Love her sound and the song….
Movies Watched -- Lady Macbeth (2017)
89 minute running time so the perfect length. SPOILERS. I’m not sure why it’s titled Lady Macbeth, she doesn’t appear to be filled with guilt … a pretty girl in a loveless Victorian marriage … she has torrid sex with a gorgeous half-black, Derek-Jeter-like groomsman … scandalous of course … ends up poisoning her father-in-law … and then kills her husband … later she kills her husband’s half-black child (whom he had with another servant, some time before). Maybe you’re supposed to sympathize with her at first, but you don’t in the end, because she’s murderous after all. And she gets away with it: the groomsman and a black maid are taken away for the final crime.
This was made by a guy who looks like a trust fund kid. The lead actress is pretty, but there’s not much of a story here … the class and race and gender politics of it all seem confused.. Is she a seductress or a victim … or both? It’s a simple movie, all shot in one spot, could be a stage play. I didn’t hate it, but I’d never recommend it either. Yellow rating.
Claudia Puig correctly writes: “…it ultimately leaves the viewer unmoved, and possibly confounded … She starts out as an avenging angel and then devolves into almost campy serial-killer criminality … Birch and Oldroyd show little willingness to delve too deeply into the [race issues].“
Oliver Jones correctly writes: “Oldroyd appears to want to say something about race— Anna the maid is black and Sebastian and several other prominent characters appear to be of mixed race— but as with his thoughts on class, whatever his point is seems lost or a least clouded upon delivery … a film that feels emotionally vacant and somewhat pointless beyond its desire to disrupt the typical period piece.“
Tied up too long
Someone Else's Dime
Jewel from February 1999 … terrible quality but I love this song and her imperfect teeth (fixed once she got big):
Movies Watched -- Stronger (2017)
119 minute running time so at least 20 to 30 minutes too long. Boston Marathon bombing story. I like Jake Gyllenhaal even though he has an impossible to spell last name. I think he’s talented and hard working (“Nightcrawler” was one of my Ten Best movies from 2014).
There was a class angle here that interested me … Jake’s family is working class, stereotyped as a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, dumb bunch. But his girlfriend is from a more solidly middle class family, so the dynamic between her and his morons-with-hearts-of-gold family was fun to watch.
They CGI’d out his legs to get those realistic looking stumps… very high tech. There was a weird sort of product placement for CostCo employee healthcare benefits, which gave me pause… I’d love to know what his whole recovery cost in dollars and cents terms, given the obscene costs people face in the corrupt US healthcare system.
It wasn’t terrible, but I can’t recommend it either… yellow rating.
Not your fault, Tatiana
Ten Best Books of 2018
The 10 Best Books of 2018, according to the New York Times Book Review editors:
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday — female, no birthdate but looks young
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai — female, born in 1978.
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani — female, born 1981
There There by Tommy Orange — male, born in 1982
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan — female, born in 1978
American Prison by Shane Bauer — male, no birthdate but looks young
Educated by Tara Westover — female, born in 1986
Frederick Douglass by David W. Blight — male, born in 1949
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan — male, born in 1955
Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs — female, born in 1978
The books about Jobs looks interesting… maybe I’ll try to read them all?
Movies Watched -- Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)
108 minute running time so 10 to 20 minutes too long. The backstory of the Wonder Woman comic book (“carefully crafted psychological propaganda inserted into a populist medium to further the cause of equal rights for women“) is sort of interesting, but I wasn’t thrilled with this movie.
Professor Marston and his foul-mouthed wife have a lifelong ménage à trois with one of his students. He had children with both women … they were into some kinky stuff (bondage, S&M, etc.) back in the 30’s and 40’s … the sex didn’t disturb me nearly as much as the gratuitous swearing. He came up with the comic book idea to make a living, and in a way popularize his DISC theory (dominance, influence, submission, compliance), after he was fired from Radcliffe.
Yellow rating at best. These people were ostracized as reprobates then, but it all seems rather tame now.
Cut the kink
Movies Watched -- The Machinist (2004)
98 minutes so the perfect length, but I still watched it at 1.5x because it was disturbing and I can’t seem to watch anything at normal speed anymore. An emaciated Christian Bale, scary thin, makes watching him very painful, you have an animal response of horror seeing someone who looks like that. Anyway, this is a creepy movie, a sort of mystery / thriller, ultimately about the power of guilt, but I don’t want to spoil it.
They found some crazy Spaniards to finance this and filmed it in Barcelona of all places. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a hooker with a heart of gold, yet again. Heavy on the Hitchcockian music, channeling old Bernard Herrmann.
