I watched the new Netflix film “Don’t Look Up” this evening, knowing nothing about it. I laughed, I cried. It reminded me of “Melancholia,” except that almost everything about it was different. It’s truly comedic and also a scathing indictment of our human capacity for ignorance and denial. Imagine the US president (Meryl Streep) in a ball cap leading her followers in chanting “Don’t Look Up! Don’t Look Up!” The cadence of that phrase has a familiar ring… To say anything more would be a spoiler, but I’ll add only that it has a delightful ending: don’t turn it off early. I’m grateful for skillful satire.

Speaking of the cosmos, R. Hubbell included a link in Today’s Edition to an excerpt from Carl Sagan’s book Pale Blue Dot, which is worth a second read, or a first if you haven’t ever. And a third, fourth, and so on. Hubbell suggests it “is an appropriate reflection on our place in the universe and deserves to be read out loud at family gatherings as we close the chapter on a challenging year.”

Merry Christmas!