ululate!

What a Groundhog Day for America. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman is dead of a probable drug overdose. I thought the man was a very talented actor, but as I've noted before, he struck me as awfully boring in person. I watched his lackadaisical interview on "Inside the Actors Studio"; he seemed half-asleep. And that makes his death by drugs all the more surprising: he struck me as so square, so pedestrian in real life. Apparently, he wasn't: postmortem news articles have dredged up old interviews in which Hoffman spoke frankly about his drug addiction, which ran deep. He had supposedly been clean for several years, but only recently had checked himself into detox/rehab. I guess the monkey on his back got him in the end.

I might not admire the man, but I do admire his art. He was good in "Boogie Nights," a decent villain in "Mission Impossible 3," and excellent as a scandal-prone priest in "Doubt," where he was every inch Meryl Streep's thespian equal. I hear he was also a fan of the stage, as am I, even though I so rarely see any theater. Hoffman's death is a loss to both the artistic community and the world.

On a lighter ululate! note: today, we also mourn for the Denver Broncos who, as of this writing, are down 29-0 against the Seattle Seahawks. I'm not watching the game—I'm merely following the online marquee—but if I were watching, I don't think I could bear to see more than a quarter. That's some bloody stomping.


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