dark matter indeed

{Warning: Spoilers ahead!}

I 'just' finished Dark Matter, Season 1 on Apple TV+* and I think it might be my strongest television recommendation possibly since Lost (!?).  I will say that this show is not for the faint of heart.  It's not scary, precisely, but the philosophical implications of this particular theory of multiverse are somewhat harrowing.  

The show (and evidently Blake Crouch's novel from which it was adapted) seems largely based upon^ my own personal theory of the multiverse, which was initially a bit surprising, but as the season progressed, made it comforting.  The wrinkle I hadn't anticipated (and what I found most disturbing about the show) was the extent to which navigation of the multiverse is dependent upon Mind.  

I'm not sure I find the science too compelling (a bit too human-centric {self-centric} for my taste), but for the sake of storytelling, the plot mechanic is inspired.  Jason Dessen (the protagonist, played by a very good Joel - Joel Edgerton) is a physicist in Chicago who has invented The Box, a giant version of a box several versions of him have invented that allows particles to exist in superposition (in this case existing within multiple iterations of the multiverse simultaneously).

The big Box allows not just a particle to exist in superposition but a whole thing - a person, say or even a couple of people - to enter the box and navigate through the multiverse.  The tricky bit is that the way that you determine which of the infinite realities you are going to emerge into when you once again open the box is based on your mind - not just your conscious thoughts, but your unconscious and subconscious state of mind when you open it (plus all of the same of those who you might be traveling with!).

Source: https://tinyurl.com/564drzcz

There's a bunch more plotty bits that happen that make for a really great season of television, but what struck me hardest was the moment when Jason emerges into a Chicago in a world that has been ravaged by plague.  He makes his way back to his house to find his wife, visibly ill, shocked to see him (because this world's him succumbed), and she is wrecked.  It's a very realistic glimpse into what a truly catastrophic outbreak might look like at the street level in America...

I'm most of the way through Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Course of Human History, a sweeping chronicle by Kyle Harper of how all of human history has been shaped by (or guided by) the micro-organisms that have made us sick.  Alternately it's a history of how human civilization has created and caused the uniquely massive variety of tiny little things designed to (and actively getting better at) kill us because we've gotten so good at existing... The book is really a constant questioning of which of those definitive interpretations is more true at any given time in human history, and emphasizes the degree to which our collective Thrownness operates not just on an individual level, but also at a biological level (and also at a cosmic level, naturally).

The version of you that you get to inhabit is inherently arbitrary, but certainly doesn't feel that way to us.  Choice - Action - Self... These are the things from which we build our narrative - our lives, right?  The idea that it is chance and circumstance where we find ourselves runs contrary to our modern American sensibility.  We work harder and harder to get further and further away from The Uncomfortable Truth** by filling our attention with screens and faiths and mantras, but the reason that the uncomfortable truth is truth... well, it's because it is, right?  

But I think it's easy to interpret The Uncomfortable Truth as something akin to Nietzschean nihilism, but the comfort (!!) of Humanism is its clear antidote.  We may not be much, us, here toiling away at living on this small out of the way planet - but our over-arching trend, tending toward progress for more of us - and constructing our grand Civilization, which endures and attempts and evolves - that is the thing that we're all here for.  What is a civilization but a narrative - a collection of all of the little narratives, most forgotten (heck, most of them were side quests to begin with!). 

So I suggest that you enjoy your story - if it's not exactly the version of it you were hoping for, rest easy in the knowledge that there very might well be another one where it's that, but you can soak up what you can here... maybe strive for a bit more of that other preferred one, but as Jason/Joel learns when he gets in the Box, you may like the look of another version, but you were made (or perhaps you made yourself) ready for this one right here, and no other.

Enjoy it (and by it, i also mean Dark Matter... it's really good).

 

* It seems to me that Apple TV+ produces nothing but bangers - like they just aren't interested in getting content out for the sake of content, but everything is really quality.  (That's not to say that I have seen all of it, nor that all if it is necessarily my thing, but I just went through a list of their productions, and everything on it that I've seen some or all of is really quite very good!).  In this era of lapsing quality in all things, that is really quite remarkable, but I'm going to put a pin in it for the moment, and move back to my starting point.

^ keen observers will note that Crouch's novel hails from 2016 whereas my own theory wasn't articulated fully on Roman Numeral J until early 2018.  

** I've been reading around a bit as well in the self-help and satirical self-help genres (it's often hard to tell those apart) in Mark Manson's Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope, and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and reading Lead it Like Lasso earlier this year as well as a bit of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits.  Generally these are not my types of books - but I've been on a bit of kick on the concept of "Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable" and working on a project, for now it's just a PowerPoint presentation, and I'm figuring out if it's enough to be even that, or maybe something more - a blog post, perchance a little book (!?)...

Toys vs. Tools

We watched (and bought*) Twisters 'tonight' - and it was totally, absolutely pretty good.  For context, Twister was a movie that came about in the heart of my youth and is a movie that I truly love, unironically, and unapologetically.  It came out when I was 18 years old and weeks away from graduating high school, and it imprinted on me.  Twister is earnest, a little schlocky (in all the best ways), and a fairly fun ride (literally, too, as Brooke and I did the Twister ride at Universal Studios Florida, although not actually literally as the ride wasn't that great - I just remember standing in a room with a fence, and then it was kind of windy, but not at you, just near you...).

Anyway, the point is - Twister is a pretty okay movie that comes to some relevant (if somewhat cliched) conclusions - "Making something of yourself" and "Don't be a total sellout" and "Love love (or no divorce allowed or something...)".  The science bits / meteorology / plot stuff is all very good.  There's a science bucket full of science puffins, and if they get the bucket in front of the twister and all the puffins fly up into it, they get science to speak tornado!

Twisters on the other hand starts with some children hobbyists who have a geo-engineering science fair project that ends in tragedy.  The tragedy of standing in front of a tornado and being killed by it - shocker.

The first mistake was to make the movie as a completely standalone sequel - like, it didn't need to integrate big parts of the earlier cast, but some cameos and nods to the earlier work would have been nice.  And grounding it in the 'science' of the earlier - a bit of "standing on the shoulders of giants" - I think might have grounded the plot in some semblance of the realistic, but of course those are not themes that we like in our current era, whether fictional or non-fictional.

The young will save us, and a profound disinterest in the ideas that came before... (generally before 2015 or so if you investigate the thinking very deeply).  The absolute importance of being liked - and if you aren't liked publicly (praised visibly), then you may as well not bother.

The central message of this far inferior sequel seems to be about "Ways to 'keep' getting ahead".  The happy ending isn't anything about doing good science for the world, or even like getting married or being happy or anything but frakking starting a company!

Congratulations!, You made it, please begin exploiting... 

{sigh}

* renting on Amazon Prime is a total scam - the cost of buying is generally just under double the cost of renting, and I feel like most movies - you will find another time in life when you are going to watch it or show it or reference it, so just own it forever (until Amazon collapses, which at this rate will likely be after the US government collapses!).

The Lingering: Skulldiggery Book 3, by DM Gritzmacher (book review)

Probably your favorite bartender / real estate magnate returns (The Quarry, 2023) in an interweaving blend of eras and narratives.

Almost 44 years ago, Russell Stander found something.  Spending summers of his adolescence away from home and friends in Michigan, and instead a season-long visit to his idiosyncratic, elderly aunt in Western Illinois, Rusty is understandably in search of adventure.  As it turns out, he and his cadre of summer friends find more than they bargain for, discovering a mysterious, abandoned graveyard full of dark secrets. 

