The Friday Article Roundup
Open your ears to the best pop culture writing of the week.
This week, you will hear about:
Now hear this: send articles throughout the next week to magpiesmedia [at] gmail, post articles from the past week below for discussion and Have a Happy Friday!
Tim Donnelly argues for taking those damn speakers out of your ears at New York Groove:
Other people are annoying, but having algorithmically dictated music in my ears all the time is decidedly more so. City life is supposed to be a little annoying, and a little messy. Sure, it’s fun to put your tunes on and lock into main character syndrome when you’re moving through the city. But, you have to remember, you’re not the main character: the story of New York is a classic 8-million hander of a tale. You’re going to miss some plot points if you don’t pay attention.
Matt Schmikowitz tempers praise for Hoppers with some not-so-faint damns at The AV Club:
Firmly in its sequel era, Pixar has been alternating between follow-ups and originals for more than a decade. After years of inconsistency that worsened during COVID, CEO Bob Iger confirmed the strategy in 2024, saying that the studio would be “leaning on sequels” to balance out originals that were not performing as well as established IP. But somewhere along the way, the balance has begun to tip. Recycled ideas, jokes, and character types have become part of the routine, as if Pixar had fed all those Pixar Formula blog posts into an AI and simply hallucinated its later films.
For the Oakland Review of Books, Aaron Bady wrestles with what Chris Thile can and can’t and won’t provide at a concert:
It’s also really not his fault that practicing the craft he’s spent a lifetime becoming the glory of God of feels so obscene, to me, at this particular moment of our being an absolute wet-pants-shit of a country. It’s not his fault that Trump and Netanyahu, neck and neck for the worst people in the world, decided to murder a school full of Iranian children the night I saw his concert…. But even so. I don’t know what to do with my anger, and it spills out, and that thing where we let music refresh us from the shame of what it says on our passports–or glorify the God that allows such things to happen–it just didn’t do it for me.
At Stereogum, Chris DeVille is merciless about what Harry Styles can and can’t and won’t provide on his latest album:
Kiss All The Time is 42 minutes of rhythms, textures, and vibes in search of a single compelling song. It is the sound of the nebulous concept of good taste being hollowed out into an empty vessel — a reverse “Emperor’s New Clothes” situation where the clothes are the only thing there. And clothing really does seem to be Kiss All The Time’s highest calling. Credit where it’s due, this stuff is going to sound incredible when you’re trying on expensive pants.
And for Inside Hook, Mark Asch and Jesse Hassenger rank the movies of Ethan and Joel Coen, with glimpses into what makes them stand out from their peers:
Because this was, again, the 1990s, a period of panic over the slacker impieties of an infinitely jesting Generation X, the case against the Coens was that they were glib, condescending, immoral, playing God by creating characters who were their inferiors and making jokes out of their misfortunes. The Accordion King poster is a joke at Scotty’s expense — it’s hilariously inappropriate in the moment, kitschy and corny and gives us a laugh at his expense in his extremity of pain. But Scotty’s dad, and the universe, are making a joke at his expense, too. The moment is cruel and unfair, but we recognize that cruelty and unfairness and feel guilty for partaking in it and compounding it. Scotty in that moment is so vulnerable and the Coens are no more unkind to him than the world is.
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The Friday Article Roundup
There's still time to experience the best pop culture writing of the week.
Double Features
Family heirlooms loom large in Father Mother Sister Brother and Vulcanizadora.
Double Features
Moving in time with One Battle After Another and Caught By The Tides.
Department of
Conversation
Every New Yorker thinks they are the main character of the story. Probably every human, but certainly every New Yorker.
Meanwhile, the amount of noise the writer wants me to hear describes exactly why I don’t live in New York.
You don’t like constant constant sirens?
I NEED to hear incessant shrieking and car horns to really get the FEEL of the city, man! Patton Oswalt has a great bit on this already but these kinds of takes irritate me as an autistic.
Everyone claims that suffering is a necessary part of being human right up to the point that they get suffering they don’t like.
Ha! That is very well said. I think the article works as self-prescription more than societal prescription — consider this way of being as opposed to this should be the only way of being — but like you say, many ways of being out there.
What did we watch?
Babylon 5, Season Four, Episode Eight, “The Illusion of Truth”
A pretty good riff on previous episodes about journalism; if it goes a little too long to make a point that’s obvious very quickly, then that’s pretty typical for the series. The conceit that Sheridan has been diagnosed with a completely fictional mental illness is pretty funny and horrifying and very plausible given what we’re watching fascists do right now and have been doing for a while – both their media spokespeople and the fascist followers. I know if I were writing this episode, the actual broadcast would have only taken up a scene – enough to convey the point, probably only showing the Sheridan ‘diagnosis’ – and we’d be seeing the fascist foot soldiers instantly, gleefully taking up the propaganda.
(Great note that the reporter is condescendingly sympathetic to this fictional Sheridan, by the way).
This one is excellent nasty shit and really, fuck you Sheridan for being such a dope here. And Franklin! Good god man, where is Space HIPPA! But what this does really well is not just exploit naivete but show how easy that exploitation goes down, there’s a bit of “sweet can” style editing but it’s mostly visible to us the people who have seen the whole episode. And what you note at the end is a point that is very clever — not a full attack, which would be harder to sell, but a hope for help, which is much easier for the uninformed to support.
Inside No. 9, “Love Is a Stranger”
Very fun episode starring Claire Rushbrook as a middle-aged woman tentatively stepping into online speed dating after spending most of her adult life as a live-in carer for her mother (now deceased). Unsurprisingly, the format brings her a face-to-face with a lot of bullshit, from amiable but dishonest adulterers to picky, persnickety men looking for stand-in mommy figures to someone looking to hustle and bully vulnerable women into her for-profit diet plan … but she finally does make an unexpected connection with a man who feels like he might share some of her vulnerabilities. There’s a serial killer plot hanging over all this–the Lonely Hearts Killer–and the episode deliberately doesn’t try to surprise you with where that’s going; it just kicks back and lets you enjoy the ride and the vivid, darkly funny sketches.
Eddie and the Cruisers
I don’t need that final twist, but I find both the music and central premise of this–digging up an old band that had a lot of promise but never quite made it, dealing with the lead singer’s tragic death and his effect on his bandmates–very likable. Oddly a bit Wylding Hall, but the American version, and less haunted (but not always less horror-adjacent).
Scrolling through Michael Pare’s filmography on Wikipedia and hitting the later years of his career is a trip.
Ishtar – I was in the mood for a comedy. And I remember finding this funny when I watched it way back when on VHS. But sadly, the naysayers are more correct than I thought they were. Very very little works here, not the silly idea of making Warren Beatty uninteresting to women, not the chemistry between him and Hoffman, not the incoherent plot, and not May’s leap to big budget filmmaking. Never mind the extensive casual racism. That said, the first chunk filmed in NYC at least felt like a good film in the making, Charles Grodin and Jack Weston are great, Mstt Frewer trying to track the spy games before his eyes was a very funny bit, and Paul Williams is such a good songwriter that he can’t make all of Rogets and Clark’s music bad.
The Practice, “Character Evidence” – Jimmy tries to help a friend from his high school days (Rosanna Arquette) who might have run over someone while a bit drunk. There is more to the case than that, most notably that he crushed on her in the past and is finding her returning the feelings, and that someone is trying to blackmail (blackmailer played by Mark Pelligrino) her to keep silent. Jimmy has to decide between doing the right thing and having a hope at a relationship, but Jimmy makes the expected choice. Interesting if a bit convoluted. Meanwhile, Eugene shows Jamie how to handle a frivilous lawsuit and maintain the dignity of the law, and Lindsay is draw into a suit against a town for letting its kids play soccer (as there are risks to young heads, something we know more about now) by a young lawyer who is basically a brunette Jamie (Chyler Leigh, like Kate Capshaw before Grey’s Anatomy).
When I met Paul Williams, I asked him about working with Elaine May on Ishtar, and he said that they had a great time working together.
I think the problem with Ishtar, compared with the similarly-premised This Is Spinal Tap, is that May’s sense of humor can be relentlessly cruel when dealing with losers, whereas Rob Reiner will remind us that the musicians in Spinal Tap have, at least, some talent to get to where they are now, even if “they “now reside in the ‘where are they now file?'”.
Doesn’t help that Warren Beatty is never ever someone (especially Warren Beatty) can accept as a loser. I found myself wondering what could have been like with Cassavettes and Falk as the leads. Not really right either, but a lot closer.
Caught up on a couple of Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes and I’m still mad about the end of “The Hidden Thing”, genuinely infuriating storytelling.
Broadchurch, episodes 5 and 6 – continues to be incredibly compelling despite some of the cliched elements being a little annoying. David Tennant constantly being on the brink of collapse in particular, that kind of “I am so devoted to crime that I will NOT seek medical attention” vibe is not really working for me. But the town picking a scapegoat and the ensuing tragedy felt believably painful and I’m totally intrigued by whatever the hell is going on with Susan, the angry plumber, and the kid who either was or wasn’t the best friend of the dead kid.
