Went with my eldest to premier of an excellent documentary and Q&A about the antebellum tourism industry and its dark underbelly. The film, “Natchez,” named after the Mississippi city, won the Tribeca Festival’s Best Documentary award for 2025. Officially in theaters 1/30/26

Another self-debasing national embarrassment.

There are even some creators who feel “ripped off” but can’t manage to absorb the hits like a billionaire tech bro

1/ Qatar is not a party to the treaty that created the ICC and could not be compelled to cooperate with the ICC. But if the protest movement were really about saving Gazans and not condemning Israel, then it could’ve pressured Qatar — an important U.S. ally — to extradite Hamas’ leaders on 10/8/23

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“Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” on Broadway, 11/30/24. Excellent and poignant production. Adam Lambert’s performance stood up to Alan Cummings’ from the 1998 Broadway production I saw, and in some ways surpassed it.

Knicks win by 27 and tie their franchise record of 45 assists in a single game

Maria Schneider Orchestra celebrates 30 years, Town Hall 11/23/24. My favorite jazz orchestra not only b/c of the creative ingenuity of her compositions and the excellence of her musicians. It’s also an impossible feat to pay a whole jazz orchestra for 30 yrs in this economic environment for artists

FYI

James Baldwin’s 1961 trip to Israel memorialized in his “Letters From a Journey” left him much more ambivalent about his observations there than Ta-Nehesi Coates in “The Message,” and far less damning. I wonder what book Coates would have written had he retraced Baldwin’s steps in the present.

The great Yamandu Costa at Joe’s Pub. Brilliant, flawless performance, as always.