Stephen King and Peter Straub described the “dreamlike and slightly unnatural… characteristic of borderlands” in their novel Black House, and DM Gritzmacher’s third installment of the Skulldiggery series takes place just a short way down that most awesome (and awful!) of all American borders – The Mississippi River.  The story hops between the present day, the early 1980s, and the turn of the 19^th into the early 20^th Century, with each of the three eras meandering toward each other as the narrative unfolds.  In our modern moment, we find middle-aged bar owner Rusty returning to the small community of Almore, Illinois with his friend and employee, Tom Secrist, a retired police officer.  In the early 80s, we find the same Rusty, 10 years old (give or take), and a group of four friends wandering through the countryside in search of some fun and some adventure.  And eighty years prior to that, a mysterious figure on either side of the border that is The Mississippi (and the turn of that century on either side of 1900) also wandering that same countryside where the boys find themselves we are witness to a sequence of grisly murders told from the perspective of the perpetrator.

It's part Stand By Me and part In Cold Blood, with a dash of co
smic horror, and a world of related stories swirling all around the edges.

Engaging, leaving you hungry for more.

Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023

ISBN: 9798986638751

Page Count: 259

Publisher: Piqued

a books report

 Writing fiction is a thankless endeavor - I think - really any writing at all,,, putting words out there in the world for others to read and think about and judge.  To be a "best-selling" author, with hundreds and thousands of people buying (as Kai was told, "nicht geraucht, sonder gekauft!") and then judging your stuff... 

I recently have been reading fictional essais by a couple of former clients of mine (two who I genuinely enjoyed as humans and who I felt might actually have some insight and understanding as to what at least part of the human condition was all about^), while also reading a few parallel novels by more established writers (or at least more universally accepted books in the book and adaptation world...)

I have long been a student of literature (and I guess humanity?) - but my interest I think was always really about understanding the disparity between 1) Human Experience, which is (I think) an idiosyncratic, personal, and (possibly) unshareable experience [and a small aside here, but I think this is quite fundamental - I'm not saying that we as humans can't share our experience, but that the overall total version of our worldview may be different for each and every one of us {kind of like the what if when I see blue, other people are seeing red...} and this separation may in fact be the source of our larger inability to cohabitate on earth.] and that of 2) Human Expression, I'll admit, my initial bias here has always been through the written (and sorta spoken) word, but this is everyone's expression of musical, conversational, comedic, artistic(al?), filmic, poetical, historical, sociological, personal...

This may shock you, but I am a very judgmental reader - I think of things pretty harshly as very well written, not very well written, horribly written, etc..  I am simultaneously a voraciously omnivorous reader, willing to read not only across almost any genre, but also any quality.  I love bad writing almost as much as I like good writing - certainly I have learned a lot more from bad writing than good.  It's a lot easier to identify what exactly is bad in bad writing (and thereby try to excise it from your own writing) than it is to identify what exactly makes good writing good - it's all good or great, but what is it, exactly, that they just did there?  

In conversation with my wife about "needing a new book", I have tried to have her parse out a bit what it is she is looking for in a great reading experience, and she framed it this way:

"I don't like it when writers are writing obscurely, just for the sake of being obscure.  Neither do I like it, though (this isn't really how she talks), when writers just come out and say what they mean, like Stephen King (she's not a fan), he has a thought, and then he just writes it right out there for everyone to see.  I want a writer to couch (clearly, this is me, but I am summarizing her) their point within their prose a bit, but not to be too obscure."

A couple of recent examples of books that fit this bill that she (and subsequently I) both really enjoyed are Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr and The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.  Clearly she likes a little bit of magical realism too, and it certainly helps for a book to be about books, too...  In both of these example books, the reader feels a bit adrift in the early going, wondering just what is going on, and how the disparate chapters &* characters might fit together with one another, and what it all amounts to.   

Another book that we both recently read (this one my choice, rather than hers) was The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (which I have just learned is also alternately titled The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, which is exceedingly strange to me).  This book, though not about books, was largely satisfactory to Brooke's books* criteria up until the very end, when the author, one Stuart Turton, comes out and tells us just precisely what's been going on here.  I still quite liked the book, and highly recommend it, although it did feel a bit M. Night Shylaman-y there at the end.

Another book I read recently that purports to be about a strange, scary phenomenon happening in the sewers (among other places) of a fictional small town near the coast was Phantoms, by Dean Koontz, and man-oh-man does he shit the bed whilst fully explaining the phenomenon that has been haunting the town with a "scientifically viable" (he assures us in the author's note afterward) account of what the characters discover.  And this is not remotely the worst part of this book.  While the similarly summarizable* novel, It, has seven kids at the center of it who we get to know and care about, there is exactly nobody in Koontz' novel to care about and so the story has no stakes.  I think this is because the characters, rather than acting like (or being) thinking, feeling humans, are more akin to walking talking resumes of humans (or maybe they're more like LinkedIn profiles).  So too in those novels by my clients, never, anywhere in them, do I get a sense that anyone remotely real is nearby the narratives.  

It Happens in the Hamptons is a (sometimes shockingly) tawdry novel of manners set within the Old Money / New Money / No Money world of the Hamptons, but despite the constant crashing together of characters from widely differing backgrounds nothing ever really feels at stake, I think because all of the characters really feel more like summaries of backgrounds, rather than anyone who resembles

anyone who might be real.  Contrast it with the similarly set Fleishman is in Trouble or even Diary, by Chuck Palahniuk.  In that last, none of the characters feel at all real, both because the novel is written all from one perspective - one voice, but mostly because we're in the midst of a nightmare fairy tale, but the stakes for everyone involved are such that we care about the characters in those books. 

The Last Ember is a (sometimes shockingly)* Jewish clone of The Da Vinci Code where every character who enters any scene is literally handing everyone else in the room their resume^^.

And, even after all that effort of putting words to page, you find my surely-soon-to-be-defunct blog that is drawing more attention to your prosal* efforts, never quite coming out and saying anything, just commenting on it all, generally negatively.

*sigh*^^^

^After several occasions meeting both of them it became eminently clear that neither of them in fact did, but it was also obvious that it was very important to both of their senses of self that I thought that they did (even though it was also obvious that in their account of the world what I thought mattered not at all).  In fact in all of my decade plus at MPS I only ever encountered one single client who seemed to have any insight into this at all).
* Then there's me, who uses an Ampersand just because the "ch" sounds in two neighboring words are different, and that's fun to draw them a bit closer, or uses unnecessary words in sentences to make fun rhymes (both literal and thematic) happen, or creating words that should be (but probably aren't).
^^No, they aren't.
^^^These asterisk brackets are unrelated to the previous footnote usage of the asterisks earlier in this post, and any similarities are incidental^^. 

Potentialities, or Could Walter and Martin have been friends?

Earlier this year (about a month or so before squirrel* {BS}), I started again to read works by one of my top two "favorite"^ writers, Walter Benjamin, whose first volume of his collected writings in English I finished in toto last July.  To be sure, I've read a lot of these three collections that I own (I have Volumes 3, 2 & 1 in my collection the first {or the 3rd, depending on your perspective} of which I received as a "gift / bribe" from Malynne at the end of the first course I took with her "Cults of Personality: Hitler, Stalin Mao").  

