The Friday Article Roundup
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Hey What the FARers, enjoy some articles about:
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At Vogue Corey Seymore details how the late Brian Wilson “invented vibes”:
Yes, start with Pet Sounds, the Rosetta Stone of modern pop and an album still capable of new revelations. (Paul McCartney, again: “No one is educated musically ‘til they’ve heard Pet Sounds.”) Listen to it with the best headphones you can find, or on the greatest stereo system you have access to. Go deep: Follow what one single instrument is doing—or listen to this mind-blowing archaeological dig of outtakes from the “Good Vibrations” sessions. From there, I’d go backward, not forward, to the Beach Boys’ supposedly simpler earlier work—listen to 1964’s “Don’t Worry Baby,” which you’ve probably heard before, but then listen to the lyrics and realize that while it’s nominally the silly tale of a drag-race challenge gone wrong, it’s also one of the most carefully constructed, yearning, and transportive songs ever written, one that showcased the kind of haunting melancholy also heard in “In My Room,” from the year before, a song some have credited as a kind of ur-precursor to emo.
For Mubi, Mark Asch surveys the films of Jia Zhangke and finds connections across time and space:
In seemingly every pre-Code film, as in practically every Jia film, there is a crime subplot, a display of entrepreneurial opportunism in an economy where everything is up for grabs, manifested in a bootlegging racket or a stable of bar girls. Jia’s cinema likewise emulates the pre-Code era in the ubiquity of nightclubs as a location—though Jia has never made a musical, Zhao has on multiple occasions played the Shanxi equivalent of a chorus girl, and dance tracks are a constant source of source of hedonic abandon in his films, equivalents of the Jazz Age standards that move the pre-Code melodramas along.
Bill Ryan reviews David Mamet’s new/old novel/folk tale collection/screenplay for The Bulwark:
It’s difficult, in this venue, to get across how much of Russian Poland’s story is communicated visually rather than through dialogue. But this is very much a script written by a man who intended to direct: visuals, shot descriptions, and even camera edits are described at length, broken up by streams of conversation that is sometimes of a spiritual nature, sometimes just pure gossip. This is done in the same way that a film heavy with talk might find relief, or a heightening of emotion, through bursts of silence. I can imagine one fable, late in the script, being told entirely through images, with no dialogue whatsoever (not that there’s so very much of it to begin with). This fable is much darker than the life-affirming tale of the Beggar (Russian Poland can get pretty bleak at times), and it ends with a punchline—I think a certain gallows humor is at play here, but as far as gallows humor goes, it’s pretty heavy on gallows—that is entirely visual. (Words are spoken, but don’t need to be.) Granted, these visuals include words written on a piece of paper—words that reveal the aforementioned punchline—but this is all part of the silent film grammar Mamet aspires to.
Alex Pappademas takes to GQ to warn parents not to foist your favorite pop culture onto your children:
As they get older and they become part of the theoretical target audience for the music and books and movies that were crucially important to you at that age, you will still feel a powerful temptation to try and re-create your initial encounters with what you think of as “the good shit” by passing it on to them. Do not do this. Do not even attempt to do this. Leave the room if you feel yourself starting to do this. Go reread, if necessary, the instructive Onion article “Cool Dad Raising Daughter On Media That Will Put Her Entirely Out of Touch With Her Generation.” Your job is to teach them self-respect, kindness, and critical thinking. You are allowed to answer any question you are asked about pop culture, and you are allowed to strongly imply, if the chance to do so arises, that any given Republican politician is evil. But that’s it. Other than that, just shut up and let them watch terrible movies and listen to terrible music, because your job is to make them feel empowered to make their own choices and follow their own preferences without needing the approval of an adult authority figure. This has all kinds of potential benefits beyond mere pop-cultural taste, but first and foremost what you’ll get in return is a child who, chances are, likes good shit, because they’ve never been forced to watch or listen to someone else’s idea of “the good shit” against their will.
The Defector‘s Diana Moskovitz details the unique and lasting qualities of WTF with Marc Maron as the podcast prepares to end:
But that is not why WTF outlasted and outperformed nearly every podcast from its era. It’s because, as McDonald realized when he worked with Maron on progressive talk radio at Air America, Maron is so spectacularly good at commanding an audience on a mic, and so completely fearless in baring his every insecurity, and it is especially because that openness makes whoever is opposite of him so comfortable baring their own in turn. Even as the show grew, it stayed true to its purpose—real conversations, after a real monologue to start the show—and though it evolved, it never lost sight of its core principles. The show stayed independent, always came out twice a week, and didn’t shy away from its success or run away from its failures. It was, from start to finish, a deeply human show. That’s just one reason why there probably won’t be another show like WTF again.
About the writer
C. D. Ploughman
The weary Ploughman is a writer and filmmaker, focusing these days on documentary and educational projects. He obsesses over movies with his very patient wife and children.
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What did we watch?
