Thoughts on the arts, society, politics, and various geeky topics.
This is the blog of Janice Dawley. Why is it called “Central Cortex”? Well, the Cortex was the interplanetary equivalent of the internet in Firefly, a show I was totally into back in 2003 when I first created this blog, and I’ve never changed the name since then. Strangely enough, I’ve barely written anything about Firefly here, but I’ve written a LOT about other TV shows and movies, as well as literature, politics, various cultural topics, and my own life.
Since early 2024, I’ve been a part of a group sharing music with each other on a website called Music League. Connected to the music streaming platform Spotify, activity is structured around customizable public or private “leagues” in which people vie for points awarded by other participants. I was leery of joining at first because I didn’t like the thought of music...
This year I managed to watch all ten Best Picture nominees before the winners are announced. Huzzah! Below are my thoughts on them, starting with the ones I liked most and descending from there. Here’s my usual warning: there may be some plot details revealed below. If you are spoiler-averse, beware! Sinners (4 stars) More than any movie I’ve seen in a long time, this gets across the...
It’s that time of year again! The eve of the Academy Awards. For those who are interested, here are my thoughts on 9 of the 10 Best Picture nominees. It was a pretty strong year for films, IMO. My favorites were American Fiction, Barbie, and Past Lives, but all have their virtues and rewards. Note: there may be some spoilers here, so beware if you care about that. American Fiction, dir...
A rundown of my favorite books, movies, and TV shows of 2023.
The beginning of this year has been much more full of work than I’d like, so I have not had time to engage in many recreational activities. But I have managed to see all but one of the Oscars best picture nominees as well as quite a few others in the major categories. It was a strong year for films (but a bad one for donkeys). Read on for more details, which I have tried to keep (mostly) non...
I’ve been watching with sickened fascination as Twitter has been ripped apart by a filthy rich individual who decided to buy it on a whim (which he tried to take back, but couldn’t) and on day one began “improving” it — mostly by firing people. A few weeks in, the place is a dumpster fire with only a third of its former workforce on the job and knowledgeable...
Here in Northwest Vermont, we’ve had outbreaks of spongy moths for the past two years. These pests eat vast quantities of leaves when in their caterpillar phase and especially love munching on oak trees. If their population is large enough on a given tree, the leaves can be entirely consumed by the end of June, leaving the tree bare if/until it can grow a new set of leaves later in the summer. My...
Kevin died of Covid-19 on December 12th, 2021. These are some words I shared at his memorial ceremony on June 14th, 2022. Kevin and I met almost 40 years ago as students at Kimball Union Academy. We were both geeks, that is, socially awkward people who liked computers and cared about getting good grades. We fell in with a group of like-minded individuals and experienced a few years of gripping...
Last month I learned about a movie-watching challenge called Noirvember that was founded by “cinema fanatic” Marya E. Gates. The goal is to watch one film noir movie a day during the month of November. It was a daunting prospect, but I’ve always been interested in the genre, and this month happened to be a mostly fallow period in my TV viewing schedule, so I jumped in by signing up for a 2-week...
After watching the first season of Loki on Disney+ (highly recommended!), I realized I barely remembered the events of the first Thor movie in which Loki was introduced. Plot points from the film are mentioned several times in the show, so I decided to rewatch it, and just for kicks write a full-on recap – an activity that is particularly fun when the film being recapped isn’t great art. Spoiler:...