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Farewell to the Tony-laden Broadway composer Charles Strouse, whose brassy, effervescent anthems of good cheer promise to cling to the memory forever and ever. I could sing "Tomorrow," "But Alive" and even "The Telephone Hour" at the drop of a trumpet, though I promise not to.

So it seems that much of our dystopian fiction is turning out to be alarmingly prophetic -- or at least prophetic of sick designs for living currently being proposed here: first "The Handmaid's Tale," now "The Hunger Games." Of course, "Network" has felt prescient for years.

Magic at twilight: When I stepped into our yard last evening, when the winds were fierce, it looked as if the sky were raining shards of gold. It was a storm of helicopter seeds from maple trees, and when they hit the ground, they seemed animate, like insects.

Today, all the people will celebrate the glory of her, and whatever she wishes and wants will be done.

I recently came upon "Laughing Time," the first book I remember having read to me, by my mother. This is its opening poem, and these are the first words I committed to memory -- about a son and mother reading to each other.

This afternoon I took a dive down the spangly pink wormhole that is Michael Breslin's "The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse," and what an illuminating descent it was. This show matters. Best musical to date about about living online. It is at once: smart, a spoof, and very sincere.

Rancor rules these days, alas. Michael Schulman's popular New Yorker profile of a bile-steeped Patti LuPone makes me think that she and the unnamable American president might be well-matched in a cage fight.

Well, of course he's back. nytimes.com/2025/05/28/wor…

Stumbled on the Bette Davis movie "That Certain Woman" (1937). And while its plot amps up every sacrificial backstreet woman cliche, Davis (opposite a young Henry Fonda) gives a lovely, unmannered, affecting performance that's in a different gear from her big stormy star turns.

Enjoy yourself -- and I mean all aspects of yourself. And don't let anyone tell you that you don't have the right to. Happy Pride Month.

Farewell to the richly prolific novelist, essayist and biographer Edmund White. He chronicled the lives of a generation of gay men - coming out, facing AIDS, facing age - with both rhapsodic eloquence and merciless clarity, while fearlessly documenting his own evolving sex life.

Is it too soon to do this yet? According to the insightful Jon Caramanica, anytime would be too soon for Taylor Swift to rerecord "Reputation." Good to see this album getting the respect it deserves. (Is it chill that I can't get "Delicate" out of my head?)nytimes.com/2025/06/03/art…

On camera, Cillian Murphy's face conveys a welter of feelings even in repose -- the eyes have it, all. This has never been truer than in Tim Mielant's exquisite "Small Things Like These," in which Murphy silently transmits an entire, echoing history of moral conflict. (On Hulu)

I love this obituary by Penelope Green, an account of a life lived most creatively, on water, summoning chimeras. Also, the whole "Fitzcarraldo" aspect. Wondrous stuff. nytimes.com/2025/06/04/art…

Two of the most uncompromising, physically complete takes on character on 21st century screens: Tilly in "Escape at Dannemora" (which I'm rewatching) and Ms. Cobel in "Severance." Who have absolutely nothing in common except a master shape shifter named Patricia Arquette.

The broadcasting of "Good Night" was a good thing. On television, it felt like resistance.

So before June the 10th ends, allow me to acknowledge the birthday of Judy Garland, whose gift (to borrow from Auden) survived it all.

A traffic-stopping jaywalker, who might have been drawn by Edward Gorey, encountered on the way to the grocery store.

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." It's the birthday of the immortal W.B. Yeats, who gave us the beautiful, scary words for the direction in which the world now seems to be headed. Reread "The Second Coming," and weep.

It's Bloomsday! Gives thanks to James Joyce for changing the course of fiction. And celebrate by turning your day into a Homeric epic of the ordinary and by saying that Yes, you will, yes as often as possible.