Babylon 5, Season Two, Episode Thirteen, “Hunter, Prey”
Really strong episode this one, and a rare human-heavy episode that’s really fun. When contemplating this, I did realise that Kosh plays heavily into it and is responsible for a lot of it being cool, but I do think the human stuff is really fun for a change. Once again, the actual reveals turn out to be miles better than the setup, as we find just bits and pieces more about the Vorlons and all of it is bitchin’, even the stuff that’s clearly setting up other stuff. My favourite is Kosh’s bizarrely strong reaction to the phrase “What do you want?”, which is the catchphrase of those aliens behind the scenes of the recent war, but I also love the reveal that Vorlon’s use organic technology – it was only last week that I observed to Dave Shutton that Kosh’s suit looks like it’s breathing, and it is!
The implications behind the conspiracy in the human government also fucking rocks – I love the way it plays out here, with a guy on the run because he has evidence the current president was completely fine when he called in sick on the day his predecessor blew up on his spaceship. Sheridan is approached by someone higher up on the food chain and given his mission in the first place, forcing him to navigate between one of the President’s people. This is a big advantage of science fiction – being able to events shake out on a scale that would be less plausible in more realistic fiction. Like, we’ll never have Vic affecting the Presidency on The Shield.
This episode implies – and I do believe I’m misreading – that Kosh finds humans as incomprehensible as they find him, which is very funny. Sheridan is at his most sympathetic when he wants to figure out what Kosh is. There’s a really cool illithid-like costume/prop in this episode that has nothing to do with anything – it’s a patient Franklin is looking at when he’s interrupted.
Kosh totally carries this one, and he does rule! And yeah, I picked up on the “what do you want” thing as well, sometimes the worldbuilding on the show can be clumsy but that was nicely done.
Kojak, “I Could Kill My Wife’s Lawyer” – Another one of those “detectives we never met before” episodes, but a good one. One of the detectives has a pregnant wife who is tired of the cop wife life and files for divorce. Only her lawyer is a pit bull and goes so far as to hire someone to destroy the cop’s boat to claw back the insurance. But the arsonist dies and the lawyer tries to pin everything on the cop. Which leads to the other detective, who just retired but crosses a few lines as a civilian to clear his ex-partner. It’s that last element, and Kojak’s rejection of it, that really make this one. The lawyer is played by David Ladd, son of the Shane actor, one time husband of Charlie’s Angel Cheryl Ladd, and later a producer like his brother Alan Jr. (if not as successful).
MST3K, “Danger!! Death Ray” – At least my third viewing, and it’s as funny as ever. And as bad as the movie is, that score is fun. Plus Best Brains is starting to include extras with the movies on YouTube – does anyone else post DVD extras? – and this featured a 2013 interview with Mike Nelson about life after MST3K. I have never really thought much about The Film Crew.
Live Baseball – A friend was promoting a local historical spot on Tourism Night at the KC Monarchs, so our family joined theirs for some American Association baseball on a lovely night. Couldn’t help think of recent watch Eephus, though even as ragged as semi-pro ball can get it’s not that ragged. It was $2 dollar hot dog night (not to mention $3 beer), so we loaded up on ballpark food. The Ploughboy and his friend played in a grassy area just beyond the outfield fence, one time the foam ball they were tossing around got away from them and onto the field. Between batters the right fielder kindly retrieved it and tossed it back. They could lean over the wall and hope for a home run to come their way. The local team made a valiant comeback from a 9-1 deficit to lose 9-6, and I don’t know if I’ve seen a game with each side hitting a grand slam. Always something unique in a game.
Wooooo live baseball! And hell yeah in particular for non-major league games. $2 dogs! $3 beers!!!!! Amazing.
My arms were too full of dogs and beers to doff my cap during the anthem, paradoxically making me the most reverent to the American experience.
Woooooo live baseball!!
MacGruber
* “Just tell me what you want me to fuuuuuck!”
* MacGruber accidentally blowing up his own team is an all-time comedic highlight.
* Will Forte kills the monologue where he explains his backstory with Cunth, keeping everything pitch-perfect on the “bittersweet, wistful, ‘how did it all go wrong?'” tone even as he’s recounting seducing Cunth’s pregnant fiancée (and asking her to get an abortion so they can “start fresh”).
* Magnificent Val Kilmer exasperation as he has to explain to MacGruber that he’s framing him.
* “All of it was what not to do, but that’s an important part of the learning process.”
“Tuggggggg! Tugggggg! Are you guys okay? Tugggggg!” Also RIP Val Kilmer, “OH MY GOD, IT’S ME, I’M DOING IT, I’M THE ONE WHO’S FRAMING YOU” is some peak cinematic exasperation. (Darn, you already said it.)
The Singing Detective, Episode 1, “Skin” – Psoriatic patient and detective writer Philip Marlowe (Michael Gambon), baking from fever and in chronic pain inside an 80s British hospital, remembers his childhood and rewrites his own book The Singing Detective, dramatized throughout. Narratives start intersecting and sometimes people start lip synching old Great American Songbook pieces, which he often doesn’t mind.
