This contains spoilers for the final episode of Mad Men.
I’ve always been struck by a very small runner here – it’s the most plot-mechanical one, really. The heads of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce have been hired by Jim Hobart (who has been trying to poach Don in particular for ten years). Except Don has one of his characteristic Hamlet-like moments of anxiety and has disappeared, wandering America like a vagabond. I’ve always been tickled by the fact that the only two people to worry about this are Hobart, who knows him least, and Peggy, who arguably knows him best. Peggy talks to multiple people, believing something is really wrong with Don right now, but they all brush her off. After all, Don does this all the time.
I’ve always enjoyed how this moment is both humiliating and humanising for Don, especially because he isn’t aware of it. Don’s central conflict is that he wants to empathise with other people but doesn’t want other people to empathise with him, or more accurately doesn’t want to want that. The big emotional ending for Don is when he’s in that therapy group, and he sees a guy who feels the exact same way he does, and for the first time, Don allows someone to see that he feels the same as them. Up until then, the only way he allowed other people to see him was under the cloak of advertising; this was his way of sharing himself with other people.
This is after a lifetime of masking. Don did the behaviours that would give other people an image of him – an illusory idea of a Normal Family Man. People are very good at picking up on patterns, so it’s very funny that they also pick up that he’ll vanish for a couple of months every now and again, then show back up and go back to work like nothing happened. Like, this has become normal for these people.
Don’s masking is a form of control, but the problem is that people as a rule are far too messy and independent to ever be controlled; the exist at all is to be observed, and to be observed is to be diagnosed, and to be diagnosed is to be controlled, and to be controlled is to be owned. People generally want two contradictory things: to fit into a group, and to be special. Don’s journey is simply an exaggerated expression of doing both the worst possible way.
The sad thing for Don is that to be loved is to be observed. When I was in my twenties, I went through a much sadder, less interesting version of self-isolation for much the same reason. I think acceding control of that image people have of you, particularly people who love you, is a necessary act. Even now, I’m often confused by people who strike me as intelligent, reasonable, highly competent people who are spoken about by their (equally admirable) friends and colleagues like they’re naive idiots who need to be protected from themselves.
But that’s the nature of people and community, I suppose. Nobody could be who Don is trying to be; everyone thinks they are. Everyone thinks they are, if not the protagonist of reality, then its bemused narrator a la Arrested Development. It’s the deal you have to make if you choose to live in the world; you receive criticism and diagnosis alongside love and companionship.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
BlackBerry
What a great film. I know it’s based on a true story*, but I do delight in it coming close to cliches but finding a different angle on them. I’ve said for years I’d love to see a Slobs vs Snobs story that was genuinely neutral on the conflict, and this actually comes close. Jim is a vile, soulless human being, but he’s not really wrong about wanting better discipline in the company – Doug is a barely competent manager even outside the banal nerd references he keeps dropping and building his decisions around.
*Little bit of research indicates almost everything was made up whole cloth.
The most fascinating thing about the film is Jim and Mike’s relationship. They have totally opposed skillsets and immediately recognise the value of this, because they share exactly the same goal: controlling the share of the market in cell phones. Jim ends up on a typical Goodfellas rise-and-fall with the now-typical ‘except the bad guys don’t go to jail’ ending for business guys post-Enron.
Mike has the more original arc; he soaks up Jim’s attitude and behaviours and tries to use them the way he does with all his technical stuff, and in a way, this is his downfall – he loses sight of his practical goals in favour of the vague image of success and getting to talk like a big man, which all falls apart the moment an adult problem comes his way.
One little note that I suspect was unintentional was recognising that, due to the character’s own innovations, the ‘fun’ things about the company are technically standard in every company. Hell, I don’t even work in an office, and I can play video games on my break!
This has been on my list for forever, mostly because of the Howerton factor, and I really need to pull the trigger on it already.
It’s shockingly more of a group effort than its reputation suggests. There’s one scene where he and Jay Baruschel are in the car together before a big pitch meeting that’s probably the scene of the movie.
Big weekend for feeling too shitty to do anything other than watch movies (and play video games).
Finishing up the Coens:
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – I’m glad that there’s plenty of talk about the Coens reuniting for more movies, because as much as I like this, it feels like a little anticlimactic as the end of their collaborative career. Like most anthologies, it’s uneven – personally I think “The Gal Who Got Rattled” is among the best things they ever did, but “Near Algodones” in particular feels like a segment they should have just left out because it goes nowhere at all. Most of the others are interesting and kinda playful, even when they get a little bleak.
The Tragedy of Macbeth – the one big Coen thing I hadn’t seen before. I am not the biggest fan of Shakespearean dialogue, and the thing I love most about the Coens is the dialogue, so swapping out one for the other left me pretty sure I would struggle with this. So it proved, but the gorgeous B&W cinematography and great cast got me through painlessly enough even if this just isn’t my thing at all, really. I feel like I’m much more of an Ethan than a Joel.
Drive-Away Dolls – really enjoyed my first viewing of this, don’t feel like I necessarily NEEDED a second one within a year of the first but it was still a lot of fun. When I’ve clicked onto Coens-related news articles to check that they’re still talking about reuniting there seems to be a regular presence of “fans” denouncing this as absolute garbage and I don’t get that at all – it’s funny, energetic, short and has one of the all-time great Coens supporting characters in Curlie. Yeah it doesn’t hold up to most of their work as a team but Ethan and Tricia have been very open about wanting to make a trashy b-movie and I think they did a good job – room for improvement on the next one for sure, but still a good time.
100 Years of Unseen Stuff:
Faust (1926) – this has been on my horror watchlist for years but I never got around to it. I’ve seen a few adaptations of Faust now and I don’t think the story is THAT compelling but it offers plenty of opportunity for inventive visuals and Murnau is no exception on that front. This version of Mephisto has a fun mischievous energy too, oddly reminded me of Divine in the John Waters movies, haha.
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) – I’ve never dipped back into the silent era for Hitchcock before but filling some of those blind spots is definitely something I’ll be doing more as part of this challenge, especially after a few of them made the Screen Drafts Hitchcock list. This one is The Big Breakthrough and it’s pretty great – immediately has a great sense of style that extends to the intertitles and some inventive colour tinting. The suspense is already present and correct, my only real complaint is that the ending felt a little weak, but obviously Hitchcock was still figuring out his style here so I can forgive that.
Misc:
Quadrophenia – since my recent listening has been stuck in the early 70s, I figured it was a good time to finally watch this. Very interesting decision to make a non-musical adaptation of a rock opera and focus on the story rather than the music, but obviously time and a large cult following have proven it successful. I enjoyed it, excellent youth-rebellion vibes that might have resonated a little more if I wasn’t already so old and defeated, but I loved seeing the stacked cast of British actors who I had mostly never seen look this young before.
I think Near Algodones is lesser but still fun in Scruggs segments (it’s better than All Gold Canyon in my book, which I recognize is not a well-reviewed book) and I think it works well as darkly absurd tone-setter and broader look at The West in terms of characters and actions. And it has a great punchline!
And I was just talking with a buddy who hated DAD — I think it has to be approached specifically as Not A Coens Movie, because as varied as they can be tonally they are technically always at a high level and this is (purposely, as you note) very sloppy or maybe loose in its structure and attitude. I think getting that when the expectation is something more controlled is what leads to the angry reactions.
It’s fine, “pan shot!” makes me smile at least. But it’s the one segment that, for me, the film would be better for having cut out. All personal preference though, I’ve seen a few people on Letterboxd saying they didn’t like “Gal Who Got Rattled” so there’s no accounting for taste, I’d happily watch a 2hr standalone version of that one.
I get what you’re saying on DAD but so many of its pleasures are perfectly Coeny – the bickering tough-guy duo, the sudden bursts of violence, the comedic repetition in the dialogue. I guess mostly I just don’t get people who frequent internet comment sections – you’d never catch me in one of those.
“I am shocked–shocked!–to find that commenting is going on in here!”
“Your Commenter of the Year award, sir.”
“Oh, thank you very much.”
I certainly want more Coen team-up work in the world, but if it’s not the highest of their work to go out on, it’s maybe the most Coen-y. Everybody can rank and argue about the best of each of the pieces, it’s almost like a miniature of their film career with bleak comedies and farces and tragedies lined up for analysis.
I can see what DAD haters see, it does feel like a poor man’s rip-off of a Coen Bros movie, but it’s also a throwback to the earlier era the Bros left behind awhile ago. It would have been an instant cult hit in the 90s, so watching it now is like discovering a movie that had been lost except as a preview at the front of a VHS of 2 Days in the Valley. I can’t hate it.
Should probably post my final ranking now that I’m all done.
Top-tier / favourites:
A Serious Man
Fargo
Hail, Caesar!
Raising Arizona
Inside Llewyn Davis
Very close behind:
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Barton Fink
The Hudsucker Proxy
Excellent films that don’t quite have the magic for me:
No Country For Old Men
The Big Lebowski
Miller’s Crossing
True Grit
Burn After Reading
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Still pretty good:
(Drive Away Dolls)
Intolerable Cruelty
(The Tragedy of Macbeth)
Bad:
The Ladykillers
Is this the most rankable filmography of all time? I reeeeeally need to rewatch a lot of these for a proper ranking, but here’s an improper one:
A Serious Man
No Country For Old Men
Inside Llewyn Davis
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Hudsucker Proxy
Miller’s Crossing
The Big Lebowski
Barton Fink
True Grit
Fargo (probably need to rewatch this one most of all)
Raising Arizona
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Hail, Caesar!
Burn After Reading
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Intolerable Cruelty
(Drive Away Dolls)
The Ladykillers
Haven’t seen: (The Tragedy of Macbeth)
I definitely had a lot of fun going through them all again. Some of them have really revealed extra charms as I’ve gone back to them over the years, whereas others I kinda feel like I’ve seen all they have to offer at this point.
So many last-place Ladykillers. History will vindicate me!
The Big Lebowski ratings trouble me more – lotta people here need to find their inner Dude.
That one’s more a circumstance of liking so many of their movies than any shade on that one. Also could do with a rewatch.
Same, and also the most vocal fans loving it to the extent that it kinda becomes their whole personality. I like it but compared to those guys, I’m clearly not quite on the right wavelength. And having met a few of those guys, I’m fine with that, haha
I will say this – the High School Gang all turned into that, but only after all of us were completely baffled by it on first watch. Somewhere on like the sixth watch it clicked.
I’ve just always been like that.
Seeing Ray Winstone, as, like, a YOUNG MAN at best in his mid-twenties absolutely blew my mind.
Yes! He’s almost unrecognisable, I had to pause and check the cast list
Movie Gifts movie – More later, but I liked it.
Doctor Who, “The Evil of the Daleks” – The end of season four, the last animated serial currently on Tubi, and the apparent end of the Daleks (as Terry Nation had Ideas for using them elsewhere). Despite a bit of a messy story – two episodes in the present day, the rest in Victorian times and we probably could have just started there – the pieces hold together well. A lot of revolves around the idea of finding the “human factor” that allows humans to keep beating the Daleks, and the end result of three Daleks with names and who defy orders prefigures both the “Daleks in Manhattan” episodes of nuWho and Hugh on TNG. There is a lot more going on here, and outside of a mute Turkish giant, it really works well. This introduces Deborah Watling as new companion Victoria Waterfield, and features British character actor Marius Goring.
M*A*S*H, “Iron Guts Kelly” – A blustering three star general visits the camp and drops dead in Margaret’s tent. His worshipful aide connives to get the corpse to the battlefield so the general can have a hero’s death. I just learned, via Indy Niedell’s Korean War series, that Gen. Walton Walker was killed in Korea in a car crash, and that his replacement, Matthew Ridgway, was known as “Iron Tits.” But alas, neither the death of Walton or Ridgway’s colorful nickname influenced this – it was more inspired by the death of John Garfield in a state of lust. Though how the general’s death is handled is a preview, however accidentally, of what happened when Nelson Rockefeller died. James Gregory is in his element as Iron Guts Kelly, and Keene Curtis (who shaved his head years before he was the first Daddy Warbucks on Broadway) is the aide.
Another very good early Dalek story. It could have just had the Doctor and Jamie landing in Victorian times but I like it picking up right from the end of the last episode with the TARDIS being trucked off. I also like the introduction of Victoria. It’s a sympathetic plight she’s in and a little dark with her father. It makes her whininess later on more understanding – she’s forced to go with the Doctor rather than really wanting to go, iirc. I didn’t know TUBI had the animated reconstructions. I thought you may have been watching these on the Doctor Who: Classic channel on YT, which does have the animated Abominable Snowmen if you haven’t seen it.
Thanks for the heads up! There seem to be some odd rights issues with some of the animated stuff that is keeping it off Tubi, but obviously those issues aren’t affecting this serial on YT yet. Or should I say, yeti?
Nickel Boys — the first 20 minutes or so of this is impressionistic first-person, the perspective of a black child growing to a young man in 50s-60s Florida, and the rhythm is recognizably from the guy who made Hale County This Morning, This Evening, a great documentary from a few years ago that used sensation and juxtaposition and poetry over linear storytelling to convey life. But then the young man, Elwood, is arrested on bullshit and sent to the Nickel Academy “reform school,” where his quiet and reserved idealism meets the wised-up and more extroverted Turner, a fellow young man who knows the ropes and how not to stand up or out in order to not face more pain. What RaMell Ross does here is add Turner’s point of view to Elwood’s, much of the rest of the narrative is through their eyes (aside from flashes to the future, where an older black man is always viewed from behind). This allows for different viewpoints that more closely approximate how a normal movie would be shot — conversations show both participants, scenes of action have different angles depending on where Elwood and Turner are in them — but the view remains intensely personal and constructed by this relationship. Ross further layers news footage and images from other films and sources (in particular using The Defiant Ones), this is commentary and tangent and escape and sometimes inscrutable but also is part of the leads’ perspective. They are in a hellish place (there is a scene of abuse that is terrible without showing anything, and what makes it terrible is being so tied to the perspective knowing and anticipating horror) and the movie does not deny that while also showing how Elwood and Turner are creating their own connection and pulling each other through; this is taken to an ending that could be foreseeable but got my ass, and the final shot is breathtaking. It’s not like anything else, it is about things that are tied to everything in the U.S. but also beyond what a guy like me can say about that, and purposefully so. Hell of a movie.
The Big Clock — the alleged “wrong man” of this movie enthusiastically drinks multiple Stingers, the nastiest cocktail known to man, and should be imprisoned for that alone. But beyond that the first half of this has a weird vibe, Ray Milland is not a bad actor by any means but he has an innate sketchiness that a Cary Grant or whoever does not and his whole “abandoning wife and kid because of a missed train and getting fucking plastered with his boss’ mistress” deal is some real bullshit for a guy who is meant to be sympathetic — looking things up later, in the novel this is based on Milland’s character is a drunk bachelor and that makes a lot more sense. The novel was also apparently a lot more explicit about the mistress bit (and gay angle between Charles Laughton and his Smithers); even for a 50s movie this is underplayed to the point of near-incomprehensibility. But the back half, where Milland is leading the search for himself and dealing with all the witnesses his dumbass drunk spree created, is a ton of fun, Elsa Lanchester in particular is a god damn hoot and not so ditzy she can’t smell a payday. But the person I liked most here was Henry Morgan, one of the all-time Guys of the screen and here playing a short, stonefaced goon, I don’t think he has a line in the movie but his glower is pure professional goonery, you don’t get that these days.
The Big Clock is a purely fun favorite of mine–its ambitions are all structural, which means that while it doesn’t go to any deep or special places, it makes for an incredibly engaging game. (No Way Out, its successor, is simultaneously pulpier and more deeply felt, and I love that, too.)
No Way Out shot way up on the watch list, I really want to see how the 80s handle this. Apparently there are other quasi-adaptations as well? The conceit is one of the greats, and Juror #2 is not far from it.
Help!: This is a tricky one, because the Beatles are obviously stoned out of their minds the entire time, but also, they’re still the Beatles? This lacks the laid-back charms of A Hard Day’s Night, since Lester needs to lean heavily on the comedy, adventure, and supporting cast to keep the movie going, but–if you can put aside the brownface and the tongue-in-cheek jokes about Weird and Wacky India, which can be a big ask–the bouncy, fourth-wall-breaking surrealism and density of gags can still make for a pretty fun time. And, hey, having to sideline your charismatic actors for pros obviously has its upsides. Everyone here is very good. Set design and cinematography are another huge plus, colorful and lively. (I wish I could have a cartoon of the Strike Team entering the Beatles’ house here, going into four separate brownstones through four separate doors only to be in a massive, weird clubhouse. Lem and pre-Mara Shane would be into it, at least.) Favorite line comes courtesy of Victor Spinetti’s harried mad scientist, trying to justify his involvement in the plot and coming up short: “With a ring like that, could I interest the military? … No, I could not.”
Margin Call: I’m writing this up for Streaming Shuffle, so you’ll get a lot of thoughts on it then, but for now, this movie slaps. Incredible cast, and quietly great sense of its characters’ dramatic arcs.
The Martian: I’ve never been wild about the closing “if you solve enough problems, you get to come home” speech, which always strikes me as a triumph of optimism over empathy for all the people who didn’t get to come home, but aside from that one quibble, this is fantastic upbeat genre fare full of geeky logistical and technical problems, beautiful visuals, and incredibly engaging actors. The highlight of the movie for me is Jeff Daniels’s Teddy, the director of NASA, who has a slightly different set of priorities than everyone else–he’s playing the long game and the numbers game, focused on the overall future of the space program and on the needs of the group over the individual–and who doesn’t get vilified for it. There’s not a ton of traditional conflict here, which generally works fine for what’s basically an old-school Analog story at feature-length, but Teddy adds it as a spice in a way that really works.
Marathon Man: My first time seeing more than bits and pieces. I was surprised and a little disappointed to find that this didn’t quite work for me on a storytelling level, but I guess I can’t complain too much when it gets in a couple iconic scenes–“Is it safe?” and “der weisse Engel!” in particular–and one all-time “fuck, I wish I’d written that” line–“Can I trust you?” “You never could. You only had to.” Aside from all that, the most stellar touches here are the cinematic ones: a gauzy curtain over an assassin’s face like a caul, the whir of a not-yet-seen drill, Hoffman’s brutally fucked-up teeth (and the way he sucks on them at the end, with Szell at the bottom of the stairs), diamond-reflected light spangled on faces.
Petition for the Margin Call Streaming Shuffle to take the form of an open/threatening letter to JC Chandor, demanding he get back on this kind of movie instead of lumbering mediocrity like Triple Frontier.
Football
Again, lots of football. I probably wouldn’t have been overly concerned with Friday’s bowl games, but I had work to do anyway. North Texas and Texas State gave us a thriller– UNT’s QB for the game apparently hadn’t started a game since freshman year of high school and completely balled out. And then, of course, there was the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, innovator in bizarre rituals that represent the decline of western civilization until the Pop Tarts Bowl one-upped them.
NFL weekend was pretty good, too, what with everything on the line. And even the games without much in the way of stakes always provide some goofy shit.
Animal Control, “Giraffes, Gorillas, and Penguins”
Season 3 is back! Frank is back together with Yvette (Sarah Chalke), and he’s freaking out that she’s “obsessed” with him, while everyone else in the precinct thinks she is “taking a normal amount of interest in her boyfriend.” Shred is dating the… I dunno, slippery-ethiced con-thief lady? The one he met on the golf course last season. The big story of the episode is that there’s been a zoo break, and each of the teams has to split up and find the animals. This involves things like Frank leading a giraffe down the street by sitting on the truck with a big branch of leaves, Shred sending a penguin down a waterslide, and Grace letting Patel take the TV interview in hopes it’ll impress his daughter… which immediately goes viral for all the wrong reasons. Also, Emily meets a girlboss hero of hers– Lucy Punch!– when she comes in to adopt an animal. Welcome back.
American Dad!, “Idiot Rich”
The non-Hayley family goes after Jeff for being a mooch, so he decides to get a job. Where he’s instantly injured on a construction site and receives millions of dollars in a settlement. Now, of course, the family is trying to mooch off of him, and when Hayley won’t let them, they file for a conservatorship. Roger’s financial advice expert “Suze Orwoman” also tries to horn in on the action. Not strictly one of the best episodes, even of the season, but pretty solid all in all.
Rewatches:
The Shield, “Carnivores,” “Two Days of Blood,” “Circles,” “The Quick Fix”, “Dead Soldiers,” “Partners,” “Carte Blanche”
I wanted to let my wife catch up on our watch to the stretch run before I started the final season, so I jumped back to some of the earlier parts that still had good story – and the Gilroy stuff at the end of season one, before the immediate escalation in season two with Armadillo, certainly qualifies.
There’s something deeply funny to me about the Joe Clark story in “Partners.” At least Vic’s self-righteousness is usually about getting worse criminals off the streets, and his corruption is about financial gain. Joe is just going after someone for petty revenge, and not even deserved revenge– “Aw, it’s so unfair that this guy gets a payout in a lawsuit and I get fired, just because I beat the shit out of him!” Joe is walking bad news, and of course getting involved with him leads to bad shit for Vic.
Also, Shane’s description of Vic’s treatment of him– “Every time something goes to shit in your life, I become your whipping boy!”– is part of the puzzle of why I don’t talk to my family anymore.
And, lest I forget, two great words of ownage right near the end: “Sorry, Daddy.”
Hey, Shawn Duke Moosekian! Of “The Prettiest Week of My LIfe” fame. And a NewsRadio episode. I don’t remember the title of that one. Probably one of the ones named after a Led Zeppelin album.
Also, “Hey, if I want him to think I’m a corrupt cop, I at least gonna be honest about it.” Hahaha.
Kinda wild for how tight and fast-moving these stories are, and for how much Armadillo was a presence this season, that he’s entirely absent from the third and fourth episode.
A.P. Bio, “Eight Pigs and a Rat,” “J’accuse”
Another blast from the past. “Eight Pigs and a Rat” is the signature Heather showcase from season 1, and “J’accuse” is the murder mystery party from season 2, which gives us some great opportunities for the teachers to do impressions of other teachers.
Suburgatory season 1
Well, not all of it, but the Mrs. wanted to jump back to the beginning so we watched the next couple of episodes. I feel like I’ve seen these enough that I’d rather jump into some later ones, but, hey, pretty solid show all around still, even if it hasn’t 100% found its footing in episodes three and four.
FRIDAY
Nosferatu (2024)
First time. What a picture. Eggers has done it again. Depp is incredible. Brutal atmosphere and a terrific look and effects, but the biggest reason to see this in the theater is probably the vampire’s voice, delectable and terrifying. Catnip for Dracula sickos like me. Dreams and desire are passing. Nightmares are forever.
The Sicilian Club for movie gifts. More to come.
What did we read?
Darkness At Noon, Arthur Koestler
Another book from Caspar – this is a work of fiction she recommended to me back when I asked for nonfiction reccs on the Great Purges of Stalin’s time. This confirms what I suspected; however realistic and autobiographical fiction is, it serves a very different purpose from nonfiction history. The fact that the details may or may not be accurate is irrelevant to capturing the experience of living through the Purge; this is the story of a man who committed to an ideal all the way to his death.
This opens with a quote from Doestoevsky and is really a spiritual sequel to it, updated for the then-current times (with characters explicitly discussing the book – I’m amused that it’s human nature to write meta-fiction, even in brutal times). Rubashov has all of Raskolnikov’s politics and philosophy and none of his neuroticism; he moves with precision and a sense of his goals. Even his writing and philosophising late in the book come off as trying to solve the problem of his fear and incarceration. He even walks into his death at the end of the book with complete clarity, even after deciding this is a morally wrong absurdity.
The Rise And Fall Of The New Deal Order, edited by Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle
Let me see if I have the narrative correct here. The Great Depression happens for reasons nobody has fully worked out. This is such an existential threat to America that various groups separately begin unifying; both the workers and especially working poor, who strike repeatedly and thoroughly, and the rich, who come together to restructure the economy and rule of law. The initial attempts to create a New Deal struggle enormously as different laws and programs are created to attempt to alleviate suffering and economic instability.
Gradually, this works. The economy is never fully restructured, but there is something of a function to it as enthusiastic liberals gradually become more pragmatic and subtle about their work to maintain a system. Labour is organised; unions are strong. Black Americans find themselves elevated compared to only a few years ago; whites – especially working whites, but even affluent ones – find themselves increasingly resentful of this. Democrats, to their surprise, find themselves associated with social justice as a result. The New Deal, which was always intended to work within the confines of capitalism, becomes associated with socialism.
Over time, cynicism comes in; liberals are increasingly disillusioned by the failure to change the system and racism continues to rear its ugly head as blacks find themselves elevated and elevating themselves. Whites (especially religious types) begin to shift definitively over to the Republicans, largely motivated by racial resentment and the feeling of being left behind; it takes the Republicans some time to figure out how to take advantage of this, and it comes off more like the religious right courting them rather than the other way around. Reagan is the one to fully win them over, also drastically and quickly destroying labour movements that are, themselves, already gradually decaying, widening the gap between rich and poor. Do I have that right?
Also, I’m deeply amused by the revelation that the ‘traditional values’ of the Fifties were, in fact, a complete invention of the time, and that the grandparents of Boomers resembled them in sexual morality, defiance of ‘traditional’ gender roles, and progressiveness than anyone was clear on. Interestingly, the housewife stereotype was also seen as a method of freedom, where a woman could have complete control over her home instead of submitting to a boss, whereas men were seen as emasculated by having to do demeaning, anonymous jobs.
Much as I love da movies I do think they (and maybe to a greater degree television) have the unfortunate side effect of making it look like history began at in 1940 or so and that anything that couldn’t be depicted in Leave It to Beaver was invented whole cloth in the 60s and 70s (this is probably an issue in all eras of time when living memory can only stretch back so far).
Books of Blood, vol 3 by Clive Barker – finally finished this, I had a couple of stories left so figured I’d get them read before starting something new. “Scape-Goats” has a bunch of fairly unlikeable people getting stranded on an unsettling island, I love an unsettling island. “Human Remains” follows a male prostitute after an unsettling run-in with a collector of antiquities. Both good showcases for Barker’s strange imagination – I don’t think he’s as good at writing characters as some horror writers but he comes up with some of the most startlingly odd, “how did he think of THAT?” images of any of them. Wouldn’t rank either of these among the best in the collection but they were both very solid!
Started Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany by German journalist Harald Jahner. Any resemblance between that era and events in the present day is not coincidental, though I think Jahner is more interested in the state of affairs in Germany than elsewhere. The pieces so far are interesting, but writing about the Bauhaus movement and offering one photo is a mistake, and he assume readers know all they need to about the Versailles treaty before they started the book. He’s also pretty clearly a centrist, which maybe makes sense when writing about the chaos caused by both far right and far left. Holding my breath he doesn’t decide that the social revolutions of Weimar were a bad thing.
And making progress with An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America by British historian Nick Bunker, that gives a far different picture of the British “Empire” than we usually get. He argues rather convincingly so far that the mismanagement of the American colonies was linked to several other crises in Britain and that there was no coherent policy for empire-building till after American independence. Bunker is not shy and said frequently that American historians don’t really try to understand the British establishment in their work. But he might be right.
Oh boo fucking hoo Nick Bunker, cry me a river. We understood what we needed, that the British establishment could fuck right off. And the idea that a “coherent policy for empire-building” is a bug that was corrected certainly takes one down a dark road, doesn’t it there Nick old pal.
Death At The Sign Of The Rook, by Kate Atkinson — new Jackson Brodie! Hooray! As the title indicates Atkinson is riffing a bit on cozier mysteries and she has a lot of mean fun with the players in a live-action Murder Mystery (her detective asking harder questions than they are prepared for is something I have perhaps done on occasion). Brodie is probably my favorite fictional detective, Chandlerian in aspect (lone PI working his own sense of justice in a mean world) but not in tone; Atkinson narrates in a close third person (and goes through many characters) that lets her slap his ass down whenever he gets self-pitying, his perspective goes outside itself in a way that doesn’t deny his issues but doesn’t wallow either. Anyway, it is a bit lighter thematically than her previous Brodies but is a lot of fun, the dynamic between Brodie and a protege in particular, but there is still a sting at the very end. Characters struggle and fail and struggle some more, and that’s better than being stuck in a cozy cycle.
Order Of The Stick — some webcomic. Pretty good! To be less facetious, it’s remarkable as an epic fantasy, Burlew manages to keep track of his characters and let them grow and go to unexpected places (holy shit, the familicide) while keeping the main story moving. As might have been expected, he revels in quick escalation in terms of action, rare is the person who owns without being owned in return. This feeds an interesting dynamic of pragmatism — what will you do to get what you want, and what will doing what you want get you? Burlew is extremely good at weaving in the meta aspects of the story without being cute about it but there is a real interest in narrative as a factor in his characters’ lives, how they exist in a narrative engine and what that engine demands that I think the story will really hinge on by the end. And beyond that, Burlew is a talented cartoonist, yes these are stick figures but they are expressive and as an action choreographer Burlew is quite good, his characters’ activities are not poorly conveyed, to jack an Achewood line (if Burlew is not Onstad he also understands the value of a good eyebrow). Burned through this in a week or so, I assume future updates are coming quickly and regularly.
Hell yeah OOTS, my favorite long-form webcomic.
Future updates continue, but not nearly as fast as since Burlew injured his hand. But it will finish! We’re already like 1/3 into the final book.
Did you get to read any of the side stories? Start of Darkness is the most essential, a great villain origin story – or perhaps more to the point, it could be called The Tragedy of Redcloak.
I was just going off what appeared to be the main site at Giant In The Playground and didn’t see any of the other material — is it online?
Naw, only the main comic is online. Everything else is published in book and comic form (which the main comic is as well, with bonus strips and commentary).
I have them all; I don’t have a lot of extravagances, but financially supporting Rich Burlew as he finishes the comic is something I have committed you. There’s probably some ethical perspective from which you should buy them too, but I can drop you the SoD PDF if you’d like.
Nah, if he wants me to pay to read it I’ll pay. Or find it at the library! The truly lazy pirate’s last resort.
I consider my offer to be a good-faith preview with the understanding you’ll buy it or more books later, but also, the PDFs aren’t expensive and you can get them right away from the “shop” link on the comic page. Plus, they scale infinitely, which is pretty cool, and they have updated commentaries, since they weren’t published until well after the original books were, except in the cases of books 5 and 6.
The Snail On The Slope by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky – A tad over halfway through and this is turning out to be the most difficult SF novel I have ever read. I’ve read two other books since starting this. The Bros Strugats’ Roadside Picnic was a breeze and straightforward narrative compared to this confusing and impenetrable piece of literature. There’s a puzzle here but all the pieces are orange. It’s about a research colony studying a giant forest with the researchers held by byzantine methods and rules full of contradictions no one can grasp or understand or find their place in. It has two intertwined plots going on following Pepper and Kandid with them having differing views and attachments to the forest with their plots only loosely connected. Pepper is a researcher who dreams of escaping the research colony into the forest. Kandid has survived a helicopter crash in the forest and struggles to return to the colony. They are both outsiders to their respective environments struggling against a nightmarish power system beyond their control. They search for an understanding of it and yearn for humanist decency within it. To say it’s a satire of communist bureaucracy is too simple. There is a grander metaphor that was apparently lost on people at the time and I have tried to not dig too deep for with the Google. The chapters in the colony are very funny with the chapters in the forest being SF horror. It gets into some bizarre and even disgusting territory. Not entirely a fun read but admirable and something I refuse to abandon. Maybe it is time for Google.
The Best American Short Stories 2024, ed. by Lauren Groff
I complained about the intro this–where Groff is skeptical of the politics of first-person POV–on Discord, but I’m relieved to say that, after that intro and a couple of weak stories, this turned into a fairly strong anthology. (One that actually includes a number of excellent first-person stories, so go figure.) My favorite piece was probably the near-future “Mall of America,” by Suzanne Wang, where a mall’s AI–designed to boost sales–winds up developing an unlikely friendship with a lonely retiree. That sounds way too sugary, and it does wear its emotions on its sleeve, but Wang takes it to some dark and moving places and gives it a hell of an ending.
The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024 ed. by S.A. Cosby
I love Cosby–unbelievably charismatic guy, an absolute pleasure to see talk, and Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears are two of of my favorite crime novels from recent years–so I was surprised his selections didn’t make this an all-timer for me. Still, there’s some fantastic stuff here, especially from Megan Abbott, Tananarive Due, and Jordan Harper. But while I will name no names on one particularly frustrating entry, there’s only so many times you can say “meat sauce” in a story without making me lose my mind. Meat sauce. Meat sauce, meat sauce. Meat sauce. Was the meat sauce supposed to be inherently funny? I can’t say. Meat sauce. I’ve lost my mind. Meat sauce.
I also replied to the discord note, but the anti-first person idea is an infuriatingly bizarre one. I wonder if the admirable goal to make things that include everything and everyone and the loathsome goal to make things expressly to exclude a particular group just lead to the same place – a lack of curiosity.
That’s a good way of putting it. Eventually it becomes a closing-off rather an opening-up.
The first person can be fine but I am opposed to it on principle at this point. A novelist has an incredible ability to move around in character and perspective and I have grown suspicious that people who choose not to are incapable of doing so due to lack of ability, relying on emotional identification (also not bad as a concept!) via the joined “I” of the character and reader to do the heavy lifting of character work and prose style (the first person ties the style to the character and the character’s limitations). Good third person — looking in Kate Atkinson’s direction, for one — is so much richer, for me.
[DonaldSutherlandPoint.gif] This just strikes me as a strange rule of thumb, let alone principle, considering the number of books written in first person that still offer a complex portrait of the person supposedly controlling the perspective. Off the top of my head, Catcher in the Rye may not be the best example but I don’t think you’re forced into an unnuanced view of Holden Caulfield by the point of view. Lolita‘s probably a better example – it’s clear Humbert is a dangerous, delusional asshole even while we read (and can be amused by) his version of events and self-justifying inner monologue. And plenty of Faulkner manages to shift around point of view by changing it up chapter to chapter while using first person. There’s enough counterexamples that throwing it out because some writers use it as a crutch is like saying sculptors shouldn’t incorporate glass because Jeff Koons exists.
All good points! And I should clarify — I’m viewing first person as both device and style/trend, and “at this point” is referring to contemporary stuff, I’m not going to huck Nabokov overboard for using it. Maybe a comparison is scrambled chronology in movies post-Pulp Fiction — nothing wrong with the idea, it can be great, but it was used to gas up mediocre work. That said, I do think first person (and in particular my despised first person present) can be a shortcut in the ways I mentioned above. As a counterfactual, imagine a first-person Tom Ripley — Highsmith tells the story solely from his perspective (we never get POVs from or inner thoughts of Dickie, Marge etc.) and constantly relates his justifications/delusions so the story would remain largely the same with that shift. But beyond the specifics of Highsmith’s particular style, the novel keeping him at the remove of the third person winds up bringing the observer/reader closer to him, repelling and fascinating in a deeper way than the seemingly more immersive first person would. The reader sees with and outside of, not just through, Ripley. I think this is something only writing can do, not doing it is fine and first person obviously has different strengths but it appears to be in vogue in a way that forecloses on other possibilities.
“That Guy, the Jury”
Matilda, partway through.
Dahl has a real nasty streak in him. especially in his stories for adults, but his kids books. Matilda opens with lamenting the many parents who think their loser kids are special, and fantasizing about delivering withering insults to their parents about how stupid and vile their kids are. It’s hilarious. Who else would open a book for kids by talking about hating kids? But then he does something fairly unique—he inverts the power dynamic and cheers on matilda getting her parents back. There are loads of kids stories that liberate the kids from the authority of grown ups by making them orphans or separating them so that the kid child protagonists have more agency, but dahl here endorses outright jacobin-esque rebellion. The film also hits that note with danny devito repeatedly delivering the line “i’m big, you’re little, i’m old, you’re young, i’m smart, you’re dumb,”’which, of course the plot inverts.
What did we play?
Animal Well – wanted to make sure I played something COMPLETELY different after Indiana Jones so that I didn’t find myself drawing unfair comparisons. Think this was a good choice, an excellent retro puzzle-platformer that makes me nostalgic in a different way to a lot of indie games, despite essentially being a matroidvania type thing. Feel like I’m already most of the way through it – I’ve reached a section where another character mirrors my movements and I always find that kinda thing a little stressful, so I figured it was a good place to take a break. But yeah I can see why this got plenty of “game of the year” hype, it’s tightly designed with a nice aesthetic and lots of secrets.
Case of the Golden Idol – finally went back to this to do the two DLC sections. I really like this kind of logic-puzzle investigation game although I’m still a far bigger fan of Return of Obra Dinn than the Golden Idol version which doesn’t quite get under my skin in the same way. Still, I’ll definitely play the sequel at some point.
Started Amnesia: The Bunker and it’s strong enough that it wasn’t until we stopped playing for the evening that I realized how many of the same old tricks we were encountering. There’s a nasty unbeatable creature in the dark to be avoided, of course, that’s the nature of the series. But it’s also in an underground shelter abandoned by a military operation (seen recently in Rebirth and all the way back to the original Penumbra), flashlights and letters about blowing up the entrance to the place to seal the terrible evil that’s been picking everybody off one by one. Have to open new areas to sneak around an of course they include an armory for dynamite and soldiers’ quarters for journals and letters about what crazy ways their compatriots are getting done in by the creature. I didn’t need them to reinvent the wheel, but we’re hewing awfully close to formula.