This second volume has begun with quite a lot of short reviews and happenings-related short pieces rather than the deeper philosophical pieces that he's most known for (if Benjamin can be said to be well known in any capacity).  The reason for this is clear, with Benjamin as a young man in is mid-20s he was struggling post university to find work and publishing these short, timely works wherever he could.  Two such articles published just a couple weeks apart in a couple different newspapers were both clearly derived from one single meeting / conversation / interview with André Gide, and another couple were (very) short reviews of a book by Karl Gröber.  What's amazing to me is not the brilliant extent to which he so brazenly double dips (nor the fact that you used to just be able to do book reports and send them to a publication and get paid for it!), rather it's the way that all of it is dripping with intentionality, but so rarely concerns itself with execution.

Por ejemplo, in Benajmin's interview with André Gide, Gide repeatedly discusses the lecture that he had planned to given while he was visiting Berlin (his visit to Berlin being the occasion of Benjamin's meeting with him), but that he has been so distracted by such visits and because of the nature of Berlin life, "the leisure [he] had counted on never arrived," and he never got the chance to write the lecture. And so, instead of giving a lecture, he just vaguely outlines the ideas he had intended to cover to Benjamin, who dutifully laps them up and writes them up for two separate German newspapers, and his (Gide's) work is "complete". 

I love this concept of doing something just by saying it out loud.  Come to think of it, this is rather the same method of work employed by Peter from my time at MPS, a deep underlying faith that if you just talk about what you want to have happen it will come into being (although in this latter case it involved employing an entire staff of people who were basically there to just try and discern his wishes, and then carry out all of these whims as much as possible). In the earlier case of Benjamin and his contemporaries, the focus is much more on the potentiality of having had a great idea, and then thinking about how great it was, and not concerning yourself terribly with the fact that it never came to fruition.

Another thing that I find compelling about Walter Benjamin is that he is a near exact contemporary of my grandfather, Martinus Kvidt.  Born just 9 months apart, Benjamin on the pre-anniversary of my own wedding on 15 July 1892, and Martin on MKE day 14 April 1893, they were both part of The Lost Generation of their respective countries, and while my grandpa was off to Europe to fight in World War 1, Benjamin was a country or two away studying away at university.  

I'm not entirely sure why, but I have always been interested in synchronicities - the phenomenon of things things happening at the same time in different places (and in different worlds, even - fictional and historical and historical fictional or futural historical...).  For years, I have tried to find (or create) a calendar app that would allow for historical events to be created throughout the past (weirdly, google calendar seems to have an odd glitch {or maybe it's actually iCal that has the glitch} where you can create some events in the far distant past and they will sometimes reappear, so I sometimes am able to re-discover that George McFly was murdered on March 15, 1973 {or it possibly could have been early in the morning of the 16th; anyway the same week as when the Watergate break-in guy was being paid off...} while looking through my calendar, but other times not, as the event appears and disappears unpredictably on my Calendar app).

I like to think about contemporaries in history, art, cinema (like, for instance what was going on in 1999 cinema that made it such a spectacular sampling of content while the history of that moment wasn't especially exciting - although we were on the brink of a lot that would happen in just the next few years and ultimately set up much of what we find around us today...), literature and also to consider the generations looking back at their influences from prior generations (a process that I would have thought I could have generalized as a faster and faster process, with TikTokkers citing Taylor Swift as major influence {some 10 years earlier}, whereas Benjamin and many thinkers of his era largely looked back Centuries, and in particular 150 years give or take to the Romantic Era of German literature {your Goethes & your Schillers, etc.}, but I think this tends to over-generalizing the history of cultural influencers {ikr!?}.

Perhaps the greatest of these Influencers of the 19th Century (don't worry, I'm bringing this in for a landing) is the Kurt Cobain or Jim Morrison of his era, John Keats, who died at 25 and then suddenly thereafter became a famous and great poet.  Keats is of course most famous for writing the poem that you read in high school, "Ode to a Grecian Urn" and for aggrandizing the concept of Negative Capability.

 Negative Capability, Keats called when one is “capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after facts and reason.” 

More than anything, this concept seems like the philosophical equivalent of the thinking without necessarily doing life philosophy we were talking about before (rather like the "Harold Hill Think Method" of marching band instruction!, "la-di-da-di-da-di-daaa").

*We had a moment this past spring, where we encountered a full-on squirrel nest in the engine block of our erstwhile Ford Edge, a vehicle that had had (before and after) A LOT of other issues once it was rapidly wandering out of warranty.  It took some help, but we have finally found our way out of that Capitalist death trap, and are generally on to lower and worse things, but at least out of that! 

Play Ya' Charactah'

All the worlds a stage... 

In my case (and the case of most recovering academics and definitely most bloggers!) that world is more like a podcast studio (and not like a nice one, rather one where one of the participants is sitting on a bed, which is next to an IKEA desk which is also "the board")...

 My DM (and yes, as an old person i urban dictionaried that to make sure i wasn't going to sound too stupid - turns out it's #5!) is a young fella, DM Steve, and as a young white man he has a lot of opinions (as i did {and do!} when i was/am a young white man).

...Among these [is] that Star Trek: Picard is not truly a Star Trek show.  His premise is (i've been taught that the best way to argue is to first state your opponents case as well as they could have ever said it so they can only say, "i agree with that") that Picard isn't Star Trek...  It lacks Gene Roddenberry's foundational vision that the future is bright and the human project (for early Star Trek read that as the American Project) is optimistic.  DM Steve pointed to the fact the Raffi, the only major black (and female) character we've met (or seemingly will meet) lives in a trailer after her Star Fleet career has (been) ended, because she was Picard's right hand and he decided to quit.

Furthermore, the inclusion of swears is highly un-Star Trek (notable fanFeeds notwithstanding).  DM Steve contends that the new show may be quality sci-fi (tho as yet that is to be determined), but it is decidedly not a part of the Star Trek universe, because it doesn't adhere to the defining vision...

The story of Star Trek (production-wise) is complicated and varied.  When The Original Series (TOS) was on TV, it was struggling for continued existence and was limited by the constraints of its era as a monster-of-the-week series with minimal character development.  As a result, every problem was wrapped up by the end of the hour.  TOS had just one single two-part episode in its three year run...

Thus, it wasn't until the movies (and really not until the second - The Wrath of Khan) where any problem - with a monster of the week; or with the larger world (er, galaxy) - had real stakes.  The Wrath of Khan ends in a victory, but it is partial, and at great cost (sorry, Spock!). 

When The Next Generation (TNG) came about, it also began as a monster-of-the week series.  Through its run of seven seasons there were 9 two-parters, but only one before the end of season 3 (and that was the series premiere, where both episodes aired on the same evening).

As TNG came in to its own, it started to venture away from the straight "one episode, one new problem" formula, and explore recurring conflicts in the larger world.  First external, like Q, the Ferengi, the Crystalline Entity - but TNG also started to explore the concept that Star Fleet - the human institution at the core of the entire Star Trek Universe - was perhaps not infallible.  I think first with "The Measure of a Man" where Star Fleet sanctions reclassifying Data, a graduate of their academy, as property.

More importantly, as the series progressed, was the relationship with the Borg - and particularly how Picard deals with them (and particularly the changes in his behavior after his assimilation).  The Borg are the perfect test case - an enemy so heinous that any action to thwart would be justified.  When Picard has the opportunity in Season 5's "I, Borg" episode to infect the Borg with what might constitute a genocidal pandemic he plans to use it right up until the last minute when he is swayed to take another course.

