Some thoughts from this weekend:

• Aimee and I started planning for the wedding yesterday over beers at Dunn Gaherin’s in Newton, the way it should be done. I faded after an hour or so, but I think we got a good start.
• I was surprised to find out that my favorite subversive New Yorker cartoonist, Matthew Diffee, is actually a Bob Jones University graduate, among many other interesting things I found out from a Sunday New York Times article.
• I ran along Memorial Drive today, against the current of thousands of people engaged in the Walk for Hunger. Though I was the only person I saw heading my direction, I was only told once that I was “going the wrong way,” as a teenage boy informed me. Seeing all of the kids walking reminded me of my years doing the Walk for Hope in elementary school and junior high. It was a long day of walking with friends, punctuated by extended conversations, stops at McDonald’s and TCBY, arguments about when to get up and start moving again after lying on the side of the path for half an hour, and water fights. Apparently it’s now called the “Walk & Roll for Hope,” not to be confused with “Wok ‘N Roll” in Manassas or Pasadena or Cambridge, UK.
• I enjoyed reading that Stephen Merritt watched all 36 Ozu films when the retrospective screened at Film Forum in New York. I’ve already missed far too many to keep up with that amazing achievement, but when I catch an Ozu film later this week, and the Magnetic Fields later this month, I’ll be sure to look for the connection. The interview in Salon is worth clicking through the bad Last Samurai Flash ad for, or whatever the DayPass trial du jour happens to be.