Today's listening: Andrew Hill, Point of Departure; Various Artists, Dubhead Volume 2; Neil Young, Weld; various stuff by Bill Laswell and friends on Axiom records

It's snowing... little tiny flakes for now. Barb's been wishing for days. I know Joanie was praying for NO snow, 'cause she has to get herself and family down Lord's Hill and that must be a challenge and a half even with a 4WD Sub. But Barb wants it in the inner-6-year-old way, 'cause snow is cool. And hey, it's almost New Year's. We did get a white Christmas, why not?

Mark and Barb go to the movies: 21 Grams (dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) Give it up for this director: he's after the big game. Love, faith, death, guilt, endurance, meaning in a meaningless and God-less universe--they're the themes in this film the same way they were in the amazing Amores Perros last year. He also uses the same washed-out, grainy visual palette and the same intricate, fragmented story line that only gradually reveals connections of choice and coincidence among the film's characters. This is a dream cast, for sure. Benicio del Toro has the world-weary gravity he displayed in Traffic, Sean Penn the explosiveness and tenderness he had in Mystic River. Naomi Watts is as jaw-dropping in her descent from the normalcy of her contented, middle-class life to absolute desolation as she was in her transformation from the bouncy Betty Elms to the feral Diane Selwyn in Mulholland Drive. (I find her screen beauty perfect in its imperfection--like the great European actresses of the Fifties and Sixties.) This is definitely not a feel-good movie, but one that puts us through the wringer to feel how transitory (and how precious) are the loving connections that bind us. In his ability to plumb the depths of the human heart, I don't think there's a director who can touch Inarritu right now.