Picard's moral dilemma (much like his rampant revenge motive throughout much of First Contact, the best of the Next Gen films) is what makes it Star Trek.  Roddenberry's vision was one of a future that had achieved much - an optimistic outlook to answer the dystopian imagining that makes up most science fiction.  But the Star Trek universe is not a utopia.  It is utopian in its ideals, but that work (like our work) is an ongoing project, toward betterment.

In Star Trek: Picard, there is a clear moral balance - "good guys" and "bad guys" (some are what we expect - e.g. Romulans bad | but some teams aren't matching our expectations - e.g. Borg, Star Fleet, or androids).  What's unfamiliar about it is the pace - i expect that by the end of Season 1 we will have resolution of the moral order and clarity and what has gone wrong.  It's a season-long episode, and good will triumph in the end (though perhaps just a partial victory).

The world of Star Trek isn't achieved.  Even at its origin (whether that's TOS, Enterprise, Zefram Cochrane or even the Kelvin Universe reboot), the utopian ideal was a work in process.  And a core value of the world is betterment.  There were cracks in Star Fleet in The Undiscovered Country, TNG and DS9.  Too long resting on its laurels assuming it was good because it was Star Fleet.  In Insurrection, the corrosive corruption had taken full hold, and 10 years later when Mars is destroyed (by whom, we're not quite sure yet - though it sure seems it wasn't the synths), it has taken full hold... Selfish protectionism and the path of the human project seemingly lost...

Jalapeño Serioso

We ate last night (for about the 500th time) at Jalapeño Loco - hands down the best Mexican restaurant in Milwaukee.  Just north of the airport (5067 S. Howell Avenue), it looks from the street like a place you'd pass by, but inside it's cozy, particularly on the bar side (best option if you're two or one is the bar, which is friendly and plenty of space for food).

Order the High Taste Margarita while you consider your menu options.  It is a superior concoction made with the Sauza Conmemorativo.  The house and gold versions are fine - and there are flavors if that's your speed, but if you don't go high taste you're selling yourself short. 

The reason there are so few great Mexican restaurants is finding a balance of a great margarita with exceptional authentic food.  Jalapeño Loco (or "Jalapanoes" {hard 'J'} as my in-laws fondly refer to it) specializes in Oaxacan cuisine, and dabble in a number of other regions of Mexico.  You really can't go wrong on their menu, although their moles are quite special and not to be missed.  The weekly specials are also generally quite good, and we frequently visit and only stay on this ever-changing list.  Last night, it was the Chalupas appetizer and Pollo Estofado and a few High Taste Margaritas. 

As we were entering last night, we were bemoaning the fact that Milwaukee doesn't have any truly upscale Mexican places, which are coming into favor in larger metros.  So we propose a new restaurant in Milwaukee - in the same vein as Jalapeño Loco (perhaps even with the exact same menu!).  I think we should call it Jalapeño Serioso, and it should probably find a location in the 3rd Ward/5th Ward fluidity.  A lofty, industrial space - if Hugo and Janet want to start it, that would be awesome (!), but if they don't want to, that's okay... your spot is a favorite already. 

But i duly submit this as a brilliant idea...

Tyler Ledger Joker Fi

I went and saw Joker last night - dutifully.  It was violent, very well made, well acted (and heavily acted), wonderfully shot, all like you've heard.

I would also like to submit that it may just be the most thought-provoking piece of cinematic commentary on our current socio-economic condition in decades.

It is a radical film full of radical ideas and radical violence.  Although it saddens me that it is radical to say that the current economic status quo is wildly immoral and that an existential cognitive dissonance is necessary to participate in the system honestly.

The central question of Joker is whether any of the events of the movie actually happened or not within the confines of the fictional Batman universe.  This question is revealed in the final moments of the movie when Arthur is locked up for treatment of his mental illness.  It becomes clear that this moment is chronologically prior to all of the violence that has previously occurred in the film.  Arthur describes all (or possibly just some) of that violence as a "joke" that as occurred to him as we was speaking with his case worker.  When she asks him what it was, he says that she "wouldn't get it".

Source: tvOvermind.com

This 'final reveal' parallels the 20-year-old final reveal of what I consider the last really radical movie focused on these same themes, Fight Club.  In that movie we learn that our previously reliable narrator was actually Tyler Durden the whole time.  (Also, in a partial re-viewing the scene where Lou drops in on a fight club evening, Tyler's hysterical laughter after having his ass kicked by Lou is preminiscent of Arthur's own manifestations of his mental illness).

Earlier in the film, it is revealed that Arthur's mother was diagnosed with delusional psychosis and narcissistic personality disorder (a diagnosis that may be pretty close to part of Arthur's own plus a dash of schizophrenia - which is reified in the moment when Arthur is actually standing in the room as an adult when his mother is being booked into Arkham after abusing him as a child).  While many reviewers have made much of the portrayal of mental illness in the film, I think the underlying argument of both of these movies is that some forms of thought and action (including some violence) that we casually refer to as mental illness are in fact radical responses to the immoral status quo.

To be clear, I am not condoning any real world violence here, but I do think that artistic depiction of radical political violence can pose important questions that perhaps can't be voiced within the current socio-political climate.  Questions like - what might happen if we take the modern-era royalty (i.e. the super-rich) out of power.  In Joker the one piece of violence that we know "really happens" (although perhaps not exactly as we see it occur in the movie) is the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne.  This event is formative to the future Batman, so it has to occur within the larger mythology of the film.

We also tend to forget in our modern and enlightened era how rare it is to have massive social change without violence.  Although the "clowns" in Joker are easily read as violent criminal thugs engaged in looting and riots, they are also the lumpenproletariat activated by their clown prince.  They are engaged in a modern iteration of the French Revolution and their King Louis XVI (i.e. Thomas Wayne) needs to topple.  One wonders what, exactly, this makes Batman in this historical parallel?

another look

Source: Heroic Hollywood

With the upcoming release of Solo: A Star Wars Story this month, I thought it was time to re-watch the full series, episodes 1 - 8, plus 3.9 (Rogue One) and, I'm guessing, 3.5 (Solo), and rank them for your edification.

Note, i'm publishing as i watch, so prior to the new movie, the first three episodes are going to be ranked top three - because i'm ranking them relationally.  A movie will only get ranked #1 if it is better than the one watched just before it...

Episode I: The Phantom Menace - 1999 (dir. George Lucas) - Rank #10
(5/13/2018)

While Jar Jar Binks remains one of the most unfortunate characters in the sci-fi pantheon, and he occupies altogether too much screen time in this film, this movie suffered from unfair expectations when it was first released.  It had been 15 years since Return of the Jedi, and now we were only going to get back story - what had happened before. 

The Pod Race is, perhaps, the best action sequence in all of the Star Wars series.  (I think this is true, but will monitor for any alternatives as I watch through the series again).  This is the first view we get in all of Star Wars of Coruscant. 

The light saber battle with Darth Maul also has to be the greatest sword-fight of the series, n'est-ce pas?  The theatrics and the choreography are worthy of Oscar consideration if that sort of thing were awarded.  Our former (or soon to be) mentor, Obi-Wan is the hot-headed upstart who is over-eager to end Darth Maul after Qui-Gon Jinn is ended himself.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones - 2002 (dir. George Lucas) - Rank #3
(5/23/2018)

The second episodes always seems to go dark, but in this first trilogy, it's more of a balanced affair. At a most basic level, Episode II had a lot of work to do that is put upon prequels: creating a love affair that creates Luke & Leia; setting up a Clone War; showing the start of someone 'turning to the dark side'; providing context for the resentment that Luke experiences in Episode IV regarding his father and high-falutin' space-faring... 

