Tagged: reviews
It Makes Me Want to Teach
[SPOILER] Good sermons make me want to preach, and good movies make me want to teach.
Gladiator II is good. As I said yesterday, it isn’t that good, but it is good. Here are some areas it missed the mark and which hold it back from ever becoming a “classic”. The areas are remarkable because they are so easy to identify. (High notes will be listed at the end.)
- You must know what your movie is about. Gladiator was not about Rome or Maximus’ wishes for Rome. Gladiator was about the penultimate gladiator—Maximus. (Insert infamous “husband to a…” quote.)
- Never, never, never, never believe you can fool an audience. We’re just too smart. No red-blooded American believes you should give up. Ever. Never give up. The idea that it is noble to peacefully and without resistance enter the after-life is un-American. Do not try to show how it contains value of some sort. “Rage, rage!”
- I saw a clip where Ridley Scott answered a question with, “I just know.” The question was about the leading man. This was way too arrogant. Hollywood and entertainment is far more complex than that. Sure, the leading man—unremarkable as he was and will prove to be—was definitely not a let down. But the whole movie wasn’t as good as it could have been and this is obviously because it rested on “I can’t make a bad movie” reasoning, instead of a good story and good storytelling. We’re not paying to see Ridley Scott. We’re paying to see a good story told well.
- While the movie wasn’t “woke”, it could’ve entered the always available ranks of “timeless” by avoiding some obviously “woke” ideology. Again, this did not have to be the case. Specifically the movie had way too many irrelevant BIPOC characters (and close-ups) that contributed nothing but shades of brown to the screen. To repeat: in great movies everything in the movie must have a purpose and that purpose is to tell the story. In Gladiator, the Black and German slaves were there to make us like Maximus even more. It wasn’t about DEI. It was about Maximus—the gladiator. This leads to the next point.
- We never cared about Lucius. This is because we were forbidden to by the first Gladiator. He had been introduced to us as little more than a spoiled rich kid. I think it would have been possible to care about him if we were shown how. I’m thinking that the story would have had to include some highly skilled and discerning followers or servants of young Lucius accompany him to wherever he goes to hide and resent him for their having to give up court life etc. Then over time they come to respect him and are willing to die for him etc. But there are a lot of difficulties with that concept too, so I’d have to give it more thought. The point is we absolutely cared about Maximus every single second of the film. Seriously, what wasn’t or isn’t there to like?
- The villain was too diffuse. Great movies have one villain and he or she or it is identifiable immediately. Surprises work for thrillers, but Gladiator II did not aim to be a thriller. “Temet Nosce” (know thyself).
- Just like life-making love-making, there can only be one climax in a movie. What is weird about this movie is that it has events which in and of themselves didn’t have to be “climaxes”, but were shot/told/scored as if they were the climax. So you feel spent only to now be disappointed that there was more action coming. Again, it’s a simple mistake that hurt the project.
- The final area I want to mention is something which probably has an industry term—I just don’t know it. It’s best exemplified by Expendables 3. There were all these individual scenes dedicated to each action hero on the squad. But the scenes had no “tie that binds.” Gladiator II similarly introduced many characters with scenes that were well-acted and almost interesting, but their presence diminished the movie, instead of augmenting it. Bluntly, by contrast, I cannot think of a character or scene in Gladiator that didn’t make me like Maximus more than I previously did. Characters offered contrast to Maximus, and scenes fulfilled the role that time does in increasing our desire to see new love, in this case Maximus, again. Gladiator II’s non-Lucius scenes merely confused me while creating an atmosphere wherein I did not want to give myself completely to what I thought the story was. And all this because, say it with me, the director didn’t know what the story was.
To conclude, and to balance, here are the obvious positives.
The opening scenes and battle are evidence of Scott’s greatness. Does anyone do epic better? No. He is without peer. They are masterful. He is the master.
No scene taken by itself is low quality—more evidence of greatness.
The acting is top tier.
And despite it being CGI, the CGI is almost transparent. Pointedly—it is probably the best CGI to date. Good job.
No Helmet, A Review of Gladiator II
The refrain, “This is good,” repeatedly sounded in my head for about the first third. And the movie is good. But it isn’t great and it misses for some questionable reasons.
