do I dramatically overestimate the newsworthiness of this story? of this city? or is the NYT really just this out of touch? or do they somehow profit by this story not getting covered??

the best recently-released films I saw:

- The Zone of Interest
- Women Talking
- Didi
- Wicked

in that spirit, these are the best films I watched for the first time in 2024:

- The Night of the Hunter
- Beau Travail
- High and Low
- Mirror
- Mulholland Drive
- Suspiria
- Starship Troopers
- Close Up
- Portrait of a lady on fire
- Hara-kiri

(Unranked, unordered, but all five stars)

6. the text deserves to be listened to, to be read aloud. at times I was overwhelmed by how the language flooded me. it tasks me, it heaps me

5. visited Seaman’s Bethel, the chapel where Father Mapple preached his Jonah sermon. the pulpit was a letdown compared to the book’s description. no ladder to be pulled up. but the room is as eerie as Melville described, ringed in memorials to the men who died at the hands of their job

4. the museum’s attention to the wider world’s experience of whaling made for a very robust experience of Moby Dick — a similarly globally-interested work. pictured is a Japanese artwork of whaling.

3. the town of New Bedford used to be overwhelmingly wealthy. felt like visiting the Memphis (FedEx) or Seattle (Amazon) of the 19th century. honestly had no idea before the visit

2. surprisingly crowded. religion may be on the wane in general in the US, but pilgrimage not so much

1. it’s a sort of liberal New England pilgrimage. so many editions of the book mulling about, many Bible-like: paper-thin, gilt-edge pages with ribbon bookmarks and leather covers. a totemic text, approaching scripture status