Bingeing so I can talk about it for the Broad Sound podcast recording on the 16th. The entire six episodes are on YouTube and while it’s on DVD, I suspect it’s British origin and lack of availability otherwise is part of why The Sopranos gets a lot of credit for the show’s innovations later seen on Buffy, Twin Peaks, and future Golden Age shows, including hallucinatory musical numbers, images, and dreams, intertextual and meta narrative, and a self-loathing, cynical, yet sympathetic anti-hero protagonist. Fundamentally a great detective story, though the case is semi-meaningless, because it gets that the heart of it is Oedipal (and not exactly the motherfucking kind, though Marlowe does have Freudian preoccupations): the case isn’t about who done it, but who’s solving it, what you must find out. (Oedipus in the climax of Oedipus the King says “I have to know!”) Dennis Potter famously wrote the scripts while struggling with psoriatic arthritis and Marlowe’s lament that “I’ve got to work, I’ve got to think” might as well be autobiographical, how else can you escape the pain, how else do you solve your illness and your life?
Wondering now if this could’ve been a possible influence on Stephen King’s short story “Umney’s Last Case,” which involves a writer with debilitating shingles (as well as several other misfortunes) eventually succeeding in writing himself into his mystery stories and “stealing” his 1930s detective’s life. Obviously far from a one-to-one, but I could see it as an element going into the mix–but then, I don’t know how likely a guy in Maine in 1993 would’ve been to see a British series from 1986.
King probably saw it when PBS aired it in the 1980s. That’s where I taped it on VHS. I’m pretty certain that the BBC version ran before 1986. The Hollywood remake came out, I believe, in 1981 or 2.
2002 you mean? Yeah, that’s almost certainly how my dad saw it before he got the DVD.
Came back after realizing i was confusing the dates with PENNIES FROM HEAVEN. My guess is that I taped it around ’87 or ’88
Ha, I’ve known of the show but not the psorias aspect and as soon as I read that I thought of “Umney’s Last Case” as well. An odd one but I like it, in some ways it prefigures what King gets up to in the end of the Dark Tower series.
Frasier, “Ham Radio” – inspired by Conor and Simon to rewatch, and maybe wasn’t the best idea to watch something that funny when I’ve got this cough.
Just peak Frasier throughout:
– Taking the role of the detective for himself
– Critiquing the professional voice actor (“You said my German sounded too Austrian, my Irishman sounded more Catholic than Protestant, and my dwarf sounded too short!”)
– Cutting Gil’s favourite line about the “fens and spinneys”, followed by Gil’s total commitment to getting the line in
– Throwing Niles in to do six different characters without any prep time (Niles’ gallery of facial expressions with every new character is phenomenal)
– Daphne and Martin listening at home and getting increasingly confused
– Ending up nine minutes short!
Gil coming in as Clive’s brother Nigel made me almost cry laughing as did “Thus ends the entire family line.”
Commentary track of NIGHT MOVES. The film provides an interesting contrast to THE SINGING DETECTIVE. The protagonist pretty much goes on a missing persons case in order to escape, rather than solve, his sundry domestic problems rising from his taciternity and self repression, only to find that the case leads him back to those issues, and foreshadows his own fate. Apparently the back half of Alan Sharp’s original screenplay pretty much abandoned the mystery plot and had Harry and the femme fatale go off on their own adventure, which strayed into even darker territory than what even occurs in the final version.
If I was to add anything to April’s article is that, in watching this with most of the dialogue muted, Arthur Penn’s background with the actor’s studio is pretty apparent, especially with regard to Hackman and Jennifer Warren’s performances. constituting, I think, a major contribution to neo-noir stylistics. One film criticism stance I’ve long held is that method acting suppressed the iconic performative style of classical Hollywood before 1950, leading to the genre’s decline. Here they co-exist, particularly in the scenes in the Florida Keys. The story plays out like THE DAIN CURSE in a Hemingway setting, and when I watch this again I’ll try to run with this idea further.
“There ought to be a law.” “There is.” I’d like to watch this again but goddamn is it bleak lol.
I just saw Jennifer Warren on Kojak. She was much better in Night Moves.
According to the commentary, Warren’s dramatic training and early work occured in the same studios and theaters that Penn helped develop in the 1950s, which explains why her performance seems on par with Hackman’s on this. It feels noticeable to me that the rest of the cast doesn’t quite rise to that level. Susan Clark, who came up through the ranks through RADA, seems to struggle a bit with her character, and from what I’ve read about Penn from elsewhere (namely, Patricia Bosworth’s excellent autobiography “The Men in My Life”) his communication issues with some actors’ technique probably contributed to this.
Speaking from a more personal level of observation, Harry Moseby’s personality, skills, and behavior seems to be the most authentic embodiment of private investigators captured in American film. His time with Stella Adler trained actors in California really pays off. Watching this without the sound it becomes very clear how Harry creates an affable presence in such a way that gets people to open up about themselves, and how they cover these confessions in a layer of bullshit.
Bob Burger — been going through the sixth season and if the show is not at the highs of golden age Simpsons or Futurama it is consistently very good and fun, it is interesting how much the kids have taken over at this point though. Paul Rudd as Jericho the imaginary horse was great, it’s fun to see (or hear) him nervous.
Live music — local blues/folk the Tarbox Ramblers at the pass-the-hat venue, it has been years since I caught them (leader Michael Tarbox more frequently plays solo) and they fucking smoked, Tarbox has a great weathered voice, very late 90s Dylan but with more punch, and they’ve picked up a fiddler and he and Tarbox on guitar got into some extremely sick blues drones. Hell yeah.