There was a recent review (in fact on May the 4th, 2018), which I cannot find, that looked back at Episode II with newfound fondness, and I'm inclined to agree.  Although there is clumsiness here - heartfelt emotion has always been a bit beyond the series, but let's not forget we're dealing with an action adventure here, folks...

While the action sequences are inferior to Episode I, this is a better movie.  Seeing Jedi in action, "on the case" as it were, both in the heat of pursuit and with Obi Wan bluffing his way on Kamino, is a joy of seeing life in Star Wars before everything feel apart.  That Kamino sequence is actually quite marvelous, and introduces us in a very new way to the storm troopers.  In The Clone Wars cartoons (which I will skip here), we get to know them even more, which makes the fall in Episode III and moving into IV all the more painful.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - 2005 (dir. George Lucas) - Rank #9
(5/27/2018)

This movie would make a lot more sense if one has watched The Clone Wars series. The motivations, and how we find ourselves in the midst of this all. Overall, this is not a great film, but once again it performs a lot of necessary work.  The revenge in the title definitely implies that things will go poorly for our friends...

The temptation of the dark side has been, for most of the movie series, a bit obscure.  Love and commitment lead pain.  Pain leads to suffering.  Suffering leads to the dark side (i may have skipped {or invented} some steps there).  Once again, though, The Clone Wars cartoon offers another alternative path at least away from the Jedi way (if not directly to the Dark Side).  Ahsoka Tano, one of the most interesting characters in TCW, studies as Anakin Skywalker's Padawan learner.  Before the end of the series (and therefore the beginning of Episode III) Ahsoka had left the Jedi Order to seek a better balance.  

Episode III is not a great film, but it does some of its parts well enough.  I would say that it's a full step above Episode I, because Jar Jar Binks does not speak.  But it's also some fine high drama.  I think the film helps us feel the pain and tragedy of Anakin's betrayal.  It also shows some great battles, but also the great Star Wars Universe moments of Order 66, meeting Chewbacca, (but most awfully) seeing Anakin fall and ultimately murder.  

Solo: A Star Wars Story (Episode 3.25) - 2018 (dir. Ron Howard) - Rank #7
(5/30/2018)

It is very difficult to rank (at least this) Star Wars Story alongside the other episodes. Similar to the prequel episodes, there is a lot of nostalgia that factors in to the viewing joy of this film. However, at its core, this movie is a heist picture and it seems fairly successful at that... (except it has a few too many heists).  If this were Solo: The Kessel Run (aka Solo's Eleven) instead of a Star Wars Story, the structure of the film would've been allowed to be 1) get a gang together (and meet the characters as they meet each other); 2) plan the job (and learn everyone's individual motivations as the plan comes together); 3) do the job (and watch as it all seems to be falling apart, but then comes together in the end). 

This movie has a lot of filling in the blanks work to do as well as we have seen in the first three episodes. EW had a cover story that focused on the birth of the most important friendship in all of Star Wars (the shower scene is very hilarious and perfect), and a lot of post-release commentary has been about the fan-bits that they got right and wrong (how neat that they made it work that making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs ISN'T just a dumb writing mistake from the '70s!).

 In the end, this movie has a lot of heart - it's just not where we expect to find it.  Much has been made of the less than plausible love affair between Han and Kira, but it seems to me that it's just one in a series of several formative loves (perhaps even four loves, as Sarah Welch partially posits in a neat post on a site called thinkChristian).  What Welch misses (or skips) is the pushing back on C.S. Lewis' ideas about love.  Solo, I think, argues that friendship - the relationship of Han and Chewie - is the greatest and most important bond in life (and that idea bears out in the course of the rest of the episodes).

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Episode 3.95) - 2016 (dir. Gareth Edwards) - Rank #8
(7/15/2018)

Although this movie starts out as a bit of a disjointed mess... it feels a bit like they expect you've watched The Clone Wars with all of the planet hopping... in the end, this episode (or sub-episode) holds up quite well. Particularly impressive is that they have managed to tell a story that every viewer already knows the end, and yet make it suspenseful.

It's a tough story to hear - a lot of sacrifice.  By the end, almost anyone we've decided to care about in the course of the film will be dead. We already know this going in - because of one throwaway line in Episode IV.  But watching it unfold is exciting - it's dramatic.

Even more enjoyable is watching the end of this movie, and immediately starting Episode IV.  The drive of A New Hope has never felt so real or logical as when you've watched the last ditch effort of Rogue One.  Until I rewatched this episode, I was not expecting to rank it as high as I did...  but it's an incredible lesson in fulfilled expectations.  

Episode IV: A New Hope - 1977 (dir. George Lucas) - Rank #5
(7/31/2018)

Such a classic, and difficult to rank, because I've seen it so many times... The movie has it's weak points, which have often been enumerated (by me and everyone). But it's also wonderfully paced adventure movie. It's not the break-neck pace of modern sci-fi or adventure flicks, but it does feel, at times, jam packed.  Always already on to the next thing.

This is, in large part, because the original trilogy is written to be and structured to be so mythological. (See Joseph Campbell). Meeting our familiar friends (and by this i mean of course in this viewing!) is such a joy. Obi Wan got old! And quick!.  And young Han Solo is all grown up. It's a new look at an old friend when you've watched so recently the origin story, where he was a padawan gangster... Now he is just as cocky and self-assured as he was when he was young, but he wears it better. I guess Luke, too... we saw him as a wee baby at the end of Episode III, and here he is as a whiny adolescent!  (Oh, and Uncle Owen and his wife Beru!)

Episode IV started all of this first and foremost because it is a well made movie. It's got iconic characters who we will come to love and care about.  The storyboard for the movie is almost simplistic, but especially when you watch this film after Rogue One, some of the absurdities evaporate.  Why would the Empire build an ultimate weapon that has such an exploitable weakness?  It was an inside job by the rebels!  Well done Rebels!  Looks like everything is going to turn out just fine for you :)

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back - 1980 (dir. Irvin Kershner) - Rank #1
(8/30/2018)

This is the most complex of the Star Wars movies... It hurts seeing our dear friends suffer, but suffering (along with leading to the dark side) helps us better understand ourselves - and by extension, our characters. The movie stretches far, and it's hard to place on a calendar. How long have these folks known each other once they find themselves on Hoth?  There's a canon answer to that now, I suppose, but at this point it's hard to know.

The family and friendship development takes leaps and bounds in this installment. At the start, Han & Leia are still feeling the childish antics, but by ACT IV, they're ready to say they love each other (to each other). We met the characters in Episode IV (or III or III.25, I suppose), but here is where we really get to know them and love them and learn them. While i think this movie stands strongly as the best of the whole series on the merits of plot and story and all, it's probably universally seen as the best Star Wars movie because it's the one where we really get to know everyone. In love and movies and novels - what we really love is the learning. Meeting new people - learning them - getting to know someone - the exploration, that's what we grasp on to.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi - 1983 (dir. Richard Marquand) - Rank #4
(9/28/2018)

I think whenever I actually watch Return of the Jedi, I am surprised by the extent to which I not only like it, but think it is a strong contender amongst the top tier of episodes. I'm actually a little torn as i watch this as to whether it ranks above or below A New Hope. This is all said with one large caveat - I know, Ewoks! While i was of the age to be able to enjoy the Saturday morning cartoon (which was awesome by the way), I do now know - and to some extent have always known - that the Ewoks were Jar Jar before there was Jar Jar.

All this is true, but the tri-level battle at the end of the film has to be the best cinematic in the entire series. You've got the papa drama of Luke and Vader in a tiff that they resolve through their mutual eventual hatred of The Emperor (aka Mom), the massive "it's a trap!" space battle where we ultimately learn yeehaw is an innate human expression, and the sorta silly Ewok battle for Endor. 

Know first, that what follows is NOT an apology for Ewoks... 

...that said, the Ewoks represent a small part of the full mosaic that is needed to bring down an empire.  In an era where we have so much tribalism (more on this later), it is easy to forget the interconnection necessary between those tribes to accomplish anything.  The Rebels need help - the Jedi are all but gone, hope is nearly lost, and Endor is under occupation.  Guerrilla war is, fought by natives not only protecting their land, but also fighting for the greater good, is no small thing.  Plus they're just so adorable!

Episode VII: The Force Awakens - 2015 (dir. J.J. Abrams) - Rank #6
(10/11/2018)

It was only 16 years (only seems like a strange word here, but it's actually quite apt) between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace. The wait for this next trilogy to start was only 10 years, and the span between each episode will now be filled by middle episodes (3.9, 3.25, etc.). My hope is that we can someday see some episodes that occur between other episodes (6.5!?, 0.025!!??)

The Force Awakens is a joy, because it continues the story of long-lost friends, and introduces us to a new generation.  It's also a sort of ridiculous echo - The Empire, re-organized into The First Order has created another, newer, bigger planet-killing weapon.  

The film ranks as high as it does, because it's a blast - accidentally re-discovering the Millennium Falcon because the ship of choice in the junk yard gets obliterated; Maz Kanata!, in jokes, BB-8, and the death of Han Solo.  The film ranks as low as it does, because it is first and foremost, a preamble.  The heft isn't there, except in Han's death.  It's a good movie, but the epic part is ahead.

Episode VIII: The Last Jedi - 2017 (dir. Rian Johnson) - Rank #2
(11/17/2018)

This is a fun and funny ride toward the end of the Skywalker Era in the galaxy. The movie is epic in scale, but playful and modest in tone. It's a valuable lesson, to not take history-making and iconoclasm too seriously - particularly from the inside). The movie opens with a cute "can you hear me now" bit between General Hux and Poe and ends with the implication of the rising of an entire new generation of force users.  Between those two moments, the foundation of (let's say, hypothetically, 2) thousand year-old religion burns in a fire started by it's two greatest proponents: Luke Skywalker and Yoda.

The Last Jedi is a riddle - in English it feels like it refers to either Skywalker or Rey. Once we learned the title in German - Die Letzten Jedi - it became clear that there are many more than one last Jedi.  Also clear is that what was the Jedi religion (the light side of the Force) will be different - or differently interpreted - in this new era.  No longer dogmatic.  The question is whether this burning of the old books and the (new to me) magic tree represents: 1) the Reformation or 2) the Enlightenment or Age of Reason.

Neither of these historical moments has quite lived up to it's promise in our own galaxy, but the former in the Star Wars Universe would mean that Force adept folks can interpret and experience the Force in their own ways (think Chirrut Îmwe from Rogue One.)  The latter may mean that the Galaxy is ready to be done allowing faith leaders (light side or dark side) to dominate their politics.  This latest installment of Star Wars is so great, because it finishes the mythology of the Skywalker Era and starts to show us some truer stories of our own galaxy and everyday heroes.

And sure... this list doesn't need to be final - there are plenty more - but to my mind, this is the one to keep on file for the long run...

John Cusack - AIROAPG

I went last night to see Say Anything in a public venue with (i'm gonna say...) 1000 (300?, i'm really bad at estimating) people.  I've never been one to choose favorites, but the oeuvre of John Cusack's is something worth celebrating.  It doesn't mean that everything he's in or has made is amazing, or even great or even good...

JC said something interesting in the "A Conversation with John Cusack" following the screening.  Tiffany Ogle had the unenviable job of trying to provoke JC into conversation, which he didn't seem inclined to join.  Ogle was asking some fairly banal questions around favorite memories or behind the scene stories of film making.  JC said 2 things that were a bit interesting - that he liked "anything that had worked" and comparing successful film making to a batting average in baseball.

We live in such a quick to sneer culture (a good example was the balcony of the post-Say Anything crowd), and even though film making technologies are less expensive than ever, the risk-taking in film making is at an all-time low.  JC's point was, I think (he needed a lot of interpreting, as he didn't seem inclined to elaborate much at all), that many films made in earlier days would not be made in today's environment.  The larger point was essentially that bad movies - which is to say movies that fail to do something interesting - should be made and the makers and the actors ought not be blamed for doing something that doesn't pull it off.

The act of art-making ought to be a risky proposition.  If you're sure something is going to be a hit, it's probably not that interesting.  Putting something out in the world should be scary - are they going to like it, hate it, get it?

And so, herewith I bestow a new label to my blog - the first in quite a long time - #AIROAPG.  For the name, I owe a debt to Benjamin Katz.  In the comments of this post, will be a retrospective of the complete works of John Cusack.  I've seen many of them previously, of course, perhaps almost all of them, but a fresh viewing seems worthwhile.

Counting Crows @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, IL (9/17/2017)

I love the Counting Crows - unironically, without nostalgia, although somewhat lazily.  It's been many years since I last saw them live, and as much as I love them, I'd forgotten how fantastic the show is that they put on.  Meinetwegen. 



.5. "Lean on Me" - a verse and chorus, from offstage (or pre-recorded)

1. Round Here - drawn out and meandering. In the best possible way

2. Hard Candy

3. Dislocation

4. Colorblind - a bit of a strange tempo shift. Also weirdly pantomime-y

5. Omaha

6. Miami - weird out of place guitar solo

7. God of Ocean Tides

8. Goodnight L.A.

9. Long December 

10. Elvis Went to Hollywood

11. Mr. Jones

12. Hangin' Around (w/ Rob Thomas)

(encore)

13. Palisades Park

14. Rain King

Open Letter to Brian Reed

Hello Brian,

I have just listened through to the last episode of S-Town, and am just now passing by Flint, Michigan to my right on Southwest Flight 336 (I promise I’m responsibly on airplane mode!).

I would first like to say, thank you for this podcast and all of your work that has gone into it.  You might just as well have called it Walden III (note: I am a former English major with an M.A. in Humanities and am in the death throes of a PhD program in Modern Studies, but fully admit that I’ve not read Walden II and Thoreau’s original is more years away from me than I care to admit, and though I think I recall it well, I likely am remembering it mythologically).  Nonetheless, the project, whether it’s really yours or John B. Macklemore’s, is a revelation for the humanist project – and I appreciate the time, and work, and life, and effort that went into it.

I started Chapter VII shortly after boarding this flight and I have to say that I was, for a moment, welling up all umbrage and outrage when I thought your final episode was going to posit and explore the idea that John (he is John to me too, now) killed himself because of a brain chemistry madness brought on by 35 year’s worth of poisoning himself.  By the end of the episode I was joyfully weeping – afraid that my flight attendants would think I was soused, because I ordered a second scotch and soda! – at the genius of John’s words describing a well-lived life, and at the heartbreak of the vast amount of ‘lost genius’ we have in this world (and perhaps, in particular, in this America), and, most of all, at the amount of life John was estimating we all spent at living (less the sleep, and the “jobs” {different from work, in capitalism}, and the administration {Kafka-esque waiting in late capitalism}).

Thank you for a well-made product – a fine podcast.  And thank you for your ability and your curiosity.  The time this took to put together and the distance between ‘episodes’ (not yours, but those that make up this whole story: the first email; the questionable call and follow-up trip; then the follow-up and follow-up…), coupled with the themes and ideas at play here, are epic.  You have created a modern epic.  Thank you.

I don’t write fan letters – or express appreciation of works to those I do not know – because I’m thoughtless and unkind and have an inflated sense of my own brain and generally think that I could have done – could have created a thing into being had I had the space and time and initiative.  (This is of course an arrogant and foolhardy notion, but it’s a part of the reason, I think, that I don’t express appreciation toward most works I enjoy).  This podcast – the editing and vision and content – is a masterwork of intellectual and empathic genius.  I am in your debt for making it.

Regards,

Joel

Joel Seeger
Milwaukee, WI

On Eco

This morning I learned that we lost a great literary and philosophical mind with the passing of Umberto Eco at 84. 

I have long been a fan from afar of Eco's, never someone I would list as my favorite author, but formative in my early academic thinking, particularly his beautiful book On Ugliness, which is an embarrassment of richness of images and ideas on our relationship with ugly things (death, bodily functions, horror, etc.)

His loss is sad, but go forth and embrace all of his work and thinking...

I'm revisiting my favorite work this morning:

The work is a curation of passages from literary and social theory works alongside beautiful images from classical and modern art, architecture, and ephemera centered on a specific theme.  Eco adds editorial remarks in each section.

Of particular interest is the chapter on the Uncanny.  The thinking on that concept and in that chapter was fundamental in my academic thinking on Gunther von Hagens' BodyWorlds exhibition.  The artistic presentation of death is an exquisite example of Freud's and Eco's discussion of the concept of the Uncanny (unheimlich).  Presenting a thing that is, inherently, familiar (our own bodies) in a way that causes discomfort, uncertainty questioning what we know we know.

I highly recommend picking up a copy.  Go borrow it from your local library!

Untold Richness: A Knee-Jerk Review of Alan Lomax in Haiti

Even on picking up this 10-disc, 2-book boxed set of the music of Haiti recorded in 1936-7 by folklorist Alan Lomax you are impressed by its weight (both literally and figuratively). The front cover sports the statement "Recordings for the Library of Congress". On the back, a sticker on the shrink wrap is the promise of the box' contents, books, music discs, a map with Lomax' original travel notes, and film footage of their visit.

But as with all good boxed sets, it is in the actual opening and exploring that you get most of your value. The first thing you notice opening the over-sized cigar box is the smell. There is a scent of sweet tobacco (already, unfortunately fading in mine) as if the box had been found and repurposed by Lomax himself and sent straight to you from 1937. The Notebook: Haiti 1936-1937 is attached to the cover, in a separate sleeve. The title is handwritten and the book looks like a bound notebook. It is a collection of letters, notes, and commentaries written by (and to) Lomax during his travels.

The second book contains the liner notes, written by Gage Averill and consists of lyrics (translated and in the original Creole), notes and pictures. A foreword is written by Lomax' daughter (?), Anna Lomax Wood and the entire project is impressively intricate and rigorous. The map (as well as two mini-photos, which seem tossed in as an afterthought) provide an oddly exciting tactility to the experience of listening to the lo-fi recordings.

On the whole, the set is an invitation to a lost time, just a few years after the U.S. Occupation ended (1934), and in being transported, you're also given the opportunity to understand that world thanks to the copious notes and commentaries.

a pretty nice little saturday

On Saturday i went - with brooke, eric, bethany, shane, & grant - to the quaint (don't look up etymologies, as a general rule) little town of Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. It was my first visit to Mt. Horeb, though i'd known it by reputation and street sign for more than a dozen or so years.

The drive there is the same drive (at least at the start - US Hwy 18) as the road to Decorah, so even en route, i am calm and content... On entering Mt. Horeb you pass through a series of roundabouts. The great thing about roundabouts is that you never quite have to stop & wait at them as you would a stoplight. The lousy thing about roundabouts is that Americans don't really quite get them... or trust them.

On arrival, after Rex Grossman walked around and screamed at people downtown, we made a brief stop at the Mustard Museum. There was quite a lot of mustard there.

After this visit, we moved on to the main stop, The Grumpy Troll, a well-run, really pleasant brew pub & pizzeria at 2nd St. & Main St. We sat downstairs, at the bar (the best way to get to know any place is to sit at the bar) and sampled some of the beers. The Troll's beers tend not to fall victim to the great failing of many micro (or home)-brews. Often a small brewing operation tends to rely too much on flavor, forgetting that beer-drinkers, in fact, enjoy beer. A chocolate stout tastes a bit much like chocolate, an ale with a hint of citrus too often gets drowned out by that citrus, but, for the most part, the Grumpy Troll avoids this pitfall. Their jalepeño beer (Slow Eddie) has just a touch of spice, on the finish, and adds a lovely compliment to a pizza (more on that in just a sec). Their only beer that does tend to fall victim to over-flavoration is the Maggie Imperial IPA and, in fact, the way it's over-flavored isn't offensive, rather, pushy. The Maggie measures 100 IBU's (International Bittering Units?), and is, in some ways, an IPA drinker's dream beer, but the bitter almost (but not quite) overpowers all else. In the end, the Maggie is good for a pint, but i'm not sure i'd want much more than that. The champion beer for me, though, was the CCCP Spetsnaz Stout, a lovely, dark stout with chocolate & coffee undertones.

Finally, at 4pm, the pizzeria upstairs opened. The pizza was some of the best i've found anywhere. I think maybe even better than (and certainly distinct from) Mamma Lilla's in Clinton, which is my favorite (comfort food) pizza. The crust was really quite good and they had several well-designed specialty pies. Also adding to the place's charm were the sort of retro video games, including a Sunset Riders knock-off in which we (Shane & I, natch) played some sort of mutant bulls...

After leaving the wonderful company of the Grumpy Troll, we headed back into Madison & hit the Great Dane Pub & Brewery at the Hilldale Mall in Madison. A diverting stop, though, no beer for me...

Finally, on the drive home we made a stop at Tyranena Brewery in Lake Mills, having some pints of their Pumpkin Spice Ale and Chocolate Porter as well as picking up a Growler of the Stone Tepee Pale Ale. And, with a gassy belly & a really quite mild beer buzz, we returned home to Milwaukee.

Lo-Fi Authenticity: a review of Paranormal Activity & Capitalism: A Love Story

*Note: This entry went unfinished for a long time (currently writing most of it 13 January 2010), so it isn't very well thought through or specific... but that shouldn't do much to the credibility of RNJ as it is already in question (see rest of blog).

The fairly simple premise of both these films gets carried through to their structure and feel. What you've got here is a couple movies about terror (as opposed to horror) and an amateurish, 'thrown-together' feel, which makes the terror feel real.

