9/12/25

I have arrived back home from Toronto after being away for a little over two weeks covering Telluride and TIFF. I’m currently writing a wrap-up piece that’ll be a roundup of the films I didn’t get to cover for Screen Daily/International, like Frankenstein, Hamnet, The Smashing Machine and more. In the meantime, I’m watching a few extra screeners that may also be included.

This morning I went back to the my day job supervising tours at Wrigley Field. I always forget how much I love that ballpark until I’m back following a long trip. I have two favorite parts of the day. The first is when I arrive: I go underground to clock-in, come up into the main concourse from the basement, and then run up the stairs into the seating bowl. Wrigley was built in 1914 (it’s the second oldest ballpark in the majors), and it’s indicative of what made those old ballparks special. They really knew how to dramatically leverage space. When you come up the stairs to see the field, the green grass, verdant ivy and towering scoreboard whose flag poles poke the sky sort of explode in your face. You can’t believe something could look so perfect, so genuine and free.

The second best part of my day is near the end. The ballpark a is living, breathing thing. It wakes up and it goes to sleep. When I arrive, it’s still slumbering, waiting. Soon the employees begin to arrive: guest services, security, and concessions—and others go on break (the facility workers who arrived at 5am to clean and wash the ballpark as though it were a body preparing for the day). The chatter rises. Before long the players begin arriving by bike and by car. The music turns on. The grills fire up and the entire building spells like sausages and hot dogs, onions and beer. Everything is alive, yearning to seen, heard and experienced. It’s my 11th season working there, and I don’t know how I could live without it.