Wooo, live music! Honestly, you include a fiddle in anything and I’ll probably like it.
Hell yeah, live fiddling.
Woooooo live smoking music!!
Star Wars: Tales Of The Underground (s1 e1-3) – This quietly dropped around the same time as Andor s2 being part of the Filoniverse and in the Filonimation style of Clone Wars, Rebels and The Bad Batch. Like Andor the first three episodes make a complete arc. We follow Sister of Dathomir, Lady Asajj Ventress, the resurrected and redeemed(ish) lead assassin of Count Dooku, now with a heart of gold, apparently. She’s working as a part-time bounty hunter, in this case searching for her lost love Quinlan Vos (a story from an ancillary novel). More out of necessity than any real sympathy she teams with a young Jedi who is looking for the Path, the underground network aiding and hiding surviving Jedi. The first ep is setup and meeting between the two as they face off with an Inquisitor. The second is a heist episode with the pair retrieving an Imperial shield device. The third episode has the pair mediate a dispute over water rights between an old Separatist still fighting the war, his granddaughter, and some desert creatures in the cute mode of Ewoks but who behave more like Tusken Raiders. So far not quite as good as the first two Tales shows. But still better than many live action series in the franchise. Makes a neat connection to the Dark Disciple book from a decade ago. Later episodes focus on Cad Bane.
What did we read?
”History Of The Necronomicon”, HP Lovecraft
This is less a story and more a piece of worldbuilding, laying down the basis of the Necronomicon. I am very far from the first to note that Lovecraft never actually describes the contents of the Necronomicon, only details of its creation and its movement through the world – he ties together a few different pieces of his mythology (including, endearingly, a shoutout to “Pickman’s Model”) a shout-out to The King In Yellow, and invents a few details (like the American millionaire who owns a copy) to give us a plot device.
I buy the theory that he wrote this as a way to keep his references later straight, but this is clearly also part of his larger playing with continuity and his playful cross-referencing with his writer friends. Lovecraft never took continuity that seriously – he reuses “Elder Ones” constantly and it always means something different – but he did enjoy folk-like cross-pollination between authors and stories and using references as a way of making a world within a story look more complex, and in a way, creating his own little subgenre was his entire goal.
“History Of The Necronomicon” is the ultimate example of him essentially giving other writers permission to play with his toys; if he’d been born fifty or sixty years later, he’d be churning out tabletop RPG lorebooks. This is also something I identify with in his writing – I’d love to write a character who permeates the culture the way Cthulhu has.
The Cave & The Light, Arthur Herman
This is a book that Ploughman recommended to me like six years ago, and then I bought it and never got around to reading it. It tracks all of Western Civilisation from Plato and Aristotle with the argument that all Western philosophy draws from one of these two men (and Socrates before them). It’s convincing not just because every philosopher seems divisible between Plato’s mystical intuitive abstractions and Aristotle’s reasoned analysis of hard fact – Rousseau, Marx, or Hegel for the former, Darwin, Washington, or Machiavelli for the latter* – but because so many philosophers specifically kept going back to either Plato or Aristotle, taking their arguments, and modifying them in some way or applying them to their own times.
*The one big exception is Nietzsche, who rejected both in favour of irrationalism. Plato was mystical, but he still argued for reason. Nietzsche rejected this as decadence.
My favourite recurring note is that Aristotle is continuously referred to as the guy who figured out human nature for us and we keep fucking up by ignoring his advice (shades of Grant’s essays on The Shield, which fit exactly, perfectly into this tradition). Aquinas, Jefferson, Popper; over and over, people keep pointing to Aristotle and saying he had this all figured out already. By comparison, people who idolise Plato – Rousseau for example – tend to be riffing more creatively, which makes sense given the writing of both men (at least to my unlearned perspective). Herman’s idea is that the push-pull between Plato and Aristotle is what gives Western civilisation its power and dynamism; in his final conclusion, he observes that too much Plato is totalitarianism (the guy did want to ban poetry) and too much Aristotle is tedious tradition and process with no life or place to go (as in the Middle Ages).
He also frames it as a conflict between higher ideals and materialism; he begins with Plato’s cave, where people saw shadows and thought it was reality, and that we had to escape the shadows, then looks at how Aristotle essentially said the cave itself was really what is real – that is to say, Plato was saying our senses lie to us, and Aristotle was saying they don’t. Reading this, I ended up thinking of that traffic book I read, where the things that make people feel safe are actually making us less safe – more complicated traffic systems make us lax, fewer traffic signals make us on guard and cause fewer accidents. From this perspective, Herman would call me a Platonist for believing that, although I think he’d call my process of getting there – if not observing and collecting the data myself, then reading on the data – Aristotelian.
From there, it’s a matter of tracking Plato and Aristotle’s influence through history; it was extremely funny to see how their ideas were fused to give us Christianity – their interpretations of a designing God who begins with Forms and rules that he shapes into material space combined with an all-loving acceptance of all human beings, no matter how low, and a positive afterlife. Makes sense how that would spread so intently. One of the nice things, too, about reading history is seeing the recurrence of emotions and situations familiar to me today; it’s hard to be mad about people being weird on the internet when they were always being weird and pedantic and hypocritical about things, all the way back to the Ancient Greeks.
