video so there was a lot to learn.

But to relax, I started to learn more about the amazing world of Netflix. I had just subscribed about a month before and was enjoying the Outlander series. So the inclusion of a small bit of Bailey’s at the end of the day while watching Jamie and Clare seemed pretty appropriate. Until I saw them sipping the scotch. Then I got intrigued with that. Always having been a scotch whiskey fan, I would rotate the Bailey’s and the Johnny Walker Red on alternate evenings.

But I’m the kind of person who learns to adapt and eventually the new life became a little easier. And the Bailey’s bottle emptied out. And it went out on a recycling day. And the Johnny Walker (which I had for probably 4 years) also eventually emptied out and went to recycling.

I wanted to do a blog about my life during the pandemic, but never could seem to get the time needed to up this site. So here I am now finally doing it. Better late than never.

We don’t know when life will go back to normal or what normal will be. So I’ll take time to write about things I’m doing during this time period using this blog. The urge to write my own experiences has surfaced heavily during the past few months.

Let’s see what I can do.