Effortless

Reviews by Richard Nelson

Thanks to everyone who has expressed their sympathy in the past week. Things are still not back to normal in our house, but we're slowly adjusting to the empty place in the living room and in our life. It's hard to believe that a week ago at this time we were so glad that Raider was going to have surgery--we finally knew what was wrong and how to fix it! We had no choice, but one does wonder what one would have done differently given the opportunity. I don't think we could have loved him more than we did...

Anyhow...I thought a return to blogging might do me some good. And I have good news--for me, at least. I checked my Amazon reviewer rank just now and discovered that, without posting a review since early June, I've climbed to number 3,185. I don't know what's spurring on the sudden climb (I've improved twice in a week), but I'll take it. (I suspect all the reviews I wrote of Bob Dylan SACDs more than a year ago are slowly passing the 10-vote threshold, which I've heard gets them an extra point in Amazon's secret formula.)

A review of the Six Feet Under finale, which I've now watched three times, should be coming sometime soon. [Update: After typing away for a while, I've realized that any review I might write would not do the finale justice. So I'll say only this: Frances Conroy deserves a trophy for her work on this episode, which was the finest finale of any series I have ever watched. The last ten minutes were positively incredible. And the extra info offered on HBO's Web site provided a final grace note to the most satisfying conclusion Alan Ball could have conceived. If you loved the show, I don't know how you wouldn't adore this finale.]