Ramblin'

A few things before I really get to work today:

• Kirby Puckett died last night at the age of 45, which is immeasurably sad. Puckett and Tony Gwynn were two of my favorite players when I was really young (say ages 8-10), and obviously they had a lot in common as high-average, hot-fielding African-American superstars in the outfield in the late '80s and '90s. Puckett had an unfortunate post-baseball life; one gets the feeling that it's pretty tough to come up from absolute poverty, make it really big, and then have your career end because you're going blind. It should be emphasized though, that while he was in a Twins uniform, Kirby was always, always mentioned as one of the finer individuals in the game, and he seems to have loved the fans back like few players do now.

• I got Kings and Queen in from Netflix this weekend and had the necessary time (2 hrs 30 min !!) to check it out last night. It's a really awesome approach to its kind of narrative - not slow, but talky, with believable yet fascinating characters and some genuine tension that rises and falls over the course of the film. The writer and director, Arnaud Desplechin, is infuriatingly talented with a camera, and has a keen ear for the kind of dialogue that makes cliched situations new again. Literally, no one in the entire movie says what you expect them to say. Coming up are "Junebug," "Head-On," and "The World" - all part of my ongoing "best 64 films of 2005" project.

Back with more tonight, I hope...