What did we read?
Black Girl White Girl, Joyce Carol Oates
As the narrator notes in the epilogue, this appears at first glance to be about her relationship with her Black college roommate who died mysteriously, but in fact, it’s the story of her relationship with her militant left-wing father. Now, to be clear, Minette (the Black Girl of the title) is an extraordinary character; vividly simple without being stupid, aggressively and fearlessly grasping her own identity as a conservative Christian, above and beyond perceived dignity or any relationship with any individual. In a story riddled with white anxiety, Oates successfully sells Minette’s blackness as something secondary to her innate character.
But Max, the narrator’s father, ends up dominating the story, as he apparently dominates every room. The real central relationship, of course, is the narrator with her own privilege, something she’s acutely aware of at all times; her family essentially built the college she is attending, to her own embarrassment. She’s constantly trying to work out how to avoid, work with, and attack her own privilege; her father has clearly channelled it into left-wing causes, and I’d say the major arc of the book is slowly discovering – as she gradually does – that privilege has not insulated her from terrible, traumatic events in her life, ones which shaped her worldview.
8 Bit Theater, Strips 0780-0810, Brian Clevinger
“Follow me into my office, where I can show you!”
“Oh, I have to see where this is going.”
“His office, I’m betting.”
This has a little sequence where Garland claims baby spinach far exceeds lettuce as an ingredient. I happen to know Clevinger himself had discovered this at around the time this strip was written, making it a classic case of using art as journal-writing.
“Vilbert is a goth kid. He’s trying too hard to look like he stumbled into that aesthetic by raw force of cooler-than-thou to do anything.”
This section has the town of Leifin, in which everyone is cursed to say the word ‘Lupa’ over and over.
“We’re going to have a code. When I stab you in the ear, that means I’m being sarcastic. Got it?”
“I have reservations about that vis-a-vis the stabbing and also my ear.”
“It may behoove us to stop Fighter from talking at them.”
“We are so far beyond behoovements at this point.”
“Is killing a man really murder?”
“Yes.”
“Wait, I had this all figured out earlier. Isn’t murder only the crime of killing someone?”
“Yes.”
“No, that wasn’t right either.”
“I told you to write it down.”
“I know, I know!”
“Cleric, I have a knife stuck in my head. Again.”
“And I‘ve got human stuck to my foot.”
“And I suffer nothing at all!”
Midway through The Plots Against Hitler by Danny Orbach. This is only about the cadre of military types who in drips and drabs turned against Hitler over the years of his rule, and not, say, The White Rose. As such, it’s interesting if a bit myopic. Orbach is trying to walk the line between the analysts of the 50s, who saw such opposition as essentially noble and trying to save Germany (and no doubt the analysts were trying to find something, anything, that would make them feel better about being Germans) and the revisionism of the 70s, that saw the plots as self serving and still out to reinforce an anti-democratic regime. Orbach seems to find some nobility, but not blindly. The most interesting assertion? That had Britain and France stood up to Hitler in Munich, there would have been a coup. I am not convinced by the evidence presented here that it would have happened, let alone that it would have succeeded.
The Mourner, by Richard Stark
The sequel hook from the end of the last book–Parker is willing to trade a favor, if it suits him, for a piece of evidence a dalliance has on him–comes back here with several complications, as he begrudgingly listens to some exposition about an informal but internationally involved art heist and takes it on for the evidence and a significant payoff. The actual heist mechanics here aren’t as much fun as they have been in the last few books, but Stark more than makes up for it with one of my favorite supporting characters yet, the honest-until-it-was-more-profitable-not-to-be Soviet functionary Menlo. Menlo is terrific–extremely different from Parker while also being someone Parker can almost respect, even as they both wind up planning each other’s deaths. Menlo’s reaction to seeing Parker again after he’s left him for dead feels instantly iconic and certainly the action of a man who knows what book he’s in.
The ongoing bit about Parker not wanting to listen to anyone flesh out the rationale behind the heists–he only wants the hard details, like layouts of houses–is great, especially when you think about it as Stark/Westlake having to find a way to get this material in to the novel despite being too honest to write his hardbitten protagonist as wanting to hear it.
Bachelors Galore, by Essie Summers
1958 romance novel set in New Zealand, with a very good sense of place. This is of its time in a few ways, unsurprisingly, but it’s also quite a humane book: I can think of vanishingly few romance novels where the heroine helps save the fashionable, hard-edged, mostly unsympathetic Other Woman’s failing marriage, for example. More farm details than you’d expect, including brutally practical ones about cutting into cows’ stomachs to relieve bloat after they’ve eaten clover and the heroine accidentally breaking a lamb’s legs when it runs into her bicycle. Ducklings are almost eaten by eels. The whole effect is fairly grounded and likable, and even the Big Misunderstanding is handled with some nuance. This is also one of only a handful of romances where the happy ending isn’t the wish fulfillment of someone being surprisingly rich but the relief of finding out that he’s actually barely keeping his farm above water, because it clears up that he’ll know she’s not in it for the money. It’s nice to have more romances about actually working- and middle-class characters.
The Mourner is the last we see of Bett Harrow, which works out in the long run, but she is one of the few really fascinating recurring female characters Westlake ever gave us.
The Mourner is a very odd book — it is the final bit of unresolved business that ties to actions begun in The Hunter, and while certain aspects will resurface there isn’t a direct line the way there is with the plot here (and this in turn is part of an interesting dynamic, in part tied to Stark’s publishers, where the books can be broken into rough four-novel chunks of larger developments/thematic aspects). I re-read it for the first time in a long time a short while back and I had forgotten how vicious Parker is in this one, torture is not really his bag but he does not hesitate here (and there is a very clear sense of Menlo finishing the job not just because he would, but as a way of giving Parker a bit of an out character-wise — he’s not THAT bad!) and this is a road that could have been traveled down further — I think the following novel is very consciously a re-set/reiteration of principles in terms of heisting and structure. Notice how two out of the first four books use the section outside of Parker’s viewpoint (usually the third) to focus entirely on a secondary character, that becomes much less prevalent in favor of a panoply of perspectives.
Also, absolutely hilarious to give Handy the Liv-4-Ever treatment last book with this waiting — but Stark plays fair! I think wasting him for good would be cliche and he swerves away from that, but he also wants to swerve away from Handy in general, and a more interesting (no slander on Handy, Handy rules) compatriot arrives in the next book.
And Menlo is indeed a fascinating creation, there is the sense of respecting a guy who is out for his in a Communist system that denies that as a motivation, while still being ruthless about Menlo’s inability to fit in in certain regards. I think you’re on to something with this — “Menlo’s reaction to seeing Parker again after he’s left him for dead feels instantly iconic and certainly the action of a man who knows what book he’s in” — and I think Menlo has the awareness to know this and act accordingly, while Parker does not have this awareness for both good and ill. In his mind, he is always writing his own book.
Great calls all around–and we not only get Parker as (disinterested) torturer in this book, we also get him and Handy leaving that schmuck tied up in a closet and forgetting to come back for him, dooming him to a slow and agonizing death. Dark shit … but not directly intentional, more borne of apathy, so there’s another sense of there being an out.
That guy is at least antagonistic — a crime dude who got in Parker’s way. Sucks for him but he’s in the game, as opposed to that poor woman in The Hunter. Stark is a great writer and a brilliant editor, there is no fat on these books, and it took me a long time to realize how that can be an advantage in terms of not bringing in strays that would complicate things. This is not a completely accurate comparison because Parker does not work on this scale, but the very Parker-ish Neil McCauley does not hesitate to kill people in the game (Waingro) but more importantly cops in his way and any citizens in the crossfire — I think an undercurrent in these first four books is Stark figuring out what his recurring character can and can’t get away with and maintain his audience. At a certain level the Parkers are existentialist fantasy, Parker himself is not a Gary Stu and is very restricted in how he lives but he also is allowed to operate in certain parameters. Westlake joked about how Parker is hardcore crime but Dortmunder is more realistic because Dortmunder had to deal with more shit and that is a funny line that conceals a very real truth.
The Kill-Off, by Jim Thompson — a re-read of a strange one, a portrait of a shitty resort town and a murder told in first-person chapters from a different character each time, there is no real protagonist here, just people glimpsed in varying situations. Some are familiar — there is a genius psycho who hides his abuse just enough to keep face — but there are other outliers, including multiple women, and the only unifying factor is everyone is miserable in their own way. The solution to the murder is almost besides the point (and Thompson introduces a possibility in the final page that feels very weird, like it’s a way to add one more bit of unforeseen misery), the interlocked fuckery and hate and thwarted desire is what matters here and Thompson gets at matters sexual, racial, economic and psychological intertwining in despair — if The Getaway ends in the hell of El Rey, this suggests that everywhere is a El Rey of its own, diluted enough to keep going on and on with a death or two along the way and a slow death for everyone else. Good times!