What’s particularly fascinating is seeing Christianity’s influence on the sciences. I particularly liked reading Isaac Newton seeing his work as mathematically proving the existence of God as a force within the universe; I forget which philosopher in particular in his time argued that, if you could prove that something mathematically must exist, then you could suppose it did exist, if not prove it, which Newton built off.
I also enjoyed the surprise of Rousseau – who I had pictured as some kind of hippie type due to him being associated with an optimistic view of humanity – was in fact largely similar to today’s manosphere Twitter accounts, in his idolising Sparta for its toughness, his disdain for intellectuals, his dismissal of science and math as a waste of time, his misogyny (despite having female fans), and his desire to get back to the natural state of man. He was even a failed creative at the time he tried philosophy! All this, later in life, would shift him to becoming a nature hippie, which is where my conception of him must have come from.
Much of the book is also specifically about the development of politics – specifically, collectivist action vs individual freedom, with Plato carrying the former and Aristotle the latter. Aristotle argued that ideal politics begins with an individual family taking care of themselves and a broader society making sure that’s possible; Plato argued for a dictatorship, and even got a chance to try it out. Western society after that is a push-pull between an ordered society and individual freedoms, with collectivists repeatedly frustrated at people shirking collective responsibility and individualists frustrated at being stepped on.
One of the big recurring ideas is Platonists of all stripes hitting a wall in expressing their ideals, which makes sense (Plato’s response after his dictatorship fell apart was to go home and write a few more measured things). If Plato’s ideas have a ‘purpose’, it’s often in shaking up old ideologies; especially early on, Aristotelians tend to fall into dogmatism about old ideas, and the author notes wryly that science moved forward dramatically when his followers abandoned his ideas for his methods. I also enjoyed a section about how Muslims managed to keep and develop Aristotle’s teachings when Western civilisation effectively lost and put them aside for a while.
The main effect here is one of humbling; it’s hard to think of one’s station in life as special when it’s simply the latest iteration, and it’s hard to think of one’s base knowledge as special when other people had to do a lot to get it in your hands in the first place. A friend of mine with kids remarked a few months back how he realised things he’d taken for granted as implicit knowledge were things he was teaching his newborn and toddler now, and reading history has the same effect – things that are obvious to me and to people around me were ideas people specifically fought to find and teach.
“Euryphro” and “Apology”, Plato (translated by Benjamin Jowett)
Already, I see Plato’s very rich and funny characterisation of Socrates. I’ve always been a fan of Socrates for being so annoying about his philosophy that they killed him, but I’m overjoyed by his very weird sense of humour – I’m struck in particular by his over-flattery barely papering over his lack of humility, which itself barely papers over true humility. There’s a lot of the Way Of The Samurai in Socrates, accepting that his actions will have terrible consequences for him and accepting that he’s going to do them anyway; also a lot of my favourite heroes in that in its purest form (there’s Budd of Kill Bill, for example). He doesn’t just accept that he’s going to die being a good person, he revels in it; indeed, I enjoy the section where he observes he couldn’t do what he does as a politician because you simply can’t survive doing that, and I enjoy him laying out his exact reasoning for being a man of little means (shades of Shiro Oyama of A Man With No Talents).
That sounds very interesting and I wish I could take credit, but it wasn’t me who recommended it! We could consider this repayment for the anime I watched that you didn’t actually recommend to me.
I do, however, recommend this relevant comic from earlier this week: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/cave-2
“It was only after scientists began rigorously embracing Aristotle’s methods instead of his doctrines that astronomy and physics and ultimately biology would begin to turn themselves around.”
– The Cave and the Light, Arthur Herman
I need to try Plato again at some point. I’ve loved what I’ve read of Aristotle, but I have a strong memory of Plato–and Socrates, by extension–annoying the living shit out of me; connecting it all to the Way of the Samurai makes revisiting them both awfully tempting, though.
And The Cave and the Light sounds fascinating, and possibly like a good entry-point back into Platonic ideas, even pre-reading Plato.
Plato cheats like crazy — he gets to write it, so whenever any of “Socrates’” interlocutors have an opportunity to score a point the, always miss it or blunder into something else that Socrates can easily knock down.
It helps to know that Plato had the chance to try and put his ideas of a utopia into practice and came back later with much humbler writing.
A good way through Lady Eve’s Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow. I started this some months back and didn’t get into it, and I don’t really know why because it’s a lot of fun. Just another screwball comedy set on a space station orbiting Pluto about a con artist with a Jewish mother from Brooklyn who is trying to entrap the trust fund brat who made her sister pregnant but keeps being sidetracked by the brat’s sexy and chivalrous sister. As it happens, my wife and I know Becca for 20 years, and a lot of her quirky sense of humor is here. Which isn’t a reason to read this as much as she just has a good deal of talent. This is her first novel. I hope it’s not her last.
