Just stepping in for a moment to recommend some things.

Last night: this intensely well-acted and plainly emotional narrative film called Sherrybaby, with Maggie Gyllenhaal (sp) as a young, trashy, recovering heroin addict just out of jail trying to stay clean and get back to being close with her daughter. Not a manipulative moment in it, as far as I could tell with my fairly sensitive emotional-manipulation meter-reader. Not a clever film, but very dense and varied.

This morning: recent album Real Emotional Trash from The Jicks, Steve Malkmus’s band. He’s got such good sound. I love him. I used to be irritated by his narrative songs, the ones with little stories about quirky characters, a la Rocky Raccoon, but I’ve even capitulated to loving those now. My children adore “Willy Hopscotch” off this album. I still prefer the more abstracted songs. But I’m so glad he’s back to guitars.

What these have in common: Emotion. Ex-addicts. People with kids.