Most importantly, there was no helmet.
Secondly, as in the first film, there is a use of “paper” that is totally a-historical. No one had disposable paper in 200AD.
Thirdly, CGI.
Fourthly, let’s just give Russell Crowe his due. Even his hand in wheat seems divine to this day.
Lastly, there was a moment—you’ll know it when it comes—that I felt disappointed that there was more movie to go.
Science Teachers: Teach the Truth
I was at an FBO (airport gas station—incidentally, this means very, very wealthy people are frequently around. I assure you, they do not inspire). Anyhow, I was there awaiting some maintenance on the helicopter for an afternoon the other day and I couldn’t help but notice that on the TV was a silly show where a “Science is fun!” guest teacher was visiting an inner city school to pep up the otherwise dry material.
It caught my attention, as you might expect, faithful reader, because the topic of my guided reading through the Great Books of the Western World is “Foundations of Math and Science”. So when I hear, “Newton”, “Force”, “Inertia”, and certain other keywords, I am always interested to take a closer look.
The particular concept the energetic guest was bringing to the kids was inertia. His whole game was to demonstrate inertia by yanking the tablecloth from under some dishes as they remain in place.
He says, “Inertia: the tendency of an object to stay at rest until a force acts upon it.”
The definition isn’t troubling. The troubling thing is…can you name it with me? On three. One, two, three: Everything in the universe is demonstrating it!
Whether this zany, cooler-than-your-teacher (and actually, kinda disrespectful) man shows up to a school and says the words “learn” “newton” “inertia”, or not, inertia is demonstrated by not only every object in a student’s immediate observation, the student’s body itself, but also by every object in the entirety of the universe!
But the man adds, “Isaac Newton would be so proud that you’re learning!!”
And there is the whopper. Isaac Newton would be proud if kids were learning (they’re not), but he would not be proud that a man claiming to be an expert is teaching kids that he is demonstrating inertia.
With me?
Inertia isn’t “demonstrated”. Inertia is.
“Pete, you’re being way too sensitive here.”
Am I?
****
Why does learning have to be fun?
From what I have read, the math and science greats do not seem to have had much fun while attempting to communicate their ideas. Moreover, many of their lives were fairly difficult—as they were battling commonly held conceptions held by nearly each and every fellow man.
Instead of “fun”, I say let’s teach the truth to kids.
Straight from the man.
Definition III from Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principle of Natural Philosophy.
****
The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting, by which every body, as much as in it lies, continues in its present state, whether it be of rest, or of moving uniformly forwards in a right line.
This force is always proportional to the body whose force it is and differs nothing from the inactivity of the mass, but in our manner of conceiving it. A body, from the inert nature of matter, is not without difficulty put out of its state of rest or motion. Upon which account, this vis insita may, by a most significant name, be called inertia (vis inertio) or force of inactivity. But a body only exerts this force when another force, impressed upon it, endeavors to change its condition; and the exercise of this force may be considered as both resistance and impulse; it is resistance so far as the body, for maintaining its present state, opposes the force impressed; it is impulse so far as the body, by not easily giving way to the impressed force of another, endeavors to change the state of that other. Resistance is usually ascribed to bodies at rest, and impulse to those in motion; but motion and rest, as commonly conceived, are only relatively distinguished; nor are those bodies always truly at rest, which commonly are taken to be so.
(My underline.)
****
If that doesn’t do it for ya, if you still don’t understand what Newton means by the word inertia, then the only sentiment I may offer as a last ditch effort is this.
Imagine a man moving while inside a moving vehicle. Got it? (It doesn’t have to be a car with a man reaching back to grab a snack from the back seat, or a pirate ship approaching a storm while the captain paces to and fro by the helm, or an airplane with a man squeezing down the aisle after a bathroom break. It can be any vehicle, any person, but the vehicle and the person inside must be moving.)
That is the Newtonian picture of the universe as described at the end of that definition. Because, Newton says, the vehicle we’re in (which you didn’t know we’re in—and he doesn’t mean merely planet Earth) is moving; there is no “rest” in the plain sense.
Inertia, then, is the conception (defensible by math and experimentation) that all bodies resist. It’s an action. Or a force. To resist, there must be something to resist. (Period.)
And I’m out.
My Culture, A Review of Zombieland Double Tap, by Ruben Fleischer
Certain parts of life are incapable of being explained within the remaining time, and yet too important to be ignored—those parts are culture. I realized this a short while into my marriage to a woman not of my culture when I kept finding her seemingly unable to understand what I was doing, and for what reasons. Frustrated, I simply said, “Things are this way because it’s my culture.”
“‘My culture’,” she’ll repeat. “What is ‘my culture’?” remains her loving, if unbelieving, response in broken Engileezaynia.
Next time the situation presents itself, I will answer my wife’s surely earnest parry with, “Can you watch a movie? What am I thinking? Of course you can. So watch Zombieland Double Tap. When you understand it, then you will have your answer. Because that is my culture.”
What a great film. What a landmark.
The REAL Truth About AI
AI is mankind’s ability to sense electricity—and nothing more.
To repeat, AI cannot read. It definitely cannot read English. But it also cannot read any other language.
Also, AI cannot see the road.
Furthermore, AI cannot think up answers.
To be fair, to describe these and other negative facts about what AI cannot do is easy when compared to accurately describing the relationship between one of us “using” AI and persuading themselves (or being persuaded) that AI is reading, that AI is aware of the road, that AI is “thinking”. It’s not impossible though. In the most important sense, that relationship does not meaningfully differ from when a person feels the handle of a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other hand—and is persuaded that the nail will be driven into the board without a doubt.
No inanimate machine “hears” the sound (or any one of the many sounds) the letter “a” makes when it senses the electrical representation someone has coded for “a”. (It’s not like the electricity buzzes itself into an “ahhh” sound.) Instead AI senses some distinct electrical value which corresponds to what some person had decided should consistently and uniquely (though not exclusively) correspond to the English letter “a”. This is no different from how your hands consistently sense hammers and nails which correspond to what we have come to call hammers and nails when it holds them.
AI as a name is likely here to stay, unfortunately. But this is no more difficult a situation than, say, the QWERTY keyboard sticking around.
But AI is not artificial, it is not intelligent, and it is certainly not artificial intelligence. That is, unless you mean to convey that AI is mankind’s ability to sense electricity—and nothing more.
I Am SOAD Toxicity, A Review of Toxicity (Full Album), by System of a Down.
Wired (not “wide”) were the eyes of a horse on a jet pilot, one that smiled when he flew over a bay
My voice can sound most like Serj’s out of all Rock front men, if I do say so myself. Even at the age of 42. What can I say?
In seminary I used to put music on while writing and editing my papers, but I have recently fell away from the habit. Yesterday, however, I was feeling good (been lifting weights again for the first time in 5 years) and while the post-workout euphoria was in effect, I decided to put on music as I resumed some editing. I hadn’t heard Toxicity in a while, but I remembered loving that album and so searched it up.
One thing that I will never forget about the album is how seamless the entire thing is. One song flows right into the next. Whatever the actual production process felt like to the band, the Muse was clearly running the show. With my adult brain, I am very aware that these things are completely controllable, but in my child brain, I am to this day awestruck by how even the changing track on a CD, on every CD and every player, can happen at the right moment and in the correct and desired tempo. If you haven’t listened in a while, take the required 11 minutes to feel the special delight from the effect of the transitions from “Needles” to “Deer Dance” to “Jet Pilot” to “X”. Is it really four songs, guys? Be honest.
Whatever it is, it is perfectly sublime rock.
I remember being so enraptured by this album when I first heard it that I tried to have my dad listen to part of the album on our cool Bose speakers (like how I said “our”?) as a college kid, still living at home between semesters. But as is normal with spontaneous listening parties, he was not immediately impressed.
Over two decades later, the impression I gladly couldn’t shake at the completion of the album was how formative that album was for my current perspectives. One example should suffice.
In “Prison Song”, one lyric states, “All research and successful drug policy show that treatment should be increased/And law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences.”
Now, I can imagine that some folks might want to take this as a prescription. IE, some folks might say that, “the band is using its platform to call attention to the need for prison reform” blah, blah, blah.
No! I say again, H to the E-L-L’s No!
What they are saying is, “Burn it all!!”
The fact that the lyrics seem to make an argument is not to be interpreted as the band’s own intent to make that argument, no! The correct interpretation is to add the music and voice and realize they are calling out the entire system’s evident incongruence. Put another, less effective way, they could have sung, “You know it’s broken. You, yes you, know it’s broken! And you still are impotent. Even your supposed self-correcting design doesn’t work. It’s time to go!”
In a word, they “rock.”
And by giving us definitive boundaries to the meaning of Rock music, they help us fans understand that life doesn’t have to be a dog, which we train to stop eating our shoes by replacing them with a chew toy—no. Life can just simply be messed up. And the proper response sometimes is to call it out for what it is—period. Those in charge of the prisons, most immediately, and the rest of us in the society eventually, are forced by SOAD’s work (among others) to be uncomfortable at the least. And at the most, we find our calling and do something with our indignation. (Admittedly, this hasn’t yet happened for me, but after yesterday, I feel like it could any day now.)
In a glass-is-half-empty way, SOAD manifests the adage, “misery loves company,” but only if you also think any agent who forces you to consider that you are not almighty god does.
For the rest of us, SOAD’s contribution Toxicity extends life. Well done.
Blind Aliens vs. Blind Cave Monsters, A Joint Review of A Quiet Place(s), by John Krasinski and The Descent, By Neil Marshall
I think I have a knack for learning foreign languages. In my heart of hearts, I don’t think it is an inborn or god-given talent, because I never enjoyed learning French in high-school and college. But at the seminary as we learned Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek, I was more open to the idea and the professors began at the beginning. The beginning of language, naturally, are the sounds of the language. And with the table set so pleasingly, I was ready to give it my best and have since been rewarded.
Back in French, the teacher just started with all these new words and the tables of verb tenses etc. But in Hebrew and Greek, the professors began (and were kinda compelled too) with the sounds of the letters and the fact that there were no equivalent sounds in English. This was especially true for Hebrew’s “clearing the throat” sound. Once I understood that languages were not about trying to add vocabulary to English, but about trying to utter a totally new set of sounds, things became interesting (and easy).
Before leaving this lengthy introduction and the topic of sounds, I want to share that in full Pete-personality, I did get tired of the professor’s casual “this how this letter (of a dead language) sounds” claims and finally asked, “But if nobody speaks it, how could we possibly know?” And the answer was, (can you guess?) “Well, sometimes writers would assert that this particular letter sounded like the sound a sheep makes.” So the Greek “Beta” for example, sounds like, “Baaaa”. Kidding. It sounds like “Beeey”. The actual sound a sheep makes. Super interesting, in my opinion.
Let’s get to the joint movie review.
Not too different from the name “Trump”, for as long as I can remember, I have heard about some book called “Dune”. Always being terrified of confirming irrevocably my membership in the “nerd” category, I never gave in to curiosity. But these days even otherwise nerdy movies are pretty high quality and so I finally gave in and watched the new movie Dune. (Don’t tell anyone.)
Dune is great. The way it relates to these two (three) films today is that I used Dune to finally motivate me to do something I have long been interested to do: learn ASL.
I found there is a professor dude, Dr. Bill Vicars who has amazing content on YouTube and I have begun a really fun project of learning the letters (quite simple) and now the language as a whole. This is in addition to learning my wife’s language, Amharic, to try to find that ever elusive marital bliss. In fact, I have the whole family working on ASL with Dr. V videos. It is terrifically rewarding.
“Focus, Pete. Blind Aliens vs. Blind Cave Monsters. Where does ASL fit in?”
Funny you should ask.
Nothing at all to do with learning ASL, the other day I had three hours available for a movie. And I couldn’t find a good epic to settle into, so I decided to just watch two 1.5 hr films. Never having watched A Quiet Place, those were my choice. Wouldn’t you know it? ASL requires no sound! So somehow, as I am being introduced to the benefits of ASL, I also stumble upon a film that affords some practical testing. Weird.
The movies are held together by Emily Blunt, of Sicario. She will never top Sicario, so don’t expect that. But the movies aren’t bad. The sequel didn’t really lose much steam either—a rarity if you ask anyone. But I wanted to capture my thoughts on them in a blog post because I did notice something about them that is worthy of sharing.
The end of A Quiet Place: Part Two is good because it moves along at a good clip. It never dwells. Just keep moving the story forward. It recognizes exactly what kind of movie it is, and exactly what the viewers came to see, and it delivers. But in that delivery, it also is a bit too mathematical. That’s my complaint. There are two or three different locations of simultaneous action and the time spent at each location is almost perfectly matched. It’d be interesting to actually time it and see. “Start time: the monster is closing in…stop time. Move to other location. Start time: the duo is about to save the day…stop time. Move back to… Start time…” etc. You get the point. But the bigger criticism is that the precision detracts from the humanity of film.
Mr. Krasinski: I don’t want to know that you have studied me perfectly and given me exactly what I would find palatable. I want you to tell me a story. I want to see what the Muse gave you. As the chick says in The Descent, “If there’s no risk, what is the point?” There is no risk in mathematics. Besides concluding that, I feel it. And so I felt that your films lacked risk. For that reason, they are not great films.
Today, then, I had 2.5 hrs to watch a movie and decided to watch The Descent, which I had only seen once or twice since it came out in 2005. Besides the fact that I remembered it as very good, I had just commended it to my step-son, for when he is older as we scrolled past it on Prime for something to watch.
Best “female empowerment” movie ever made, if you ask me. I’m not saying that it portrays an ideal woman. I am saying that of all the ridiculous displays and forced “girls don’t have to play only with dolls anymore” roles in both movies and sports that we are forced to endure if we seek new entertainment, this one gets the actual job of “empowering” done the best.
And oddly enough I found myself thinking, “What is with me these days? Two (three) blind (but hearing) monster movies in two days? And precisely when I am learning the singular way to survive (ASL)? Crazy affirmations from La Ooniversa, I guess. ‘Thank you, Mr. Universe, Sir! May I have another!’”
In the end, The Descent ranks in the category of “perfect film” (right alongside Sicario and Ford vs. Ferrari). Besides moving at a good clip, it is perfectly efficient, perfectly toned, perfectly cast, perfectly acted, and perfectly climatic. There are also a couple of perfectly surprising “make you jump” frights. I found myself laughing at how I jumped. Not many movies have that effect on me these days. But this one got me. Probably for the last time of viewing it. But it was worth it. Sitting all alone and drawing closer and closer to the story and the screen, when “Blam!”, you’re three feet in the air and land laughing. A wonderful feeling.
I’ll end by saying this: after due consideration, I can still imagine happily exploring Space and other worlds—even hosting aliens, if given the opportunity; I cannot imagine descending into an uncharted cave—flashlight or otherwise.
Effort vs. Execution, A Joint Review of Equalizer 2 & Equalizer 3, by Antoine Fuqua
My wife mentioned that she wanted to watch the new Equalizer, but I couldn’t recall ever taking time for Equalizer 2. So we started with 2, and then moved to 3. “Decent and in order.”
Oh, and we have this new TV which does that thing where even Hollywood films appear like they are home videos. Know what I am talking about? Probably not. I have not found many who can see what I see, but having taken about 12 years off TV, I can tell that the image is far, far different than it used to be.
I bring up this image quality thing because it is part of the problem with Equalizer 2, but not 3. On these new TV’s, the CGI, if any corners were cut, looks terrible. Like it used to look before it got good and seamless, really, with the Avengers film. So 3 must have had a bigger budget—itself no surprise as they were probably caught off guard by how many went to see the sequel to a standard action film. Apparently, they were not monitoring Mr. Wick’s success. If they make a 4, I’d rush to see it because they will surely be in full stride (and direct competition) with John.
The story in 2 was also less than compelling. The start was great, but the moment we hear the “bad guy” stop pretending he is innocent, the movie, for all intents and purposes, ends. And this happened near the half-way point. And the CGI wasn’t even introduced until the end. So we went from worse to “worser”, to play off David Ayers’ Street Kings opening.
But again, we were only watching 2 to get to feel right about watching 3. And 3 delivered.
These two films (I can barely recall the first one) are incredibly violent. Shockingly so. So don’t think you should bend the rules with your kid and show them their first R-rated feature with one of these. You’ll regret it. But they do the right thing of making the bad guys really bad, and Denzel, well, he’s Denzel. And in 3 we got to see a CGI free Denzel film. Or one that had the budget to make it look like CGI wasn’t used.
You know what makes Denzel great? He’s almost a one trick pony. But the trick is the equivalent of harnessing the power of the Sun. He is so great because of how he, in almost every movie, can give a particular look which makes you sympathize whole-heartedly with his character. Of course his speaking and speeches are excellent. And who doesn’t want to move like he moves? And think like he thinks. But the silent look he gives is something that I want to never be able to produce. I don’t want that pain, that history, that store of feeling. I don’t want that library of unspoken, but not forgotten, words. But I do sympathize.
Final note: his other recent film, “The Little Things” is decent. Don’t skip it if you are at all intrigued.
Forest, Forrest Gump, A Joint Review of The Overstory by Richard Powers and Forrest Gump by Robert Zemeckis
The film Forrest Gump is simply a classic. I know it. You know it. And that’s all I have to say about it.
The Overstory, by Richard Powers, while provocative, was written with enough smugness to need this direct accusation of thematic plagiarism to ground it. Here is my accusation in full: In the end, Richard Powers’ The Overstory offers its readers little more than they already experienced in the film Forrest Gump—that is, a nostalgia-filled game of “memory”, though this new version is chemically-boosted by a fun combination of fabulist storytelling and apparently un-simpleton plants (or more accurately plantae or vegetation) as lens.
With that out of the way, let’s get to some detailed analysis. First up, I feel that I owe you, dear reader, an explanation of how I ended up reading this book. I owe this to you, faithful follower, because you know that I have stated many, many times that I have nearly vowed to never read anything newer than 100 years old, because the classics are the classics for a reason—they are better! Why waste time?
Life threw a curveball, however. I recently moved back to Colorado (mental note: never ever leave again) and this event saw me box up my nice library of classic books that I am diligently working through. As a reader and planner, I kept a couple books out, of course. But not enough, it turned out.
On one trip between Minnesota and Heaven, I stayed with my rich brother and his wife and planned to borrow the first of what I recall was a trilogy of fantasy books I had randomly given them at Christmas a few years back. I was jones’n for easy-to-read, escapist fiction. Unfortunately, and tellingly, they couldn’t recall the location of that box set.
None taken.
Genuinely wanting to rectify the situation, my brother looked over a tiny bookshelf—so small—and, like Belle in the bookstore, chose, The Overstory.
“Here. You might like this one. It’s about-”
“-No need, S-,” I cut in. “As long as it’s fiction, I’ll figure it out.
“Oh. And thanks.”
I set off on the second half of my drive and later that week began to read.
It was miserable. Pulitzer Prize? I thought. This is garbage. I think it’s woke, too. Something is off about it. It feels a little too Greta and not enough William.
A few more pages in, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to read some of the critical acclaim and the previously forgone description from the back. I had to get some sort of context.
Eco-fiction? I knew it. This is garbage. It’s not even a novel. It’s propaganda. I feel like a card-carrying Nazi.
However, if there’s anything I hate more than eco-fiction antifa propoganda, it’s quitting on a book.
“S-. Did you actually read this? I’m finding it very hard to read.”
“Na. I only made it about 50 pages, if that.”
“Oh. Oh, oh, oh. I see. I’ll relax then. I was getting worried that you thought I needed to read it. Gotcha. Might still be propaganda, but at least it isn’t brother-on-brother crime.”
So I kept reading. Slowly it grew on me. Like most books tend to do.
Then something miraculous happened.
“But one day she’s reading Abbott’s Flatland…” Powers writes.
“No way!” I said to myself.
You see, on a previous work trip for the new job, I encountered the same problem of no easy fiction. So I found a sweet used bookstore in Denton, TX, of all places, and boldly asked the college dude behind the counter for recommendations in fantasy/sci-fi short stories. After he brought me to the appropriate section of the shelves, he lit up as he pulled down Flatland.
“This is a must read!” he explained.
I fully agree.
But how in the world can you explain my having just read Flatland after a random recommendation from a random bookstore I had no business stopping in, and then stumbling onto a second non-classic book which refers back to the previous one as if everyone would obviously have been aware of the merely cult favorite? It defies explanation. But it was all I needed to keep reading Powers.
And I am glad I did.
The Overstory is not poetry in the sense that Shelley meant. It is far too technical and, as mentioned, smug. Too naive. Too progressive. Too dry, at times. But the story is compelling, and buyer beware, if true, the stuff about vegetation’s intelligence and ability (not to mention old, old age) and the detailed accounts of eco-terrorists and their deluded—yet unshakable—belief that we’re all missing something feels authentic.
Onto the terrible. One example of the smug faults of the book must be offered. And it relates back to that used bookstore in Denton. Besides Flatland, the kid also handed me Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman, accompanied by his opinion that Gaiman is the “greatest living writer”. Wow.
Juxtaposed against the author’s of the “classics”, I quickly noticed how this Gaiman would attempt to show-off his mental powers by summarizing enormous works of classic literature in a word, or worse, one emotion. Smug.
And Powers does the same. A sign of the times, I guess.
But what I am talking about, the one drop of oil that ruins the entire ships water supply, has to do with more than fancy-pants pith. My children are old enough to pick up The Overstory offy shelf. They would not know the references to literary greats. No harm, no foul. But what about this line,
She has told him about the Judean date palm seed, two thousand years old, found in Herod the Great’s palace on Masada—a date pit from a tree-
…wait for it…
–that Jesus himself might have sampled-
…not yet…
–the kind of tree that Muhammad said was made of the same stuff as Adam.
BOOM!
Are you kidding me?
Do you seriously want me to believe that you believe this?
Only a moron in the 21st century would equate Muhammad and Jesus—themselves separated by six centuries of time, not to mention the plane between heaven and hell. And more to the point, illiterate Muhammad most certainly did not offer any commentary—nor could he have—on some particular species of tree that most certainly was not distinguishable from any other tree to this ignorant man who couldn’t distinguish the biblical Trinity—Father, Son, Spirit—from whatever bastardized version he heard about and further twisted in his undiscerning, savage head into “father, son, Mary”. Give me a fucking break, Dick. You go too far.
Excuse me. Something comes out of me when it comes to the name of our Lord and Savior.
Want me to consider your point about deforestation? Okay.
Want me to overlook your hubristic take on religion while doing so? No can do.
But not every book can be a classic. So it’s forgivable. I forgive you, Mr. Powers. Both for the Muhammad thing and for the Forrest Gump thing.
Maybe next time.
As for me, back to the classics.
Tragic, Mostly True, and Wildly Naive (Even for Minnesotans), A Review of “In The Dark S1”, by Madeleine Baran
Despite the war in Israel, we all still have to work. And my new job happened to require my taking a heroic 12-hour road trip across this great land. For obvious reasons, I asked my family and friends for podcast recommendations.
The only one that came in was, “In The Dark”, by the New Yorker. It is a “True Crime” podcast. In other words, it is very similar to the, “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill,” podcast that captured our attention a few years ago. If you’re uninitiated, then just think “long form journalism”. These types of podcasts are probably more easy to listen to at length than audiobooks, but that likely depends on the genre. In a word, they are binge-able.
This particular season, as it turned out, was all about a crime that occurred in Minnesota, the state I have been living and working in for the last four years. I immediately had a visceral reaction. It almost made me sick to my stomach. I felt like I knew exactly what this young, passionate, and indignant female investigator was about to bring to light.
For context, in case you live under a rock, there is a thing called “Minnesota Nice” up there. It’s surely unique and deserving of a unique name, but mostly it is similar to passive-aggressive behavior—nice-to-your-face-but-will-not-hesitate-to-viciously-cut-you-down-behind-your-back. (Naturally this is not limited to political boundaries of Minnesota, but the folks up there have perfected the art.)
The real “Minnesota Nice”, however, is far more annoying. The singular “Minnesota Nice” manifests itself most plainly when the Minnesotans play the part of perfect victim. They portend to not want attention or any ruffled feathers, but they will meticulously lay out all the perfect steps they took and “don’ cha know?” it didn’t stop the tragedy that those steps should’ve stopped. It’s like they’re seeking to be known as simultaneously the smartest and most unfortunate people on the Earth.
Remember, though! They did everything perfectly the way the system is designed to work, but “darn it”, they just couldn’t see the future after all! Who can?!
Like I said, it’s annoying.
(If you need a contemporary example that far outweighs the paltry example of this podcast, just consider the Minnesota Lutherans who specifically invited the Somalis. It’s a nightmare—but “we just were trying to help those who needed it most”.)
Back to the podcast. It clearly passed the time. I was cruising through episode after episode without even noticing the mile markers or the minute hand. So good work Miss Baran.
But my overall critique is that it was unduly unfocused.
In a long form magazine writing class I took several years ago, the professor taught us that when writing and reading long form pieces, we should be able to answer, “What is it about about?” For example, a long form article about the process of making french fries is not just a detailed recipe, but about a community that is dying or some terrible working conditions or climate change.
This doesn’t mean it isn’t about french fries. It just means that it is truly—if written well—about the other thing.
The trick, to be sure, is to just have only one about about.
And that’s the biggest criticism I have of this podcast. It’s about a notable missing child case that went unsolved for twenty plus years. But the about(s) about is a myriad of things to include a. the morality and effectiveness of publicly accessible national sex offender databases, b. revenge, c. punishment, d. role of law enforcement, e. grief, f. illusions of safety in small towns, and easily a few others.
The most pointed line which I believe she would agree summarizes her about about (for my thinking) was, “…and there is no government program responsible for making sure Sheriffs do their job!!” (Paraphrased.) Miss Baran more than once suggests that peer review and/or boards like other professions have are long overdue for law enforcement.
For my thinking, however, the most compelling storyline (and she did spend so much time on this that I thought it was her about about for a while) was how this one case was so pivotal in creating the sex offender database, and that by all accounts and measures, those databases are meaningless and ineffective—not to mention overly mean-spirited.
Then there was a possible about about regarding the fantastic incongruence that the kidnapping in question—which spawned the public databases—wouldn’t have been prevented by the database because the kidnapper wasn’t a known sex offender. That’s a doozy to contemplate.
And there were others.
And that’s my point. There were too many. So many, in fact, that the podcast fails.
Where the podcast fails, where it falls flat on its face and reveals that it is a far cry from real-deal quality reporting, is in its basic, and naive, presumption that the terrifically inept small town law enforcement departments have something to so with deterring criminal behavior.
The boy was murdered within the same night that he was kidnapped. No amount of police work can prevent a crime like that. And the experts on child kidnapping which ends in murder (whom she interviewed) said as much.
The sequence that would’ve had to happen to prevent the boy’s death is as follows:
1. Boy reported kidnapped by friends.
2. The “government” workers who were tasked to help then know to disregard all answers to their questions except the one neighbor who claimed to see a blue car turn around in his driveway.
3. The “government” workers somehow think to call nearby towns in ever expanding concentric circles to see if any weirdos have blue cars.
4. The “government” workers who answer their phone that night in a town 20 miles away happen to recall there is a man in his town that never breaks the law but is weird and drives a blue car.
5. Now that “government” worker tasks others in his town to go to the weirdos home and ask anyone there or nearby where he is.
6. When no one knows, they ask, “Is there anyone who knows where he liked to take boys to molest them?”
7. Then the “government” workers orchestrate a plan to travel to every single location listed—but especially the correct one.
8. As they approach, the “government” workers in their “government” cars keep their sirens and lights off. (The killer confessed that he decided to kill the boy when some cop car spooked him.)
9. Then the “government” worker who happens to pull up to the killer and boy somehow doesn’t themself break the law (can’t just shoot him) but prevents the killer from killing the boy (which he did—so he says—because he got spooked by a nearby “government” vehicle).
10. And all this before cell phones and within a couple hours of step 1.
Ten easy steps. And, had they been followed, Madeleine Baran would have nothing to do.
In case you missed it, this lengthier than normal blog post of mine is supposed to be a mimic of long form journalism. And my about about is the illogical, though trending for most of the Anthropocene, position of suggesting government problems can be fixed by more government.
Captain’s Log 