Re-reading Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, the final Vorkosigan Saga novel (barring any surprises up Bujold’s sleeve). The first time around, it was enough that Cordelia Vorkoisgan, following the death of her legendary husband Aral, was back and we saw her getting on with life. This time, the day to day stuff on the colony world she governs is kind of dull. The romance between her and Oliver Jole is sweet, but it feels really weird for a character mentions all of once in the rest of the series to have been Aral’s offscreen lover for years. I appreciate that Bujold wanted to present Aral’s bisexuality in a better light than Cordelia saying “he was bi, now he’s monogamous” but her approach feels glued on. Still. anything with Cordelia is going to have its high points.
And my bedtime re-read is Peter David’s Hulk novel, What Savage Beast. A fun little novel set to the side of PAD’s 12 year run writing the Hulk comics, nothing very profound, but as re-readable as the better comics of the time.
The Murderbot Diaries, Book 1, All Systems Red – I read this because the author was diagnosed autistic after so many readers loved the book’s inadvertent neurodivergent allegory, but it’s also just a good, well-plotted, breezy sci-fi adventure in it’s own right with a distinctive voice. “Murderbot” (his name for himself) is a corporate-owned robot whose “government module” normally forces him into being programmed for whatever expedition/mission he’s on, but he’s hacked the module and is fully sentient. However, his sentience is harmless – he pretends to be programmed and would rather watch TV than deal with humans. Good stuff, especially how Murderbot comes to respect certain humans while, at first privately, insisting on his own personhood and non-human identity, which is the most autistic thing ever.
Are you gonna check out the show?
The High Crusade, by Poul Anderson
1960 science fiction novel with an irresistible premise: aliens invade medieval England, and medieval England bests them and takes to the stars, gradually forming a galactic empire. Contains a certain amount of “obviously feudalism is better and more effective than an impersonal governmental structure,” and it makes sense coming from these characters but is also borne out by the narrative in all cases. Logistics, chivalry, a good sense of a very specific POV. Reasonably enjoyable, and pleasingly sympathetic to at least one part-time antagonist in a way I didn’t expect, but this anniversary edition kicked off with numerous appreciations of how excellent and hilarious it is, and I’m like, “Yeah, it was fine.”
The Grass Is Singing, by Doris Lessing
Picked this up because of Tristan and Casper, and it really is excellent: brutal in its inevitability, but beautifully written, with the kind of spare, illuminating lines I love, like, “It is terrible to destroy a person’s picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction. How can one know he will be able to create another to enable him to go on living?”
More than anything, this reminded me of many of the Victorian novels I love–though it’s more concise than many–with its sense of artful telling, where the author’s empathetic clear-sightedness about her characters and their world is a key part of the appeal. Done badly, there’s nothing more fatal to my enjoyment; done well, and with–like I said–the kind of clarity and empathy Lessing brings to the table here, it’s incredible. Lessing stands with my favorite Victorians on that front.
Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, by Kieran Setiya
This is about the level of philosophy I can get along with: clear, down-to-earth, concentrated on various ways of approaching the problems of life (in this case, the various senses of dissatisfaction, regret, and impulsiveness that can come on in middle age). I like Setiya’s openness and occasional ruefulness–he’ll sometimes essentially say, “This strategy doesn’t really work for me, but it seems to work for a lot of other people, so it’s still worth passing on,” which I like–and the wide range of examples he draws from. There’s probably nothing here that isn’t somewhat obvious, but it’s well-reasoned, well-phrased, and consoling. I especially liked the chapter on the various ways of coming to terms with past choices you’ve since decided were mistakes.
And it was her first book, written in her 20s!
Glad you enjoyed it (although that seems like the wrong word for such a gutting story). I can’t think of another writer who is as good at putting you right inside the experience of a complete breakdown.
I still can’t get my head around this being her debut, especially when she was so young! (It’s a little rude, frankly.) I’m definitely going to seek out more Lessing.
I can’t think of another writer who is as good at putting you right inside the experience of a complete breakdown.
You really are right there with the heat and grinding hopelessness. When I started thinking about it again just now, I shivered, because you’re right, you follow the psychological disintegration/fracturing so intimately that it’s really hard to take. But impossible to look away from.
I was reading the last third of it while weeping. My husband came in and all I could manage was “it’s just so sad!”
The Golden Notebook is also peak mental breakdown material. It’s been a long time since I read it, but from memory it’s much longer – Grass is so incredibly tight.
Lessing herself is just a fascinating character, too.
It rivals The Shield for getting you to empathise with a character you might otherwise dismiss as a terrible person as they get themselves in a shittier and shittier situation – the bit that gets me most is the protagonist effectively taking over the farm when her husband gets sick, and you can see how she might think she’s making things more efficient and is even feeling a sense of triumph as you know she’s dooming herself further by ruining the farm with pedantry.
Should read Grass as I love The Fifth Child so much – there’s a ruthlessness to Lessing that reminds me of Joan Didion and Jim Thompson – nothing is spared. I’d also recommend Setiya’s Life is Hard.
Adding both Life Is Hard and The Fifth Child to the reading list! (Just picked up a copy of The Golden Notebook, too.)
You know an author rules when she can be compared to both Joan Didion and Jim Thompson.
