Observer Idea, Film & Book Discussions

This meeting we’ll be discussing a non-fiction book published in 2025:
Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness, by Adam Weymouth. There are available copies of the book in all 3 local library systems.

“The wolf’s resurgence across Europe is a story that will be new to most American readers, and there is nobody better to tell it than Adam Weymouth. Highly recommended!”—New York Times

“Weymouth is an uncommon brand of travel writer, weaving natural history with culture and politics. . . . [Lone Wolf] is a vehicle for Weymouth to trace the fault lines splintering Europe and to examine how people respond when confronted by unwelcome change. . . . To observe and absorb the natural-human interface, as Weymouth does, is an art.”—The Atlantic

“Adam Weymouth has made a formidable, thousand-mile foot-journey, both in the tracks of a wolf and into the heart of human-animal relations in contemporary Europe . . . His prose has a glinting precision of analysis and evocation to it.”—Robert Macfarlane

Finalist for the Baillie Gifford Prize

Sabine Hossenfelder is a German theoretical physicist, author of two books about physics, and a long-standing science popularizer via her blog & youtube channel. Whatever she happens to be talking about she somehow manages to maintain her wry sense of humor, which can be very entertaining. But she’s always totally honest about the issues she discusses, and brooks no BS. Most of her videos are quite technical and address specific scientific questions. But in the video below she asks this more general/sociological question: Why do people hate scientists?

The Christophers is a 2025 British, black-comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh. It stars Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel.

"McKellen’s sparkling performance, an expert and energetic blend of foxy charm and casual cruelty, is what truly sets the film humming. For a film about approaching death, and the sudden, devastating loss of talent that may precede it, it’s a surprisingly sparky movie – one that exudes warmth and life.”

“It’s a fascinating study of power and productivity, masters and muses.”

Life isn’t perfect. That’s been made pretty obvious lately. It’s also never static, but always changing. If we’ve been struck hard by these facts, maybe it would be a bit encouraging to take a look at some art that accepts and makes something positive out of them.

This underlying theme of the fleeting and imperfect nature of life may be one reason why Impressionist art is still appreciated by many ordinary people. Though contemporary artists may feel that it’s passé, cliché, or just too positive for jaded sensibilities or the current horrific state of the world. However, viewed as a counter to these feelings, Impressionist paintings remain the art par excellence of the everyday and, at a deeper level, of the ephemeral and ineffable experience of lives as they are passing - necessarily imperfect, never finished. You could think of it as a western expression of the Zen admonition to live and stay focused in the present as much as possible.

At the time it arose Impressionism was revolutionary, misunderstood, and usually condemned - essentially for what people interpreted as its lack of seriousness. Paintings were often criticized for shoddy craft and being left unfinished. But eventually we’ve come to see it in a very different light (pardon the pun). And as - perhaps - a beacon of the normal, pleasant, moment-by-moment experience that life can sometimes, at its best, be.

Let’s watch the youtube below (a historically based slide-show of Impressionist paintings with explanatory narration ~13 mins). Then we can discuss whether we think it’s serious art, or not? And whether its depiction of ordinary people captured in the unconscious living of their lives is worthy subject matter?