A great day underway in the Hinterlands!

I am typing to you from my kitchen table!

All the cats, except for Lulabelle, who is sleeping here in the kitchen near me, are safely closed up in the upstairs bedrooms, as I await the arrival of the AC guys to install my central air conditioning!

Yes, it’s a balmy 27 degrees Fahrenheit, with a “feels like” temperature of 14!! So I’ll be needing that AC as soon as possible!!

But honestly, I still find it a little hard to comprehend that I’m getting all this stuff done for free. A grant, gang.

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Oh, and speaking of grants–

Lambda Literary just announced that it is the recipient of a $350,000 MacArthur Foundation grant! I think that’s really fantastic, gang.

“Advancing and amplifying LGBTQ literature and supporting LGBTQ writers whose stories preserve legacies and build community.”

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While not on a similar note…

I also thought that this was really cool.

Over in the next county, there is a professional theater company, and they just announced their first ever film festival:

Weathervane Film Festival

“Join us for our first ever film festival! Modeled after other two-week festivals, you’ll be asked to create a short film quickly and with specific guidelines. “

Films must be under 8 minutes and submitted by March 6th.

If you live around here and want to enter a film, or know someone who might, visit this link.

I was really impressed to see all the local businesses that are getting behind this and supporting it. I am planning to attend the festival (on March 13th).

(Oddly enough, as I type this, I’m getting constant updates from Variety for the 2026 Oscar nominations…)

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Ronnie Wood wants you to know that you have until the end of January to buy this new painting (and everything else on his website) at 20% off.

So if you want to get this for me at a decent price (normally $1650), you gotta hurry:

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Ditto if you want to get me anything over at Nick Cave’s Cave Things!

If you subscribe to the mailing list, you get 30% off (!!) plus free pencils with every order (subscribe here!!), until the end of the month.

Including but not limited to this lovely rejected album cover art! $21, before the discount and free pencils! (Adults only please!! “Thank you for your attention to this matter! – DJT”)

I’m sure you can imagine how thrilled I would be to receive this, so I’m thanking you in advance!

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Okay!

Here’s this!

Lisa Robinson was my absolute favorite rock journalist back in the old days.

Here’s this from her Instagram account — Lisa, with Keith and Iggy, in the 80s:

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And here’s this.

I’ve heard that Jack’s spirit is alive & well & living in his old house in Florida (where he died, in bed, in 1969). I really cannot decide if I want to visit there or not. After what I went through encountering Rudolph Valentino’s spirit in his old house in Beverly Hills — he took over my life for over 10 years after that, albeit, in a really beautiful way and it yielded probably my best novel. Still, I’m gettin’ really, really old now…

Anyway:

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Before I sign off for today and get to work on the synopsis for the TV proposal with Sandra, I have to tell you about something that happened during the shift with my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man yesterday.

It turned out that, right when I was getting ready to head into town, we got a crazy snow storm! (We were supposed to have sun yesterday — see yesterday’s post). So we weren’t able to go out for sashimi and sake.

Right before I left here, I grabbed some eggs and cream from my fridge, in case his private nurse still hadn’t done the grocery shopping. She hadn’t — well, she’d done part of it, but hadn’t bought him eggs or cream for his coffee. So when I got to his house and opened the fridge, I was super glad that I’d had that premonition. I was still going to be able to make him his breakfast without having to order in again.

However, I also saw that he still had some of the vodka cocktail thingie that I’d brought him on Saturday! (He does not ever remember to open his refrigerator, which is why he needs someone to stop in everyday and make him, or buy him, a meal).

I was super excited that he was going to be excited all over again about the vodka.

So, a couple hours after he’d eaten his breakfast and had coffee, I brought him out a little cocktail glass with the vodka in it and he was thrilled! He was just having the best day. I went back into the kitchen to get him some potato chips and suddenly saw EIGHT beautiful deer in his backyard. Eight of them. It was incredible. It was like his backyard was so suddenly full of life.

And when I sat back down in the living room with him, TWO Christmas-light thingies, that I hadn’t turned on since New Year’s Day, suddenly came on, all by themselves. Both of them. At the same time. (They run on batteries.)

It suddenly felt like the whole place was full of wonderful spirits. He agreed with me. It was incredible, gang.

I tried to get a photo without invading his privacy and showing you the whole living room, so these are not great photos: