The Friday Article Roundup
Hey Buddy! Come share this week's links to pop culture writing around the Internet.
Here are articles, some are silver, the others gold:
Thanks to good friends Tristan and Captain Nath for leaving a couple articles around where I could find them. Send articles throughout the next week to ploughmanplods [at] gmail, post articles from the past week in the comments for discussion and Have a Happy Friday!
At Paste, Garrett Martin reviews Friendship and how its furtherance of the Tim Robinson character familiar from sketch:
[The movie’s] length lets Robinson take that persona to new, even more uncomfortable depths, but also contrasts it for the first time with a fully developed foil. Paul Rudd’s weatherman riffs a bit on the actor’s public persona as a deeply likable, always friendly charmer, but it also comments on a type of modern man as awkward in its own way as Robinson’s soulless, stagnant middle manager. As played by Rudd, Austin isn’t as effortlessly cool as he wants to appear, or as Craig thinks he is. He’s holding on desperately to his youth, not just with the cosmetic enhancements that become a running joke, but through the punk bar band he plays in, the impromptu boxing matches he throws with his friends, and the carefully calculated bits of ephemera he decorates his house with. Craig can’t see that Austin is a facade, a construct of confidence more than character, but Friendship makes it clear. Austin starts as the easygoing, always cool opposite of Craig, but his own inner awkwardness and insecurities gradually come to the fore, which makes Friendship a richer, more insightful film.
The Guardian‘s Rachel Keenan celebrates King Tut’s, the small Glasgow venue that’s broken tons of big acts over the past 35 years:
[The owner] remembers that fabled Oasis night, when the band drove from Manchester to try their luck and play an already-filled support slot. From the bouncer almost not letting them in, to venue staff refusing to let them perform, each story is different. Clumpas sets the record straight: “It was another support band who said they can’t play, not us,” he says. “They went, ‘Fuck off, it’s too small a stage.’ You can’t put three drumkits on the stage the size of King Tut’s.” But Oasis did manage to perform, and the rest is history.
Oliver Wang interviews legendary Chinese American actress Lisa Lu about her 65-year film career for the LA Review of Books:
Why was it important for you to land roles in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and so on?
I am Chinese, so working in Hollywood is me working in a different country. I was so happy to return to my own ancestral land, and my Chinese is perfect and very, very typically Mandarin. I enjoy performing in my own country, my own language.
That makes sense, but I’m wondering then, do you identify more as a Chinese or Chinese American actress?
I don’t know the difference. No matter where I am, in China or in America, I’m just an actress. I mean, every role I played, in a play, in a movie, or in a television show, I tried to play the person from the character’s background. Where the character is from makes a difference, not where I am.
For The Pudding, Dorothy Lu and Anni Li share the illustrated results of an extensive project to gauge the accuracy of Asian American casting:
This project was prompted by the disheartening experiences we’ve had watching miscast characters in popular media, so we came into this project expecting more miscastings than not. When our analysis found that most films were accurately cast, it was unexpected and empowering! […] Whether it’s seeing my (Dorothy) family’s breakfast traditions reflected in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) or watching Didi (2024) and commiserating with friends about growing up in immigrant households, these movies have made us feel seen. It’s the subtleties of everyday interactions that resonate with us, not the flashy shows of “representation.”
Perhaps you will be shocked by Barry Diller’s revelation that Popeye was “the most coked-up film set” he’d ever visited as head of Paramount Pictures, reported here in Variety:
“You couldn’t escape it,” Diller said about the drug use on the movie’s set. “They were actually shipping in film cans at the time. Film cans would be sent back to L.A. for daily processing film. This was shot in Malta. And we found out that the film cans were actually being used to ship cocaine back and forth to this set. Everyone was stoned.”
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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The Friday Article Roundup
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State of the art special effects, little attention paid to plot - what's changed over the past 120 years?
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Department of
Conversation
What Did We Watch?
Enter the Void – I’ve never felt particularly enthusiastic about checking out the films of Gaspar Noé, my tolerance for edgelord cinema bullshit is low. BUT I figured that if I was ever going to see one of his films, then it made sense to do so at the cinema. And this was at a tiny one-screen cinema I hadn’t visited before, and also I might possibly have a bit of a crush on the friend who suggested it, so the stars were aligned. And I enjoyed it quite a bit! I can easily see how I might have fallen out with it if I’d attempted a home viewing but being totally immersed in the vibes and the creative cinematography was definitely an experience. I didn’t realise until afterwards that the character Victor, who kinda sets all of the bad stuff in the plot going, was Olly Alexander who fronts the pop group Years & Years and represented the UK at Eurovision last year! Wild. Anyway, I won’t be rushing to see other Noé films but definitely glad I got out to this one.
“This looks like some cinema bullshit, but when am I ever going to have the chance to see this cinema bullshit on the big screen?” is some cinephile logic that I have definitely employed in the past. And as for Gaspar Noé films to see with a crush this is probably your absolute best case scenario.
Babylon 5 — damn, a lot of stuff happening! Londo is such a great character, his charisma is suited to being a diplomat in the ass end of nowhere but his desires are for homeworld glory and this unalignment has led him to a bad place, the stuff with him and Garibaldi is quite poignant even though it is clear he has made this bed. And it contrasts very well with G’Kar, who is not a diplomat by nature but whose desire for homeworld survival lead him to embrace diplomacy, and look where it gets him. (And there is some interesting stuff here with the Narn clearly being looked on as lesser, the police shooting is some real bullshit in who it favors and it’s unclear if the show is unaware or letting this simmer — in either case, the guy playing the cop has huge ‘wannabe main character’ energy and sucks hard, hopefully this is intentional.) It’s clear some real bad shit is on the way, fortunately there is the levity of the Narn duel, which Mrs. Miller accurately pegged as “it’s like when the cats fight in Cats.” You’re never going to achieve galactic supremacy with this shit, guys!
The Righteous Gemstones, “Interlude III”
Excellent episode, quite possibly my favorite of the flashback stories thus far. Steve Zahn is a major highlight here: right from the start, it’s fascinating to see him as the more mild-mannered, reasonable partner in his marriage (the mini-standoff over whether or not to accept a Gemstone-proffered Sprite or go back to the car for another soda is both funny and–at least for me–stomach-churningly tense and miserable in that “believably uncomfortable social situations” kind of way), and then we follow him down the road of becoming harsher and more hateful. It’s an effective, (mostly) self-contained little crime story, one desperate, naive guy gradually getting to the point where he’ll make a decision that will completely reshape him. And on the May-May front, it’s also illuminating to get a better look at why her kids have hated her enough to avoid playing for her for years.
The Judy-Jesse scenes were also fantastic, and Jesse breaking off threatening to kick her ass to comfort her when he sees that she’s crying is a real “the kids are all right” moment. (Love his masked-up revenge on her behalf, too.) Their conversation is lovely, especially with it being so awkward and so Jesse: he’s absolutely earnest and straightforward in seeing a connection between him and Judy and their dad, and that’s meaningful to her, and he absolutely doesn’t think twice about framing it as her being more like a guy than a girl, and I love it.
I wish I had a monster truck.
Following
We should do a top ten list sometime of “best cinematic instances of someone putting on gloves/laying down plastic sheeting.” This is one of the best, especially since it’s in plain sight, and the character who will be affected by the gloving-up simply can’t recognize what the other character is preparing for.
Good parenting moment too when Eli notes how May-May’s kids are scared, not disciplined – he knows he’s not a great dad at all but at least his kids aren’t terrified every day.
Heh, yeah, Following is of course not a great movie, almost not a good one, but it reveals a lot about Nolan as an artist, especially that those hard cuts are coming from his eye, instincts, and how he processes time and memory, not just the (great) editors he’s worked with.
Obviously American Psycho will have to be on that list (pretty sure he gloves up?). The absolute best scene of somebody putting on gloves is in Cocteau’s Beauty in the Beast but I don’t believe any plastic sheeting is employed.
Eli certainly has his own sins, and May-May can easily recognize them, but she can’t see her own Pride and how damaging it is (and that that’s where the stubbornness, harshness, and judgmentalness comes from).
Today involved a lot of traveling, so all I’ve watched today is an episode of Becker that my mum and her boyfriend threw on. Solid basic sitcom farce storytelling. Nothing special but a fraction more personality than it needs. Fraiser just came on, and that’s also very much a sitcom but absolutely dripping with unique personality; the voices of the characters, the specific details of their work, and details of their relationships.
I do wish they’d fix whatever the fuck they’ve done to this television. There’s motion smoothing and then there’s whatever they’ve done here; the color is washed out and brown, the frame rate looks bizarre, and everything looks digital and grainy.
I knew Becker wasn’t JUST a Blank Check running joke and did actually exist, yet it’s still somehow strange to encounter it in any other situation.
It’s also a running joke on We Hate Movies! I’m amused that this show I used to occasionally catch episodes of is having such a strong second life as a podcast bit.
Becker was part of the Ted Danson Workfare Program. Whenever Ted can’t be on a good show, he must still get some sort of work so he can afford his hairpieces. (Seriously, huge fan of Danson, but it is amazing how with only a few gaps Ted’s had steady TV work.)
Dude is a natural TV star, maybe our finest living! He’s got the juice.
I might put Dick Van Dyke slightly ahead of Ted but even Van Dyke superfans have to admit he has that reputation from one TV show and some memorable guest appearances.
But it’s a great TV show! Diagnosis: Murder really spoke to a generation.
Where is the Diagnosis: Murder faux-reboot to follow Matlock?
Waiting for Liam Neeson to finish with The Naked Gun reboots.
What’s the opposite of motion smoothing? Motion chopping?
Motion stubble?
This is much better
Angel on My Shoulder – A gangster (Paul Muni) is gunned down by his right hand man and goes to Hell. But it turns out he is a dead ringer (so to speak) for a judge who efforts to end juvenile delinquency have drastically hurt the population of the Bad Place. So the Devil (Claude Rains) makes a deal with the gangster: possess the judge and ruin his run for governor, and revenge on Muni’s killer will be his. Of course, Muni both screws up ruining the judge and falls for the judge’s fiancee. Muni and Rains are excellent in this bizarro version of Here Comes Mister Jordan (the same scriptwriter did both), and the vision of Hell that opens the movie is rather harsh for the time and also very creative. And there is a scene that introduces the judge’s psychiatrist that is very positive for the time as well. But the plot is a mess, full of contrivance and coincidence, and things run out of steam. Also a very weird bit of theology. Apparently Hell in 1946 is running out of sinners to abuse, suggesting that there’s no eternal damnation. And also suggesting that the influx of Nazis wasn’t as high as the influx of wayward Americans turning to lives of crime.
Kojak, “Cry for the Kids” – The obsession with juvenile delinquency endured into the 70s, as Kojak has to deal with a teenager whose turn to crime leads him into an unwanted career as a hitman for various mobsters. A good chunk of time is spent bemoaning how underage offenders can’t be treated like adults, and while there are people who acknowledge doing that isn’t necessarily a good idea, Kojak seems to come down on the side of harsher handling of teens. So this one is definitely one of the more unpleasant episodes to watch.
Frasier, “Three Dates and a Break-Up,” first half – A rare hour long episode, divided for syndication and streaming. At a benefit he hosts, three different women ask Frasier to call them. Naturally, the dates won’t go well, in part because Frasier can be a lying turd, but in part because Martin’s girlfriend Sherry messes things up. Even as Martin and Sherry end his half of the show on the outs. The stuff with Sherry is the interesting half since Frasier still has no idea how to deal with her but is trying, and in part because he still takes his dad’s pain seriously. But Frasier crowing about having three dates is just a bit much, even if leads to a funny bit where Norm Peterson returns a call that Frasier made just to boast. (RIP George Wendt.)
“a judge who efforts to end juvenile delinquency have drastically hurt the population of the Bad Place” — wait, is hell full of teenagers? I suppose that makes sense but still…
I sort of think it’s meant to imply Hell of full of people who grew up to be various sorts of sinners, though yeah, the implication is not that we’re dealing with rotten old men but the Bowery Boys. Like it said, this is a mess.
Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
Got a chance to see this in 35mm. That look greatly benefits the film, as some of the washed out dark forest shots from the opening credits campfire scene feel like they could be directly from Meatballs. The film is amazing. Stupendous. I laughed so often and so hard that my cheeks hurt on the way out of the theater. It is both an incredible parody of films like Meatballs and also a bizarre surreal trip with a strong ethos of “throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.” Shout out to H Jon Benjamin’s one scene wonder performance as a can of vegetables.
The parody aspect is something, like Airplane! and Blazing Saddles, that becomes richer as I come across the source material they’re mocking. I think Ken Marino is costumed exactly like a character in the infamous Sleepaway Camp, which knocked me over when I saw that film. One of those things that is funny on its own but gets a whole new layer of appreciation when you know where it comes from, that’s a hard line to ride in parody but WHAS does a great job throughout.
WONDERFUL movie and somehow Eccleston humping a fridge with gusto isn’t the craziest part of it. (Probably the talking vegetables or how the kids immediately go spread eagle in the water ala Possession). I went to a WHAS party dressed as Rudd here though I couldn’t find his authentic eagle shirt.
Tried more Golden Girls but tbqh I’ve realized laugh track live audience sitcoms USUALLY don’t make me laugh that much. Revelation I know, but it’s easier to see how Adult Swim and other shows have ruthlessly parodied this format – the uncanny amount of time actors have to wait to speak between applause/laughs, the broadness of the jokes, etc. Switching back to Always Sunny’s “Mac’s Mom Burns Her House Down” really emphasized this. On a different note, this is low key a great Dennis episode, with Dennis as sociopath fixer trying to solve everyone’s problems but really just getting rid of any issues or changes in HIS life. “Now Frank, I support you here, in that it eliminates my having to take care of you when you’re older…” His contempt/disgust with Poppins the immortal junkyard dog is also funny. “I think I saw that dog licking up a puddle of gasoline.” “Oh yeah, he loves it!”
No One Will Save You – A pretty good little monster movie that stops playing coy with revealing the monster fairly early on and, despite a basic almond-eyed template for the aliens, manages to keep the movie taut throughout. The hinted-at backstory is better in hints and works as such when it needs to keep our wordless central character isolated. The turn immediately fails on hindsight, but on the plus side the movie is only concerned with what’s in front of it at the given moment. The movie manages space and design so well the details rescue the maddeningly overlit photography. Think of it as another Cloverfield project without having to bend over backwards to fit into that universe.
What did we read?
”The Silver Key”, HP Lovecraft
One of those things that’s a bit dense to read but ultimately important, in that it’s an interesting portrait of Lovecraft at the time he wrote it. It’s clearly an expression of his self-image at the time, laying out how his avatar has become disillusioned with the world and his stories but also unable to find the will to suicide, and eventually finds turning to total inner fantasy to be the only real solution. This is around the point where Lovecradft starts building really elaborate worlds in his stories as well as the stories themselves becoming a lot more ambitious (and also my speed), so this story is like a full stop at the end of a sentence for him, as well as the beginning of a new era. It’s deeply sympathetic, but also fairly dense in its writing as he’s clearly writing to get something off his chest and process a thought.
Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic Of Nonviolent Conflict, Erica Chenoweth & Maria J Stephan
There’s that saying that gets passed around – apparently, Assata Shakur said it – “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” Apparently that’s pretty much the only way it works. This is an extensive study by the two authors pretty strongly concluding that nonviolent conflict not only is much more effective than violent resistance, it actively leads to a more democratic and fair society, even when it fails. And I gotta say, it’s almost hilariously convincing.
I say ‘hilariously’ for a number of reasons; obviously it’s common sense that violence is faster and more powerful. I don’t know who else is familiar with that alt-history short story where Ghandi tries nonviolent resistance on the Nazis and gets murdered for it, but one of the first anecdotes they drop is an example of passive resistance working on the literal Nazis (specifically, older German women effectively forming a peace ring – I’ll get back to this). Having a fairly fundamental pillar to my understanding of the world – that nonviolence is idealistic and unrealistic – is funny.
But it’s also funny to me how much detail they go into to prove their thesis, specifically by anticipating criticism and following through with it (most of the time, it’s more like they’re trying to prove violence is effective and failing). Their process involves going through every bit of data on civil warfare in the 20th century they have. They acknowledge limitations; it’s difficult to measure and quantify how much is specifically the result of nonviolent resistance vs violent, and by definition it’s impossible to account for people quietly helping violent or nonviolent resistance, or people who would slip through the cracks.
That said… even by the most conservative and skeptical interpretations of the data, the efficacy of nonviolent vs violent resistance isn’t even fucking close. The one and sole situation where violent resistance is measurably more effective is when a group is trying to secede, and by that, they mean “violent resistance worked four out of fifty-something times rather than never” – secession is something that apparently famously almost never succeeds regardless of tactics. Otherwise, non-violent resistance blows violence out of the water. Like, shockingly so.
Chenoweth and Stephan are very careful – particularly in the epilogue – to qualify this; they don’t pretend it will definitely work on a genocidal opponent like the Nazis (even after pointing out a time it did in a limited way, as well as the way Nazi violence against Britain simply forced resolve), and they are clear all the way through that the moral high ground of nonviolence doesn’t guarantee success, and that it requires a lot of work and discipline from everyone involved. But they’re also clear how much more effective it is and how hard it is to ignore its effectiveness when you see it.
The theorising about why it works is fascinating stuff. There are two main reasons, tied together: first, it attracts a much larger base of activists. Violent resistance has three requirements: the willingness to kill, the willingness to die, and the ability to kill. The first one trips people up enough, the last one really prevents any ability to sign up. You’re not gonna get many older women in the violent resistance. Nonviolent resistance at least appears to require so much less; people perceive it as much less dangerous (though it often isn’t), so there’s less of a barrier for entry.
This larger base creates an overwhelming force, and, more importantly, a larger pool of tactical resources. An important element of any conflict is tactical flexibility, shifting up tactics as the enemy figures them out, and many more people creates many more opportunities for ideas. Violent resistance, by comparison, has far fewer options and far greater needs. The authors note that violent revolution tends to work best when it’s backed by a rival state, and this patronage is often fickle, as compared to the internal resilience of nonviolent revolution (external state sponsorship tends to have little effect on success either way).
The second reason it works is because it tends to lead to defection from state security. Violent revolution causes people to turtle up; they become morally obligated to respond with violent repression. Nonviolent resistance does actually give state security pause; most people, finding themselves shooting unarmed civilians, will introspect and ask themselves if they’re the baddies. That’s something that measurably keeps happening. There are multiple points in the case studies where the authors note that protestors met state security forces with food, love, and offers to join up, and that this worked; there are also multiple cases of protestors descending into (ineffective) violence and this being met with violent repression.
On top of this is international pressure. It isn’t just individual states that are moved by violence against unarmed civilians; states worldwide will pressure each other over human rights atrocities like that, like the horrific imagery coming out of Gaza the last year that has led to international pressure to cut off economic ties with Israel (at time of writing, I’d just been reading about my own country’s leader condemning Israel). The thing about nonviolent resistance is that it more effectively targets what really works. Any idiot will happily throw away lives to protect his country; very few idiots will throw away money. Nonviolent resistance, when done properly, will create economic pressure that the state can’t simply beat out of workers the way they can kill violent resistance.
And the really fascinating thing is how nonviolence begets nonviolence, and violence likewise. The short of it is that the tactics used to create a new regime tend to continue to be used after that regime is in power; violent rises tend to cause backstabbing, the settling of grievances, and violent retaliation. Nonviolent rises tend to teach the citizenry more about their civil process, making them more effective day-to-day citizens, leading to a more resilient democratic state. Interestingly, this continues to be true even if the nonviolent uprising fails and the regime falls for other reasons.
The authors are also clear this isn’t the end of the research; much of the implications and nuance require unpacking, and it’s really pioneering a look into nonviolent revolution. But it’s simply so convincing on its own that it’s really thrilling to read. It’s not intentionally flipping the bird at violence (the strongest terms are these two sentences towards the very end: “Insurgents who claim that violence is necessary are probably always wrong. In fact, we conjecture that many of the groups that claim violence as a last resort may have never attempted strategic nonviolent action, judging it to be too difficult at the outset.”), but it’s such a deliciously iconoclastic tearing into a conventional myth that I am compelled to feel joy on principle. It’s genuinely shaken my worldview – it’s made me reassess how I talk to people on a personal level, even in small ways.
Scattered note: nonviolent movements based on individual charisma tend to fall apart very quickly.
The Worst Witch, Jill Murphy
This is part of my journey through the fantasy genre, and while this is a small part of it, it’s also a crucial one, because people claim JK Rowling ripped this off for Harry Potter, and for better or worse, HP is a landmark in the fantasy genre. Actually reading it, I get where people are coming from because the basic concept – a child in a school for witches – and the basic pleasure – episodic adventures over the course of a year – are very similar, including the fact that the story climaxes in a conspiracy against the school that the heroine undoes.
At the same time, Rowling’s riff is both drawing on the same sources – that is, actual school experiences – and clearly taking the concept so much further. This book is barely 20k words long and is written in a very simplistic style, both in the literal words and the borderline “See Spot Run” characterisation. There’s, like, four characters in this book; HP has an expanded world and a strong sense of satire and a more complete adventure and a richer sense of humour and characterisation. Worst Witch is at most a chunk of the idea of this book, one of multiple sources it drew on to create something.
That said, this is cute. I’d refer to it as subLewisian; the same basic idea of the voice and intentions, although the narrative is significantly less condescending to its character, who is genuinely trying her best.
This write-up of Why Civil Resistance Works is fascinating; I’ll absolutely have to add that to my reading list.
I’ve read that Gandhi alternate history story (“The Last Article,” by Harry Turtledove, I think?), and it’s certainly interesting to think about it in this light. To bring in another classic SF story, “The Cold Equations,” I feel like it’s compelling–and understandable, especially as fiction/drama rather than real-life political and philosophical thought–to romanticize the more badass choices as inherently the more necessary and effective ones, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually true.
The last chapter dives into apologia for violent revolution, and points out that while they often play it as a last resort, it’s actually usually done first, without even trying nonviolent action. The authors don’t say “people just think violence is cool and want to justify it”, but they don’t actively deny it either.
The first part of your phrase is kind of true, the second part is absolutely true.
“Nonviolent resistance does actually give state security pause; most people, finding themselves shooting unarmed civilians, will introspect and ask themselves if they’re the baddies. That’s something that measurably keeps happening” — this sure seems like nonviolent resistance requires the willingness to die for a cause! To have violence inflicted upon you without a commensurate response. Which I think is part of the deal but it is not an ask to be glossed over (not saying you or they are doing so but this jumped out at me). Also curious if the authors make a distinction between internal revolution (France in 1790) and resistance of occupation (France in 1940), these seem to be pretty distinct to me.
Oh, absolutely – the authors frequently observe that nonviolent resistance can be incredibly deadly, usually moreso than its adherents expect. While specifics of the tactics being used aren’t delved into beyond lists of actions (boycotts, sit-ins, stay aways), they stress that discipline in the face of repression – to take a hit without taking one back – is the hardest part of the whole thing and requires intense training. They frequently dive into the violence a resistance frequently faces, and then usually point out it’s just deadly for violent resistance with worse outcomes. To use a cliche usually used for violent action: it gets results.
And yes, they do – those are two of at least five categories they use. A bulk of the text is four case studies they use; one is the intifada of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which fits under your second category.
Yeah, I was thinking of the difference between “state security” as an entity that draws from the same pool as the resistance vs. occupiers who likely have no qualms about deploying violence either before or after the fact. But this sounds very interesting!
Yeah, that’s my inelegant phrasing there – it’s hard to land on the right phrase for “enforcers of the main regime”. Chenoweth and Stephan are much more consistent than me.
I think of the Stokley Carmichael / Kwame Ture quote: “In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none, has none.”
Yeah, am also going to have to add that to the reading list. Much as I’ve been eyeing the Heinlein “violence is the only effective tool in history” mantra of late, I know intellectually that Heinlein is not somebody to take cues from, and to have a case study saying otherwise is something I’d be interested to read.
“Large metal rods launched from the moon are the only effective tool in history! Wait, that’s specious and shortsighted — how could I forget, polyamory is also an effective tool.”
Time to watch Andor!
“Having a fairly fundamental pillar to my understanding of the world” what?
“of the world shaken up” was how that sentence was supposed to end
Nicely relates to my observations as a fellow traveler with anarchists of how state Communism, at its worst, replicated the repressor’s original tactics and resulted in “the revolution devouring it’s own children.” Gotta read this – I think lefties tend to romanticize revolutionary violence because it’s inherently exciting, but actual violence, both up close and in person, is…horrible. (That being said I would absolutely acquit Luigi Mangione and am not really a Christian when it comes to the after-results of certain murders. I can’t say that there are people who “deserve” to die, but when Peter Thiel does, the world will be a better place.)
Finished Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order by Robert Paxton. Worth noting that literally the final line in the book – actually in the bibliographical note – is that people in France are at that moment flocking to see The Sorrow and the Pity. (RIP Marvel Ophuls.) That movie and this book together changed how France views itself. This book of course also offers lessons about the follies of collaboration and about the nature of fascism, some of which apply now and some of which don’t. One of the interesting things here is how often Paxton notes information about certain things is still not available, under seal in France. I assume later works had some access to more data, and I plan to look for that, but Paxton remains the dean of historians on this subject.
Capsule reviews, since I read a lot over vacation:
Hide, by Kiersten White
Fairly effective horror novel with a standard premise–characters are challenged to a massive, multi-day game of hide-and-seek in an abandoned amusement park, the Game Is Not What It Seems and Oh No I’m Being Devoured by a Lovecraftian Entity–but solid, pleasing execution. White does a good job crafting easy-to-distinguish character sketches that are all fairly memorable and distinct, and she has an obvious empathy for her characters (but not to the point where it precludes bad things happening to them, or means they’ll never make the wrong choices). This was let down only by running headlong into the Afterword, which immediately spells out the author’s intentions in writing in the novel: stories are rarely improved by the curtain coming up for a “here’s the moral” message. Lesson learned on reading afterwords.
Extreme Prey and Escape Clause, by John Sandford
Two entries in two of Sandford’s long-running thriller series. Sandford is shockingly consistent at providing quality entertainment, almost always well-paced, engaging, and with a good number of funny, revealing, and well-crafted characterization fillips for both the leads and the most minor supporting players. He’s also generally good at avoiding any “here’s how you should think/feel about this” controlling moves, not going too hard on trying to provoke outrage or moral revulsion or even reflection, but just following the plot as it goes. Extreme Prey was particularly strong, and Escape Clause was a little weak. Had a good time with both.
You Would Have Told Me Not To, by Christopher Coake
Coake’s We’re in Trouble is one of my favorite literary short story collections, so I was glad to finally get around to his second collection. It’s not quite as good as the first, but it’s still strong. (And I love that title.) Well-realized characters, interesting situations that go to some unexpected places, illuminating lines.
Blame, by Jeff Abbott
Meh. Weak thriller. Too many lines in this feel like they were written by someone who has never spoken to another person before, with characters saying things like, “I wanted to send them notes of thanks,” instead of “thank-you notes.” I give it a little credit because I’d been prepared for this to be a classic high-concept thriller case of “intriguing situation that raises a lot of those questions; all of those questions are answered by total bullshit,” and a few of the set-ups here actually had human resolutions that came from smaller, more personal motivations. But there’s a belated introduction of the dark web and a Silk Road equivalent, and it’s too much and instantly makes the story feel trivial in comparison to the much-worse horrors the author is offhandedly evoking for background stakes.
There are a couple surprisingly good moments here, though. My favorite may be protagonist Jane saying she’s going to post a video forgiving the woman who attacked her (who, to make a long story short, is upset because she believes Jane killed her son), and her mommy blogger mom saying that she shouldn’t, she should let the woman stew in all the public vitriol. Jane points out that her mom wrote a lot about forgiveness on her blog. Mom, blithely narcissistic: “But that was more about forgiving one’s self.”
This was let down only by running headlong into the Afterword, which immediately spells out the author’s intentions in writing in the novel: stories are rarely improved by the curtain coming up for a “here’s the moral” message. Lesson learned on reading afterwords.
This reminds me of an offhand joke in Dr McNinja, where the author notes on a random page that the while comic has been building up to his thesis that man should not fly.
Slow Horses and Spook Street, by Mick Herron — been dipping into the series and finally read the first one, with the fourth one after. Herron really likes the writerly trick of forced perspective/withheld info meant to juke the reader into thinking one thing when another thing is taking place, this isn’t the Goosebumps chapter end twist (“something jumped out at Bobby! CHAPTER FIVE The something was a cat”) but can often be clocked early on, it’s a bit of a tic. But Herron is pretty good at it! And it takes skill to pull off even when it’s obvious. I think these are not his strongest books and Spook Street has a sort of Boys From Brazil thing going on, but the convolutions of style and plot are balanced nicely by Herron’s continually impressive sense of violence, he does not fuck around and it’s a counterpoint to all the wheelings and dealings, sometimes the bullet has your name on it and that’s it.
Almost done with Parable of the Sower, talk about heavy but I am almost done and it’s taught me that reading heavier books via audio is not a good format for me (though the reader is fantastic). I also am done with Human Sacrifices, a fine horror story collection by Maria Ampuerosa with only one real dud (told all through a bickering couple’s dialogue, urghhhh, get divorced or stfu, just keep me out of your story). However, I have decided I’m burnt out on “modern” horror for now and will take a break from the subject.
Tired: “modern” horror in “modern” formats
Wired: While you enjoy a glass of port by the fire in the study of an elderly professor of some distinguished but obscure subject, he begins to relate a circumlocutious yet compelling anecdote that begins to verge into the uncanny…
Started on Fahrenheit 451 for the first time since I was in eighth grade and… will be curious how this reads to a modern eighth grader. May need to get The Ploughgirl to weigh in. I’m sure the future imagined by the 1950s is only a little more alien now than it was in the 90s. And in some ways possibly less! One of the first bits of tech introduced is little “shells” that people put in their ears and tune out to programming at night, I have been owned by Bradbury from the grave! The idea of people getting mailed scripts to perform solo along with programming on their wall-sized TVs is both hilariously off the mark and really not that different in spirit from the kind of immersive bullshit entrepreneurs have been trying to make happen for years (what is “Press X to Jason” but an inconsequential script prompt in a drama?)
A little leery of some character stuff but will give the benefit of the doubt and finish before commenting in that area.
I should, as dotage approaches, start re-reading the high school literary canon. For tutoring purposes I did have to delve through CATCHER IN THE RYE and THE LORD OF THE FLIES a few years back, neither of which I loved when introduced to them. I can’t say I liked them any better but I found more stuff in them worth discussing, I guess.
I loved Lord of the Flies back in the day, never quite got what all the hubub around Catcher was about. Would be fun to revisit both.
Exactly my feelings on both, and I should go back to them too. I feel like Catcher might reread better now that I’m outside the “this book is supposed to profoundly speak to you” age range for it.
I never read this till was an adult. I was not very impressed. But as I have learned more about Bradbury, I have concluded he was an old grump even when he was young and it shows in some of his most famous works.
I think this has come up before, but the general preference for novels in the curriculum as opposed to short stories (although those are present too) does a disservice to certain people and Bradbury is probably the most hurt by it — his excessive language and stripped-down characterizations are ill-served by a longer format while being great in a shorter one. I think this is still pretty good, although I am slowly being radicalized to the point of thinking the ending is actually ideal, a scorched earth (heh) policy toward art that is tangible and thus able to be industrialized/copied.
My middle school and (first) high school lit curriculum leaned heavily towards short stories and plays, and I still feel like this was a good move. Certainly I remember students getting passionately invested in arguing about the short stories, which suggests that a lot of actual reading was happening.
Yeah, some people just don’t really exist outside the short story (Poe for the most part) and shorts do make up part of the curriculum. But my sense from way back in the day is novels are more likely to be HEAVILY SARCASTIC QUOTES “useful” for teaching important literary techniques — symbolism, theme etc. — because of their length/frequency, so they get prominence. And it’s good to learn this stuff! It’s just frequently done with an eye toward comprehending the technique over enjoyment and a fuller understanding of the work. That is another benefit to shorts, like you note — they can more quickly access pleasure and conviction.
I think English class has turned many people off to reading entirely and even for those that it doesn’t, it turns reading for a long while into tedious hunts for symbols and allegories. While it’s important to recognize them, I suspect it’s really tough to appreciate these devices at a young age, building up the muscles to read regularly (including knowing what you like and finding it) is probably the most important thing. I reserve the right to completely disavow these thoughts in the next few months.
This is very good to know, thank you. I’ve been leery that the curriculum doesn’t seem to have a lot of assigned novels, but I’m also leery of kids not actually reading the material. Maybe short stories are a good area to lean into.
Somehow never liked this though I generally really like Bradbury and have extremely fond memories of The Martian Chronicles.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
Finished the former a couple of weeks ago and just finished the latter last night. Two excellent books for the price of one. Almost every character and image associated with Alice in the culture at large is here through Tenniel’s engravings (mi favorite being the Cheshire Cat*) but the actual story experience is unique and way different, more languid than what ones gets from, for instance, the movies. There really isn’t a story per se, just a series of episodes tied together through whimsy, wordplay and dream logic. The first book is more fun overall, though the second has the better conclusion, and works as a genial wink towards the reader. Very fun, loopy books. Might watch the 1951 Disney movie one of these days.
*Some of the books’ funniest moments and reflections all involve cats, even normal non-Cheshire ones. Early in the first book I had to ask Alice out loud to stop talking to the vermin about her damn cat who can eat them all.
Moving on to Mario Benedetti’s La Tregua next.
I wonder how different Alice would look in the collective consciousness (if we thought about her at all) without those illustrations.
Hey Friends, What’s Up?
So to recap, this summer I have to prep lesson plans for a new teaching position, take 5 hours of graduate coursework in 8 weeks to qualify for said position, plus raise a couple kids, fix a leaky shower head, etc. etc. Plenty to do, right? No! Not enough. My documentary project that I’ve been working on for over five years has been selected by a distribution co-op! A co-op means huzzah! People will be able to find and (hopefully) purchase my film or license it for educational and community screenings! And a co-op, unlike a traditional distributor, means I’ll keep a much bigger percentage of the sales! …and also means I’ll be obligated to work at least 10 hours per month for the co-op, in addition to promoting the film and attending meetings and the job and the school and the showerhead.
Anyway, excited to reach an endpoint with this project, maybe I can eventually pay for its production.
Congrats on distribution! You will have to give it a glowing write-up for Deep Dive Docs of course.
Congratulations! (And condolences on having such a busy summer. But also congratulations again!)
Congratulations, Chris!
Took my “new” car in for its first service and it’s going to be more expensive than anticipated – not ideal after the load of money I’ve spent on home / roof stuff recently! Let us call this “Expensive May”. Which, of course, leads nicely into “Frugal June”.
Uruguay was lovely! We spent most of our time in Piriápolis and Punta del Este, with a little bit of time in Montevideo towards the end of the trip. (The only downside about staying in Piriápolis was that a lot of it shuts down and/or slows down after the summer, so a lot of places that were listed as being open either weren’t or had much more limited hours, which we usually didn’t find out until we showed up. PdE is bigger, so it was more active. But I liked both places.)
The countryside was incredibly beautiful–very green, with lots of rolling hills–as was the coastline, where we got to see both beaches and some Cornwall-like cliffs going sharply down to the ocean. It was really pleasant and relaxing just to drive around (and between the cities, there was never much traffic; the country has a fairly small population). I also always like seeing animals on drives–it’s one of the small things I really miss about the Midwest–so I loved the numerous cows and horses we saw, as well as some sheep and at least one donkey. The towns also tend to have some free-range cats and dogs (not strays: the dogs almost always had collars, and were well-fed and well-behaved. Just outside dogs).
Almost all the food we had was fantastic. I got the chivito, the national sandwich, a couple times, and it was excellent both times–and, amazingly, did not fall apart despite how enormous it was. The pizza was also A+, some of the best pizza I ever had, and a lot of the pizzerias also offered fainá, a kind of thin chickpea pancake that my wife and I became obsessed with and now mourn our lack of access to. Very good ice cream, very good baked goods, especially the alfajores and anything else with dulce de leche.
Everyone we talked to was very nice, and people were really patient and kind about our beginner’s Spanish in general and the trouble we were having with Rioplatense Spanish in particular.
It was mostly just a chill, relaxing vacation as opposed to a tourism-focused vacation, so we generally just enjoyed ourselves and didn’t worry about ticking off too many landmarks, though we did see a beautiful and tranquil wildlife preserve (Reserva de Flora y Fauna del Pan de Azúcar: capybaras! Foxes! Rheas!), an equally beautiful and tranquil outdoor sculpture garden, and the famous La Mano de Punta del Este (an enormous sculpture of a hand coming up out of the beach, very much like the end of Cabin in the Woods). Everyone had a real “this moment transcends language” experience with La Mano, because some douche absolutely would not give anyone else a chance to pose with it and hogged it for minutes on end, and everyone in the line kept glancing at each other in international, “Can you believe this guy?” It was a bonding experience for everyone.
Awesome visit, would absolutely love to go back.
More federal funding fun at work as NPR has sued Trump and as the rescission bill that was supposed to sent to Congress in April is now being sent to Congress next week. Maybe. I am also picking up some little signs that not everyone in the organization is as committed to the fight as I would expect, with some sad hints of “maybe we should try to place nicer,” which of course will not work one little bit. I wish I could say something to the bosses but it’s not like there has been any sort of forum for staff yet. (Also heard a fascinating conversation between two board members about their alma mater Harvard that while critical of certain decisions by the school was basically a laundry list of all the stupid things coming from Trump.)
My mom needed an infusion of some med for, I think, something related to preventing osteoporosis. The next day she woke up quite sick. It could just be a cold – the doctor tested for all the nastier stuff – but Occam’s Razor suggests it was the revenge of side effects. Of a list of 20 possible side effects, she had 18. She is not taking this drug again. Meanwhile I got a pneumonia vaccine and did not have any side effects. I will only need it once, which is good because who knows if I could get it again, the way things are going.
Lastly, today is 26 years of marital bliss. We have a special cake for today.
Congrats on the anniversary! Best wishes on the job and family health issues.
Congrats to you and the missus!
Congratulations on over a quarter-century of happy marriage!
Bonus article! A profile of Adam Friedland in GQ, which, as someone who’s been aware of his career for nearly a decade, is a bizarre thing to exist. And also maybe they shouldn’t credulously print everything his friends say about him.
https://www.gq.com/story/adam-friedland