There are a couple departures that look to be welcome. Foremost and most welcome is the absence of the “sanity meter” that gives you a gameover if you go into the dark too long. There’s also a (seemingly) safe zone that you can return to and lock where you stash an inventory, can save your game and have a map of objectives. I predict I will be scurrying back there often. So far I’ve avoided getting done in by whatever’s making the creepy noises in the walls, but I think I’m on borrowed time since I didn’t ration the generator fuel that keeps the lights on and I hit a trip wire that has me bleeding everywhere (the game pops up with “helpful” hints like “creatures will be attracted by a trail of blood”). Hard to play looking through my fingers, but somebody has to [citation needed].
Ms. Pac-Man – Arcade
Found an arcade in a mall right before Christmas and forgot to log it until now. Forgot how smooth the controls for this are with a proper arcade joystick, and the sound on this was booming. The game of course is terrific, and the boards might actually be better than in the first Pac-Man game. That said, for some reason the dots in this machine had been changed to hearts, which makes me think it was hacked, of maybe a bootleg.
F-Zero 99 on Nintendo Switch
Had a pretty great run of form this week, including my first win with the Fire Stingray, the only car I had left to win with. That was also my first win on Classic (i.e. SNES mode), and it was part of a Mini Prix where I tied for first place (another first). Every race in that MP came down to the wire and every point was critical to get the first place, so it felt amazing to pull off. And I had a similar run of form on Saturday, though that only resulted in a couple of second place finishes. They were close though, just fractions of a second off from first place.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown on Nintendo Switch
After beating a witch queen I kept exploring the citadel, unlocking a new ability to use certain multidimensional platforms, resulting in some devious platform challenges and puzzles. I used that to go down to an underground sand dimension with wild physics, where I did more exploration and unlocked an even more underground level. On the way down, I got NPCs and markings warning me about a scary, time-devouring demon on the bottom and they weren’t kidding: it’s a huge fucking snake god with vicious attacks and a lot of resistance. It’s gonna take some effort next week, and I may farm money to but extra potions before I go at her again.
Woo-hoo, live Ms. Pac-Man!
When I was like eight I was at arcade with my father when this older girl (teenager I guess, maybe early 20’s) invited me to a game of Ms. Pac-Man. She was there with her boyfriend and obviously thought it would be cute (not in a mean way) to include this little kid in the fun. Anyway, I whupped the pants off her and she left the arcade halfway through my second life. Nobody steps to me when Ms. Pac-Man is on the line.
I forgot to add one:
Texas Hold ‘Em Poker
Had a rematch with the brothers-in-law and the nephew on New Year’s Eve. My strategy of starting small and opting out if I don’t like the hand I got and aren’t forced by the blind cotinues to pay off. The game was halted at times by birria and rum breaks but we got some good games. I got some good wins but also some narrow losses, like betting big when I bot a full house, only for the kid to pull off a poker aces. It happens. Anyway, we had a good time, though we called it off shortly after midnight for some roasted marshmallows.
Also, good to have a secondary game to chess with the in-laws, since the kid absolutely dominates us at it these days.
Fallen Leaf – I got a few little things left to do on Animal Well, but the difficulty of one in particular is very steep and I haven’t been up for it. So I shifted to an easier platformer. This one’s pretty decent so far. I enjoy the characterization and sense of humor. The game itself seems sort of heavily influenced by Mario / Mega Man in the gameplay (and perhaps for a more direct antecedent, Shovel Knight). Nothing groundbreaking yet but mostly fun. One annoyance I did have is that the difficulty seems to scale up rather steeply from worlds 1 to 2– 1 was pretty easy, and 2 isn’t so difficult it’s not doable (except for one extremely aggravating creature in one stage), but the jump was a lot more than I expected for how the game had scaled to that point.
I might have to take a break for a while, though, because I’m at an age and with certain health conditions where too much platforming just crushes my wrists and thumbs.
“I think acceding control of that image people have of you, particularly people who love you, is a necessary act” – very well said. And agreeing with that image is not necessary, just understanding that you can’t change it solely through any action of your own.
Movie Gifts!
Don’t forget Movie Gifts Unwrapping is THIS FRIDAY! Watch your gift! Come to the party!
I sent a note to MM Central, but will ask here as well: I am out of town Friday and will lack a good keyboard. Which happened the same weekend last year (same event). Can I send my write-up to someone in advance to get it posted in a more timely fashion?
Absolutely! Anybody wishing to do this can email me at ploughmanplods [at] gmail
Year of the Month update:
We’re starting 2024 by returning to 1947! That means you can be as cool as all these people:
TBD: John Anderson: T-Men
Tentative: John Anderson: Nightmare Alley
TBD: Chris Blunk: Black Narcissus
Jan. 2nd: Cori Domschot: Christmas Eve
Jan. 3rd: Gillian Nelson: Walt Disney’s HUAC testimony
Jan. 9th: John Bruni: Out of the Past
Jan. 9th: Cori Domschot: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Jan. 10th: Gillian Nelson: Straight Shooters
Jan 16th: Cori Domschot: The Farmer’s Daughter
Jan. 17th: Gillian Nelson: Sleepytime Donald
Jan. 23rd: Cori Domschot: Down to Earth
Jan. 27th: Cliffy73: Miracle on 34th Street
Jan. 31st: Pluto’s Blue Note
And coming in February, you can sign up to write about anything from 2016!
TBD: Bridgett Nelson: Rogue One
Feb 7th: Gillian Nelson: Queen of Katwe
Feb. 14th: Gillian Nelson: Milo Murphy’s Law
Feb. 21st: Gillian Nelson: Pete’s Dragon