Finished Fahrenheit 451. First the bad – it’s often overwritten in that sometimes-delightful Bradbury way, where he seems to think you won’t get Just How Grand the thing he’s talking about is unless he’s applied a comparison of some kind; I get the image of a man so giddy to bring you into his point of view he’s typing with one hand and rummaging around in a bag of similes with the other, using the first one he pulls out (oh shit, it’s infectious). The characters are universally pretty bad, Guy Montag especially is weak protagonist (he’s introduced gleefully going about his job burning books, but as we learn he’s already actively questioning and hiding books in his home – this sadistic side is used for a catchy opening and never again). Anything involving Mildred is actively off-putting. I understand her role but Bradbury writes her with such bile that it’s impossible to consider the sympathy the story later asks. The only exception is Bailey, the fire chief who’s clearly well-read and thoughtful and yet chooses to serve a plan of ignorance and destruction. There’s an interesting tension in the guy that isn’t present in the simple scrawls of the other characters (even the supposedly actual “intellectual” ones).
But not all is lost. This has endured, appropriately, because its ideas are indelible and that’s ultimately what people remember from the book. It’s probably more predictive now that it looked when I read it 25 years ago. Not the tech itself (although predicting people falling asleep to podcasts in earbuds is astoundingly on the money), but the way tech is used to isolate and subdue the population (for as much as tech whip us up into endless frenzies, there’s a substantial number of people anesthetized by binging options). The televised chase of Montag so much resembles cable news it’s hard to remember that this was written in the somber days of Edward R. Murrow. Oh, and the fascism! Something maybe relevant in a depiction of anti-intellectual fascism. There’s still plenty of ideas for a young reader to chew on.
THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES was a huge influence on my reading tastes when I encountered it in junior high, but beyond the initial concept I have no recollection of the actual story and characters of FAHRENHEIT 451, in contrast to the other dystopian sci-fi that I read at the time. I need to re-acquaint myself with it.
Yeah, I never liked Fahrenheit when I tried to read it while Martian Chronicles totally stuck with me.
I liked THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES even better when I re-read it in my 30s. I’m going to delve deeper into Huxley and Butler over the next few years, as both used science fiction as a reflection on Southern California.
“Not the tech itself (although predicting people falling asleep to podcasts in earbuds is astoundingly on the money), but the way tech is used to isolate and subdue the population (for as much as tech whip us up into endless frenzies, there’s a substantial number of people anesthetized by binging options)”
When Bradbury is on, he is fucking on, and it’s because of the emotional throughlines that can lead to overwriting but also let him zero in on what the tech does vs. how it is. I plug this every chance I get but his short story The Murderer is astonishingly on point for something written in the 1950s, and it’s because Bradbury was a suspicious crank who knew that a lot of tech will just enable dumb and obnoxious shit. (link looks weird but is legit)
https://www.sediment.uni-goettingen.de/staff/dunkl/zips/The-Murderer.pdf
Tunnel Vision, by Sara Paretsky — first time with Paretsky and her Chicago PI V.I. Warshawski, in the introduction Paretsky alludes to some unwieldiness with the story (maybe the sixth or seventh in the longrunning series) and that is definitely apparent. There is a lot going on here and a major subplot just disappears (literally!) for a huge chunk of the book, upsetting its momentum. And more annoyingly for a detective story, a certain unsavory likelihood is immediately apparent to the reader and ignored for a long time by the lead character, there is a lot of marking time here and its unacknowledgement feels particularly egregious in the second-wave feminist Warshawski. The book’s early 90s setting leads to some stuff that is “dated” and in a lot of ways it reads clunkier and cringier than stuff from the 50s, it’s easier to excuse those long-dead folks in their cluelessness (the little Lehane I’ve read has similar issues). On the plus side, 990 tax forms are directly referenced as a source of useful information, hell yeah! Ultimately OK but I’m not about to jump on more Paretsky.
The Dad Rock That Made Me A Woman, by Niko Stratis — finished this connected collection of essays about see title, there is some ugly stuff in here about Stratis’ young adulthood in particular and the extremely shitty behavior (let alone straight assaults) from a lot of men in her life. But not her father (or the rest of her family), and what the memoir digs into really well is the idea of “dad rock” as less sonic signifiers as an attitude of tenderness and wisdom that comes from lived experience; Wilco and Springsteen are here but so are Sheryl Crow and Julien Baker. I do think this approach tends toward music that is different than the aggressive stuff I often gravitate toward — the hardest rock here is Pearl Jam and the Replacements — and that’s led to some further musings. Sometimes a harsh read (and a bit repetitive in terms of reference) but really good, strong recommend to any memoir/music folks.
EDIT: Have also started The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers and I dunno — there are quirky warm characters who I am supposed to like and I hate, and a bitter whiner who I am supposed to dislike and I am very warmly disposed to, because he doesn’t like those assholes I’m meant to like. Anyone read this? Am I in for a slog here?
I haven’t read the Chambers, but I’ve heard exactly that complaint from a handful of other people, and I suspect I’d be in the same boat. Then again, “you should dislike this character!” is sometimes a cheat code to making me like them out of spite.