Perhaps the best scene that tells this story is when Micah leaves a Ouija Board on the coffee table and (SPOILER ALERT!) the 'cursor' moves a little bit, it starts spelling something out, then starts on fire. This is a cliché more often than not, but it works because it looks like it HAS to be real, because there're no 'special effects' in this movie (because it looks like a home video, see).

What, you may be asking, is the distinction between terror and horror. Well, Ann Radcliffe thought that terror is the sensation of feeling immanent horror. Horror is actually experiencing the event.

***

I remember when I first conceived of this post and it was going to be so good... so interesting.
Sorry about that.

Oh, and there was a great parallel to Capitalism, but by this time it's pretty well gone, so... yeah, the economy is horrific... so that's that.

Zombie Day!

For reasons inexplicable to me, Monday, October 12th will be zombie day at the UW-M Student Union. Max Brooks will be speaking at 7pm (unfortunately, it seems to be a "zombie preparedness presentation", but i'm holding out for a good Q&A).

Additionally, the UW-M cinema is showing Dead Snow, a Norwegian zombie, Nazi comedy. I haven't seen it, nor have I read a lot about it, but what I have heard has been generally positive. I'm looking for it to be a hilarious update on the French non-classic, J'Accuse.

But, in addition to both of these events (each exciting and worthy of note in its own right), there is also a lecture being given by Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, a professor of Africology called "Do Zombies Exist?"

Overall, Monday promises an array of zombie thinking, satirical zombie preparedness conversation, zombie comedy (zombedy?), & (hopefully) rigorous academic attention. Hope to see you all there.


***Updated: 19 October 2009***

Although I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Bellegarde-Smith after his talk (and he seems like he's a fascinating guy), I very much regret the extent to which he gave up the floor both to a documentary created for Canadian TV & to an open "discussion" of the question. While the documentary did make a fair number of claims, Professor Bellegarde-Smith, an (ordained?) Voodoo Priest merely talked around the issue - he seemed most interested (and this I got mostly from our conversation after the lecture) in the fact that Voodoo, unlike other mystical religions (Sufi, Zen, Kabbalah, even Native American religions) has never had any sort of modern renaissance. No young folks, looking for answers turned to Voodoo en masse as they seemed to many of the other mystical religions. This was accounted for because of race, but these claims didn't go much further, nothing more interesting was said, really.

Now, with Dead Snow, there really was absolutely no disappointment. The movie was quite funny, quite gory (the demise of movie geek Erlend is particularly gruesome {and simultaneously hilarious}). The premise of the movie is a lot like Evil Dead, except in Norway, with Nazis, in the snow...

Finally, Max Brooks' (evidently, son of Mel Brooks) talk was entertaining (and very well attended). Because the premise was a zombie-preparedness lecture, I wasn't too disappointed, but I did feel like his responses to the Q&A was overly glib. Something akin to Stephen Colbert appearing on other shows, still fully in character.

Confessions of a Closet Utopian

Spoiler Alert! This post will undoubtedly give away plot points of J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie, so if you haven’t seen it, & you’re affected by ‘giving away the ending’ read no further.

Nerd Alert! Though I will endeavor to remain analytical, intellectual, and generally charming, I can not be held entirely responsible if I occasionally fall into bouts of gleeful gushing, obscure referencing, or utopic dreaming during the course of this post, as I am, admittedly, a Trekkie

J.J. Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek was, at least to this fairly hard-core Trekkie, superb. The new movie not only opens up the possibility for new fans to get their feet wet in the Star Trek mythos without feeling overwhelmed or mildly embarrassed, it also significantly ‘cools up’ a franchise that has been in desperate need of a make-over. (Nerd translation: Think Vampire: The Masquerade for role playing)…

While both earlier movie Enterprises had moments (say, Wrath of Khan and First Contact) of thrilling, adventure sci-fi, I’m sorry to say that what has most held Star Trek back over the past 15 years or so are its ties to Gene Roddenberry’s original vision (I know, I know – sacrilege). I don’t mean by this that that vision isn’t central to what makes Star Trek great (I’ll do whatever I can, short of wearing a uniform around town, to help foster the creation of our first warp engine sometime in the next 50 or so years), but it’s impossible to look at Trek’s more recent forays (Voyager & the later Next Gen movies particularly) as being overly tied to the somewhat false mission of Gene Roddenberry’s of creating not only a utopian world, but a utopic lesson-book of sorts. (Though the most recent Star Trek series, Enterprise, certainly had its share of fable-ous episodes, I think it might have been able to redeem itself with a full run of 7 or 9 seasons – the larger, more complicated story arcs of the Temporal Cold War and the Xindi were an attempt, I think, to keep the show driving toward something {namely the Star Trek timeline}). These longer narrative arcs also tend to give writers something better to do than moralize, the utopianism is embedded rather than being explicitly taught every week (or 5 years)…

To my mind, Abrams’ solution to the ‘problem’ of dealing with the canonized history of Star Trek was truly inspired. Of course there will be purists out there who will mourn the loss of certainty of things to come, but not knowing just how much of the future history of our galaxy has been altered makes for a much more interesting work of utopian fiction. Though critics may be right to point out that Star Trek’s time travel based plot might be a bit pieced together (likely just for an excuse to plop Leonard Nimoy in), it also brilliantly allowed Abrams (& Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman) to blur the Star Trek historical record. This Kirk (well played by Chris Pine) need not necessarily be our Kirk – hell, this Kirk wasn’t even born in Riverside, Iowa. This allows the movie some breathing room. We know Spock & Kirk & Bones will eventually become the very best of friends, but there’s a new pleasure in the unfolding.

And, speaking of pleasure in meeting old friends, Uhura (Zoe Saldana) is not only wonderfully sexy, but also slides perfectly into her pre-future-historical role. If you look back over the original series, all those sidelong glances and quiet smiles from Uhura make much more sense in lieu of what we learn from this new Uhura. And Scotty (Simon Pegg), oh my god, Scotty. When I first heard Scotty would be played by Pegg I was simultaneously ecstatic and flummoxed. I love Pegg from his work on Shaun of the Dead & Hot Fuzz (& anywhere, really), but I didn’t see the peppy Brit fitting the role of Scotty very well. But what Pegg gives us is a fuller understanding of the character of Scotty. Sure, we know Scotty’s a fun-lovin’ drinker, an engineering miracle worker, and a chronic nay-sayer, but Pegg wields all of those previously caricature-istics simultaneously, effortlessly. It’s the Scotty we see in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, when he’s playing around with a 1980s PC, but rarely see anywhere else in the entire run (at least not that fully). And Zachary Quinto as Spock, enough has been said about how perfect a choice this was, but to watch Spock’s emotions deep below the surface occasionally bubble up in a facial tick or a glance, really quite remarkable.

But all this, the casting, the characters, the plot (was anybody else concerned about starships flying around the galaxy opening up black holes everywhere? Jess Peterson told me it was ok, that black holes in fact have no more gravitational force than a normal star, but I’m not convinced… It seems like some sort of set up for a future galacto-eco-crisis in Abrams’ Star Trek 7: This Place Sucks) is really secondary to the fundamental vision, the fundamental voice of Star Trek. The stories are, at heart, truly utopian. It’s imagining something that might unfold tomorrow that’s a little better than today. It’s figuring a way that we make it, but what’s so great about Abrams’ take on it, is that his movie need not hit you over the head with these ideals. Instead, it hits you over the head with a good, crazy villain – awesome new/old beaming technology – Slusho – great fights… but through it all, that hope that makes Star Trek great is still there.

Score: 3 Shots