Flying Houses

Addiction, Inc. - Emily Dufton (2026)

2026-09-19T15:40:00.747-04:00

We live in a broken country. Our citizens are gunned down on the street for trying to protect the vulnerable from overzealous agents instructed to disregard all prior concepts of law and justice, and labeled "domestic terrorists." Our President routinely targets judges that issue orders in any kind of opposition to his edicts--even the Supreme Court, even after appointing 3 of the 9 on it. Officials in the administration are swiftly fired when public outcry over their party-fueled machinations becomes politically inconvenient. Charlatans abound throughout the halls of government, and anti-intellectualism continues to stretch towards a more complete apotheosis, as A.I. deep-fakes and bot accounts trigger the online ecosystem, dividing people with black & white thinking, an imbecilic riposte for every thoughtful rebuttal, couched in righteousness. They claim to be People of God and are granted audiences with the Pope, only to later insult and accuse him of not understanding theology when he opposes warmongering and the military industrial complex, pleading for dialogue and diplomacy and decency--three D's they have determined to be ineffectual, after performative attempts at such have maintained the status quo. Our leaders in power are not serious people and do not appear to know what they are doing.

They wanted to make this country great, as it once was, and it seemed unclear where they thought it had gone wrong. Perhaps it was great at the time of the American Revolution, or before the Civil War, or after the Civil War, or in the period of WWI or WWII--but most likely, it seemed post-WWII, pre-1964 Civil Rights Act, when the Baby Boomers emerged as a contingent and the American people appeared to enjoy a higher standard of living than most of the rest of the world. By the time President Kennedy was assassinated, the country began to grow apart and the two political parties in control of government became more divided. There was a civil rights movement, and more assassinations, and entry into a conflict in Vietnam, and a new President that had barely lost to Kennedy 8 years earlier, horrified at the prospect of losing a second term.

Perhaps it was somewhere in there--or perhaps it was about 10 years later, when President Reagan was elected and significant reorganization of government shifted priorities from social safety nets to corporate safety nets and established the predominant global economy.

Or perhaps it was 10 years later, or 10 years after that, when our country was attacked by terrorists and we banded together in solidarity and the opportunity to exploit the moment proved too irresistible. Unquestionably however, it ended with the election of President Obama. It was at that moment that our country fell into disrepair, and the backlash against a generally progressive society began to foment. America was ceasing to be great because a relatively small swathe of conservatives set out on a mission to prove the first black President did not know what he was doing and was leading our country into "third-world" status. Their movement steadily grew and they had a willing demagogue and they convinced enough people that it was time for radical change and then attempted to copy President Reagan and restore the United States to its rightful place as a global superpower--never mind that it had never really slipped from that position. They convinced everyone it had, and chaos has ensued, and we are currently spiraling towards what we fear may be total oblivion.

And so what, if anything, do drugs have to do with all of that?

***

Addiction, Inc. is Dr. Emily Dufton's long-awaited follow-up to Grass Roots: the Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America, which appeared in 2017 and foreshadowed the widespread decriminalization and legalization of that "drug." Marijuana is known as the "gateway drug" that leads towards "harder" and more dangerous substances, with heroin at the other extreme. Oxycontin supplanted heroin as a legal alternative, but it was not a treatment to stem the addictive nature of the opiate. Not unlike vaping as an alternative to cigarette-smoking, while it doesn't seem as unhealthy, it can exacerbate the addiction because of convenience of use. Now Fentanyl has supplanted Oxycontin as restrictions have made that drug less potent and accessible. The landscape has shifted and the "problem of addiction" continues to evade grasp. This book does its part to solve that puzzle and it is thus essential reading for anyone that cares in the slightest about drug policy reform. Unfortunately for this moment in the United States, we may need to wait for meaningful change. (I will briefly give credit where it is due to the administration for rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III, though that appears to remain partially in flux as of this writing; I have otherwise little confidence that the Department of Health & Human Services will effect positive change in this area, despite the "opportunity" that its Secretary's status as a former heroin addict presents, to say nothing of the Vice President's well-documented family struggles.)

One wonders how Kennedy got "clean," (very basic internet research indicates an overdose, a treatment program in New Jersey, 12-Steps and a rekindling of faith) and perhaps the best way individuals can overcome this "weakness" is by learning from the specific stories of others. Addiction, Inc. is not focused on such human interest items. Though they are referenced at moments, it is focused on the bigger picture of treatment reform--the success stories are those of the programs.

Most of us have known someone that died of an overdose. It happens everywhere, but it happens in certain places more than others. Dufton's hometown of Allentown, PA is one such locale, and her friend Dana was one such victim. This is not a psychological portrait of Dana or a deeper exploration of his struggle, but a snapshot of Dufton's perspective from the distance that arises between high school friends over time, particularly those that fade from view because of such struggles. The Introduction beginning from this very personal place then offers a roadmap of the entire landscape the book explores in finer detail. In 20 pages, it offers up its central thesis, and in the ensuing 367, it presents its evidence, starting from an overarching assessment and the culmination of a decade of research:

"Over the past fifty years, MAT [Medication-Assisted Treatment] has transformed from a radical federal public health initiative, launched to make addiction treatment accessible and appealing, into a successful, if clearly insufficient, commercial industry--even as the opioid problem in America got worse....We have forgotten the war that Richard Nixon launched on June 17, 1971. It is perhaps the most infamous, and most misunderstood, date in American drug history. But it doesn't have to stay that way. If we remember what we once forgot, perhaps we can also make a change." (20)

***

Nixon's Presidency may be the moment when everything changed between the two parties and divisions became more extreme. Lewis Powell's memo in 1971 is credited as the blueprint of the modern conservative movement, and it may be seen as a type of precursor to Project 2025. Regardless, it seems Nixon was overly fixated on winning his 2nd term, and if he wasn't beset by so much doubt of his own popularity, his reputation would not have suffered as it has. As I grew up, depending on the teacher, either Nixon or Carter were labeled the "worst President ever" (two others would later make stronger cases). It does appear Nixon's personal beliefs were a bit uncouth, and some of his actions were highly questionable, but I do not think he needed to carry out the Watergate break-in to win, and perhaps that had an undeniable impact on the future of electoral politics, to say nothing of his unprecedented resignation (which now feels "classy"). Regardless, even though he was a Republican, like most Presidents up to that point, he spoke to everyone and he did not play favorites for all the Yes Men on his side. This supposedly evil man also shepherded the EPA into existence along with the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, affirmative action, school desegregation, supplemental security income, restoration of native American rights, and the ending of the draft. It may be overly simplistic, but safe to say, America was great when Republicans still wanted to be progressive, too.

The Vietnam War presented perhaps the major obstacle for his reelection, since it was very unpopular. And here finally we come to the Addiction, Inc. connection, which is that many soldiers in Vietnam were drugged up--sometimes with psychedelics, and sometimes with heroin that was easily procured in Vietnam. Nixon wanted to end the war and gain supporters, and part of that plan included care for veterans, who seemed particularly traumatized after seeing so many of their friends killed for reasons more pointless than ever before. There had also been a low-key opiate drug problem in the U.S. going back to the Civil War, with morphine, and various developments over those 100 years leading up to the vogue of heroin in several urban centers. More young people were using in Vietnam, and if the war was going to end, they were going to come home, addicted to the deadliest drug, without jobs or income waiting for them. Thus, crimes perpetrated by such "G.I. Junkies," bent on procuring heroin by any means possible, were anticipated to make many places in America much more dangerous than before. Enter Jerome Jaffe.

***

Jaffe is one of several heroes in this story and is first introduced as a 36-year-old psychiatrist operating the Illinois Drug Abuse Program (IDAP) in 1970. Dufton's description of IDAP echoes throughout the text as a prototypical example of a treatment program that works. They share several common features:

"Each clinic was small, treating just a hundred patients, and staffed by a part-time physician, two nurses, and five peer counselors. To make patients feel comfortable, all peer counselors were former heroin users themselves. 'IDAP was a pacesetter in its use of ex-addict personnel for virtually all treatment roles other than those filled by physicians and nurses,' [Dr. Patrick] Hughes [clinical director] said, a model later mirrored nationwide. Clinics were also culturally specific. 'A clinic in a Black neighborhood was generally served by Black staff,' Hughes said. 'If patients were predominantly Latin or white, the staff also tended to be Latin or white.' As comfortable, friendly, and integrated locations, neighborhood methadone clinics were 'community experiments in heroin control,' Hughes said, 'dynamic and experimental, not rigid or bureaucratic.'" (95-96)

Jeffrey Donfeld, a Young Republican and "Whiz Kid" aide to the Nixon administration, interviewed Jaffe and wrote dozens of letters and memos to the White House, emphasizing Jaffe's reports on the success of IDAP. Nixon was suspicious of all drug use and skeptical of the optics of endorsing methadone as a public good, but various events in 1971--specifically the rising violent crime rate and impending return of "G.I. junkies" from the front--led him to reconsider his beliefs. Heroin had flooded America and Vietnam, and Jaffe argued the only way to bring down drug use and crime was to flood the country with treatment in response, "to make treatment so available that no one has to commit a crime to support a habit because they cannot get treatment." (116) Nixon himself then introduced the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP), which Addiction, Inc. focuses on heavily in its first half.

Nixon loved Jaffe and shocked him by appointing him ("by ambush") as the first leader of this agency, which was especially powerful. It would control vast federal funds and have the ability to allocate money at will, and it would be housed within the Executive Branch, with Jaffe reporting directly to Nixon himself. In the announcing the agency in a press conference, Nixon noted that strict drug laws were "not sufficient in themselves to eliminate drug abuse," and that, "enforcement must be coupled with a rational approach to the reclamation of the drug user himself...we must rehabilitate the drug user if we are to eliminate drug abuse and all the antisocial activities that flow from it." (120). He signed Executive Order 11599 and requested $155 million from Congress to address the "demand" side of drugs, bringing the federal drug budget to $371 million. This allocated $105 million to SAODAP--more than double what Donfeld originally requested--to fund a new system of clinics nationwide, engage in groundbreaking research and expand the rehabilitation capacity of the VA. Nixon also suggested that if Jaffe determined it needed more money, he would take care of that.

Later it was legally recognized by Congress in the Drug Abuse Office and Treatment Act of 1972, and allocated $400 million--2/3 of the federal drug budget--to spend on treatment, prevention, research and education. It was also given the firm end date of June 30, 1975, with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) subsuming its efforts, moving it out of the White House and into the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

It achieved its goals, but just as in any comprehensive history that endeavors to remain impartial, that is not 100% true and the devil is in the details. As Jaffe later reminisced, "'I had a feeling, almost from the first day, that the willingness to look at the demand side, rather than the law enforcement approach, might be a transient phenomenon. And I was right." (122)

Part I of Addiction, Inc. ("The Cinderella Drug: Methadone") concerns SAODAP's origins and early years, and is arguably the most fascinating section as it uncovers the political process behind the creation of such an office (such a story on DOGE should be forthcoming, if it is not already out there). Jaffe has the leading role, but he recedes into the background of the book after his resignation as SAODAP's Director on June 17, 1973, leaving to study nicotine in New York. Working under H.R. Haldeman was difficult, and Jaffe said there was not a day on the job he enjoyed--except the last, which Dufton describes in cinematic detail:

"Cups of champagne were passed around, and a White House photographer captured dozens of images of guests drinking and dancing. One image captured the rarest thing of all. As his clinics were attacked and the Nixon White House began its slow dissolution into Watergate, the nation's first drug czar was seen laughing with colleagues, visibly relieved to be done with the job." (165)

While Nixon had declared that the country had turned the corner on heroin in 1973, it came back with a vengeance in 1974. By June of that year, cheap, potent, plentiful gum-like brown heroin from Mexico went from West Coast to national ubiquity, replacing the French Connection's weak, expensive and rare white powder. In July of that year, Turkey announced it would no longer adhere to its opium ban, restarting the European heroin trade. On August 9th, Nixon resigned, for other reasons.

Before that, he had appointed Robert DuPont to replace Jaffe as Director of SAODAP and oversee its transition into NIDA. This happened almost a year earlier than Congress had intended, as Gerald Ford sought to distance himself from anything reeking too strongly of the former President. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who had been opposed to treatment, aided in "banishing" the agency to its new offices in Rockville, MD, "ignoring" its controversial clinics. While Jaffe had accomplished his mission, curbing drug abuse and heroin addiction measurably, it seems as though the moment he left it all began to fall apart. As DuPont said, "The game became holding on, rather than expanding. We lost our morale--and our direction." (174) Enter LAAM.

***

Part 2 of Addiction, Inc. recenters the narrative from the White House to the lab, so to speak, and explores alternatives to methadone--l-alpha-acetylmethadol (LAAM), Naltrexone, and Buprenorphine. LAAM effectively provided the same effects as methadone, but only required 3 office visits per week instead of daily dosing. While it had been discovered by Eli Lilly in 1949, the company did not consider it marketable for use as an analgesic. Jaffe had been interested in LAAM since 1965 and undertook a small study of it at University of Chicago in 1969, then published an article in 1970 demonstrating its practical therapeutic advantages. When DuPont took over SAODAP, he envisioned replacing methadone clinics with LAAM clinics, but the drug needed FDA approval. Dufton describes this labyrinthine, technical process--and the strange quirks involved with LAAM specifically--about as electrically as possible for laypersons while speaking the language of research scientists. It is too difficult to summarize the twists and turns of its funding and development and tabloid controversies in a review that has already gone deeper than it should elsewhere--because it is a long story that essentially ends with LAAM languishing for decades under a mountain of red tape until its eventual appearance on the market. Amidst that process, DuPont was forced to resign, after NIDA had been accused of impropriety and cronyism. As other antitrust issues arose with regard to exclusivity of patent rights and potential profits to a private company funded by government contracts formed by John Whysner, LAAM's days appeared numbered:

"'It seems to me Dr. Whysner has a pretty good deal,' [Henry] Waxman [California Democrat heading the NIDA hearings in March 1979] said. 'The equivalent of a $70,000 salary, no legal liability, and the government assumes all the risks and responsibility for his willingness to develop LAAM. Dr. Whysner is then rewarded with the exclusive right to sale of the drug for eight years. Is that correct?...I don't know how pervasive this kind of practice is at NIDA...but when you find smoke, perhaps there's more fire.'" (187)

After DuPont's resignation in July 1978, NIDA had been left leaderless for 9 months, and had "degenerated...into an 'incestous' office filled with nepotism, fraud, and waste." (191) Dr. William Pollin, a psychiatrist and World War II veteran that had overseen NIDA's biomedical research division--the only one that didn't "embarass itself"--became its new director in March 1979. Under his tenure, it essentially turned into a research institute, forgoing the treatment and education services that had made it an interdisciplinary office dedicated to making real social change. Reagan was elected in a landslide in 1980 on a very focused agenda of curbing government spending. He also had his "war on drugs," but it materialized in the "Just Say No" campaigns spearheaded by his wife Nancy, focused on eliminating future users, speaking to kids about the dangers of cannabis, rather than adult heroin users. The law and order approach returned, and national drug arrests shot up from 50,000 to 60,000 between 1980 and 1982. NIDA's funding was also reshaped by Reagan into block grants distributed to states by his signing of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act in August 1981. There were even further cuts signaling Reagan's abandonment of methadone, and all NIDA personnel involved in drug treatment services were removed from the institute's payroll. Its research mission remained intact, however, and with LAAM languishing in legal morass since 1979, Pollin explored other alternatives. Enter Naltrexone.

***

I recall distinctly when reading this section that it was the clearest explanation of the chemical impact of one of these drugs on the brain, if also slightly confusing:

"Thebaine, an alkaloid derived from the opium poppy, is the source of many opioid drugs. These include semisynthetic opioid agonists, like oxycodone and hydrocodone, which fill the brain's opioid receptors and provide the pleasurable, and sometimes deadly, effects. But in the early 1960's, chemists at Endo [Endo Pharmaceuticals, who first synthesized EN-1619A, i.e. naltrexone, in 1963] discovered that thebaine was also, importantly, the source of opioid agonists' opposite: opioid antagonists, drugs which have no physical effects themselves--no high, no addictive properties, no withdrawal--but have the distinct power to counteract an opioid's use by blocking the brain's opioid receptors completely. In 1961, Endo chemists synthesized naloxone, a short-acting antagonist that kicked opioids out of the brain so effectively that chemists called it the 'Lazarus drug' because of how fast it reversed an overdose. Naltrexone, which Endo synthesized two years later, was as powerful as naloxone but longer lasting. An oral dose of fifty milligrams of naltrexone bound to a patient's brain so completely that patients were 'blocked' from the effects of opioids for roughly twenty-hour hours, regardless of how much of an opioid they consumed. (One naltrexone patient injected over $500 worth of heroin and was 'frustrated,' researchers found, when he felt no effects.) Patients had to take naltrexone daily--if they didn't, the dose would quickly wear off--but by effectively, if temporarily, rendering opioids useless, Endo believed it had created a heroin 'vaccine.'" (202-203)

The drug was designed to treat "the motivated addict" (and thus supplies to the title of the chapter)--physicians and business executives "under 'immense pressure from external sources'--like medical boards threatening addicted doctors' licenses, bosses threatening dismissal, or spouses threatening divorce--to stop, rather than maintain, opioid use. For these patients, naltrexone's forced abstinence was a benefit, not a hindrance." (205) It debuted on November 28, 1984, and could be prescribed immediately, to be taken at home. Effectively, naltrexone succeeded where LAAM had failed--but I can't help but think of this as being like Chantix, which notably can increase suicidal thoughts and doesn't provide any nicotine buzz like the gum or now Zyn pouches or vaping (undoubtedly the most harmful nicotine delivery device--and all of these are addicting to one degree or another, though the gum may be the best option). I'm sure Chantix worked for a great number of people, but I know it also does not, and so it makes sense (even if the chemical mechanism here is not exactly comparable) that naltrexone was not going to work for everyone, either. Some other drug would need to be developed at some point--but NIDA and the Reagan administration had a bigger problem, by 1986.

***

The next chapter, "The Dark Ages," introduces another of the dramatis personae featured across Addiction, Inc.--Charles Schuster, who replaced Pollin as NIDA's director in March 1986. Though Reagan had slashed funding for this agency by various mechanisms, he would soon pump more money into it than ever before. Due to the infamous cocaine overdose of Len Bias, that drug became a focal point in the "war," along with its cheaper counterpart, crack. Crack had an impact on the homicide rate and crime not necessarily because people were resorting to thievery to afford the drug, but because rival gangs selling the drug wanted to send a message about their territory. The bigger impact on NIDA funding, however, was the emergence of HIV and AIDS.

In 1981, HIV had first been recognized in 19 gay men in L.A., which led Reagan's press secretary to dub it "the gay plague." By 1986, there were 38,000 cases, and in that year alone 16,400 infections were reported. It was soon recognized that the virus spread not only through sexual contact but also blood contact, and many intravenous drug users were heavily at risk, due to lack of education and awareness of status. It was no longer just a problem for the gay community, but its role in the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was questionable. The Act brought the drug budget total to $3 billion, earmarking hundreds of millions of dollars for state and local police, and $97 million for new prison construction. NIDA's budget also grew from $81 million to $107 million, and the potential for methadone to help stem the tide of infections became clear--if less people used heroin, less people would share needles to shoot up, which would help lower infections--but the Reagan administration did not consider its use consonant with its "zero tolerance" philosophy. So despite this increase, it was not for methadone, but for cannabis research. While Reagan had formed a commission to study the HIV epidemic, he did not agree with the recommendations of the report it issued--a federal AIDS anti-discrimination law and requests for expanded treatment. Americans were sympathetic to "victims" of HIV (unknowing sexual partners and babies born infected), but less to those that used illegal drugs.

Funding for NIDA continued to rise as George H.R. Bush became President, from $198 million in 1988, $320 million in 1990, and $416 million in 1992. While it was not allowed to spend on treatment or harm reduction, the floodgates had been opened for research. Bush referred to his vision of the 90's as "the Decade of the Brain," and the effects of addiction were studied. With the additional funding, Schuster wanted to return to the problem that had bedeviled them, and to develop another alternative treatment. This began with the resuscitation of LAAM, which finally went on sale in April 1994 under the name Orlaam, but it was not embraced by methadone clinics or patients, in part because clinics had been privatized and turned into more commercial entities:

"LAAM had been led to slaughter, rejected by clinics and ignored by society, as NIDA pursued its 'neurological revolution.' 'NIDA finds a cure for addiction and what's the reaction?' [Karst] Besteman [who had been purged from NIDA in 1981] asked. 'A yawn. I guess it's just more prestigious to figure out therapeutics for respectable diseases versus why people get addicted to drugs.'" (257)

In this climate and era, when heroin chic entered pop culture and its use began to spike, along with the continuing battle to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the need for yet another treatment alternative arose. Enter Buprenorphine.

***

Rather than delve as deeply into Parts III and IV as I and II, it suffices to say III (The "Holy Grail": Buprenorphine) represents a turning point in Addiction, Inc. If Part II moves out of NIDA's government cradle and into the research lab, Part III takes the narrative into the Boardroom and features another "hero"--Charles O'Keeffe, a drug consultant who worked for Reckitt & Colman, a UK-based "grocery company" whose chemists had also created products such as Woolite, Mop & Glo and Colman's mustard. It discovered the drug in 1966, marketed it as Temgesic, and washed its hands of it in the mid-80s after "thrill-seekers" began to crush and inject the pills. It was designed to be an non-addictive opioid, and while it still was not addictive, Reckitt did not want to be associated with a drug with such a negative reputation. It sold its American licensing contract to Norwich Eaton and ceased all pharmaceutical activities. Two years later, with the Board dismayed by the slow sales of the drug in the U.S., it wanted to end its relationship with Norwich Eaton, and O'Keeffe convinced the Board to develop the drug into a maintenance medication, envisioning a partnership with NIDA to bring that about, not unlike with LAAM.

It's difficult to review this book without including some basic education it provides, or re-summarizing the consistently thorough history of this industry presented. But in an attempt to make a long story short, O'Keeffe shepherds "bupe" through numerous minefields and obtains FDA approval in 2002, with two versions of the drug: Subutex, for on-site dispensing at clinics, and Suboxone, a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone that could be prescribed by physicians and taken at home.

Anyone that came of age in the early 2000s will have some knowledge of Purdue Pharmaceuticals and its marketing practices for Oxycontin. When I first heard rumblings of this book's publication, I expected it to be akin to Empire of Pain (which inspired a Netflix drama series), or an expose of the rehab industry and its 28-day stays to "cure" addiction, which often led to relapse. While both are referenced, Part III effectively becomes a miniature version of the former--for Suboxone. And this story is not nearly as widely known.

***

Ultimately, drug history holds up a mirror to capitalism, as formerly illegal drugs are redeveloped for "safer" consumption and marketed as relentlessly as corporations require to maintain year-after-year growth and profit delivery for shareholders. Oxycontin is the most prominent example of this. Rescheduling of marijuana is another facet of it. Physician-supervised ketamine therapy and commercialized psilocybin (see Definium Therapeutics f/k/a Mind Medicine) are others. Libertarianism has risen and a more permissive attitude towards drug use has followed. Street drugs remain available of course, but increasingly, the same drugs can be procured with doctors' notes and purchased from dispensaries and pharmacies.

While Purdue had "started the fire" with OxyContin, RBP (f/k/a Reckitt) could "sell the hose," and after Part III does for buprenorphine what Part II does for LAAM, it shifts focus to Gail Groves Scott and Anne Marie Williams, "customer liaisons" who both worked to market and sell Suboxone. Scott had been laid off from Purdue as a sales rep in December 2004, and was recruited by RBP in February 2005; Williams started at RBP in 2009. These were good days for the industry and Suboxone generated $894 million in 2009, but RBP's exclusive hold on it due to "orphan drug" status ended on 10/8/09, with a generic version of Subutex entering the market for 1/3 of the price at the same time. RBP launched "Mission: Protect" in the face of it, which probably violated the Anti-Kickback Statute. Apart from rewarding physicians for prescribing more of it, "CLs" like Scott and Williams emphasized that generic versions of Subutex did not contain the antagonist Naloxone, and were more likely to be misused. Another generic version of Suboxone was being developed, however, and RBP needed to shift strategy to maintain its position as market leader.

This led to Suboxone Film. No longer a hexagonal table, the drug would be packaged as an individually wrapped and barcoded sublingual film able to be tracked and less easily diverted. The FDA approved this in 2010, and RBP acquired thirteen years of patent protection. Primarily, it was promoted as an enhanced child safety measure, because if discovered by them and taken, it would only be exposure to one dose. The FDA was skeptical of this and had required a more thorough risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS)--which RBP demonstrated by promising to track rates of diversion and pediatric exposure via the barcode on the filmstrips. Generic Suboxone was on the horizon for 2013, and RBP "blitzed" even harder now that they could sell the sublingual film, leaning heavily on the pediatric safety point.

To convince MassHealth to reimburse only Suboxone Film and not generic buprenorphine tablets, Williams and Dr. Jane Ruby--a top executive at RBP overseeing the account--determined they would need support from superior safety data. Which leads to the silliest moment in the book:

"Unfortunately, she knew she couldn't generate useful data...RBP had promised the FDA that individual strip numbers would reduce diversion because RBP would track where each strip went, but the company never set up a tracking system, so the ten-digit codes printed on every Suboxone wrapper were meaningless." (320)

Instead, pulling exposure data in late 2012 from the surveillance researchers RADARS, Ruby identified accidental pediatric exposure for children under 6 was low: 3.3 exposures per 10,000 units of Suboxone tablets, 2.7 exposures per 10,000 units of film, and 1.8 exposures per 10,000 units of generic buprenorphine. Adding the tablets together versus the film, it appeared to be twice as safe. MassHealth approved reimbursement several months later, and Ruby pulled RADARS data again a month after the approval, finding that exposures had jumped. Adults were taking 1/2 of a dose and leaving half a strip in the package, which was enough for an ER visit for kids, and enough to put exposure numbers above tablets. After other developments, including a citizen petition for the FDA to block generic buprenorphine-naloxone tablets, citing safety concerns, and a plan to withdraw tablets from the market, Scott and Williams felt increasingly uncomfortable with what they were being asked to do.

Scott voiced complaints about regulatory risks and was fired. Williams voiced complaints about overprescribing and was promoted. She then contacted lawyers specializing in whistleblower cases and began wearing a wire. Ultimately, seven years later, it resulted in a non-prosecution agreement with the DOJ, a resolution including a fine over $2 billion. Four other whistleblowers also split a settlement of $92 million, with Williams provided a materially higher percentage for the unique facts she uncovered. And while there is much more to the story of buprenorphine than can be neatly summarized in a review, it feels fair to say that Addiction, Inc. presents the most thorough examination of this dramatic arc yet.

***

The book ends in Switzerland, and this review runs far too long, and so I won't reveal too much about about Part IV except to say it is the shortest section, and the most dazzling, because it is there where Dufton presents her solution. She examines the drug problem in Zurich, the open-air drug market of Platzspitz Park, and the response of the Swiss government to that:

"Platszpitz quickly became a public health disaster as well. By the mid-1980s, because of shared needles and unprotected sex, almost a third of heroin usersliving in Needle Park were HIV positive, along with almost a quarter of Swiss heroin users nationwide. And with a thousand people streaming into Platszpitz daily to score--and to share needles and buy sex--the virus's threat was only poised to grow. Now Zurich wasn't just home to the continent's largest open-air drug scene. It was also Europe's leading source of HIV infection." (355)

The primary criticism I can make of Addiction, Inc. is the missed Pavement easter egg opportunity of referring to Zurich as "stained." In any case, it provides a surprising perspective on that song title, and ends the book on one of its most fascinating notes--a semi-first-person account of the research trip undertaken to solve this impossible problem.

***

By this point in the review, the overarching message of this book should be clear: we have been here before, and these are the things we have tried, and they have not worked because of forces conspiring to manipulate the problem into a business proposition. It ends in Switzerland because the Swiss have taken lessons learned from various failed policies implemented, developed a system that "works," and remain attentive to the opioid crisis as an ongoing societal ill (even going as far as providing dosing of actual heroin administered by nurses to a very small subset of users under strict conditions).

Dufton wants to believe this is possible in the United States (while remaining skeptical that such radical interventions are politically feasible), and it is true we may be making strides--overdose deaths in the U.S. dropped from 79,358 in 2023 to 54,045 in 2024--but the problem remains out of hand. From a crude google search that probably is not nearly as specific as it should be, I find these numbers:

1970: around 7,100.
1980: around 6,100.
1990: round 8,400.
2000: over 17,400.
2010: 38,239
2020: 91,799

Clearly something happened in the 90s, and by exploring how that reality came to be at a very high level, taking all of the myriad circumstances into account and demonstrating a cognizable pattern of conduct, the book is a gift to anyone currently fighting to change the narrative direction of this country. It all seems to be coming down to a matter of trust and the level of distrust in our fellow human beings feels like it is at an all-time high. "People are not looking out for our best interests, they're looking out for their own, and anyone that suggests otherwise is naive," they say, as if eternally self-evident.

Both sides are deadlocked in black-or-white belief systems that are diametrically opposed, but there are many areas where broader agreement can still be achieved. Bringing the number of overdose deaths as close to 0 as possible should be one such area.

Still, many will point to homelessness as a sub-issue that impacts quality of life concerns on a level similar to the quality of life concerns that methadone clinics presented in the 1970s. Many will point to the causes of homelessness, with one major source being drug addiction, and few will say such people deserve to die on the street--the worst amongst us lament Reagan's closure of public mental institutions, and that seems the least nefarious of their precepts. I do not think we will go back to that in any case, and Dufton's analysis here paints a path forward that would have a huge impact on that "problematic" population. (The only other pseudo-criticism I can offer is that Addiction, Inc. does not go far enough down this path to examine the problem of crystal meth addiction, which feels like an entirely different beast, likely deserving of its own volume.)

This is an important book and it is sadly all too relevant for millions of Americans that have been impacted by this crisis. The book will likely be therapeutic for anyone in that category. One hopes it will also find its way to the people that have the power to "do better" than some of the individuals featured that once wielded such authority. It does its own small part in trying to make the world a better place, and in my opinion, a book can have no higher aim. Addiction, Inc. hits that mark, and even if it does not slow the locomotive of the market-driven economy of addiction medication, it will help save lives. Perhaps one day too, in the distant or not-too-distant future, serious people will find it and take it seriously, and we will advance towards that greater vision of a utopian society that values the lives of all.

Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald (1934)

2026-04-25T12:14:00.002-04:00

Oeuvre rule: Finally, 5 months after the previous review, and nearly 17 years since The Beautiful and Damned (still the #1 post on Flying Houses after all this time) and nearly 18 years since This Side of Paradise, the blog now has 1.4 million views and we have finally gotten around to Tender is the Night. Will we ever review The Great Gatsby and The Last Tycoon? Revisiting the former could be dangerous--a few months ago I got an email from Blake Butler's substack that re-posted his re-assessment of Gatsby, which was a total takedown that felt somewhat unfair--and I'd rather maintain my idea of it as the quintessential and definitive Great American Novel, as most all high schools dictate. Revisiting the latter--which friends and I once pronounced would have been his greatest novel of all, if finished, and which Edmund Wilson considered his "most mature work" (317)--will be a necessity. It's clear that some of the best writers have small oeuvres, and we could point to a similar assessment of J.D. Salinger: we have Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters/Seymour and Franny and Zooey here, but not the mainstay Catcher in the Rye (or Nine Stories, for that matter). Fitzgerald died far too young but Salinger emerged not long after and shape-shifted American literature into something more relatable. Kerouac and Vonnegut came along with their own variations and new writers continued to emerge that did their best to speak to the youth of the day to varying levels of success. Still, most acknowledged (even if they do not continue to acknowledge) that they could never touch FSF or BFF Hemingway.

Everyone knows the story of F. Scott. Born in 1896, achieved literary fame in 1920 with Paradise, married Zelda, had a baby, moved to Paris with the other expatriates, churned out Beautiful and Damned and Gatsby in short order, with the latter failing to make the commercial dent intended--and the years of struggle: publishing short stories to maintain a lavish lifestyle, Zelda losing her mind, both of them sinking deeper into alcoholism, their marriage unraveling, Fitzgerald moving to L.A. and ending his days seen as a hack screenwriter.

That's my memory off the top of my head, and it's not totally accurate. Fitzgerald lived a whole life before he was 24 and considered himself a failure, and before he met Zelda he had already been rejected by Chicago socialite Ginevra King, his first great love--apparently inspiration for Isabelle in Paradise and Daisy in Gatsby "and others," according to Wikipedia.

Just scanning the entry on him, nearly every biographical detail seems to have some referent in his work, and while he did not write Tender is the Night while living on the French Riviera, it feels that way and it feels like his most autobiographical work, in a career that appears heavily autobiographical.

***

The main characters here are Dick and Nicole Diver, a psychiatrist and Chicago socialite, and the setting as referenced above is the French Riviera, though the novel jumps around to Zurich, Paris, New York state, and Rome. Dick and Nicole are ringleaders of sorts of their clique of expatriate acquaintances, and they are on the beach at the beginning of the novel, meeting Rosemary Hoyt for the first time, a 17-year-old American actress in town with her mother, recognized swimming near Sorrento a week earlier by one of the others in the clique.

"'We thought maybe you were in the plot,' said Mrs. McKisco. She was a shabby-eyed, pretty young woman with a disheartening intensity. 'We don't know who's in the plot and who isn't. One man my husband had been particularly nice to turned out to be a chief character--practically the assistant hero.'
'The plot?' inquired Rosemary, half understanding. 'Is there a plot?'
'My dear, we don't know,' said Mrs. Abrams, with a convulsive, stout woman's chuckle. 'We're not in it. We're the gallery." (7-8)

It appears rather meta:

"'My husband is finishing his first novel, you see.'
Rosemary said: 'Oh, he is?' She was not thinking anything special, except wondering whether her mother had got to sleep in this heat.
'It's on the idea of Ulysses,' continued Mrs. McKisco. 'Only instead of taking twenty-four hours my husband takes a hundred years. He takes a decayed old French aristocrat and puts him in contrast with the mechanical age--'
'Oh, for God's sake, Violet, don't go telling everybody the idea,' protested McKisco. 'I don't want it to get all around before the book's published." (10-11)

Like all of Fitzgerald's work, it is replete with period detail that allows the reader to slip into the past while maintaining a humanity that feels eternal and evergreen, still speaking to restless fortysomethings struggling with commitment over 90 years later. I first read Tender is the Night in college, over 20 years ago, and really just skimmed it--I recalled almost nothing on this re-reading. Suffice to say, reading it barely past Rosemary's age and younger than Nicole's at the start, and reading it past Dick's age at the end now, it is clear I could hardly understand it then. Sure, I could understand it from a plot perspective, but could not really feel it until now. It certainly must be Fitzgerald's true masterpiece. As he wrote himself in an inscription, "Gatsby was a tour de force but this is a confession of faith." (xv)

***

The novel begins in medias res and then flashes back for Book II after 112 pages. There are only about 40 pages in Book II that flash back, and then it returns to the "present," and does not look back again. It is a bit confusing because Dick and Nicole do return to Switzerland after the Riviera. In the first stint in Switzerland, Dick is considering the morality of falling in love with his patient; in the second, he is considering the morality of leaving her for Rosemary. By Book III Dick is basically a full-blown alcoholic and it's hard to get into the particulars of each episode without spoiling the entire novel.

The subject matter is very adult, and it's a rather interesting window into proto-polyamory and possessiveness and jealousy and insecurity. It's easy to say Dick just totally DNGAF after a certain point, and the event in question should be fairly easy for anyone to identify.

"'You were scared, weren't you?' she accused him. 'You wanted to live!'
She spoke with such force that in his shocked state Dick wondered if he had been frightened for himself--but the strained faces of the children, looking from parent to parent, made him want to grind her grinning mask into jelly." (192)

This is a disturbing novel that clearly clocked the emerging literary trend of moving towards darker and more nihilistic subject matter. Of course, Ulysses is referenced, and all involved questioned the nature of obscenity and how far experimental prose could go before it became "dangerous." Fitzgerald layers this understanding with a portrait of a psychiatrist when the profession was still in its infancy, when Freud was still very much alive, as well as the early days of cinema and the dawn of the sound age, foreshadowing what would become his final subject matter, as if he understood where fate was about to take him.

Is it dangerous? I don't think so. Divorce was once extremely uncommon, and by the 20s-30s, while this was still the case, the rate nearly doubled between 1900 and 1920. Of course in The Parent Trap in the early 1960s, there is a famous line, "Pretty soon there are going to be more divorces than marriages." The rate only increased slightly between 1920 and 1960, but in the 70s, it shot up dramatically and peaked in the early 80s. It has fallen since, along with a consequent drop in the marriage rate.

Of course many novels mined these ideas about everlasting love and commitment and faithfulness and the divide between one's inner and outer life for centuries, but FSF was a literary celebrity. Like Goethe 120 years or so before him, he had "juice," and he was "cooking" throughout the 20s. He represented the youth and the vanguard of the future of art. By Tender is the Night he had finally "grown up," and still struggled with the idea of "this being all there is." As such, it appears he strove to inhabit the concept of modernity in his work, while at the same time toeing the line of being anti-commercial. Because while he aspired towards greatness, the realities of life forced him to turn out "slop" (i.e. short stories, and I know it is not fair to call them that, even if he considered them that) to maintain an income stream in between his more ambitious works. He finished his first three novels in about a couple years each, I think.

Maybe the wikipedia notes are worth reading in more detail before I continue, but I find he published Paradise on March 26, 1920 and married Zelda on April 3, 1920, and apparently neither particularly cared for each other all that much, having already broken off one engagement before, with Fitzgerald remarking that he wouldn't mind if she died but couldn't stand to have anyone else marry her. This all sounds pretty insane but I love FSF because I can relate.

The Beautiful and Damned was published in March 1922 and The Great Gatsby came out in April 1925--so I wasn't far off at all. 9 years later, Tender is the Night joined them in bookstores--or maybe not, as Gatsby was a commercial failure, and this ended up selling even worse.

Even before Gatsby, however, Fitzgerald had already been through many of the incidents that seem to have been taken directly from his life and transplanted into his work. Now I have long believed that while there is some obviousness to thinly-veiled autobiographical creative writing, it is ultimately the most important sort of literature and the closest most of us will ever come to understanding the truth of the nature of existence. Kerouac took the idea to its logical extreme, but Fitzgerald crawled so he could walk. Hemingway also did this to a degree, but with heavier-veiling. We are all the heroes of our own stories and when we report back on our experiences truthfully and honestly, we become brothers and sisters with readers, sharing wisdom and compassion for one another as we undergo the thousand natural shocks to which we are all constantly subjected. This is why literature is everything to a certain type of person.

A short bullet list of items of life experiences that find their way into this novel, from wikipedia:

Being a distant cousin of Francis Scott Key.

["One of the girls hoisted her skirt suddenly, pulled and ripped at her pink step-ins and tore them to a sizable flag; then, screaming 'Ben! Ben!' she waved it wildly. As Tommy and Nicole left the room it still fluttered against the blue sky. Oh, say can you see the tender color of remembered flesh?--while at the stern of the battleship arose in rivalry the Star-Spangled Banner." (297)]

Family moving from St. Paul to Buffalo, NY.

["'I'm a doctor of medicine, he said. 'My father is a clergyman, now retired. We lived in Buffalo and my past is open to investigation. I went to New Haven; afterward I was a Rhodes scholar. My great-grandfather was Governor of North Carolina and I'm a direct descendant of Mad Anthony Wayne.'" (158)]

Travel from New Jersey to Lake Forest, IL to visit Ginevra King's family estate, with her family belittling him for his lower-class status compared to other suitors.

["'Of course, I've read about women getting lonesome and thinking there's a man under the bed and all that, but why should Nicole get such an idea? She could have all the young men she wanted. We were in Lake Forest--that's a summer place near Chicago where we have a place--and she was out all day playing golf or tennis with the boys. And some of them pretty gone on her in that." (127)]

Drunken brawl in Rome police station.

["Dick sat in the sunshine that fell profusely through the guard-room window. Collis was with him and two carabinieri, and they were waiting for something to happen. With the narrowed vision of his one eye Dick could see the carabinieri; they were Tuscan peasants with short upper lips and he found it difficult to associate then with the brutality of last night. He sent one of them to fetch him a glass of beer." (232-233)]

Meeting 17-year-old American actress Lois Moran, who had gained fame for role in Stella Dallas in 1925, who was smitten with him.

["'It might be fun if we knew those people. There were some other people, but they weren't nice. They recognized me--no matter where we go everybody's seen "Daddy's Girl."'" (13)]

Zelda taking wheel of the car and veering it off road with nine-year-old daughter in backseat

[Referenced above; "He had turned up a hill that made a short cut to the clinic and now as he stepped on the accelerator for a short straightaway run parallel to the hillside the car swerved violently left, swerved right, tipped on two wheels and, as Dick, with Nicole's voice screaming in his ear, crushed down the mad hand clutching the steering wheel, right itself, swerved once more and shot off the road; it tore through low underbrush, tipped again and settled slowly at an angle of ninety degrees against a tree." (192)]

Decline into alcoholism and disgrace.

["Dick's bitterness had surprised Rosemary, who had thought of him as all-forgiving, all-comprehending. Suddenly she recalled what is was she had heard about him. In conversation with some State Department people on the boat,--Europeanized Americans who had a reached a position of where they could scarcely have been said to belong to any nation at all, at least not to any great power though perhaps to a Balkan-like state composed of similar citizens--the name of the ubiquitously renowned Baby Warren had occurred and it was remarked that Baby's younger sister had thrown herself away on a dissipated doctor. 'He's not received anywhere any more,' the woman said." (287)]

That's all we need to say about that.

Perhaps all of this commentary is a superficial reading, and there is more depth to this novel than I can properly appreciate. Hemingway allegedly felt it was not properly appreciated due to Fitzgerald's symbolic status as a jazz age icon. Perhaps appetites changed in the Great Depression. In any case the introduction here does not tell that side of the story:

"The one that really hurt was that of Hemingway, who charged his fellow writer with self-pity ('Forget your personal tragedy...') and with creating false composite characters in merging Sara and Gerald Murphy with Zelda and Scott, instead of inventing Nicole and Dick Diver from the imagination alone." (xiv)

When we experience a personal tragedy or upheaval or situation that feels too strange, too meaningful, some of us have the urge to share it with others. The absurdity of life is a source of endless intrigue and examination, shifting between generations down through the ages to the present, and we see ourselves as advanced towards a more sophisticated understanding of our personal reality. And yet sometimes we see ourselves in literature written decades--or even centuries--before we were born, and we are reminded that while the outer contours of daily life have changed, what is going on inside of us all has not. Apart from the fads and trends and generational slang and influencing that he made iconic, his personal early-tabloid life a grand performance in itself, Fitzgerald achieved his artistic aims, expressing this shared humanity throughout an oeuvre that should rightly be cherished. Tender is the Night is simply his most precious offering.

2026 Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture

2026-03-15T13:25:00.002-04:00

This year will be quick and dirty without any still from the films themselves because I have a busy day ahead. Again, I was glad I did this exercise as I enjoyed all of the nominees greatly. I don't think F1 is as deserving as Mission Impossible: the Final Reckoning but I still could appreciate things about it. Note that several of these toy with changing ratings by a half-star or so, but I gave most 4.5 stars on Letterboxd, and dates seen in parentheses. Without further ado, in the order they were seen:

Sinners

Probably deserves 4.5 but felt it might be slightly overrating, and feel like I may have missed something. Regardless, it's worth watching. It will probably get nominated for Best Picture. It is no Get Out, but it is the best I've seen from Ryan Coogler thus far (have yet to see the Creed or Creed II so take that as you will).

Jordan may nab an Oscar nom for it, because his performance is fantastic. Probably the best I have seen him give (note again, have not yet seen Creed or Creed II). The only problem is if you nominate him, you have to nominate Miles Caton, and he seems to have the bigger part. Caton's performance is every bit as good as Jordan's, but Jordan has to play 2 roles, and he does it about well as Nicolas Cage or Rachel Weisz or Jeremy Irons did for that matter.

There's a social commentary in here somewhere, but not as obvious as in Get Out. It's closer to Us in that category. It's a horror film, but that element is not obvious (apart from the opening scene) until at least halfway through the runtime. Beyond that it's a period piece and arguably more affecting before the supernatural element takes over.

Of course there has to be some connection to our present moment, and if anything it is DEI. While the film is deeply indebted to the blues and black culture, it questions the nature of inclusiveness through a prism that I don't think has been done before. It is more about the concept of "community" than black culture, and there's also a mystical element to it that's rather intriguing and which provides the biggest laugh (at least for me). The epilogue with one of the great living legends of the blues is also fantastic. Think I'm boosting it up to 4.5 stars just because of him. (7/13/25)

One Battle After Another

It's too early to truly assess where One Battle After Another ranks. I didn't like it as much as Magnolia, but that is my favorite movie and PTA has been there, done that. It wasn't up to the level of The Master or Phantom Thread or There Will Be Blood, but those would all get 5 star rankings. It's at least equivalent to Punch Drunk Love, which I vaguely feel like I underrate. It's better than Inherent Vice but that is where I am going to pause.

Maybe it's not better than Inherent Vice. I've only seen that twice. Stylistically, they are the two most similar, which makes sense as they are both adapted (or semi-adapted) from Thomas Pynchon novels. The difference is that one takes place in the 60s or 70s, and this one takes place in present day. IV is about a detective and this is about a freedom fighter, but both Phoenix's and DiCaprio's performances owe a certain debt to Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski. Both also demand multiple viewings. All of PTA's films are more rewarding after multiple viewings, but it feels like neither of these can be fully understood after just one.

It's probably on the level of Boogie Nights, though obviously they are totally different. Boogie Nights has not aged particularly as well as his other films, but there was no mistaking it as a game-changer upon its release. And yes it's better than Hard 8, which most acknowledge as his weakest, but also acknowledge as a very good film on the whole. I would put it above Licorice Pizza as well, another movie that was much better on second viewing. That is a smaller, more personal film. Its follow-up is the "biggest" film PTA has made, though I still think Magnolia is bigger, as a deep meditation on the human condition.

I'll try not to spoil anything, as it wasn't spoiled for me. The trailers only give a vague idea of the plot of the movie. I'll just say I was surprised because it has a fairly conventional one. I mean, it is not conventional, but the nature of the "chase" certainly feels straight out of the Action genre and that is why it feels bigger budget movie.

As usual the performances are stellar. DiCaprio and Chase Infiniti should both receive Oscar nominations. Sean Penn and Benicio arguably deserve them as well. PTA obviously deserves nominations for screenplay and directing and I do think this will get a Best Picture nomination.

It would be weird to say the opening scene at the convent was my favorite in the movie (that would probably be the scene where DiCaprio seems to be channeling the trailer freak-out from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), but it was the moment that felt like an easter egg, if only because of the actress, so I was very touched by it.

The opening sequence feels like a trope borrowed from Christopher Nolan, but there is no question that PTA puts a personal stamp on it, and that it works.

Comments on the politics of the film are inevitable. It is uncompromising. Conservatives will point out that it perfectly captures how the liberal ideology is essentially violent. Then again I would hope that any that are actually sitting through a PTA film will understand that is unfairly reductive. The movie is about standing up for what's right, on topics that are fairly difficult to disagree on, unless one has a regressive and uneducated worldview. I don't think French 75 are exactly the same as Antifa but it feels like many will equivocate the two. So plenty of people will dislike this just because they demonize Antifa and obfuscate what it fights against. Whatever the case, it feels prescient, while still not pandering totally to the moment.

I'll have to see it again. I know it's a masterpiece but it's too hard to fully appreciate on just one viewing, and on the basis of that one viewing, I can only give it 4.5 stars. For now. (10/24/25)

Weapons

It's not February or March, but Thursday night I watched One Battle After Another and Friday night I watched Weapons and I'm pretty sure both are going to be honored by the Academy with Best Picture nominations. I've got to admit that for a decent stretch of this movie, I thought it was on par or possibly even better than OBAA. However by the end, OBAA is the superior film. Additional viewing would probably enhance both, but I think I might just need to see Weapons once or twice more, whereas I think I need to see OBAA at least three or four more times. There's more richness and depth to the latter.

I don't want to take away anything from Weapons, because it was quite good. My issue with it is what many may also have, which is that it could have stretched to heights that made it a truly astounding film. Instead it semi-crumples under the weight of its concept and turns into a more basic horror movie. I'm not sure what else it could have done, however. The vibe is kind of like Hereditary in this regard. You had Toni Collette in an iconic performance, which ultimately devolved into a pseudo-Rosemary's Baby reboot. Here you have great performances by Julia Garner and Josh Brolin and pretty much everyone else, and a pretty gripping story, and a relatively original narrative structure that feels like it borrows something from Slacker. This is why I think it will get nominated for Best Picture, and it is solid.

So it's a personal taste thing, this ambivalence about the shift towards horror films in the 2010s. There are a lot more of them than there used to be, and while they aren't all "slasher" movies like in the 80s-00s by and large, the genre is possibly overrated. Of course, Ari Aster and Robert Eggers are making great films also, and it's fair to say Zach Cregger's has joined their ranks with this. Of course, Jordan Peele is great.

Get Out did not win Best Picture, though I think you would be forgiven for mistaking that. It's probably the more memorable movie than Shape of Water. Most people thought Us was good, but not quite Get Out level, and while I liked Nope, that's probably his 3rd best, too. I would say Weapons isn't quite as good as Get Out, because it lacks the humor. There's a bit of humor in this, but it couldn't be called a Horror Comedy. It's probably on the level of Us, maybe slightly better.

It's all about the mood it creates that makes it great. Once it starts revealing the truth of the situation, it feels like a bit of a letdown. My friend asked, "Is this a Halloween movie?" and I said I wasn't sure, but I have to concede, yes, it is a Halloween movie, so I highly recommend watching it in the next 5-6 days. There isn't a Halloween theme to the movie though, and it's good because that might have made it even more obvious (Donnie Darko's Halloween theme was effective because it's hard to call that a Horror movie).

This isn't Cregger's debut film, but I think it's fair to say it's his breakout film. It's a great achievement, I just would have taken it more in the direction that The Leftovers took. That series arguably jumped the shark, but it also dialed up the intrigue and sustained suspense of a kind over many hours. Maybe Lost did that in a different way earlier, as well.

Finally, Justin Long is great and while his cameo is decent, he is underused. (10/25/25)

Marty Supreme

Not long after seeing Marty Supreme (about a month earlier from this writing), I saw a tweet/post on X that said something to the effect that "Letterboxd is homework for failed liberal arts grads" with a follow-up scene of a 39 year old living with his parents who has his review of Marty Supreme posted to the refrigerator. Not only having done flyinghouses.blogspot.com/ for the past 18 years, but this for the past couple years, I felt seen. Regardless, though this writing may be a waste of time, though no one is going to see me as an heir-apparent to the great Ebert, it has felt worthwhile to try to articulate a vision of a successful piece of art that stands the test of time. Marty Supreme is one such piece.

It has its flaws to be sure. For one it has the anachronistic soundtrack problem that an increasing number of movies today indulge. That being said I am not going to complain about Tears for Fears over the closing credits, which felt rather moving. I wouldn't complain about New Order casually being thrown into a montage sequence except that it made the movie feel set in the 1980s rather than the 1950s.

At first blush it feels worth mentioning both Good Time and Uncut Gems (and not worth mentioning how this is only one of the two Safdie brothers), because it feels pretty similar to those. There is a frantic, paranoid anxiety to these movies which can rub a person the wrong way. In the end though, most can put up with it. Most recognize that Adam Sandler was robbed of a nomination for Gems, which may be his single best performance. And some recognize Good Time as the moment that Robert Pattinson completed his transition from teen heartthrob to quirky leading man character actor. And many will recognize Marty Supreme as the moment that Timothee Chalamet found his r'aison d'etre.

Now, his performance in A Complete Unknown last year was stellar, and I thought better than Adrien Brody's in the Brutalist, but he did not win. I think he is all but a lock to win this year (even with Michael B. Jordan's dual roles in the record-breaking Sinners and Leo's brilliant burnt-out activist in OBAA). He has a drive to be the greatest (something perhaps inculcated briefly at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study before he abandoned completing his degree) and here he has achieved that, though I thought he had last year in how beautifully he handled the difficult proposition of becoming Bob Dylan. He is playing a real-life figure here again, but a far less famous one.

Many will say, this is not really a movie about ping-pong and while it's true, there are perhaps 20 or 30 minutes of "sports action" and those parts are also expertly directed. Chalamet noted that he played an insane number of hours playing ping-pong, and he does appear to be very, very good at it and the performance feels credible. I am sure he will have fun for the rest of his life challenging people to a game knowing that he will win.

The movie is basically about how he doesn't get enough respect and needs to get money to travel to Japan to play in a tournament that Kevin O'Leary was going to finance but then pulled back from. At least I think that was the case. I saw it a while ago.

It is mostly about the idea of Never Taking No for an Answer. And it is inspiring in this regard. There are random zany caper sequences that feel like outgrowths of Good Time and Uncut Gems but they are positioned to support the narrative in ways that feel more grandiose, in service of greatest aspiration (not just money alone).

Many will mention O'Leary as the worst part about the movie and it is true the role could have gone to someone that needed the money a little more and that it gives the movie a weird Shark Tank-vibe but it has to be intentional. There is even a part where O'Leary describes himself as a "vampire," which he often did (does?) on that show. He does challenge himself in a way or two and it is amusing to see him "act," but his casting is just as much for atmosphere.

Gwyneth Paltrow, playing O'Leary's wife, has a bit of a better time with her role, which feels like something of a "comeback." Unfortunately I came into this movie about 15 minutes late and also took a bathroom break right during whatever denouement with Paltrow happens, so I can't speak to it and will need a second viewing.

And I look forward to that. I haven't seen A Complete Unknown a second time yet. I would, but I would rather watch Marty Supreme a second time. I don't think it will win Best Picture but if Chalamet does not win Best Actor then it will only be because it is Sinners year. (12/27/25)

Frankenstein

I didn't expect it to be *bad*, but it was better than I thought it was going to be. It's been a long time since I read the original novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, but that also was better than I thought it would be.

For those that only know Frankenstein as a Halloween character, as I did, the actual original source material is more of a philosophical treatise wrapped in an early sci-fi novel. The movie grapples with some of the themes of the novel, but on a somewhat less sustained basis.

Ultimately this is not a scary movie, though the "prelude" will make it seem that way. I certainly did not remember any set piece taking place aboard a Danish ship in the Arctic, but I don't trust my memory from over 20 years ago. Briefly perusing the wikipedia entry, I can see that distrust is valid.

In short, this was written in 1818, and it, along with Sorrows of Young Werther (which I think was 1774), convinced me that I was able to appreciate literature from over 200 years in the past. The language was always difficult, it seemed, but not with these. They made total sense. One was translated from German and probably more digestible for modern audiences, but one is in English originally and unchanged. Both wrote these novels at very young ages and both betrayed a deep precociousness.

(I am trying to say that a proper adaptation of Sorrows of Young Werther is something the world needs--or maybe not--though I doubt it would inspire any rash of copycat suicides in the late 2020's; ironically or not, I am unclear if this book also inspired mad scientists to raise the dead, but it seems people have been obsessed with the idea for all eternity, and cryogenics are the apotheosis of that urge; these works strike at the heart of what it means to be human, and show that what goes on inside all of us can be felt across the great expanse of time, and we only know because of the artists who recognized the value of demonstrating that.)

As for the movie itself, Guillermo del Toro is at this point, one of the major international directors of our time that adopted American cinema. I first was familiar with him through Ebert's review of Cronos, which seemed like a fascinating movie, ironically or not, similarly focused on the idea of eternal life. I finally watched Cronos about 5 or 6 years ago and it is definitely not as "easy" as del Toro's later work. I probably need to see it again. In any case, he had a couple other things before Pan's Labyrinth hit and catapulted him into a higher category. He worked on some "blockbuster" fare like Blade II and the Hellboy movies and Pacific Rim (which I never saw--only the first Blade, though I've heard II and III are quite good). And I had never even heard of Crimson Peak. But of course everyone knows The Shape of Water.

Again, his career went into a higher category with that and winning Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, and Nightmare Alley had a lot of heat as his follow-up. It didn't do quite as well, but I enjoyed both. I did not see Pinocchio, but the original animated film was a favorite of mine growing up, and I am a bit afraid of being disappointed, though I have heard it is good.

I really think Frankenstein is the best movie of his that I have seen. I think it probably deserves to get nominated for Best Picture. Jacob Elordi and Oscar Isaac are both nominated for Golden Globes, and both deserve it. Del Toro should also be nominated for Best Director at the Oscars, though it will be a tall task to win this year in either category (I feel like PTA may have it more in the bag, or someone else, a first-timer). Neither Elordi or Isaac seems likely to win, but the recognition for each is deserved. Everyone knows Isaac is a great actor, but Elordi establishes himself in this in a way Saltburn or Euphoria only hinted at. It's a breakthrough performance for him that shows he has more range than people may have realized. This also feels like a breakthrough for Mia Goth, who has mostly worked in the horror genre and gracefully sidesteps into an adjacent one here. This isn't a horror film but there are elements of it. Sci-fi is fair, as would be drama, and comedy.

The problem with the movie's success is Poor Things, which was heavily feted recently by the Academy, and goes for a more slapstick version of similar ideas here. It is impossible to pretend that Elordi took nothing from Emma Stone's performance in that. And while Isaac certainly goes unhinged in his performance here, which is occasionally hilarious, it does not reach the degree of Mark Ruffalo's comic insanity. Regardless if pressed, I think I have to say I liked this better than Poor Things. That is more of a straight-up comedy and this is more of a serious drama that has moments of comedy. And while certain parts seem scary, there are also some very sweet moments. Ultimately like most great films, it may lead the way towards greater empathy and understanding for other beings in this world--human or not--and in this it is a success. (1/10/26)

Bugonia

Lanthimos has been prolific and his collaboration with Emma Stone equally so. Kinds of Kindness did not clean up at the Oscars last year like Poor Things had the year before, and Bugonia lands somewhere between the two. Kind of Kindness is extremely bizarre and plays more like a limited series than a movie. Poor Things seems like Lanthimos's "blockbuster" or "popcorn movie" and while Bugonia's present-day focus feels relevant and credible, it is randomly upsetting. There are still a few very funny moments but it is mostly rather dark and somewhat frustrating.

The performances are all great. Of course you expect as much from Emma Stone and Plemons (who I usually only like about 50% of the time) but I would highlight Aidan Delbis, the autistic actor who plays Plemons's cousin. He probably deserves an Oscar nomination as much as Stone but he is not given quite as much to do (which the movie requires).

I didn't even clock that Alicia Silverstone played the mom, and as the movie winds down it becomes rather hard to tell if Plemons is really insane or if he is just constructing an elaborate allegory for what Stone and her company have done to his family and hometown and the world in general.

There is definitely a message here and it is a great satire of corporate America (Stone's directive that all employees are allowed to leave at 5:30 PM--but that it is not mandatory and they should finish their work and meet their quotas--feels sharp) and yet that element feels half-baked, to a degree. It's hard to write a review of this without spoilers but I'd rather not get into those. I would just say the ending indulges itself in something that a fair number of movies recently have also done--which both deepens it, and cheapens it. I have to think the ending is very divisive. Some people will love it, and some people will hate it. I was mildly amused.

I think Stone probably deserves her nomination here because she does fully commit to the role in a way she always does. I'm not sure this deserves the BP nomination (Pavements was better, but the Academy overlooked it entirely) but I didn't consider it a waste of time. It's a Lanthimos movie so what do you expect. It is not standard fare. It does have moments of greatness that feel sublime at times. It deserves recognition but it definitely will not be for everyone. I believe Lanthimos is going to take a break for a year or something, and I'd expect him to continue to be more ambitious in whatever he does next. (1/24/26)

Train Dreams

I'll have to watch Train Dreams again--at least, the first 15 minutes. I watched with a friend who distracted me with questions, as if I knew what the movie would be about. Like most movies, it's good to go into it knowing as little as possible.

This is a beautiful movie and it probably deserves more than 4 stars, but I can't say I liked it better than Marty Supreme or One Battle After Another or Sinners. Why not? Well it's a different sort of movie. It's an art movie. The viewer should soak it in. My viewing companion did doze off through the middle portion of it, and I am sure it was very pleasant.

The cinematography is beautiful. Joel Edgerton gives a great performance. It's very touching and heartwarming and also incredibly sad. It's entertaining, yes, but there is a bigger statement behind that probably will be clearer on a second viewing. It's about the sweep of American history, and I won't say what years it covers, because that's also vaguely portrayed. Finally it ends with a beautiful Nick Cave song over the credits. That song won't win over the K-Pop Demon Hunters song, and such is the tragedy of our times (if one knows of Cave's work over the past decade or so, his voice at the end is especially moving). I'll probably watch K-Pop Demon Hunters anyways just to see what the fuss is about. But I'll also watch this again. It's slow, meditative, and a bit funny at times (a sequence giving a snippet story about a group of incidental co-workers comes to find, as well as William H. Macy's presence, which stops just short of being an Oscar snub). It's vaguely a "Western" movie, and many may skip because of thinking it might be boring, but those that appreciate the genre will likely find much to love in it.

This is the 4th year that I am trying to see all of the Best Picture nominations and F1 is probably the weakest of all I have seen (even if I may have given Emilia Perez a slightly lower rating, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez redeemed it slightly). I listened to the Rewatchables podcast episode on it as a way to convince myself that it was better than I thought, and it did that slightly. I admit that technically, it is an achievement.

But let's get the elephant out of the room: I am not a racing fan. I like cars, but I do not find the idea of attending an F1 event or a NASCAR race exciting. I do not watch them on TV.

But even I have noticed that F1 has become a cultural phenomenon in recent years, probably because of whatever association is responsible for organizing the venture. They shut down the Loop in Chicago for a year or two so they could have a race, and sure the idea of doing a race through a downtown area of a city is amusing, but it's also a money grab and a gimmick to bring in new fans.

Is there anything wrong with that? No. This is part of what makes capitalism "great." Is this a commercial for F1? Yes. Indisputably.

I might have even liked Babylon better, though this was more aesthetically pleasing. There are definitely elements to it that I enjoyed, but it is repetitive, and too long. You know that Pitt is going to deploy some kind of trick "accident" that will bring out a safety car. I know nothing of the rules of F1 but the movie will teach you some vague idea of how individual racing times are measured. And I'll admit it is a little bit exciting to think that these races with so many variables often come down to tenths of seconds.

On a technical level, the movie is stellar. But by the last 30 minutes, I was ready for it to be over. Pitt's scene in Babylon where he understands he is being brought in as a "ringer," echoed there, and echoes here, as he was paid $30MM for this, I believe. He earns it, certainly. The movie was successful, and somehow, like Top Gun: Maverick, got nominated for Best Picture.

All I'm going to say is that the last Mission Impossible movie (if it is the last one) got robbed. I liked Top Gun: Maverick slightly more than this because there was more of a story about the characters, and less about fighter pilot maneuvering. But Mission Impossible: the Final Reckoning was better than that, and better than this. Cruise deserves recognition for shepherding that franchise for 30 years and pulling off incredible personal feats, as a borderline American version of Jackie Chan (though I am sure Chan's stunts were more outrageous and daring).

I was hoping that, like Marty Supreme, the movie would not be as much about the sport. That is not the case. This is a movie about racing. And it may be one of the greatest car racing movies in cinematic history. The Fast and the Furious franchise showed how successful that could be, and this takes it to Oscar-level. It's nice to recognize it, because some of the camerawork is rather ingenious, and the performances are all solid. But Joshua's love interest was apparently completely cut out of the movie, which feels sort of insane given its 2.75 hour runtime.

The movie goes around the world, which should be exciting, but the international footage is mostly limited to racetracks. A huge percentage of this movie takes place in such arenas.

It is unbelievably cliched. The Rewatchables was more charitable and referred to them as sports movie "tropes," and sure, they are, but they are also totally predictable. Even Pitt's monologue, about everything going quiet and feeling like flying, predictably is depicted near the end, as I knew it would be. There could have been a couple curveballs thrown into it, but it mostly plays it safe.

As it must, as this is a commercial for F1, and Apple TV+ even has another documentary about F1 racing, showing that the industry has a vested interest in bringing in a broader demographic (as Joshua references briefly in one scene). So maybe I'm a little cynical. I like sports movies just fine. I'm sure any racing fan will want to see this, even as the Rewatchables noted that true F1 fans, predictably, call out the movie as being unrealistic. Even I could tell that something seemed off about it, with these "workarounds" that let the Apex team perform better than they would otherwise due to Pitt's chicanery.

I would have given it 2.5 stars but I boosted it to 3 because it is an unqualified success on a technical level. Javier Bardem also redeems it to a degree, to say nothing of Pitt's own charisma. Any filmmaker that wants to capture high-intensity action should find much to learn and love in it. For viewers that couldn't care less about racing, it will not make them care--but I am sure younger and less cynical viewers than myself may be just intrigued enough to delve deeper into the mythology and become a fan of the sport. I will be shocked beyond belief if it wins Best Picture, and should that happen, will attribute it to a lobbying effort by the industry. (3/6/26)

Sentimental Value

Ah, the token foreign language film nominated for Best Picture. It has been a standard for nearly 10 years (excepting 2021). Such films were confined to the Best Foreign Language Film until the name of the category changed to Best International Feature in 2019, usually at least one of these films will get nominated for Best Picture as well now. This normally handicaps it in the Best Picture category, and makes it an odds-on favorite in the foreign category.

This year, it's hard for me to say because I haven't seen The Secret Agent yet and these two films are represented in both categories. For some reason I vaguely feel that Secret Agent has more heat, and that Skarsgard has better odds at winning Best Supporting Actor.

In any case, Sentimental Value is a fine film with several powerful moments. It ultimately began to drag for me, but also created a meditative atmosphere of calm and contemplation. The plot is very basic.

When the film opens, we hear Nora's poem (or monologue) written as a child for an assignment on what object they would like to be. She chose her house and the house is the centerpiece of the film, and it's quite beautiful. She writes about how her parents' arguments were remembered as just being "noise" and how the house preferred noise to silence, after her father (Skargard) left.

The family dynamics are a bit sketchy in this, and I needed to check wikipedia to be sure of what was happening. But their mother has passed away and Skarsgard returns for the home, and to make what may be his final film, centered around it.

We then see Nora in the throes of stage fright on opening night of a new play. The start needs to be delayed five minutes as she requests a costume alteration and then rushes off at a moment for a quickie tryst with a supporting player. She is finally able to appear and seemingly pulls off a terrific performance.

We then see her with a child that almost seems like her own but is then revealed to be her nephew--at least it came off that way to me. She leaves her sister's house in frustration, though I thought her brother-in-law was her ex-husband and that she was dropping him off, or something.

I think the movie is meant to throw you in the middle without much exposition to gradually reveal itself, as it does through Skarsgard's films, and what he wants this next one to be. He meets Nora in a cafe and explains that he wants her to play the lead role--that he wrote it for her. She is touched, but she declines, due in part to her long simmering resentment towards him. Basically she and her sister feel that he abandoned the family (though her sister has edged closer to forgiveness), and when he spouts off about how much they mean to him, they think he is full of BS. Ultimately, he casts Elle Fanning in the role intended for Nora, and she eventually "becomes" her in somewhat disturbing ways.

It's worth noting that both sisters (Nora played by Renate Reinsve, and Agnes played by Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) and Fanning are all nominated for acting awards as well. This makes the movie sound like a masterclass in acting, and I suppose it is, as well as being extremely meta.

Clearly, there are a lot of great things about this film, so why did it feel like it dragged for me? I suppose because the plot was basic as it is, and the main "development" is an unveiling of family history and drama behind production of the film, which is acquired by Netflix, who may be inflicting their vision on Skarsgard. I thought, well, it was stupid of me to pay $6 to rent this on Amazon if it's using Netflix so prominently, because they must own it, but I suppose not. Credit where its due to question the whole notion of Netflix's entre into art films and its algorithmic taste-making business model.

It has a happy ending is all I will say, even though the film-within-the-film does not. The audience, I think, will be happy for the characters, but at least in my case, may feel like basically very little happened except re-establishing a certain bond with their father. I enjoyed this film but feel the ending leaves out a crucial piece and it's a decision that works fine.

I haven't seen the director's previous effort, The Worst Person in the World, but I recall hearing a bit about it at the time, and think a few people may consider it superior to this. Reinsve also plays the lead role in that, and I will need to see it soon. (3/11/26)

Hamnet

The only reason I'm not giving this 4.5 stars is the same reason people were upset that A Beautiful Mind won Best Picture some 24 years ago (though I stood in the minority as saying its win was justified over Moulin Rouge, Lord of the Rings Pt. 1, Gosford Park and In the Bedroom): it's awards bait. Some 28 years ago we had Shakespeare in Love and now we have Hamnet.

Full disclosure: I still haven't seen Shakespeare in Love, and even though I have read a few plays and sonnets, I've still never experienced King Lear, Othello, The Merchant of Venice and a few others. Hamlet, I know, but it's been so long that snippets of it only bring a vague recollection.

I will try to remain wary of spoilers, but it is probably stupid to pretend people do not know the tragic plot development that drives the narrative. In any case, we can pretend, and the way the reality is teased out is borderline masterful. To be clear, this is an excellent film and again, only dinging it because it was developed with the idea of being an awards contender. It had to be.

Am I upset that Chloe Zhao is barely a year older than me, and this is her 5th film, and 2nd time nominated as Best Director? Maybe, only because it reminds me once again of the abject failure of my life to make something great, when she has already done it twice (and I haven't seen the first two films, which I think I should, but not in a rush to see The Eternals). Am I upset that she may have been better poised for success? No, this is the way of the world. After all I just boosted Anemone.

Putting my disappointment in my self to the side, the film itself has a strong Train Dreams-vibe due to its setting. Jessie Buckley, who I will probably pick to win Best Actress along with everyone else, is reputed to be the "daughter of a forest witch," and seems like a proto-hippie. She has a 'meet-cute' with her counterpart, who just oozes with masculine charisma and seduces her effortlessly. Certainly, the movie makes this most famous writer of all time into more of an alpha than I thought he was. But then again I know nothing of his personal life.

Emily Watson plays his mother, and his father is actually the one to calm her down once he reveals that he will be having a child with Agnes (Buckley). His father is terrible through most of this movie, but in that moment understands he needs to love his son. And then his mother softens, and she takes in Agnes as her own, and their relationship ends up being rather touching.

There are three childbirth scenes in this (one with an auto-delivery), and there are several moments that are about as gut-wrenching as a PG-13 movie is allowed to get. It is not an easy watch. Both Buckley and Mescal are fantastic. Mescal was snubbed of an Oscar nomination but it is certainly an honorable mention. His work at the end of the film is remarkable.

Tears did not well up as often for this as they did for Elio, for me, but the tragic ending is both incredibly sad and incredibly beautiful. Like Sentimental Value, the art created by the character becomes very meta, and the film becomes something of an essay on the power of it. Art can be a way of coping with grief or disappointment, and at its best can transcend death. (There is a new Casting category this year, and while OBAA or Sinners may potentially clean up, the casting choices for Hamnet and the actor playing Hamlet are about as inspired as possible, and lend special power to the climax.)

Credit where it is due for this. It's awards bait, but it tackles extremely heavy themes and extremely heavy personalities and comes together as a fully-realized vision. I suppose when we set out to make great art, we imagine it may be recognized one day, and ambition should not count against value. Perhaps I'll read a biography of Shakespeare one day and decide that Hamnet is 75% fantasy but for the time being I am going to take this at its word and believe it gets most things right. Let the half-star ding be a drop down from 5. (3/13/26)

The Secret Agent

I'm a bit burnt out as it is the day of the Oscars and I'm not really sure what to say about this except that it's great. I picked Sentimental Value to win Best International Feature, but I think this deserves it. I'm trying to win, but if I lose because of this category, I won't mind. This is deserving.

It has a lot in common with I'm Still Here, the Brazilian film nominated in both categories last year. It's about the same period, roughly, only outlines the political situation along vague lines, and it has a present-day element that also involves finding lost family members (with a variation).

It is however more thrilling than I'm Still Here. And while lead performances are fantastic in both, Wagner Moura slightly edges out Fernanda Torres. It is a scary movie but also fun at times. It's an ode to the idea of the cinema also, with the role Jaws plays in it. Perhaps the scene that best encapsulates it is when the group of "refugees" are having a dinner gathering and talking about their plans for escape and how they are under "death threats" and someone says, let's not bring the energy down, put the music back on.

It's emotionally devastating in its own quieter way, with the tension teased out masterfully. I'm wary of revealing anything about the plot and probably only people that are very familiar with Brazilian history will understand it on a deeper level, as with I'm Still Here. But if you put all of that to the side and just look at it as an action/thriller/comedy/drama, it defies genres and should be recognized as a landmark achievement. Make no mistake that I really enjoyed Sentimental Value, but I do consider this the superior effort. (3/14/26)

The Harder I Fight, the More I Love You - Neko Case (2025)

2025-11-22T13:47:00.001-05:00

I only saw Neko Case once. Maybe I saw her again a second time, but my memory of the first time was sharper. That was in 2004 at the Bowery Ballroom.

It's important to note what happened for me in college and what I hope happens to most people, which is that you meet many people and a good number of them turn you onto new music. I think my first exposure to the New Pornographers came in the Fall of 2003, in Paris, a friend in the study abroad program making me a mix that had "The Slow Descent into Alcoholism" on it. At the time, there really wasn't anything that sounded like them. They were a supergroup. (I say "were" because, while they're still good, I think most agree their first 3 albums represent their glory years.) At least to all of us, Neko Case was the star of the group (later we might concede Dan Bejar as attaining MVP-status). Upon returning to New York in 2004, I found they had blown up to a certain degree, and Broken Social Scene had emerged, as a sort of copycat supergroup except from Toronto instead of Vancouver. The Unicorns were also making a name for themselves, and the Arcade Fire debut was not far off in the distance. I wanted to be Canadian and every Canadian I met was super cool. It was probably a good time for that country. Suffice to say, Mass Romantic, Electric Version, and Twin Cinema all stand alongside one another, but Neko's singular highlight probably remains "Letter From an Occupant," off the first album.

Later I became aware of her solo work. I wasn't aware until now that she had two solo albums prior to her work with NP. Regardless, of course I wanted to see NP live, but they were not on tour, and in any case I don't think Neko toured with them. Apparently she did in 2017, and I'm terribly sad to have missed that. But by that point I had seen them at least a couple times and they were not as powerful a live force as Broken Social Scene (they had played a $5 NYU show while touring You Forgot it in People and I remember that being one of the best of many great $5 shows).

In 2004, she was in between Blacklisted and Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, about to put out the live album The Tigers Have Spoken. Maybe she was testing out new material in this tour. In any case, her solo work is very different from NP. NP is power pop dialed up to 10 (or at least was back in those days). NC solo is "alt-country" or "folk." I got tickets for a friend and myself just because I wanted to see her, 50% for the music and 50% because I had a crush on her. I wasn't familiar with her solo work, and it was not as easy to listen to it on a whim as these days. I see now she had been voted the "Sexiest Babe in Indie Rock" by Playboy Magazine about a year earlier. She does not write about this in the book but I have to think she did not take it as a very exciting compliment. Regardless I was not exactly the most mature person in the world and fantasized that we might meet and she might see something in me.

The show was good, and after she said she would be at the merch table. A line quickly formed. I should have waited, and gotten one of her CDs and asked for an autograph, but we were poor college students and most of us got music through sharing burnt CD-Rs. I kept a journal where I would get autographs of famous people when I could and I should have just asked for one there. But instead for some reason, I disregarded the line, and no one seemed to say anything, including her, but before I could say anything I was pulled away by security. She seemed to say no, don't do that, and they probably should have just told me, you know there's a line, you have to wait, but I was unceremoniously removed from the venue, and as I was pulled away I shouted, "I love you!"

This anecdote does not make her memoir, and it would not make my memoir, either, but it feels appropriate to note for this post; perhaps one day she'll read it, and peruse some other materials on this blog and see something in me, but I digress.

***

Of course then, I loved this book, and it will go on the Best Books list whenever I get around to updating that post. It's nearly perfect. The only thing I would have liked to see was more material on NP, and what her work in that band means to her. It's not my place to assume, but from the spare references included here, while she does get songwriting credit on her songs, it feels like Carl Newman's band--that's his world, and she's just living in it, randomly every few years.

I did get Fox Confessor Brings the Flood when it came out in 2006, and it is justly considered her masterpiece--but that also seems to ignore the strength of the 4 albums after, which are remarkably consistent, and arguably even better. This year she put out Neon Grey Midnight Green, about 9 months after this memoir, and so we might say in 2025, Neko Case has reached peak acclaim. The album is just as excellent as all that came before, and the memoir cuts deeper than anything she's done to this point. She's just a beautiful person, through and through, and should be considered a national treasure.

***

For personal reasons, the chapters documenting her time living in Chicago were most interesting to me, and I was curious to find out if it was anywhere near where I am now. It was not far off:

"My dear friend Judge had found a great apartment on Maplewood Avenue in Humboldt Park for us. It was spacious, with high ceilings, old wood floors, and bizarre pink plastic tiles in the bathroom, of which only a couple had cigarette burns. The two of us set to homemaking with a passion. We painted the living room 'Shakespeare Green' and the entry room 'Klondike Blue,' and then kept on trying other colors until we eventually became the reason that Home Depot no longer lets you return paint. There was a back porch, which was lovely to sit on, and Judge arranged tin cans upside down on sticks in the planters so she could record the beautiful, calming percussion sounds of the summer storm rain falling on them." (198-199)

There's not that much material about it, and Case has moved around a lot. If there's a spiritual center of the book it's probably Tacoma, WA, followed by Vancouver. She lived in several isolated locations in remote parts of Washington with her parents. She loses her mother at a very young age. It's devastating but I won't say anything beyond that.

Her father is not much more helpful, despite being fiercely protective. Case becomes something of a "latch-key kid," which many of her generation often bemoan and also take as a point of pride. It's in this setting that she becomes a dreamer, and starts to recognize that the world outside her family might provide greater love and validation. She falls in love with horses from a young age, at one point "manifesting" two of them, out of nowhere in a random spot in her town where they wouldn't normally be seen. Later she goes to a state fair with a friend and they enter a competition, and again I won't say more but Case does still consider it one of the best days of her life.

She has a traumatic experience as a teen, and there is a deeper sadness to the troubles she had to endure in her early life. She does know, however, what her purpose should be, and she persisted and grew as an artist and musician, to the point that she has only kept getting better, some 30 years after she started. Many bands flame out and their earliest work remains their strongest but Case has never rested on her laurels, so to speak. After this memoir, I will not be surprised if she has yet another renaissance of sorts, stretching towards greater heights yet.

***

There's not much else I can say about this except to highlight a couple of other passages, and acknowledge that Case's literary talents arguably eclipse her musical ones--I think she comes about as close to reaching the Patti Smith-level as a musician can. Even though Michelle Zauner may occupy a similar space, I did not know what "psychopomp" meant until reading this, despite it serving as a Japanese Breakfast album title:

"A large swath of Slavic tales feature what's called a psychopomp, an animal or a trickster god who acts as a guide to the protagonist in the story. A sort of left-field Greek chorus. As a teen, I had only the thinnest understanding of what 'psychopomp' meant when I first heard the word, but I knew immediately that I wanted to be one. In the old tales, the psychopomp doles out the clues--cryptic but always correct--that allow the protagonist to solve an important riddle or find the path out of the forest themselves. Like a psychopomp, I wanted to inhabit a den in the forest and possess the answers to transformation and growth that I'd croak out now and then to visitors. That sounded like a dream come true. I still remember the day someone I trusted told me that humans can't be psychopomps. I was crushed. I didn't have a library or internet at the ready, so I just sat in that sad little diaper of truth longer than I should have...thirty-some years? When I finally looked it up, it turned out the working description of 'psychopomp' I'd had was less incorrect than 'incomplete.' If I had understood psychopomps to be animals that help you solve a problem or find a path, other sources describe them as 'conductors of souls' to the afterlife. Among many other ways of being, as it turns out, psychopomps can perform all sorts of other tasks and roles too, including being singers." (241)

Now having understood that, Psychopomp is sort of a perfect title for that Japanese Breakfast album.

So too Case deserves to be a New York Times bestseller, but it does not have the same "hook" as Crying in H Mart. This has a lot of similarities to that book, but they have different sub-topics (family recipes; horses as divinities). And while Zauner comes to grips with the love that her mother gave her, and recognizes it as a beautiful thing, Case is not nearly as lucky. Her relationship with her mother is exceedingly strange, certainly about as unusual and confounding as anything I've read before. She still finds a way to make peace with her upbringing--or if not peace, at least acceptance and understanding. Both of her parents have their own personal tragedies that she comes to discover and leave her with a deeper appreciation for their perceived failings. And as with personal trauma, shedding the long-term pain and discomfort associated with horrible memories is often an iterative process:

"There are so many dumb cliches out there about rape. A few seem like they might be meant to help you process it but are actually ways to gloss over the messiness of what happened. They use words like 'resilience' and 'character.' One of the bad ideas is that forgiveness is the ultimate act of courage. It's not. I don't believe forgiveness is something you can actively do with any realness or sincerity. It's not a tangible 'act,' in the same way that justice is not an act. Maybe forgiveness and justice are somehow the same state of being.

Maybe forgiveness comes later, and maybe it never does. Maybe you are so evolved you can feel it right in the moment of betrayal. I have forgiven people and events before, and it's usually after a long time and self-searching about something completely different. Forgiveness seems to be a sweet, brief rest at the crossroads of other things. It's almost a divine by-product. It's not a tiny golden diploma you bestow upon someone. Forgiveness takes many forms and may be as simple as the moment something no longer has power over you.

That doesn't mean there aren't good ideas about forgiveness and its beauty, but if something doesn't stir anything but contempt in you, there's a reason. Trust your contempt. Dissect if you can. The reason your contempt is tapping you on the shoulder may be in there, and be valid, or it may not. If you can't find it, it's OK. That doesn't mean you should canonize your rage, either, just make sure you take it seriously. If you learn nothing from something horrible, you are human, and that doesn't make you soulless or cruel. Sometimes bad things are just senseless brutality that finds you. You do not deserve or ask for these things. They are not always teaching you a lesson." (132-133)

Like Rebel Girl, I think this book has the capacity to change lives and make readers into better people and offer a gentle guiding hand through the darkest patches of existence. Like many books in this category, it underscores the importance of following one's dreams. None of these books would exist if the women writing them had given up on that. They might have moved on to live fulfilling and rewarding lives in other arenas, but we would not have the gifts that they bestowed upon the world. Of course, they've all found their ways towards some version of success, and even if we struggle to find our own, the compassion inherent in their work is a reminder that often, all is not as hopeless as it seems.

Chicago Cubs 2025 Year End Review

2025-10-21T14:34:00.002-04:00

After 2 years of finishing 83-79, we finally made it. At 92-70, I think the team performed better than most people were anticipating as Spring Training began. We won our first postseason series since 2017. We failed, but we were up against the team with the best record in the MLB. The main storyline here is that the team developed chemistry and showed just how good they could be. For a moment they had the best record in all of baseball, bumping up against the Dodgers and Tigers and Blue Jays, until the Brewers went on their major heater and left everyone in the dust. We were good, and there are no major problems to solve--it seems that most of the team will be retained in 2026--but there will be differences of opinion about how to handle certain players both under contract and not. Let's clear the elephant out of the room first.

Kyle Tucker: B+

Tucker probably deserves an A-, but I'm dinging him down to a B+ for choking in his last two at-bats in Game 5 of the NLDS. He's been widely discussed, and opinions as to his value have shifted dramatically. In April, Tucker and just about everyone else on the team was on fire. Everyone was clamoring to sign him for however much he wanted. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s contract for 14 years and $500 MM set the tone for that. Tucker is just a couple years older than him, and people pegged his number around $400 MM for about 10 years. No one balked at that at all in April, and he was consistently excellent in May and June. Had July, August and September gone been more of the same, he would be getting an A+. He made the All-Star team, but then his second half happened. You could rate his first half an A+ and his second half a C, but of course, it was due to injury.

Now people look at Cody Bellinger and say we would have been better off keeping him instead. I don't entirely agree but yes, Bellinger did have a better 2025 than 2024. Suffice to say, Tucker did make an impact in the playoffs, and we can't blame the Game 5 loss on him alone. But of all the players that choked, he's unfortunately in the spotlight, and it was unfortunately the biggest choke (the 6th inning one). I hadn't totally given up hope after that 6th inning, but now we know that was the moment the wind went out of their sails, so to speak.

Suffice to say, also, that nearly everyone now will balk at offering $400 MM for 10 years. Had he hit a 3 run homer, had the Cubs advanced to the NLCS, $400 MM might still be possible. Would he take $300 MM now? Personally that's about what I would offer. He gets injured. He's not quite like Kris Bryant, but he gets injured, and massive super long term contracts for injury-prone players do not seem like good ideas. I think most everyone would get on board with a contract similar to the one offered to Bellinger--3 years, with opt-outs. That seems sort of impossible, though. Tucker will want more. And though he had nice things to say about playing for this team--which was, in fact, a very special team--the comments felt somewhat lukewarm. It seems he would go wherever he got offered the most money. He could have said, "I loved playing here and I hope I'm back here next year," but instead he said, "We'll see what happens." It was clearly a strategic answer, and we have to accept that his heart may not be here. That's the business of this sport, and as Nick Castellanos once said, it's the part that sucks. Hope for the best. It was great to have a player of his caliber on the team, but the Cubs need to become Buyers if they want to keep him. I won't be surprised if he ends up on the Dodgers, who appear to have endless money. I would keep him if we can, but I would not overpay, and it seems one team will inevitably have to do that. They won't need to do that for a while with his neighbor in the outfield and fellow starting All-Star.

Pete Crow-Armstrong: A

PCA would get an A+ if he lifted his batting average and on-base percentage a little bit higher (.247/.287). Regardless, he fully emerged and lived up to all the hype surrounding him--and then some. No one anticipated the power surge. However, he did note he was aiming for 60 stolen bases, and he ended the season with 35. He was on track for 60 or more at the beginning. Then he started hitting a lot of home runs and it seemed his game became more Kyle Schwarber than Luis Arraez. He cooled off, too, and slumped a bit towards the end. Like Tucker, frankly, the second half was a disappointment. He was not quite as good in the playoffs. But I don't think you can hold it against him. He's still just 23. It was his first postseason. He had a couple timely hits.

His defense is stellar. A Gold Glove is a fait accompli. He's the total 5-tool player, par excellence.

He'll be the starting center fielder next year, and the year after, and hopefully for many years after that. He's the new face of the franchise. People did not stop talking about him, around the All-Star game. I almost got tired of it, like there wasn't anyone else on the team worth celebrating. He's an emotional player, and while sometimes that leads an overly aggressive approach, on balance I think we all prefer knowing a player really does care, a lot.

He's not the leadoff hitter, though it feels like he should be. Someone else appears to have cemented a spot there, the only person that was arguably a better story than PCA.

Michael Busch: A+

Busch ended the season with the most home runs on the team. Unlike the two above, his 2nd half was even better. Happ was the leadoff hitter, and Busch basically took over. At first, it did not seem like a good experiment, and he slumped. Briefly. (In August, though his May was not any better.) He ended the season on a total heater and was probably their best player in the playoffs. Now, all four of his postseason homers were solo shots, but I think they also came mostly in the first inning, so no one could be on base. I know he set an all-time major league record doing that in the NLDS.

They need to keep Busch for as long as possible. We knew Busch was pretty special last year, similar to PCA. Now we know that they are both very special. The move to acquire him in 2024 may be the single best move that the front office has made since trading for Jake Arrieta. It was interesting how the Cubs fared at the trade deadline (it seems they didn't do much because neither did the Brewers, though they did actually get one of their best players in Andrew Vaughn), and how Jed Hoyer got a contract extension. I have to think that landing Michael Busch the way he did played a huge role in that (and you will see below, there were numerous other examples).

There was talk last year of going for Pete Alonso, and there may be talk of that again this year. The biggest most annoying storyline of the year was his inability to his left-handed pitching. How bad was it, really? .272 vs .202. But I feel like most people thought, who cares, even at .202, he's as effective as Justin Turner. Imagine the Cubs with Seiya in RF, Alonso at DH, and playing 1B when lefties start. Or, imagine Busch improving against lefties--not dramatically, but just enough to avoid the platoon conversation. The point is, there are possibilities, and I think the only possibility the Cubs want and the only things we can take as a given is that PCA and Busch are fixtures. I suppose, there are a few more. And maybe that's what great about this team--the holes left to fill feel minimal compared to the last few years.

Nico Hoerner: A

Nico started off the year injured, or so we thought. He was ready on Opening Day and played 156 games and had the best season of his career. He was the most consistent hitter towards the end of the season, and the best postseason hitter without question (.419!). He hit .297, which is good for 8th best in the MLB in 2025. He's a finalist for a Gold Glove, and he remained the hallmark of consistency he has been over the past four seasons. Like Kyle Hendricks, he has never made the All-Star team, but he's establishing himself as one of the de facto leaders of the club. His postseason performance was so impressive that we all have to acknowledge him as one of the best at his position. He's not going to give you a ton of pop, but he excelled in situational hitting, going .371 with runners in scoring position. This is EXACTLY what the Cubs need more of in 2026. To an extent, every team needs this, and maybe it happens to everyone, but it really feels like we leave runners on base more than most other teams. Only 5 people in the MLB had more hits and their names are Witt, Arraez, Bichette, Judge and Turner. He has to be acknowledged as one of the most underrated players in the league and an ASG SNUB. Some people say we have the best middle infield in baseball, and we now know that his double-play partner is a GG SNUB.

Dansby Swanson: B+

He was a GG SNUB last year, too, but I think on balance, Dansby's 2025 was better than 2024. Mainly this is due to power numbers, hitting 8 more HRs and 11 more RBIs. His batting average has never been anything but average while on the Cubs (.244/.242/.244 in his three years). He didn't walk quite as much and he struck out a bit more. Somehow, his WAR was even higher than last year, good for 3rd best on team behind Nico and PCA, and tied with Busch. (It must be admitted WAR is a flawed metric.) In any case, like Nico, he's consistently solid, and they complement one another perfectly. He gets more flak than others, but he tends to shut people up quickly thereafter. He's the Cubs big contract man, and no one is calling this contract a mistake. Like everyone else above (save perhaps Tucker), he's locked in for 2026 and I'd expect more of the same. I think he's about to become a father, and perhaps a study could be done on whether players improve or not. I'm sure that would be fascinating.

Ian Happ: B

Happ is another model of consistency, but gets even more flak than Dansby. He's a notoriously streaky hitter that also notoriously ends every season almost equivalent to his previous one. This year, he struck out a bit less, but probably still too much. He's won the GG the past 3 seasons, but it appears he may be snubbed this year. He hit leadoff for a significant part of the season, and he inhabited that role just fine (though he did have a better 2nd half, and a strong end, and he moved out of that spot around that time). His postseason performance left something to be desired, though he did have a game-changing performance in the NLDS. A lot of people seem to want to move on from him, but he's locked in for 2026, and he's the greatest leader on the team. He's been a Cub his whole career, and he should stay a Cub. I don't think many people would be opposed to that, but they might prefer he take a more limited role. We all know Owen Caissie is coming up, and it would behoove the Cubs to keep Happ on for mentorship. This may not have been Happ's greatest year (that would be 2022, his All-Star year), but it is far from the disaster that the naysayers may claim. I don't think it's necessary to move on from him, though I would like to see him focus on his approach at the plate and potentially try to draw more walks. He'll always be streaky, but he's connected to the prior "Championship core" and a key veteran presence whose value should not be underestimated.

Seiya Suzuki: A

Suzuki famously acknowledged that he would not have wanted to join the Cubs had they retained his services as DH and not RF. After a few gaffes in the outfield the past couple of seasons, the Cubs had had enough, and with Tucker, Seiya was expendable in the field. His Obvious Shirt above indicates awareness of such anxiety. Regardless, he did well as DH. His first half was pretty much exclusively as DH, and he was an ASG SNUB. He was leading the NL in RBIs at the time. In April and May, he was about as productive as Ohtani.

Some people are saying he was overperforming. And the 2nd half numbers bear that out (.263 with 25 HR and 77 RBI vs. .213 with 7 HR and 26 RBI)--he did, however, draw more walks in the 2nd half, and he ended the season on a high note. This carried over into the postseason. He was one of the few Cubs doing anything offensively, alongside Busch and Hoerner. That said, he still did appear to choke a bit, and his (unfairly) called third strikes continue to be one of the oddest WTF trends in baseball. Notably, after Tucker was injured, he took over in RF, and he did not appear to have as any gaffes (though his fielding % does appear slightly lower than previous years). Anecdotally anyways, he seems like less of a liability than before.

He was an instrumental part of the 2025 campaign, and stood alongside Busch and PCA as the greatest home run threat on the team. He is locked in for 2026, and his acquisition looks like one of the other more positive moves that Jed Hoyer has made. It might be a bit much to expect another 30+ HR season out of him, and his batting average did actually drop considerably (last year was one of the most underrated hitters in the league), but all signs point to his having adjusted to MLB pitching and I personally think he can replicate this level of performance. If his power numbers drop, I would expect the batting average to go up, but the postseason seemed to show he has become a power hitter.

Carson Kelly: A-

The Cubs were on fire in April, and everyone was performing at the highest level--none more than Carson Kelly, who is currently my favorite player on the team. He is a Chicago guy, and he came home this year, and I think everyone hopes he is here to stay for the long haul.

At the end of April, he was hitting .360 with a 1.347 OPS, 7 HR, and 21 RBI. He hit for the cycle, and won a couple other games for the team. (I was lucky to be there on both 4/18/25 and 7/4/25, 2 of the greatest games ever--I was not so lucky on 7/25/25 or 10/1/25). He came back down to earth after April, but his July was nearly as impressive. He missed his career high in HR, but only by 1, and hit career highs in RBIs and batting average (though .249 is hardly anything to cheer about, it's good enough these days).

He was the backup catcher to Miguel Amaya, who actually did quite well at the beginning as well. When Amaya went down, Reese McGuire came up, and the Cubs catchers combined to have a very productive season at the position. By the end, Kelly was the everyday catcher, and he should also be credited for his work with the pitching staff. Arguably he deserves an A for that. He was almost an All-Star, and he's never made the team. In any case I think unquestionably this was the best season of his career, and he has emerged as a threat that is also patient at the plate. This is his home and he should stay here. The only question is whether he has supplanted Amaya for 2026. Regardless, both should be back, and the position does not demand any upgrade.

Matt Shaw: B

Matt Shaw's rookie season went about as well as most rookie seasons go: he struggled, got sent down to the Minors, returned with a resurgence, and ended the year on an average note (though actually, it seems that he and Happ and maybe Nico were the only Cubs performing decently in the second half). He was excellent at 3rd base, and I believe he's a finalist for GG. He won't be Rookie of the Year, but at a few moments he looked like he could be. A lot of people were up in arms about 3rd base. And given the likelihood of Tucker returning, perhaps it was a miss in the long run to lose Cam Smith and Paredes. But we are where we are, and though Shaw was probably the least threatening hitter in the lineup, he showed flashes of greatness that bode well in the future. He wasn't quite as good as PCA last year, but all signs point to similar improvement. I don't think there are any major upgrades available at 3rd base, and it seems the best option is to continue to let Shaw develop. There's no question he's a great defender, and the Cubs were one of the strongest teams in the MLB in terms of fielding. If he can improve his consistency at the plate, Shaw is an All-Star caliber player, and if he's the weakest hitter in the lineup, I think we can live with that. He did not fare very well in the postseason, but I have to believe that he will be much stronger in 2026 in every aspect of his game (though it would be difficult to improve defensively).

Justin Turner: C-

I'd be rather surprised if Justin Turner returns in 2026 as a 41-year-old. As a 42-year-old, he holds a special place in my heart, and I was very happy when he joined the team. I really wanted Joey Votto on the team last year. Turner performed about as well as late-era Joey Votto, which is not great--BUT he provided invaluable mentorship. He had at least one game-winning hit (I think two), and he was Busch's de facto replacement at 1B when the Cubs faced a lefty. He was not very good in that role, but come on, he was a fantastic presence on this team. He was Fan of the Game one day, and played a mind-boggling prank that we never may truly understand. He did magic tricks for the team. Little kids came to the game with giant red beards and he took photos with them. Every team needs a class clown. He's not the player he once was, but I don't think it's any coincidence that PCA emerged to the extent he did, or that the team came together as a more cohesive unit this year. We went further than we've gone in years, and Turner's intangibles undoubtedly played a bigger part in that than anyone is able to recognize. He's a very fun person to have on the team. I think you need to have a player like him on any championship team. Like Joe Maddon, he reminded everyone that the game is about having fun. It allowed everyone around him to loosen up and play to the best of their abilities (and in many cases, beyond expectations). I was going to give him a D but I boosted him up to a C-. Arguably he deserves a C+, if not higher, but I really have no idea what it was like in their clubhouse. I only know he had a very good Instagram, and that he's an iconic player. He probably will not make the Hall of Fame, but he's a World Champion, and he's certainly in the Hall of Very Good, with an unusual career that proved life can start at 30. I'm sure a lot of people would moan if he were brought back in 2026, but I would not be among them. Counsell proved he's a pretty decent manager this year, but he doesn't have Maddon's swagger. If Turner does retire, I hope he stays on the team as a coach, a la David Ross, because he brought an energy to this team that was singular, and made everyone around him better in ways that we may never fully comprehend.

***

I could write about bench players, but you know, this post gets very long. Obviously, Miguel Amaya merits special attention. He started off well. He had a steady upward trajectory. He was not setting the world on fire, but he showed flashes of greatness, and in April, he and Kelly were basically collaborating and combining and amounting to Cal Raleigh (I'd like to compare their first months of the season). Then, he got injured. But he returned! And then, he immediately got injured, again. It was very sad. It may even have been traumatizing for Amaya. Let's hope that's not the case. He's still just 26. It would be nice to have him and Kelly back one another up again in 2026, and I hope that's the case. As noted above, Reese McGuire admirably filled in for him, and provided some unexpected pop. Willi Castro appeared to be the biggest move at the trade deadline, and I am still not sure why the front office thought it was necessary to get a utility player rather than a starting pitcher, and the experiment did not seem to work--but he was an All-Star in 2024, and I have to believe he will have a much better 2026. I'll reserve thoughts on Gage Workman, Jon Berti, Vidal Brujan, Nicky Lopez and Carlos Santana. But Owen Caissie, Moises Ballesteros and Kevin Alcantara all showed great promise. I was really sad to lose Alexander Canario, but the Cubs prospect pool remains fairly deep, and one other aspect of the team to credit to Jed. We have a solid starting lineup, and we could use a threatening bat or two off the bench. I fully expect that to materialize in 2026.

On the pitching end, well, this was a very strange year.

***

Justin Steele: A-

Justin Steele only pitched in 4 games in 2025, and it's not fair to grade him, but based on those appearances, he would get an A-. He actually looked like he was getting better across those games, and probably would have gotten an A had the injury not happened. But it did, and his season was lost. He will be back in 2026, and he has a certain fire about him that I think should serve the team well. Once again he has something to prove, and he vowed to come back stronger than before. He was the Ace, and he will probably be the Ace again, but he'll now have to compete for that title with a couple other guys.

Matthew Boyd: A

I don't think anyone was super excited about Matthew Boyd coming into the year. We lost Kyle Hendricks, and we got someone that wasn't that much younger, and had only recently been a little more successful. He was expected to fill out the rotation, maybe in the #4 or #5 slot behind Steele, Shota and Taillon. As we close the books on 2025, we have to acknowledge him as another one of Jed's greatest moves, and the most pleasant of the many surprises this year brought.

He was an All-Star and it was unquestionably the greatest season of his career, and he had fun. He faltered slightly towards the end, and made everyone a little nervous in the NLDS, but was in top form in his final start and deserves to be recognized as the Ace of the staff. Whether he would be named Opening Day Starter in 2026 would likely be based on Spring Training performance comparison with Steele (assuming he is back in time, which I hope). There is, however, another potential Opening Day Starter in this rotation, and another one of the best stories of 2025.

Cade Horton: A

He probably deserves an A+, but I'm reminded of one bad outing he had against the Astros. Regardless, this year he was often talked about in the same breath as Jake Arrieta, whose run through the 2nd half of 2015 was historically unmatched. Horton wasn't quite as electric as Arrieta in that time, and was under a strict pitch-count limitation, but simply put, he was outstanding.

His 2025 numbers end up very good: 11-4 with a 2.67 ERA in 118 IP with 97 Ks. Compare his 1st and 2nd half numbers, though. First half: 3-3 with 4.45 ERA. Second half: 8-1 with a 1.03 ERA. (Just for fun, Arrieta's 2nd half of 2015: 12-1 with 0.75 ERA and way more innings pitched--Arrieta had 110 more IP than Horton did this year--and was a pretty great hitting pitcher--no one can compete with that stretch.)

But we will take it. Horton could not pitch in the postseason due to injury, but he was ready to come back for the NLCS. Would we have made it there with him? Quite possibly. But pitching wasn't the major problem for the playoffs--it was pushing runners across, making the most out of limited baserunner opportunities. I don't think Horton is going win Rookie of the Year but he certainly deserves it. His second half alone justifies it, but at 118 IP for the year, may be seen as "not fully there," like say Paul Skenes was last year. You are not going to get a pitcher of that caliber winning Rookie of the Year most of the time. He is, in fact, one of the frontrunners regardless. But that is just for show. Horton cares about the team winning. He probably will not be the de facto Ace in 2026, but he will be #2 or #3 in the rotation, if the Cubs do not get a superstar starter, which would be really good for them to consider. In any case, he may be the single best story of 2026, as even though PCA was amazing, he did slump, and Horton was consistently magnificent, especially down the stretch, when it mattered most. Whether he's #2 or #3, he has probably eclipsed last year's Ace.

Shota Imanaga: B

I gave him an A last year, and this was a big step back. He finished the year 9-8 with a 3.73. That ERA is still pretty decent. He had 57 less strikeouts this year in about 30 less innings pitched and four less starts. He was injured briefly in both seasons, but a little more this year. At a certain point last year, hitters "figured him out" and he was never a groundball pitcher, but he mystified enough hitters that home runs did not seem problematic. However, things escalated this year.

While he gave up just 4 more home runs than last year (31 vs. 27), his second half was not very good. 1st half: 6-3, 2.65 ERA, 11 home runs allowed. 2nd half: 3-5, 4.70 ERA, 20 home runs allowed. Yeah it got worse, and some people think he's "tipping" his pitches and hitters have figured him out even more than they did before.

People think he has bad struggles in the 1st inning, and yeah, I saw those--but I also saw him hunker down afterwards a few times, and turn in ultimately very solid performances. It was bad, but I think slightly overblown--the escalation in home runs is no joke though. I disagreed with having him start the 2nd inning in a game in Game 2 against the Padres. It was an experiment that backfired, but ultimately did not matter. It would have been his turn in the rotation to start Game 5 against Milwaukee, but the Cubs instead opted for a bullpen game of sorts + Colin Rea. We didn't fare much better, but again, the pitching wasn't poorly managed. I love Shota and hope he bounces back to 2024 form, though many acknowledged he might be over-performing.

He has a very confusing contract situation that I won't try to lay out (I read about it here and recommend reading if you care, just because it truly is bonkers). Suffice to say, it doesn't make sense to me to let him go. Even with his struggles, he's still above-average. Dude almost threw a no-hitter last year (ended up only a combined one). If you have a rotation and Imanaga is your #5 starter, you are in a good spot. Conceivably it could happen if the Cubs land another superstar starter. Then you'd have, oh, say, Dylan Cease or Shane Bieber, #1 (*maybe*), #2 Steele, #3 Boyd, #4 Horton, #5 Imanaga [I forgot about the guy below the next. -Ed.]. That would be sick. But the Cubs have depth and they're probably not going to worry about much this postseason beyond the Kyle Tucker situation and thoughts of trying to bring in someone to replace what he brought to the team (which would be nearly impossible, if his second half matched his first half). So Imanaga may be #4, and you know what, that is also a pretty solid rotation. Especially if the next guy is #5.

Colin Rea: A-

Colin Rea pitched well for the Brewers last year, and he turned in basically an identical performance for the Cubs. For some reason his WAR was 1.2 last year and 0.6 this year, but that stat is seeming more and more meaningless to me. That makes it seem like he had no impact, but he really did have a huge impact. Another one of the excellent moves by Jed. These past two seasons are his two best seasons in the MLB. It's possible he's getting better with age. He's a free agent, and if the Cubs are morons and let him walk, he will likely be successful anywhere he goes.

When Steele went down, he knew he would need to step up, and he totally did that. He wasn't quite as stunning as Boyd, but his numbers (11-7 with 3.95 ERA) arguably bested Imanaga. I think you would still slot Shota at #4, but if Rea is your #5, and if Rea returns in 2026 as strong as he's been the past two years, that should play just fine [Again, note player below, who should slot in #3 or #4 -Ed.]. Granted, he is a great option to have as a long reliever, too. So even if the Cubs do something out of character and make a play for a bigger name, I think you still keep Rea, because you never know what's going to happen, and he saved the day on numerous occasions this year. He arguably "overperformed" as well, but little was expected out of him. When he rose to the occasion after the Steele injury, people seemed to laud him, but frankly, I still think he was underappreciated. He was paid $5 MM this year, and he earned that. I don't know if you pay him $10 MM for a year, I don't know what you offer him, but if he was willing to sign for $5 MM for 1 more year again, it would be a mistake to pass him up. Then again, he sort of might become more relief pitcher than starter, and relievers are notoriously unstable year-to-year. Impossible to predict the future, but an A- for 2025 is fair. Arguably A- and above should only go to All-Stars, and yeah he did give up 16 homers in the 1st half but went 7-3 and 3.91 ERA and felt like a pseudo-snub. He only gave up 4 homers in the 2nd half--he pitched 25 less innings in that stretch, but it felt like he recognized the issue, and stepped his game up accordingly. You keep a guy like that. If he's destined for the bullpen next year, you just have to hope the #5 starter can perform as well as he did, and that won't be easy. He had plenty of good company, those days when he came out of the 'pen. And in starting the write-ups on those guys, I realize I completely forgot about one guy and that my rotation predictions are completely and horribly wrong.

Jameson Taillon: A-

HOW COULD I FORGET ABOUT TAILLON??? Forgive me, Jameson. I'll only forgive myself by noting that Taillon flies under the radar. He's unassuming, not flashy, and apparently forgettable by me, but everyone will think I am an idiot for not editing the Shota and Rea entries that anticipate rotations without Taillon. Taillon absolutely will be part of the 2026 rotation, and Shota would be #5, and maybe not even in it if either Cease or Bieber are (though that would make me sad).

Taillon's 2025 year end numbers are no better than his 2024, and I only gave him a B last year. He deserved better. If Rea is getting an A-, Taillon is getting an A-, because their numbers are quite similar. Taillon made quite a bit more money, so perhaps Rea should increase his ask. Regardless, Taillon proved his mettle in the postseason. He was a total stud and basically took the team to the NLDS with his Game 3 performance against the Padres: 4 innings, 2 hits, no runs. His game 3 performance in the NLDS wasn't quite as impressive (he gave up 5 hits and 2 runs), but we ended up winning that game and it changed the nature of the series.

Like Shota, he also gave up a lot of home runs. Unlike Shota, he was outstanding in the 2nd half. He gave up 22 of the 24 home runs in the first half. He went 4-1 with a 1.57 ERA. Not quite as good as Horton, but good for 2nd best on the team (he was actually much better than Boyd in the second half).

So really, I think Taillon figured it out by the end of the season, and pitched better than the numbers show. He's going into the last year of his contract, and perhaps that's not good for the pressure he may put on himself to have an even better showing, but the Cubs are going to try to show up next year, and Taillon is going to be a part of it, and if he somehow starts off next season as well as he ended this one, he will absolutely make the All-Star team. He's a former top prospect that did not seem to live up to his potential, until his age 30 season for the Yankees in 2022. The Cubs got him after that, and his 2023 was not as good, but the last two years, he has been up to that 2022 standard. It's still his best season, and while this one had his lowest number of innings pitched in a while, he also spent a good bit of it injured. So I have to think Taillon himself would acknowledge he is at the top of his game. What they do beyond 2026 is unclear but if Taillon turns up aces next year, he should be in line for an extension. This next guy is in that situation now.

Brad Keller: A

Keller appeared in 68 games. I think it is fair to say that he was the most trusted member of the bullpen. Frankly, I have a hard time remembering a reliever that instilled as much confidence. Of course, you have to go back to that lights-out trio of Ryan Tepera, Andrew Chafin and Craig Kimbrel in 2020 or 2021. The Cubs bullpen was problematic in 2023 and 2024, and it is fair to say this was the best overall bullpen performance since that three-headed monster.

Arguably the Cubs had as much of a good thing (and probably better) this year, with Daniel Palencia, Drew Pomeranz and Caleb Thielbar. All of them were excellent, but Keller stood apart. Only Michael Soroka had a better ERA coming out of the bullpen, but Keller pitched nearly 10x more than him, so I think he wins Rolaids Relief Man of the Year. I see now that is called the Trever Hoffman award, and that Ryan Helsley of the Cardinals won it last year. Helsley's numbers? OK, he had 49 saves and Keller had....3. But he wasn't the closer, he was the setup man. And maybe that award is basically "best closer." Regardless, Helsley's other numbers: 2.04 ERA, 66.1 IP, 50 hits, 23 walks, 79 Ks. Keller's numbers this year: 2.07 ERA, 69.2 IP, 45 hits, 22 walks, and 75 Ks. Slightly lower K rate, but also a lower hit rate. I think that's pretty equivalent, minus the saves. And it's telling that, even though Palencia basically became the closer, he scuffled slightly in a couple outings near the end, and in the playoffs got used earlier in the game, while Keller was saved for the end. In the postseason, Keller got 2 saves in the Cubs 4 wins, and Palencia had none.

It's unclear whether he should be the closer, but it's very clear he had an outstanding season and absolutely must be re-signed, and I know basically 100% of Cubs fans will agree. (Maybe it's 99% as there are always a few contrarians amongst us.) And bonus points for Keller for saying this, "I love being in Chicago. I love playing for the Cubs. This is definitely a place that I want to come back to and enjoy. I know a lot of these guys are returning to this clubhouse, and I feel like there’s something special here. I would love to be a part of it, for sure.”

ALL THAT SAID, this was by far his best season, by a longshot, and it's his breakout. And as noted many times, relievers tends to vary widely on a year-to-year basis. He made $1.5 million this year. I think PCA, Horton and Palencia all made $740K, so they were the best bargains, but they're all still on rookie contracts. They all will get paid a lot more soon. The Cubs took a chance on Keller and it paid off, another move by Jed that you cannot ignore. As with the next guy. He did well with the bullpen.

Caleb Thielbar: A-

While Keller stood apart as the best, Thielbar is the obvious choice as the second-best in the bullpen. His numbers also would be similar to the Helsley comparison above: 2.64 ERA, 58 IP, 38 hits, 13 walks, and 56 Ks. He's a no-brainer to resign, like Keller. But, he is older. He will be 39 next year. The Cubs missed out on a couple aged closers, but Thielbar was their consolation prize, coming off a rocky year with the Twins after several years of consistent quality. Of course, relief pitchers are volatile (we should just assume this for every bullpen pitcher and not mention it every time). He made $2.75 million this year, and that is fair for what he brought to the team. I think he had a very long scoreless streak, early on. I don't know but I think if he's willing to sign for 1 more year at that $ amount, you do it. He was just too good to ignore, and a big part of why the Cubs managed to survive as long as they did while their pitching staff was compromised by injuries pretty much the entire way through. While Turner was the old man on the team and played like it, Thielbar showed you should not count out guys on the wrong side of 35. His counterpart, fellow 38-year-old Ryan Brasier, also fared better than Turner, but didn't pitch as much and I think if you have to choose which one to re-sign, it's Thielbar, as Brasier's performance could best be described as "adequate." Thielbar kept this team in too many games to count, and while I don't think his 2026 will be better than his 2025, I'd still keep him pitching alongside Keller. They'll never be the Tepera-Chafin-Kimbrel trio, but Thielbar-Keller-Palencia wasn't all that bad.

Daniel Palencia: A-

Ryan Pressly entered the season as the Cubs best closing option, but his greatest contribution to the team ended up being his mentorship to Palencia, who told him what everyone told him and why I did not like him in 2023 (he was limited to 10 games in 2024 and looked even worse), which is that he needed to get his control issues figured out. He seemed to do that this year. He was still a little wild at times, but his wildness mostly translated into his personal appearance.

He grew his hair out, and added some drip, continued to throw 100 MPH, and a lot more often for strikes. By the end of the season Pressly was DFA'd and Palencia was the closer. He got 22 saves.

I'm pretty sure, without checking first, his numbers don't quite stack up to Keller's or Thielbar's. We're ignoring Win-Loss records for relief pitchers for reasons that I think should be obvious. To do the Helsley comparison again: 2.91 ERA, 52.2 IP, 44 hits, 16 walks, and 61 Ks. That's totally comparable and while I was right that Keller and Thielbar were slightly better, those numbers will play just fine. He was perfect against the Padres in the Wild Card Series, and not quite as good against the Brewers (actually not good, but he pitched in 4 out of the 5 games).

He's still super young, so I'm not totally convinced, but if his enhanced control is here to stay, he is an extremely valuable pitcher. He has redeemed himself 100%. Even if he blew that save near the end of the year, it was forgivable. Unless the Cubs acquire a true lights-out closer, it feels like he should occupy that role. It feels a little tedious to keep writing about relief pitchers but there was yet a 4th guy that was "on the level," and another guy whose contract is up and whose re-signing will be roundly endorsed.

Drew Pomeranz: A-

Pomeranz did not start the season on the Cubs, but he was signed before May. He had been an All-Star in 2016. He was also older (36), and while he pitched extremely well in 2020 and 2021 for the Padres in a somewhat limited role, he was injured in 2022 and did not play in either 2023 or 2024. Again, Jed did well on a "low risk, high reward" flyer. To do the main numbers again: 2.17 ERA, 49.2 IP, 38 hits, 15 walks and 57 Ks. Yes, the Cubs had 4 total studs in the bullpen in 2025.

I guess he's higher profile than the others because he's a former starter, and he did make a few spot-starts this season. But his performance out of the bullpen was remarkable. Like Thielbar, I believe he also had a lengthy scoreless streak. I'm running out of things to say, because bullpen pitchers are just kind of there, they just show up, and they have to limit damage or prevent any further runs, and they do not get enough credit and they work just as hard as starting pitchers because they have to be ready to go at a moment's notice and they generally have to work in high-leverage situations. Pomeranz performed beautifully and was instrumental in the success of the team in 2025 and absolutely should be brought back along with the other two above (Palencia is under contract and does not present any decision except his role). It's a longshot that all 4 will be as good in 2026, but you need to reward them, too, with acknowledgment, appreciation, and maybe a little more money (but just a little, this is the Cubs organization).

Ben Brown: C

Ben Brown's trajectory has been a bit strange. I forgot about him last year and didn't grade him, which isn't that insane because he only pitched 55 innings, but he would have gotten a high B. It's more insane I was going to leave him off this year because he pitched 106 innings and started 15 games. Apparently, he "won" the 5th spot in the rotation over Colin Rea at the end of Spring Training. That made sense in light of his 2024. At times, Ben Brown is electric. Anecdotally, he appeared to show more flashes of that in 2024 than 2025, but I am also a bit off. I'm considering a game I watched from an Air BNB in Michigan in late April, against the Phillies. He was not terrible in that game, per se, but it was not a magnificent outing. In any case, apparently he went toe-to-toe with Tarik Skubal in June and almost matched his performance (they both pitched 7 innings, but Brown gave up 2 runs while Skubal only gave up 1, and Tigers won). Brown's ceiling is still very high. But, I think he only throws 2 pitches. I hear this a lot. And I know his control is not great. He strikes a lot of guys out. He has the highest K/9 rate amongst starters at 10.9. That's important, but then he also walks guys and gives up a lot of home runs, though technically Taillon and Shota gave them up at a higher rate. By the end of the year, Brown was basically reduced to the role of "mop up man." EVEN SO, people were still suggesting it wouldn't be a terrible idea to have him start a NLDS game against the Brewers, as he had been effective against them. Nobody is giving up on Ben Brown, but let's just say, given all we've said above, it may be difficult for him to make the rotation. He can be a valuable asset but it appears that will most likely be as a long reliever.

***

There are a lot of other guys that were not as good, but they were taken off the roster. Tyson Miller, who was great last year, suddenly was not, and he was gone. Nate Pearson, who seemed to struggle most of the times I saw him come in, also was gone. Ryan Pressly is gone, though he pitched in 44 games before that happened, and had been occasionally effective. Porter Hodge, thought to be the closer in waiting at the end of last year, before Pressly was acquired, took a major step back in a perfect illustration of relief pitcher volatility. He would have gotten an A last year, as he put up fantastic numbers in line with the 4 above. This year, he only pitched in 3 fewer games, and 10 fewer innings, but his ERA went from 1.88 last year to 6.27. He may have been injured, and I'm uncertain of how the Cubs will handle but believe he is still technically on the team. Julian Merryweather has also slid. After a 2023 on the level of Hodge's 2024 or the 4 above, his 2024 and 2025 seasons have been borderline disastrous, and think his contract may be up--I wouldn't be surprised if he bounces back but it will probably be elsewhere. Jordan Wicks had something of a lost season, after something of a lost season in 2024 also, though he did make 10 starts last year. He's still with us, and it's still possible he'll bounce back, but would anticipate more time in AAA unless we are decimated by injuries. Which definitely happened this year. But the way the team weathered it, and the way Counsell managed it, made it tolerable. And that's one of the most impressive things of all. Javier Assad stepped up in a major way last year (akin to Colin Rea this year), but spent quite a lot of 2025 injured. We were waiting for him to come back and save us when we were decimated early on, and his timeline kept getting pushed back. He did eventually return, but he was just OK. He wasn't awful, but he did not seem as good. Actually, he started 7 games--but that's 22 less than last year, and he pitched 110 fewer innings. His ERA technically was lower this year and he actually went 4-1, but I would not have graded him higher than last year. He's in a similar spot to Ben Brown, I would say.

And there were other guys that were also, pretty good. I think there was some shade on Michael Soroka because he was a "big trading deadline move" and then got injured immediately. But he was technically the ERA leader at 1.08. Then again that was only in 6 games and 8.1 IP. Hardly a fair sample size. Aaron Civale is in a similar boat, with an ERA at 2.08, but only 13 IP. Look, we've got 4 stars in the bullpen, but you need more than just 4, and no guarantee they'll be as good next year either. I think you keep these two guys. Chris Flexen (whose nickname is "Big Baby," I've just learned) was another bright spot, and he did have a bigger sample size at 43.2 IP. His ERA was 3.09 and if I'm not mistaken he was also on a longer scoreless streak a la Pomeranz and Thielbar. Keep him. Andrew Kittredge fared a bit better, though I did not like how he started over Shota in Game 2 against the Padres. He went for 53 innings but the first half of the year was in Baltimore for him. He was quite good with a 3.32 ERA. He did get the save in Game 3, and I was nervous because he pitched in all 3 games. In short he "ascended" into the "circle of trust" in the playoffs, and he didn't totally falter, though he did give up 1 run each in 2 outings against the Brewers. I think he'll stay on the team. Most teams have 7-8 relief pitchers, and from what I can tell here, we have that many that did very well. It'll be good to have a couple for insurance purposes.

The main point is, we had serious bullpen problems the past two years, and I think it's fair to say that in 2025, we did not really have a bullpen problem. And it was managed well.

Craig Counsell: A-

Counsell lived up to his billing and his salary this year. He probably deserves an A. The Cubs were the best team in baseball, at several moments, though they only had the best record in baseball for a game or two. The Brewers came out of nowhere and shocked the league, but the NLCS result was not surprising. The Dodgers truly are built for the postseason, and we will root hard for the Blue Jays over this next week (we finish this post on 10/21/25, the night after the Blue Jays beat the Mariners in Game 7). But back to Counsell. He will always make a few moves with which I disagree, and sometimes backfire. But at the end of the day, he's good about making decent challenges to umps, telling them to take another look when appropriate and getting a higher percentage of overturns (I'm unaware of this stat but I'm curious). And he's good about managing the pitching staff.

I think a lot of people had issues with his starting lineup and batting orders, but what are you going to do, when you have as many streaky hitters as this team has. The problem used to be the bullpen, I said, but there's always been an offense problem. It feels insane to say this team had an offense problem in 2025, because they tore the cover off the ball as well or better than most teams in the MLB. But when they got cold, they got very, very cold. And it's frankly remarkable that they held on through the 2nd half as long as they did. After the All-Star break, I feel like the team was barely cracking .500. And it's true, they went 35-31 in the 2nd half. By the end of May, the team was in a super powerful position, and then there was a pseudo-"June swoon" where they only played .500, and then July was stronger......but don't forget, this season started off with the toughest schedule in baseball, and they totally killed it. Their struggles began when they faced weaker teams, but any team can win on any given day. And the Cubs won the Wild Card Series and made it to the NLDS. I think we did better than we imagined. We could dream about the World Series again. It didn't seem impossible. And from this position now, it doesn't seem delusional to think we can do even better in 2026. And I don't think most Cubs fans have felt that way for a long time.

This post is long enough, and there's a lot I'm leaving out. Like, Matthew Boyd's pick-offs, or the loss of a Cubs icon and my favorite player growing up. That was terribly sad*. And it was sad we couldn't win it for Ryno. But may his spirit continue to stay at Wrigley and with the team, and may his example continue to inspire future Cubs greats, so that they also might one day have their name on a flagpole. It felt a bit like losing Ernie Banks, which coincided with the run from 2015-2017. Let's hope we can say the same for 2025-2027, and maybe even hopefully beyond.

***

*I would even pour one out for Charlie, as abhorrent as I found him. He got at least one thing right: he knew which team to root for. Reserve comments on Matt Shaw and to a lesser extent Busch. We are all entitled to our opinions and beliefs and part of what makes the Cubs great is how they bring so many different types of people together over a common goal. We are all brothers and sisters in certain regards, and even if we may not like our brothers and sisters in this fandom very much, we are united in other ways. And for the most part, I have to say, we do have the greatest fans in the world and it was a pleasure to be a part of the run this year. I got to see 2 of the greatest baseball games of my entire life, and then also 2 of the toughest losses in my life. There's always heartache and frustration, but there's also joy, and on the whole, it was a fun ride.

You Dreamed of Empires - Alvaro Enrigue (2024)

2025-10-06T11:39:00.004-04:00

After listening to several New York Times Book Review podcasts last year, I picked out this book for a friend, as it was noted by many as one of the highlights of the year in publishing. As a gift, it was a great success. My friend loved it. He may consider it one of his favorite books, period. After he finished, he insisted on my reading it too, and as is custom, a review on this blog follows.

It is easy to describe the book. It is a work of historical fiction, detailing events from roughly 500 years ago in what is now Mexico City, centering around a crucial encounter between Hernando Cortes and the Emperor Montezuma. It takes place in the course of a single day.

It is not as easy to say how I feel about it. At first blush, I would say I do not agree entirely with my friend (I would not put it in the Best Books category), but I can certainly understand why it has been lauded, and admit that my own knowledge of history and interest in this type of narrative puts me at an unfair bias. In any case, I will do my best to explain.

I am tempted to copy the lyrics from the Neil Young song, "Cortez the Killer," as it rung in my ears throughout my reading. I am actually going to read them now. You may find them here

And yes, Neil is not totally off here, but the song presents a rather one-sided take on the encounter, and is something of an anthem against colonialism. Montezuma is presented as a hero, Cortez as a destroyer. The story Enrigue depicts is far more nuanced.

At a certain point near the very end, there is something of a "twist" that definitely tricked me, and belied my own lack of knowledge about this general period in world history. So now, I need to do some wikipedia research. Forgive me.

And now, I believe, the twist here is a twist on history, and I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but my initial thoughts while reading were correct--the dream is the reality, and the reality depicted is perhaps Tarantino-esque, a la Inglorious Basterds or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood--an alternate conclusion that might have changed the course of history between these two nations.

All that being said, the overarching impression was one of anti-climax. Arguably, the book opens with its climax, or at least its greatest intrigue. The book (and day) plays out towards another climax, which ends in rather tentative and odd psychedelic fashion, and is in keeping with one of the major themes of the novel. Maybe I am speaking so generically because I am dreading spelling out the names of these characters, but unfortunately it must be done.

***

Enrigue does open the book with a letter to his editor, Natasha, which contains an explanation for the spelling and usage of various words deployed for both historical accuracy and readability. This was not particularly helpful and it might have been better had I flipped back to it for reference--but I think I got the gist of things, which Enrigue also anticipates in the letter.

First of all, it's not Montezuma--it's Moctezuma. And I've overstated the complexity of things here, because there aren't many characters. Perhaps the lingo washed over me in such a way that up to 20% of text per page felt borderline nonsensical to me, but again I think I got the gist.

Obviously the main characters are Cortes and Moctezuma, but this is definitely focused more on Moctezuma, and Moctezuma's wife (and sister! as the text highlights several times early on--in title only, symbolic and not incestuous), Atotoxtli. Beyond those 2, there is Tlilpotonqui, the mayor of Tenochtitlan, and some other incidental figures that may be in line to be emperor or mayor.

On the Spanish side, Jazmin Caldera is arguably focused on just as much as Cortes, along with the translators Aguilar and Malinalli. Cortes is the captain, but Caldera is third in command. Alvarado is second in command, but only mentioned a few times--once while saying the Lord's Prayer and polishing his shoes with a grease made by rendering fat....in one of the most gut-wrenching chapters in the book, which I wanted to excerpt but my friend insisted was a spoiler.

It's not a spoiler to say this book is gross, and describes horrible smells somewhat often. It also describes the cuisine of Tenochtitlan in a rather charming way. The writing about food is great. There is also a lot of drug material in this book. These were arguably my favorite parts.

The period detail here is peerless, and Enrigue's research is marvelous. In terms of historical novels, it's very difficult to put on a better clinic than this. In reading it, you will be transported back in time 500 years, and guided by Enrigue on all facets of daily life that feel unfamiliar and strange. This element of pitch-perfect historical accuracy probably accounts for the majority of its acclaim.

***

Plot, briefly: Cortes and his crew have arrived in Tenochtitlan, and have been invited to the royal palace of Moctezuma, who remains unseen by them for the majority of the novel. The opening scene of the novel is instantly iconic, and is probably the part that most reviews would excerpt, as it gives a preview of the "sensory" experience in store for the reader. I would not say the rest of the novel is downhill from there, but that it is rather more concerned with backroom political intrigue than "action." The main action here is that Caldera is disgusted by the options and situation, and that Cortes does not care, and demands compliance:

"Cortes took a generous swallow of soup and bellowed his delight. He smiled at Princess Atotoxtli, seated next to him. With a pleasant expression still on his face but with his fists clenched on the linen cloth--his knuckles white with rage at Caldera's insubordination--he said quietly, almost in a singsong: Shut up and eat the soup, son of a bitch; we are the empress's guests. Caldera smiled. I can't, he replied; if only you knew what they smelled like, Hernan, this one here must have eaten mashed-up babies for breakfast. The captain general returned his smile and, as if commenting on the sweetness of the chocolate, said: You think you smell of roses? Shut up and eat, then vomit later all you want. Malinalli, the Nahua translator, raised her eyes from her plate. In Maya, she asked Aguilar, the Spanish translator, whether they should translate what Caldera and Cortes were saying for the benefit of the princess and the nobles and priests crowded around the table. He whispered in her ear, also in Maya, that he didn't think so, it was just conquistador chatter." (6-7)

It's unclear whether Cortes and Moctezuma are going to become allies (or conquered), and the potential result of their encounter is contemplated throughout the novel to the point that it becomes the actual main plot--what do they want from one another? At a certain point it becomes obvious: the Spanish have brought horses, "deer without antlers," and those might be very useful to Moctezuma, though his exposure to the creatures feels rather distant (Atototoxtli is the one that recognizes the advantages they provide). In fact, Moctezuma is distant the entire time, and it's soon clear that he is on magic mushrooms pretty constantly.

Small note: just in revisiting this section of this first chapter, my understanding is much deeper the second time around, and so this book probably would probably benefit enormously from a total re-read. It's a strange setting filled with strange words and complicated feelings for most of the characters, but after generally processing how the events unfold, it seems to be more straightforward.

***

I'm not sure if there's anything I can add here, beyond another excerpt. My feelings should be clear. I am only not putting it on the Best Books list because historical fiction generally does not make the list. It is not my favorite genre. I can certainly appreciate it, sometimes, and I know this should stand as a prototypical masterpiece of the genre.

It certainly has a purpose, beyond straight non-fiction history. It allows us to go beyond the facts, as we are often told that history is written by the victors. It is good and useful to imagine an alternative history that might have been written if the defeated could provide their account.

And it is also amusing to insert wild fantasy that breaks the 4th wall and crosses over into experimental literature. Such is the mystery of life, and Kurt Vonnegut would likely approve:

"I love this room, said Moctezuma, you can't imagine how I miss being a priest. Where there were splotches of blood, he saw sprays of flowers. The withered fingers of the hands of great warriors sacrificed during the year's festivals swayed pleasingly like the branches of a small tree to the beat of some music he couldn't place, though in a possible future we would have recognized it. It was T. Rex's 'Monolith.'
The priest was also up to his ears in whatever he had taken to carry out his temple duties, so he bent his magic powers of hearing to the music and caught the sexy crooning of Marc Bolan. He smiled. That's good stuff, he said. Moctezuma swung his hips to the beat. It's nothing I've ever heard before, he replied, but I like it. He pulled his elbows in tight and shimmied, moving his head gravely from side to side, transfixed by pleasure. The priest, swaying his own ass to the beat--he was nearly eighty, but on mushrooms he was a jaguar--said, I was thinking about you, believe it or not; look at this. He carefully lifted the clay basin in which the blood of doves sacrificed that afternoon had yet to coagulate--their decapitated bodies sensually dancing to 'Monolith,' all around the priest and emperor--and showed him the image forming in it. It took Moctezuma a while to bring it into focus because it came from very far away. When it was finally sharp and clear, it made no sense to him: It was me writing this novel in a yard on Shelter Island. Uh, he said, strange, and he was seized by laughter. Is that what will happen if I wait for the new year, or if I don't wait? The priest shrugged. The calendar says you should wait, but the calendar has been wrong lately; let me ask the boss. Moving to the beat of the emperor's internal music, he walked to the giant sculpture of Huitzilopochtli that loomed over the place. His skull-embroidered cape swished like the train of a contented queen. As always, the god was covered with a veil." (176-177)

If one is traveling to Mexico City, one should read this book. Because it is just as much about the founding of that place as anything else. I think Enrigue also perceives something in the character of its people that is more ancient, and through this literary alchemy has created what must be one of the most beautiful statements about this city (and the country of Mexico) as there has been. I know at least that it will make me look at the city rather differently, whenever I am so lucky to return for more than a 6 hour layover, and hopefully less ill than I was when there 8.5 months ago.

Finally, the world did not end in 2012, but to many of us perhaps, it was the beginning of the end. Those that want to believe in such supernatural prognostication should also find much here to appreciate. Maybe they will even discover the key to quelling global unrest, and better advise all those putting on suits of armor to go to battle against hot-fudge sundaes.

Taste in Music: Eating on Tour with Indie Musicians - Alex Bleeker and Luke Pyenson (2024)

2025-09-16T13:14:00.001-04:00

Oeuvre rule: I'm only vaguely familiar with the band Real Estate, and Frankie Cosmos to an even lesser degree. I like Real Estate, but not as much as Sunny Day Real Estate, and they have rather different vibes. Real Estate is super chill, laid back, mellow and pleasant--not as overwrought (in a good way) and thunderous as Sunny Day. They are like the final wave from the heyday of indie rock from the 2000s (before all the bands got Spotified) and their first two albums were accordingly praised by Pitchfork. Frankie Cosmos seemed to come slightly later, though only by a couple years, and similarly does not "go for the jugular," so to speak, but again I'm hardly vaguely familiar with them. To be clear, I like what I've heard, and while I have revisited Real Estate a bit more in the course of reading this book, now I will need to do that with Frankie Cosmos in the course of writing this review.

This is because the book is authored by a member from each of those two bands. It's not quite accurate to say that. The book is "curated" by these two musicians, and they must have edited a great deal of it themselves, but they only contribute an essay or two individually, and much of the work involved tapping connections to numerous bands and requesting their participation in the project. Beyond that, they wrote an introduction to the book, and introductions to each essay. They deserve praise in bringing this book to fruition, because there really doesn't seem to be anything else like it, but as might be expected in any book of essays collected from over a dozen musicians, the quality varies.

***

Books of short stories or essays are always difficult to review. You don't want to give short shrift to certain contributors when they are all placed on equal footing. In this case, however, it's unrealistic to expect a review to mention every single essay (there are somewhere between 40 and 45). Many of them are very short--1 or 2 pages--and feel slightly "phoned in." Each musician/writer does consider the topic distinctly and tries to write meaningfully about it, but it feels like a creative writing class prompt, at times.

You know what it really feels like? It feels like a big zine, the type I might have put out during college when I solicited contributions from friends, about 50% of which were musicians. It makes the book fun in a way, and it is not "amateurish" in its presentation, but yes, the content sometimes feels that way. Am I judging all the contributors that are under 40 slightly more harshly than maybe is warranted? Maybe, but I don't think so. Basically, this feels like a "coffee table book"--in terms of the photography in the book and its general appearance and production--and that's not a bad thing.

Ultimately, the best parts of this book are the recommendations (Du Pain et des Idees in Paris for the greatest croissant, and L'As du Fallafel; Durumzade in Istanbul for durum--all of which come from Hermon Mehari ), which are also sometimes anticipated to be obsolete. I am thinking of "Sweet 16th and the Temporary Lives of Sandwiches and People" by Adam Schatz, a saxophonist for Japanese Breakfast. I can only presume that it is the most memorable essay (though I also think the closing "It's Not about the Pho" by Sebastian Modak is the most artful) because his co-worker wrote what is basically one of the greatest memoirs of the 21st century (at present), so Schatz really wanted to show up for this. Tour Food is also still an active website and may be a great resource for many people, and I will be checking it out shortly (nothing was included for Italy; it may be more US-centric). In any case, his essay topic is basically nostalgia:

"Until very recently, on North Sixteenth Street in East Nashville, Tennessee, there was a bakery right on the corner called Sweet 16th, run by a couple of New Englanders whop opened the spot in 2004. I ended up there for the first time seven years later, not because I heard it was amazing, but because it was a breakfast sandwich near me [what he usually types into his phone to find breakfast on tour]. I got the egg casserole on a biscuit sandwich, immediately translated as 'One to Go!' by owner Ellen Einstein at the counter, who shouted it back to the kitchen. A few minutes later it showed up wrapped in paper, the kind of hot that your smart brain knows you ought to count to one hundred before eating. But then your idiot hands shove it into your stupid mouth before you count to fifteen, because that's how good it looks." (116)

To be more precise, the book is about the odd "golden hour" period between Sound Check and Show Time when bands usually just have food delivered for their Rider, but sometimes venture out into the city to find something more unique and special. And also about the people along the way--the promoters and fans and organizers and record shop owners that also put bands up at their house and cook for them. I guess, if there is a definitive book for musicians on the topic of food and the concept of "family-style" dining, this is it.

***

Some of the moments in these essays are quite beautiful and touching, so Bleeker and Pyenson occasionally strike gold:

"As the van rolled out of Budapest, I was overcome with memories of my baba that centered around food and eating: how she would hand-crimp her homemade pierogi with the tines of a fork; my dad, aunt, and grandparents, crowded around the kitchen table at my childhood home in Toronto, eating headcheese doused in vinegar (my cousins and I were nauseated by the smell); the year or so when Baba seemed to confuse different tomato sauces and served after-school snacks of pizza with a Tostitos base or tortilla chips with Ragu for dipping. In the backyard of that Toronto home, her vegetable garden bore bumper crops of tomatoes, cucumbers, sorrel, and herbs that were used for soups and pickling, or just picked off the vine and eaten over the sink in the middle of an August heat wave. I wept silently as I realized it was logistically and financially impossible to get back for the funeral. 'Don't worry too much,' my dad consoled me when we finally spoke on the phone. 'Baba would have been horrified that you'd skip a gig for her.'" (172, "Baba" by Steve Sladkowski)

The main introduction to the book lays out its mission statement like a thesis, and the blurby-intros are similar, but Bleeker's intro to Chapter 2, about Wellness on the Road, strikes a deeper chord of vulnerability:

"As long as I've been playing shows, people have been taking photos of me onstage, and as long as I can remember, I've struggled with my weight and with compulsive overeating. Back in 2001, future Real Estate bandmates and I started a Strokes cover band to perform at a friend's sweet sixteen. We all went to the thrift store to buy secondhand dress shirts and army jackets, doing our best to impersonate our skinny idols. The show was a resounding success, but when a photo of the band surfaced a week or so later, I spent a significant amount of time on MS Paint trying to crop and edit my belly out of it. This technique did not work." (104)

Obviously, these more melancholic moments are tinged with humor, and it is a very funny book at times:

"But because of the night-and-day difference between fast food in Japan and the US, I feel so comfortable eating at rest stops and konbinis. Not only is it delicious, but it's really cheap: It's a miraculous win-win. You're like, 'Oh my god, this was only five bucks! I got a great meal, I don't feel like shit, and I'm not gonna shit my brains out after this.' And if I do, there's a bidet at the 7-Eleven, the seat is heated, and it's singing to you." (214, "Rest Stop: Japan" by Sen Morimoto)

There is a heavy emphasis on rest stop culture, and what I gather is that they are much better in the U.K. and Japan than they are in the U.S. But the first of these "interludes" on rest stops includes a conversation with Mark Ibold and the author of a book that seems like a forebear to this one (Michael Stern and Eat Your Way Across the U.S.A.). The book came out before a certain Pavement tour, and the story of the "throwed roll" may or may not be an homage to the infamous rock throwing as depicted in Pavements:

"I was trying to make eye contact with the people who worked there, and they were all busy doing things, but then there was a guy on the complete other end of the place [Lambert's] who kind of looked at me, and I waved to him. And when my hand went up in the air, he just threw this roll and it went straight into my palm. And I caught it from, I would say, at least fifty feet across the room....I remember looking into my hands, like, dumbfounded, and I was trying to tell my bandmates that a guy had just thrown this roll--I mean, nobody even saw it, it happened so quickly--and I was about to tell my bandmates that this had happened when another one came flying at us and hit our drummer right in the face!....And then everybody just starting cracking up, and somebody came over and gave us a table. I think they served everything in giant cast-iron pans, just, like, ridiculous portions with meat slopping over them, just gigantic, and I think once you sat down, for your rolls, they brought you these little tubs of....what's it called? It's not maple syrup....it's not honey....[MS: Sorghum, or molasses....] Sorghum, sorghum, yeah." (55)

Probably not because getting hit in the face with a roll by a restaurant worker is funnier than getting hit with a rock by a dumb festival-goer.

I said there weren't many "famous" musicians in it, but that's not totally true---there is also Damon from Galaxie 500/Damon & Naomi, Chris Frantz from Talking Heads, Devendra Banhart, Kevin Morby, Geologist, Robin Pecknold, Sadie Dupuis and of course Bob Mould. I was familiar with all of them, and also Greta Kline though I had to be reminded she was the force behind Frankie Cosmos (and not a nepo-baby per se, but paranoid she might be). Her essay is rather amusing, as are all of the above. I am finding now that I want to say all sorts of things about this book. Like how there is an inordinate fascination with gas station food, and why I like Fleet Foxes more than I did before (I always liked them, to be clear) after Hunter Biden's appreciation for them became public knowledge. And Subway. Subway is mentioned at least three times in this book, maybe four--and each time it is basically almost the entire topic of the essay. I find most in common with Bob Mould on this point:

"It's not the same anymore, but thirty years ago Subway was great. It was consistent nationwide, and the bread was always baked fresh on-site. Yeah, the loaves were baked from pre-made rolls, but so are my favorite Hokkaido cheesecakes at the Westfield mall. It was high quality, it was cheap, and it was consistent. I think psychologically for me, when I'm on the road, consistency--any kind of consistency--is valuable. Every day is an iteration of the same motif, but things do change from town to town. Back then, you could count on Subway. We could all agree on it, it was fast, and we could eat it on the run. Sometimes when you're touring, those are the things that are most important." (108)

Having gone to Subway many, many times with a vegetarian resigned to Veggie Delights, Pecknold indicates that may or may not have been the right idea:

"My savior and my destroyer became the Subway 'Veggie Patty,' a gray-brown melange of unidentifiable vegetal ingredients, damp from the microwave. Mouthfeel of sieved paper pulp or marinated sponge. Flavor nonexistent to net negative; it was so powerfully antiflavor that it siphoned and destroyed the flavor of anything surrounding it. Just a volume of calories, a shape, a wet wallet of mashed peas and binding agent around which I'd pile lettuce, spinach, carrots, salt and pepper, and oil and vinegar, all encased in a sleeve of dubious bread." (183)

We learn that if you are a musician, and you can make it to the next level where you get an early afternoon billing at a festival, you must go to Osheaga Festival in Montreal--if only for the food. In fact this chapter made me want to try to be in a band again specifically so I could justify that (it doesn't seem the catering tent is available to festival go-ers--just bands--though I'm sure the food for everyone is better on the whole, too).

And in Iceland, it may not be best to go for haute-cuisine:

"The first course arrived, and I swear I thought someone was playing a practical joke on us. It was a quarter-sized piece of burnt chicken skin with a tendril of dried moss or lichen on it. Second course: one single wild carrot and two flakes of sea salt. Third course (twenty minutes later), everyone's hunger now manifesting as manic smiles and raised eyebrows: a tiny fermented quail egg on a bed of hay. Fourth course, and we're all losing it in the damp basement, silent and sectioned off with a red curtain, blond-haired servers dancing in and out of sight: a tiny mushroom cap with compost-tasting muck stuffed inside. Sixth course: one single drop of cream the size of a dime on a slate slab." (65, Flora and Fauna by Meg Duffy). [She later goes for a couple hot dogs and maybe that does not sound very appetizing but if you are in Iceland, I would recommend them just as I would in Chicago, because they are different and unique.]

There's probably more I could say about this book, but I think that's probably enough. I think in writing this, I realized that the quality is generally higher than not.

Some of us idolize the lifestyle of the touring musician because it's an incredibly difficult thing for regular people to make their way around the world and see all there is to see--travel is one of the key defining "interests" or "hobbies" of regular people. "I want to travel," they say. Meanwhile many of us working stiffs get 2 weeks out of the year to squeeze everything we can into it. You really need to be strategic, and patient, if you are aware of all that is out there, and want to see as much of it as you can. Of course, the downside to this for musicians is that they don't have the the time to properly explore (this is what I also here from regular working people that travel for work, which I've always been envious of but maybe not so much as before). If there is any "message" to this book, it is to explore whenever you are able, absolutely--and to even prioritize that exploration, rather than submitting to the grueling city-per-day schedule that international touring sometimes demands. As I recall, Shellac did not really tour the U.S. much at all. They would go to Europe once a year for Primavera, and then play wherever they wanted to go on a vacation. That to me is obviously the ideal arrangement, but not everyone is so blessed to have that option.

And musicians may not alway be blessed to have a generous per diem, and though tours are not likely to make a stop at Burlington (local musicians are more prevalent in the back room there, though I believe it's not unheard of to have people in from out of town), if they do, as long as I am in this apartment, I will humbly offer a place to stay and my own "basic" recommendations in the surrounding area. Because now I know just how meaningful that can be, and the types of lifelong connections of the most beautiful sort that can be created through this act of generosity. I think reading this book will cause others to act accordingly.

James - Percival Everett (2024)

2025-09-08T12:11:00.001-04:00

James won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award last year. I can hardly call myself an authority on whether it was deserved, but it certainly feels like it. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Oeuvre rule: I was unfamiliar with Percival Everett until American Fiction was nominated for Best Picture, and I began trying to see all nominees each year. I would have watched that regardless, and it's certainly on the cusp of greatness and worthwhile. It was based on Everett's novel from more than 20 years earlier, Erasure, and Everett has published a lot more. He has basically been as prolific as Philip Roth. So it feels as though he is finally having his "moment," after getting a big-screen adaptation and then dominating the literary landscape with this novel, which cannot be denied. Few books in recent years have been more celebrated than this.

The first thing I'll say is that I have never read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and while it is not necessary to have done that to appreciate this, it probably would enhance enjoyment. The closest referent I can think for this is Foe, which I believe I've mentioned before on this blog (in the review of Disgrace), along with the circumstances of reading it (in Paris, at University of Nanterre, in an English-language class). That is J.M. Coetzee's re-imagining of Robinson Crusoe, except told from the perspective of a woman that told her story to the author Daniel Defoe, who hijacked the narrative. There is no such literary trickery involving Mark Twain in this, and it is simply another version of Huck Finn told from the perspective of the runaway slave Jim, here known as James and revealed to be putting on an act that also seems to have a reverse-referent in the recent film Sorry to Bother You. It is odd to say that, but does feel like Sorry to Bother You is in fact a big influence on this, as is the experience of having American Fiction adapted. I'd be rather surprised if James does not get optioned. If anything, it may rekindle interest in Twain's work too, and it is never a bad thing to have people in 2025 stretching their perspective to try to appreciate something from the early 1880's. It made me want to read it more, at least. But for now, the Cliffs Notes will have to suffice.

***

I reviewed those previously and from what I can gather, some of the episodes in this novel are taken straight from the source material (notably, a scene with a house that has been ripped from its foundation by a storm and is in the river, where Jim sees something that he doesn't tell Huck until later). Also, the episodes with the King and the Duke. And some of the characters on the periphery of James may play a larger role in the source material (Tom Sawyer, for example, is barely a factor here, mentioned at a few random moments, acknowledged as Huck's best friend, but they do not appear to share as deep an emotional bond as he does with Jim). For a fair stretch of the novel, the two are separated, and reunited during a duel scene involving some jealousy between older "young adult" characters that probably looms larger in the source material. This is neither here nor there, but is to say, it made me want to read the original more, and there are few better aims in literature than to turn people onto the classics that are almost 150 years old (and sometimes much older) by reinvigorating them with a fresh perspective.

It feels like it was a long time coming, for Jim. Even though I hadn't read the book, I was familiar with the character, and that he represented something about the American South. Perhaps Jim Crow had some connection. But no, Jim Crow was a character created for a minstrel show nearly 50 years before Huck Finn was published, which both that novel and James also depict in an extended episode (one of the several songs performed is about him). This is another reason James is great, for those that have read both books. I am not sure but I am reasonably confident that the depiction of minstrel shows in 1880 and 2025 are quite different. And those minstrel shows were created while slavery was still very much a thing. While James/Huck Finn takes place some 20 years prior to 1880, with rumblings of the Civil War also percolating at various points (Huck wants to fight for the Union), the two novels are not about the American South. They are about the Midwest, and the odd boundaries in play in Missouri and Illinois as slavery is abolished or simply against the law in certain areas and not others, very close to one another.

Thus, as far as historical novels go, not only for true American history, but also for the history of American literature, this pinpoints a crucial moment. For all of the horrible things this country has been put through over the past hundreds of years, one can at least admire the artists that have exemplified its greatest qualities, and laid groundwork for a humanistic progressivism.

It's not really a safe time in American to make that claim, that the history of our country is steeped in genocide, class subjugation and white supremacy. Most recently, it was decreed that the Smithsonian will be getting a makeover to wipe its "wokeness" away. We live in the greatest country of the world, and we are no worse than any other country. Every other country is racist too, and hates people that are not from there originally, too. This is what those in power want us to believe, and this is what their sycophants preach ad nauseum to the point that the lie becomes the truth, for very many people to the point that it shifts a political tide.

So this is additionally why James is such an important novel, and got so much of the love that it rightfully deserves--and the backlash against it as well (somewhat limited as it is) further underscores the urgency of its "message," or what I understand it to be. We've undergone massive waves of panic in "post-racial" America from absolutely being ashamed of racism and doing everything we can to acknowledge how we have been and what we have learned and how we can do better as a people, to now being validated in feeling that stereotypical views of non-whites are actually the true picture of reality, and not the "whitewashing" that "libtards" have shoved down the throats of Real Americans. It's been a horrifying thing to witness, and the only comfort we may take is that there really are just a lot of bots on X that spew hate that the algorithm promotes and the problem is not as bad "on the ground" as it seems on the Internet. Yet unfortunately, dozens of mentally ill people with guns kill hundreds of innocent people every year, and such incidents are flashpoints for opposing viewpoints on gun control laws and family values. There are plenty of reasonable conservative people that recognize the propaganda being utilized by MAGA and disavow it, and the debate between those that have not yet totally gone off the deep end and the more compassionate amongst us is what can still drive our country towards Real Greatness, and provide a glimmer of hope for the future. Debates with MAGA "conservatives" are, unfortunately, often given to straw man arguments that devolve into name-calling and line-drawing. Because if they've been duped and are being told they've been duped, they throw it back on the other side, and claim the other side is the one projecting. We get nowhere except hating each other more. There probably would be a civil war if there was not too much other shit going on around the world that people had to argue about, but sadly it appears that will always be the case now until we all destroy one another in a mass act of stupidity.

The world has become impossibly complex, and yet still, smaller and smaller minded. It is good to have a book like James that goes back into the past and offers up a simple story, a parable of sorts, to remind us of the prior state of affairs in this country, and to help us recognize the parts that have been bubbling up ever more often since 2016, and really, post-Covid 19 (because I think most everyone acknowledges Trump 2016-2020 as not nearly as bad as Trump 2024-?). We are REGRESSING as a country and it is absolutely terrifying and artists are more important than ever in their role of moving the culture towards greater enlightenment.

***

Some window into the language of the novel is appropriate, as the performance of "slave speak" is one of its key defining features. That is, when James drops the ruse of Jim--either as a slip-up or intentionally, to shock and frighten--the novel reaches its critical moments of suspense. Relatively early on, we learn of James's literary designs. After being bitten by a rattlesnake, shortly after they have run away, he lays down to rest and has dreams of a kind:

"I was in Judge Thatcher's library, a place where I had spent many afternoons while he was out at work or hunting ducks. I could see books in front of me. I had read them secretly, but this time, in this fever dream, I was able to read without fear of being discovered. I had wondered every time I sneaked in there what white people would do to a slave who had taught other slaves to read? What would they do to a slave who knew what a hypotenuse was, what irony meant, how retribution was spelled? I was burning up with fever, fading in and out of consciousness, focusing and refocusing on Huck's face.

Francois-Marie Arouet de Voltaire put a fat stick into the fire. His delicate fingers held the wood for what seemed like too long a time.
'I'm afraid there's no more wood,' I said. 'Which is fine, because I am hot enough. Too hot.'
He reached in again and moved some charred pieces around. He looked at his blackened fingertips. 'I'm like you,' he said.

'How is that?'

He wiped his hands on his pants, left smudges. 'You shouldn't be a slave,' Voltaire said, sighing. He sat beside me, moved to feel my forehead with the back of his hand and then thought better. 'Like Montesquieu, I think we are all equal, regardless of color, language or habit.'

'You do, do you?' I asked.

'However, you must realize that climate and geography can be significant factors in determining human development. It's not that your features make you unequal, it's that they are signs of biological differences, things that have helped you survive in those hot, desolate places. It's those factors that stop you from achieving the more perfect human form found in Europe.'

'Is that right?'

'The African can be easily trained in the ways of the European, of course. He can come to be more than he naturally is, to learn those manners and skills that will allow him to become equal.'
'Yes?'
'That is what equality is, Jim. It's the capacity for becoming equal. The same way a black man in Martinique can learn French and so become French, he can also acquire the skills of equality and become equal. But I repeat myself.'......

'How do you explain slavery? Why are my people subjected to it, treated with such cruelty?'

Voltaire shrugged.

'Let me try this,' I said. 'You have a notion, like Raynal, of natural liberties, and we all have them by virtue of our being human. But when those liberties are put under societal and cultural pressure, they become civil liberties, and those are contingent on hierarchy and situation. Am I close?'
Voltaire was scribbling on paper. 'That was good, that was good. Say all of that again.'" (48-50)

This is one of the more blatant entreaties to post-Covid racism (we might say post-George Floyd, but we conflate those periods), and gives heed towards those armchair intellectuals that justify despicable views on the basis of rather dubious anthropological precepts. That is a mouthful but maybe you know what I am talking about. We look back on Voltaire and think of him as one of the great humanists in history, a philosopher that also wrote amusing novels and is responsible for many famous epigrams, and it is true that many such Europeans in the Enlightenment Era couched white supremacy in this mix of science and philosophy--which on the one hand, acknowledges basic humanity, and on the other, mass-generalizes any entire continent of people that can be "trained." We don't need to start going down the list of famous thinkers from that era.

(Rousseau is the one that comes to mind, and he is referenced elsewhere in this text, and "On the Origin of the Nature of Inequality" is, in my opinion, a great text. I am also sure if we learn more about the lives of such thinkers, we may see that they hold other beliefs that are not as great, but I prefer to leave such investigations for another day and take the text at face value--that is, a depiction of Savage Man, pre-civilization, not a depiction of "savages" in undeveloped nations that exist adjacent to a "more civilized" brand of people that find glory in conquest. As man created more structures to make life less harsh and untenable, so too did machinations of inequality enter into the picture.)

Suffice to say, there is a philosophical element to this novel that additionally puts it into a higher echelon, on an issue that sadly continues to be evergreen, even if I thought in say, oh the 1990s, that such lessons had already been learned by all (or at least in Chicago, and thankfully, we have not lost our collective minds in 2025--though I am sure down by say, oh Cairo, IL, we may find views only slightly advanced from the 1880's, though it's a ghost town now, and has a ghastly history).

Here too, Kierkegaard is invoked, then just five years deceased, and perhaps his work had yet to be translated into English, but there does appear to be some limited awareness of him at the time:

"'Kin you ax for more wishes?'

'You know, that was what I said, but it seems you cain't have but three. What would you wish fer?'

Entertaining such discussions in character was exhausting, but I had thought about such a thing many times before and, just like a story I'd read in the judge's library, I could see that anything I thought was good could entail some bad consequences. For example, living forever would mean you'd have to watch everybody you loved die. The question I played with, but certainly couldn't share with Huck, was what would Kierkegaard wish for. 'I dunno, Huck. I reckon I'd be scared to wish fer anything.'

'Think about it.'

'I reckon the genie be white. I ain't got no need to wish for sumptin' dat ain't gone happen. Good story or no.'

Huck let that sink in, then he looked at the sky. I kin tell you what I'd wish fer. First, I'd wish fer some adventure.' He smiled big. He looked at me. 'Then I'd wish dat you was free like me.'

'Thank ya.'

''Course. Well, I'd wish all slaves was free.'

I nodded.

'Don't every man got a right to be free?' Huck asked.

'Ain't no such things as rights,' I said.

'What say?'

'I ain't said nuffin.'" (71-72)

In any case you have a distillation of the modus operandi of the novel in this exchange, a fairy tale within the heavier philosophical context of free will and self-determination. James does ultimately pursue that path, and the novel also works on this second level as an allegory of sorts. Even after we get what we wish for, the very notion of wishing for anything begins to appear problematic, as it unleashes other consequences which necessitate further wishes. And yet, this is not about making peace with one's fate, but rising above it and achieving what was thought impossible through sheer persistence and belief in personal destiny.

Apart from that, there are just several touching moments, such as this:

"Big Mike slapped a small hand on my shoulder. 'Help me take down this here tent,' he said.

Everyone worked to collect their things, large and small. Emmett stopped for a second and looked at me. He said something that confused me. Confused me because I wasn't quite sure what it meant. Confused me because I had never heard anything like it before. He said, 'I'm sorry.'

I had been about to help take down the tent, but this white man's apology screwed me to the ground." (179)

There seems to be a derogation of the apology in our time, a belief in the strength of never apologizing, seen as a sign of weakness of one's own character and rationalistic behavior. In truth, the inability to apologize--driven, no doubt, by the hordes that decry them as never being good enough--is another key factor in the devolution of society. We can all feel safe and secure in the knowledge that what we are doing is right, we can deny the cruelty and pretend that it never happened, or that it was deserved, and we cannot bring ourselves to forgive others, even when they ask for it, because everyone is hopelessly flawed and will never truly change for the better. Emmett is not a "white savior" in this novel, but just slightly less evil than others, "buying" Jim but telling him that he has actually hired him as a performer and that he will be paid and later freed as an indentured servant of sorts. While this does turn into something of a fantasy, the depth of this very small gesture felt rather moving (particularly if the reader is used to never hearing apologies in their own life, as may be the case for many now, even if the context is wholly different).

Ultimately, this is a simple story with rather complicated angles that reflect on history and how we have advanced in certain regards and yet not in others. For hundreds of years, basic humanity was conveniently ignored, until we finally grappled with it, and tried to take accountability for the cruelties inflicted, undo them to the extent we could, progressing all the way up to the point of issuing reparations--until the counter-narratives and backlash drove political organizing in the opposite direction, back towards cruelty, denial of basic humanity, unwillingness to understand where people came from and where they want to go and why. The novel symbolizes how far we have come, and how far we still have to go, and the constant obstacles that are wedged throughout the path. At the very end, like Voltaire said, we must tend to our garden, and James does have something of a happier ending along the lines of that notion. We cannot change how others think of us. We can only exist among them, chameleon-like, and forge our own paths, finding that freedom within ourselves, driving us towards a destiny that only we define, and not one decreed by those in power. This type of freedom--to be left alone, to be respected as a human being, rather than labeled or boxed-in by stereotypes--should be seen as a natural right. When we are not so lucky to have that, fighting for it is a good and noble cause.

Still, we shouldn't have to fight for basic human decency, and once those in power recognize the obvious results of this paradigm--that violence borne out of race-based thinking only begets further violence--we may finally set forward on a path towards greater peace for all, and true greatness.

The Amplified Come as You Are: the Story of Nirvana - Michael Azerrad (2023)

2025-06-06T15:14:00.005-04:00

I seem to recall reading Come as You Are in 2002. Possibly 2003. In either case, before Our Band Could Be Your Life, which has been referenced across at least a dozen posts on this blog over the past 17 years. Is this better than that? Hard to say. They are very different items. It is quite clear however, that this is the far more personal of the two. OBCBYL is like a seminar with a syllabus, a gloss that can either lead towards deeper investigation, or casual indifference. While Azerrad has done other work, it is hard to say anything else comes close to these complicated, entertaining, uneven and yet ultimately canonical texts.

OBCBYL is the follow-up to Come as You Are, coming about 8 years later, and the band at issue looms large throughout, even as they post-date the proceedings. The prologue is essentially about them, and the Mudhoney and Beat Happening chapters might as well be, too. As with the Sonic Youth one and Dinosaur Jr. one, for other reasons not connected to their homebase. Fortunately they were not on SST, though they wanted to be, badly. There are twinges of both Husker Du and the Replacements—the shambolic outrageous excess flanking the sensitive songwriter potentially destined for stardom, or superstardom; the unquestionably punk three-piece that openly nurtures its pop instincts. The guitar master that might actually have been their drummer; the impossibly arch and artsy noise rock band that said it was OK to be on a major label if you retained your control over the finished product. The blue-collar/white-collar dichotomy of the Pacific Northwest scene, an unmistakable “sound” and an adjacent circle of insider-tastemakers intoxicated by the freedom to play unprofessionally and actually without any semblance of skill or knowledge at all. And the purity tests inherent in the identity of unwitting (and generous) figureheads, and those unafraid to lambast anyone that does not accord with their impeccably defined aesthetic. Or the band that actually opened up for them at the end, and that they saw themselves turning into a poppier version of, in the unwritten chapter of their career cut too short. One can only strain to find a connection to Mission of Burma, and yet Bob Weston separates them by just two or three degrees.

Basically, if I read Come as You Are before OBCBYL, I don’t remember much about Azerrad in the context of the former. And yet here I say this the more personal of the two. Really, I can’t recall the experience clearly, I just can’t. I remember liking it, thinking it was really good. But then I also remember reading the Everett True biography of the band and considering that possibly superior.

***

I would be writing a review of Nirvana: the Biography (and in googling re-discovered a third volume, Heavier Than Heaven, which was also really good) here, or else there would already be a review of that book over the past several years if it hadn't been taken from me.

I hesitate to detail the story surrounding that, as it is rather vulgar in certain regards--suffice to say, I met someone, and I asked her to pick out something on my iPod to listen to and she picked Mudhoney and I was kind of surprised by that and went off on them a bit and then obviously pivoted to Nirvana and the 656-page book about them that she needed to read. For some reason that I still don't understand, I was blocked and ghosted, and hurt. I did the pathetic thing, and googled her, and found her on LinkedIn, and messaged her on LinkedIn saying it was fine if she didn't want to see me again, but it wasn't right to take my book. I would really appreciate if she returned it, just left it on my doorstep. That didn't happen but I hope she read and enjoyed it. (Later, I am almost positive that 4 years later she randomly sat next to me on the bus home from Riot Fest, recognized me after a moment or two, and got off the bus early and waited for the next one.)

In any case, the Everett True biography is very good. And I would say it was difficult to say which of the three was the best. I can't recall much about Heavier Than Heaven at all to be honest, except that it was worthwhile, and all I can remember about True's Nirvana is that he is totally BFF with Courtney Love. It didn't make it any less revealing but it is just the prism to see it through. And while there's a prism for this too, it's fair to say this now "Amplified" version is the most comprehensive and meaningful history of the band in print.

***

It was actually Weird Al that introduced me to the band. I saw the video for "Smells like Nirvana" before the one for "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but not by long. I had heard vaguely about them, but I was about 8 years old, and my world revolved more around video games than music. My older siblings liked them well enough, but not obsessively. One or two out of the three had Nevermind. It's possible one more of them saw Nirvana live, but all I really hear about are early shows by Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins, or the last Grateful Dead show before Jerry Garcia died (at Soldier Field).

Ironically enough, there is a short section here that contrasts the two icons:

"Despite Kurt's disparaging Grateful Dead T-shirt, he actually had a lot in common with the Dead's leader Jerry Garcia. Like Kurt, Garcia resisted all the attention and power that came with being the figurehead of a really huge, culturally resonant band. 'I did a lot of things to sabotage it,' Garcia said in an interview clip in the Grateful Dead documentary Long Strange Trip. 'You don't want to be the king, you know?'" (477)

The comparison is longer than that, but this is going to be a long review, as you can already tell. We will need to limit the excerpts.

It will be hard, because that is a good example of what makes this book special and why it came into being. Kurt died in 1994 and while Azerrad did write an additional chapter after his death for a later printing, he did not revisit it for a long time.

(If you want to know how he spent the years following the publication of this book--which was enormously commercially successful--you will need to read it. Suffice to say, Azerrad's oeuvre is limited, and besides this and OBCBYL, he only co-authored another item reviewed on this blog, the Bob Mould memoir, which has a lot in common with this too, mainly in the way the subjects allow themselves to be totally vulnerable and unguarded. That may not actually be the case for Kurt. It appears he wanted to make himself seem more fucked up than he really was, or at least to take more extreme positions for public posturing to be seen as authentically punk. So when he said, for example, that he might be bisexual, it was probably just to throw his homophobic fans through a loop. At another point he says he'll kill himself if Azerrad includes his list of top 50 albums in the book, which Courtney had apparently scolded him over also, basically for trying to look cool with the list.)

Azerrad only has one other book as far as I am aware, and it looks like a humorous item on rock criticism and writing about music. I would read it if I wrote more about music on this blog, but I know I am terrible at that. For a time I thought I would be a better music critic than film critic, but experience has shown that I should have stuck with my original critical interests (probably not books but oh well). I still may read it, because he's definitely a figurehead in his own way, and I respect the limited oeuvre, only putting something out if it is truly worth doing.

At the time, however, this was "commissioned" by Courtney Love and Kurt, motivated by a desire to retain custody of their daughter and show they were not dangerous drug addicts that were incapable of raising a healthy child. (What's surprising about the original is how openly Kurt talks about using heroin, and at which specific flashpoints; I can't believe he wasn't more upset at Azerrad for some of the things printed, but he did apparently read the entire thing and give his blessing.)

The Amplified Come as You Are was then released in late 2023, and it justifies its existence on the nearly 30 years of history since Kurt left this world. The original text is here, in bold, and Azerrad's commentary follows in regular print. I do think this book might have "read better" with footnotes, but it's a minor quibble. The book is also repetitive (anytime a reference to suicide or self-harm in the original occurs, Azerrad's following present-day commentary will mention that it is hard to read, and he will scold himself for not recognizing warning signs; yet in this way too, the book is valuable in depicting how we might better support our loved ones that may be struggling with depression or other mental health challenges) and occasionally clunky (I will need to explain that later), and I was going to give it 4 stars on Goodreads because it really is not perfect (and neither was OBCBYL, upon revisitation). However, it is 609 pages long and there is simply so much here that it becomes an overwhelming emotional experience that washes over the reader. It's not perfect but it gets 5 stars for its audacity. It's as epic a story as can be told about any band, or person for that matter.

***

I almost feel like I should leave it at that. I'm not sure if this is better than True's Nirvana, but my sense is that previously, this was on par with that and Heavier Than Heaven; now, this is the definitive one, but perhaps a bit unwieldy if not having read the original. Still I think anyone reading Lolita generally understands that The Annotated Lolita is the superior read, and a similar logic applies here. I will say that the "2023 content" is not as sharply-edited, but this seems by design. Azerrad takes pains to acknowledge all the points where he was "dissembling" for the benefit of his subjects.

Perhaps the key to this book are the surviving members of the band, who have both gone on to interesting careers and induction in the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, complete with live performances with Joan Jett, Kim Gordon, Lorde and St. Vincent filling in (all women, which Kurt would have liked I think, though see also Post Malone more recently). Grohl obviously continued his world domination, and also experienced deja vu tragedy, and his own personal drama, but he took the gravitas that came with being the Nirvana drummer and ran with it straight to the bank. God knows whether he has more money than Courtney Love (the book acknowledges the majority of publishing credit went to Kurt, and thus her by inheritance), but I have to think that is the case. Despite the Foo Fighters being elder statesmen at this point, they remain surprisingly popular, with younger generations discovering Nirvana and loving the them as the next best thing. (I did finally seem them live last year, after having been a fan for about 25, and Grohl justified the headliner status.) Courtney has not fared nearly so well, though Hole did put out one more very good album in 1998 (perhaps the moment Hole and Foo Fighters stood on equal ground), and she did turn in a few memorable cinematic performances. Some people think she killed him; this is crazy, but sure, being in a volatile relationship can take a mental toll on a person, too. She did not get along with them for a long time, but they have supposedly buried the hatchet, which feels kind of sweet to me. (Again, they've all written their own memoirs; she needs to do that, too.)

While Azerrad may have "sugar-coated" Kurt in the original, here this may be the case for Novoselic, at least in discussion of his politics. There is no need to offend a friend, though I have to believe that Azerrad is not completely aligned in the same beliefs. In any case, Novoselic is praised, and while there are suggestions of his political engagement, Azerrad does not dissect them, and perhaps for good reason. At the end of the day, not all of us believe exactly the same things, but loving and taking care of one another can't be criticized, and that is all Krist seemed to do in the context of this story. It is absolutely true that he was essential to the band and everything it became, and there is no way it would exist without him. So he did already do great things with his life. And maybe he will be a rogue agent. Maybe he will style himself as a libertarian and "fuck things up from the inside" the way Nirvana wanted to with their major label and popular music more generally. I have to doubt anyone will believe he could be trusted. Though "In Bloom" may be directed at such types, they do not comprise the majority of the Nirvana fanbase, and while they are enormously popular, Novoselic would have had a better chance in say, 2016. I'm not aware if he is actually "anti-woke" (and I don't care to dissect that here, either; I'd prefer to believe he is still a fundamentally decent dude, and from what I understand his platforms are not nearly as inhuman as MAGA), but if anything is clear, Nirvana was "woke AF," though Kurt also would not believe in cancel culture. Really, there is probably no better book that could answer the question of WWKD than this. Anyone that is inspired to make art they feel passionate about will find a barometer for authenticity here.

***

Does this add anything to the cultural conversation around Nirvana? Time alone has done that. I knew Nirvana songs, the basics, but it wasn't until 2001 or 2002 that I fully immersed myself in In Utero and Incesticide and Bleach and the "deep cuts" off Nevermind. And I kind of wanted to get that smiley face Nirvana shirt, but they weren't as ubiquitous. It kind of felt "cool" to like Nirvana then because everyone was kind of burnt out on hearing about them, but no one had really acknowledged the depth of their catalog. The cultural phenomenon of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Nevermind was the story. Not how fucked up a thing it was to put In Utero out as the follow-up, or the total insanity of stuff like "Milk It" and "Tourette's," or the weirdness of "Hairspray Queen" or heaviness of "Aero-Zeppelin" or thinking about how much better Nevermind would have been with "Aneurysm" on it. No, the only thing that came was "You Know You're Right," which sure, was extremely exciting, and then the With the Lights Out box set. And we've gotten the 20 year and 30 year anniversary editions of the albums with many extra live tracks, and as the years go on the stature of the band grows, and now those smiley face Nirvana t-shirts are everywhere all the time. Nirvana is basically up there with the Beatles now, even as I think many people consider their music kind of simple and not that interesting. I think it was recently announced that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, now in their early-to-mid 80s, are going to do a Beatles reunion tour. When Krist and Dave to do that, with Post Malone or someone else, would I go? Probably but only if they were going to play the same type of weird show that Nirvana would have played, sabotaging the commercial aspect. Which feels sort of doubtful. At least we still have Pavement doing something wild and creative with their legacy.

***

Because Kim and Thurston are divorced and Sonic Youth is no more, and Fugazi has been on hiatus for 23 years, and Steve Albini is gone, and so is Grant Hart and for some reason Calvin Johnson has not even hinted that a Beat Happening reunion might be kind of cool--time reduces us all to nothing, and what we leave behind is all there will be. Black Flag vaguely sticks around in a kind of twisted variation that does not live up to its legacy, Mission of Burma pulled off a brilliant 2nd act to its career, Bob Mould continues to record and tour relentlessly, the Replacements played a few shows 12 years ago but don't seem interested at all in doing any more, and the Butthole Surfers did a similar thing. Dinosaur Jr and Mudhoney are sort of the last ones left standing. For that alone, they should be seen at every opportunity.

"Smells like Teen Spirit" will continue to get played on the radio every single day, and "In Bloom," "About a Girl," "Lithium," "Come as You Are," "Heart-Shaped Box," "All Apologies," "Dumb," and even "Polly," will also get tons of airplay for as long as radio exists (half a dozen other songs will pop up on occasion, too). About half of those are really good songs, but the vast majority of Nirvana's catalog will never be fully appreciated except by those that dive deeper. It's a worthwhile thing to explore. And the whole history is a good story, too. It really is straight out of a novel. Kurt probably understood that, and wanted to make it seem that way, too.

***

Azerrad did write another chapter after Cobain's death for an earlier 2nd edition of the book, and here too, he adds another chapter ("A Dark Constellation"), beyond his constant notes throughout the text. I forgot about this "epilogue" chapter ("A Sad Little Sensitive Unappreciative Pisces-Jesus Man") until I came to it, and I reflected all along how the ending of the book might be great, because it would really tell the story of the next thirty years.

It doesn't do that. There is one chapter that starts off with something like, "The last time I saw Kurt alive...." which was released as a teaser excerpt ahead of publication. It's a great piece of writing but it wasn't "new" to me. I think that only comprises about half of that chapter, however.

The main thing I recall is Azerrad's vague references to his "nemesis," which is kind of hilarious but also horrible. This is apparently a person in the Nirvana management camp, possibly at Gold Mountain or the record label DGC, that obtained an advance copy of Come as You Are and flipped out, and didn't like Azerrad being friends with the band. Later this person heartlessly blocks Azerrad from the invite list for the memorial service. I think Azerrad lays it out in a way where you could figure out who he's talking about:

"I felt like an idiot for doing those interviews--well, far beyond an idiot since I was brutally beating myself up for it and still am to this day. But I also thought that the punishment was almost pathologically cruel--everyone knew that Kurt and I had become friends. I'll never know for sure who made sure I wasn't invited to the memorial, but I have a pretty good idea: my nemesis, the same person I had to hide the Physicians' Desk Reference from a year and a half earlier." (568)

I'm not going to do that sleuthing. There are other fascinating "editorial" incidents, like the aforementioned Top 50 Albums list ("If it goes in the [book] then I might as well blow my head off, OK? It's something I may have to explain later but it's caused a lot of problems in my household [emphasis mine] and it's ree-fucking-diculous, I can't believe it. So whatever you do, don't print it, OK? Thanks." (578))

Again, the book is worth a read for many, many reasons, and it's a tough book to read for the underlying psychological torment that it mines, but it is also incredibly amusing and hilarious at times, generally whenever Courtney is mentioned:

"Over the phone, Kurt later confessed to me that the reason why he was so upset about that list was because Courtney was chastising him for including too many hipster indie bands and ignoring the uncool bands that had been so formative for him in Aberdeen: no Queen, the Cars, Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, AC/DC, Kiss, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, all bands he had loved and that had an undeniable impact on this music Nirvana made. The list was revisionist image-making intended to burnish his indie cred. And Courtney called him out on it." (578)

Of course Steve Albini's comments are included profusely, and he did not think Courtney had a positive impact on the band:

"When I got back home to New York, Courtney called me, incensed. Kurt had told her that Steve Albini had called her a 'psycho hose-beast.' So I gave her the courtesy of a rebuttal. That's how I got her snappy riposte about Albini only preferring women who were 'from the East Coast, played the cello,' and so on. (I assume that was her description of whoever Albini was actually seeing at the time.) The next day, I received some flowers via messenger, accompanied by a little card apparently written in the hand of an older lady to who Courtney had dictated the following message:

We love you Michael--you mensch
Courtney & Bean
p.s. from Courtney: fuck Steve up the ass

I love how Courtney made it clear the foulmouthed part wasn't from Frances. (592)

Love her or hate her, like Krist, Nirvana would not have become what it did without her. Maybe that was not for the best. Maybe they would have faded into semi-obscurity, like the Melvins or Meat Puppets or Mudhoney, and maybe even still be playing today (unlikely as it seemed Kurt wanted to collaborate with Mark Lanegan and Michael Stipe, though of course also after Courtney's influence had been exerted). If you watch The Year Punk Broke, that is pretty much around the time they met and started dating, right when Nevermind was about to blow up in the Fall of 1991. So she really only impacted In Utero, but look, it's fair to say In Utero is their best, even if Nevermind plays like a Greatest Hits album with basically zero filler. Maybe Nevermind has better songs, but the production of In Utero is peerless. I never saw Nirvana live, of course, I only see live performances and get a sense of how they sounded differently from studio recordings. Albini always wanted to capture the "live sound" and he did that with Nirvana on this album--and they were such a tight live band--so to me, it captures what made them great and special.

"So what does Albini think of In Utero? 'I like it far more than I thought I was going to,' he allows. 'I like this record way more than I've ever liked a Nirvana record. I find myself listening to it of my own free will, occasionally.'
'I think it's a far better record than they could have made under any other circumstances,' Albini continues. 'Is it one of my top ten favorite albums of all time" No. Is it in my top one hundred albums? Maybe.'

This is actually fairly high praise from Steve Albini. He's heard a lot, likes little of it, and can tell you exactly why, in the most acerbic and persuasive terms." (515-516)

Of course, Albini would pass away less than 6 months after this hit print. I recently followed Michael Azerrad on X. Sometimes he only gets 1 or 2 likes on his tweets. This makes me feel better as a person who generally gets zero. It's a dumpster fire, it's a horrible place, a marketplace of ideas for bigots and morons, but it is occasionally an intriguing window into the depths of human stupidity and evil people in general. But I also love Cubs twitter, and material on music is generally positive. As with Azerrad, a solid follow. Last year, Nirvana tweeted about Albini, unveiling a letter he wrote proposing to record In Utero for them (https://x.com/michaelazerrad/status/1788599002167927032). Azerrad did not take pains to express his appreciation to quite the extent I did, but he said pretty much everything in two posts and far less words.

You have to appreciate what he did. I do think there is a "trilogy" of high-quality Nirvana books and this is now the best of them. I'm not sure how many books have been written on the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin (though Hammer of the Gods has been waiting in the wings for a couple years now), but I would imagine more, and none of them as important as this.

Oh sure, John Lennon is probably more important than Kurt Cobain. The Beatles were short-lived, but Nirvana was even shorter-lived. Lennon lived another dozen or so years (weird to think about 1968 to 1980 and how different those seemed, but that came before I achieved consciousness so what do I know) and released critically-acclaimed solo work and still inspired rabid fandom. He didn't take his own life, someone else did, it's one of those deaths of the 20th century that looms large, not quite on the level of JFK or MLK or RFK, but just a step below--arguably, however, more important, because you chose whether or not to listen to the Beatles and him. I am not a big enough fan to write intelligently on the topic. I like them, but mostly just their crazy stuff.

Suffice to say, we clearly know who else died the same day, and by his own hand, and of course also a bandmate of Pat Smear (put Smear on the list with C. Love for "must write memoirs," as the only person who can one-up Dave Grohl). Kurt knew, obviously, and Bobby Pyn died even younger, with the shortest-lived band of them all. I've written about them before, and in fact find much of their output unlistenable, but do enjoy a handful of songs and deeply respect the thought that went into the lyrics because it's such a contrast; they were brash and unprofessional, barely knew how to play (though Smear did), and yet had these very intellectual lyrics that are difficult to hear. Of course Belinda Carlisle also drummed for them briefly and went onto her own fame. Their influence remains. They are still one of the most punk bands ever.

You couldn't say the same for Nirvana, because they got famous (for a similar reason that it's hard to accept Green Day or Blink 182 as punk--they're "pop punk" and no one should pretend otherwise, even if their hearts appear to be in the right place). And that frustration is at the heart of this book and Kurt's mentality in the second-half of their career as they blow up. And that is also what made them so special, to have a star that rejects the spotlight.

Nowadays, you don't have the luxury to do that, most of the time. Those artists are an increasingly rare breed in this attention-deficit-influencer culture. Comedians post crowd-work on Tik-Tok. Actors generally have to take any work they can get. Writers toil helplessly and pray for Substack subscribers. Podcasts become ubiquitous and pray the same way over Patreon. Bands don't even use Bandcamp as much anymore. Spotify pays them pennies for thousands of streams. You have to tour to make money. I'm sure Taylor Swift made plenty of money before she re-recorded her own songs to own her catalog, and major label artists are probably doing just fine--but no one is making their label $50 million, the way Nirvana did (ok maybe Beyonce, maybe a couple others). Even though Krist and Dave made a lot less than Kurt because of publishing credits, they still basically got rich (if not rich, at least comfortable in the knowledge they no longer needed day jobs). Now that can sap creativity, and Azerrad does acknowledge that many In Utero songs were not actually written during the "downtime" in 1992 between tours, but in my opinion, it's their best work, because there is truly extreme pathos in it.

In short, 30 years later, it still sounds fresh, it's still relevant, and arguably even more relevant than it was back then. No one called Kurt a psychic (in the same way that, say, Mark E. Smith was sometimes considered) but the themes of Nirvana's music are evergreen, if not everlasting. The bigots have come back out in full-force. No one thought being "PC" was cool, but can you imagine a movie coming out titled, "Woke University?" People mocked the term "PC" but they inherently understood it made sense not to use such hateful and dehumanizing language. I've never, ever, ever, felt that "woke" was a good word, for grammatical reasons, and it's an easier target for backlash. It's remarkable that antipathy to the term has literally destroyed the entire world.

It's so sad, how things have devolved, but we have to take heart that the worst examples of hate are on X and generally espoused by entities that mask themselves in anonymity. It's cowardly, and the vast majority of real people in the world and not nearly so evil. Those voices are amplified in the interest of monetization. They need to get people riled up to make money.

Punk has always riled people up, but it has never been about money. At best, it has been about existentialism, self-actualization, and living an authentic and principled life where all one needs is "enough." Ian Mackaye may have a fortune of his own, but no one begrudges him that. (It is fair, however, to begrudge him for not bestowing the gift that is Fugazi back on the world that needs them more than ever.)

I'm not sure what else I can say about this book, or if there are any other parts worth mentioning. But you already know if you want to read it or not. You probably did before reading this stupid review. If you didn't however, and don't listen to Nirvana, I would encourage you to give them (and this) a chance. Just like I read Sontag before diving into her oeuvre, this would serve as a similarly-excellent primer. There is a good chance you will learn something new from it.

***

I guess I mentioned something about "clunkiness," and to end this review in a clunky way, have to follow through. Basically there's a line in OBCBYL about Husker Du's Flip Your Wig and the songs being hit singles in a world where battery acid flows through rivers (paraphrasing) that a friend of mine always found pretentious and risible (warmly, of course--we did actually see Azerrad play drums in King of France once). There are a few such moments here as well:

"The main riff is indeed pretty meat-and-potatoes but that bone-simple ascending vocal/guitar line redeems everything. In effect, Kurt devised a hook that clinches the song. Kurt was a Public Enemy fan--maybe he borrowed that hook from the squealing, upward saxophone glissando in PE's "Rebel Without a Pause."
It was ingenious of Albini to remove all the reverb on the vocal and add distortion as Kurt screams 'go away'--it suddenly sounds like he's imprisoned in a small closet full of coats and blankets, just horrific." (524-525)

I prefer to admire the imagery, because that kind of is exactly how "Scentless Apprentice" sounds. And now I kind of have to hear the Public Enemy song. Azerrad can identify the songs that Nirvana was ripping off with the best of them. He's an encyclopedia and a national treasure in his own right. Kurt did not live long enough to write a memoir but this self-mythologizing and painfully honest read is the closest thing we will ever get to that. His journals are out there, but that's a coffee table book and a cash grab; this is how he wanted people to see him. As the back cover of the book blurbs, he considered it "the best rock book I've ever read." For many other people too, it will be up there.

The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut (2023)

2025-03-12T12:14:00.003-04:00

This book was published about 17 months ago and I received it as a Christmas gift about 15 months ago. It was from my friend David, who previously gifted me Aliss at the Fire. That book was quite short and took me 71 days to read and I did not get it. This ended up taking me about 420 days to read and I loved it.

Technically I didn't start reading it until about January 16 this year, so it actually took about 50 days. And it was slow going at the beginning. David did not gift me with Solenoid, but he suggested we both read and review it, and I had taken it with me to Mexico in 2023. I got about 100 pages into it and while slow, seemed to be building towards something potentially great. We ultimately abandoned the dueling review idea, perhaps because this was too hard for me after seeing Jon Fosse win the Nobel Prize for Literature and not properly loving Aliss. Thus on my second trip to Mexico, a little less than 2 years later, I brought The MANIAC and had early misgivings. Because this isn't a traditional book.

At first blush, I feel driven to compare it to Paul Auster's New York Trilogy (a review from the early days!) and Lisa Halliday's Asymmetry (a "short form" review, 10 years after the former and 6 years ago now, which did it no justice whatsoever, despite the 8/10 rating). This is merely due to the structure of the book. These are all "tripartite novels." They flow together by different degrees. This is my favorite of the three, and the other two are quite good.

The other obvious referent here is Oppenheimer. And while I don't want to spoil what's going on in this novel, or the unsettling reading experience it offers, that feels impossible to avoid. I simply could not tell which parts of the story were real, and I did not look up anything about it online, and when it was ultimately disclosed, it felt like the last revelation after many others in the preceding pages. Perhaps I can try to hide the ball.

***

This is a book about mathematics. Because I have led a foolish life, I have always considered mathematics to be boring. I did not understand anyone that wanted to be a math major unless they wanted to go into engineering or computer science or programming. I was quite good at math, but I stopped after high school, and did not take any coursework that included it until Corporate Finance. All of that math was done over MS Excel, so it was not even supposed to be difficult, but after getting straight A's in high school math, I got a C+ in that. Still, I can appreciate the elegance of the formulas, proofs, solutions, and profound applications inherent in the discipline. Even if you do not, this book still has the capacity to instill such admiration.

This focuses on three distinct characters in each of its three parts: Paul Ehrenfest, John von Neumann, and Lee Sedol. The middle part is further broken up into three parts itself, and as the centerpiece to the book, it is probably the strongest section. It is when the book hits its stride and begins to make more sense to the reader.

[It's worth noting, perhaps, that I just did the annual Oscars write-up, and this year was aided by Letterboxd. I have also been doing Goodreads for a couple years now. Each requires rating on a scale of 5 stars. I prefer 4 stars for movies, and I had gotten used to giving basically everything 4 stars on Goodreads. 5 star ratings are reserved for books I would deem Best Books reviewed on this blog. In any case, Letterboxd allows for 1/2 star ratings. Goodreads should as well. I would give this 4.5 stars. Ultimately, this is rounded up to 5 stars (Grade: A), and now will be included in the Best Books category.]

It goes beyond 4 star territory because of this elegant structure, which is disorienting at first and perfectly appropriate in the end. The second part of this book could be seen as "experimental fiction," and the very best sort of it. This originality sets it apart.

***

Chapter 1, or Book One, is titled "PAUL or The Discovery of the Irrational." It is 23 pages long and sketches out the final days of a pioneering physicist that end in tragedy (the lede is not buried, the horrible fate is blankly stated in the opening paragraph). This is not a bad short story, but it left me wondering where else the novel could go, and if it might return to this character's earlier life and depict in finer detail what led to his madness.

Instead, it jumps to something completely different, and yet not totally dissimilar--Chapter 2, or Book Two, "JOHN or The Mad Dreams of Reason." It introduces itself in ostentatious fashion, in terms of literary fiction. A few pages with nothing but a few words on each ("He was the smartest human being of the 20th century," (33); "An alien among us," (35)), followed by the announcement that we have entered Part I: "The Limits of Logic."

By this point, at page 47, after a good 21 pages of non-standard prose, or at least non-standard layout, we have Eugene Wigner's entry, "Only he was fully awake," which shifts the third-person perspective of Chapter/Book One to first person. After a couple dozen pages of Chapter/Book Two, the reader should find their footing and be able to enjoy the novel for what it is. At least for the next 220 pages.

I am sure plenty of other novels have done it, but my mind first floats to The Rules of Attraction as a similar example of literary technique. Or perhaps various oral histories, whether true or fictional. It is not as risky a proposition as 2nd-person narrative, and while it is technically first-person, it has a 3rd-person veneer to it, since the speakers or contributors are not writing about themselves, but someone important that they knew. Perhaps the layout of the book is more experimental than this shifting of perspective, but whatever the case, despite the less immediately dramatic subject matter of Chapter/Book One, it is more engaging.

The literary flourishes on the nature of mathematics and technology make this book particularly brilliant, and this is what sets it apart. We don't often equate art with science or math, but those separate wings of "useful" and "useless" study are beautifully harmonized in the text. There are many such passages here that could be excerpted, to the point that, by the end of the book, it almost gets repetitive. This is why I would rate it 4.5 stars rather than 5, if I could.

It is probably not a spoiler to say that this is likely the Great Novel about the Formation of Artificial Intelligence:

"Jansci thought that if our species was to survive the twentieth century, we needed to fill the void left by the departure of the gods, and the one and only candidate that could achieve this strange, esoteric transformation was technology; our ever-expanding technical knowledge was the only thing that separated us from our forefathers, since in morals, philosophy, and general thought, we were no better (indeed, we were much, much worse) than the Greeks, the Vedic people, or the small nomadic tribes that still clung to nature as the sole granter of grace and the true measure of existence. We had stagnated in every other sense. We were stunted in all arts except for one, techne, where our wisdom had become so profound and dangerous that it would have made the Titans that terrorized the Earth cower in fear, and the ancient lords of the woods seem as puny as sprites and as quaint as pixies. Their world was gone. So now science and technology would have to provide us with a higher version of ourselves, an image of what we could become. Civilization had progressed to a point where the affairs of our species could no longer be entrusted safely to our own hands; we needed something other, something more. In the long run, for us to have the slimmest chance, we had to find some way of reaching beyond us, looking past the limits of our logic, language, and thought, to find solutions to the many problems that we would undoubtedly face as our dominion spread over the entire planet, and, soon enough, much farther still, all the way to the stars." (222)

This is not the greatest excerpt I could have found, but it will have to do. It should at least illustrate the quality of the prose. I had not heard of Benjamin Labatut prior to reading this, but he is only a few years older than me. This appears to be his 2nd novel, and from what I can tell, it falls along similar lines to his first, in terms of genre. I do not see how this could not eclipse the quality of its predecessor. It reaches for heights that some of the most profound literature in the history of our world can sometimes attain. It's far from perfect, and I did find the very end to be "basic," but by that I mean the book's final lines.

***

Chapter/Book 3, "LEE or The Delusions of Artificial Intelligence," is 84 pages long and jumps forward into very recent history. And the game of Go.

Now. I have not played Go. I have never seen a board. No one has challenged me to it. My familiarity with the game is limited to a couple references in A Beautiful Mind, which yes, could also be seen as an "influence" (since the release of Oppenheimer post-dated this)--if mental illness drove the plot of The MANIAC. As such, it does not, though PAUL and JOHN certainly feature mental illness as a major factor in their work. If it is not already clear, MANIAC works on two levels--both the name of the computer that John creates, and as an adjective for his being. And Paul's, too. But not exactly Lee's.

To be sure, there is mental illness in LEE, but it does not arise out of the tireless pursuit of technological breakthroughs--just the disappointment of defeat, the humbling of no longer being considered the best. At Go.

It's not a bad ending to the book at all, but the A.I. is arguably more developed than Lee as a character. The chapter is named for Lee, but it may just as well be named for AlphaGo.

If anything, this ending is most interesting for its depiction of the Go tournament Lee plays against AlphaGo, for Americans and others unfamiliar with the grasp this game has in China, Japan and Korea. It is probably still a bit of a "sub-feature" of the region, and one does not imagine it being played as often as chess, but I am sure I would be more familiar if fate had dropped me there rather than here in the Midwest. People here in my milieu were raised on Michael Jordan, and if you go anywhere in the world, he is still synonymous with the area. Of course, I only mention that because winning is all that mattered to him, and winning is all that matters to Lee. These are people that retire when they know they cannot continue to win every single time.

There is a certain pride that comes with the greatest of all time being from your area, and Lee is a similar type of hero to South Korea. I do not want to spoil what happens in his match with AlphaGo. Suffice to say, AlphaGo is the apotheosis of Paul's and John's work. Chat GPT feels like a rudimentary form of A.I. in comparison, yet we are in a time when this is developing rapidly. In a year or two, it will likely be even more ubiquitous, and though many of us are assured that our jobs are not in jeopardy, we fear we cannot rely on such present understandings.

The prospect of technology changing our lives (and possibly taking them over) is at the heart of this novel. It is important to maintain our essential humanity, which at least Paul and John seem to deride. They suffer accordingly in their personal lives for doing so. And there is the adage that on our death beds we won't wish we worked more, we will wish we spent more time with our families, and that is here, too. That may be an overly simplistic view of what this novel is meant to communicate, but nobody suggests we should aspire towards an artificial consciousness that discards our humanity. That may, however, just become another inevitable step down the line.

***

A Dizzying Dive into the Abyss: The MANIAC Review

The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut is not a book you read—it’s a book you survive. It’s like trying to catch lightning in a bottle while standing in the middle of a thunderstorm. From the very first page, Labatut drags you into a world of intellectual frenzy, where the boundaries between madness and genius blur in an all-consuming tango. The subject matter? The terrifying, thrilling, and often unfathomable evolution of artificial intelligence. The execution? Equal parts brilliant and bewildering.

Labatut’s storytelling—blending historical figures, philosophical musings, and speculative fiction—creates a narrative web so tightly wound that you almost feel like you're losing your grip on reality. There’s no comforting sense of control here. The MANIAC is like being thrown into the chaotic, unpredictable heart of a scientific revolution, where the very nature of what it means to be human is under siege. You’re given no roadmap to navigate, no map of the terrain—you’re simply told to follow the intellectual avalanche as it barrels down at you.

The book’s central figure, the MANIAC himself, is not a single person but a representation of the very forces driving humanity toward an unknown future. In these pages, you’ll encounter the eerie brilliance of minds like John von Neumann, Alan Turing, and others—titans whose discoveries laid the groundwork for our current technological landscape. But instead of portraying these intellectuals as mere historical figures, Labatut imbues them with a sense of manic obsession, as though the great minds of science are all teetering on the edge of madness, their inventions pushing them toward an abyss they cannot comprehend.

And then there's the unsettling question that pulses at the heart of the novel: What happens when we no longer understand the machines we create? Labatut doesn’t answer this question directly; instead, he drags you into the labyrinth of ideas that lead toward it, until you’re left unsure whether you should marvel at the brilliance of these innovations or tremble at the abyss they seem to be opening up. The narrative is less about clear answers and more about exploring the terrifying unknowns, the dizzying potential of artificial intelligence, and the human minds behind the algorithms.

Labatut’s prose is feverish, often elliptical, oscillating between clear, crystalline insights and maddening complexity. He writes as though he’s in a race against time, throwing ideas at you with such speed and intensity that you’re left gasping for air. And yet, amid the frenetic pace, there are moments of haunting clarity—fleeting glimpses of beauty amid the chaos—that make you pause and reconsider everything you thought you knew about technology, humanity, and consciousness.

The themes here are as vast and overwhelming as the subject itself. Artificial intelligence isn’t just a tool—it’s a force that forces us to confront the limits of our knowledge, our understanding, and even our humanity. It’s a reminder that we are, at times, as much at the mercy of our creations as they are at ours. As the book careens toward its final chapters, the sense of creeping dread becomes palpable. We’re all trapped in a race we may never fully understand, following a path that could lead to transcendence—or to a kind of self-destruction. Or, perhaps, to something even more unfathomable.

The MANIAC is not for those seeking a tidy, conventional narrative. This isn’t a story that progresses neatly; instead, it’s an experience, a visceral assault on the senses and intellect, a book that demands to be reckoned with. There are no comforting conclusions or neatly tied-up plot threads. Instead, you’re left with questions, feelings, and ideas that swirl in your head long after the final page is turned.

In the end, The MANIAC feels less like a book and more like a mind-altering journey—one that offers no clear destination, but leaves you irrevocably changed. It’s a disorienting, beautiful, and profoundly unsettling meditation on the intersection of human genius and the machines we create, and it’s a must-read for anyone daring enough to peer into the abyss of artificial intelligence.

Is what I do worthwhile? It's certainly never been necessary. There is no financial reward. The world has never needed me, but it needs me even less than before. We go on out of duty to others, to delay suffering, to forestall the pain of loss, to do what we can to provide comfort amidst the brutishness of the world.

2025 Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture

2025-02-26T18:39:00.008-05:00

It's been a rough year in terms of trying to see them all, but almost there. It's a little easier because I started using Letterboxd and wrote reviews there (some of them are not very good, my apologies). For now I am just cutting and pasting them and maybe adding some light edits. Feel free to follow me there, and I would love to follow you as well.

Conclave

A couple years ago, Women Talking was the surprise Best Picture nomination that almost everyone knew wasn't going to win. Now, we have Conclave, which could just as well be Men Talking.

It is based on a novel and it is not about the passing of John Paul II, as I initially and erroneously assumed. I also do not think it is meant to be a glimpse into the future, but an exploration of our present moment.

Some may take issue with the plot, or the pacing of the film, and that would be fair. Frankly it would seem that Conclave, part two, might be the much more interesting movie.

But this is a meditative film, more interested in exploring characters fulfilling their duties while tending to their own private crises of faith. It is anchored by two very strong performances by Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci. John Lithgow is also good (though not given quite enough to do) in a supporting role.

The scenery and art direction and production design of the Vatican is flawless. The movie will probably make you want to go to Rome. And you should. When they reform the Catholic church the next time and decide to take a cue from from their counterparts in synagogues, all confirmed Catholics should get a birthright trip there. And the film will be screened in seminary schools everywhere.

Like Women Talking, it would also make an excellent play. I think it all turns out fine in the end, but there must be those that feel differently, and hearing why would likely be as illuminating as the film itself. One of its virtues is that it can lead to such conversations.

Emilia Perez

This is Best Picture nominee this year that is getting the most hate. It does not deserve it, for the reasons it is getting it, but it is just O.K. I liked it better than I thought I would. But not that much.

Some people have no idea what it is about but hate it just because it's a story about gender transitioning. It's not based off a true story, as far as I know, and there are definitely some moments that truly strain credulity. (The whole idea of not being open and honest with wife and kids is essentially the tragedy of the story.)

Basically, it is "Transparent" the movie, the musical, transplanted to Mexico, with a hint of "Breaking Bad." The person that wants to be a woman is a cartel boss. He (she? There is some degree of dead-naming, and the movie is not so overly precious about trans foibles in ways that give the deplorables of our society ammunition for mockery--a good thing in my honest opinion because realistic--but probably a bad thing, too, according to activists, or at least my idea of some of them) achieves it and becomes Emilia Perez.

The woman that helps find the doctor to do the surgery is Zoe Saldana, and her performance is rightfully lauded. She is the best part of the movie, unquestionably. I sort of hated the musical element of the movie, but of all the actors forced into semi-singing their lines, she does the best, keeping it both light and heavy at the appropriate times. Maybe it's just because she plays a lawyer, but I found her the most "lovable" and I think everyone else will feel the same (I didn't think it was that funny, except when she sang the pseudo-song---because that is what they are---that has the line about why she won't open her own firm).

Selena Gomez is secondarily good, but she is tasked with the unenviable role of the abandoned wife and mother and the villainess (the part of the film that is totally misbegotten and icky). It's a shame because she shows she does appear to have "acting chops." Regardless it seems like a breakout film role (I hadn't really seen her in anything since her outrageous "adult debut" in Spring Breakers, a superior film in nearly every aspect) and she should rightfully get better roles.

She does the best she can, and I think this movie is interesting and engaging and could be compelling, but has a few missteps that made me care a bit less about the characters--except Zoe who holds the entire movie together, lending it the credibility to make it the record-breaking (or tying, with Titanic?) Oscar nominee it is. The fact that it did that is frankly ridiculous and so the Academy is to be blamed for unintentionally rolling back progress by elevating it, if that makes sense.

If it wins, it will be the worst winner since Crash, and actually, even more worse. Note that this isn't really a "woke" film and that people should actually watch it before assuming it is. Ironically the trans haters should love this movie, since it clearly depicts how terrible of an idea it was for Emilia. But they probably won't give it the time of day.

It deserves 2, and I'm giving it 2.5 to be charitable to Zoe, and the boldness of the conceit. If not a musical, and if not a narcotics industry story, and if more realistic about the process of transitioning, it would be closer to best picture territory, or at least 4 stars on Letterboxd territory. This is not the film trans people deserve, and unfortunately comes at a time when they need the best representation they can get, because of all the idiots in our country saying horrible things that make me want to throw up. Kudos to Zoe and this performance should put her (and Gomez to an extent) into a higher category of projects, but I will be surprised if there is a lesser best picture nominee this year, on the whole.

The Substance

I don't think this deserves to win Best Picture, but I am glad it got nominated. It's a pretty inventive and original horror film, and probably the first distinct entry in the "body horror" genre to gain Academy recognition. I felt slightly underwhelmed, and maybe because it was overhyped. That said, I think it is better than Emilia Perez, but not quite as good as Conclave (I also gave Conclave 4 stars, however, and this was the most entertaining of the three, by far).

Demi Moore should win best actress, in part because she "goes for it" in a way that I haven't seen anyone else this year apart from Amy Adams in Nightbitch, and in part for career recognition. Without her, this movie wouldn't be as big a deal. Her performance is vulnerable and beautiful.

The issue I have is the satire and the one-dimensionality of the other characters. This is likely intentional but it made for a very unpleasant and disturbing narrative. There are not many roles apart from Moore, Qualley and Quaid. Quaid plays such a caricature, and while his manic energy and shamelessness are compelling, the hostility towards Moore is too extreme. This is a satire for sure but taking it a step or two closer to reality would have pushed it to 4.5 star territory. (Call it the Sorry to Bother You problem.)

It is regardless quite an achievement and Moore is justly lauded for her work. She has stepped away from the limelight over the past decade or two, and this is a stunning return. Perhaps the best thing is what it may inspire in the viewer: acceptance of our bodies. I think you will be very grateful that yours is "untouched" after watching. And maybe it will be an inspiration to feel more confident and take bigger swings, so to speak.

A Complete Unknown

Of the 4 nominees, I've seen so far, this was better than The Substance, Conclave and Emilia Perez. I almost want to give it 5 stars but stopping just short because (a) it's Oscar bait and (b) it's a bit cliched and while it definitely explains why "going electric" was so controversial, I just have a hard time believing the reaction was as harsh as it was (I don't doubt he had things thrown at him, but the audience really must have been a bunch of cranks not interested in change).

Without looking at the Best Actor nominees, Chalamet has to be a strong contender. For some reason I feel like The Brutalist has Adrien Brody in that category and think he may edge it out, but I have a hard time imagining the performance will actually be better. What Chalamet does is perhaps not as impressive as what Cate Blanchett did in Tár, but it is very close. Arguably more impressive because Bob Dylan is very real. Frankly, he's better than Austin Butler was as Elvis, or Rami Malek was as Freddy Mercury, and this is a better film than either (still haven't seen Rocketman but willing to bet this is better, too). He is about as good as Joaquin Phoenix was in Walk the Line.

Edward Norton is also great, as are the two female leads. Mostly, however, it is Chalamet playing and singing the songs that makes it really special. I've always liked him, but am now astounded by his talent. I've never really gotten into Dylan, but this also serves as a great primer into his catalog--it's like a collection of greatest hits, lovingly interpreted. Despite my limited knowledge of his song catalog, many of these were familiar.

In short, I was surprised by how much I liked it, and how moving I found it (the scenes with Woody Guthrie may have led to some involuntary tears).

Side note: the potential for a monologue joke about--I'm Still Here (Best Picture/Best International Feature nominee)/I'm Not There (previous Bob Dylan movie by Todd Haynes--where highlight was also Cate Blanchett)/I'm Still Here (Joaquin Phoenix movie)/Joker: Folie a Deux (no 2nd nomination for Phoenix)/Walk the Line (and Phoenix not appearing as Johnny Cash here, though the actor in this did a great job)/Phoenix leaving new Todd Haynes movie production--could be truly epic and wish I could submit something. But it's more of an oddly tangled web of movie titles and connections than a punchline.

Suffice to say, Chalamet does about as well as he can here, compared to Malek doing Mercury, Phoenix doing Cash, or Foxx doing Ray. If he doesn't win, it'll be because of Brody, but also because there wasn't an addiction subplot.

Dune: Part Two

Dune 2 is perfectly passable, and a great demonstration of technical effects. It's not groundbreaking like Star Wars or Jurassic Park or Forrest Gump or Avatar or Titanic or whatever, but it should win the category.

Beyond that, it's part of a trilogy (in a way--there is one more coming, I think) which gives it the Lord of the Rings problem or the Avatar problem. LOTR won for film #3, and I think Dune is totally on par with those (though not quite the first Stars Wars movies, on par with the best of the next 6--and I feel like when David Lynch adapted it, the "space opera" element could have made it feel like a ripoff cash grab--but we know that is far from the case now). I don't think Dune 2 will win, and I expect Dune: Messiah to be every bit as good as the first two (this one is just as good as the first, and probably better), but I don't think it will win best picture unless 2026 is a weak year for movies. Frankly, I'd be a bit shocked.

Nor should this win this year just because Chalamet's other film about Bob Dylan is a more obvious choice, which I also felt was better than this. In that film, he proved that he truly has a singular talent and dedication to the craft on the level of some of the other great actors of our time (Cate Blanchett, Joaquin Phoenix, etc.). Here, he proves he is fully capable of anchoring a movie as an action star. To be sure, he has plenty of help, and the cast seems even more star-studded than the first. But this was weirder (the water of life sequences) and a better development of the story.

However, I still don't quite understand what I saw, and would need to watch both films again to better assess. I also regret not seeing it on the big screen. Like the next Avatar, even though I am not that excited for either, I will make a point to see each in the theater. Whatever the case, it's a great achievment and, from what I'm told, an adaptation par excellence of the original books, a fitting tribute to the author Frank Herbert, and a true realization of his vision.

Anora

I want to give this 5 stars bad. But something holds me back. Maybe I'm just fishing for a criticism, and maybe it's out of jealousy. Because there's nothing terribly impossible about making a movie like this, even if Sean Baker's film budget has leveled up.

In short, he fully delivers on the promise that critics always saw in his work. This is a great movie from beginning to end, and my favorite so far of the nominees (6 down, 4 to go).

It's totally original despite being a familiar trope. It's hilarious and beautiful and sad. It's very *adult* and even though it only gets an R rating, it is the least family-friendly in the group (The Substance is right behind it). That's the only thing that makes me think it may not win, but it reminded me of an "edgy" film like Pulp Fiction getting nominated and though that did not win, it would not be surprising if this did. It's totally fun and entertaining, but has kind of a strange ending. A bit disturbing. Maybe that's the 1/2 star knock. It felt like it was part of a different movie. But I guess it makes sense, and ends on a rather melancholy and moving note. I do not think the right actor was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but the recognition is deserving as well. I watched it twice and while it didn't blow my mind as much the second time, there was a definite reason to revisit at least once. This film has a ton of heat and people are saying Sean Baker will edge out Brady Corbet. I have a hard time saying it will win Best Picture for sure (see next review), but I think if one is playing the odds and doesn't care about personal integrity of taste, money would be on it.

The Brutalist

It's hard to say whether The Brutalist is better than Anora or A Complete Unknown--I've given each of them 4.5 stars. Each of them flirted with 5 stars. It's fair to say that this is the most elegantly constructed of the three.

It's one of the longest movies I've ever seen, and that will likely be the case for many. Perhaps Killers of the Flower Moon was slightly longer. Seeing it in the theater with the "director-approved" intermission was a special experience and I am glad I did not opt for the convenience of streaming.

This is a beautiful film in nearly every respect. The acting is superb. The script is ambitious and tight--for such a long movie, there are few wasted words. The opening sequence is immediately iconic, with a voiceover of a letter, quoting Goethe, "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” No epigraph could better represent the entire thrust of the picture. This serves as its thesis.

I loved basically everything about the movie and I only don't give it 5 stars because of something that would be a spoiler that I do not care to describe. It is undoubtedly the climax of the film and it's hard to explain but generally feels like something of a cop-out to me. After such a grand production of art on the highest level, it is reduced to a plot device to manufacture drama and resolution. This is probably the point, and even if I think it could have made a Bigger Statement, the epilogue redeems it to a degree, and further illuminates the depth of the film.

I am not confident that it will win Best Picture, at all. At least two of the others stretch towards its heights, but ultimately do not reach them. In good conscience, I should pick what I truly believe is the best, though I may lose the family ballot contest. There are still three left for me to see, and it will be a tall order for any of them to eclipse this.

Nickel Boys

This is a "searing drama" that was probably the slowest of the Best Picture nominees, which is saying something when The Brutalist is included in that group. That said, sometimes the best movies are those that put one in a somnambulant state, where sadness and melancholy feel comfortable, and drifting off does not feel unpleasant.

That's not to say Nickel Boys is boring--it just moves slowly and doesn't fully reveal itself until the end, and the way the twist is teased out is masterful. There are also numerous moments that stretch towards greater cinematic heights, and are extremely moving. I almost want to use the adjective "Terence Malickian."

This is a true story and definitely the hardest watch of the BP group. Of course, The Brutalist is about a Holocaust survivor. Yet the reformatory school depicted here is not dissimilar to a concentration camp in the Jim Crow era-South, particularly shocking since the main events take place in mid-1960s.

Point-of-View is emphasized in this movie in a way I haven't seen in many others. This works sometimes and other times feels limiting. It has a point. I think this is one of the nominees that would improve on subsequent viewings, but it is difficult to want to subject oneself to the misery of the proceedings.

Generally speaking, this is a film comprised of powerful moments and scenes (the grandmother is fantastic, and the friendship between Turner and Elwood is beautiful), but it feels very sketchy and vague, perhaps necessarily since it has a PG-13 rating and does not go for the graphic jugular, so to speak (most of the horrifying abuse is kept offscreen or hinted at). For example, I needed to look up on Wikipedia why the "climax" of the film has to happen, but I pretty much got it.

In the end, this could be another example of a Black Lives Matter story--though just saying that may trigger some people and want to dismiss it as propaganda. But after The Underground Railroad and this, it's quite clear that Colson Whitehead is responsible for some of the most powerful work over the last two decades. It's not propaganda, we just tend to forget about these stories (Whitehead became aware of the school in 2014, and it had been closed in 2011 after 110 years). There is probably going to be a movie about similar "schools" for indigenous children in Canada in the coming years. These horrifying stories are fortunately things of the past, but of course, in our present day and age, with a good portion of the population succumbing to DL bigotry, it sadly bears repeating. I'm not giving it 5 or even 4.5 stars, though it probably deserves that. I am just judging off how engaged I was, and maybe many others will want to look away too, but that doesn't make it any less powerful or important. The same cannot be said for many of the other nominees, which are trifling in comparison. Depictions of joy in this film are few and far between, which is to be expected. It is probably better than Sleepers, but it is probably not as good as The Shawshank Redemption, though it definitely has vibes of the latter. Some people still consider that one of the greatest films ever, and anyone that does should see this, too.

I'm Still Here

This is a good example of a movie that I wouldn't have seen if it was only lumped into the Best International Feature category. As such, it sits with Emilia Perez in both that category and Best Picture, and this is, in fact, the better picture of the two. I won't be totally surprised if EP wins Best International due to its number of nominations but I'm picking Zoe and look at Killers of the Flower Moon last year--even the best film can get totally shut out.

This is about Brazil in 1970. I dont know where the term "disappeared" emerged, but this would stand as the film par excellence that mines that concept and really shows the impact it can have on loved ones. Fernanda Torres puts on an unbelievable performance, again stacking the Best Actress category with at least 3 strongly deserving contenders. It's a beautiful film in so many ways and will probably make you cry. It's the hardest watch in the category besides Nickel Boys (The Substance is a tough watch for different reasons, and so is The Brutalist).

I went into it knowing as little as possible and recommend that if you also know almost nothing, that you keep it that way and see it. It's absolutely worth watching and a triumph not only for the filmmakers but the family at the center--this is just about the most beautiful tribute that could be made.

Wicked

Wicked is the origin story for the Wicked Witch of the West, whose name is apparently Elphaba. She is born with green skin and has a disabled younger sister in a wheelchair (Nessarose). They both end up at Shiz, which basically feels like Hogwarts, and she mets Galinda there. They have a goat for a professor. She also had a nanny named Dulcibear, who is a talking bear.

At first, this was my problem with the movie. It seemed fairly traditional and recognizable in comparison to the original, except for the talking animals. This is a prequel, however, and the yellow brick road has not even been laid yet. The Wizard of Oz was always kind of a dark movie in spite of being family-friendly. This definitely retains that element. There is a conspiracy to get rid of all of the talking animals. This actually has a rather complicated plot that I can't fully recall. But by the end we meet the Wizard and see how the monkeys at the Emerald Palace sprout wings and Elphaba gets her hat and broomstick. I won't spoil why she is summoned or what happens there.

I don't think this is a movie one watches for the story. This is a musical, and it is all about the songs and emotion behind them. Both Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande deserve their nominations. They probably could not have done a better job in casting. This is an adorable movie in a lot of places. Ariana basically takes pains to look as adorable as possible in every single shot.

I just don't really know what I saw. I know Galinda becomes Glinda, but I am wondering what happened to the Wicked Witch of the East. Perhaps she was referenced, but I may have missed it. If not, it is a missed opportunity. But this is a 2.5 hour Part One as it is. (Maybe in Part Two, Nessarose will become her?)

We only see hints at who Elphaba will become. She is essentially a good person, and various things happen to her that make her wicked. I would imagine Part Two would be a bit more fun as that develops.

Basically, I need to see it again to better assess, because I didn't understand what was happening most of the time. A few of the songs are great, and visually it is quite stunning. It felt somewhat hollow to me is all. But it made me think about the original and wonder why the Witch wanted those red slippers in the first place. Maybe I have just never been paying attention. I think the original does actually make sense, however, and this mostly confused me. Regardless, the entire closing sequence is fantastic and it justifies its many nominations on the basis of being a spectacle like there hasn't been in years. It's probably the most popular musical of all time now, and the movie will only deepen its legacy.

The Secret History - Donna Tartt (1992)

2025-02-15T01:28:00.000-05:00

I hadn't been aware of Donna Tartt prior to hearing about the The Goldfinch and giving it a read. That was about 11 years ago. I enjoyed that book, and knew she had a small oeuvre--just two others, and one of which was seen as a towering achievement. I'm not sure why it took me so long to get to this. A word should be said about my sister and my mom.

Now, my sister actually was an English major in college, and perhaps notably at University of New Hampshire. That's not Vermont, but think it could be seen as a "sister state" of sorts. I have always appreciated her taste in literature. Few others match up as directly with what we feel a book should do to be great.

Both of us perhaps get this from our Mom who is a very heavy reader, though often given to underplaying her taste. By that I mean, she will give me a mass paperback and acknowledge that it is kind of trashy but still amusing, and it could be a decent "guilty pleasure." Last year when my second niece was born, she flew out to be with my sister, and I noticed she had brought back The Secret History with her. This, after returning from an earlier visit with To Paradise, which came just as I had finished A Little Life--and while I meant to borrow that one after too, I think I needed a breather.

This was, however, serendipitous. For some reason with The Secret History, I had always been meaning to check it out but I kept forgetting about it. So I asked if I could borrow and she said when she was done, which was soon after. She said that it might make her seem basic or of having "less refined" tastes, but it might be the the best book she ever read, or close to being her favorite book. Of course, I had to prioritize it, pushing it ahead of several others that I had gotten for Christmas last year. I started it on the way back from Sweden and finished it in Mexico. That is the crawl my reading has slowed to, and generally just on vacation. In any case, both of them had read The Goldfinch and enjoyed it (ironically, my sister had the same experience as me with the film adaptation--we both forgot we watched it--and perhaps that is due to Tartt not having creative control). I think all 3 of us will want to check out The Little Friend next, which is what another friend actually considers her best, though acknowledges that as a minority position.

Another irony--a date once asked which books were my favorite and when I volleyed the question after just saying Molly lately--got the answer of The Secret History, which I felt was a "sign" since I had just started it. That was not to be, but was also informed I should listen to the audiobook, which is available on YouTube, just so I could hear Donna Tartt do Bunny's voice. Apologies if this long preamble on Tartt and family and friend connections is of little interest--I just feel she is one of the few "real ones" left, and if she ever delivers a a follow-up to The Goldfinch, it will be a "genuine literary event."

I've tried listening to the "Once Upon a Time....at Bennington College" podcast again (after consulting it for The Shards) and will need to dig in again shortly. Suffice to say, Tartt did not agree to be interviewed for the podcast, which is another mark of a true artist. Granted, giving interviews does not make one less of an artist, but refusal to do interviews lends a deeper air of mystery to a work, as well as the author's intent. They don't want to tell you how you are supposed to feel.

***

This book does not bury the lede. On the very first page, we know Bunny has been killed, and the only mystery of the book is the perspective from which its narrator recounts the events of that year at Hampden College in Vermont. It may be ten years later, or perhaps twenty. This is not a hard book to read, and though it is 550+ pages, and though technically I had it on the back-burner for about 4 months, it's a relatively quick read. There is a lot of dialogue.

The book is dedicated to Bret Easton Ellis and you can see the influence of Less Than Zero on it. There may even be characters that appear in both of their works. (Or perhaps not--the podcast is more content to uncover the real life inspirations for the characters.) These are like two sides of the same coin---except this one is almost 3 times as long. It may be more "Dickensian," but I think that adjective is better applied to The Goldfinch.

However, Less Than Zero is....about what, exactly? It is somewhat plotless, and that is what makes it good too, but it is vaguely about a group of three friends and one that eventually devolves into prostitution and drug addiction--though it is really more about a "vibe." By contrast, The Secret History definitely carries something of a similar vibe---except the characters are dorks.

They're dorks! In Less Than Zero, while they may not be the most popular people in their cliques, they are at least cool and hip, and when their more gentle or "embarrassing" emotions come into play, that is when it reveals its greater humanity and depth. The main characters in The Secret History are weirdos, nerds, and scholars of arcane academia (studying ancient Greek language). But yes, they do drink a lot and smoke a lot of cigarettes and do cocaine and smoke weed (though less often than others). I'm not suggesting that doing drugs makes you cool--but it does not seem to comport with my own human experience, that these types of students freely engage in these types of vices. This is not an ordinary situation and so it does not feel terribly off in any way, which is a testament to Tartt, who injects realism into a horribly fucked up situation gone wrong.

She does what she did in The Goldfinch--which is to write about a certain subject so well that it makes the reader care more about it. In that book, it was antique dealing. In this book, it is the study of classics, in their original ancient form.

This is where I note that it is not a perfect book and arguably does not deserve to be on the Best Books list--but if Goldfinch is on it, then so should be this. IMO, it is better than The Goldfinch, precisely because it is so strange, and it is done in such an arch way, and does not tie a little bow on the story.

Ultimately, it does turn into an absurdist thriller, and it feels somewhat less special as it goes along, but that didn't make me put it down. I think the key factor that makes it a special book is mining the emotion that comes out of the act, and demonstrating understanding on the nature of guilt, and what we choose to feel guilty about, or what it is be guilty in a more philosophical sense.

This is perhaps what makes it a Great Book, or a Nearly Great Book. It feels like there may be a somewhat messy quality to it--imperfect, which is par for the course for a first novel. And yet Tartt took much longer to develop a debut than Ellis. Enough with the comparisons, they have rather different trajectories. Suffice to say, this would make for a much better film than The Goldfinch, and probably a better film than could have been made of anything in either oeuvre.

It just feels somewhat out of left field when Richard casually mentions that he was doing coke the other night, or that he got stoned all throughout middle school. It does not seem to fit with this character that the first 50 pages of the novel treats so earnestly. This is just a quibble, however.

Probably somewhere around page 100, the novel reveals itself to be about this small circle of oddball students studying under an iconoclastic professor. These characters are indelible, even if they sometimes feel rote. That is, Henry, Francis, Charles, Camilla and Bunny. They carry a certain air about them that Richard finds highly attractive. They are clearly smarter than anyone else at the school, it seems. He soon joins them in their archaic curricula, and they welcome him as one of their own.

If there's any "messy" quality to the book, it is the way Julian looms so large over the first 1/3 of the novel, and then all but disappears (there are some spoilers that I will avoid). Regardless, his last couple scenes in the novel are masterfully written.

Much of it, however, is dashed off dialogue, "candy" for the reader, and I am not one to complain about that, but I did find a few moments to be missteps. I think the ending resolutions all make sense and work to the degree they can, but some of the moments along the way feel like necessary filler, and sometimes purely for shock value.

Of course there are flaws to be found in everything. Even if Tartt did not write a masterpiece, she did write a masterful debut, and one that hasn't lost its appeal for over 30 years now.

***

"Historicity does not ensure relevance " -Claude Fredericks

This is apparently a saying that Fredericks, the inspiration for Julian Morrow, had in the classes he taught, at least one of which included Donna Tartt. I need not rehash the entirety of the podcast referenced above--but taking a small moment here to acknowledge, it is a great podcast. Now it has supplemented two different reviews on this blog (The Shards being the other--and to get an idea of ranking and quality, I felt The Shards was pretty much as good as The Goldfinch, and it's lack of wider notice is likely due to Ellis's idiosyncrasies--but each is perhaps one step below The Secret History). Ellis is willing to talk to Anolik (the podcast creator), but Tartt is not. Ellis has his own podcast and multiple movies have been made of his books (The Shards will have its own series, I believe), and he sometimes makes bombastic posts on social media. Credit him with staying power, even if his relevance is perhaps 5% of what it was 35 years ago. Tartt knows it is better to exist in the shadows. Not unlike Goethe, who toiled over Faust for years in secret, despite being a god in Germany, Tartt may be polishing up her late era masterpiece, due in about 2040. We can look at her in awe. She's like the Fiona Apple of literature, except taking 2 or 3 times as long between projects, and more reclusive. Perhaps Thomas Pynchon is the better comp here. But he has been more prolific (is he, now that Kundera has passed on, the last of the greatest living writers, along with fellow-recluse-but-not-to-the-same-degree Don DeLillo? I'm not sure and I haven't really "gotten" his work but his influence has not abated.).

Tartt is not an iconoclastic artist in the same realm of Pynchon or DeLillo (or Salinger, another recluse with an even smaller oeuvre in terms of page numbers). White Noise is very accessible, and funny, but I think Tartt is much more accessible than either. Why The Secret History has not been made into a movie is a total mystery to me. It would make a great one. People still talk about it all the time. Regardless, there isn't anyone else like her. And this podcast is a great exploration of the mystery that surrounds her. She was likely upset by the investigatory nature of it. Because it does pull back the veil on this book in particular. It's quite fair to say, Tartt put a lot of herself into the main character and narrator (and though the podcast doesn't harp on it, I think she puts a lot of herself into Camilla as well). Apparently Tartt put Ellis in as Cloke Rayburn. Unfortunately, Brix Smith is difficult to identify.

It's just worth listening to because I don't think there has been another period like this for any group of artists since the Beats or the "lost generation" of expatriates in Paris in the 20's. I think a lot of us--in 2001, and still in 2025, I would imagine--that go to college wanting to be artists and writers want to believe that we and our friends are all going to be famous and great. There's something beautiful about this aspect of believing in oneself, and that these friendships lend one another power. Yet for many of us, it is a dream that is forsaken in the favor of practicality. We need to survive, so we go to law school, because we believe others when they tell us we are not good, or it is enormously difficult to make anyone else interested in our work. But back in the 80's, before the internet and the instant, global visibility of everything including criticism, we could dream a little more and believe we were special.

And so many of these Bennington students did just that, and this podcast is excellent for examining and understanding the reasons why. Brix Smith is just a lark here, since she did not become a literary icon, but arguably led as fantastic a life. No one could have imagined what her life would become, but obviously, for personal reasons, being a huge fan of the music she made with the band she joined--to say nothing of the fact that fate found her at the Metro in Chicago, in the days surrounding my very birth--her presence in this world is the final proof that this class was indeed special. Greatness emerged around everyone. I lament that I was not more aware of this facet to Bennington in 2000 (I was more aware of the Chris McCandless connection to Emory, spurring that particular rejected application), and instead chose to apply to similarly-sized Hampshire. And while NYU was probably the right choice for artists at the time, for many of us, and I have to think tens of thousands of others, the dream of art died after college. It took about five extra years to wither for me, and it still burns somewhere inside, but now instead, we admire those that were able to do something great and do what they love and live well enough off it to know that was their fate, that was their destiny, that was their calling, that was what they were meant to do in this life. Dreams at least can go on forever.

***

I haven't excerpted anything here yet, and this review is becoming too long, too precious for its own good, but at least one passage or snippet is necessary to illustrate the inimitable quality of Tartt's writing, this facility with language that is (deceptively) simple and precise and engaging and poetic, all at the same time. As noted, however, the book is very dialogue-heavy:

"'And it's a temptation for any intelligent person, and especially for perfectionists such as the ancients and ourselves, to try to murder the primitive, emotive, appetitive self. But that is a mistake.'

'Why?' said Francis, leaning slightly forward.

Julian arched an eyebrow; his long, wise nose gave his profile a forward tilt, like an Estruscan in a bas-relief. 'Because it is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. The more cultivated a person is, the more intelligent, the more repressed, then the more he needs some method of channeling the primitive impulses he's worked so hard to subdue. Otherwise those powerful old forces will mass and strengthen until they are violent enough to break free, more violent for the delay, often strong enough to sweep the will away entirely. For a warning of what happens in the absence of such a pressure valve, we have the example of the Romans. The emperors. Think, for example, of Tiberius, the ugly stepson, trying to live up to the command of his stepfather Augustus. Think of the tremendous, impossible strain he must have undergone, following in the footsteps of a savior, a god. The people hated him. No matter how hard he tried he was never good enough, could never be rid of the hateful self, and finally the floodgates broke. He was swept away on his perversions and he died, old and mad, lost in the pleasure gardens of Capri: not even happy there, as one might hope, but miserable. Before he died he wrote a letter home to the Senate. "May all the Gods and Goddesses visit me with more utter destruction than I feel I am daily suffering." Think of those who came after him. Caligula, Nero.'

He paused. 'The Roman genius, and perhaps the Roman flaw,' he said, 'was an obsession with order. One sees it in their architecture, their literature, their laws--this fierce denial of darkness, unreason, chaos.' He laughed. 'Easy to see why the Romans, usually so tolerant of foreign religions, persecuted the Christians mercilessly--how absurd to think a common criminal had risen from the dead, how appalling that his followers celebrated him by drinking his blood. The illogic of it frightened them and they did everything they could to crush it. In fact, I think the reason they took such drastic steps was because they were not only frightened but also terribly attracted to it. Pragmatists are often strangely superstitious. For all their logic, who lived in more abject terror of the supernatural than the Romans?'

'The Greeks were different. They had a passion for order and symmetry, much like the Romans, but they knew how foolish it was to deny the unseen world, the old gods. Emotion, darkness, barbarism.' He looked at the ceiling for a moment, his face almost troubled. 'Do you remember what we were speaking of earlier, of how bloody, terrible things are sometimes the most beautiful?' he said. 'It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripedes speaks of the Maenads: head thrown back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.'

We were all leaning forward, motionless. My mouth had fallen open; I was aware of every breath I took.

'And that, to me, is the terrible seduction of the Dionysiac ritual. Hard for us to imagine. That fire of pure being.'"
--------------- (40-42)

The line break there is worth noting. There are 8 chapters, a Prologue and an Epilogue, in nearly 560 pages. Sometimes books with very long chapters can be a slog, but there are probably hundreds of line breaks here, and this coupled with the heavy dialogue and propulsive narrative makes for a page-turner and relatively quick read.

That's about all I can say. It's not a perfect book, but it's a very good one, and while there may be other ones like it, I haven't seen them. The Little Friend will have to be added to the reading list. One hopes it will not take another ten years to remember to read it. By that time, who knows, we may have Tartt's true magnum opus. Because while The Secret History has remained popular and widely read and acclaimed for over thirty years, she is still out there somewhere, toiling in the shadows, and her greatest work may be yet to come. And maybe sooner than we think.

Rebel Girl - Kathleen Hanna (2024)

2025-01-01T14:33:00.002-05:00

Summarizing my entire prior familiarity with Kathleen Hanna as the "oeuvre rule" intro may overwhelm the reader, but I feel like this is a special book and it merits a special review.

I hadn't really heard the term Riot Grrl until my junior or senior year of high school, i.e. late 90's. This was from a male friend that observed broad cultural trends from an academic distance, and may or may not have identified as a feminist. If I'd heard of Bikini Kill before then, it was likely a passing reference that didn't leave any impression. At the time, Hanna was recording the first Le Tigre album, and I was deep into Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine and Beastie Boys. That would all change in a year or two.

Basically, there was one friend that represented and symbolized all things Bikini Kill and Kathleen Hanna to me. In 2004, Le Tigre played a $5 NYU show at Irving Plaza. She wanted to get a better view, so I told her to get onto my shoulders, and I quickly collapsed and nearly killed us both. I was weaker than I assumed. Another friend had burnt me a copy of the first Le Tigre album on CD-R, and so I was familiar with a few of their songs, but not most as it was the tour for This Island, what would end up being their last album.

This friend and I are now estranged, and perhaps my understanding of feminism and violence against women has finally evolved (or started to, at least, hopefully); my own complicity in perpetuating the status quo, with desultory "support" while maintaining what was essentially a misogynistic outlook is now apparent (some women were cool to me, but many were not). Years later, what I showed signs of being would get a name: incel. And it was because of such feelings that I assumed the problem was with them and not something within myself. It took a while to admit to myself who I really was, and it came too late, and I miss this friend terribly, and I message every time I go back to New York, and they are ignored, and I see what she posts on Instagram, and I am bowled over by all she has accomplished and achieved over the past 12 years, living up to the vision of her future career in near-perfect execution. What's clear now is that she was smarter and more emotionally mature and a more complete person 20 years ago than I even hint towards becoming at present, today.

I am always trying to do better in the face of these past failures, and it is in this context that I read Rebel Girl, often reflecting on that friendship and my regret over screwing things up, wanting so badly to make amends and yet unable to repair whatever damage had been done. This is a side benefit of the book. Beyond being an amusing personal history with amazing insight into the Pacific Northwest indie scene in the early 90's, it is an emotional journey that the reader takes with Hanna, and inevitably instills self-reflection. I think reading this book can make someone into a better person. Not that it entirely did that for me, but it may have helped set a better trajectory.

The memoir starts where most do, in childhood, and as might be guessed, it was not great. She has one slightly older sister and parents that fight all the time and eventually get divorced. Unfortunately her dad was a total creep, and this is probably the first "negative influence" that gave rise to her perspective: many men simply had no self-awareness, and her father could hardly have done a worse job as a "protector." As she noted in her interview on WTF, there was not sexual abuse per se, but there was verbal abuse, psychological abuse, physical abuse, and it was usually inappropriate sexually, or mind-boggling in its cruelty (not only towards his daughters, but also their dog):

"My dad was installing sprinkler systems in Gresham when he got the news he'd been elected the head of his union, Local 669. His new office was in DC, so we moved across the country just before I started elementary school, to a tiny suburb called Calverton, Maryland. We were unpacking our boxes when our dog, Holly, shat on the living room rug. My father dragged Holly over to the poop and rubbed her face in it, screaming, 'Look what you did! Look what you did! Well, you won't do it again, will you!?'" (8)

It is in that living room, at Christmastime, when Hanna first sings "Away in a Manger" to herself, loudly, that she finds her r'aison d'etre:

"Hearing my voice bouncing back at me was like watching light refracting off a mirror. A mirror I could finally see my whole self in. If there were words my body could've said, they would've been, 'Right now is perfect. Right now, nothing bad is happening.'...
Eventually I graduated to the bay window for my solo performances. I imagined I was looking out at an audience instead of an empty street. Singing was like figuring out I could make a rainbow appear on the wall just by staring at it. And because of that I always had a place I could return to when things got bad." (8-9)

We need not re-hash the memoirs by Kim Gordon, Carrie Brownstein, Patti Smith, Thurston Moore, Bob Mould (or Come as You Are, which I got a year ago and which will hopefully be up here relatively early in 2025), and we shouldn't forget Dean Wareham or Brix Smith, either. But they are all good-to-great, and I keep saying the latest I've read is the best one (i.e. saying Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl is better than Girl in a Band, in certain respects). This time is no different. Rebel Girl is probably better than them all with the exception of Just Kids, which should probably be enshrined as a Penguin Classic (more deserving than Morrissey's Autobiography, no doubt).

What makes it the best of them all is Hanna's willingness to be vulnerable. Not that the others above did not do the same (well, one of them did not even try), but Hanna is willing to equivocate and debate with herself, really digging down into the nuance of situations where others more neatly summarize. It may not be much longer than them, but it is 322 pages, and the chapters are notably short--similar to Kim Gordon's (who figures heavily in this book as well as a major role model)--but even more extreme. There is even a chapter that rivals the iconic coin-pusher chapter from Tom Scharpling's memoir in terms of absurd hilarity (ironically titled, "Big Tom").

Maybe it is not the best example, but one that struck me early on was her explanation of why she ran away from her mother's house, after her parents were divorced (unthinkably, she moves in her with her father despite knowing it is a terrible idea). It does not feel like the most rational or serious reason, but her willingness to be totally real and explain why she was in a bad place with her mom at the time is what sets this book apart:

"I'd gone on a long walk with her when I was visiting her in Portland and brought up the gun incident with my dad. At first she was defensive and asked why I was beating a dead horse, until I reminded her that we had literally NEVER talked about it. After a few minutes, we each shared our experience of that night, and I came to understand why she'd asked my sister and me to talk my dad down. The conversation ended with my mom telling me that she had one wish, she'd go back in time and protect me from my dad.
When we got back to her duplex, Randy [her mom's boyfriend] and I watched TV while my mom cooked dinner. Something on TV made Randy uncomfortable and he went off on a bizarre homophobic rant. When I asked him to stop, he just kept going.
Earlier that weekend I'd been hanging out with my friend Gene Barnes, an older hippie writer I'd met in Olympia. He was living in Portland making zines and doing activism. He told me he'd agreed to go on a Carnival-type cruise with his elderly parents and was starting to regret the decision. He'd promised himself he would tell them he was gay on the trip--which seemed extra stressful to me, but he told me he needed to do it ASAP. He had recently been diagnosed with HIV and didn't want his parents to find out he was gay in the hospital. So I helped Gene, a strong, self-possessed, hero-like figure, role-play how to come out to his parents. It was heartbreaking, though we laughed a lot too. And now I was sitting on my mom's couch, watching Randy flounce around the room mocking gay men for being 'too flamboyant.'
I started crying as I begged Randy to just please stop talking. I know my mom heard me, because she popped her head around the corner. I looked at her with a tearstained face, waiting for her to tell him to knock it off, but she turned away. This was the woman who'd told me, an hour earlier, that she wished she could go back in time and protect me. How about you protect me NOW? I thought. After yelling at both of them, I left, vowing never to return." (72-73)

Even though I may not think one man's homophobic stupidity in the late 1980s is a serious reason to question her mother's love, it is clear that her mother was still deferential to thoughtless men that hurt her daughters, even on a seemingly-unrelated issue, and that attention to detail--no matter how potentially embarrassing--is a testament to its greatness. Later Randy evolves in his attitudes and she repairs her relationship with her mother, and it is one of the more endearing moments in a series of them towards the end of the book, when all of the crazy instability of the first 40 years of Hannah's life finally begins to coalesce into something safe, loving, stable and nurturing.

There is a crucial moment in the book that more clearly than any other exemplifies its singularity. Basically, this is personal drama involving Kurt Cobain as a supporting character in a scene. (Later, Courtney Love is similarly invoked as she often is in memoirs listed above, and in a rather negative light--which further begs Love to write her own memoir--which clearly, despite however anyone may feel about her, could be truly epic.)

This is basically the moment where Hanna determines to better control her drinking. It is difficult to excerpt and I am wary of spoiling anything at all here, but it really feels like the defining moment and centerpiece of the book.

It is the story of the night of the graffiti--her and Cobain get spray paint to graffiti "GOD IS GAY" in giant letters (his) and "FAKE ABORTION CLINIC" (hers) on a new building for an organization that purported to give "pregnancy help" and instead would talk women out of getting an abortion by scaring them. They are very drunk and with Dave Grohl later go back to her apartment building. There is an odd configuration on her roof where she is able to walk across it and to the window of her friend that lives in the same building, who has daffodils growing on the roof. Kurt picks the daffodils and brings them to her, and then she realizes they are from his and instead of saying it was wrong to uproot them, chooses to brag about how she is just friends with the guy because he cooks for her and she has him wrapped around her finger, etc., trying to sound cool. Later her friend says he heard everything through an open window, and Hanna determines that she has a drinking problem and needs to get it under control.

This is the chapter "Benjamin Franklin's Glasses" and it was probably the hardest part of the book for her to write, along with its antecedent, "Friendship and Other Natural Disasters" (followed by "Throwing in the Towel" and finally "Reject All American"). It is not my place to re-hash trauma or spoil the complex drama that is masterfully teased out in the text--suffice to say, it is the most powerful moment in the book, and one of its purest examples of courageous vulnerability. It seems to be the defining trauma of her life, and the way she writes about it from these various contexts and angles across time only further deepens its impact.

In short, we often hear about how 66% or 75% or 80% of women have been sexually assaulted and/or raped. If "Me Too" did anything, it showed that the number is actually closer to 100%, particularly if you include any situation where such assault was escaped. I have to believe that the world is safer for women in 2024 than it was in 1994, but I know, it is still far, far from safe--and it is getting worse again. We might think that Rebel Girl would have had its moment in 2018, but we need it more in 2024 than ever. Don't go on X and look at any post about how men and women are supposed to act unless you want to know what I mean. I hate this stupidity and ignorance, and I will push this book on everyone, because it's only when we really fully inhabit someone else's experience of the world that we can begin to understand the sources from which all of the anger and frustration flow.

There is not much more I could say to convince you it is worth reading--you will either know and care about Bikini Kill, or not, but if you have nothing more than a passing interest in the music scene in the early 1990s, you will find something to value here. This is because Hanna's writing is so engaging that (like the currently pending item by Donna Tartt), she could write about pretty much anything and make it seem interesting to the reader, even if they never considered it interesting before.

Yet it is personal to me, in the way the book ends (not unlike Morrissey's autobiography either, totally). She doesn't mention playing Riot Fest with The Julie Ruin in 2016, but I went with that same friend from high school, the first one that acknowledged Bikini Kill as a cultural entity unto itself, and we rolled some rather large joints and snuck them in and lit one up as Julie Ruin began.

If you haven't seen Hanna live, you must if you ever get the chance, because she is one of the iconic performers of our time, and the banter is fantastic. She looked out at the crowd after the first song and made a couple comments. I don't remember what she said exactly, maybe, "Someone rolled up some scooby-doobie dos,"--while clearly looking directly at us. In that moment, we felt seen. Not in the best way, but not in the worst way, either. In any case, that moment was easily more memorable than the rest of the set, which obviously was very good too, one of the highlights that year in a very good line-up.

I went back to Riot Fest in 2017 and maybe I skipped 2018, I can't recall--but in 2019 Bikini Kill re-united and they headlined Riot Fest and I had to go. A friend had procured a certain item for us that she ensured was safe to take, and I popped it before Patti Smith's set, which kicked in sharply and made for one of the most beautiful concert experiences of my entire life, as Patti is clearly a national treasure and imbued with an energy that is truly profound and spiritually nourishing.

After taking such ecstasy in that performance, I moved towards Bikini Kill's stage (I think the Raconteurs were playing and I camped out an hour ahead of time at the neighboring stage), and I moved close to the front. Of course I wanted to be as close as possible. People started to go nuts as they prepared to take the stage. Early on, perhaps in the first or second song, I was taking a video, and there happened to be some ruckus that seemed like kind of an incredible WTF moment to have on an Instagram story, so I captured some of it, before one of the women nearby noticed and said, "Don't fucking take any fucking video!" and I became rather embarrassed and deleted it.

At a certain point, a song or two later, Hanna spoke about the rallying cry for which they became known--"girls to the front." And she mentioned that she always used to say that, because it was necessary, but now she realizes, it leaves out a certain contingent of gender expression. She did, however, gently suggest that the men near the front look around to see if they were in front of any women that could not get a good view, and maybe consider stepping back. A song or two later I did that and watched the last half of the set near the sound-booth.

Hanna writes about this same moment near the end of Rebel Girl:

"'I just want to say that we're a feminist band and we're headlining a festival!' I yelled into the crowd. As people cheered, I stood there silently, feeling proud and awkward at the same time. It didn't scare me, because our shows had always been sprinkled with the awkward. The goal had never been to be perfect; it had always been about asking questions and leaving space for the audience to see parts of themselves flash by.
And then the 'Girl to the front!' chanted started.
In the nineties I misgendered a butch lesbian at a Bikini Kill show and asked her to go to the back. I met her years later and she told me what I'd done. I apologized profusely and she laughed it off, but it still broke my heart, and it stayed with me. 'Girls to the front' may have served a purpose when we were a tiny band playing tiny clubs, but it was outdated. And while I knew 'girls' included trans women, I guess they might not feel safe pushing to the front, where TERF-y cis women might hassle them. And what about trans men, nonbinary folks, and BIPOC men? I didn't want to tell them to go stand in the back.
I took a breath as the chant got louder, and I asked the cisgender white guys to look around and think about how much space they were taking up. I asked them to think about how unwelcome some people usually felt at shows. I asked them to make space. And then I said, 'Oh, sorry, is this the same thing Slayer said yesterday?'" (315-316)

Not everyone gets to read a book that reflects back a reality as you experienced it, in that space and in that moment, and that also makes you think about all the choices and circumstances of your life up until that point, and so this book may mean more to me than you--but anyone that has any kind of personal connection to Kathleen Hanna or the music she has made will undoubtedly find several moments that cut deep in a similar way. She made something beautiful with her life, and turned her dream into a reality, and anyone that accomplishes such a task and is generous enough to write a book about it deserves praise. Hanna implicitly is saying in this book (and like many of the other memoirs referenced above), "You can do this, too," and giving the reader that confidence to move forward and boldly make their life into something beautiful, too, is a gift like none other.

Grade: A

Uproar and Heresy (Volume II of The Latecoming West) - A.P. Andes (2023)

2024-11-07T14:35:00.414-05:00

At a certain point, when updates become less frequent and the time to read is hard to find, the work here tends to coalesce and odd connections and coincidences form. Of course there was recently the Molly/Albini dichotomy, wherein a book offered similar rhapsodies to my own in the wake of an untimely passing, from an entirely different and prescient context. And similarly separated by one item, we have two Volume Twos in two tetralogies with slow starts that end on higher notes. One is this and the other of course is Authority, and at the time we did not know that Area X Vol IV (Absolution) would be coming on 10/22/24.

Like Authority, Uproar and Heresy, Vol II of The Latecoming West, started slowly for me. Unlike that work of speculative fiction, it was not a completely new setting with a completely new character--though it actually does include an element of that--but for the most part, it is a continuation of Volume I.

A.P. Andes is unlikely to reach J.K. Rowling-levels of wealth and fame, or even Jeff VanderMeer-levels, but The Latecoming West surely could be adapted into a powerful limited series, with the right context. For one it is quasi-religious programming, which has a certain viewership of sometimes incredible numbers. The problem is that this story is not a straightforward depiction of Catholic faith--it is an exploration of the entire religious order, and a dismantling of it to a degree.

Further relevance could be staked on controversial "rad-trad" beliefs percolating in conservative circles. Such individuals reject the framework of Vatican II and prefer the older traditions of the Catholic Church. This is, understandably, something of a moot point. "Rad trads" do not opine on Pope Joan. In fact, very few people opine on Pope Joan.

The most famous Joan is St. Joan of Arc and plenty of people know about her. Not all Popes become Saints, but sometimes they do. Pope Joan, in her depiction here at least, is no saint. She is a kind and benevolent and good person, but she is not a saint insofar as she is committing a fraud against the Church and also engaging in "relations" outside of marriage. The Latecoming West asks, to a degree, what is so wrong about that, and why we have these arbitrary rules that are often manipulated by those in power to suit their own sometimes nefarious ends. The hypocrisy of "true believers" subjugating women while they maintain their own authority and dictate rules to live by to all but themselves (in certain cases) is apparently impossible to illuminate, and that persistent frustration remains relevant today. The end result of The Latecoming West could be Catholic reform, and while I am sure Andes would welcome that, I do not believe he has such grandiose goals with his work.

It may sound dismissive to say the first half of the book went more slowly for me, and that it does not break much further new ground than Volume I, but it would have been worse to close out the Lorsch section of the chronicle without providing full context. While some of the material on the Gnostics and other heretical sects of Christianity is a natural outgrowth of those explorations in Volume I, for some reason those studies feel less important to Joan than being with Clovis. And it feels less important to the overall narrative in general. I still enjoyed these sections but they did not "connect" with me quite as strongly as in Vol I, because the "suspicion" narrative overtook it. Vol I. felt more like a bildungsroman for Joan, "worldview-building," for lack of a better term, charting her intellectual growth and assimilation into the monastic life at Lorsch. She has fears of being discovered, but that anxiety is outweighed by the exhilaration she finds in the "hidden texts" of the library. Clovis saves her life, and then helps her make it to Lorsch, and then basically exits the novel, until re-emerging in the opening of Vol II, for a potential tryst which is thwarted by an all-female pagan celebration/ritual ("Samhain") in the night. She is hurt rather badly--beaten and sexually assaulted--and she is mad at Clovis for not realizing the danger of meeting up that night (perhaps a precursor to Halloween), and he is mad at her for flaking on him, until he hears her story. Though this is a traumatic episode that humiliates and frightens her, she goes along with it out of desperation. And later in the novel, this "motif" appears again, in a far more benevolent context (in the character of Alcippe, who feels like an avatar for Sappho, or perhaps a Greek goddess, in a setting that feels like the Island of Lesbos), and introduces a layer of sexual fluidity to her character, which feels inevitable. Joan contains multitudes, and her various journeys and awakenings in this volume more deeply establish her as a Queer archetype. Though the prospect of heterosexual domesticity with Clovis is clearly available, both he and her recognize she is destined for "greater things," and so instead she remains an "imposter" and subsumes pretty much every identity in the LGBT-alphabet while remaining terrified of being "outed."

At a certain point Clovis obtains a post and a private room at the monastery, part-time, and while it makes sense that he could strike such a bargain (and the scene where he demonstrates his leverage over Father Abbot is one of the best moments in the book), it seems primarily aimed at advancing the plot. Of course, this is the closest Joan comes to having "the best of both worlds," and probably her happiest moments, but they are all suffused with anxiety and ultimately lead to her undoing, through which she once again survives only because of him. For me at least, the impact of that relationship on her feels more prominent than the impact of the scholasticism that made her love the routines of the monastic life as depicted in Volume I. It felt as though the developments of this section of the novel leave her distracted and confused and ambivalent about whatever "God's plan" may hold for her.

John the Angelic included a highly noticeable "WTF" element, with channel changing between the History Channel and VH-1 (albeit more academic musical programming) and 1980's movie scenes, which felt inexplicable, but added a level of intrigue to the novel. I am not sure it "worked" and it seemed to be deployed at random.

This is noticeably absent from Uproar and Heresy, and in its place is a more fully-realized counternarrative, which is arguably more compelling than the primary one. This is the story of the meet-cute between Rahel and Patek in Germany in 1933 and events unfolding over the next seven or so years of their lives. They are Polish Jews, and they are eventually forced to return there. They witness the rise of Hitler, and while Rahel initially feels exuberant and hopeful about the future of the country, Patek sees the writing on the wall, so to speak, and these portions of the novel feel especially relevant today, not only with the bloodshed between Israel and Palestine, but the presence of an authoritarian impulse in our home country (and many others springing up elsewhere). There is a cliche about history that is often applied to Holocaust narratives, i.e. those that do not know it are doomed to repeat it, and while there has been near-perennial "Oscar bait" that is based in this era in the 30 years since Schindler's List (with The Zone of Interest fulfilling that quota most recently), it sadly bears repeating. The horrors are simply unmatched, and the inhumanity is both astounding and perplexing.

7.5 years ago, we had occasion to review The Paris Architect. I would say it is on equal footing with Uproar & Heresy--if popularity with audiences is on equal footing with artistic merit (a complicated question in 2024, or any time, as the potential return on investment often becomes the key metric in determining whether a work of art can reach a wider audience). On the whole, Uproar has a more profound message, even if it feels a bit muddled. It reaches greater intellectual heights, but its focus is bifurcated. And really, it is more like 80% Joan, and 20% Rahel and Patek. The Paris Architect was not a great novel, but reasonably entertaining with more of a "thriller" element, limited, and neat. It was about an architect building secret rooms to hide Jews in Paris. It was enormously popular. It was optioned for a film adaption in 2016, and that project is either stalled or abandoned.

I have no doubt that had Uproar and Heresy maintained focus on this narrative, it would have been superior to The Paris Architect, and would find a larger audience and greater commercial success. But there is no "hook" to give it narrative heft, beyond its apparent connection to the Pope Joan narrative. Even so, being limited perhaps to 40 pages out of the 200 in this book, it is far more compelling in its historical-political accuracy:

"'Look at how he came to power,' he pointed out, counting out the dates on his fingers. 'The day after he is named chancellor, on the thirty-first of January, 1933, he promises the German people a parliamentary democracy. Yet the very next day, he dissolves Parliament. On the 2nd of February, he forbids all meetings of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands and undertakes a systematic search and seizure of their munitions. Two days later, on the fourth of February, Hindenburg--no doubt at Hitler's bidding--restricts freedom of the press." (92)

"'Do you think because he's the head of our government, he won't kill people? Listen--' Patek was furious and started a sentence three different times before taking a breath and speaking with calm deliberation. 'You need to understand how this man looks at human beings, and Jewish human beings in particular. Have you read Mein Kampf?
Rahel shook her head.
'Hitler categorises mankind into three groups: the founders of culture, the bearers of culture and the destroyers of culture. For him, the Aryan race is the sole member of the first group. The Japanese and Latins are examples of the second group, who are capable of maintaining a culture that has already been created but lack the nobility and genius to create one on their own initiative. Then we come to the third group: those who will destroy culture through their greed, malice, cowardice and ineptitude. In this class belongs the Jews and the Negroes. It is in essence a subhuman classification, and the laws that Hitler has put into place are the perfect logical, legal expression of such a status.'" (96-97)

Perhaps being a counter-narrative itself is its own "hook," and in any case, it works better than the "alternative" aspect to Vol I. As the stakes are raised as the 1930's proceed, when the narrative jumps back to Joan, she is finally leaving Lorsch and moving onto the next phase of her journey, which is an expedition to Greece to a new monastery with Clovis. (I am wary of spoiling either narrative and all I will say is that both pick up and the 2nd half of the novel is probably the best overall "section" of the tetralogy to this point, even if certain sections of Vol I. stretch towards more profound heights). But it begs the question, as in its predecessor: what is the connection?

One morning in Stockholm with a traveling companion in late August, we were enjoying fika while I perused these pages, and I read from a certain section and asked my friend, who takes deeper academic interest in history, religion and culture than me, what he thought the connection would be.

Well, he said, the Nazis knew the truth about Pope Joan. They had proof that she had existed and reigned as Pope and been white-washed as Pope Johannes, and they were preparing to release such information until they had been defeated and such proof was discovered and hidden again to protect the Church.

He spoke as if this was common knowledge, or perhaps he was just extrapolating some connection that he could divine from what I had said about the book over the previous days. It is not a spoiler to say such a connection is not depicted in Vol II, and there is not even a "hint" towards the connection.

Does the plight of Rahel and Patek mirror the plight of Pope Joan, the forced exile from Germany akin to the exile from Lorsch? I don't think so, because the departure from Lorsch is not nearly as involuntary. Are they demonized for their Jewish background as she is demonized for her gender? Not as unthinkably, in her case. Does the German government's treatment of the Jewish people in this era mirror the Catholic Church's treatment of Joan? Not quite because Joan would be more of an "embarrassment," with the Church pretending that never happened, and while there are unhinged Holocaust-deniers out there still, Germany itself has done what it can to disavow its part in the most evil moment on human history--it doesn't pretend it never happened.

And so my friend's theory--unlikely and fantastical though it may be--is arguably the most plausible, and one that lends itself best to fiction. The problem is it posits such Nazis as champions of truth, which is impossible to believe. I am not clear why they would want to destroy the Church, and what the actual impact would be of such a revelation. It does not seem like it would make a very big difference in 1945, or even in 2024. It would merely force the Church to reckon with its classification of the roles women were allowed to play (i.e. nuns).

Regardless of how messily it might serve the narrative, certainly, the "discovery of the truth" moment and the consequent dissembling of that once again would be the most powerful connection between the two narratives--Joan's 1st-person narrative, and the third person narrative of the later era, when she is unknown by history but might have been, absent the type of "hiding away" of texts at Lorsch that do not serve the Christian narrative according to the four basic Gospels. History is messy and written by the victors to serve their own ends and mirror their belief systems of right and wrong. This is a theme of The Latecoming West, but it has yet to be fully developed.

Or perhaps I am totally off and it is more about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity going back towards the founding of the Church:

"I already harboured antipathy towards Catholicism from the Church Fathers' writing condemning both women and Jews, but after the Gnostics and Valentinus most of all, my view of the Church was, if anything, softened. Marcion and the Valentinians were worse in their invalidation of the Jewish people and their religion. Valentinus may not have gone quite so far as Montanus, who proclaimed himself the Paraclete, but the different was meaningless, for Valentinus had rendered an unknowable scripture. This was the antithesis of the Word embodied in the spirit and words of Christ." (43)

Earlier, this almost posits Constantine the Great and Tertullian as precursors to Hitler for their "unflinching contempt" towards the Jewish people, but I feel I am oversimplifying, and that is something The Latecoming West does not do. Perhaps the first half is even "headier" than Vol I. and I simply missed it, skimming over some of these deeper contemplations to get towards the "action," which for me at least came in the 1930's narrative, and perhaps only because it felt more relatable to our present day-and-age. For one example, I skirted over the fact that Clovis is not just a "male saviour" that serves as Joan's vehicle towards new settings, but an intellectual influence as well that tempers her adherence to traditional Christian beliefs and expands her worldview:

"Clovis, who in his twenties had spent several years in Athens and was a fluent reader and speaker of Greek, had introduced me to the ideas of Plutarch, who came after Plato, teaching that God, the Creator of the world, had transformed matter as the vessel for evil into a divine World-Soul, which was however, the source of all evil. Plutarch's cosmos thus exists both as good and evil, in what was called the Dyad.
'You might think Plutarch's World-Soul inspired the malevolent demiurge of Valentinus,' Clovis had cautioned me. 'But Plutarch, just like Plato has a virtuous World-Soul and its dark side co-governing the universe in concert. Both Plato's and Plutarch's visions are distinct entire from the Gnostic view of a faulty creator fashioning the world as the inherent source of all evil.'" (21)

What follows is an excerpt from Plato's Timaeus (which I had not even heard of before, and which harkens back to Volume I's brilliant Phaedo-redux) interpolated by 2 pages (as in Volume I) that are not words but two abstract color images which may illustrate the creation of the universe or something else entirely. I simply do not know, and I do not think Andes wants us to know, yet (there is another similar page towards the end of the text which feels less abstract). And I am not sure what Volumes III and IV will hold, but I would guess they will have some kind of "WTF" element that accentuates the narrative, and I would hope that the story of Rahel and Patek will be continued. The novel ends on a note not entirely dissimilar to the opening pages of Volume I, where we see Joan in a new setting after attaining a higher-rank, four years later--but in the former case it serves as a "teaser" for her destiny, and in this case, a natural progression and demonstration of revolutionary thought, and recognition. It hints that Volume III will depict Joan's final years before ascending the papacy, and Volume IV will finally deliver on what exactly happened during her reign as Pope.

Whatever the case, I look forward to them. These are not perfect books, but they seem to be about something very important that goes to the heart of our belief systems and concepts of faith. They are noble attempts at discovering the truth of the nature of our existence, and how we may best love and support others around us (especially those that are irrationally and inhumanely condemned). This is at the very foundation of what it means to be human, and the same intellectual discourse that the Greeks undertook 2400 years ago, when they had very little recorded history on which to reflect. We now have the benefit of witnessing the progress of technology--as well as the turmoil, bloodshed, intolerance and ignorance that have persisted through the present age. We may know more about the nature of the universe, and have gone to the Moon, and have created little computers to keep on our persons at all times, and imaginary robots that sweep up all of human knowledge into a tidy few sentences to determine the truth (or current understanding) about any given subject, but we still fall prey to the baser human instincts of jealousy, envy, competition, dominance, and the dangerous pride that sometimes accompanies ambition. As such, it is fair to look to the Greeks as having just as advanced an understanding of the human heart and mind as we do today--and this is just one among several precepts that The Latecoming West seems to suggest. History is all around us, and we will only advance as a civilization if we are able to peer a little closer and understand what got us here.

Grade: A-

Chicago Cubs 2024 Year-End Report Card

2024-10-13T14:45:00.012-04:00

A couple days ago, the Cubs were mathematically eliminated from postseason play, and as we have done for now 11 years, we will review the team's performance on an individual player level (to the extent practicable, this often turns into a monumental task) in an attempt to diagnose what went wrong, and what we can do to win in 2025.

This year's report card starts where they sometimes end--with the manager.

Craig Counsell: C-

In November 2023, the Cubs announced that they had signed Craig Counsell to a 5-year, $40 million contract. This was the most exciting managerial signing since Joe Maddon, which is not really saying much but still, it was a similar clear-cut sign that the team intended to compete seriously for playoff contention. We all know how close we came last year.

After the results this year, which either will be equivalent or one win better depending on the final game, we may latently acknowledge that David Ross did a pretty good job with this team. He was a first time manager. Counsell is a rather experienced manager at this point and of course not everyone has Joe Maddon's (or to take an example from another sport, Phil Jackson's) ability to transform a clubhouse with gravitas. Counsell was denigrated by a certain contingent of Brewers fans, when a public park bearing his name near where he grew up was vandalized. Some viewed it as an act of betrayal, but more practical people realized it was the result of a cheap front office in Milwaukee--or was it? Whatever the case, it was amusing to see Counsell get booed anytime he came out of the dugout (he almost seemed to relish in it at a certain point), he did get ejected from a couple games, and of all people, he was the one to finally turn me into a "Swiftie" (never forget the candle).

I think in this case, there were growing pains. Ross knew many on the team personally as former teammates. Counsell knew many on the team as former opponents. The season started off on a brilliant note, and in April it looked like 2015 again. However, May brought us back to reality, and the "June swoon" was in full bloom this year. It wasn't until after the all-star break that the team began to right the ship.

The team went through various stages of struggles, but the story of the season is defined by two deficiencies: (1) bullpen struggles early on/decline of Alzolay; (b) offensive struggles until the TS rejuvenation. At the end of the year, however, I think more fans have reason to be optimistic for 2025 than they did for 2024, because the pieces have effectively been set, and there are only a few holes left to fill. The rotation was a bright spot, and perhaps it's best to start with the 2nd biggest move of the off season, and unlike Counsell, an unqualified success:

Shota Imanaga: A

Although the Cubs were allegedly involved in the bidding wars for Ohtani and Yamamoto, they were never really serious contenders for either, and instead wound up with the "consolation prize," who no, did not perform better than Ohtani, but yes, did eclipse the flashier and younger one-way player and became an instant celebrity and local hero. Yamamoto went 7-2 with a 3.00 ERA in 18 starts and 90 innings pitched (apparently was injured a bit). Imanaga went 15-3 with a 2.91 ERA in 29 starts and 173.1 innings pitched. He was the Cubs only All-Star and though he won't win the Cy Young or the Rookie of the Year award, he arguably deserves the latter. (He also would have thrown a no-hitter if he had been allowed to go beyond his pitch count, and will need to settle for the combined no-hitter.)

"Mike" Imanaga dressed up as Slinky Dog from Toy Story with his translator and provided at least one quotable moment from every single game he played. Not since Kerry Wood or Mark Prior have the Cubs ever had a rookie pitcher come out of the gates as a full-fledged star. Imanaga seemed to have more fun than they did, and also more than almost everyone else in the MLB this year. That being said, while he dazzled the league at first, he was "figured out" and had a few weaker outings. Still, the overall results speak for themselves. He couldn't have done much better this year, and the only sad thing is it will be a difficult performance to match. Despite being the de-facto Ace on the team throughout the entire year, I do not expect him to be the Opening Day starter in 2025. That would be the guy to maintain that post since roughly the departure of Jon Lester.....

Justin Steele: A-

There was another guy that took over for a couple years in between, but Steele came into the league in 2021 and proved his capability in 2022 and solidified his status as the Ace in 2023. The overarching narrative to Steele's 2024 is that it was very good, and while the numbers do not lie, they do not reflect his overall value.

Steele "redeemed himself" and finished with a 5-5 record (four of those wins came after August 18th). He finishes the year with a 3.07 ERA in 24 starts and 134.2 innings pitched. Notably, he was the opening day starter, and he was injured that same day. We did not have him for the rest of April, and the team performed well in spite of that. He had some difficulties when he returned, but then soon returned to prior form--but the offense never showed up for him until their 2nd half resurgence. Things looked brighter after that, and Steele also became the only Cub to throw a complete game this season.

Steele basically is our new Lester at this point, and he wants to have about 50 more innings pitched per year, and he was unhappy with himself for being injured (and we all know he cannot be blamed for that). After all of these years of write-ups I still have not properly educated myself on arbitration and other contract issues, but Steele netted $4 million this year after arbitration, and has earned every penny that he has been paid to this point. I would expect that number to double next year, if not triple. He is under team control for two more years, I think, and when he hits the free agent market, he will be going for 5-7x that amount (if not more). It would be prudent to pursue an extension with him, but the odd thing about this team's "competitive window" is that it may close for this "generation" of players in 2026. I do think that Steele can eventually mean as much to this organization as certain other pitchers reaching the probable end of their Cubs tenure this year, but it will be necessary to reach the post-season to prove that. Steele is a competitor, and will anchor the rotation in 2025 with Imanaga, giving us a strong 1-2 punch. We can be confident with the two of them at the top, and another solid performer slotted right behind them....

Jameson Taillon: B

Is it true that Taillon led the team in ERA on the 4th of July at 2.99? It sounds believable, and he ended the year #6 in the NL in ERA at 3.27. He finishes 12-8 in 28 starts and 165 innings pitched. He had a couple small injuries, and the primary narrative on him is that the Cubs did not trade him when he was apparently sought before the deadline. I believe most all fans were relieved. He has been more than serviceable. He is an innings-eater that can occasionally turn in a brilliant performance. More often than not, he was solid, and with two years left on his contract, will maintain a key role in this rotation through this immediate "competitive window." As for the 4th and 5th slots, a couple questions remain....

Jordan Wicks: C-

Again, not really fair to blame a guy for getting injured, but not as easy when the overall performance was a big step back from a very encouraging rookie campaign. Wicks stepped up in a big way in 2023 and nearly helped to carry the team into the postseason, so the rotation looked like it would be strong to start the year. Steele went down, and others needed to step up, but soon, Wicks went down too, and though he came back, he did not catch the kind of groove that he was on in 2023 and maybe we can chalk his 2024 as "marred by injuries." I had real confidence in him, coming into this year, and I kept thinking he was just having bad luck, but at a certain point in early September, I lost faith in him. It remains to be seen what he will do this off-season and how he may prove himself again. Clearly the talent is there and it can be unlocked again, but I do not think he is guaranteed a slot in the 2025 rotation. Potentially, he could be the 5th starter. We might as well say it here: the Cubs need to sign at least one really good starter in the off-season (Corbin Burnes being the first ideal option). If they sign 2 really good starers, maybe Wicks becomes a long reliever, or who knows really. I'd love to see him return to form and deliver on the early promise he showed last year. He is still just 25 and entering his prime playing years, so it can happen. If they only add 1 pitcher, however, they do already have a guy for the 5th slot...

Javier Assad: A-

Does Assad want to be a starting pitcher? Don't all pitchers want to start? That wasn't the idea when he first came up for the Cubs. He was a bullpen guy, and he was one of the most reliable ones. At a certain point in 2023, they needed him to step up as a spot-starter, and well, that just kind of continued throughout the entirety of 2024, and he did about as well as could be expected. In April, briefly, even though Steele went down, Assad was nearly as good as Imanaga. Other pitchers (most notably Ben Brown) also leveled up and helped the team maintain its hold near the top of the division. Unfortunately, a similar situation tended to crop up: starter turns in almost quality start, offense gives them a 1 run lead, bullpen or closer blows lead. No question that Assad can be a very valuable relief pitcher. They could have used him there then, but they needed him more as a starter, and you cannot say a guy that went 7-6 with a 3.73 ERA in 29 starts and 147 innings pitched was incapable in that role. Taillon may have had slightly better numbers, but he was also paid 18x as much as Assad. I don't believe anyone on this team provided greater "value" and that merits recognition (I've accordingly boosted him from a B+ to an A-). I do not know how he would feel about going back to the bullpen, but I am not anticipating the Cubs pursuing more than one new starter and would be totally fine with Assad as the #5. Personally, while it's been all but widely-telegraphed, if I were in charge, I would keep another guy in the rotation, though after 9/28/24, that appears extremely unlikely....

Kyle Hendricks: C+

No one was harder on him than himself, and Kyle Hendricks made no excuses for his 2024 performance. He admitted it was "bad" on multiple occasions. We know Kyle and his yearly trajectory. Traditionally, he starts slow. He has weak Aprils, and so-so Mays, but usually by June, he gets it together. He appeared to show some decline in 2022 and 2023, yet would also bounce back and return to "vintage Hendricks" often enough to justify a spot on the rotation. 2024 was his most challenging season yet as a player, and while C+ looks like an unfairly high grade, he earns it because he continued to be a total class act. He was famously demoted to the bullpen, and he took the assignment to heart, and worked his way back into the rotation. After the bullpen stint, he returned (for the most part) to prior form. Oh, there were a couple games after that (maybe a few), where he got seriously lit up. But during the last month of the season (1-2 with 2.89 ERA and 28 innings over 4 starts), he showed that he still has it. He wants to continue playing, and I think he will, but after the way the 9/28/24 game went, it will almost certainly not be on the Cubs, given the retirement-level love that was shown to him by the masses that showed up at Wrigley Field for a meaningless game with the also-eliminated Reds.

It was an outpouring of love that I did not see coming, because I thought I loved Kyle more than most people. Not true. Everyone did. Everyone knew that he didn't make an all-star team and the travesty of that. And when they showed his cumulative numbers over the past 11 seasons, it became clear that he will rightfully be known as a Cubs legend, arguably a greater one than Lester because he started from the ground up (Arrieta, too, was great, but flamed out faster than Kyle as well).

Kyle will turn 35 in December. He is exactly the type of pitcher than can remain effective into his late 30s and early 40s. No one is saying that he will be Jamie Moyer and he is not talking about pitching until he is 50 but the comparison is not inapposite. He doesn't rely on power; he relies on finesse, control, location, and baseball intelligence. He has performed at the highest level in the game. I wish he'd stay forever, but since it seems all but impossible, I sincerely hope for a Moyer-like "second act" to his career, even if it is with someone else. I will always be a fan. And I am still a fan of this guy even though I more-or-less lost faith in him this year....

Adbert Alzolay: D+

He was injured, that is the excuse. But there is no excuse for blowing 5 saves, let alone in the first month of the season (okay, first 5 weeks). He didn't derail the season for us, but he did snatch defeat from the jaws of victory a few times, and of course these seasons are often determined by matters of 1-3 games. We ended 2023 as an 83 win team, and we end 2024 as an 83 win team. We should have done better, like 90 wins. Maybe with Grandpa Rossi, we would have, but it does not help to imagine alternate realities.

Adbert was injured, yes, and he is a wonderful person and has great energy and I think he can be a valuable member of the bullpen, but I do not *believe* in him as a closer--not after last April. The Cubs need to add at least 1 starting pitcher, but just as importantly, they need a stud of a closer. Remember when they brought in Wade Davis in 2017, Craig Kimbrel in 2019, or David Robertson in 2022? Yeah, we need someone on that level. Adbert was awesome in 2023, and had 22 saves, so it made sense that he would get the opportunity. But after just having 4 saves this year, and 5 blown ones, he would need to prove himself in a major way. All that being said, neither Kimbrel nor Robertson did great this year, either. Neither did Adbert's replacement...

Hector Neris: C-

Hector "heart attack" Neris was the biggest offseason signing for the bullpen. He brought much needed experience to the bullpen, having pitched in high leverage situations for years and finding some reasonable degree of success. Very quickly, Neris established his M.O.: walk as many players as possible while not allowing any of them to score. That sounds like a joke but it literally seems like what he was trying to do. (Assad did this to a lesser degree as a starter, and not nearly as annoyingly--and it seems certain relief pitchers do thrive on the tension.) And yet, Hector maintained his track record--to a point. After Alzolay got sent down/to the IL, Neris became the de-facto closer, and he performed similarly. Both Alzolay and Neris blew 5 saves each. Ultimately, Neris was released, which made the "experiment" of using him as the closer appear somewhat more questionable in hindsight. I do not think he made anyone so nervous that it killed them, and perhaps it is inappropriate to joke about that, but Neris seemed aware of his nickname and proudly lived up to it. The photo above is taken from Neris's greatest moment of the season--managing to keep the White Sox from scoring in what was a very stressful moment in the stretch run to overcome the six teams ahead of the Cubs in the wild card race. Neris got the job done, and said, "that's why I'm the man," or something else that was similarly self-congratulatory. I loved the shades and I loved the attitude and I loved the attitude of his teammates (even if they hid their frustration) but Neris was no Andrew Miller (or even Jeremy Jeffress--and definitely not Jeremy Jeffress in 2020) and I was not saddened by his release. The idea behind his signing was good, however, the Cubs should add another veteran reliever to the bullpen, as it is stacked with promising young pitchers with more limited service-time. They did make one pick-up that was the highlight of the year for me.....

Jorge Lopez: A-

Famously, Jorge Lopez began the season on the Mets. There was some kind of incident involving him having a meltdown on the field and throwing his mitt into the stands. In a postgame interview, he acknowledged through broken English that he 'must be playing the worst fucking teammate in the MLB,' which sounded sort of like 'must be playing on the worst fucking team in the MLB.' He was released by the Mets the next day. In 28 games with them, he was 1-2 with a 3.76 ERA over 26.1 innings pitched.

This happened around May 29th, which incidentally, is also when the Cubs were hitting the panic button. We needed bullpen help badly, and I wished and wished that the Cubs would pick up Lopez. He was misunderstood. He has a child awaiting a transplant, and has mental health struggles at times. This is a good man that also has the type of energy that flourishes in Chicago. Dudes that throw their mitts into the stands may be unprofessional, perhaps, but never boring and you can never doubt that they care. When I heard that they did actually do that, I rejoiced. The Cubs did not pick up Joey Votto, which was was one of my 12 wishes for the year, but they did answer my prayers with Jorge Lopez, and for the most part I feel it was a match and I hope we hold onto him for 2025.

Basically, he became the closer after Neris was released, along with Porter Hodge. Apart from that, he was basically a setup man, and he pitched in whatever the situation required. He did great. In 24 games with the Cubs, he went 1-1 with a 2.03 ERA in 26.2 innings pitched. I'd give him an A, but I have to knock it down to an A- (if not a B+) for the unfortunate lowlight that came near the end of the season, when he entered the game in the 8th inning with a 3 run lead, and promptly blew it and put us behind (9/2/24 vs. the Pirates). This after Jameson Taillon had just pitched 7 innings of shutout 3-hit ball. This was right around the time of the beginning of the end--because we really needed to win every game--and something here is worth noting, about that stretch between August 23-Sept 1--but it's best kept to the end. Regardless, every game was crucial, and because of that one outing, it may sour everyone on him. I would put that in similar territory to the Seiya Suzuki missed ball last year, though actually that may be making an unfortunate point. I still love Lopez despite that and think he might have been my favorite player on the team.

Some other relief pitchers no doubt merit mention.

Smyly was Smyly, going 4-8 with a 3.84 ERA in 58.2 innings pitched, earning $8.5 million doing so, and he's a free agent and I'm not sure he will be back, but he did alright overall (maybe a B or B-).

Porter Hodge was great, going 3-1 with a 1.88 ERA in 43 innings pitched, many of them increasingly higher-leverage. He could be the closer in 2025, though I'd rather not go into the off-season believing that. He's 23, and relief pitchers are inconsistent, but I think this is his rookie season and based on that he would get an A.

Mark Leiter, Jr. started off the season on a huge note, basically being perfect for a pretty long time, and making me rue my statement last year that I would not mind if he was traded. Well, he did great, really great, grade A or grade A- stuff, but then he kind of came back down to earth and I didn't mind when he did end up getting traded, though I am not sure the guy we got in return is that much better. In any case, MLJ went 2-4 with a 4.21 ERA over 36.1 innings pitched. He didn't do much better on the Yankees, but it probably doesn't matter as much because the Yankees don't have the same offensive problems. I'm happy for him, I would say that would be a trade most people would be OK with, and especially this year, though I think he did need to shave off his facial hair. Maybe a B- or C+

Tyson Miller was great, and there is pretty much universal agreement that his signing was a bright spot for the team's front office in 2024. Before we got Jorge Lopez, we got Tyson Miller, and he was probably the most consistent pitcher in the bullpen, going 5-1 with a 2.32 ERA over 62 innings pitched. I think he needs to get an A.

Ben Brown arguably deserves his own profile above because he actually fulfilled a huge role on this team in the early part of the season, and it was due in no small part to him that they came out of the gates on all four cylinders, so to speak. He came up huge for them, like Assad had before. But then he got injured and the sample size is pretty small (1-3 with a 3.58 ERA in 15 games over 55.1 innings pitched). He got lit up a few times, too, but overall I think he made a very good impression, and should figure into the plans in 2025 due to his versatility and willingness to show up for whatever job is needed. B+ is probably fair.

There was also Wesneski (inconsistent, sometimes great, weaker down the stretch, thrown into odd roles also, C+, maybe B-, because he actually had more innings pitched (67) than Smyly and a nearly identical ERA), Nate Pearson (about whom you could say practically the same things, with 66 innings pitched and a bit higher ERA), and then there's Luke Little, Ethan Roberts, Keegan Thompson, the other Paredes, Colton Brewer, Yency Almonte, Jose Cuas, and Daniel Palencia, with smaller sample sizes, to varying degrees of success, a few of which I'd rather not comment on, but it seems Palencia is still young and may yet learn how to develop better control of his pitches. Julian Merryweather, too, was not as impressive with a smaller sample size.

Bottom line: basically, the pitching was good. Imanaga was amazing, and the other starters were good to great and did their part, to the extent they could, and the starting rotation by and large for most of the season was very good (save for Hendricks's performances earlier in the season). And basically, the bullpen was good. They weren't the problem, though they were in April when we were still having some offensive success (though really, not very much!) and living in situations where we went into the later innings with a lead (generally by 1 run). So while the bullpen coach was just fired today on 9/30/24, and some of the decisions weren't always great, in the end, over the long run, the bullpen did well, and the pitching in general was pretty good. It could definitely be better.

And so could the hitting. We can go in the order of home runs hit.

Ian Happ: B+

Home runs are not the most important statistic (I think RBIs are more important), but they are an easy thing to measure, and frankly an area where the Cubs could use some help. Perhaps it is unsurprising that Ian Happ finishes the year as the Cubs home run leader (and also the RBI leader). I am not sure it has happened before, and I think if Christopher Morel had not been traded, he would have finished the year with the most.

Such as it is, Ian Happ is a cornerstone on this team after signing a 3 year contract last year. He made $20 million this year and totally earned it, and will hopefully totally earn the $20 million next year and the $18 million the year after that. He said he compromised on structure and terms because he wanted to be in Chicago and it seems like once that contract is up, he may go elsewhere (maybe Pittsburgh or Cincinnati?), but regardless, he wasn't on the team in 2016 but he basically could have been, and when he came up in 2017, looking back, he was pretty awesome.

He went back down to the minors in 2019. He was an all-star in 2022. He has 2 Gold Gloves and may get his 3rd shortly. This season he played just about as well as last season. They were very similar performances at the end of the year. He played in 5 more games last year and had 19 more walks and 4 less home runs. His slugging percentage this year was .10 higher but his OPS was .09 lower. His WAR was 0.9 higher this year than last year, so I guess that makes him that much more valuable and I guess he kind of felt that way.

Happ is an old school ballplayer and my favorite thing he does is make some kind of incredible ridiculous play and then performatively nonchalantly throw the ball back in for the next plate appearance. This is just the job he does. Rizzo has been gone for 3 years now, and no one has assumed the role of captain on the team. Maybe this was already the case but if it hasn't been clear enough yet, what Ian Happ did for Kyle Hendricks on 9/28/24 cements his status. Happ is the Captain now.

He's been effective in the leadoff spot, and maybe that is where he needs to stay in 2025. Of course, Nico or PCA would be reasonable options as well.

Michael Busch: A-

A- for a guy that hit .248? It's 2024. That's league-average now. But his numbers were not quite as good as Happ's. He still gets a higher grade because (a) he exceeded expectations, and (b) it was his rookie season. In many other years, he would have a fairly good shot at Rookie of the Year. This is 2024, however, and he is the 2nd best candidate for that award on the team (either the guy on the Padres and or the guy on the Pirates will probably win though).

The Cubs started off hot, and so did Busch, and for a minute, people were saying we had found Rizzo's heir-apparent. And while it is not unreasonable to imagine that Busch could approach Rizzo's production, he is not as good a contact-hitter. He was a mixed bag, at times. But at the beginning of the year he hit home runs in 5 straight games and it was fun to see how long he could keep it going. At first his defense appeared a bit "sus," but by the end, he was excellent (again Rizzo-Gold-Glove excellent, I'm not sure). In any case, trading for Busch was one of the few moves for which Hoyer should be applauded (probably the 2nd best transaction after the Imanaga signing).

A brief word may be said about rumors that the Cubs may pursue Pete Alonso, aka Polar Bear, currently on the New York Mets. We do need a serious power hitter and Alonso would probably be the most "affordable" option, but would he be that big of an upgrade over Busch? Rookie Alonso in 2019 with 53 home runs and 120 RBIs? Absolutely a no-brainer. Alonso in 2024 with 34 home runs and 88 RBIs? Closer call. Alonso had 112 more at-bats, and had 13 more home runs and 23 more RBIs than Busch. I think he'd still be an upgrade, and if they go for him I won't complain--but I don't think he should be the primary pursuit in the off-season. (Juan Soto and Corbin Burnes should take priority.)

Seiya Suzuki: B+

Like Happ, Seiya's 2024 was remarkably similar to his 2023. Last year, I gave both players an A-. Maybe I am just being harder on everyone this year. But a B+ is still a good grade, solidly above-average, and Seiya continued to deliver to the extent he was expected.

This picture is taken from when Seiya was placed on the 10-day IL for a strained oblique on 4/15/24. The Cubs recalled Alexander Canario from AAA to fill the roster spot. [We did not see enough of Canario this year. That is one point I wanted to make. He had 25 at-bats and 7 hits and 1 home run and 2 RBIs. That is 4 less than last year, because he had a grand slam in even fewer at-bats (was it his 2nd or 3rd plate appearance in his MLB career when he did it? I think so.) The disregard shown to Canario was one of the canaries in the coal mine when it came to the offensive struggles of this team.]

Back to Seiya--how similar was his performance to 2023? He played in 6 less games this year (138 down to 132). He had two more plate appearances (583 up to 585), three less at-bats (515 down to 512), one less run (75 down to 74), two less hits (147 down to 145), one less RBI (74 down to 73) and one more home run (20 up to 21). Etc. He led the team in .OPS and batting average.

The one area where he was much better was running. Stolen bases went from 6 to 16. He had been caught stealing 7 times last year, and only 6 times this year, which is a bit more respectable.

The one area where he was much worse was fielding. A few additional gaffes this year built upon the uncertainty that reared its head on that fateful missed ball near the end of last year. There were even rumblings that it might be the dreaded "yips." It was clear how upset Seiya became at himself after that play last year, and though we said we wouldn't be talking about it again a year later, here we are, because sometimes trauma seeps in deeper. By the end of the year, Seiya was in the DH role, and he performed about as well there as he did as a right fielder. I don't think anybody considers him a "bust" because of this, and regardless of whether he is on the field for defense, his status as one of the most consistent hitters on the team assures him a key role in 2025.

Cody Bellinger: B+

The main story a year ago: RESIGN CODY BELLINGER.

The main story this year: IT'S OK IF BELLINGER OPTS OUT AND IT'S OK IF HE OPTS IN BUT *COUGH* PAYROLL FLEXIBILITY

Put me in the "hope he opts in" camp unless they get Juan Soto. At this point, Corbin Burnes is the primary free agent candidate for the Cubs, and he might be the better addition than Soto. Soto plays Left Field and of course he would be an upgrade from Ian Happ and of course certain players could get shifted around on the field but our "hole" is a true power hitter. It seems as though Burnes is not outside the realm of possibility, but Soto probably would be (I know at least one Yankees fan that has said he will never forgive them if they don't extend him). In which case I hope Cody stays, because while he wasn't quite as good as last year, he is a good, disciplined hitter that puts together solid at-bats and constitutes a threat in the lineup. And I don't think a resurgence is out of the question. He took a slight step back in 2018 after a truly remarkable (Trout-like, if not better) rookie season, and then came back in 2019 to do even better than he did in 2017. Last year was the closest he came to a return to form, and yes, this year was a step back, and yes, he struggled with some injuries that may have affected his play.

Appearing in the exact same number of games as last year (130), and in 17 more at-bats and 13 more plate appearances than last year, he has 16 less hits, 8 less home runs, 19 less RBIs, 11 less stolen bases and 41 points lower in batting average. He had 5 more walks than last year, though.

The key statistic for Bellinger is strikeouts. Happ, Suzuki and Busch (the other biggest power hitters) each had over 160. For reference, the highest number Javier Baez ever had for the Cubs was 167, and that came in his mythic 2018 campaign, the closest he came to MVP. Happ had 168 this year. Bellinger had 89. We have a problem with striking out and leaving runners on base and Bellinger is an antidote to that. He may not have been a "superstar" but he is still a threat in any situation. Whatever happens with Bellinger, he won me over and I will be happy if he chooses to stay on the team. And if he decides to leave, it will not be the end of the world. Last year, it was a real signal from the front office that they listed to fans and prioritized his re-signing. I am optimistic that is a sign of things to come this year.

*EDIT* I forgot I had written the above, and I wrote this today. Leaving it.

[Cody Bellinger: B

Despite it seeming like he was more bothered by injuries this year, Cody Bellinger played in exactly 130 games both years. He wasn't as good as he was in 2023, I can say that without looking at any stats. He is arguably without a spot in the field, but also a solid versatile replacement option, not unlike the once-great KB. That is probably the fairest comp actually. We lost KB but we got Bellinger as the next best thing. It's safe to say Bellinger has been better than Kris Bryant over the past few seasons, but his performance this year was akin to Bryant's last couple years on the Cubs--certainly above-average and a threatening presence in the lineup, but not setting the world on fire exactly.

He did have the 3rd best batting average on the team. Doesn't he deserve a B+? Maybe. He got an A last year. He had 8 more home runs and 19 more RBIs in 17 less at-bats last year. I guess maybe because he was so good, his coming back down to not-quite-all-star level is more jarring. It was not unexpected. And by all accounts, Cody is a great teammate and certainly possesses a gravitas of his own. He was perhaps the primary concern of many last off-season, and while his status is still in flux for 2025, there is less commotion around what the Cubs should or should not do. The Cubs did what they did and I think most would view that as a positive move. It's up to Bellinger to decide and while I think most hope he will stay, just as many are indifferent if only because of other players have blossomed (most obviously PCA emerging as an everyday starter). I would expect a slight improvement in 2025 for Bellinger but time will tell (as these posts often chillingly do, years later).]

Dansby Swanson: B+

What is WAR?

In these write-ups after each year, we tend to focus on the "classic" stats that matter. So many of these newfangled stats are pointless. But this year for the first time, about 15-20 years late to the party, I am actually looking at WAR (maybe next year, I'll learn about WRC+). I know that it means "wins above replacement" and generally measures how valuable they are to the team. I may be completely wrong but I'm going with that for now.

It stands to reason that a team's highest WAR player will also be the most valuable player on the team. In 2024, that is Dansby Swanson. (This is not quite as strange as David Bote leading the team in RBIs in 2020; Bote, still kicking around and with a short stint in the majors this year after disappearing for the past couple, must be kept for legacy purposes.) I love Dansby and I have his shirt-jersey, but for about half the year, I was one of the very few to keep believing in him, and ultimately that faith paid off. His first half performance was terrible. People are saying now, he may have been injured and Counsell may not have managed that very well.

It has to be water under the bridge now. The season is over. Swanson redeemed himself by eventually going on a torrid stretch near the end of the season. He was better last year and he is downgraded from A- to B+. Arguably deserves to be downgraded to B. 6 less home runs and 14 less RBIs this year. Batting average basically the same (.244 and .242). Like Seiya, he improved in stolen bases. I am not sure how he has the highest WAR but he does. He gets things done when it's a tense situation and he needs to keep the inning going. He's probably going to win another Gold Glove (despite some highly "sus" fielding earlier in the season). He's still got the biggest contract on the team and isn't going anywhere and that is just fine. A full season of Dansby like he was in the 2nd half = an all-star, and I would expect something close to that type of performance in 2025.

Christopher Morel: D

We thought Morel was the future. We all loved it when Counsell decided to show faith in him and let him play 3rd base almost every day. He made numerous fielding errors, but regardless--in April, we would take it, because he was hitting better than at any point in his young career. His whiff rate was amongst the best in baseball. He was hitting home runs at a rate akin to Pete Alonso. Had he remained on the team, I have to believe he would have finished with over 30 and be at the top of this hitters list.

Unfortunately May, June and July happened, and Morel was traded for Isaac Paredes, a "true" 3rd baseman that came over from the Tampa Bay Rays. I believe the Cubs also let a relief pitcher go to the Rays in the deal but the write-up on the Marquee Sports Network website does not refer to that person, perhaps because they are a shill for the team (though in fairness, they have to be, that is why they came into being--and even though some of the programming is sometimes amusing, and even though the network was supposed to bring in more revenue to help support a big-market payroll, I do not think I am alone when I say I miss WGN a lot).

Did I like this deal? No. Morel is the closest thing the Cubs had to Javy Baez since 2021. PCA had not yet emerged when Morel departed, but now we see PCA as that person, and even though he does play with verve and and generates similar excitement, Morel is one-of-a-kind.

I am sad to have lost him, but perhaps he will flame out in Tampa Bay or get released for some reason and we can pick him back up at a bargain rate. Some players are just meant to be in Chicago and flourish here unlike other places, and he is one of them. That being said, his May, June and July months were terrible, and whatever discipline he was displaying in April seemed to get "figured out" by pitchers and perhaps he had trouble re-adjusting. We heard that Morel might get traded because he was a valuable bargaining chip and we didn't want to believe it would happen.

But it did happen. And so we have Paredes now, and we have to believe the move will ultimately pay off in the end.

Isaac Paredes: D+

This year, it didn't. Would we have made the playoffs with Morel? The world will never know. And even though Paredes was a disappointment overall, he did display flashes of greatness--perhaps most conspicuously during that last week of August when the team roared back from the brink of despair and turned us all back into temporary believers.

But if you look at their 2024 stats, Morel and Paredes are fair comps, and the Cubs got the better end of it. Morel hit .196. Paredes hit .238. Paredes had 80 RBIs to Morel's 60. Paredes had 24 more hits than Morel and only had 7 more at-bats. I initially rated him a D- but I am moving him up to a D+. He only hit .223 as a Cub. He did actually have a better first 1/2 of the season and played for the AL in the All-Star game. I think both players will have bright futures. People have already whispered about Paredes as a potential bargaining chip, and many may bemoan that the Cubs did not go for Matt Chapman in the off-season, but I think we need to go into 2025 knowing that Paredes will be playing 3rd base, unless there is some kind of massive free agent signing out of the blue. We have to love and support him, and we hope it will be easy. At least we have a few others that are easy to love....

Pete Crow-Armstrong: A-

I wasn't sure I believed in PCA in 2023 when he came up and batted .000 in 14 at-bats and 19 plate appearances. I gave him a pass because I'm pretty sure my cumulative little league batting average was .000 (but I had an excellent on-base percentage and scored often enough to not be totally useless). We all need to make adjustments.

He made those in 2024 and he became the player that so many people said we were getting when we lost Javy Baez to the Mets. This year, that trade finally paid off. I don't even need to look up Javy Baez's 2024 numbers to know that PCA did better. I will always miss Javy (did you see when the Cubs did that tribute to him when the Tigers came into town, and it looked like it brought tears to his eyes? We will always love him here. Just as we will always love Hendricks, and even Rizzo despite un-fact-checked political leanings) but PCA is indeed the future, and I think after this year, everyone is totally fine with that. Of all the players the Cubs have, he is the closest thing they have to a potential superstar.

To be that, his 2025 will need to build on this year, and if he can play like he did in the last 2 months of the season, there is no question that he will make the All-Star team. PCA stole 27 bases this year, good for 2nd on the team, but he can clearly get 50+ next year. He had an inside-the-park HR, and was clocked as one of the fastest runners in the MLB (if not the fastest). He would be a great leadoff hitter, but he seemed to perform well in the bottom half of the lineup, and became a threatening presence as the year wore on. He is probably the most exciting player on the team and the clearest symbol of hope for the future. We can expect him to start in Center Field almost every game in 2025.

Nico Hoerner: B

Nico did what Nico does. In a continuing trend, his 2024 performance largely mirrored his 2023 performance--but slightly worse. 16 less hits and a surprising 20 less RBIs and down from 43 stolen bases to 31. Batting average down from .283 to .273, which is still good for 2nd best on team behind Seiya.

In terms of WAR, it goes Swanson, Happ, Hoerner, Seiya and then finally Shota. Look I think we all know Shota was the most valuable player on the team this year. So I don't think WAR matters. Of course he is only playing every 5th game, so that should be factored in. The other 4 guys at the top probably had more plate appearances than anyone else on the team. I'm glad my guy Dansby is #1, but I don't think it matters as much as the "classic" stats. Nico could just as well be #1 as he basically does the same things that Dansby does while hitting for less power.

In any case, like Happ, Hoerner represents history. He came in 2019 at the tail end of the year after being anticipated for years, not unlike PCA currently. He has never been a superstar and has never been an all-star. He probably deserved it last year. Maybe those numbers improved in the 2nd half, but his end of the year numbers last year are all-star like. This year, his numbers don't look quite as good, but anecdotally from watching Hoerner, he is far from an automatic out. His OBP is slightly lower than Ian Happ's--but he struck out 102 less times than Happ.

He struck out just 66 times. Mike Tauchman--just 9 points behind Seiya for #2 on team in OBP--struck out 4 more times. Hoerner had 582 at-bats; Tauchman had 298. Hoerner is the best contact hitter on the team. End of story.

A brief note on academic prestige: the "smartest" on the team has never really been a consideration. People took it for granted that Hendricks, Dartmouth graduate, the "Professor," was the smartest. But let's be honest, Stanford is a better school than Dartmouth. Where someone went to school doesn't really matter as much in baseball, and similarly in real life jobs, your performance speaks for itself. Still baseball is probably the "nerdiest" sport, even as I think the nerdier stats do not tell a more accurate story than the anecdotal observational one. Suffice to say, if the Professor really is gone, then an understudy needs to step into his shoes.

I said above that Ian Happ is the captain, and Rizzo's heir-apparent in that role. Nico would be second in command. Also, there is no Bryzzo on this team, and no cute name combination with Swanson, but they are effectively the closest thing (except lighter hitting). We will have Nico for at least 2 more seasons. Some people are talking about trading him and even saying they can afford to do so because of some prospect named Shaw coming up. Absent a major free agent signing that crowds up the playing field, this should not be done. Nico--like Happ and Swanson--is a good enough player to be on a World Series team. He needs to "outperform expectations," like so many others on the team, but his consistency and leadership should not be undervalued.

Miguel Amaya: B

Like Hoerner, Amaya spent enough time in the minor leagues as a prospect with enough buzz for us to get tired of hearing about him and then being underwhelmed. A lot of people dumped on him this year. But as I've said many times, a catcher's offensive numbers are not nearly as important as how they catch the pitching staff, and looking at the way Amaya handled all of the starting pitchers, a huge part of their success can be attributed to him.

He stepped up this year, taking over the majority of duties that Yan Gomes took last year. Gomes regressed this year and was released, unfortunately. But Amaya stepped up. He caught 117 games this year (up from 53 last year). His numbers may be silly to compare, but he batted 22 points higher--from .214 to .232. Neither is great but in 2024, .232 is probably OK for a catcher. People also noticed that he ramped up his performance near the end, like Swanson and PCA.

This may have also come at the time when Christhian Bethancourt joined the team and looked like the greatest hitting catcher of all time for a while. Bethancourt had a 7 RBI game. In the MLB, success is contagious. Hot hitters make other hitters hot too. Bethancourt was a major surprise, and his success revealed itself to be something of a fluke after not too long. He would also get a B, however, and I am fine with the 2 of them as our catchers in 2025. There are not many great replacement options for them.

But yeah, combined no-hitters are kind of dumb and Shota might have been able to finish that game, but catching a combined no-hitter is no less an impressive feat, and Amaya seemed to be celebrated just as much for that performance. He probably is not going to make the all-star team next year, but if he can build off that improved performance in the later part of the year, stranger things (like say Rick Wilkins in 1993) have happened.

Mike Tauchman: B+

In terms of baseball intelligence mentioned above, it's fair to say that Tauchman is probably at the top. He approaches every single at-bat as an intellectual exercise. He went to a more modest school (Bradley) than Hendricks or Hoerner, but this should prove that doesn't matter. He is also the oldest player on the team now, but he did not look or act like it.

He ends the year with numbers very similar to last year--and in many cases, just slightly lower--but weirdly enough he seemed better this year, by the anecdotal observational measure. I don't think I am crazy. Maybe it just seemed that way because he was like that when the rest of the team was slumping hard.

This team's performance in May and June and July basically decimated them. That they came back the way they did in the 2nd half (not hugely different from last year) is a testament to what they can do, and the resilience they have. Tauchman kept their hope burning faintly in the corner, outside the limelight, helping them win a few games during those months that injected bursts of energy and inspired others. By that point I trusted him just about as much as anyone else on the team, and I still would. Unfortunately he is seen as mostly a defensive replacement/utility man.

Like advanced stats (which maybe I decided today were stupid again), I still don't understand salary/contract/arbitration issues, but Tauchman made $1.95 million this year and is not under contract, but does not become a free agent until 2027. Will he even play after that? I'm not sure but I think if he continues to perform at the level he did this year, he doesn't need to stop. The problem with diagnosing this team is that there are no "holes" in the roster, just areas where they could stand to improve, like power hitting.

Patrick Wisdom: D+

Wisdom and Amaya had the same number of home runs (8). Amaya does have some power occasionally, but Wisdom did that in 1/2 the number of at-bats. Last year, we did not think he would be kept on the team this year, but thankfully he was still here and also was the Cubs nominee for the Roberto Clemente award.

He is a great presence on the team and occasionally made good things happen (may have won a couple games for them) but he did it while hitting .171. Almost 33% of his hits were home runs. He had 27 hits. Granted he effectively became a pinch-hitter and I think he is a likely strikeout victim waiting to happen each time. He wasn't that great but this is what Wisdom does. I believe there was a Cubs auction where one of the items was being read a bedtime story by him and that is hilarious. He is hilarious in general. He is not a major factor on the team but he is a wild card and a secret weapon that can occasionally be deployed for devastating effect.

He got paid $2.73 M this year, a little more than Tauchman, and Tauchman better earned it, but it was not a huge waste. Again like so many other years I don't want anyone off the team but I see Wisdom's status as similar to last year's. For some reason I won't be quite as surprised if he remains on the team. We do not have a dynasty on our hands. It looked like we might, from 2015-2021, roughly. Wisdom came in after KB was gone, and he was their third baseman for a while, until they decided they needed a more legit starter at that position. I'm not sure Wisdom ever got his fair shake there. He's not terrible defensively. He plays 1B too. In any case, he is in a similar position to Hoerner, Amaya and Happ: an established presence. And one I would not like to lose, because I still think he's capable of breaking out and going on a torrid stretch. He put in a lot of work last off-season and it seemed like it was paying off, briefly. I would still believe in him for another year, though I believe he will also continue to strike out at a robust rate.

He had far less at-bats this year (158 after 268 last year), but do you realize he had 23 home runs last year, behind only Morel and Bellinger? What have I said is the biggest problem on this team? Lack of power. As such, Wisdom deserves to be kept, because he is one of the precious few with access to that commodity.

Bottom line: basically, the hitting was not very good. We lacked power. It's tough, because as mentioned above, we don't have any major holes in the lineup--just a few above-average players that we can't bear to part with because they mean to much to us emotionally and still prove that they belong on a World Series team.

We need another starter, we need a closer, and we need a good power hitter. Those 3 things.

There are other smaller gaps they can fill, too, but the holes are limited. Jed Hoyer wanted the Cubs to be in the playoffs this year. There were playoff expectations. We didn't make it, and we finished with the exact same record as last year.

2023 and 2024 were basically the same year, and the playoff stretch run only got settled about a week or two sooner because the teams performed better. There were like 6 teams ahead of the Cubs in the wild card race and they finished one spot out behind the Diamondbacks. They were the only better team not to make it.

I took a trip to Copenhagen this year on August 23rd. I had mostly given up, but I said, if they went on a tear and won every single game that week, while I was out of the country, it would restore my faith in them.

That is exactly what happened. That week was insane. That was apparently the week when Craig Counsell discovered some kind of Taylor Swift candle in his house and I am totally unclear on the details but I think he brought the candle into the locker room and he lit it and then the team played like the best team in baseball for a week.

That was the week where Christhian Bethancourt had a 7 RBI game and they scored like 100 runs. They were just so damn good for a minute. They were on a tear. And they had the easiest schedule of their competitors in the wild card race.

But then they got swept by the Guardians in Cleveland, and that was the beginning of the end. Seemingly. They didn't give up. They still went out and swept the L.A. Dodgers in L.A (it finally did fall apart when they lost to the Rockies and Pirates at the end). The L.A. Dodgers are playing the New York Mets in the NLCS starting tonight.

I am not supposed to root for the Mets but 1969 was before I was born and and sometimes lifetime grudges are stupid. It's not like the Mets are much better than the Dodgers in terms of "trying to buy a championship," but that just blew up in their faces last year and it was sad to see. That looked like it was still the case this year (see Jorge Lopez incident above, the low point of the Mets season), but they hit a hot streak near the end of the year (shades of Diamondbacks in 2023) and have proved once again that wild card teams make baseball the best sport.

The Cubs are going to try to win the division in 2025. They have made that unmistakably clear. Knowing our luck, that will happen, but it will happen like it did in 2020, and like it did for the Brewers this year: the excitement and feelings of success were short-lived. It might be better to hope for the wild card.

Molly - Blake Butler (2023)

2024-07-28T12:43:00.001-04:00

I first became aware of Molly via Twitter. (It was probably after it changed its name to X, but I digress.) I had never heard of Blake Butler before, but somehow he showed up in my feed. Maybe it was from another writer re-tweeting something about this book, or maybe it was the "magic" of the algorithm. (Actually, the first chapter was published by The Paris Review, which promoted it in a tweet--so an "organic follow" - Ed.) Whatever the case, for whatever reason, though I am not often drawn to read chapter-length excerpts of books online, I read the first few sentences. I didn't read it fluidly and without interruption, but I kept the window open, and returned to it at various points throughout that morning and afternoon (probably in late 2023). I followed Blake Butler.

As more press and materials and reviews and news stories came out about the book, Butler would often share or retweet them, offering some wry commentary of his own. (Just today, he posted this unhelpful piece of random feedback, a letter from a reader; I will try to do better than that.) The book quickly sold out its first printing. I received several books for Christmas and so have not been reserving any from CPL, but I made an exception for this, and anyways, the waiting list was so long, I would have a few months to catch up.

Perhaps five months later or so, it was finally my turn. I expected to "devour" this book, and for the first 50-100 pages, that was the case. Ultimately it is not a perfect 5-star book, but we know from experience that perfection is in itself a cipher, and I tend to question whether any book can truly be "perfect"--a perfect short story is more common. You need to glorify an author, like Hemingway or Salinger for example, to say a book like The Sun Also Rises or The Catcher in the Rye is perfect (and it is hard to attach perfection to still-living authors). Fiction, moreover, can only become perfect through artistry. This is a memoir, necessarily an imperfect genre, with the messiness of life arguably foreshortened, depending on the reader's conception of the author and their depth of self-examination. Here, there is absolutely no mistaking that the depth of self-examination is sufficient, and going as deep as Socrates considered when he mused that an unexamined life was not worth living.

This book spoke to me. I felt "seen." And while the irony is not perfect (there is one review in between this one and that previous unique album review/tribute), it felt rather prescient:

"Despite her outward wrath toward most people, she still kept heroes, idolized mostly for their singularity against the odds: the wit and depth of Herman Melville, her favorite writer, whom she'd lament for how misunderstood he'd been throughout his life; the rhapsodic detail of Paolo Uccello's paintings, which she described feeling unable to breathe in front of when she got to see one in person and up close; the cryptic acumen of Anne Carson, whom she idolized both for her bravery and brilliance, and whose Float she loved to teach to undergrads to show them the endless possibilities of form; the funny fractious gaze of Jean-Luc Godard, especially Week-End, the jubilant insanity of which put stars in her eyes; the mathematical meticulousness of Agnes Martin, whose lines reminded me of the peculiar, layered drawings Molly had filled her sketchbooks with in college, thinking someday she'd become an illustrator; the no-fucks-given of Lou Barlow, who she insisted as with a chip on her shoulder was the real genius, not J. Mascis; the artisan work ethic of Steve Albini, spurred by a six month period where Shellac became the only band she'd listen to, on endless loop, mournful for artists who recognized the value of good hard work; the magic logic of Wittgenstein....."(58, emphasis mine)

I could keep going (for the observations about romanticizing Cat Power's early 2000's stage-fright episodes, or blasting Dead Kennedys, Black Flag and Minor Threat when she went on runs), but I am getting ahead of myself. Suffice to say, I sort of feel like I am Molly, or Molly is me.

Molly has a trigger warning, which most books historically have not had, and it is warranted. So too with this review:

"This memoir contains graphic descriptions of suicide, self-harm and suicidal ideation.
If you are contemplating self-destruction, please tell someone you trust. Immediate counseling is available 24/7 by dialing 1-800-SUICIDE or 988." (7)

In that first chapter, Butler describes the last time he saw Molly alive, on March 8, 2020, shortly before he leaves for a run that morning, as she works from bed. He notices a notification on his phone while out on the run, for an email from her, just saying "I love you" with the attachment of a manuscript of poems she had been working on. He runs back and talks to her, trying to find out if anything is wrong, and they make tentative plans for the day, to go to Whole Foods and make dinner together and watch a movie, which sounds about as nice a night as couples can have. He goes back to his run, decides to extend it by an extra half-mile, and returns home to find an envelope taped to the door with his name on it, and her two-page suicide note inside.

That all happens in the first five pages, and the next twenty are spent recounting the following events of the day. I call that the first chapter, but it's not really right. There is just a clear transition with an extra page break. He opens the first chapter describing the last time he saw Molly, and he opens the second chapter describing the first time he saw her.

The book then proceeds to examine their entire relationship--from their first meeting, friendship, expressions of interest and backing away, reconnecting and becoming closer again, being together, a couple acts of infidelity, a break up, and then another reconnect--up to their betrothal. This is at least how I recall it, and I am not going to re-read to make sure I got the trajectory 100% accurate.

In any case, this is probably the most interesting section of the book, and it represents the majority of the content. It is also the part that is universally applicable, at least for anyone that has gone through multiple breakups and reconciliations. Being in a relationship with a person suffering from mental illness requires a special set of skills. But being in a relationship with anybody in these times requires many of the same skills. You can choose to rip it all up and ghost, or you can try to acknowledge the value the person brings to your life, be compassionate and willing to compromise (because there is a sacrificial element to relationships), and hope that they would show you the same respect. It is an act of trust, and it is fraught, and it is understandable why many people say, "People don't change." Cynicism is self-preservation. We don't want to be with someone that is taking advantage of us. And yet constantly being on the lookout for ways they are taking advantage of us is a rather depressing way to live. And yet, to achieve greater happiness, we sometimes have to experience an awful, toxic relationship to know what to avoid in the future, to know what "deserving better" means.

Is this book depressing? Yes. But it is very revealing. It is an act of bravery and courage to publish this book, and Butler has managed the consequences appropriately. The honesty in this section, and throughout the entire book, is on a different level than most of us will ever find in our daily lives. Butler is like a close friend, telling it all exactly like it was for him, and we don't often find friends willing to be so vulnerable. People interrupt you as you tell a story. They ask what you were thinking. You shorten or abbreviate it to be mindful of ADHD-addled attention spans. Whatever meaning could come out of the anecdote is diminished.

And yet what meaning comes out of this book? It is the entire mystery of life and death.

It is a not a mystery why Molly may have ended her own life. There are numerous reasons strewn throughout the book. The overarching tragedy is that she nurtured the darkness within her.

It is remarkably freeing, to be so honest about oneself, if one considers themselves a "black hole" or something similar, and voices such feelings--but they are destined to be seen as a cry for help, seeking reassurance that such negative feelings about oneself are useless to possess, unless one wishes to die. And she did wish to die, and she knew it would be a tragedy, but she did not find a way to overcome her sense of inferiority.

Therapy is the easy answer people give. I cannot recall if the book recounts her seeing a therapist, but I believe she suggested marriage counseling, and feel like she did talk to someone, but not very regularly, and I don't believe she was on any medication.

In any case, I was empathetic towards her character and the things she would say about herself:

"...Otherwise, there was often zero floor to Molly's loathing, aimed most of all straight at herself. 'Imposter syndrome,' she'd sometimes call it, when in a better mood, one step removed, and therefore able to turn the tables for just a second on her ire. This and other self-aware admissions like it, beyond the vortex that more often ran the show, would quickly become bitter logs laid into the fire when her logic-based attributions fell apart and sent her right back to being stranded in her trauma-ridden baseline for 'the truth': that she was irredeemable a fraud; cut from the same cloth, some twisted part of her insisted, as her father, and at the same time, unworthy of even the grace she'd offered him. 'I can't have imposter syndrome because I am aware that I'm an imposter,' she writes in her journal, already ready to fire back at any logic of relief. 'They just don't know me,' she'd explain in response to any praise, admonishing herself after the fact for even wishing it were true. 'If they actually knew me, they wouldn't say that.' As for me, her partner, trying to offer a positive opinion would only serve to turn her trust against me too, yet another fool who doesn't know what they're talking about. No matter how well something might go, it always failed to resemble what it should've been, and therefore no one could label her anything she didn't know. She'd simply gotten lucky early on, she insisted, when her master's thesis, A Little Middle of the Night, won the Iowa Poetry Prize right out of school, on her first attempt at publication. Her husband, Matt, had found her out in their backyard that afternoon, fresh off the phone, hitting herself in the head with a hammer over and over, crying and shrieking at the sky. The fact they'd chosen her meant that the prize was worthless, the judges morons, one big sham. 'No one is special,' she'd remind me many times throughout the years, as if it weren't only her opinion, but hard truth. 'No one deserves anything.'" (116-117, emphasis mine)

It's hard to remember the distinct events because the book washes over you in blocks of text. Each "mini-section" consists of one paragraph, generally 1-2 pages in length. The effect is not quite Dept of Speculation, but it informs the reading experience similarly. For all of its surface Ouilipo-esque formality, the story is told fairly conventionally, chronologically, with March 8, 2020 serving as in medias res. Personally, while I appreciate the charm of its structure, I would have simply labeled the sections by year. It seems Molly thrived on chaos, however, lived forever teetering on the edge of it and reveling in it at times, and so it makes sense that a book named for her and written in her honor necessarily wash over the reader and underline the frustration that loving her constantly seemed to involve. Just breaking it down into smaller paragraphs doesn't seem to capture her spirit. Of course, she was a poet, though I believe she practiced a certain degree of formlessness (or just free-verse) in her work.

The book may not be perfect but it will go onto the Best Books list. It just feels like this book was written for me, and I imagine many, many other readers will experience that similar, deeper sense of identification. It does not completely unmask the very idea of suicide, but it unmasks one suicide, and through that process uncovers the reasons, which are no doubt shared in many instances. Molly wanted it that way. Perhaps she believed, like Chuck Klosterman (and myself too, admittedly, and probably Morrissey and many others) that an early death enhances cultural impact, and elevates the import of the person (deifies them, in a way). She wrote in her note that she wanted Butler to make art, and she must have known what it would be about. And so it is that he has gone from relative obscurity into tabloid fodder, and the same for her as well. That is tragic in its own right, and yet their story will prove enormously helpful for many people for many years to come. Basically, the book succeeds on every level in my own estimation of what literature should be: honest, unvarnished, educational, and profound.

The book does have more structural definition than referenced above. "Chapter 1" is the precipitating event, the final memory. "Chapter 2" is the origin story, the first memory. "Chapter 3" is the story of the marriage, picking up right after the honeymoon. "Chapter 4" chronologically proceeds from the ending of "Chapter 1," i.e. the aftermath, and really represents whatever "twist" there is in the story. Each of these "sections" or "movements" are powerful in their own right, but this 4th one underscores the messiness of the narrative, and considers another potential factor that led to the tragedy.

"One night, while on the sofa watching TV, Molly announced she'd like to have a threesome. But it had to be with another man, she said, because she didn't like women. She asked if I'd be into that, and when I said I wasn't sure, that I wasn't against it entirely but also didn't think I'd want to watch her having sex with someone else, she asked if I thought men were attractive. Sure, I knew when men were good looking, I said, had explored fantasies. but I'd never been in a situation where I felt the impulse to act. She asked me to describe a time when I'd found a guy attractive, and I thought about it and told her there'd been a guy at the poker table in New Orleans on a recent trip I took alone to play some cards and visit friends, but again, just a passing observation, no big deal. 'The next time you find yourself in a spot like that,' she said, 'you have my permission.' I said OK, trying to imagine what she meant. 'You're probably bi,' she suggested. 'I think that's beautiful.' I wasn't sure what else to say, or how to codify what she was saying in a way that connected with how I actually felt. If we did decide to have a threesome, I said, how would we find a person we both liked? Molly was quiet in response to that, eyes on her lap." (195-196)

First of all, this is another example of the love I have for this person that I never knew, but feel like I knew, from bits and pieces of other people in a similar age cohort that I've known over the years. Truly, she was an astounding person, containing multitudes, with precocious and multifarious talents, and a consistent, logical vision of the universe, albeit not a clear-eyed one. She clearly had a big heart, and the tragedy is that it was twisted up like some broken machine. I can't recall if she attempted to communicate with Butler on the urges she felt, and I can't recall if there is any other conversation in the book concerning an open relationship or polyamory or anything that would allow either of them to step outside the bounds of a monogamy, but the guilt that might follow from hiding such parts of one's life could be one of the many small things that add up to overwhelm one's inner strength and catalyze a cycle of self-abnegation.

Clearly, this is not the only reason it happened. It happened for about a dozen others reason, too, but the ending to this book is probably the most intense part, because it comes to grips with this idea, but never says it out loud. I have to believe that if Molly had opened up and admitted the feelings she had been having for as long as she had known, Butler would have been understanding, eventually, and less secrets would be kept, and less guilt or shame would fester. It would not necessarily have saved her life, but one knows from experience, this is an extraordinarily powerful thing, and one that couples are sometimes toxically precious about.

Sometimes, someone that you may be dating may come up to you and ask, "Are you mine?" Of course, we all want belonging (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs). Some of us like being alone, but few people want to be alone 100% of the time. If we don't receive any affection, it can be borderline deadly, make us feel unattractive and worthless and untouchable and like a person to avoid, someone perhaps better six feet underground than above it. That is if one lacks self-confidence. No doubt there must be people that are both confident and suicidal, but it sounds somewhat oxymoronic.

Molly was, in fact, a great person, and this book is a paean to her. She was not a saint, but it elevates her into an avatar for anyone that has ever felt less than, or inadequate, or insufficient, or flawed or broken or unlovable or just miserable and sick and tired of the disappointments and endless frustrations of the writer's life, or any other challenging one.

Being possessed is a double-edged sword. We want belonging, but we don't want a "possessive" partner, someone that wants to examine our cell phone, that constantly questions where we actually are, or where we are actually going, what we did last night, or what kinds of friends we are allowed to have. People that don't want their partners to be friends with their exes, or people that don't want their partners to have friends of the opposite sex, or friends of the same sex if LGBTQ. Many of us recognize these as red flags, and yet, when you are involved with someone, and you have made a vow to love them in full, you may find yourself stuck in a position with someone that is cutthroat committed. And that feels less like "commitment" than a prison, to some of us.

This is not the environment that Butler created, but the two of them had previous experience with infidelity, and it took them to the breaking point, only later reconciling and marrying. And how many couples get divorced for this very reason? It is 100% obvious that any sane person would rather get a divorce than have their partner to commit suicide. Divorce can be a terrible thing, but it is not the end of all life, and it can lead to greater personal happiness and fulfillment.

Maybe this is what the two of them needed, or an open relationship, or more therapy, but it's just such a brutal tragedy. The date of her death, too, is a tragedy, and Butler's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in this text is masterful. I have to believe that Molly, a person whose contempt for humanity loomed so large, like some of us, would have loved Staying Home for Months and Years. Did Covid-19 resolve some of my own suicidal tendencies? YES. Does life feel less arduous now, with less requirements for many of us to devote 1-2 hours of our day to simply get to an office? Did Covid-19 offer the space to make as much art as we wanted, to do as much baking as we wanted, to meditate, to do yoga, to nourish our inner spirituality, to assess our lives, to better help define our inner being, wants and needs? Did Covid-19 offer an opportunity to deepen our relationships with others, to properly acknowledge the value so many bring to our lives, to appreciate the ability to be with them in-person?

Covid-19 was a terrible tragedy for millions of people across the planet, but it was also an opportunity, and while our world is more divided than ever politically, I believe that all of us "feel ourselves" more deeply than we did before. The should have/could have/would have of this book is a foolish game to play, and yet that is another factor that makes it so very powerful and moving.

This book will save lives. It will improve lives. It may have caused troubles in Butler's own life, but that is his sacrifice for the rest of us. It is an act of generosity, and a beautiful gesture not only to Molly and those who loved her, but to anyone that is fighting their way through the gauntlets of modern relationships and mental illness. It is essential reading for almost everyone. It is probably in my top 5 or top 10 books of all-time. Perhaps I'm overselling it a little, but if you think you might get some small value out of it, take the plunge and reserve it or buy it, because there is so much to love and admire and learn from all of it. When coping with tragedy, writing about it can help, and reading about it can help; realizing that you are not alone, too, may be the thing that saves you.

Grade: A

Authority - Jeff VanderMeer (2014)

2024-06-22T11:33:00.001-04:00

Authority is the sequel to Annihilation, and the 2nd book in the Southern Reach Trilogy. The third book is Acceptance. I read Annihilation just over 6 years ago, shortly after the movie came out. It was the rare movie that was better than the book, which was good in itself. After all this time, my friend Luka insisted that I read it. They thought it was better, that it built on the previous volume and took a fascinating left turn, but they acknowledged, it was very slow, and easy to put down, until a certain point where it wasn't.

This was an accurate review, but to be more specific, Annihilation is about the Biologist. If you haven't seen the film, I highly recommend it; I will need to rewatch it, because perhaps it was made with some knowledge of what was to come--though ironically, according to Wikipedia, Alex Garland did not read the subsequent books, and wrote the screenplay from memory. While some of the finer details diverged from the book (for example in the character of the Psychologist, whom Jennifer Jason Leigh played brilliantly, but could have gone even more nefarious), the spirit of it matched.

In the review of the previous book, much is made of my general disinterest in "genre fiction," workshopping as I was at the time with a cadre of "speculative fiction" writers. I'll leave this discussion out of this review, but it's worth noting--while Authority is in this category, it is a pretty straight mystery/detective story, only looped into the otherworldly feel of its predecessor in the aforementioned final stretch.

Annihilation is about the Biologist, and Authority is about Control. The main character is named Control. Later in the novel we learn his name is actually John Rodriguez.

Control is brought in to replace the missing Director. The novel takes the form of a bizarre workplace comedy, with Control taking over interrogation of the Biologist, the one major character that is carried forward into this volume. He meets resistance as he attempts to make changes within the organization. There is The Voice, whom he reports to at the end of each day via phone call, whose voice is disguised. There is Grace, the Assistant Director, who throws up the most obstacles for him. There are other employees lower on the totem pole, Whitby and Cheney, both seemingly more friendly to Control, that further detail the mismanagement of the research and efforts at "containment" of the "border."

If this all sounds very vague, that is because it is. Control comes to his new office and finds a plant and a dead mouse in the drawer, which seems to have fed off it, and scrawled poetry of a kind on the wall. He is concerned his office is bugged.

It is clear at least that Grace has problems with him, and the Biologist is something of a shell of her former self, and uncooperative to say the least. I cannot recall the very end to the book Annihilation, but I can remember the very end to the movie rather clearly.

Frankly, it's probably too late to make the movie of Authority--this wasn't Harry Potter, where all the films were scheduled for release in coming years. But it should have been. I haven't read the Harry Potter books, but I was persuaded to watch the movies, and one of them (The Order of the Phoenix) is about bureaucracy. Granted, there is far less "action" in Authority, and it would be a very different film from its predecessor, but from the way it ends it would seem to be a lull of sorts in between the more adventurous first and third volumes.

This is a character study, for the most part, which ends with certain revelations, both satisfying and not. Control's mother (Jacki), for example, who once worked for the Southern Reach, exists in the shadows of the novel until she finally materializes. His grandfather (Jack) may have worked for them too, or not. His adage, "Don't thank anyone for what you should already have," is echoed in conversation with the Biologist. At one point in his childhood, Control was tricked into grabbing a gun underneath a car seat, after being instructed to look for some loose change:

"Sitting there in the coffee shop after his mother hung up the thought crept in that perhaps his mother's anger abut the gun had itself been a tableau, a terroir, with Jack and Jackie complicit, actors in a scene meant already, at that young age, to somehow influence him or correct his course. To begin a kind of indoctrination in the family empire." (245)

The use of "terroir" is worth noting. This book is written in third person, with a limited first person edge. Control learns the word terroir from Whitby. (As with Annihilation, the reader is also likely to learn new words.) This comes after a "tour" of the border of Area X that Control takes with him and Cheney. Earlier they had shown video of an experiment with rabbits being dispatched to the border, perhaps the primary experiment that had been carried out in a decade or more. They disappear without a trace--or did they all? The book refuses to give any answers until the end, and even then, mysteries remain, to tease out the conclusion to the trilogy.

"'What doesn't it mean?' Whitby said. 'It means the specific characteristics of a place--the geography, geology, and climate that, in concert with the vine's own genetic propensities, can create a startling, deep, original vintage.'
Now Control was both confused and amused. 'How does this apply to our work?'
'In all ways,' Whitby said, his enthusiasm doubled, if anything. 'Terroir's direct translation is "a sense of place," and what it means is the sum of the effects of a localized environment, inasmuch as they impact the qualities of a particular product. Yes, that can mean wine, but what if you applied these criteria to thinking about Area X?'
On the cusp of catching Whitby's excitement, Control said, 'So you mean you would study everything about the history--natural and human--of that stretch of coast, in addition to all other elements? And that you might--you just might--find an answer in that confluence? Next to the idea of terroir, the theories that had been presented to Control seemed garish and blunt.
'Exactly. The point of terroir is that no two areas are the same. That no two wines can be exactly the same because no combination of elements can be exactly the same. That certain varietals cannot occur in certain places. But it requires a deep understanding of a region to reach conclusions.'
'And this isn't being done already?'
Whitby shrugged. 'Some of it. Some of it. Just not all of it considered together, in my opinion. I feel there is an overemphasis on the lighthouse, the tower, base camp--those discrete elements that could be said to jut out of the landscape--while the landscape itself is largely ignored. As is the idea that Area X could have formed nowhere else....although that theory would be highly speculative and perhaps based mostly on my own observations.'" (132-133)

The reader later learns about Control's past, as a domestic terror operative that had been trained in going undercover, and an incident that led to removal from his post and ultimately his installation at the Southern Reach. From there, the book begins to ramp up to its climax, and most of the stray details of the narrative coalesce into a denouement that feels earned. It is after that denouement, however, that the pace quickens further.

So it has a satisfying final act, and ends on a pretty massive cliffhanger, all of which only makes me lament that Jeff VanderMeer wasn't considered J.K. Rowling. I don't doubt a trilogy of films would have been brilliant (given the quality of Annihilation). It's still not too late! Portman may have aged a bit, but couldn't there be a little twist, the way the film of the first book diverged from it, too--that she had aged as if years had passed, not unlike travelers to distant galaxies who experience time differently than on Earth? It could work, it could work, hear me out.

Books are much less expensive to make than films, but I have to believe Natalie would be on board, and maybe Alex Garland, too. Men was not bad, but it was no Annihilation (I didn't see Civil War, not yet at least), though Devs was pretty great (and I had no idea he wrote the novel The Beach, adapted into an infamous Leo DiCaprio movie with a silly video game/drug sequence I've not yet gotten to see). Apparently, he has fallen out of love with film, and will likely not direct another movie (though he is involved in the forthcoming 28 Years Later, after writing 28 Days Later and producing 28 Weeks Later), but I am sure there is another filmmaker out there that would love to finish out the trilogy. Authority is just problematic because it would be odd tonally after Annihilation--the first half of it would need to be treated like a sci-fi version of Office Space--but the mystery elements could make it into a fine noir, and the final sequence is a good payoff. Few things spell box office magic these days, unless based on a comic book, and the movie would not make a lot of money, but it could potentially be revelatory. Maybe Annihilation will just stand on its own forever, but I feel like it still could be so much more, if seen as the opening act in a series. There's always the chance one day, it could be "rebooted" and turned into a 3-season television series. As such, we still have the books, and there are plenty of others that will never be adapted either, and that is fine (even movies are becoming too big of an ask for audiences, to say nothing of the obsolescence of the novel).

Grade: B+

Shellac - To All Trains (2024) / Steve Albini - 1962 - 2024

2024-05-18T16:58:00.031-04:00

It's been 10 days since I saw the news, randomly, glancing at my inbox, seeing a "breaking" email from Pitchfork, referencing Albini. It was just a glimpse, and I thought nothing much of it, perhaps it was a tour announcement (the day before, Shellac had been announced as opening act for OFF! on the Chicago stop on their Farewell Tour). But then I looked again and it's fair to say my world fell apart.

The last album I reviewed properly on Flying Houses was Dude Incredible and so of course, the most fitting tribute is to review To All Trains, which is the follow-up that we all waited nearly 10 years to hear, the longest gap between any Shellac album. The review linked above once again exemplifies the evolving nature of the writing on this blog. I don't entirely disavow it ("Wingwalker" is still my favorite song), but would make certain stylistic changes. Regardless, it showcases my enthusiasm for the band at the time.

There were a few other music items on the blog since then, but no proper album reviews. There were lots of reviews of books written by musicians, but there was only a Top 10 Albums of 2017 post, and a review of a Pissed Jeans concert. I sort of migrated over a bit to Instagram in 2019 and made a post in March 2020 after the Shellac concert at Lincoln Hall, so there's a pic and a caption in my timeline. There's also this Shellac concert review from 2016, and really I'm not happy with any of them. I will try to do better here.

I did not do better here. I was advised by a friend that he was unsatisfied with this post. He was anticipating a "meditation on the specifics and deep, metaphysical quandaries this person represented, embodied, and cultivated in your internal world. It's not that there wasn't any of it, but it mostly felt like broad strokes without a lot of flesh and muscle and blood vessels added to the scaffolding."

I did not do that for several reasons: (1) This is one of thousands of articles/items serving as a "personal obituary," and I did not have the benefit of meeting Albini in person (only Bob Weston, who was very nice); (2) I could easily write more of an essay on the task of disavowing earlier poses and wrongheaded statements, but plenty of these other items focus heavily on that, and generally do it quite well, and I do not ignore it entirely; (3) My friend took particular issue with the "album review" below, and I agree with him that it is not a very good review of To All Trains. I will edit as I see fit over time. If it seemed to get short shrift, it's because I'm still sitting with it, and it's quite hard to pretend like you understand what many songs by Shellac are about, and moreover, I am wary of being long-winded, and moreover, this friend is "not and never [has] been a fan of the band" and to him "those guys were never truly punk."

Now a lot of people would take issue with that last statement (Steve Albini isn't Ian MacKaye, but Electrical Audio is to record studios as Dischord is to record labels), but I believe he meant in the general way they sound, and while I agree with that to an extent, I do believe To All Trains is their "punk" album, even if only 1 or 2 songs actually approach that aesthetic. I am sorry that I do not write well about music, but I have a great deal of respect for the artists and sometimes just want to turn people on to things they might not have otherwise found.

With Shellac, you would only discover them if you wanted to, and they certainly were not interested in developing a huge following. They played in places they wanted to visit for fun (and most famously the Primavera Festival each year). They played in Chicago once every year or two, and I'm sad I only got to see them in 2016 and 2020, missing that insane pop-up concert they did at Reckless Records in 2019 (I did see them in 2007 at the Touch & Go 25th anniversary Block Party, which also included a mini-Big Black reunion complete with firecrackers, but that was before my appreciation for them ran deeper). Suffice to say, like the Fall, they are unappreciated, but unlike the Fall (who flirted for one brief moment with pop charts), they did not clamor for anyone's attention, or care if anyone didn't like their music. They knew what they did was good, even if a lot of people would never "get it." I don't think you have bad taste if you don't get it--to each their own--and it is really fucking sad to think that the band has come to a necessary end, that whoever might "discover" them in the future won't be able to see them play live, which was the ideal experience with them--but I absolutely think anyone that has *not* heard them, should give them a listen, if only because what they did was different, original, unique and no one can ever replicate the genuine article.

The other Shellac-related posts above in pp 2-3 adequately relay my entire listening history with them. They don't, however, offer any analysis of the overall thrust of Albini's career, perhaps because it was difficult to contextualize at the time and yes, changes happened, as many obituaries and remembrances and homages and tributes tend to mention.

He talked more shit than almost anyone else. And it was easy to get the wrong idea about him. He stood up for what he believed in, and stuck it to the music industry, regardless of whether it would register. As many items note, he rejected royalties from records he recorded, and rejected the title of "producer," preferring "engineer." You could still buy his services for $900/day in 2024 (I believe). This man was one of the greatest producers in the history of rock music (Phil Spector is the closest comparison in terms of impact and influence on the medium), and he remained affordable and available to hundreds of young musicians looking for proof of "cred." He was a community organizer of sorts. I believe he sponsored a 16" softball team and I am only sorry I couldn't find my way onto it, or that I didn't go to Electrical Audio as a 22-year-old and ask for any type of work, anything to find an entryway into this ethical enclave, at a certain remove from the crummy industry it served, a world of creativity and freedom.

Much has been made about his disavowal of earlier statements, and acknowledgement of privilege, and support of trans rights and other "liberal" causes, and the mea culpas offered on Twitter, and I have nothing to add except they are proof that his heart was always in the right place, and that sometimes you need to scale back rhetoric to protect the most vulnerable amongst us. No one ever defended "wokeness" better. If anyone could have stood up to the most monstrous people in our society and call them out for what they were and why they were wrong, it was him. He never would have wanted to be President, but he would have made a damn good one.

For me personally, his death is a reminder to make the most of our time here. When I read Our Band Could Be Your Life for the first time in 2003, I was inspired. First I wanted to be a writer, then a filmmaker, then a writer again, then a musician or manager of musicians, then a writer, and then finally a lawyer. When I went to law school, for Legal Writing, we had to use a pseudonym for our first assignment, to ensure anonymity in grading. My name was Santiago Durango, who became a lawyer after Big Black broke up. I didn't get the best grade on that paper (nor on the one authored by Saul Goodman--but the one by Mynheer Peeperkorn, on First Amendment Retaliation claims, got an A).

Albini did not like lawyers. At least once, he referred to us as "parasites" (who hasn't?). To defend his own statement that Juggalos were misunderstood, he wrote, "Less annoying than Deadheads by an order of magnitude. Very few lawyers and CEOs for a start."

Albini died the same week as Jim Simons, an influential Wall Street mathematician that laid the foundation for "quant trading" and became a hedge fund manager. He made billions, and made billions for his clients. He lived to be 86. Query which man did more good for the world. The one that made himself available and affordable, and that helped so many people realize and actualize their lifelong dreams, creating a document of their time spent together--or the one that piled money on money and potentially created even more unfair advantages for the most rich and powerful on Wall Street? Both have strong legacies (Simons donated billions of dollars to philanthropic causes) but the one that didn't make front-page news was ultimately the greater champion and hero.

He would probably question my life choices, and now that he is no longer with us, I will be haunted by his ghost, reminding me of my own mediocrity as a human being. But I also know he wouldn't want to make me feel bad. He would want his death to be a motivator for others, a reminder to follow their calling, and to make great things and do great things. It is tragic that this happened the way it did, but if solace can be taken from anything, it is the immortality of art. Albini is gone, but he will always be with us, too, and he left so much behind for our benefit.

I don't fear Hell.
The baseball team is undefeated.

This is one of the last lines in To All Trains, and posits one of the burning questions I had about Albini. I know he loved baseball and considered it the only worthwhile sport (all other sports were either trying to score the most points before the clock ran out, or volleying something back and forth over a net, he once opined on The Best Show)--but was he a Cubs fan? This information is probably readily available but I'd rather keep it a mystery and pretend that he was in fact "one of us" (though my sense is that he might prefer the White Sox, or prefer to have no allegiance to either). The night he died, Hector Neris ended up getting the win for the Cubs over the Padres, but not before giving up a hit and walking a man while we clung to a 1-run lead. Neris is nicknamed "Heart Attack Hector" due to his penchant for escaping jams that he creates himself. I don't believe that Neris' performance had any impact on Albini that night, but it is an ironic coincidence (at least for the demographic subset of fans of both). (Sometimes I conflate events like this, or the night Carlos Zambrano threw a no-hitter in Milwaukee--which was not against the Brewers and played like a home game--the same night David Foster Wallace, another erudite master of a medium whose influence will continue to percolate for decades, left this world, far too soon.)

The lyrics for To All Trains don't yet pop up on Apple Music but some of them can be made out. Much will be made of the "haunting" quality of many of the songs and lyrics. At least four of them are pretty directly foreboding and uncomfortably prescient ("Tattoos," "Wednesday," "Days are Dogs," and of course, "I Don't Fear Hell.")

Listening to it again, last night (5/23), while no one will consider this to be his Blackstar (released the same day Bowie died), it doesn't seem entirely clear, but it seems likely, he knew what was happening to him, and knew that this very well might be the last Shellac album (he would be pushing 70 around the time the next one would be anticipated). Their music has always been keenly intertwined with the subject of death (and land, and sex, and music, and time, and ghosts, and heaven--all coupled with doses of humor and irony--and a song about real squirrels and now one about a symbolic rat), but it feels like there is more of a morbid edge to this than all others. At the very least, it grapples more with finding some kind of peace and acceptance in coming to terms with mortality, albeit indirectly. Albini never made "gentle" music of his own, however, and while perhaps a song or two are about his coming to terms with his past reputation, it's still abrasive and puzzling (in a good way, of course, and Shellac cannot be defined by any genre, but "math rock" felt relatively close).

All that being said, this is Shellac's "punk" album. It's 28 minutes long and there are 10 songs. Opening track "Wsod" is possibly about Albini's side-hustle as a professional poker player competing in the World Series of Poker, but I have no idea what most or any of the songs on this album are about. The song's bass line bears a slight resemblance to a certain Green Day (or Papa Roach) song that still gets played on the radio, and it ends with one of the loudest parts of any song they have ever done, sounding a bit like the Jesus Lizard and not for the last time. Effectively the album announces itself as another Shellac album, at this point, and you know the rest will be on par with all of their previous work. It's hard to say what the song or lyrics are about but I've seen some random thing that it is an inside joke referring to the WSOP as the WSOD because it should be called the World Series of Dick-sucking. I cannot verify that but the ending line, "Give that man a medal," is conceivably related to his championship victory.

Yesterday (5/30/24), I randomly came across a post on Facebook or X from the Kreative Kontrol podcast. This podcast has interviewed Albini roughly once a year, sometimes twice, for the past 11 or so years. And before the release of Dude Incredible, he went through each song with the host and described the inspiration or idea behind them. They did the same for To All Trains on 4/23/24. The podcast is two hours and twenty minutes long and opens up with 45 minutes of the host (Vish Khanna) offering his remembrances of Albini, reflecting on their relationship, which primarily involved randomly calling Electrical Audio and asking for interviews and later blossomed into a friendship.

Suffice to say, this episode offers the truth, and these interpretations I have written, above and below, make me feel incredibly stupid. I will add in the truth to highlight said stupidity.

Basically, I am not far off on "Wsod" but I am not sure Albini got a medal for winning the WSOP, and the lines are "Aspired to bronze/but I'll settle for lead/Passed off as gold for the tourist trade, awarded after testing/Urine, blood and hair/Those three always come as a set/Get that man a medal/Get that man a medal." So it is actually about giving awards to runners up after winners take drug tests and their "competitive advantage" is uncovered. And it is about wanting everyone to know how willing you are to debase yourself on behalf of someone else (i.e. "that guy would win the world series of dick-sucking Donald Trump," to describe the overly eager fanboys going out of their way to defend their idols, a competition of sycophants).

He also notes, he wanted to scream, "My ass is in a jackpot!" in reference to a baseball umpire who once said that in his own defense to explain why he couldn't control player behavior on the field.

"Girl from Outside," track 2, is similarly mysterious. Many of the lyrics are non-sequiturs involving a mailman. First, the narrator asks the mailman to sing a song, asking if he carries a tune in that bag. Then apparently the mailman delivers, and is not really a mailman (anymore?), but a singer. From there it jumps to being about "two guys from work, who are not at work" and then something about their favorite song and kicking ass and giving high-fives. Then finally ends on its subject matter--the girl from outside, whose hair looks "really great!" I am still trying to decide what this song is about but I am sure whatever conclusion I draw will be wrong. I do like the idea of yelling at a mailman to sing, and I do actually hear them singing to themselves sometimes.

This is actually a totally straightforward song about a night at a local karaoke bar. The "Girl from Outside" is part of a group of bar-hopping karaoke enthusiasts, not the regulars. The tone of the song does not sound like it is about a fun night out doing karaoke, so I hope my interpretation is forgivable (i.e. thinking it described two guys sitting on a porch as the mailman comes by). And the "high-fives" are a reference to karaoke night at Lounge Ax, a defunct Chicago institution in the 80s-90s, which had a sign that said "no high-fives, except on karaoke night."

"New Wave Chick" is probably the most "punk" song on the album, and opens up with arguably its most classic line:

I'm through with music from dudes!

It calls to mind "A Minute" from At Action Park or "Spoke" off Excellent Italian Greyhound or "Surveyor" (and to a lesser extent, "You Came in Me") off Dude Incredible, or even "Copper" off of Terraform--the straightforward fast Shellac rock song. The meaning of the song seems relatively obvious but again I am likely way off--most of the best music being made today is not being made by dudes. All he cares about now is "chick new wave." Bob Weston also essentially duets this song with Albini and both complement one another here as beautifully as they always have. That said, I can't discern any more of the lyrics.

As may be conjectured, I have consulted genius.com for some of these lyrics, but I am not printing them all. In short, this interpretation is not that far off, except that it was meant to refer to the female-fronted punk bands in the early 80s, not female-fronted punk bands in the early 20s.

"Tattoos" probably has the heaviest subject matter of any of the songs, but it is similarly mysterious.

What's the panic with you?
Your urgent need to mingle.
Press the flesh and smell my breath.
Would you just, fucking wait?

I don't see how this part connects to the rest of the song but it does always catch me off guard because I am always panicking about something whenever it comes on (I have listened to it least once a day every day since it has been out, probably about 20 times so far, which isn't hard given its length) and it causes me to reflect and slow down and realize that whatever I am freaking out about is most likely meaningless and not worth agonizing over (like this post, for example).

How many people did you kill
Arguing with that kid?
You got ghosts chasing you now
In your truck
Ghosts got a ghost truck

You say, "Time waits for no one
You couldn't be more wrong
Time is patient like a hunter waiting for you to come along."
Even if I give you the out
Of not knowing what the fuck this is about

We should raise a ghost army.
Volunteer ghosts, enlisted ghosts.
Help the living help the dead with their tools.
We'll tattoo the names of the dead, tattoo the names
Tattoo the names of the dead, on your hands.

Obviously, this song could be about police brutality or genocide or any of the 1,000+ mass shootings that have happened since Dude Incredible, and not letting the perpetrators forget their atrocities, lest they continue unabated. This could also be a foolish and simpleminded interpretation.

I mean, yes, but those concerns were brought into sharp relief during the pandemic, and actually this song is about anti-maskers, and it totally makes sense. COVID denialism doesn't reach the same level of moral culpability as murder, but 2020-2021 was the one time in (most of) our lives where breathing on somebody did bring the possibility of killing them. Of course it makes me think of seeing them on 3/11/20 and how Albini opened up the show by saying, "All of you are very brave," and how Bob Weston came out wearing a mask and how I wrote, "Regardless, I hope to see them again," as the last caption line in my Instagram post, and how that 2020 tour got cancelled after the show I saw, and how the rescheduled tour in 2021 got rescheduled for 2022, and then of course last night, watching some of the Primavera Sound Festival that they are broadcasting on Amazon Prime this year, watching Pulp play, hearing Jarvis Cocker dedicate "Something Changed" to somebody. I didn't hear for sure, but it must have been Albini, because even though you don't think of Jarvis Cocker as the type of musician that would book a session at Electrical Audio, he tapped Albini for Further Complications in 2009, after meeting Albini at the Pitchfork Festival in 2008 (which again, maybe the year I most regret missing, the lineup was so stacked, and so was Lollapalooza that year, and what a travesty its become). They named one stage for Albini this year, in the corner of the festival grounds, and I saw one of the organizers talk about how this was the first year without him and Shellac. Lana headlined Lollapalooza last year and Primavera this year. It's remarkable that Primavera kept this very inaccessible group as their "house band," playing every year for the past 15, when they themselves played only a handful of shows a year. It's a testament to the "unknown" greatness of the band. Let's just say, if I had shelled out for it this year, this would have been even more crushing, and it would have held even deeper meaning as a spiritual pilgrimage. But yes, the song is about the people that panicked over their urgent need to mingle, denying the overall situation and ignoring the idea that immuno-compromised individuals deserve to be protected.

"Wednesday" is perhaps the clearest "voice from the grave" moment from Albini, along with "I Don't Fear Hell." It is the only "dirge" on the album. It's slow, there's very little melody to it, and the drum fills are the only "energetic" part of the song (it bears a resemblance to "Genuine Lulabelle" off Excellent Italian Greyhound in that).

When they left he was hale and strong
Had all the girls fit to marry.
And what we got back, you couldn't put in your hat
And was hardly fit to bury.

The bend in your back
In the marital act,
Whether or not you plan to marry.
Hump has three meanings, maybe four.
For him, it meant to carry
What he was born with and was given,
What he earned and what he found,
What he figured out for himself,
And what he picked up off the ground,
And at last, what he imagined.
So remember him as he was, hale and strong,
Would never run from a fight
And not the sad thing that blew out his brains
In the kitchen, Wednesday night.

It is hard to say how much of Albini's work in Big Black or Rapeman or Shellac is autobiographical. Of course, we want to say none. Yet one cannot pretend that something like "The Power of Independent Trucking" (opening track from Songs About Fucking, which most consider the high watermark of Big Black after Atomizer) is actually only about how long-haul truckers get their "backbone" and not a metaphor or comment on the music industry. One cannot hear "Shoe Song," and hear Bob Weston scream, "I miss you!!!" and not think of "Good Morning Captain" off Spiderland, which Albini did not actually produce---but he did record Tweez (credited as "Some Fuckin Derd Niffer" on the album) and praise Spiderland as a masterpiece and acknowledge that Slint would never be huge, but would become extremely influential (he wasn't wrong about many things, though most people wouldn't know he was right). It was sad, or perhaps comforting, to see that his mother Gina survived him, knowing "Mama Gina" (who had a sister named Angelina) is not dancing in a heaven he doesn't think there is yet. Excellent Italian Greyhound is about as directly autobiographical an album title as there is, with Todd Trainer's dog Uffizi serving as an unofficial mascot for the band. If I had to say which of the 3 bands' songs were the "most autobiographical," it would be Shellac. I do not doubt that Albini once had a very annoying watch like the one in "Watch Song." From various anecdotes, it seems clear Albini enjoyed pool and may have seen some of himself in "Billiard Player Song." Of course, "Wingwalker," is far more likely metaphorical than actually about the it-girl of the sky that performs ridiculously dangerous acrobatics; it is about sacrificing everything else in your life to be completely and totally dedicated to a project, i.e. the plane, which has a button that can be pushed to decimate all of the people that look like little ants from above (his various monologues during the song live were by turns absurd and poetic).

This song is hard to gauge, but the original title was "Hump Day," and it really is just about the day of the week--and a narrative about a fictional character. A broken character, someone that had been through a life experience that was transformative in a terrible way, with the person becoming different to everyone and around everyone and ultimately making him take his own life (paraphrasing from podcast here). Beyond that it is mostly wordplay with the multiple meanings of "hump."

"Scrappers" may be the best song on the album, or at the very least one of the best. It is classic Shellac, coming in hard and fast on the heels of the downcast "Wednesday," with a swinging guitar line, punctuated by heavy, syncopated bass thumps soon thereafter, for 1 minute, before leading into the lyrics:

Papa, did you quit your job?
Punch the man, who said those things?
Did you sell the car
And buy a truck
And start the scrapping enterprise?

Papa is that your plan?
Papa what a plan.
Papa is that your plan?
Papa what a plan.
We'll be pirates

The cool night air will fill our lungs
With songs we'll sing each other.
I am small, but you will come
To trust me like a brother.
We'll be pirates! (x6.5)

If you can see the album art, above the band personnel are three photographs, one for each member. The photographs are of pick-up trucks filled with mountains of scrap metal and other various discarded appliances. (Perhaps worth noting, the album cover itself is a photograph of Union Station in Chicago taken by Bob Weston; I will try to replicate the photo at some point in the future.) Basically, the band members are fans of such scrappers, and Albini spoke about how such individuals are present in all places, and how some languages naming them imply a derogatory inference.

What's more surprising, is that this is a very innocent and cute song. Albini acknowledged he was attempting to recreate the sounds included in a children's song that is popular on YouTube, and that the song is from the perspective of a little girl whose father has a regular office job, but has an incident at work and wants to quit and become a scrapper--and the girl finds that idea romantic and exciting, going with her father on scrapping runs and having adventures and being like pirates. It's kind of a ridiculous and fun idea, and accordingly a fun song. Arguably getting to hear them scream, "We'll be pirates!" would be nearly as good as hearing them scream, "Look at me, I'm a plane!" I'll have to see what concerts are up on YouTube, to see how these songs went down live.

"Days are Dogs" is the most verbose song on the album, unquestionably, opening with a cowbell and launching into 100 seconds of 219 words delivered in vaguely matter-of-fact barking over a spare, simple scratchy guitar line.

I am the last day of your life, lived beyond all expectation
My wives and concubines are all fecund and pulchritudinous
And I hope that that's correct, the way I used pulchritudinous
I pity all the dead, who are not here to witness
The omniscious* creases, sweet baby Jesus
If I can't take it with me, I'll have it all now.
*-this can't be the right word but I can't figure it out.

The song is about how time gets away from you , and you don't get things done that you intend. "Days are dogs distracted by each other's assholes," and it goes from there, he says, and it's a very relevant message in 2024, where the only people that can avoid these types of distractions are the people that have a very healthy ability to put their phone away. He mentioned that the concluding bit is about a disaster at a rock n roll concert in Cincinnati in the 70s, when the band the Who had a concert where people were trampled to death. Going to see the Who, he explained....maybe not even worth killing someone over, and the poor son of a bitch that was in front of you, it's just bad luck you happened to be in front of me. He added that, a lot of things people do for gratification are either for aggrandizement, because they want be known as someone that has done something, or they are incredibly petty trivial shitty little things that they want or have some kind of material desire for.

"How I Wrote How I Wrote Elastic Man," is a Bob Weston song that references the Fall but doesn't sound like them, though it does have a repetitive guitar part.

I had very little to say about this song at first, despite it referencing one of my other favorite bands. It's a grower. It's grown on me, and it grows as it goes along, and by the end, it has the 2nd moment on the album where Shellac sounds like Jesus Lizard (The ending of "Wsod" sounds like "Nub," and the ending of this song sounds like "Gladiator," from Goat and Liar, both of which Albini recorded).

Before we start
I must explain
This song was once
Called "sauerkraut."

It's another self-referential song within a song, not unlike "New Number Order," but then it shifts beyond its Foucault-like focus, and I really was at a loss to say anything else. Albini noted that it was inspired by a book that Bob Weston was reading at the time, which I believe is Cock and Bull by Will Self, and features the directive to the reader to "begin again," which is reflected in the lyrics of the song. This is another "grower" and ultimately becomes an album highlight, with the way instruments are methodically added on top of one another before dropping to bass and drums in the coda. And that part does sound like "Gladiator," and ironically the Jesus Lizard just announced they have a new album coming out in September and the first single released is an encouraging sign that it will actually be a good comeback album. In an interview with the New York Times, David Yow (who one must not forget, provided the name of this blog) mentioned that Albini told him people were going " shit themselves" when they found out Jesus Lizard was putting out a new album. Of course this news is overshadowed by the sadder news, but as Albini was also considered a "fifth member" of the band, one hopes at least their tour will offer a fitting tribute to his legacy.

"Scabby the Rat" is a theme song for the inflatable rat that I know has shown up in Jeopardy! clues and should be played at such demonstrations.

Is inflatable.
That's right I said he's inflatable.
Makes the whole room pregnant.
Pow! You're pregnant.

There's not much to say about this song except that it is probably the closest thing to a "pop song" on this album. All the songs are pretty short and at this point, after this many listens, I feel comfortable saying To All Trains is their "leanest" album and has almost zero-filler. Maybe below I will rank some things. The details on the song spilled in the podcast are rather limited to Albini's remembrance of his friend (Rob Warmowski) that ran the Scabby the Rat account on Twitter. This part comes near the end of the podcast, and Albini mentions that this friend died suddenly of meningitis--contracting it on Friday and dying on Monday--and the idea that Albini would have a similar "sudden death" experience, about two weeks after that interview, makes it doubly saddening to hear. But there is a mention of Warmowski and the song serves as a tribute to him and the labor efforts he promoted.

The last track bears similarities to both "Watch Song" and "Il Porno Star" in how it opens but ends up becoming the most fitting final track in their catalog. I love the whole thing. If I had to guess what Pitchfork will give it, it would be 8.0. (Note: I was 0.1 off)

Obviously the last track is the aforementioned "I Don't Fear Hell," and this is the other dirge on the album after "Wednesday," but it has greater levity, with Albini actually singing, "Something something," and celebrating, "when this is over/leap in my grave like the arms of a lover." It's a very straightforward song that takes on a darker hue given the reality on 6/7/24. There are a couple great moments on it, and though now it seems destined to be tied to his actual untimely passing, there is comfort to take in it as well. Albini was a brave individual and he lived out his days in a way that many of us wish we could. His example is an inspiration. We can all do better, if we take it to heart--the work ethic, adhering to certain principles--and we might lead more fulfilling lives, too, where the everyday experience itself is the reward.

There's probably more I could say, but maybe that's enough. It's taken me a long time to process this and accept it as reality. Maybe writing this has helped a bit. Suffice to say, I will be undergoing a mental reassessment of my entire life over the coming months, and hope it may end with living one where time doesn't feel wasted, or moments unexperienced don't feel missed. There are many ways to live a good life, but we are beset by a binary predisposition. The choice is often between doing great things--being ambitious, creating something new, breaking new ground--or being content with a smaller life, where you won't set the world on fire, but you will tend to your garden, do no harm and improve the lives of others around you. Albini did both, in a way, and he will stand as a lasting example of the power of standing behind one's principles, compromising for no one, and creating a beautiful piece of art out of our performance as a human being on this earth.

Requiescat in pace

Sonic Life - Thurston Moore (2023)

2024-04-01T14:08:00.004-04:00

Sonic Life was a fascinating read. Mostly because I have been listening to Sonic Youth since 2000, and routinely included them whenever anyone asked me my "top 3" bands. I've watched The Year Punk Broke countless times. I've listened to many of their albums--Daydream Nation, Sister, Goo, Dirty, Washing Machine, Sonic Nurse, Rather Ripped, The Eternal--rather frequently over the years. I met Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon once, and wrote about it in a zine, and gave it to Kim the next time I saw them (at Tonic). I was very intimidated and I approached Kim and she accepted the zine and spoke back to me in a German accent, perhaps a defense mechanism, or a deflecting one, which mirrored my anxiety. I saw them play live many times--perhaps not a dozen, but more than half a dozen. I picked up Girl in a Band on the day it was released (actually just tried to--it was sold out; I read it in March 2015, exactly 9 years ago; also the above details are largely repeated in the linked review, and I do think I have gotten slightly better here).

I was not nearly as excited for Sonic Life, perhaps because so much time had passed, and because I had already managed my expectations. Sonic Youth had played their final show in November 2011, and Girl in a Band was released in February 2015. For those unfamiliar, Sonic Youth started in roughly 1981, so they lasted 30 years. Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore had been married in 1984, and the end of their marriage spelled the end of their band. One imagines Kim Gordon starting the book in 2012 or 2013, delivering the finished product in 2014; on re-perusal, it is raw and emotional, written when the pain of the unraveling was still fresh.

There was no question, however, that I would read Sonic Life as well, and I asked for it for Christmas. For all of his iconic glory and presence as a singular Thurston, a certain mystery pervades his band's recorded output. The songs are rarely personal--they are more often about friends than themselves. Lyrics, while important, often take a backseat to the noise. The language of their music is atonal, and inaccessible to a great deal of people. It almost feels like there is a resistance towards wanting to be understood.

Coming from this perspective, Sonic Life is a revelation of sorts. As a person that spent their teenage years in Connecticut and adopted New York City as a home (albeit only temporarily), I felt a certain kinship with him, even as I struggled to understand his modus operandi. I was there in 2001. I would say that things were not that different from 1981, then. In 2021, I would not say the same thing. So while I was not there for the 70s and 80s, when New York was dangerous and somewhat affordable, I came when Giuliani was Mayor, and the city had been "cleaned up" to a degree, but still had many areas yet to gentrify. CBGB was still open and a new subset of bands attempted to recapture the magic of the scene in the late 70s. I was more influenced by Sonic Youth than the Strokes or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (though a band I managed owed a fair debt to Interpol), but those bands held a place for me that Patti Smith or Televsion might have held for Thurston, when he moved there in the late 70s. There are definitely overlaps.

Thurston "gets it":

"The only affordable alternatives were to be had along East Houston Street, either the Yonnah Schimmel Bakery on the corner of Forsyth Street, for a knish jammed with yellow mustard and sauerkraut, or Katz's Delicatessen, a couple of blocks east, for a split grilled frankfurter with the 'works' on a toasted bun, ideally downed with a Dr. Brown's cream soda. If you were feeling flush, a couple more bucks could get you either a hot pastrami or a corned beef sandwich on rye bread, doused with mustard and coupled with a large sour green dill pickle. The pickle was key, as it helped you digest all those cured meats. At times a pickle was all that was needed, and the pickle stores on the Lowest East Side's Essex Street--huge barrels of briny vinegar pickles set up on the sidewalk, sometimes so acrid your eyes would water--were perfect for an emergency crunch fix." (120)

I took a summer course at NYU called "Writing New York City," and our professor, Nettie Jones, took us on field trips around the city, one of which was to a certain pickle merchant on the Lower East Side. This remains the best pickle I have had in my life. So he gets it. Dr. Brown's cream soda is also the credited beverage of choice at Katz's (even if that establishment is an institution that hardly feels like the "secret tip" on the pickles). There are other revelatory food passages, such as praise for the frites in Amsterdam, and I loved them because I could relate, but I digress.

Overall, this is a great book. The primary criticism is the front-loading. This is roughly 500 pages long, about twice as long as Girl in a Band. At page 400, we are somewhere around 1993. So you have 400 pages covering 1976-1993, and 100 pages covering 1993-Present. 1987-1993 are covered rather quickly as well. Really, the majority of this book is about the beginning of Sonic Youth, roughly 1980-1985, with a strong emphasis on the Confusion is Sex/Kill Yr Idols and Bad Moon Rising era, which is when the band began to ascend. I always found the earlier material somewhat unlistenable, and Sonic Life lent a greater appreciation for those albums. For how difficult the listening may have been, it is clear from the book that they were trying to be more of an accessible "rock band" than the vast majority of their peers in the No-Wave Scene.

To give a specific example, consider the song "Ghost Bitch," a song that almost never registered to me, ensconced deep in the muck of Bad Moon Rising, which shows up on many more setlists than I previously perceived. And while there is a lot of noise in it, it turns into a more traditional "song" and actually kind of exemplifies what was great about their earlier material--that transition from pure noise and feedback bleeding into a song and the feeling that the moment has arrived. This is much more noticeable on live recordings, and a reminder that Sonic Youth was one of the great live bands, their noise jamming akin to the "noodling" of the Grateful Dead.

They do actually have an opportunity to meet the Grateful Dead, but it is passed up and Jerry Garcia dies shortly thereafter and regret is pronounced. In the early days of punk, hippies were the enemy, but that facade fell away in short order. Greg Ginn was a huge Deadhead and Black Flag became a jam band right after Damaged. Lee Ranaldo was also a bit of a Deadhead, though it's clear Thurston's heart is with the Stooges. Neil Young asked Sonic Youth to open for him in 1990 and their experience on that tour was somewhat transformative. They would soon have their "pop" moment, becoming leading mentors to Nirvana, influencing their decision to sign to a major label imprint and the consequent explosion of Nevermind. And they would realize not long after, that massive success was not in the cards, and settled comfortably into their niche around 1995 on Washing Machine, which was good enough for a fairly nice living.

*

The chapter on Sonic Youth in Our Band Could Be Your Life underwhelmed me at the time, perhaps because the members of the band all seemed to act like adults, and drama was minimal. Until the end of their career, the biggest drama seemed to be the way they jerked aroud Bob Bert. Bert was their primary drummer before Steve Shelley took over, and after Richard Edson, who became an actor (in Stranger Than Paradise, the director of which was Jim Jarmusch, also a figure in the "scene"). But I had no idea how many times Bert was fired and rehired (at least three or four times). He never did anything wrong, the band just wanted a different "style" of drumming, but they had trouble finding a suitable replacement, so they kept asking him back. So he may be considered an unsung hero, for providing stability even when they did not offer the same.

Of course, the drama came at the end, and Moore dodges it to an extent. He claims that he does not want to capitalize on pain. Which feels like something of a shot at Girl in a Band, because that book basically took the dissolution of the relationship as a framing mechanism. Moore does explain how he fell in love with his "soulmate," to an extent, but the salacious details have already been printed elsewhere, and apparently do not merit refutation. And even if they did, it would not be a good look to respond to 8-year-old grievances after all this time. Thurston has said that he is totally open to a reunion, and the book is in the spirit of that, a celebration of all they accomplished--so it makes sense not to dwell on the past, once everyone has put it behind them. Regardless, while it is not our business to tell people how to write meaningfully about divorce, I have to believe there could have been a way to offer an effective mea culpa and maintain dignity, and that absence feels like a missed opportunity.

More generally, there is not a great deal of emotion in this book. There are plenty of rhapsodic flourishes about the power of music. Iggy Pop once said (memorialized by Mogwai), "when I'm in the grips of it, I don't feel pleasure and I don't feel pain, either physically or emotionally." One could say the same about this book. It just kind of washes over you.

There's so much information. Moore may have an excellent memory, or kept diligent journals, but the book required significant research as well. It seems like the entire book is a recitation of all of the tours that the band ever did. There are far more anecdotes from these performances than from the recording of their albums or anything else in their lives, apart from the birth of their daughter Coco.

While Moore may not want to berate himself or hold himself up as a target, he is more than willing to make fun of himself. The band always came off as very cool and hipper than thou, so it is endearing to read about the awkward beginnings:

"Together we walked across downtown to the East Village. We found some late-night food at a diner on Second Avenue, Egan [Kim's dog] tied up outside, attentively waiting for his master, once in a while issuing a bark to let her know what time it was. Kim told me she had been staying far uptown at the apartment of the SoHo gallerist Annina Nosei. Leaving the diner, I asked how she was going to get up to Annina's with Egan so late at night, as animals weren't permitted on the subway unless they were Seeing Eye dogs. A taxi seemed luxurious. She said she was okay. I was too shy to kiss her, even politely on the cheek, though I wanted to. So I simply said--

'Okay, see ya around.'
--and stuck my hand out, feeling immediately foolish. She cocked her head slightly, half-smiling, before returning my handshake.
I walked to my apartment smitten and a bit mortified, my desire overwhelmed by my lack of confidence. I was clearly no Lothario. I was twenty-two years old but with a teenage brain, slow to transition to adulthood." (145)

The beginning of this book is as good a primer on the New York City music scene in the late 70s as I have read. The book as a whole is not as good as Please Kill Me, but the beginning of it eclipses that, at times, because it is funneled through Moore himself. Similarly, I cannot say it is better overall than Girl in a Band, though many aspects of it are better. Moore is excellent as a historian. The sheer amount of information is overwhelming and the narrative is amusing. Girl in a Band is more artistic, the prose is often more clipped and spare, and it progresses along an emotional arc. There is no real arc to this book--rather, there are Books, six of them, comprised of 71 chapters.

The arc of Sonic Life is in Books 1-3. That is where Moore realizes his dream and vision of the future and goes about manifesting the band and its unlikely success. There is something deeply inspiring about these pages, a tone that Our Band Could Be Your Life maintained throughout, about not having any idea of how to play music but wanting to anyways, and doing it.

So when this book captures that energy, it is at its best. I do think it needs an index. Any book that required significant research and lobs hundreds of names of famous, semi-famous and non-famous artists at the reader should get an index. There is a real "scene" that gets captured here, in full-fledged glory (punk), which eventually dies and turns into something else (no wave), which then dies and turns into something else (college rock), before branching off into nether realms (grunge). There may be a greater testament to the No Wave scene than Sonic Life but I've yet to see it. Moore's observation of it and life within it is the strongest part of the book.

Those were simpler times, and they are treated lovingly. The real memoir of the book is Moore's early life. By the time the band is charting a course towards greater accessibility with Sister, the book is about Sonic Youth, and no longer about Thurston Moore, and emotional truth does not apply to entities the same way (i.e., it was nice of John Lydon to show the band what seemed genuine concern when their gear got stolen before a gig they did with Public Image Ltd.). He sums it all up rather nicely, it just ends too abruptly.

Grade: A-

****

Is that really all I have to say? No. But I can't write a perfect review of this book. I thought it might be an interesting exercise to provide two excerpts--one from Sonic Life and one from Girl in a Band--about the same event, which is a performance by Public Image Ltd. Perhaps that will provide a window into how these two artists remember details:

"There were others of course--the Velvet Underground, the Door--who took risks in the 1960s, when no one knew where any of it was going. Before them were the Beats and before the Beats the avant-garde artists, the futurists, Fluxus, and before that, the blues, outsider music, a mourning for what's expected but will never happen, so why not dance and play and forget for a few moments that we're all alone anyway?

Cut now to Public Image Ltd. performing at the Ritz in 1981 in New York City. Sid Vicious was dead and the Sex Pistols were over. Public Image Ltd. had made an impact and their third album, The Flowers of Romance, had mystery, with its girl on the cover. The Ritz crowd anxiously awaited the band's appearance. The huge movie-scale screen where videos were projected before bands was still down. The screen was a natural barrier, used to create and motivate the crowd's reaction. First up came a huge image of John Lydon's face, laughing. Then he began to sing. Projected onto the screen was a strange film of a dark alley and the girl from the cover of The Flowers of Romance getting out of a garbage can. The film stopped, but the screen stayed in place, and suddenly behind it, the shadows of the three band members appeared. The screen stayed still. Furious at seeing the ghostlike, ritualistic figures of the group out of reach behind the screen, the audience became agitated; they couldn't see the band in the flesh. They started yelling. A few of them threw metal chairs. The band ran offstage and the audience proceeded to destroy the screen.

Public Image didn't go out there intending to cause a riot. They were simply trying something new. The audience's expectations were dashed. The band's pure audacity had drawn crowds to the Ritz in the first place, but then the audience couldn't accept what the band was offering. It was too much. And that experience, that feeling, will never appear on YouTube, will never be downloaded onto anyone's laptop or phone. Today you will never find a picture of it, because the Internet didn't exist, and no one was paying attention, or bothering to document what was taking place right before their eyes, with the exception of a zine started by a bunch of fifteen-year-old New York girls called The Decline of Western Civilization." (261-262)

This comes near the end of Girl in a Band, and goes onto to discuss our need for heroics from musical icons that died too young, how the 80s were like the 60s, questioning whether the 90s actually happened, and then ends with her seeing Dave Chappelle at the Oddball Festival in Hartford in 2012 or so, comparing the audience to that show to the one for PiL at the Ritz, and how Chappelle couldn't get the audience to stop talking and so opted to spend 25 minutes on the stage, smoking a cigarette and waiting in silence, to their escalating dismay. It's kind of a great mini-essay on what it means to be in the audience and what we expect to get out of the experience. She had written famously before about how audiences want to see themselves on stage, and so the performer should be a mirror to them in a way, serving as a conduit for their energy. It appears that Sonic Youth took this concept to their stage show, in their waning years, as they would project a video of the live audience itself, being captured from the front of the stage, behind them on a screen as they performed. I have to think this is a callback to the PiL screen, and Gordon's and the band's own notions of how to frame the audience experience.

In contrast, the 28th chapter of Sonic Life, "The Electric Dread," is 3 pages long:

"Public Image Ltd, in May 1981, set up shop in New York City. Their idea was not to perform gigs like any other rock 'n' roll group, but to make recordings, books, and films--to be a 'company' of sorts, a brand as opposed to a band.

Less than a year earlier John Lydon and PiL guitarist Keith Levene had appeared on the program Tomorrow, a late-night network talk show with an engaging, funny, take-no-guff interlocutor named Tom Snyder. Lydon and Levene attempted to state their case of being an 'anti-band' to Snyder, only to become argumentative when he didn't take the bait.

The band had already shaken up the North American airwaves earlier that year by lip-synching on the weekly music show and institution American Bandstand, Lydon making no pretense of going along with the pretense, walking among and dancing around the live TV audience, reavealing PiL's music to be nothing but a canned recording.

On the Tomorrow show, Snyder was surprised, even astounded, at how rude and aggressive Lydon could be. At one point he admonished the punk lord, only for Lydon to accuse the host of having a 'tantrum.' Lydon and Levene kept getting out of their chairs to lean across the table and cadge cigarettes from Snyder's pack.

The episode was explosive for us, energizing the entire scene in its defiance of the mainstream.

The Ritz nightclub on East Eleventh Street had a cancellation by the London band Bow Wow Wow (who were managed by the ex-Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, whom Lydon was then suing). Lydon and Levene accepted an offer for their new anti-band to play the gig instead, but only if they could perform behind the Ritz's monolithic video screen, touted as the largest in the world. Rolled down, it filled the entire stage. They had the idea to illuminate the screen and stage from behind with high-intensity PAR can lights, creating monstrous silhouettes, while Super 8 film footage of the group bopping around Manhattan was shown.........

[The queue outside the Ritz is described, the rain that began crashing down, and the extended wait for the band to set up their unorthodox arrangement, and the hapless opening band that was booed off the stage...]

Before too long the silhouettes of Lydon, Levene, and their bandmates rose high on the screen, inciting cheers from the audience. The opening salvos of the band's just released album, The Flowers of Romance, with Lydon yodeling an unholy atonal yowl, blasted through the PA.

A live feed of the group behind the screen would intermittently cut into the preshot Super 8 footage. Each time an actual image of Lydon or Levene would appear, the crowd would lift its voice in approval, but the effect soon became redundant and annoying.

Bottles began to be hurled as chants of---

'Lift the screen! Lift the screen!'

---filled the room.

[The audience's pulling of a tarp on the stage that was under all the band's equipment is described.]

Keith Levene ran in front of the screen, waving his arms at the audience to stop the madness, but it was entirely ineffectual as bottles whizzed past his head, nearly braining him. Stagehands ran out to rescue Keith as a pretaped image of Lydon appeared on the screen, warbling and strumming tunelessly on an acoustic guitar, singing a piss take on an old folkie tune---

I've got a hole in my heart

Levene proceeded to put on a recording of The Flowers of Romance. He played some kind of feedback guitar with it, which sounded excellent to me--though my appreciation for it may have been in the minority. More chants of---

'Lift the screen!'

---came, mixed with yelling and laughter, bottles lobbed endlessly towards the stage. Lydon again appeared on the screen, this time singing an actual live and in-person version of the same song---

I've got a ho-o-ole in my heart

The audience lost it.

This was not a concert; it was an insane asylum.

With the pulling of the tarp having fully dismantled the band's gear, Lydon's silhouette loomed across the screen as a giant demon, haranguing into his microphone a singsong tease---

'Silly fucking audience, silly fucking audience!'

It was the final straw.

Bottles now rained over the room and onto the stage, splattering, smashing, and staining the screen, the crazed audience grabbing at it, attempting to tear the offending obstruction down. The pride and joy of the Ritz, its world-famous video screen, hung precariously from its moorings.

In an instant all the houselights flared up, a Wizard of Oz voice booming from the PA---

'THE SHOW IS OVER!! EVERYONE LEAVE!! NOW!!'

Furious security guards began to forcibly push the audience out of the room. No one really fought back; everyone was simply too bewildered, too giddy even, at how messed up and chaotic this gig had become. There were laughs and a few shouts of---

'I want my money back!'...(183-185)

Maybe you can see the difference. Gordon's is like an essay, from a distance; Moore's is like a short story, experienced moment by moment. It's likely both were at that PiL show at the Ritz in 1981 together, but you can't totally tell from Gordon's. I didn't fully copy the entire text of "The Electric Dread," but I hope the lawyers at Penguin Random House are willing to dote on me, and see that this is its own form of publicity, and that it can only help keep conversations about the book going. Book reviews should be able to include long excerpts, and this has been a foundational rule on Flying Houses. It helps the reader decide if they want to take the deeper dive.

I'm not sure what else to say. Both of these artists and their band have meant and continue to mean a great deal to me. They do not get their due respect. Perhaps they did, briefly, 30 years ago, and Daydream Nation is in the Library of Congress and they are still famous, in the sense that they stood for the vanguard of their time, and persist today as solo artists that keep pushing themselves in new and sometimes exciting directions (Gordon's two solo records have both been remarkably good; Moore's work has become a behemoth, less suited for the type of rambunctious live performances of Gordon on recent tours--really appearing to me like a female-fronted version of the Fall, her onstage persona reimagined and reinvigorated--and more suited to jazz lounges and study lounges, playing instrumental music for productivity, and naps). Their books are a "study in contrasts," and each is certainly worth reading for any fan of the band. Gordon's is the more affective story, and the reader will feel more after finishing hers; Moore's is the nerdier, more emotionally-distanced one. Arguably, the first half of Sonic Life eclipses Girl in a Band, and if it had continued in that vein, might have been better overall. It doesn't fall of the rails exactly, but it loses some verve and sense of wonder along the way, and turns into bulletpoint-like prose summing up their final years (the chapter on 9/11 is the last great part of the book). Much of it is extremely readable and amusing and thought-provoking and educational. And that really should be good enough for a book. We need not require that musicians open up and bleed in their memoirs--it just feels like that would be more true to the spirit of punk--but there are other sub-genres and other aesthetics.

2024 Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture

2024-02-22T15:28:00.016-05:00

I heard recently that voting for the Academy Awards will end next week, right around February 29th or March 1st, and it would make a great deal more sense to complete this post prior to that date, and I realize now, the Awards ceremony itself is not very far away (March 10th). Because I enjoyed the exercise last year, I thought I'd do it again this year. It was a bit crazy, because I had to just about watch one movie per day for the last week, and now if I get on it, I will have more time. There are about 16 or 17 days left and I have 6 movies left to see. I will write about them in the order they were seen, as before.

Oppenheimer

To date, Christopher Nolan has been recognized by the Academy for four films: Memento, Inception, Dunkirk, and this. He has not won Best Director, and I think this may be his year. I also think this may be the film to win Best Picture, if the Golden Globes are any indication. I have not looked too closely at predictions yet, and only know one sure-fire winner (edit after the fact: SNUBBED), which everyone should also know.

Both Robert Downey Jr. and Cillian Murphy won at the Golden Globes and SAG Awards, and also seem like fair picks to win Oscars. Matt Damon arguably deserved a nomination more than Downey Jr., and probably didn't get it because his character is "less interesting," even though he injected the film with sorely-needed comic relief.

Overall, I liked this movie. I saw it in IMAX 70 MM, which was cool, and the cinematography is beautiful. It's delicately made. One might say it is designed to win Oscars. I respect it as a film, and think it poses important questions, but left me feeling a bit cold, emotionally. The primary drama of the film is whether Oppenheimer's security clearance will be renewed, and it is played out over a lengthy series of administrative hearings. This is the type of thing I usually like--the audacity of a "blockbuster" about bureaucracy--but also makes me feel that it is prestige for the sake of prestige (and The Prestige is one of Nolan's many films that did not get the respect it deserved at the time).

17 years ago, that film was only nominated for Art Direction and Cinematography. A year later, Nolan followed it up with The Dark Knight, arguably the greatest blockbuster superhero action movie there has been, which won for Sound Editing and Supporting Actor. He followed that up with Inception, which demands multiple viewings (more recently Tenet required the same, though I think fewer wanted to try). We don't need to go through his whole filmography; suffice to say, he is clearly one of the greatest "mainstream" auteurs of our time, and is due for recognition. This is not my favorite film of his (I liked 3 or 4 of them better), but it is definitely the most "Oscar worthy," in a similar vein to Dunkirk--because it is historically accurate. This is a valuable thing when our world is prone to inaccuracies and questions surrounding stories told by the victors. Oppenheimer does bridge this gap nicely, showing the heart of the conflict inside the person, and how the world wants to see him, or not see him as his feelings evolve. I probably need to see it a second time. It didn't put me to sleep but my viewing companion did doze off in the theater.

On rewatch, I recalled my friend's critique after the theater viewing: "I think I need to watch it with closed captioning." A word, briefly, about closed captioning. I was ashamed when I began regularly turning them on for most things I watched. I soon realized, perhaps in 2018 or 2019, that this practice had been adopted by the masses. Perhaps this is to deal with the influence of "mumblecore" films, but I doubt it (Joe Swanberg isn't Quentin Tarantino, or even Kevin Smith); we just miss less. And this film is populated by at least a dozen fairly nondescript white, male actors, referred to just by their last names, and it can be difficult to keep everyone straight. So I do think this film is aided by closed captioning, but that didn't make me like it much more.

I do think I am wrong about it being "historically accurate," just from the opening scene with the apple, which I had forgotten, along with another delusive move or two. I also forgot about my favorite "cameo" in it, and perhaps the way that character is barely in the movie at all and then has a major dramatic moment near the end. It surprised and befuddled me. I appreciated that weirdness, and I actually really liked how it "flashed forward," to show what happened after these hearings, later in his life. The dramatic bombast of it all is powerful, and befits the importance of the man itself--it is a big, loud movie, and I won't be surprised at all if it wins.

Barbie

Another film I probably need to see again is Barbie. Now, I liked Barbie, just fine--until the very end. Near the very end, there is a certain throwaway moment that will escape notice from just about everyone, except a very specific subset of people that will feel seen. And ashamed. But I am probably taking it too seriously. Suffice to say, I later heard an interview with Greta Gerwig (a contemporary) and she acknowledged that she does in fact love Pavement, so it's fine. Anytime the Fall is mentioned in a movie like this, we should take that as a win.

Apart from that idiosyncrasy, my issue is that this movie got far more love than The Lego Movie, and it is reductive of it. It will probably win Best Song, and that was The Lego Movie's only nomination. Granted, visually, this film is stunning, even if it is "plastic." They are very different movies but they definitely have many things in common, one of which is Will Ferrell playing the bad guy, who is given more room to vamp here. It has a feminist message whereas Lego was just more focused on child-like glee. This also has its share of child-like glee, along with a bit of a darker edge.

I have complicated feelings. Margot Robbie was robbed of a nomination. Ryan Gosling and America Ferrara deserved theirs. The plot of the film is also very similar to The Lego Movie. What's unique is that it is mainstream, fully endorsed by Mattel, and subversive. Perhaps one of the best things it did was open up conversations on gender politics, while still being a fantasy, and fun. Ultimately, it was recognized because it had its cultural moment, shared with Oppenheimer, that fully returned the masses to theaters. It was important in that respect, and I have to believe it was a better experience with a theater audience than Oppenheimer (I watched this at home on Max). I need to see it again probably, but basically yeah, I thought it was about as good as The Lego Movie--only a little better in the way the story was brought to life.

Maestro

Maestro is a fine film, but it almost feels like Bradley Cooper wanted more after A Star is Born. Lady Gaga did not win Best Actress for that, but everyone acknowledged her as the best thing about it. Cooper was also nominated for Best Actor for that, in a very good performance as well, but it felt like token recognition. Lady Gaga was the star, and in Maestro, Cooper is the star. It's a largely admirable effort that is also likely to leave audiences cold, perhaps ironically, even colder than Oppenheimer.

I liked parts of it. The interplay between Cooper and Carey Mulligan is the best thing about the movie. The two of them have a handful of scenes in it that are as good as anything else that came out this year, and would be borderline iconic if not crushed beneath the weight of the rest of the film, which is a biopic that attempts to cover a rather long period of time. Credit Cooper for taking on difficult material, and portraying the conflicted bisexuality of his character (even if audiences may feel more sympathy for Mulligan). Of course, the cultural milieu plays a role in that dynamic, and the film's historical accuracy approaches that of Oppenheimer. It still feels like a mash-up of Tar and Star, and not as good as either.

It is worth watching, however, for the scenes between Mulligan and Cooper. It gains speed as it moves along, as Cooper dials up the absurdity of his performance, which is iconic in its own right. I don't expect it to win anything, and its place here is a result of the expanded Oscar ballot. It is worthy of recognition, but so is The Iron Claw (Zac Efron's performance in that was criminally underrated).

Killers of the Flower Moon

In terms of what "deserves to win," it seems it comes down to Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon. Both are over 3 hours long. I am not sure how others felt, but even though this one is about 30 minutes longer, it felt shorter to me. I didn't fall asleep during either. It's perhaps worth noting that I watched this on Apple TV+ and started it with my dad at 11 PM.

He told me he had tried to watch it before, and he didn't like it. He said it made him uncomfortable to watch. He made it about 45 minutes deep. This time, he lasted until 1 AM. I stayed up until 2:30 AM to finish it. He left right before the most awful part of the movie happens. This is a really awful movie in terms of morality, and it continues to be dialed up until it reaches that epitome. After, it shifts into its second half, which must be where the controversial "intermissions" had been inserted by theater owners, when Jesse Plemons shows up to investigate the murders. It loses a tiny bit of steam in the second half, and there are bizarre elements that ultimately coalesce in a memorable epilogue that underscores the most heartbreaking element at the center of the film. Its last words teared me up.

Is it more important than Oppenheimer? Probably. The movie takes place 100 years ago. Most of the awful atrocities committed against Native Americans occurred in the 1600's-1800's, but this film shows that really nothing changed in the 1900's, and thereby questions how much has actually changed in the 2000's. Everyone in America is living on Native land and we often forget that. Near the end of the film, Robert DeNiro delivers a short monologue that encapsulates every argument that could be made for colonialism, and reveals the film to be a perfect allegory of the history of the plight of the indigenous.

It's another significant accomplishment by Martin Scorsese, and a testament to his rightful place in the all-time canon of cinema. We can only hope that in 25 years, Christopher Nolan will remain at the top of his game and do the best work of his career, because it feels that way for Scorsese.

The Holdovers

On Friday, February 23rd, I subscribed to Peacock for a month and watched The Holdovers (enveloping it with a re-watch of Oppenheimer, see above for update). The movie tricked me, for a minute. I didn't realize it took place in December 1970. At first, I thought it was a flashback, where Paul Giamatti was a teacher in present day, and a student in 1970. But then he would be playing about 15-20 years older than he is.

In more ways than one, this movie is a throwback. It might remind a viewer of some of Hal Ashby's work. It is an R-rated film, but it should be PG-13, because it ultimately is a family film. One of the stills I almost chose was connected to an article titled "the 65 best Christmas movies of all time," and so this may be considered an instant classic, and an obvious choice for future television programming around the holidays.

I was struck by how "uncynical" it was. I liked it fine, but similar to Maestro, and our next item, feel that its place here is a result of the expanded ballot. I think I have to put it over Maestro because it is a finely-paced, complete film. It does not attempt to make any major message, unlike some of the other nominees. It is a small, quiet, heartfelt film, filled with great compassion for its characters, and about as gentle as one can imagine.

Some people think the Best Actor category comes down to Cillian Murphy and Paul Giamatti (the others are Bradley Cooper, Jeffrey Wright, and Colman Domingo from Rustin, which I should also see). It is a tough call who will win. Giamatti, I think, may win for "career achievement," because while Cillian Murphy has had his own lengthy career at this point, Giamatti is a feted actor that was robbed of a nomination for his previous collaboration with Alexander Payne, Sideways. (It is difficult to say whether Giamatti will beat Murphy, and it is difficult to say whether Da'Vine Joy Randolph will beat America Ferrara, but I believe this film has a slight edge in the Best Supporting Actress category; it may well win for both, but should be recognized for at least one. The SAG Awards seem to indicate it will be Randolph and not Giamatti.)

In a lot of ways, The Holdovers is a redux of Sideways, a buddy comedy with Giamatti, except in this case he is playing more of a curmudgeon than a snob. And it's not about wine culture, but boarding school culture. Giamatti himself went to Choate, and I thought I might "see myself" in this, but I didn't really (the film was shot at Groton, NMH, Deerfield, and two other prep schools, though not LC, sadly). This was not the great boarding school film that is yet to be made (the way The Catcher in the Rye is the great boarding school novel). It is, however, a moving meditation on the nature of family and togetherness, and unmistakably touching in how it teases out the vulnerabilities of its characters. I teared up at least once or twice. Yet even with this air of melancholy, it is heartwarming, and the "lightest" nominee after Barbie. It would be difficult to hate this film, and I liked it, but as noted, I believe this is late recognition for Sideways, because nearly 20 years later, that film is rightly considered a modern classic.

American Fiction

On Sunday, February 25th, I went to the local movie theater and saw American Fiction. I have to rate it similarly to The Holdovers, but it is a very different type of film. The first comparison I could draw is to Sorry to Bother You. Both are satires about similar issues, but obviously, that one "jumps the shark," and this one stays within the realm of the plausible.

It's surprising that this is adapted from Erasure, a book published in 2001. (I was also drawn to consider The Sellout in the course of watching this, and how that book is not comparable to the two primary "texts" this film depicts.) The film is unmistakably important for our times, because it poses questions about identity and representation, which have been hot-button issues for years on end, and demand deeper inquiry. They will need to pick a "clip" for the Oscars from Jeffrey Wright's performance, and I hope they pick the brief scene he has with Issa Rae, where he confronts her and calls her out on what he sees her work as doing. That scene, like certain scenes between Cooper and Mulligan in Maestro, is borderline iconic. It's beautifully written and acted. And the way such issues are percolating in our culture and driving divisiveness, this film should likely inspire thoughtful debate and conversation.

It's unfortunate that it took more than 20 years for this book to be adapted, and that I haven't read it. (I haven't read Killers of the Flower Moon, either, but the movie is making more people read the book, and that is the side-perk of giving such films recognition.) At a certain point, Wright says that he doesn't even really believe in race, and while that may have been more common in 2001, it feels quaint today, with more performative virtue-signaling in social media, and the rejection of teaching Critical Race Theory in certain sectors of this country. I was going to say Sterling K. Brown deserved a nomination for supporting actor, and I see that he got it. Tracee Ellis Ross is also very good in her abbreviated role.

This is a thorny film, but that is only half the story. At the end of the day, like The Holdovers, it is a moving meditation on family, showing how Wright and Brown navigate the uncertain territory of middle age, caring for their mother when she needs them most, while she is unable to give them the validation and love that they crave. It makes a bigger "statement" than The Holdovers, but it is also heartwarming in unexpected ways.

That being said, for further reading and an alternative take that goes much deeper, see this, which made me feel sort of terrible for thinking the movie was pretty good. Apparently, the book is braver, and better.

Past Lives

On March 1, 2024, I watched Past Lives on Paramount+. To this point, it is the most narrowly focused of the nominees, and somewhat similar to The Holdovers, isn't deeply invested in any message, other than the metaphysical trope of in-jun and 8,000 lifetimes. I could be cynical, and point to the ten nominees, and the previously controversial standards for eligibility, but the film is worthy of recognition. (Drive My Car was better than Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at Once and I implore you to watch it after the Oscars if you haven't.) Past Lives overtakes The Holdovers as the "smallest" and "gentlest" nominee. It is rated PG-13, and I do not understand why it is not PG except for the filmmakers to signal this is not a movie for kids. There is hardly any cursing in it, no graphic material, no violence, and the conflict it depicts is inherently veiled. "Fiction is about trouble," some writing instructors may intone, and the trouble here, which has an element of EEAO about it, is that our lives have too many possibilities, and sometimes we have to leave behind parts of it for reasons beyond our control. The leaving may all well be good and necessary, and as one character says near the beginning, "When you leave something behind, you gain something, too." And maybe what we gain is a newfound freedom to start again and try to shape our lives into a way we wish them to be. And maybe once we have done that--even if we are happy--we may have imagined more perfect futures before we have understood the realities of adulthood.

I don't want to say too much about the plot of the film, but it is about as simple of a plot as you can have in a movie. What struck me about it is its spareness. There is no concrete "subplot," not even a tangential conflict over whether or not the married couple wants to have kids. It is just squarely focused on this single issue, the notion of how things might have gone differently if say, we didn't need to leave, or if we had brushed against a certain person in the subway (or perhaps at a party in a dorm, or in History class, or at a music festival, the laundromat, the grocery store, etc.). The plot in one line: childhood sweethearts reconnect 12 years later over Facebook/Skype, and 12 years later again in NYC.

In the way The Holdovers is a great holiday film, this is a great NYC film, vaguely reminding me of one of the earlier random film reviews on this blog, and more obviously, Annie Hall and When Harry Met Sally. And it is a very romantic, bittersweet film which makes me feel more teary-eyed in retrospect than it did in the moment. At first blush I would have rated it as lesser than the other films seen to this point, but the mood it inhabits is suffused with such deep humanity that practically no one could not identify with some element in it. There is a good chance it will make you cry, and ponder the trajectory of your life, and perhaps it may inspire an upheaval, whether foolishly or practically. I won't spoil which direction the film goes. This is just the most "human" and "basic" story told by any of the nominees, that transcends race, nationality, language and tangibility in general--we just know one main character is a writer, and the other main character is an engineer. To paraphrase Flannery O'Connor: every writer has material, whether or not they believe it, for they have gone through childhood. And so too, after moving into adulthood--when we have continued to pursue certain childhood dreams, and made good on them, we wonder if our feelings from our most innocent times end up feeling the most intense and genuine. Maybe I am trying too hard to wax poetic to give closure to this capsule assessment, but if you've seen the movie, you may understand why.

Last year, there was some brief mention of budget and box office, and just for the sake of fun and comparison, let us consider the nominees this year.

Oppenheimer
Budget: $100,000,000
Box Office: $953,800,000

Barbie

Budget: $145,000,000
Box Office: $1,446,000,000

Maestro

Budget: $80,000,000
Box Office: $820,567

Killers of the Flower Moon
Budget: $200,000,000
Box Office: $156,000,000

The Holdovers

Budget: $200,000 (!)

Box Office: $41,400,000

American Fiction

Budget: $16,000,000 (reported estimates differ)

Box Office: $21,900,000

Past Lives
Budget: $12,000,000
Box Office: $26,600,000

Anatomy of a Fall

Budget: $6,600,000

Box Office: $29,600,000

Poor Things

Budget: $35,000,000

Box Office: $101,900,000

The Zone of Interest

Budget: $15,000,000

Box Office: $16,400,000

I'm not sure why any of this matters. Perhaps I want to ask, has a box office bomb ever won Best Picture? It must have happened.

In any case, Maestro is a massive failure, but those numbers don't tell the whole story because it was most definitely the most widely-streamed of the nominees, in accordance with its rollout.

Why did Killers of the Flower Moon have such a massive budget? It's very long, but how did it cost twice as much as Oppenheimer, which is also very long? Should we consider the "efficiency" of the film if we are really to call it "the best?" We may never know the former, and we can debate the latter, but regardless, to this point, I still think Killers is the best.

Poor Things

On the morning of March 4, 2024, sometime between 9 and 10 AM, I twisted a nerve in my back and threw it out; at 7:40 PM, I arrived 10 minutes after the showtime for Poor Things. This theater doesn't show 10 minutes of previews, but I don't think I missed more than a few of the opening minutes to the film. Suffice to say, I will watch again at some point.

My enjoyment of the film was hampered by my condition, which made laughing painful. I did not laugh hard because I knew it would trigger a spasm. It would be accurate to say I laughed until it hurt.

Even so, Poor Things is not a hard comedy, and while humor is persistent throughout, Mark Ruffalo most often brought the pain. The film is nominated in 11 different categories, including Emma Stone for Best Actress and Ruffalo for Supporting Actor.

Emma Stone will not win, unfortunately (Edit: WRONG!). She did win the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy, but that category in the Oscars is a fait accompli. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in The Curse, which she did not win but also proves, 2023 is the year that she ascended into nearly the highest echelon in Hollywood. (Many more people will see Poor Things than The Curse, but the latter is even more bizarre than the former, and both are excellent and worth seeing.) She has already won Best Actress for La La Land, and I do not think this loss will bother her. Like Michelle Williams and Cate Blanchett last year, she deserves to win for this, but there is only one statue to give, and ties are all but impossible.

Ruffalo is not likely to win, either, but his performance stands apart from his career to this point. While he has always been a respected actor, and this is his 4th nomination for a supporting role, it is arguably the best work he has done. It is a comedic performance, and while playing Bruce Banner/The Hulk brought (brings?) its fair share of humor, this is far more subtle. I don't even know who he is supposed to be. I thought he was a magician or something.

I digress. Poor Things is a great film. I have seen a few of Yorgos Lanthimos's films in the past, to varying degrees of confusion and boredom, and think this is the best he has done (I liked The Lobster a lot, but this is unmistakably more epic). I missed the opening minutes, but in the way of plot, this is a take on Frankenstein. The production design is noteworthy, and all of the technical elements are well-executed, but the screenplay and the acting elevate it to another level. The film may cause you to question how your experience of the world has been shaped by your parents, and society, and even "what it means to be human," in the same way that Shelley's Frankenstein was more philosophical inquiry than horror story. It is also oddly similar to Barbie. It is "fun"--but it is also provocative, and "pregnant with meaning."

Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d'une chute)

On March 5, 2024, I began Part 1 of the Sandra Huller double-feature, renting Anatomy of a Fall on Amazon Prime, which will complete this project. Huller is nominated for Best Actress for this, and also plays a lead role in The Zone of Interest. She also played the lead role in the film I considered the best of the previous decade. Perhaps not unlike Emma Stone, Huller "ascended" in 2023. (I will have to watch Sybil in the coming weeks, which is her previous collaboration with filmmakers Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, before this; edit- I did and it was amazing and probably as good as either of these two nominees)

Anatomy of a Fall is basically a courtroom drama-thriller with some elevating elements. Huller is a German actress, and she plays a German writer (also named Sandra) that lives in France and prefers speaking English. It is not a spoiler to say she is eventually put on trial. It happens rather quickly, and the way the film moves through these various preliminary scenes rapidly, telegraphing what new developments have just come to pass, is one of the highlights. The opening itself ensures that you will never think of the 50 Cent song "P.I.M.P." the same, ever again.

While making the film, Huller repeatedly asked whether or not her character was guilty, and the director refused to tell her. That ambiguity drives the film and imbues her performance with unsettling depth. It was also interesting as a former law student to see the differences in French trial procedure.

Perhaps the greatest strength of this film is how much remains unknown. We cannot truly know what is in another's heart, we only know what is in our own. One could watch the movie with two completely different interpretations, and Huller's performance holds true in either case. It would be interesting to know if she had her own personal belief about the guilt of the character, but I doubt she would publicly pronounce it. So I guess that's what make this a little different from usual courtroom drama-thrillers, because most of the time, the audience knows the truth, and here, we are just as good as a jury. (While I do want to avoid spoilers, I would be curious to talk to someone that saw the ending, because I am wondering if my own thoughts are shared.)

The Zone of Interest

On March 7, I completed this project and Part II of the Sandra Huller double-feature, and I needed to buy The Zone of Interest on Amazon. So I can watch it again whenever, but I am not sure if I would unless a friend requested to see it. It's a very strange film and probably the most "artsy" of the nominees. Jonathan Glazer is an interesting filmmaker. When I was growing up and thinking about being a film director, he had recently come out with Sexy Beast after a notable career directing music videos. Sexy Beast is great and hilarious and totally different from this. He may have made other films, but after that, he was most notable for Under the Skin, which is the weirdest of all, but which more than a few people considered one of the best movies of the previous decade. It employed a similar color palette to a few discrete scenes in The Zone of Interest, one of which is captured in the still above.

It's about a German family--a Nazi family, but a family nonetheless--and the way they manage a happy domesticity in a beautiful home neighboring the front gates of Auschwitz. Many people comment that there are no images of the Holocaust, but that's not exactly true. Because a great deal of the material juxtaposes the cruel inhumanity of the father in his work as a Nazi officer with the gentle devotion he shows to his family (despite one odd scene which I think calls that into question).

Glazer is a "slow" filmmaker, seemingly making one movie per decade (though did do the fairly mainstream Birth in 2004, and a short film, The Fall, in 2019) and may now be comparable to the often-great Terrence Malick. This movie is similarly slow and meditative, and extremely uncomfortable at times, and appalling. Huller brings humanity to her character, even after she jokes with a friend (or was it her mother?) that someone refers to her as the "Queen of Auschwitz." She fights for her family and there is some semblance of a happy ending, which obviously is conflicting and not really satisfying. This is intercut with a flash-forward near the end that lends a greater weight and gravity to the film, underscoring the horror of reality as it once was.

In a way, this is a "token" nomination, in the way that All Quiet on the Western Front was last year, and 1917 and Dunkirk were before: the war film nominee. There is not always a Holocaust film nominee, but they are fairly frequent--off the top of my head, obviously, Schindler's List, and also Life is Beautiful, The Pianist, Jojo Rabbit--and there are many more, and I forgot Inglorious Basterds. All of these films are powerful in different ways, and sadly, still relevant and necessary ("genocide" continues, and we continue to debate what constitutes it). There is no film adaptation of The Banality of Evil (though I did just find out, there is a documentary, titled Hannah Arendt) and while that would be undoubtedly rake in Oscar nominations, for now there is just this, which portrays a different variant of banality. This is not a pleasurable watch, or comfort viewing, probably for anyone, except perhaps for the deplorables justifying neo-Nazism, who might get some sick enjoyment out of it. For everyone else, it's a lesson that bears repeating, and might make the audience search themselves, and think about what they would do if they lived in Germany in the 1940's, whether we might be an "innocent bystander" or resist. It is much easier to resist when the real threat of persecution, imprisonment, exile or execution is a not an issue.

So then, that wraps up our coverage of the Best Picture nominees. As for predictions:

Oppenheimer for Best Picture (Killers of the Flower Moon deserves it though)

Christopher Nolan for Best Director
Cillian Murphy for Best Actor
Lily Gladstone for Best Actress
Robert Downey, Jr. for Best Supporting Actor
Da'Vine Joy Randolph for Best Supporting Actress

I can't say much else about the rest of the nominations, and if you are doing an Oscar Ballot competition like my family does every year, those other categories mark the winner. So I'm sorry I can't be very useful to you, but I don't want to steer you wrong. I am reasonably sure that the above six categories will go this way, though there is always the potential for a surprise.

Fin.

Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture--and the Magic That Makes It Work - Jesse David Fox (2023)

2024-01-29T10:44:00.001-05:00

My first thought-best thought after reading Comedy Book following Doppelganger and The Perfection Trap: it was not as good as either, but offered the most enjoyable reading experience of the three. Should Fox consider that statement, query whether le plaisir du texte is greater than sturm und drang. I am likely using these pretentious-sounding phrases incorrectly. The world may be broken, but comedy is flourishing.

What can we take from a book? A different way of seeing and understanding the world, maybe. All three of these books made me think, but this one felt most familiar. All of these books are non-fiction, and all of the authors have a very urgent point they are trying to make.

Actually, I read Sure, I'll Join Your Cult more recently than The Perfection Trap, but yeah they are all non-fiction. However, Maria Bamford did not have a thesis supported by evidence marshalled from primary and secondary sources, like these other three (other than her own experience, examining the nature of cults and cult-like behavior). Doppelganger and The Perfection Trap also discussed cults of various guises, as does Comedy Book. All four of these books are connected. This was more amusing and entertaining and enjoyable than Perfection or Doppelganger, but in the Fox v. Bamford match-up, I am sure both would concede to the other. The primary connecting tissue between all four is one word: compassion.

A year ago, I was taking a stand-up comedy class on Zoom. There was no required text. Sometimes our instructor would send us clips from YouTube, and hold up certain comedians as masters of the craft of joke-writing and joke-telling. Fox has written a book that could function as a class on stand-up, or serve as a key text in such a creatively-centered course. Bird by Bird is to creative writing classes as Comedy Book should be to stand-up comedy classes. Of course, there are far more of the former than the latter, but if this book is any indication, we can expect the latter to grow (and perhaps expect the former to fade accordingly with attention spans).

The very urgent point that Fox wants to make here is that comedy, like Rodney Dangerfield, doesn't get any respect [as an art form]. The first place my mind jumps is to Annie Hall. This is still the only Comedy to win Best Picture (Birdman and Everything Everywhere All at Once both have their share of comedic elements, but neither fit snugly into the genre.) Many people say comedic acting is much harder than dramatic acting. Fox makes the point that Annie Hall (along with M*A*S*H, Tootsie, and The Graduate) are "great, well-made comedic films, but they aren't laugh riots." (56) They aren't "hard comedies."

From there the discussion shifts to the filmography of Adam Sandler, and it's not exactly Fox's point that Sandler's "lowbrow" or "gross-out" comedies deserve more critical acclaim--rather, intent matters, and Sandler knows audiences connect with this type of humor that has become his calling card. Even as he does more serious roles for other auteurs, he cannot be considered an auteur himself, because he is not P.T. Anderson, the Safdie Brothers or Noah Baumbach. I believe that Fox means to push against this notion--that we can and should consider Adam Sandler an auteur in his own right, even if the films are admittedly execrable.

He drives this point home by discussing what some consider Sandler's worst movie, Jack and Jill. I had heard enough about this movie that I wanted to watch it, and I got about halfway or two-thirds through it before growing bored and disinterested. That said it is really absurd and I did laugh a fair amount earlier on. (This may have been after the Grown-Ups 3 script was circulated, and I still believe this would make an incredible movie.) Fox and I are probably pretty close in age and so I think Billy Madison holds a special place in both of our hearts (to my mind, actually a good film and borderline-classic "hard comedy"), but it feels like this bothers him a little too much, that critics feel bad about movies that rely on poop jokes.

But later, he mentions how Blended provided him with "a profound personal realization about the sacrifices my own parents made blending my family," "not in spite of some of the dumbest jokes of Sandler's career, but, in my opinion, because of them, as they told the overthinking part of my brain to take ninety minutes off, so I could feel something." (66) He then quotes Ernest Becker from The Denial of Death for the second time (first time: "[Man is] a god who shits.") to reference Otto Rank, a colleague of Freud's that worked with Henry Miller and Anais Nin who believed that the only cure for neurosis was the "need for legitimate foolishness." (66)

The point is fairly made. Even the films appealing to lowest-common-denominator "lowbrow" audiences present a value proposition beyond their bankability. Sandler has a deal with Netflix that gave him a ton of money and creative control and he chooses to make these rather silly movies, and some people seem to have a problem with that, and Fox thinks such critics are missing the point. Sandler is living the dream, and Fox gets it, and he deserves it after paying his dues, and there's nothing wrong with watching movies that don't necessarily make us think (though not all of us think they're really that funny, either).

Early on in the book, Fox makes his point, and the rest of it reads something like a very long rant about comedy, with some occasional flourishes bordering on profundity. The book references many comedians while examining particular facets of comedy. To perhaps better structure this review:

Jerry Seinfeld
Chris Rock (on "bombing")
Bernie Mac
Janeane Garafalo
Adam Sandler
The Simpsons
Gilbert Gottfried (on jokes that are "too soon")
SNL (post 9/11, and generally)
Jon Stewart (and other outgrowths of The Daily Show)
Bert Kreischer
Louis C.K.
Maria Bamford
Margaret Cho
Tig Notaro
John Early
Kate Berlant
Jo Firestone
Bo Burnham
Kristen Schaal
Hannah Gadsby
Jerrod Carmichael
Drew Michael
Anthony Jeselnik
Lisa Lampanelli
Dave Chappelle
Ricky Gervais
Bill Burr
The Office (on memes)
I Think You Should Leave (on memes)
Ali Wong
Lil Rel Howery
Bowen Yang
Matt Rogers
Mike Birbiglia
John Mulaney
Marc Maron

If you like any of these comics, you are likely to find something of value in Comedy Book. If it is not already clear, however, Fox works by topics associated with stand-up, and some of the chapter titles include "Funny," "The Line," "Truth," "Laughter," (not required for comedy!) and "Community." Some of these chapters are better than others, and Fox is at his best when he is dissecting the brilliance of someone he admires.

A quick note on the writing style: it is conversational, and humorous (though more than a few times, lands in "dad-joke" territory, pseudo-intentionally) and a bit long-winded. This is probably better than the opposite. The book feels a little longer than it needs to be, but I appreciated the thoroughness and attention to detail. I am not a comedy fanatic by any stretch, but I knew most of the people referenced above, and some of them quite well. There were some surprising tidbits (like how Maria Bamford did an overnight Zoom stand-up show, sleeping with the camera on), and the occasional petit madeleine truc (like the SNL cold open after Trump was elected, or the Pete Buttigieg "High Hopes" viral video thing--to make up a sophisticated-sounding phrase that may not exist) and we can be reasonably certain that Fox has left no stone unturned, so to speak. You cannot sum up the entire history and trajectory of comedy in a book, but this comes close. I can take "long-winded" when the material feels comprehensive.

As I said though, even when I felt the topics had been analyzed to death already, I still enjoyed reading Fox's rants, because his passion is so strong that it drove me to care more. I can't help but include one quote for very odd, personal reasons.

"It was like I was Sandra Bullock in Gravity, doing routine repairs on the outside of my spaceship, when metal shards from a blown-up satellite came flying through, cutting up the craft, detaching my tether, leaving me flipping and flipping through space, floating away from my ship and Earth." (20-21)

Fox used the metaphor to describe his emotional state following the death of his mother, to highlight how comedy helped him cope with that tragedy (he was only 7), and it was rather moving. Recently Joey Votto used it to describe his emotional state after changing his mind on retirement, after his team declined the option to sign him to a 1 year contract. He called out to George Clooney to save him.

A lot of people in the arts don't care about sports or consider them irrelevant, but George Carlin made one of his most famous bits about football and baseball, and athletes are entertainers and often rather funny--so Joey Votto matters, too, because he gets that. And maybe he didn't do too well last year (he owns that, and knows he can do better, knows he is not done), maybe the Reds don't want to do him the honor of a final farewell (it would be a redux of 2023), but I really hope the Cubs will step up and be his George Clooney. It is, in fact, one of my 12 wishes for 2024. Votto is a national treasure and will always be one of the most famous Reds in history. He loves hitting at Wrigley Field and it would be a beautiful way to end his career, with a World Series ring, beating the team that didn't want to stick with him for a deja vu trip around the sun. He wouldn't be asking for a lot, just a small contract for a year and the opportunity to play. This is an unfortunate pipe dream, but for the moment, we can fantasize about the beauty that could be. (This tangent wouldn't be allowed in a book, but I have to do what I can for the sake of the enterprise.)

So you probably have a good idea of what this book is like by now, but before we wrap, it is best to consider the nexus between this book and Doppelganger, and to include a short note about the material on Dave Chappelle, because it articulated a point that many have made, but few so distinctly.

I may have written about this before, but here are my top 3 most notable experiences at comedy clubs:

(1) The Comedy Cellar - August/September 2001 - Outside the club, I saw Carson Daly (Chris Rock was also with him, and I believe Fred Durst, too) and dissed him, drunkenly, foolishly, and he graciously admitted he knew he stood for "everything that [was] wrong with the teen pop generation."

(2) Boston Comedy Club - February or March 2002 - I go with a pseudo-platonic friend to a showcase featuring a person that lived across the street from our dorm (Janeane Garafalo did too, but this was a person named Jordan who had a bit about Mike Tyson having a match-up in the ring with a wild animal, shortly after he announced that he would eat Lennox Lewis's children). There is a two-drink minimum and we are not yet 19. I am put on the spot and asked if she is my girlfriend. I say she is not (I leave out that she wanted to be, once, and that she had a boyfriend now) and the comic generally makes fun of me, like I am dorky or whatever, and then adds that tonight they are going to get me laid. It was extremely uncomfortable, but there was a prophetic element buried in there, too.

(3) The Comedy Store - Sometime in early 2008 - My friend, a manager for a famous jazz musician, is in town for a tour stop and taking a few of the back-up musicians from Africa out for a good time, and we all go for a night of comedy, and are frequently mocked for the oddness of our group. My friend and I are considered the "Jewish handlers," because we were white and wore glasses, and then I am called Harry Potter, and it is only better because there is a women with a really crazy "emphysema laugh" in the audience that the host pivots towards for crowd work, and then later because Pauly Shore took the stage and apparently did not want to make me any more uncomfortable.

So yeah, it was kind of funny to read this from Fox:

"'Look at Harry Potter over here.' That's what I would get. I had not read Harry Potter or watched any of the movies, but I got what they were trying to say--I had brown hair and glasses. I should say they didn't just say 'Harry Potter.' No, that's not funny enough. 'R*****ed Harry Potter.' Now, that's funny. 'Gay Harry Potter.' Funnier! Honestly, as a group of four guys, it was a lot of gay stuff. It blurs, but I'm pretty sure Lisa Lampanelli called us the 'United Nations of f*****s.' I forgot this, but one of my fellow UN representatives remembers Lampanelli touching another's leg and making some sort of Black penis joke. He also told me he always thought her act was kinda racist. I had no idea. I had not asked my friend at the time. I'm sure I laughed. Maybe I thought this was funny, maybe it was the pressure of the crowd, maybe I was scared she'd notice and go after me next. I know I was not offended. Why would I be? I was not gay, but I also didn't know why I would be offended if I were. But, also, in general I didn't get offended. This is not a point of pride as much a proof of privilege. None of the slurs Lampanelli threw around--and she threw them all around--applied to me, and everyone else seemed to be laughing. I guess she'd call people 'kikes,' but by 2002 that wasn't a word that meant anything to me. Frankly, in retrospect, I was desensitized." (190-191)

Now, I was offended, because it made me feel like a loser, and maybe this segues into the Doppelganger thing, or the anti-woke thing, or the freedom of speech thing, or the punching down thing, because they all feel connected.

When I was about halfway through this book, one night I watched the newest specials by both Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais. Chappelle's was better, but Gervais's wasn't terrible. Both of them are lightning rods for obvious reasons. Perhaps its best to start with something Gervais says towards the end of his special:

"Here's the irony: I think I am woke, but I think that word has changed. I think if woke still means what it used to mean, that you're aware of your own privilege, you're trying to maximize equality, minimize oppression, be anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic....Yes, I'm definitely woke. If woke now means being a puritanical, authoritarian bully, who gets people fired for an honest opinion or even a fact, then no, I'm not woke. Fuck that."

Rather than pointing out specific examples of people getting fired after being "reported" by a Woke Person (because it is usually not just having an honest opinion or stating a fact that does it), I want to analyze this the way that Fox would. Because on the one hand, Gervais is right, and the authoritarian, bullying Woke Person is part of the "fractured left" that Naomi Klein bemoaned in Doppelganger. On the other hand, when he says "fuck that," it gets a big cheer that sounds too much like a rallying cry. It's a rallying cry against cancel culture, and the "anti-woke" comedians often complain about being cancelled despite the First Amendment (Fox notes more than once that they are on a stage and getting paid for saying these things), and on WTF Marc Maron will talk about how freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences of what you say, which really is how we live as civilians. It's a broad rallying cry against cancel culture, but cancellations are highly specific.

Fox does discuss Louis C.K. in some detail, but Aziz Ansari is consigned to a footnote as being one of the eighteen acts that has headlined Madison Square Garden (9). Talking about him or Al Franken is tricky (talking about their books is not). There are likely other "woke" people that were cancelled and came off as hypocrites, but these two seem most prominent, and both were cancelled for acts with women that felt creepy, transactional and/or gross. (Let's ignore Bill Murray and James Franco for now--"me too," like sexuality, exists on a spectrum.) In any case, none of them happened just because of words.

Ansari was the only one to make a "mainstream" comeback, and I am surprised that Fox did not take a moment to talk about his comedy special Right Now but he does talk about John Mulaney's "comeback"* after going to rehab. Maybe there was no point to be made, and I don't know how most people feel about that special, but to me, it was fine, and he did the right thing, and he took his time away, and he did his penance, and he talked about it openly onstage (albeit briefly and vaguely)--he did it mostly the right way.

Most people, however, do not get the opportunity apart from their "apologies" posted to social media, which are often lambasted as "non-apologies" if they contain any whiff of self-defense. Being cancelled is incredibly scary, but there is a whole playbook for it now, PR-crisis mode, and anyone that chooses not to "play the game" runs the risk of committing career suicide, unless their intention is to drop out entirely.

Fox does address this to an extent with Kevin Hart and his rescinded invitation to host the Oscars (actually just for one joke itself), and Louis C.K. did immediately respond with a mostly appropriate apology in The New York Times (I am not going to hunt it down and analyze it, but that's how I recall it). He didn't later try to get a big special to win everyone back, but instead made his own platform, and you can find him if you want to find him. (Trump has taken a page out of the same book, but you will still find him even if you don't want to.)

It's hard to treat everyone perfectly equally (some people get away with everything), and some cancellations are deserved and some aren't, and while I pretty much agree with Gervais's statement, I don't think I would cheer for it, or even clap. It's simplistic, neat and tidy. Plenty of people say "gender is a fact," and not all of the authoritarian bullying Woke People think they should all lose their jobs, but they will certainly try to convince them that they are wrong, or write them off. (And yes you can lose your job for any reason, employment is almost always at-will unless you are unionized, and First Amendment Retaliation claims are only cognizable for governmental/public employees.) These people can petition Netflix to remove certain jokes, but they don't bend to them (though the Academy did). The truth is generally found in the details.

Dave Chappelle has said he is "Team TERF," and so perhaps its best to end here, because after his previous special, many people at Netflix protested and their boss told them he heard them, but he wouldn't take it down, and they could leave if they felt that strongly about it. (I think that's what happened, right?) Chappelle cancelled his own show after he realized he was getting laughs that made him uncomfortable, when he perceived a segment of the audience had been laughing at him rather than with him. I don't know how many more specials he has under contract with Netflix, and think what you will about him, but I do not think he can or should be cancelled.

As a critic, I prefer not to take sides, but it is inevitable, and I do not think Dave Chappelle is socially irresponsible. I do think he could be less "lazy," though his most recent special showcases his joke-book, and I do not want to accuse him of that. He could pander more, I guess, but if there is one thing comics should never do, it is pander. If he panders, his audience will think he's a sellout, and he will lose the juice that comes with being "bad boy." He doesn't feel he has to "repent" for anything, and I did find it curious that Fox left out the "epilogue" part to one of his specials where he spoke at length about his relationship with the trans community and his trans friend that essentially gave him permission to do the jokes. These are really thorny topics and I'm feeling the urge to use the phrase Gordian Knot.

I do think plenty of us growing up in the 80's and 90's dealt with "punching down" humor as a matter of course and reflection of reality, and this may be why many comics of that time period and earlier find censorship of such comedy to be "woke BS." We all had to put up with it, we all have internalized homophobia, deal with it! Yet we don't grow by thinking that way. But if we do grow, our comedy may turn into a Ted Talk.

This book is about what comedy is for, and comedy is for many things, but most directly, trauma-coping. Comedy can do many other things, as can literature. We can learn from a comedian's set the same way we can learn from a book, and we might become better human beings for having experienced them. There are ways to do both--Nanette being the prime example. But Chappelle can't pivot like that. Hannah Gadsby broke through with that trope. Chappelle broke through the way most comics of his generation did, and he has no reason to do the type of mea culpa that Ansari did. He could only do that if he was cancelled in a major way, and his audience is such that it would never happen, because he is not actually a bad person, he just sometimes tells jokes that offend a lot of people. (That being said, he could make some kind of statement, and most of his fans would continue to follow him, and he does not need to worry about money.)

In writing this review, I think I am coming up against the problem that Fox must have had in writing it: the tendency to rant and fight with oneself about taking sides. This was the quote:

"Though the direction of the joke is against North Carolina's bathroom bill, how it is received will vary based on each audience member's prior thoughts and feelings. A trans person or a total ally will have different opinions about the joke itself, but their stance on trans issues would very likely not be impacted at all. Audience members who obliquely support the trans community but feel some trepidation or confusion around the topic might find relief from their worry about this issue, in a way that moves them in the direction of unqualified support. Conversely, for audience members who aren't outright bigoted but are confused, skeptical, or generally weirded out by transgender people, Chappelle's dehumanizing fascination with the biology of the trans community can resonate and reverse any soft allegiances they were forming. For the unrepentant transphobe, Chappelle, just like the satirists of Chapter 5, is giving the audience a vocabulary to talk about trans people--he is giving them ammunition. It's hard to prove anyone ever heard a joke and then went out and committed a hate crime, but people repeat jokes they like. It deems certain speech allowable, and worse, it encourages people who are less funny, who are more oblivious to context, to try to walk the same line, and that will result in vulnerable people feeling bad and more vulnerable." (227)

Basically, to Fox and many younger comedians and audiences, Chappelle is a master of the craft, and a dinosaur. Bigotry is hack. New comedy will find a way to be funny without punching down. Query whether "punching down," now, is actually punching back.

I personally do not like to punch back. I will take the punch, and walk away, and I know I will be the bigger person for doing that. But I guess now, before you decide to go talk on stage for a living, you really ought to do a lot of work on yourself, and make sure that your heart is in the right place, and make sure that no one will get the wrong idea. That may be impossible. They will always get the wrong idea. It's how you deal with the blowback, how you "respond, rather than react," that will dictate your fate. Just generally speaking as a human being, it is better policy to love than to hate, and we can reflect the ugliness of reality in our art, but we can also imagine different realities and re-think the idea of "targets" in general.

I'll die on this hill with respect to comedy: everyone should just make fun of themselves. Self-deprecation is life.

Comedy Book: B+
Review of Comedy Book: D+

*I watched Baby J last night, and to be honest, it is probably better than Right Now. My only issue with it is that he only really talked about the rehab experience for the entire time. The reference to divorce and lack of further elaboration feels like a missed opportunity to do a super special, back-to-back, but I am sure this was the more emotionally responsible choice to make.

Doppelganger - Naomi Klein (2023)

2024-01-12T14:29:00.004-05:00

Doppelganger is a book that starts in a very small place--Naomi Klein's personal experience of being confused with Naomi Wolf too many times--and ends rather ambitiously, with a take-down of the entire structure of global society. I liked this book a lot and it is probably one of the best books of 2023 (fiction or non-fiction) but sometimes I felt Klein went on a bit too long and became a bit too strident. However, by the very end--especially after the epilogue--I was moved, and felt that "stridency" was necessary.

I have a friend that identifies as a "liberal, not a libtard." This is a book about language, too, and examining these differences matters, Klein has taught me. I think by "libtard," (a term I'd rather not use, but am parroting for the sake of simplicity) he means the fractured left, the loudest voices shaming and cancelling people for their failures at various purity tests. I would almost say "for not being woke enough," but that word has become weaponized. I never liked the word when people first started saying it back in 2016 or 2017 or so, because it smacks of anti-intellectualism on top of being a grammatical nightmare, as if "conscientious" was too difficult to spell (or wasted too many characters for Twitter). It's been weaponized in particular by Ron DeSantis, and a multitude of comedians and other "content creators" seeking to expand their audience. Naomi Wolf is just one of them.

I was touched to see Klein write about Wolf's blog, DailyClout, because of the numbers:

"I checked the traffic: in April 2021, the month she started regularly appearing on Bannon's podcast, DailyClout broke 100,000 unique visits--up from a mere 851 one year earlier." (86) [Earlier, Klein notes one month saw "a mere thirteen visitors."]

Miracles can happen when we are willing to accept Faustian bargains, it seems.

Flying Houses has 264,726 views as of this morning. While "all time" stats only go back until January 2011, I cannot find one month with less than 500 visitors. And so I question whether it is possible that DailyClout had less. I am not a very popular person and reviews of old books are not hot topics and total earnings for this blog since April 1, 2008 amount to $38.17 (yet unpaid). Things could be worse, I guess.

[FWIW, all of the usual items remain inscrutably popular, with the Beautiful and Damned review towering over all others with 6.04K views (query how the blog itself can have 264,000 views if the most popular post only has 6,000 of those, and the #2 entry--a review of Deerhunter's Microcastle--has 2.44K--I don't trust these numbers).]

For a moment, Klein does address a phenomena of which I am guilty:

"I was horrified the first time I noticed a colleague self-cite, embedding quotes from his earlier work in a column--'as I wrote here [link] and here [link].' Why was he quoting himself? Quoting is what we do to bring in the voices of others, to expand the frame, not to narrow it further. Now self-citing happens all the time: 'As I wrote here'....'See my earlier tweet'.....'Just bumping this up.' We have to do it, or so many of us believe--we are caught in a roaring river of voices that seems to wash away all that came before. If we don't remind people of what we have said and done, surely we will soon be floating downstream to the sea with all the other cultural detritus." (70)

Yes, we are all too well aware of our superfluousness, our disposability, and the inaudible murmur that we emit from the back alleys of Blogspot. Sometimes we need to lift ourselves up and remember what we have accomplished and what we have said before, to note what has changed and what has not.

Klein need not grapple with such fears. She has already made her mark on the world as an investigative journalist and activist, and her books (she puts particular emphasis on No Logo and The Shock Doctrine) are not in danger of falling out-of-print. Doppelganger is likely her greatest success to date, and because it is such a huge book in terms of ideas and sheer righteousness, one imagines greater successes to come (though we might predict it will take the shape of an even bigger statement on the topic of Climate Change, which she has spent the majority of her career analyzing). Yet even though she "made it" as a writer, she acknowledges, she still does grapple with these fears of being "outshouted," ignored and forgotten.

Wolf "made it" as a writer, too, with the publication of her debut The Beauty Myth, when she was 29 (which also gave her the same rival as a previous subject). Klein also put out her debut, No Logo, at age 29, albeit 8 years later. The differences do not stop there:

"The logical leaps were bad enough. What made it worse for me was that, with Wolf's new focus on abuses of corporate and political power during states of emergency, something she touched on only briefly in The End of America, I felt like I was reading a parody of The Shock Doctrine, one with all the facts and evidence carefully removed, and coming to cartoonishly broad conclusions I would never support. And while I was not yet confused with my doppelganger all that often, I knew that some people would credit me with Wolf's theories. It was an out-of-body feeling. I went back and took a closer look at the articles about her evening-wear arrest [during the Occupy Wall Street protests], and a line in The Guardian jumped out at me: 'Her partner, the film producer Avram Ludwig, was also arrested.'
I read the sentence to my partner, the film director and producer Avram Lewis (who goes by Avi).
'What the actual fuck?' he asked.

'I know,' I said. 'It's like a goddamned conspiracy.'