Uh oh, but good to know. Will probably keep reading anyway. I’ve been trying to gauge how much of my dislike is on Chambers and how much is on my own prejudices, there is a “look how multicultural and open-minded the good characters are and how chauvinistic the bad ones are!” tone that I really hate but I also read a lot of stuff that if it is not opposed to broadmindedness isn’t exactly written with that in mind. But I wish Chambers would just let that emerge instead of being so blunt about it, I have the exact same spiteful reaction to when I think an author is pulling weak shit (and amusingly, a guy who totally got my ass in this regard by setting up something that I misread was Graham Greene in Brighton Rock, speaking of people not exactly brimming with broadmindedness). And the counter is disliking characters for what they clearly represent as opposed to what they are, there is some promise that Chambers could get out of her own way in some instances. On the other hand, there is a Kaylee-from-Firefly with the serial numbers filed off who I fucking despise — not having Jewel Staite, one of the most charming people alive, to perform this person turns out to be extremely critical — so the slog could get grim.
Hey Friends, What’s Up?
I mentioned last week that I’ve been having a major flare-up of some long-term anxiety issues, this week I’ve been trying to take some long-overdue steps to address them. Trying some different types of therapy, plus breathing exercises, meditation, cutting down on caffeine and drinking herbal tea, basically anything I can get my hands on. Feeling pretty motivated because the source of this flare-up is that I’ve met somebody that I really like for the first time since my previous long-term relationship ended, and apparently that kind of thing still absolutely fucks me up like it did as a teenager. But also, since the anxiety of NOT saying anything was the worst of all, I asked her out and she said yes! So please send good vibes for my first first-date since… 2007 😬
Also it was my birthday this week!
Happy birthday! And good luck for the first date!
Happy birthday, and best wishes for a good first date!
Happy Birthday! And Happy Date!
Happy Birthday!!
Happy birthday!
Woo live wooing! Happy birthday!
Wooooooo happy birthday!!
I’m at that point in my relationship where I’m certain that we’re unbearable to everyone around us, especially single people. I put their photo as my lock screen and then spent the next day just looking at them and going gooey.
Revolting.
Very happy for you!
That’s been the consensus response.
Aww, becoming obnoxiously gooey is such a great relationship milestone to hit.
Aw, Tristan, don’t sell yourself short — you’re unbearable even all by yourself!
<3
Points at everything and buries my head under the blankets. Will specifically note that the clawback of money for public media cleared the House by two votes, and only because Mike Johnson pressured two feckless congresspeople to change their votes. I think (without proof) that a fair number of GOPsters did not want to totally defund public media but things being the way they are, they chose once again to put party and president ahead of their actual beliefs and the interests of their voters. I expect the same from the Senate, though there is no evidence that anyone there is in a rush to vote on anything so maybe the bill dies from indifference. If the bill totall passes, there will be possibly draconian cuts by my employer. And a non-zero chance I am let go. (I think that there needs to be a dedicated person to do my job, but I thought that last time I was laid off.)
On a far more mundane subject, the plumbers came and replaced our faucets. Such a change to not have a drip in the kitchen, though the water pressure in the bathroom is off now since we have two spigots instead of one. And maybe because the overall plumbing is old. Took the guys about an hour to do both, with just a few hiccups.
Woo new faucets!
That beats my record of faucet replacement last week by about six days! Professionals know how to do stuff, who knew.
My husband went down with some cold/flu thing a fortnight ago, and this week it’s been my turn. Have missed an entire week of work lying in bed feeling miserable, and even now that I’m improving I’m still exhausted and have a hideous persistent cough (my husband has an even worse cough so no indication this will be over soon).
So over it.
Rubbish! Get well soon!
A lot of people I know seem to be getting what is apparently just a miserable cold.
That kind of persistent cold/flu is the absolute worst. Hope you both feel better soon (and shake the coughs).
Went to Pride last Saturday for the first time in a few years! It was a good time, and on a psychological level, it was also just bolstering, right now, to see people turning out in huge numbers: celebrating being alive, eating ice cream, walking dogs, selling crocheted dicks, and spinning various prize wheels to win rainbow-themed swag.
Hell yeah crocheted dicks!
Had a mild anxiety attack this morning with the news so I’m sort of in vomas’ camp but work and a routine keeps me steady. I write about 2 poems a day, read incessantly, sit with the cat, and do what I can in terms of activism. I’ve also lost a lot of interest in sex and dating and am not even sure if I’ll stay in the apps, in part because my energies are going everywhere else. I don’t necessarily need to be with anyone, even though I’m lonely, but am also not sure I can put in the time and work for a relationship. I also have a lot of friends and am enjoying that. Good publishing news: I’m in Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture’s new issue(!) and Broad Sound is publishing a poem I wrote about Pippin and Mishima.
Anxious solidarity, kudos for doing what you can. Congrats on the published work!
Seconding both the solidarity and the congratulations! Your poem was terrific.
I’ve been showing up too late for these most days, what with a schedule that has no firm obligations and has been centered around playing poker, which often means working at times other people would probably describe as “well into the night.” Unfortunately, it hasn’t been working out that well the last couple of weeks, and I’ve not really gotten any closer to finding work, either. And the state of the world has me wondering what the point of any of it is.
So I guess I need to find something to do with my free time that’s more fulfilling and less dependent on pure luck.
At least we are going to New York next week.