Babylon Dir. Damien Chazelle 189 min. Damien Chazelle’s Babylon opens, more or less, with a big pile of elephant shit. This is what is called a statement of intent. Should you come expecting a handsome, lacquered treatment of Hollywood in the late 1920s, when the silent era was making its transition to sound, Chazelle wants to make it plain that you’re not going to get it. His ‘20s are roaring, starting with a house party of Satyricon-esque delirium, during which the appearance of the elephant is merely the capper to an evening of orgiastic excess, funded by an industry that had exploded in popularity and cultural cachet.

Sorry everyone, I thought I had enough time before any transactions would be announced, but this was submitted before the Pirates made several moves Thursday evening. I’m keeping it unchanged, because it still represents the absolute starting point for the offseason. The offseason is getting ready to kick into high gear, which means Pittsburgh Pirate fans everywhere will wonder just how much payroll is and how much space there is for offseason moves.

Dear Community Today is exciting, with a big, news-loaded newsletter. As always, thanks for reading. Not only am I sharing a little story (both written and audio!) about why I wrote Tenderheart and a sneak peek recipe from the book, but I’m also announcing our pre-order bonus incentive for the US edition. It’s a good one too. Read on. This ebook gave me the chance to feature two vegetables that I love, but which did not get their own chapters in Tenderheart - corn and green beans.

Part one of this series of writing about the market dynamics of the IPL auctions can be viewed here. This gives an introduction to some of the areas which will be discussed in the coming pieces of writing in the series. Buy Me A Coffee I spoke a little about the stages of the auction cycles in part one and how that these can change the constantly changing market value of players both in the tournament and for the available talent in the auction pool, and I want to get into much more depth here on the topic of player ages, and how current expected performance levels are not the same as future expected performance levels.

Try to engage with even the most casual Swiftie about the mildest analysis of Taylor Swift and you’ll be met with the same retort: she’s such a great lyricist, they’ll say. Don’t worry, I’m not here to argue that today, nor I am interested in drawing some distinction between the high art of Poetry™ and the low poetics of what Taylor does. I have written many times against such distinctions.