Losing your mind, mental health, lack of sleep, delusions, the consequences of violence … all interesting ideas, but I wasn’t super thrilled with it in the end … a yellow rating at best.
Stephanie Zacharek correctly writes: “… ultimately, the picture feels like a cheap thriller dressed up for the art-house set.”
Do I look OK?
Movies Watched -- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
115 minute running time so at least 15 to 25 minutes too long. A W.D. By movie (written and directed by the same guy… and oh shit, he’s a “playwright”).
I hated this movie. It’s pointlessly violent and foul-mouthed. They’re playing an unspeakable tragedy and crime, and a mother’s grief, for laughs.
Drag out old Woody Harrelson to play a cracker cop, yet again. (And why would he have a pretty, Alicia Silvestone-ish wife, 30 years his junior?) Stick Frances McDormand in a blue jumpsuit and have her kick kids in the groin. Ha ha. Let’s all have a chuckle about those white trash morons out there in Missouri, shall we?
Red rating, avoid. One of the worst movies I’ve had to suffer through from 2017.
Lessons from Momma
Notes for Chat with Traders, Episode 168
Episode 168 ... Anand Sanghvi ... "Sang Lucci" (95:20)
Prop trading model doesn't make sense any more, commissions too low
Prop trading firms now sell education
Prop firms take the other side of their own (poor) traders' trades
Recently moved to Puerto Rico
Live there 183 days and get serious tax breaks
No federal income tax, no capital gains tax in Puerto Rico [really??]
Sales tax in Puerto Rico is 11.5%
Island living very expensive though... everything is imported
Ton of crypto guys in Puerto Rico, waiting to take gains tax-free [gains?]
Crypto guys are now all "distraught"
Electing to mark-to-market is important if you're an active trader
Trading under a business entity, you can deduct a lot of things
Pay the $500 to set up an LLC if you are seriously active
Had a hedge fund, had a couple of bad months, biggest investor pulled out, shut it down
95% long options strategy in the past
Looking to set up a new hedge fund in Puerto Rico, with less risky strategy, more automation
Trading strategy has changed completely in the last three years
Now he's 60% short options, 40% long options
Knows immediately if he's wrong when there's momentum
No momentum then you are in la-la land, no idea if you're right or wrong
Theta -- time component to options pricing
Trades NFLX, AMZN, NVDA (etc.) options
Used to be up a million in a month, then down 500K the next month, returns were too volatile
Holds things for one, two, three days max
Has traded options on the same stocks, the Usual Suspects, since 2010
AAPL options are so thick you can put 250K position on and take it off in minutes
You need portfolio margin to get more creative
Right now he's swing long TSLA ... long March 2019 400 strike calls
Sells short-dated TSLA calls against his core position to collect income
Follows his instincts ... has been trading for over a decade
If your trades are too short-term, you're going to get shaken out
There's a fine line between following your instincts and being stubborn
Instinct tells you to get out, but you're too stubborn to get out
Where are you trying to go with your $5,000 account?
Hedging allows you to stay alive until volatility returns
Find what strategy works for you and when it works for you
BTFD "buy the dip" worked for six years in a row
Trying to make your losses back -- that's how people go to zero
Your instinct will try to save you but you'll be stubborn and ignore it
Find ways to hedge your life and who you are as a person -- guard against depression
Figure out how to protect yourself from yourself
If you hold options till expiration, "the shit's going to zero"
There's a fine line between conviction and recklessness
If you're too attached to a position, you won't be able to cut it
After 2007, high frequency trading changed everything
All markets are emotional ... all auction markets are the same
Retail traders can't make any money because they're too emotional
Retail traders know they suck but they have no solution
With automation, you're only as good as your code
[He sounds like a profane Jim Cramer, not just the voice, but the pacing ... it's fascinating]
Interesting idea about using facial recognition technology to save you from yourself
You have an app on your phone that saves you from yourself
[Segment from 1:16:50 to 1:17:20 made me fall off chair laughing … “your daughter’s mother”]
Script stops you from trading the same ticker repeatedly within X amount of time
You need to create a behavioral profile of yourself as a trader, like Facebook has of you as a human
Multi-level marketing thrives in places where people have no opportunity and they're ignorant
Most people can't stick it out until they make it trading, it's too difficult, they quit (and who can blame them?)
Website: www.sanglucci.com
Twitter: @sanglucci
Love Me True
Greek dad, Jamaican mom … not sure why she changes the lyric to “please love me too,” “say you love me too,” but… wow. (Bacharach always thought that Aretha’s version was rushed … and he was right, as this cover proves.)
Also check out: Lianne LaHavas NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert