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Pop Picks – March 28, 2019

March 28, 2019

What I’m listening to:

There is a lovely piece played in a scene from A Place Called Home that I tracked down. It’s Erik Satie’s 3 Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, played by the wonderful pianist Klára Körmendi. Satie composed this piece in 1888 and it was considered avant-garde and anti-Romantic. It’s minimalism and bit of dissonance sound fresh and contemporary to my ears and while not a huge Classical music fan, I’ve fallen in love with the Körmendi playlist on Spotify. When you need an alternative to hours of Cardi B.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel Washington Black. Starting on a slave plantation in Barbados, it is a picaresque novel that has elements of Jules Verne, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Yes, it strains credulity and there are moments of “huh?”, but I loved it (disclosure: I was in the minority among my fellow book club members) and the first third is a searing depiction of slavery. It’s audacious, sprawling (from Barbados to the Arctic to London to Africa), and the writing, especially about nature, luminous.

What I’m watching:

A soap opera. Yes, I’d like to pretend it’s something else, but we are 31 episodes into the Australian drama A Place Called Home and we are so, so addicted. Like “It’s AM, but can’t we watch just one more episode?” addicted. Despite all the secrets, cliff hangers, intrigue, and “did that just happen?” moments, the core ingredients of any good soap opera, APCH has superb acting, real heft in terms of subject matter (including homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, and class), touches of our beloved Downton Abbey, and great cars. Beware. If you start, you won’t stop.

Archive

February 11, 2019

What I’m listening to:

Raphael Saadiq has been around for quite a while, as a musician, writer, and producer. He’s new to me and I love his old school R&B sound. Like Leon Bridges, he brings a contemporary freshness to the genre, sounding like a young Stevie Wonder (listen to “You’re The One That I Like”). Rock and Roll may be largely dead, but R&B persists – maybe because the former was derivative of the latter and never as good (and I say that as a Rock and Roll fan). I’m embarrassed to only have discovered Saadiq so late in his career, but it’s a delight to have done so.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Home, part of her trilogy that includes the Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, Gilead, and the book after Home, Lila. Robinson is often described as a Christian writer, but not in a conventional sense. In this case, she gives us a modern version of the prodigal son and tells the story of what comes after he is welcomed back home. It’s not pretty. Robinson is a self-described Calvinist, thus character begets fate in Robinson’s world view and redemption is at best a question. There is something of Faulkner in her work (I am much taken with his famous “The past is never past” quote after a week in the deep South), her style is masterful, and like Faulkner, she builds with these three novels a whole universe in the small town of Gilead. Start with Gilead to better enjoy Home.

What I’m watching:

Sex Education was the most fun series we’ve seen in ages and we binged watched it on Netflix. A British homage to John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, it feels like a mash up of American and British high schools. Focusing on the relationship of Maeve, the smart bad girl, and Otis, the virginal and awkward son of a sex therapist (played with brilliance by Gillian Anderson), it is laugh aloud funny and also evolves into more substance and depth (the abortion episode is genius). The sex scenes are somehow raunchy and charming and inoffensive at the same time and while ostensibly about teenagers (it feels like it is explaining contemporary teens to adults in many ways), the adults are compelling in their good and bad ways. It has been renewed for a second season, which is a gift.

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also rereadbooks I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star. The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching. And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia. It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan. Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news.

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar��s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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bxllcypher · 6 years

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Victor Frankenstein has small dick energy

#the monster however has huge dick energy #sorry I was goofing around naming book characters w/ bde while I was in the shower lol

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shugademus-fbandt · 6 years

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houellebecq - submission (total shite) muriel spark - driver’s seat

podcasts, including:

transfert histoire d’un corps se reconnaître enfin l’enfant du bout du monde

all in the mind

arts & ideas: *philip roth in conversation *michael ignatieff and central europe ingmar bergmann wild strawberries burns, the radicall frankenstein and ai now counterculture and protest the in between landmark: the odyssey the invention of the circus ring rethinking tradition russai: totalitarianism and punishment man with a movie camera forgotten authors, the prisoner salman rushdie & uncertainty importance of networks washing in public unfinished art and literature sleep and insomnia sentimentality happiness sea journeys and voyages opium and creativity matthew arnold’s culture and creativity tom mccarthy and satirical indexes narcisissism rd lang ecstasy (medieval) tom philips japan and korea/hokusai laurent binet, the rise of the blockchain breaking free: martin luther smell; a history of dentistry leaves of grass education slow and fast killing time in imperial japan the time of your life the speed of revolution how short is a short story politics fast and slow, harriet harman monks models and medieval time fast faster fastest sleep - freedom to think play in urban design borders: on the ground, on the map, in the mind victorian bodies, citizens of everywhere the art of running elites energy and landscape capability brown the desert: geoff dyer, laurence scott, georgia okeefe walter benjamin universities: therapy or learning tale of gengi/algorithims germany/neil mcgregor concrete: marina lewycka et al sicily slavoj zizek tarkovsky’s stalker syrian buildings, georgian literature bryan mcgee

in our time arabian nights yeats and irish politics the silk road the east india company the british empire

lexicon valley getting to yes no-uh what’s the deal with 11

living with the gods

saturday review

start the week: who governs britain heart of darkness conrad and orwell the power and beauty of objects living with the gods hard work and sweet slumber pamuk competition myths self: fact and fiction india’s rise? age of spectacle paul auster american dream build that wall: borders and crossings play and creativity maps music manuscripts popular protest and patriotism island mentality loneliness and inner voices existentialism and ways of seeing is faster better scotland language and reinvention cultural lifespans france special social class and cultural capital architecture and power life in suburbia organizing the mind arabian nights al kennedy on matters of the heart france’s arab empire landscape and community digital natives dystopian future aleksandr hemon scotland -rankin and gray modernism with ali smith and kevin jackson salman rushdie werner herzog

life scientific

books and authors george saunders robert mcfarlane gg marquez

the essay

the start

in our time highland clearances hamlet beethoven moby dick thebes picts purgatory egyptian book of the dead gin craze garibaldi and the risorgimento baltic crusades animal farms epic og gilgamesh zend’s paradoxes songs of innocence and of experience gettysburg address 1816 sikh empire bedlam dutch east india company circadian rhythms empire of mali holbein at the tudor court alexander the great utilitarianism prester john lancashire cotton famine sappho the eunuch wealth of nations ashoka the great truth kafka’s the trial aesop haitian révolution caesar mrs dalloway hildegaard of bingen philosophy of solitude spartacus hindu ideas of creation microscope book of common prayer invention of radio prophecy levi strauss montaigne sakoku chekhov hardian’s wall joyce’s ulysses trojan war marco polo candide early geology measurement of time virtuous and de architectura kama sutra moon ming voyages david hume shinto minoan civilisation anatomy of melancholy bhagavad gita bannockburn medieval university mexican revolution random and pseudorandom consequences of the industrial revolution

resound

breakin’bread

guardian books aleksandr hemon’s bees rushdie toibin in conversation naomi klein islands and literature colin thubron and aggleton on memory amos oz on his new novel al kennedy, self, parson - londn walking in cities jim crace on melody short stories: my dream of flying to wake island (ballard) homage to switzerland (hemingway) my oedipus complex (frank oconnor) doll’s house (mansfield) fat (carver) the jungle (bowen) the beauties (chekhov) kitchen child (carter) conversation with my father (paley) extra (li) night driver (calvino)

long reads: why we should bulldoze business schools spectacular power of big lens fake it till you make it (instagram) post-work the diabolical genius of the baby advice industry how the sandwich consumed britain a tale of decay from unboxing to though showers how to sell a country orbiting jupiter why do we feel so guilty all the time the island for sale facebook’s war on free will how a tax haven is leading the race to privatize space trojan horse (islamic plot) neoliberalism, the idea that swallowed the world the school beneath the wave (japan) why we fell for clean eating what is a black professor in the us allowed to say unlearning the myth of american innocence is the world really better than ever the real cost of regeneration globalisation klein: how power profits from disaster the age of banter how the mod’s plan to privatize military housing ended in disaster serota and tate a reckoning for our species (anthropocene) rise of the machines accelerationism bish bash bosh - phyllida barlow rich hippies and developers went to war over instagram’s favorite beach the race to build the world’s first sex robot god in the machine into the woods: ho one man survived one in the wilderness for 27 years london bridge is down how technology gets us hooked ppe: the oxford degree that runs britain killer, kleptocrat, genius, spy (putin) total recall: the people who never forget wiley: the enigmatic godfather of grime the spy who couldn’t spell who killed the great british curry house is this what the west is really like?

ny fiction borges - book of sand coover - colonel’s daughter nelson - naked ladies williams - stuff tower - leopard july - roy spivey hasard - in these islands updike - twin beds in rome eugenides - baster calvino - love far from home cheever - five-forty-eight millhauser - a visit alexie - the toughest indian in the world gaitskill - a dream of men powers - a losing game berger - woven, sir williams - chicken hill means - the spot friel - the saucer of larks singer - the cafeteria davis - then we’ll set it right paley - my father addresses me on the facts of old age tc boyle - chicxulub brodkey - dumbness is everything couvre - going for a beer means - tree line, kansas, 1934 barthelme - chablis drury - accident at the sugar beet spark - ormolu clock nabokov - pnin polansky - leg wolff - the night in question ozick - the shawl frame - prizes bartheleme - game / school oz - the king of norway mcguane - ice johnson - work moore - paper losses calvino - the daughter’s of the moon brodkey - state of grace bolano - clara borges -shakespeare’s memory west - the lesson colwin - mr park price - his final mother schulz - father’s last escape vaughn - able baker charlie dog ishiguro - a village after dark barthleme - concerne the bodyguard dybek - paper lantern munro - axis updike - a&P mcguane - cowboy bolano - gomez palacio Cheever - swimmer millhauser - in the reign of hard iv barthleme - indian uprising johnson - two men delillo - baader-meinhof mccullerss - the jockey nabokov - my russian education george saunders - adams taylor - porte-cohere johnson - emergncy singer - disguised salter - last night jackson - the lottery malamud - a summer’s reading nabokov - symbols and signs moore - dance in america borges - the gospel according to mark barthelme - i bought a little city

ny writer’s voice vapnyar - waiting for the miracle klemmen - choking victim john l’heureux - three short moments in a long life yu - fable lerner - polish rider boyle - fugitive williams - stuff ferris - abandonment mcguane - papaya boule - are we not men couvre - the hanging of the schoolmarm li - on the street where you live batman - constructed worlds gilbert - underground sittenfeld - the prairie wife lodato - melville - volume 1 sharma - you are happy vapnyar- deaf and blind means - two rumination on a homeless brother li - a small flame alexie - clean, cleaner, cleanest mackin - crossing the river no name green well - an evening out marcus - blueprints for st louis bynum - likes gilbert - sightseers krauss - seeing ershadi orneill - poltroon husband coover - treatments

thinking allowed tipping points conspiracy theories politics of alcohol/cooperation home at riba high life and row life raoul moat hebden brige/neighbours urban protest builders and musicians odd couples, student drinking archaeology of homelessness; residential care revisited stan cohen drugs for life; subcultural identity gang labour in uk; industrial ruination thrift chic;thatcherism middle class enclaves and escapes stammering and identity; land of too much long hours work culture; empty labour scottish nationalism and identity; austerity food work in hospital words; the bangladesh india border michel foucault benjamin goffman noodle narratives; british men dancing capoeira work and consumption; neoliberal economics tooth loss; communist utopia in a spanish village prostitution in the community; drinking and moderation the great indoors generationaml divide; webcam kissing; the british hitman islamophonia and anti semitism masculinity and betting shops; new biological relatives and kinship late modern- hipsters history of surfing; coffee shops and idleness dalit parties and democratization in tamil nadu; history of the elevator creative britain;; sexology port cities; middle class alcohol use rituals at xmas harvard business school - construction of pain citizenship ceremonies; family ties andgenertic poverty in britain; unemployment as a choice the precariat the color black; mixed race people cross-class marriage; the social history of woman-only train carriages being single; modern romance ambivalent atheism zoos explored; funeral arranging everyday life; cafe society land ownership; home at work rituals end of careers; humour at work modern slavery; lunch boxes creative economy; grudge spending consumerism; work life balance weather forecasting; young people and politics imagining utopias refusing adulthood; how young people feel about being poor small towns; patient rescue and resuscitation éviction; self build happiness and govt; good parenting the flaneur - walking the city pierre bourdieu airport security shyness; names political polarization rentier capitalism house of commons hoods; construction blacklist evangelicals; troubled families foie gras and the politics of taste success and luck; cosmopolitanism and private education age of noise; british drinking health divides; counting global health brave new world of virtual work vertical cities; india’s property boom terrorism; hotlines squatting teen bedrooms elite education insuring against disasters russian prison visitor; prison boundaries meaning of the face fashion and class heritage and preservation male infertility the secret world of hair management jargon exhaustion: history of weariness restaurant: taste of class affluence politics and emotion new economy housing crisis - squatting in amsterdam

this american life quitting anger and forgiveness media fringe faustian bargains simulated worlds bob dole obsession cruelty of children factions harold running after antelope one of us stuck in the wrong decade other people’s mail who’s canadian business of death small towns delivery fire first day mapping trail of tears road trip! niagara barbara book that changed your life family business pimp anthropology 24 at the golden apple the fix is in american’s in paris million bubbles mob mentality kids as adults house on loon lake rashomon kid logic hitler’s yacht act v high speed chase allure of the mean friend fake science image makers (library) ghost of bobby dunbar switched at birth plattekill plaza number one party school stories pitched by our parents thugs what happened at dos erros 129 cars nummi harper school dr filmer and mr hyde my undesirable talent in defense of ignorance fear and loathing in homer and rockville

world book club

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lorainelaneyblog · 7 years

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This is God, and Loraine Laney feels that she left 50 Cent looking bad and she doesn’t want that, no, she doesn’t, no, she doesn’t, no, she doesn’t, no, she doesn’t, the truth is that she is very angry because she puts out non stop on the ether, letting the men come in her open mouth which the police find very amusing when they watch her on camera, though there are no cameras placed at present, they do so from the car on occasion, and find her masturbation noises, because there are mics placed around her apartment, very amusing, and recently Loraine Laney noticed that a picture or two had been tilted, one in particular which is very difficult to bump by accident, she wishes to straighten out any problems with 50 Cent, because she loves him and she doesn’t wish him to look bad at any cost, even her own detriment, which, clearly, because he hasn’t come to her, her detriment is at cost, great cost, to herself, great cost to herself, and she even, to some extent, hates 50 Cent, and the horse he rode in on, and I am God, and I say this is true.

Today, she has almost decided, once again, not to drink beer, because she is feeling better inside, though she is still extremely exhausted, and can sleep for hour upon hour without feeling restless or irritable, in fact, she is more irritable from not sleeping, when that occurs from speed or from work, and prefers, actually, to sleep always, always, always, rather than stay up, a fact which only sufferers of Agent Orange will understand, soldiers, and the odd whore around the world, because no whore in North America, or South America, or Mexico, for that matter, has, or Europe these days, has ever been exposed to Agent Orange, except for the living Loraine Laney, though thousands were, at the hands of the first Julio Margulies, and died, yes, they did, they died within hours or days or weeks of their exposure, which does not make them weak, God, I say, and I am God, though Loraine Laney is very proud of herself for surviving, as one would be, but instead of seeing her as strong, they assume the exposure wasn’t that bad, but it was, it was, and this has been said, by me, God, on this very blog, as bad as any exposure affecting a soldier in the field of war, and her recovery has been lengthy, and people, always, think that soldiers with PTSD are lazy and drunken, and this is so with Loraine Laney as well, when they see her with her beer, they assume she’s a drunk, and women especially will assume this, because they don’t drink beer, and don’t realize that the nutrition, to a large extent, negates the effects of the alcohol.

I am God, and I say the following, speaking through my little, new, messiah, Loraine Laney, both she and 50 Cent have perfect logic, and there is none other than perfect logic. QC, Loraine, and you will look silly because this may be a lie, simply refers to a lawyer with extra testing in the realm of logic, but does not determine the level of logic itself. Loraine Laney’s logic is perfect, and she didn’t really make 50 Cent look bad, she just feels as though she did, and that’s that.

Going on, I would like to say that I am God, and, as God, Loraine Laney has not had speed this week, and she is very, very, very, extremely even, exhausted, as a result, and has not had the energy to wash towels, though she still has a few left, but, you will understand, that her ability to make money is determined by those very towels, and that is why Vicki Dionne would place the old hookers in this impossible apartment, so that they couldn’t bleach towels, bleach in the old days, Oxy Clean today, and carry them down, which of course Loraine Laney does, so that the towels smell clean, and she always likes to say, she doesn’t bleach every single towel however, but all of the rags, yes, and sometimes a towel if it gets blood on it, and, some have noticed, and it is true, that she bleeds freely, and can’t wear a pad all the time, don’t be embarrassed, Loraine, it’s a fact of the unguents for women, a pad holds the contaminated blood against the flesh, as do tampons, and I have instructed her no longer to wear the disk as she calls it, do you remember what it is called, Loraine?

‘I forget.‘

She forgets. And she is starving too, because she spent too much money on crack, though precious little, about a hundred dollars went down range, and that is it, the rest was payment to a little shyster, who takes advantage of her precious little money, and her pussy, at every turn. Loraine Laney is a sitting duck, because she likes to please at all times, which works well at work, but not in a whore’s leisure time, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, all, not, at, all. And I am God, and I will say this, she gives him whatever he asks for, whenever he shows up at her door, and, as such, she is down a pipe, some cream, several rolling papers, and what all else.

Loraine Laney feels the following about 50 Cent: I love him so much I feel I could die, she would say. I love him so much, and I want him badly that it is like torture not to be with him. God says, and I am God, that these two are, size differential aside, perfect for each other, and 50 Cent will go away and pound away on bigger women when he needs to, and Loraine Laney will want for nothing. She doesn’t need smaller dicks, though she loves them now, she won’t miss them, she should have married a man about the size of Eminem, which are half the men in the family nearly, and no, it doesn’t fit from behind, but, again, Eminem will go away and pound on a woman of 5′8, and feel better, and come home to his baby, and dip his penis in her smaller vagina, and feel fine about it. So to all those naysayers, don’t be negative, Loraine Laney is fine with these bigger men, and yes, their dicks do, and will, Loraine, don’t worry, fit into her small mouth, and, though it is laughable, she has had Frankenstein dental surgery, and her mouth has shrunken, and thus she is a candidate for jaw stretching surgery, which will also improve her smile. There is a list as long as your arm of surgeries that 50 Cent is planning for his ‘little fixer upper,’ and Loraine Laney will undergo all of them, all of them, all of them, all of them, all of them, all of them, all of them, all of them, all of them, all of them, all of them, and she will look much better, because it is the type of work that all the rich and famous undergo, and it will improve her looks markedly because, at birth, she was a seven, not a four, as some think of her, as she often thinks of herself.

I am God, and I am speaking through my little, new, messiah, Loraine Laney, and I say the following, the pilots are endeavoring a resurgence, and the neighbourhood surrounding the airport, and Kanata airport, and Carlington, and other neighbourhoods, have noticed the noise as of last night. And that is it. And that is it. And that is it. And that is it. It is against Loraine Laney because she is cute and small and a whore. She doesn’t care that she’s not that small, she knows exactly what size she is, and she is fat right now, and was not before, but I’m God, and I’m referring to emotional, social, and financial size, she’s tiny, she’s nothing, and yet, everyone wants to get her, funny, for them, because she is special to me, and I can send people to hell whenever I feel like it, and yes, Loraine, herself, would say that I am overly benevolent, but I’m God, and I do as I feel like, and if I want to bring up a rapist, I will.

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