Then we both just burst out laughing." (20-21)

Klein is playing a bit here, because she doesn't write about Avi's films (perhaps because of her collaborative aspect in them), but his political campaign for a position in Parliament representing West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. What makes Doppelganger much more interesting than the usual book of social criticism is Klein's willingness to make herself a major part of the story. (This is often seen as one of the worst things a documentary can do, but if it's in a book, it can be a great thing.) This comes to the fore in her chapter on autism, detailing her experiences raising a neuroatypical child, one of the several unusual tangents the book takes, which feels like veering off course until she wraps everything up and reveals the basic idea at the bottom of all human discord: Manifest Destiny (and later, "killing the brutes").

This is likely a highly controversial and potentially divisive stance, but I have to imagine that most readers will be fans of Klein's and not Wolf's ("hate-watching" could be a thing, but "hate-reading" is far less common, and the Wall Street Journal did not review this book so I cannot see how the commenters feel about this idea that colonialism is at the heart of our deepest societal ills). The point will not be misconstrued. Exponential growth and expansion are hallmarks of the capitalist framework, and we have been conditioned to see this as a good thing to aspire towards, and while we are told to love our neighbors, the unspoken underlying truth is that we care most about the protection of our own families, and everyone else takes lesser priority.

"The trouble is, we live in a society that encourages and rewards the uncaring parts of ourselves, while making it hard to care for others outside our immediate family (and often within it) in any sustained way. So, [Sally] Weintrobe [a psychoanalyst who specializes in the climate crisis] argues, if we want more people to make better choices--not to shop for useless stuff as a source of solace, not to spread disinformation for clicks and clout, not to see other people's vulnerability and need as a threat to our own interests--we need better structures and systems." (336-337)

Unmistakably, Doppelganger posits the Covid-19 pandemic as the moment when trust in our structures and systems crumbled along party lines. We all had our own unique Covid Experience, but Klein captures the feeling I had about 46 months ago. This was new, and it felt like 9/11, except without the unparalleled death and destruction and horror in the space of a single morning, and spread out across the planet. There was a precedent in the Spanish Flu in 1918, and we saw eerie call-backs to that era, with old photographs of families in masks and old newspaper items about "social distancing." Most conspicuously, we got money, "fake money," and the stimulus propelled the economy through most of 2021 until it arguably created outsized inflation and the raising of the federal interest rate.

"It seems so distant now, but there were a few months in 2020--a good half a year--when there had been a widespread belief that the pandemic might be a catalyst for a great many of the structural changes our societies had been collectively procrastinating and avoiding. Many of us even let ourselves dream that the emptiness of our highways, the rest the skies were receiving from planes, and all of the talk about missing nothing more than one another would actually lead to a meaningful change in how we decided to live when the pandemic finally eased. These were the weeks when so many of us shared and quoted and posted Arundhati Roy's essay 'The Pandemic is a Portal,' imagining that a global calamity might take us somewhere not just different but better." (149)

I never read this essay at the time, but I have now, and it's hard to imagine the disparity between what we experienced here in the U.S. and the extraordinary impact the virus had on India and its people living under already deplorable conditions. It was as if their pain was magnified. For hospital staff and other essential workers here, that was also the case. If there was ever a time for a raise for the cashier at the check-out lane, this was it, and I don't believe many got that (though one recalls, this was a watershed moment for debate on what truly constitutes a "living wage," particularly in the hospitality industry).

For the great masses beyond those essential workers here, the pandemic was a reprieve. And while too many Wall Street Journal commenters would berate me for the fact, I happened to be a contingent worker, and more often than not took the "boosted" unemployment income that had been implemented.

I had been waiting my entire life for something like this. It was a return to childhood. The drudgery of life had been apparent to me since I was 10. It is an endless cycle of tasks and accomplishments and events and exams and tests and established consistencies and challenges and pressure to achieve something "meaningful." You have to keep working to survive, and the rent is high, and everything is more expensive in the places that have the best opportunities.

Covid came, and someone in government waved a magic wand and gave us what they deemed "enough" money to live (and it was a living wage, and probably more than that), if we were lucky enough to be unemployed. For about 18 months, the tables turned, and us have-nots were envied for our freedom. We could stay up til 3 AM and sleep til Noon. We could play video games all day and no one would really care. If we were bold, travel was suddenly cheap. Of course, it also allowed us to give in to our basest instincts. We had to learn self-control, and how to peacefully co-exist with our housemates and families in a more claustrophobic atmosphere. Mostly though, it was a break. While some people might have accused me of being a lazy worker, experience knows that is not so. I simply worked too many s***ty jobs over the previous 15 years, relentlessly. Any time off in that span could not be fully enjoyed, because it was almost never Paid Time Off. And so here, finally, I had PTO, and a lot of it.

We could do anything, except not en masse. I loved it. It was occasionally terrifying, but for the most part, I felt safe (I did not get Covid myself until May of 2022; I got it again about a year later; it seems like a lot of us are getting it now). But by September 2021, when the UI "party" ended, it was scary, but it was time. And I motivated myself to get into a real job and prove myself as a capable person in this world, and I got lucky. If it weren't for the pandemic, I'm not sure where I would be.

So it was a portal for me, at least, and maybe a few others--but not for our society. We backslid into the established ways of treating one another. The crazy people came out quickly.

Now, I know, they think I am crazy, they think we are all crazy, they think we are "sheeple," they think we are idiots for getting vaccinated. Naomi Wolf is one of them. This book is about them. The problem here, is that I am using "us" and "them." This divisiveness is potentially giving way to a 2nd Civil War. Nobody wants to say that, but that's the undertone. Even Nikki Haley was recently asked about what caused the 1st Civil War, and did not want to upset anyone by talking about slavery--but her answer was likely meant to apply to the present moment: "How government was going to run, the freedoms and what people could, and couldn't do." Sure, it was about people having slaves or not being able to have slaves, and "freedoms," in 1860, but which ones today are truly at stake? Klein acknowledges the absurdity of "freedom protests" from masking and vaccination mandates. Ron DeSantis is running his entire platform on his handling of Covid-19, and Trump and Haley and other conservative candidates want to get these voters that seem, well, stupid.

But aren't we the stupid ones? They're right, in a way. Epstein did have Clinton to his island (and Clinton doesn't seem credible--and the fact that Naomi Wolf had a role in his White House is another example of her fascinating trajectory). Biden is potentially losing his mental faculties (though they are blind to Trump's own unraveling). Homeless drug addicts are multiplying in cities with "liberal" mayors (and migrants welcomed here stoke further contempt for nanny-states, symbolizing cities in decline, of which San Francisco is the poster child).

What's refreshing about Klein is that, as an "anti-capitalist," she doesn't endorse the Democratic party, either. She wanted Bernie. Now, I wanted Elizabeth Warren (and could anything better represent the 'fractured left' than that refusal of a handshake between them after that one debate?), but after reading this book, I better understand the appeal of Bernie and the power behind his campaign--it wasn't about us:

"Though rare, I have seen this happen. I have been in factories taken over by their workers and squares occupied by the people and cities in the grips of revolutionary fervor--moments when everyone you meet is your political comrade and lifelong friend rolled into one. And it was there, too, in that U.S. presidential campaign that united millions with three that began as a slogan and became a kind of social justice prayer: 'Not me. Us.' The campaign's pivotal moment took place at a rally in Queens, New York, in October 2019. That's when Sanders, in front of a crowd of twenty-five thousand people, did something he hadn't done before. He exhorted everyone there to look to someone in their midst, someone they did not know, 'maybe somebody who doesn't look kinda like you, maybe somebody who might be of a different religion than you, maybe they come from a different country....My question now to you is are you willing to fight for that person who you don't even know as much as you're willing to fight for yourself?'

Would they fight to end student debt, even if they had no debt? Would they fight for the rights of immigrants, even if they were citizens themselves? Would they fight for the rights of people who hadn't been born yet to live a life safe from climate breakdown? In the road of the crowd, people were more than moved--they were altered. Altered by the power represented by the idea of standing up and fighting beyond the narrowest conception of self and identity.

The trouble is, a presidential campaign isn't capable of making good on a promise like that. By definition, an electoral campaign has a finite life span, and it ends when the candidate wins or loses. When Bernie lost and that end arrived, the unselfing we felt so powerfully on the campaign trail seemed to end right along with it. Shut in our homes by the first wave of strict lockdowns, severed from the movement that had held us together, so many of us who had been overcome by the power of 'us' felt as if we had just been summarily dropped into a deep sea of 'me.'" (333)

I should have ended that excerpt a paragraph early and added, "Would they fight for the right of people to party?" but I liked the next one too much because it captured that distinct moment so poignantly. It's perhaps worth asking, though, because with a new election season well underway, it is important to derive counterpoints from predictable arguments: inevitably, San Francisco will be referenced in the coming months as the leading example of a failing city overrun by homelessness and drug addiction (Klein writes about similar problems in her near-hometown of Vancouver, BC). Candidates will be asked how they have managed that in their home constituencies, and how they would on a federal level. What has been done in Reno, NV could be a step in the right direction, the type of intervention that is most effective in curtailing housing insecurity, unemployment, addiction and mental illness. There is a menu of social issues on a growing list of topics for debate, and this is one of the most complex, apart from how to address climate change.

Immigration and abortion are also political flashpoints, because you want to vote for a candidate that aligns with your values. Student debt....should we really get into it? That was an odd issue for the intense emotions it unleashed. If I ever want to get depressed and question my life choices, I read a WSJ story on student debt relief and read the comments. Nobody that paid off their loans wants younger people today to get a free pass. (Nobody also talks about how to appease such individuals, whom I believe could be "massaged into" a tax credit.) "My tax dollars shouldn't bail you out," they say.

And yet who receives a tax bill? For property, maybe, or for certain corporate matters--but people don't get tax bills for yearly individual filings. We get W-2s. And we see how much we owe based on our income. It's 20%, or 25% (maybe more in a higher bracket). People seem to think raising taxes is the inevitable measure necessary for the forgiveness of student debt. They are jumping to conclusions and catastrophizing (they ask where we will find the money for it, and recoil in horror at the thought of cutting back on Defense spending). We don't even know what our taxes are going towards now anyways. Another great idea that no one seems to float is the reporting of what percentages or amounts of our taxes paid have been attributed to which programs, which departments, which initiatives, so that we could more effectively vote for the interests we hold most dear. Don't bet on that happening. It can be dangerous to give the people too much information. It is prone to misinterpretation. We have more information than ever on the Internet, and we are also misled down rabbit holes, more than ever, by conspiracy theorists looking for angles, views, likes, donations, and clout.

While Doppelganger is teeming with fascinating tangents, one other merits mention before we close out this review, and it is the lengthy screed on antisemitism, which has permeated global culture for thousands of years, and is experiencing something of a comeback. Doppelganger was published on 9/12/23. Four weeks later, she probably wished she hadn't made her deadline.

We could go back and provide a roadmap of all of the examples from history she analyzes, or the pages she devotes to exploring the utopian ideals of Red Vienna, post-World War I and pre-World War II, but for the present moment, her statements on Zionism and the issues building towards terrible events that were yet unknown, felt quite prophetic indeed.

The sub-chapter "Erez from Erez," within the larger chapter of "The Unshakable Ethnic Double," is something I would excerpt in full, but I have to set some kind of limit, maybe three paragraphs (as above). In any case, this may be a misleading episode to represent the current state of affairs, because it took place in 2009, but regardless...

"With the aid of many beers, the three of us deconstructed the levels of gaslighting that Erez from Erez appeared to have orchestrated. No, we did not buy that the Israeli military was about to open a ground war in Gaza to rescue three Jews who were not lost. Nor did we believe we had been in imminent danger from Hamas. They had questioned Avi in a makeshift checkpoint inside a shipping container for about fifteen minutes, mainly to find out why he had an Israeli first name if he was Canadian (his mother's youthful labor Zionism). But they were satisfied with his press credentials--and it was the Israelis who had left us on the Gazan side for hours before allowing us through the checkpoint.

It seemed clear that they wanted us to sweat, to wonder if we were being abandoned behind "enemy" lines. And then they wanted to send a very clear message: that whoever we thought we were, and whatever we thought we were doing, here, on these blood-soaked lands, we were nothing but our ethnic doubles, nothing but our Jewishness. That Jewishness would get us kidnapped or killed by Hamas in Gaza, never mind my foolish support for Palestinian rights, and then it would only be the Israeli army that would ride to our rescue, its soldiers risking their lives to save ours, even though they hold us in utter contempt. Because, like Hamas, they don't care about who we think we are as individuals; they care about our Jewish doubles. So, when Hamas attacked us as Jews, Israel would be there to save us as Jews." (314)

I heard a lot about Israel and Palestine all throughout my life, and it was something that would come up in the news every few years or so, and every time I would throw my hands up and say I didn't understand it, and not look into it further. This time it was different. And it hurts my brain to think about the ways we are supposed to feel and the way we actually feel, and the safest way to protest is to protest killing in any sort of guise. Having read the entirety of Doppelganger, I trust that Klein is not losing the thread. I have to think she saw all of this coming.

Doppelganger simply goes too many places to neatly summarize in any review. I could write something twice as long (there should be an entire section of this review devoted to the word "genocide") but I would just say to read the book itself. We all know that liberals and democrats are basically done, because they can't get anything done, and conservatives have banded together, formed a more unified ideology, agreed on most issues, strategized and packed the Court with their appointees (three young enough to spend several more decades on the bench) and remained persistently aggressive and passionate and engaged about their beliefs. It's clear that Klein is tired of the weak and half-hearted activism, i.e. "virtue signaling" and nothing further, that has branded the liberals as ineffectual lemmings. Her journey down the rabbit hole does bring some surprising suggestions:

"Though I hesitate to suggest it, this is a place [Greta's 'blah-blah-blah speeches on climate change] where we could stand to learn a little from Steve Bannon. From his bloody-minded approach to strategy and building winning coalitions despite differences. From his transformation of listeners and watchers into highly organized doers. From his focus on 'Action! Action Action!'" (157)

Is James Carville the doppelganger to Steven Bannon? I cannot tell but I do not see him as the leader we need, or deserve. If anyone besides Trump is responsible for Trump, Bannon is at the very top. And though Trump is gone, kind of, for now at least (maybe), Bannon remains a key organizer of several subsets of conservatives rallied around the idea of MAGA. I think it's still clear that the closest thing liberals have gotten to Bannon is Bernie (and he's not doing his own show every week for two hours, riling up his compatriots). (Ralph Nader + Bernie was a missed opportunity, but maybe that would have been Too Soon.)

So this year is important. It's unfortunate there won't be serious democratic contenders (Biden will not step down) to have the kind of debate we had four years ago, but Biden has been "buying" votes from the radical wing of the party and is likely to appear as progressive as possible (without alienating his core centrists). For now it's more interesting to watch DeSantis vs. Haley. For the record, the only thing I really care about is his relationship with Disney, and I appreciate that both Trump and Haley have called him out as being "destroyed" by Disney. Even they respect the right of corporations to have free speech, and to stand against what they see as hate and intolerance. "Desantislies.com," but the conservatives lie in general all the time, and many of the problems they seek to correct are fake ones meant to rile up and attract voters.

It's a tall task to "explicate" all of the problems of our current world, but Klein does a damn good job of connecting seemingly disparate events with one another. In Doppelganger, she draws out these connections that maybe we have felt at various moments, but haven't been able to articulate. I can't explain it better than that, but if you read it, I think you'll get it, and I'm sure she could put it better but also wouldn't want to toot her own horn, or go for Too Much Clout.

Like I said, though, this is a depressing book, and I didn't want to say it was one of the Best Books, until the Epilogue. I won't spoil the Epilogue but it was definitely the most powerful part of the book for me (also, those other spare moments when Klein praises Wolf). Wolf did not participate in this book, but perhaps she knew, it would be better that way. Now, the ball is in Wolf's court. Perhaps a third act to her career is around the corner, and the publication of her comeback volume, The Antagonist, will bring us all to a new moment of unity. I like to think of myself as an optimist, but I am not holding my breath.

Grade: A

Sure, I'll Join Your Cult - Maria Bamford (2023)

2023-12-01T18:17:00.001-05:00

Oeuvre rule: I am tangentially aware of Maria Bamford. I tried watching Lady Dynamite on Netflix, and as must be the case with so many other neophytes, "didn't really get what she was going for." I will need to attempt to watch again, after having read this book, because it all went down a lot smoother for me.

It's actually quite appropriate that we review this following The Perfection Trap, because Maria Bamford is a perfect example of the dangers of parentally-prescribed perfectionism. And also, the enormous success that can follow.

Throughout the book, which is probably the best memoir I've read by a comedian so far (dethroning Bossypants), she continually reminds the reader of her laziness and sheer lack of work ethic. She worked many terrible jobs, as many of us do in the service of our greater artistic dream, especially when in Los Angeles, and she was not passionate about anything except being on stage, because it was there that she felt most herself.

She does not remind the reader that she held impossibly high standards for herself and pushed herself to the breaking point to live up to everyone else's idea of what a successful comedian and beautiful person should be. She does, however, reach a breaking point, likely due to her burgeoning fame and escalating obligations as a performer. And she does emerge as a gloriously imperfect and messy and beautiful human being.

The book is unabashedly silly (see the recipes that end each chapter). While I am not a deep Maria Bamford "head," I have no doubt that she talks in life just the same as she writes on the page. The book is very funny; only occasionally does it not turn every sentence into a joke. Despite the constant "jokiness," there is so much heart in this book that it feels like the most genuine memoir almost anyone could ever hope to write.

I heard Marc Maron say on WTF that she is the best stand-up comic in decades (just today, that was repeated, and the guest agreed, she is the best in his lifetime along with Richard Pryor). That designation feels something akin to "inside baseball," or perhaps even a red herring, because she is fully aware that she is NOT FOR EVERYONE and she does not attempt to deliver your standard hour of stand-up. Granted, I have not seen her perform. This is the impression I get from the book and the other podcast interviews I have heard with her and various impressions in visual and social media that have imprinted on me. Clearly, she knows the form well, and probably could do a more "standard" hour, at a very high level, but she prefers to subvert that, and turn her comedy into something along the lines of Nanette or Swimming to Cambodia. She hasn't released films of that stature, but this is such a good memoir (I forget that it's hard to put it over It Never Ends, but Tom Scharpling is not a stand-up comedian) that it feels like the next logical step in her career. I believe that she is capable of making a great film, now that she has written a great book. Yes, it belongs on the Best Books List, along with It Never Ends.

The key to this book (and my heart) is radical honesty. TMI. Oversharing. I've done it in the past and learned to be wary of its results, and so I have deployed it when least likely to backfire (only lately!). I am still not perfect about recognizing if and when "loose lips [will] sink ships," but I give just about everyone a pass with this--I appreciate the effort. I appreciate when someone is willing to be vulnerable. I appreciate when they let go of their fears that I am going to judge them. It's a vote of confidence in the compassion of the audience. It's also useful to know the specifics. While we learn more and better from making our own mistakes, we can still learn from the stories that others share about their own struggles.

Bamford frames her memoir as an exploration of the cult of various 12-step groups. I am not sure if the memoir has 12 chapters but I am going to check now. And I see that I'm wrong. But there are 23 chapters and an appendix, so it's almost "symmetrical." I digress.

She begins with the Cult of Family, and a chapter each on her mother, father and sister. Her relationship with her mother is vaguely reminiscent of the relationship at the heart of Crying in H-Mart, though culturally dissimilar. From her, she inherited body dysmorphia, and the ultimately the medication that worked best. While her mother seemed unintentionally hilarious, it appears she inherited her father's sense of humor, and I can only say he reminds me a little of Parker Posey's dad:

"My dad has always prompted us to call him 'the Best Dad in the Whole World.' He calls my sister 'the Best Oldest Daughter in the Whole World.' I'm 'the Best Youngest Daughter in the Whole World.' It's reciprocal propaganda, but it's true, he is a good guy. He's always been active in our community: trying to help out with mentoring local kids, teaching English to immigrants arriving in Duluth, working with men just out of prison for domestic violence crimes. He sends me cards and cookies, he taught me to drive, he taught me how to change a tire nine times (it didn't take) and chop wood. He attended every play, every concert. All that is true. It is also true that on this trip [to Yellowstone] in the sixty minutes we were away from my mother, he broke a federal law and may have committed a misdemeanor for child endangerment." (57)

Near the beginning of the next section, she acknowledges, "The editors had some real problems with this chapter about my sister because they thought my descriptions of our relationship are too banal, too typical of sisters, not dramatic enough. That is exactly what is so bizarre about it! It is that these tiny-tiny-tiny things that go on between us feel like tsunamis of 'compare and despair.' Examples:

1. My sister always makes food for everybody. She makes a bunch of homemade food and puts it out like it's no big deal. IT IS A FUCKING BIG DEAL. Recently, she invited us on a picnic, didn't ask me to bring anything (I didn't), and yet she brought 2 (TWO) different kinds of delectable handmade sandwiches, organic cherries, salad, a cold VARIETY of drinks, AND cookies. She hauled it all to an idyllic river setting she found outside Duluth and laid it out on a blanket. At no time did she stop and say, 'HEY! YOU GUYS! CHECK OUT ALL OF THIS STUFF I JUST DID FOR YOU ASSHOLES!'
(I have ONLY ONCE made my family dinner, though I am constantly swaggering about my self-serving good deeds. If I have done anything, you will know about it and I will have photographic proof. In my defense, I have picked up the check for family dinners and then tried to write it off as a business expense.)" (66-67)

After exploring these family dynamics, she moves onto her own personal upbringing, which includes learning violin under the Suzuki method and developing eating disorders. Living with a person that plays "twinkle twinkle little star" over and over made me realize that this was about the same thing, and I felt compelled to photograph a couple pages and send them those excerpts by text. The book should be read by anyone that has studied Suzuki violin for that chapter alone.

From there we move into the early 90's and Bamford's first tentative steps into the entertainment industry. Her first gig is basically cosplaying a character from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. It is perhaps worth nothing that I read the few pages detailing this while dining alone at the Black Spire Outpost at Star Wars Galaxy's Edge in Disneyworld's Hollywood Studios theme park. It was ridiculously apropos, but if you have not been there or do not know anything about it, I don't want to explain further.

And 12 pages later, in one of my favorite chapters, about Debtors Anonymous and PRGs (Pressure Relief Groups), she lists 6 suggestions she was given in 1995. Rather than excerpting the entire thing, i will just paraphrase:

1-Call everyone you know to see if you can rent a room from them.
2-Pray for the willingness to earn $2,000/month to pay for rent, food, health care, clothing and debt repayment.
3-Get a job, any job.
4-Take the CBEST (California Basic Educational Skills Test) to be certified as a substitute teacher.
5-Type out form letters for creditors, tell them not to contact by phone.
6-Go to Disneyland.

"I did everything they told me to except for number 6, because I am not going to Disneyland." (141)

She does not elaborate further but this was my least favorite part of the book. For one, she should elaborate further. Why wouldn't you go to Disneyland if you were in L.A.? Of course, it's expensive, and doesn't make sense for a person struggling with debt, totally, but it was 1995 and Disney had not yet instituted Genie+ and it was more affordable. You can justify a trip to Disneyland because it is the happiest place on earth. She had to go to Disneyland, at some point, and if she hasn't, I highly recommend she does. I recommend Disneyworld over Disneyland but it is cool to live in L.A. and be able to do Disneyland without shelling out for a Disney resort and staying 5-7 nights (or however long one needs to do everything there at all four parks). I stayed 4 nights at a Disney official hotel, but not a Disney resort, and spent $2,200 on the entire trip. I wanted to write an entire blog post about this trip. I am not going to turn this review into that. I am just simply going to note that Maria Bamford made a mistake by not doing #6. Because while there are many awful things about Disney, anyone that has been there cannot deny, it is as validating an experience as there is, and sometimes provides the perfect respite from the unrelenting hell that is reality for many of us.

The material on Debtors Anonymous is (dare-I-say) groundbreaking. I have also learned to record all of my expenditures on a daily basis. I have been OCD about this for almost 12 years. Many people will consider this too tedious, and the process of budgeting too onerous. And that very well may be fine for them. But I know, having been in somewhat dire financial circumstances, that when it reaches a critical point, this can be a very useful practice. And having attempted to write some kind of book, detailing my efforts, I am familiar with the issue Bamford ran up against:

"In addition to revealing the financial details of my book deal, I also wanted to include a profit-and-loss statement regarding my business. I argued with my editor AND my manager about this. MANY TIMES. PERSONALLY, I LOVE THIS KIND OF INFO, BUT NO ONE ELSE IS INTERESTED, ESPECIALLY THE EDITORS. If you don't care, as you were. AS YOU WERE." (149)

The next 5 pages consist of a spreadsheet that details earnings and expenses from shows in Ping Pong, AK and Jai-Ho, Belarus, and a P&L statement for the month of September 2022. The only item I question is $1,129 for life insurance. I suppose the numbers go up exponentially when one is a known quantity in the entertainment industry and/or has over $3 MM in assets, but I hope this includes health insurance premiums. I know the SAG provides for some of this, but I don't think it covers everything at 100%. In any case, I don't want to pay $1,100 a month for life insurance, but I guess if I felt like I had to, it's not a bad problem to have.

The next group she joined was SLAA: Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. In this chapter, the TMI and oversharing is probably something the editors loved. Bamford herself would likely appreciate this, because earlier in the chapter about her sister, she writes:

"I have only skimmed her books before feeling overwhelmed. As with all books, I pass swiftly over the text, pausing only for prurient details. From what I've been able to take in, her books are really beautiful, AND there's a great scene in one memoir where she is naked on the floor trying to have some private time to shove a hemorrhoid application up her bum and her four kids break the door down. But a lot of her writing features an experience of spirituality that I do not have, and so I tab through, alighting only upon anything foul." (68)

While this is also a great chapter, I will leave it to the reader to seek out the book and skim and pause as they see fit. The next chapter may be more interesting to address.

Because it deals with her time as a Target spokesperson, which is basically when she starts getting paid. I did not distinctly remember the commercials, but from the one photo she includes, there was a vague recollection. It was her "big break," back in 2008 and 2009, and it is fascinating to read about the effect that it had on her emotionally--for example, when she is introduced at a stand-up gig as a "sellout." Added to that, negative news about Target and its union-busting is relayed to her, which further adds to conflicted feelings. In the middle of this is another chapter about the tragic death of a pet and her own role in it. By this point the book is building towards its denouement. In 2011, she writes a column for The New York Times and talks on the phone to the Ethicist there. An executive at Target finds the column, realizes it is her (she is asked and she lies and says it was not her) and she is not asked to return to the Christmas ad-campaign.

She then decides to invite everyone she has ever emailed to her Christmas party. By this point she owns a 900 square foot home and estimates that somewhere between 150 and 500 guests came through the party. She gets into what seems to be a relatively serious relationship and then has a pretty abrupt break-up. Meanwhile she is still a successful comedian booking gigs, and she has to go to Chicago for the next shows, and she realizes she needs to try a different medication (Lamictal, which ended up being the one that worked for me) and then checks in for a series of hospitalizations, which goes on for about 20 pages and arguably makes up the strongest part of the book.

There is a very brief chapter about one cult that did not work for her, and like many other things in this book, greatly touched me. This is essentially a review of Ten Days to Self-Esteem by David Burns. One of the limited books that I reviewed with an "(incomplete)" is Feeling Good: the New Mood Therapy by David Burns. It also is too long, and has too many exercises about avoiding "should" statements and turning negative thoughts into positive ones. I am sure that this works for a lot of people and that they will swear by it. It did not work for her, and it did not work for me. This chapter is a truc but clearly, it would be wrong to leave it out of the review, for it is another example of the kinship I feel with her.

The book goes on to detail her time doing Lady Dynamite and finally, Couples Anonymous, which she does with her partner Scott. It is similarly unsparing and relatable. I think it is inevitable that any couple is going to fight. Lately I have drawn a distinction: arguments are OK (they can even be important and good) but fighting is bad. Fighting is still going to happen, though, and part of a successful partnership is being able to accept that the other person isn't perfect, and that you aren't perfect, and that you won't always see eye-to-eye on everything, and that the partnership only survives if you can tolerate the bad times and find strength and growth in forgiveness. (Reciprocating in that is also key, I think.) The way all of this is borne out in the text is another one of the more beautiful parts of the book.

Chapter 23, "Obligatory Suicide Disclaimer," is the brilliant ending and amounts to a personal essay on suicide and the judgment that underlies it. While absolutely not condoning the act, she expresses total empathy for those that have done it. Yes, it is a selfish act, and staying alive for loved ones can be a powerful motivator, but it does not help anything to chastise a person that has attempted it, or may be thinking about attempting it. There are better ways to express empathy and compassion. Primarily, that is through listening. And if you are suffering, that is through talking. And if you are going through unimaginable pain and you cannot tolerate it any longer, she does not consider you a bad person that is condemned to Hell for eternity for taking your own life. The essay, however, should bring comfort to anyone and everyone, and perhaps even save lives:

"Please don't hurt yourself or anyone else. Do something else instead. Even if it's harmful! Suicide is a one-off. You can do meth at least twice without consequences! (I don't know if that's true.) Knock yourself out with a forty-ounce keg of Baileys Irish Cream and a Dairy Queen Blizzard. You do not want to miss any additions to the Dairy Queen product line! Did you know they have a FUDGE-STUFFED COOKIE now? Postmate that mess while you wait for your response team (your friend Tookie). If you cannot access these luxuries, go to the pantry. Get a jar of Skippy equivalent and finish it IN HOUSE while asking a volunteer to stand on your lower back. And use this time to try things you never thought you'd do: basic training, plural marriage, improv street comedy." (256)

There is not much more I can say that hasn't already been said above. She fulfilled her contract with this book, and wrote a beautiful one that I could appreciate more deeply than almost any other memoir I've read (and there are quite a few on this blog: Patti Smith, Kim Gordon, Carrie Brownstein, Dean Wareham, Scott Turow, Terri Cheney, Justice Stevens, Justice Sotomayor, Rick Lax, Haruki Murakami, Morrissey, Tina Fey, Amy Schumer, Stuart David, Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, Robert Gottlieb, Brix Smith, Mandy Stadtmiller, Anthony Bourdain, Tara Westover, Francisco Cantu, David Carr, Lori Gottlieb, Woody Allen, Tom Scharpling, Patton Oswalt, Parker Posey, Michelle Zauner). A few of those were pretty great, and I'm not going to agonize over whether this is really better than Just Kids or Kitchen Confidential or The Night of the Gun--because it is not a SERIOUS book. Suffice to say I loved it, and highly recommend it, especially to anyone that has faced the vicissitudes of mental illness while wading into the cesspool of the industrial entertainment complex. You will find a friend in Maria.

Grade: A

The Perfection Trap - Thomas Curran (2023)

2023-11-10T12:01:00.009-05:00

Flying Houses has never been perfect. From the very first day it emerged and infinitesimally impacted the marketplace of ideas that was the internet on April 1, 2008, flaws have abounded. I have been criticized as a terrible writer, and I acknowledge that much of the content here is, in fact, terrible (see the review of Vampire Weekend's debut album, random shilling for Merge Records, petty concert reviews that I still kind of like, random opening day coverage, second draft posts, reviews of extremely obscure one-off zines, posts inspiring "Christ on wood" anonymous comments, all of those exasperating law school columns, transcripts of unemployment benefits hearings, misbegotten hate-reads, self-congratulatory stuff in general, begging for shout-out fails, story-fails, and most recently, outrageously slow reading).

Over the past half-decade or so, there is an increasing suggestion in the culture that we should be kinder to ourselves, practice sufficient self-care, and treat ourselves more often. I have often pushed back against this notion, and I have said people should be harder on themselves and push themselves to do better and live up to the standards that I set for myself. After reading The Perfection Trap, let's just say I've been convinced that this particular attitude of mine is part of the problem. Now, I know: we are all good enough just as we are, and trying to force other people to strive is counterproductive. We are all the masters of our own destinies and the authors of our own stories and we are all gloriously complex and messy and flawed and imperfect and beautiful human beings.

***

I first became aware of The Perfection Trap after reading a review of it in The Wall Street Journal. That is a notoriously conservative outlet, but readers of it know, while the op-eds and the comments on items are abrasively partisan, the actual journalism, arts criticism, and "lifestyle stories" appear to diverge (rebel?) from such viewpoints. Oh, to be sure, the reviews panning Killers of the Flower Moon and Barbie waded into Anti-Woke territory, but alongside those, you have a kind and thoughtful celebration of Mitski's recent album.

The review of this book struck me because I saw myself in it. I too, struggled with the interview question, "What is your greatest weakness?" What an annoying question! (Only "What kind of animal would you be?" is worse.) The best answer, most seem to acknowledge, is "I am a perfectionist." Yet that is a stock answer that they hear all the time, so it's a sign you lack the confidence to say something more honest and meaningful. But who could fault you for that? It's a job interview. You want to be seen as the perfect candidate.

My greatest weakness, now? Protesting too much. Not actual protesting--I could just be more concise. I actively choose to provide too much information, and I have grown more sensitive to context and the appetites and attention-spans of various audiences. But I still wish I was more concise and this is becoming a new guiding principle for me, one I will adopt in 2024 ;)

It's a good, succinct review, and it ends like this:

"'The Perfection Trap' is a strange and imperfect book. It's not every day that someone in his early 30s who has worked as a sports psychologist takes on the entire global economy. The charts in it are abysmal, like PowerPoint slides that escaped an institutional bureaucracy. The author's injunction to accept yourself in all your unique and imperfect glory is too pat. Perfectionism is too deeplyembodied (sic) in our lives. And apart from political action, he offers no clear path forward. But maybe those things aren't his job. As an explanation of how destructive illusion of perfectionism arises and as a critique of the economy that creates it, this is an important book [emphasis, mine]. One day, Mr. Curran hopes, we may rediscover the truth of the old Italian saying: 'Enough is plenty.'"

***

Kudos to WSJ for publishing the line, "this is an important book," when the book says this:

"Certainly, the conservatives are primarily responsible for this rear-guard action [meeting brave, young environmentalists with "round-the-clock doorstepping, after-dark dumpster diving, and hysterical, off-the-chain screeching in terror until they either stop fighting or are removed from public view completely," i.e. comments on AOC or Greta tweets]. With their allegiance to the rich and powerful, and ever-swelling financial clout, they can use the disproportionate control they have over mainstream channels of communication to frame the terms of debate, shut out 'progressive' voices, and move politics to the right, and further to the right, and even further to the right.

"But it's time we recognize that our current situation represents a failure of the establishment liberals, too. Because most of them, it's sad to say, are complicit in the policing of what's acceptable economics under the surreptitious guise of 'civility,' 'grown-up politics,' and 'compromise.' Which is arguably worse than conservative screeching, because these sensible, Ivy League suits have actually read the reports. They've taken the terrifying projections at face value. And they've been told in no uncertain terms by extremely smart and well-educated scientists--people they like and respect--that transition to an economy prioritizing the conservation of existing resources over indefinite expansion will be essential if we're to avoid global temperatures breaching a no-way-back inflection point.

"Even so, they won't listen. Why? Because in an economy, political climate, and mediascape contaminated to the core by money, that's hostile to anything but the most tepid of window-dressing reforms, and that swiftly, and often viciously, excommunicates those asking difficult questions, it's just easier, isn't it, to pull the blinds shut, and hope against hope that if the Adults in the Room can't see the giant meteor approaching, then surely it won't come hurtling our way after all. Left or right, Labour or Conservative, Democrat or Republican; when it comes to the economy, it's the same machine. Your choice come polling day is simply what voltage you'd prefer to operate at." (235-236)

***

Yes, Mr. Curran has a vested interest in saying the world won't listen, because, secretly, this book is an imperfect love letter to the Smiths and Morrissey.

Heaven knows we are miserable now that everyone thinks we should try to make ourselves perfect. Some perfectionists are bigger than others, and perfectionism begins at home, and what she posted is another way of saying I smoke because I'm hoping for an early death, because social media makes me want to kill myself. Both Morrissey and Curran, it seems, share humble origins, and Morrissey's performative depression appears to have an antecedent in the stereotypes hurled at Generation Z (which this critic has been rather guilty of, rather often, in the past). (And we don't talk about Morrissey post-2018 or so.)

Accept yourself, he says, because everyone wants something they can't have, and what we already have is more than enough (at least, most of us do, from a certain angle). But you just haven't earned it yet, baby, and maybe you never will, when the "reward point" is necessarily not fixed--unless reaching the end of this book counts.

Because I wanted to give this a tepid 3-star review, and the stunning Part Four epilogue/postscript moved it up to 4. It doesn't get 5 because it's imperfect, and it celebrates this. Not every single chapter references a song by the Smiths or the Moz. Curran reveals his vulnerabilities, opens up to confess one of his greatest humiliations and the attendant panic attacks it spurred. Sometimes the book has a very clinical tone, and other times it flirts with totally "unprofessional" prose, and I love that. It wouldn't be right to give this book 5 stars, or to call it one of the Best Books--it's enough to say, this book is important, and really, everyone should read it. And that's not something I say about most books.

I wanted to give it a tepid 3-star review because, to be honest, I grew a little bored with it, say, between pages 150-200. Curran is preaching to the choir, and all of us already get it: this crazy economic machine is destroying lives and ravaging our mental health and there is no way to stop it.

The boldest directives he offers are to experiment with a 4-day workweek, experiment with job-sharing (which I still don't functionally understand--we work with a partner and take 50% of our old salary?) and institute basic income--the boldest of liberal fantasies. That WSJ calls this book important is a reminder that miracles can happen. AOC and Ted Cruz can agree that Robin Hood and Citadel are more manipulative and nefarious than the retail investors that squeezed the hedge funds, and that such market-makers are bad actors that need to be punished and regulated. Few things in this life have made me happier than witnessing that moment.

***

Curran squints into the light that never goes out: relentless striving imposed on us from the moment we exit the womb. At certain stretches, he leans on "harmful social media advertising cliches," but the rhetoric is anything but empty. One example:

"Jean Twenge thinks this link between social media and mental distress is mostly due to smartphones. She makes her case on the back of many data sets, including her own, which show that youth depression and suicide began skyrocketing around 2008. Incidentally, 2008 was also the year socially prescribed perfectionism skyrocketed, too. And when you add these trends to the release of Apple's first iPhone in 2007, there is indeed a compelling correlation.

"That correlation certainly passes a few smell tests. After all, smartphones give us absolutely no respite from the noise of social media. They link us up all day, every day, and penetrate social comparison into parts of life that were hitherto untouched. With them by our sides, apps like Instagram and TikTok are right there first thing in the morning and last thing at night. We idly scroll through profiles on the sofa and in the bath, during the commute and at the gym. In what used to be meditative moments, where we could breathe and think, now we swipe and compare.

"Smartphones made social media ubiquitous, and that ubiquity, according to Twenge, is what makes it so damaging." (135-136)

The zombification of the masses, basically, is the cliche, but it kind of is the single most depressing feature of our era. And Curran doesn't just keep repeating it. Because of his offering, at the end, a way out (kind of--a way out of perfectionism, not a way out of phone addiction), the entire book lifts itself into a different category. That WSJ review referred to it as a "manifesto," and indeed, it becomes just that, and a powerful one. He converted me into an anti-perfectionist, and for the time being at least, I feel encouraged to think differently about how to best accomplish various tasks (not "overdoing" it, considering the idea that we can sometimes make things worse by trying to make them more perfect) and better manage personal relationships (or at least try).

***

Finally, this book is, for lack of a better term, cute. Or maybe precious. Regardless, when Curran discusses perfectionism in the context of educational meritocracy, he wears his class-based insecurities on his sleeve, so to speak, and while this is not traditional in a pseudo-academic volume, it's part of what makes the book surprising and engaging. These aren't purely theoretical concepts; "experience knows it is not so" (or rather, here, knows it is so).

I say cute for two reasons and the first is in his portrait of Karen Horney, whom he identifies as the first sociologist/psychologist to identify the prevalence of socially-prescribed perfectionism in early 20th century. The way he talks about Karen Horney is the way I sometimes think about great writers of the past that are no longer with us, and so I could appreciate that mix of admiration and consolation that he conveys:

"Our perfect self, Horney says, is a complete armory of should: 'should be able to endure everything, to understand everything, to like everybody, to be always productive--to mention only a few inner dictates.' And these dictates are inescapable, she calls them 'the tyrannies of should.'

"Reading these words, I realized: this woman was a genius. Because that's it, isn't it? I should be cooler, fitter, stronger, happier [bands influenced by the Smiths do not escape easter-egging], more productive, not eating too much, [adding 'regular exercise at the gym, three days a week' would be too much] making time to rest, seeing friends, drinking in moderation, hustling and grinding and saying yes to every possible opportunity, practicing self-care, cooking up a storm, raising smart and respectful kids. These are urgent (and often contradictory) directives that we regularly fire at ourselves. And society fires them, too. They're scattered all over the gallery walls of Instagram, dripping from episodes of the Kardashians, and plastered across posters and billboards. There's no other action we can take to bring these pressures into some sort of unity than to chase perfection. For if not by perfection, then how else will we be someone who society recognizes and accepts?" (105)

"Karen Horney died of cancer at the age of sixty-seven, having lived a tumultuous, courageous and at times troubled life. Despite this, she never wavered from searching for the truth about the neuroses that afflicted her and her patients, and the cultural conditioning that gave rise to them. If you feel seen by Karen Horney, then you, like me, will find in her a close friend. Just like friends are supposed to do, she'll help you feel less confused about your perfectionism, less alone with your feelings of never enough. Her lesson for us is that none of this is our doing. The culprit is culture." (106)

Later, Curran reflects on an ex-girlfriend's Facebook profile to highlight the tyranny of performative perfectionism, and lands here:

"Whenever I visit Sarah's profile, and the great many like it, I think about Essena O'Neill [a former IG influencer who later documented her mental health struggles on Twitter]. And then I remember Karen Horney. I wonder what she would have made of social media. Because no doubt about it, she'd have had plenty to say. I imagine her sitting low in her favorite chair, smoking a cigarette, nursing a large glass of red wine, and cracking a wry smile. You could draw a straight line from her observations of cultural contradictions in the 1950s to the present moment. It's as if she could see social media coming. As if, somehow, she knew this was how a nascent, aggressive consumer culture would eventually shake itself out." (143)

I wanted to excerpt another passage about Helicopter Parents and the management of educational meritocracy in Norway and Finland, because it demonstrates the literary flourish that Curran sometimes deploys, and shines a light on other countries and societies that "get it," but this review is becoming too imperfect. Suffice to end near the end, with one short paragraph that made me go "awwww":

"Democracy is what keeps me from losing all faith in the possibility of change. And on a crystal-clear day, if I creak my neck out really far, if I squint as hard as I possibly can into the distance, I can just about make out what looks like a path. And on that path, I can see a long queue of smart, thoughtful, compassionate, generous, and thoroughly decent human beings just like yourself, walking toward the last corridor of hope. Hope that we can live in a place where we don't have to feel insecure. Where we don't need to be perfect just to get by. Where abundance is enjoyed, by everyone. Where enough really is plenty.

For your presence on this earth, and for reading this book, I am eternally grateful." (237-238)

From anyone else, this might sound disingenuous. But coming from Curran, after we have gone on this journey with him, there is no reason to doubt he means it. And to me, that is among the most beautiful of sentiments.

Grade: A-

Chicago Cubs 2023 Year in Review

2023-10-11T14:26:00.000-04:00

The reboot is not complete. It may be complete in 2024, but that largely depends on how this offseason plays out, which is likely to be controversial. The moves over the past two paid off. In 2022, we had 74 wins, and in 2023, we had 83 wins. That is only a 9 game improvement, and we will need an improvement of that magnitude to make the playoffs comfortably next year. They played better than an 83 win team, and this September collapse is not nearly as heartbreaking as we imagine the iteration in 1969 must have been. We played surprisingly well, given expectations, and for a period, it seemed that the clearest comparison was to the 2015 team. Falling out of contention, most directly at the hands of the Arizona franchise, hurt badly, but it exposed the weaknesses of this team and provided a playbook and to-do list for the offseason. Most importantly, it was the most fun team to watch since 2017, and that includes the 2020 division-winning campaign.

The Marlins beat us that year, and the Marlins beat us this year, though not at the end of the season when it showed. They just performed marginally better than we did between September 12-September 29. A friend and I got tickets to the 9/30 game in Milwaukee on 9/11 and our faith in our team was misplaced.

But there were more bright spots than lamentations this year, we know what we need this offseason, and there is a more positive prognosis for 2024 than we might have expected (though back in late 2021/early 2022, "realistic" competitiveness was anticipated for 2023). It feels wrong to say anything less than the playoffs in 2024 will be a disappointment--the season is long and unpredictable--but there is no question that our expectations will be higher. I wouldn't count on the Cardinals playing as poorly next year as they did this year, and that will make the division that much more difficult for us, as yes, the Reds ended the season a game behind us, too. We should run down the pieces on this team from from studs to duds. I don't want to call anyone a "dud" because it takes an incredible amount of skill and talent to make it to the MLB level--but we need to see some improvement from a few, or trade them, or keep them out of dangerous situations.

Justin Steele: A

No one pegged Steele for a Cy Young contender, but then again, that had also been the case for Kyle Hendricks (in 2016, at least). As the wins piled up, and as Marcus Stroman lost his touch in the 2nd half, Steele emerged as the ace of the rotation. After the turnaround post-trade deadline, when the playoffs looked like a fait accompli, and the first signs of collapse were showing, Steele maintained his composure for every start and prevented the team from falling too far behind--except twice. And while those 2 "uncharacteristic" performances hurt, badly, it's a tall order to expect someone like this to be perfect and flawless. It's not like he came out of nowhere--strong performances in 2021 and 2022 indicated this type of growth was possible--but until he gets a $300 million contract, it's unfair to expect him to be Gerrit Cole. He was great, just for who he was, and I loved watching him pitch. We absolutely need to keep him a Cub for as long as possible, just as we have with Hendricks. I still don't understand contracts after all this time, but Steele made $740K in 2023, which is indisputably the greatest bargain in the MLB in 2023. He is arbitration-eligible in 2025. Do we need to re-sign him, or is he automatically re-signed, with an adjusted salary? I need a quick primer on this. If I had to say what he deserves next year, it's at least $10 million. Another year or two like this, and it should jump to $20, or $25 million, if not more. The sky is the limit for him, though it will be difficult to eclipse this year's performance.

Marcus Stroman: A-

For comparison, Marcus Stroman earned $25 million over each of the last two years, and no one said that was too much. No one could criticize that contract especially around the All-Star break, when Stroman was also in the Cy Young conversation. He started off the year as good as any other ace on any other team in the league, if not better. The investment was good, but a playoff run didn't seem likely. Then something happened to Stroman. After a string of less-than-stellar starts, he and his trainers realized he was injured. He went down when we needed him the most, and a couple other pitchers stepped up and rose to the occasion. It's questionable whether someone should get their grade "dinged" due to injury. On the one hand, it's not really fair, no one is invulnerable, and pitchers are particularly susceptible given the intensity of throwing 90+ pitches. On the other hand, players like Cal Ripken Jr. existed, and players like Dansby Swanson still exist. I don't fault Stroman, we know he wants to play, and I hope we re-sign him, but not nearly as many people are talking about needing to re-sign him as one other very obvious player.

Cody Bellinger: A

It feels like he's been around forever, as he has just completed his 7th season and can be considered a veteran of the MLB, but Cody is still just 28, and entering the prime of his career. After a torrid three-season stretch from 2017-2019, which included being named Rookie of the Year and MVP, Cody fell off a cliff over the next three seasons in what might be best described as "long COVID." His highest batting average was .239, and hit 41 home runs over those three years, just 2 more than in his rookie year alone. He looked like a bust. People said he needed a change of scenery. Enter Chicago, who took a chance and gave him a $17.5 million 1-year-deal. The bet paid off. While Bellinger was not quite as dominant as those first three seasons, he recorded his highest batting average (just .002 higher than in 2019, but still) and fully "resurged." He was truly a key component to the Cubs' improvement this year. Like several others on the team, he caught fire after the All-Star break, and while he wasn't named to that team, his 2nd half performance positioned him as one of the more feared hitters in the league. Few people expect Cody to re-sign here. He seems like a hired gun. There may be a growing suspicion about massive long-term deals, and I wouldn't offer him a 10-year contract for $300 million. I would, however, offer a 3-year contract for $75-80 million. It's likely others will be willing to pay more, but the Cubs should try to compete. Cody may not be a "once in a generation" player like say, Acuna Jr. or Ohtani, but he is not easily replaceable. He's young enough that, if those three seasons truly were an aberration, he could put together a career worth of the Hall of Fame. Anytime you have a potential HOF-er on your team, you should do everything in your power to keep them, and if the Cubs do not keep Bellinger, they will need to bring in another heavy hitter from the outside. I like to think the Cubs are the best team to play for in the MLB, for numerous reasons, and while Cody seemed to like playing here fine, it was disappointing that in interviews shortly after the season, he spoke in the past tense, and did not even give a hint that he hoped to return. One hopes that was just a political instruction of his agent S. Boras Corp.

There are, however, at least two positions that we don't have to worry about for a few more years.

Nico Hoerner: A-

Nico will be our 2nd baseman for at least three more years, barring disaster. He went down with an injury during the final series of the season, but he played in 150 games this year, good for his personal record--so far. He played more this year than he ever had before, and while he hit for slightly better power last year, he set several other personal records and this was basically his best season yet. The thing about Nico is that he keeps getting better. He plays hard, tags well, fields well, runs well (his dramatic increase in stolen bases is perhaps his greatest advance), hits for solid contact and generally makes things happen, while exhibiting selflessness and turning into one of the younger veteran leaders in the clubhouse. He is not Marcus Semien or Ozzie Albies, and he has yet to make an All-Star team, but I'll make a bold prediction and say that it will happen in 2024. While not a superstar, he is good enough to be an everyday 2nd baseman for a World Series contending team. He also got a new teammate this year that is his perfect foil, and who will only make one another better.

Dansby Swanson: A-

A few noteworthy larger contracts stick out since 2015. Jon Lester and Jason Heyward were the biggest investments in 2015 and 2016. Yu Darvish was the biggest investment post-2016, pre-2021 (2018). Dansby Swanson is now that guy. There are higher expectations on these guys. Lester goes down as one of the greatest free-agent signings in Cubs history, and Heyward is something of the opposite (though see previous year's review, which acknowledges his own intangible role in the 2016 Championship). Darvish looked like a bad deal after the first year or two--but so did Craig Kimbrel, one of the more "affordable" investments that was not quite as daunting. Darvish soon returned to form and once again pitched like one of the premier starters in the MLB, only to be traded in the great fire sale of 2021, when this "reboot" officially began.

Dansby was praised by nearly every outlet, and sometimes mentioned as "living up to his contract," which felt like an indirect jab at Heyward. Just for fun, why not compare the two, even though they don't play the same position. It's interesting if you look at their age-29 seasons (this year for Dansby; 2019 for J-Hey). Both played 147 games. Dansby had 22 HRs and Heyward had 21, but also 49 fewer plate appearances. Dansby's OPS (we can get into stats another time) was .744 and Heyward's was .772 (and .848 in 2020, and .803 this year on the Dodgers, where the Cubs paid his salary after releasing him a year before the end of said hefty contract). Of course, those were the best years of Heyward's contract, and he wasn't over .744 any other years (though almost in 2018, with .731). I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make, except that Heyward got a worse rap than he deserved, at least in comparison with the high praise Dansby received all year long. They are different positions and you expect more production from an outfielder than a SS (Dansby had 80 RBIs this year; Heyward's best was 62 RBIs in 2019; we might consider RBIs a more reliable metric of value than OPS).

Don't get me wrong: I love Dansby. I'm on my third Cubs jersey-shirt--my first was Soriano, in the late 'aughts, second was Arrieta in 2015, and now Dansby in 2023. He's old school and plays solid baseball and like Nico, he's absolutely good enough to be the starting everyday shortstop for a World Series contender. He did that in Atlanta already. Unlike Nico, he made the All-Star team this year. Arguably, he ended the year on something of a "down note," but he recognized this and made no excuses for himself. When he talks in interviews, sometimes you get the sense of an athlete talking in athlete terms, not really saying much--but more often than not, he seems more real, and it's always refreshing to get more candid thoughts from someone so integral to the overall functioning of the team.

He did just fine this year, but I'd hope to see him hit about .30 higher in batting average. We have him until 2029, and we have the best double-play combo in the MLB until 2026, so we are good here, for a while at least.

Seiya Suzuki: A-

He had about 120 more plate appearances, but he had 6 more HRs, 43 more hits, 28 more RBIs, and added 23 points to his batting average. Suffice to say, Year 2 was better than Year 1 for Seiya, and Year 1 wasn't all that bad. Seiya's 2023 is a story in the three parts: Part 1 - resume Year 1 performance and add a small slump allocation; Part 2 - sit out for a week or two, mentally reset, and rejoin the everyday lineup to enjoy his greatest successes in the MLB yet, go on an absolute tear for 2 months and hoist the team on your shoulders (with Bellinger alongside supporting as well) and convince the front office to make additions rather than deletions; Part 3 - suffer a humiliating "curse moment" and not let it destroy your morale for the remainder of the season, even though it basically did end postseason fantasies.

What's most encouraging about this team, and this fanbase, is that nobody blamed Seiya. Yes, he's a major league ballplayer and is expected to make routine plays, but also, this is the MLB, and s*** happens. Seiya's performance leading up to that moment had been nothing short of heroic. If Bellinger had done the same, the reaction would have been similar: utter shock and dismay, followed by compassion (and we certainly would never want to make him feel run out of town). It did appear on that day that Seiya was on the verge of tears after recognizing the turn the game had taken. Everyone was on the verge of tears, frankly. He did what he could after that to redeem himself, but even though we couldn't take one game from that final Braves series, the Diamondbacks had already dealt us the death blow. We look back on 2023 and see the 1-6 record against Arizona as the definitive team match-up that sent us packing (even now, as of this writing, Kershaw & the Dodgers now know how it feels to be spanked by them--they feel like the hottest team in baseball, though it appears the Marlins eclipsed them at the end).

Like Nico and Dansby, Seiya is *good enough* for a World Series team, and we have him until 2026 and at some point over these next three seasons, we should have a good window to compete more credibly for the postseason. Seiya has also "invited" Shohei to join the Cubs. If that happens, Seiya may not win an MVP, but he will be the "shadow" MVP. We will manage our expectations but nobody will pretend they aren't paying attention to him and the Mets, Yankees, and whoever else is linked.

Yan Gomes: A-

Gomes is an interesting case. First, he admirably filled the gaping hole that Willson Contreras's departure left on the team. He successfully transitioned from a back-up role into a primary catcher role. His game-calling skills were never called into question. Nobody complained about his defense and he made a fancy play or two. Most importantly, he emerged as the greatest clutch hitter on the team, and an underrated hidden weapon. Second, however, it is unclear whether he can replicate this season's performance, as he plays the most physically damaging position in the game and may be expected to play the primary role as a 37-year-old. Given that our back-up is now Miguel Amaya, who has never become the superstar that he was once projected to be, Gomes has the confidence of Ross, and we anticipate he will at least have the opportunity to prove that age has not caught up with him. Certainly, he did nothing this year but prove himself as an integral part of the offense, and a veteran leader in the field and clubhouse more generally. Ross loves Gomes and there will probably be more of the same next year--no one is talking about a major catcher to acquire. It just remains to be seen how long he can keep it going. One would imagine that an alternative back-up catcher to Amaya may emerge (apart from Tucker Barnhart), and it remains an open question whether Amaya will prove next year that he is ready for (or capable of) the primary role. Gomes hit 53 points better than Amaya, and bested him in nearly every category, while playing in 116 games--more than twice as many as Amaya's 53. Gomes has a 2024 team option and I don't think anyone would argue with exercising that. Assuming his 2024 performance could match what he did this year, this would also be *good enough* for a World Series catcher in 2024, though saying things would remain the same in 2025 is not as easy.

Kyle Hendricks: A-

We should not worry as much about this with Kyle Hendricks. We should not think about letting him fade away elsewhere. As the last standing member of the 2016 Championship team (along with Ross to an extent), we need to keep the connection going. Hendricks should remain a Cub until he is ready to retire. He is a legend in this town and it wouldn't feel right seeing him anywhere else. 2022 was his worst season yet in the majors, dealing with an injury. He missed the earlier part of the year in continuing recovery, but this wasn't a big deal because he almost always has historically started the year on a "rusty" note. Upon his return, he exhibited that--for a game or two. Then he returned to "pure Kyle" form, with his pinpoint control, strike-throwing, ground-ball creating, and lack of pulse. At the end of the year, when Stroman went down, he stepped up. Him and Steele effectively became the #1 and the #2 for the rotation, and while the situation was dire, we stayed in the mix until Stroman returned. Kyle was not perfect, but he was *good enough* to lock a rotation spot for 2024, either in the #2 or #3 position. Perhaps it will be the year he finally makes the All-Star team. I wouldn't bet on it, but no one considers Kyle's presence in the 5-pitcher rotation as a "weakness." When he's dealing, he's as good as any other pitcher in either league. Maybe it seems like I'm giving everyone A-'s, but I'm going from the highs to the lows.

Christopher Morel: A-

Morel was the best story of the 2022 season, but most people still didn't know who he was. Now, while he is not quite a household name, everyone is on notice that he is the most explosive presence on the Cubs since we let Javier Baez go in 2021. Absolutely, he is *good enough* for a near-everyday spot on a World Series team. He has been referenced as a valuable bargaining chip, and his versatility and rousing personality would be welcomed on any team, but query whether we can afford to lose him. His value, right now, is still manageable. The Cubs should sign him to a similar contract that the Braves have for Albies or Acuna Jr. Maybe for 3-4 years. They could still lock him up for a discount, I think. (He is under team control for several years in any case.) Let him go, and you risk seeing him turn into Jorge Soler or Kyle Schwarber and questioning whether we could have been in postseason competition for every single year since 2016. He basically became the biggest power hitter on the team (both he and Bellinger had 27 HRs, but Morel did that in 23 fewer games), a clutch player (picture above taken from walk-off HR vs. the White Sox, one of the major highlights of the season) and the kind of personality every championship team needs to come back from slumps and middling performances. On that last gasp of a game versus the Braves, Morel hit a triple near the end and showed the kind of emotion that had been sorely lacking as the team grappled with elimination. He gave us a prayer, and we couldn't push him across.

He had 4 more plate appearances in 2023 than 2022, so they're very comparable on that score, as they are with most categories--except for 10 more HRs and 23 more RBIs. Perhaps he needs to work on some things, but I noticed he seem to take better at-bats as the season deepened, and if he can boost his batting average a little bit, there's no reason he wouldn't make the All-Star team.

Ian Happ: A-

Happ was extended for 3 years early on this season, so we will have him for the next three seasons, too, and it's looking more like 2024-2026 is the new "window" for competition. Is he *good enough* to be the starting everyday left fielder for a World Series champion? I think so, yes, but I do not think he should be batting third in the line-up, as David Ross slotted him rather often near the end of the season. A few times, it paid off, and Happ did hit a timely home run or two at the very end there. And while he was an All-Star in 2022 and not an All-Star in 2023, his numbers this year were an improvement. Again, he was a rock playing 158 games for the 2nd year in a row, and in 50 additional plate appearances, he drew 41 more walks. Sure, his batting average dropped from .271 to .248, but a .360 OBP isn't too shabby. His defense is quality. People talked a lot more about Seiya's dropped ball because it came at a more crucial moment than Happ's missed ball early on in the next game (almost seeming like he did that to be a good teammate in camaraderie), but he is a "plus defender." Apart from the Diamondbacks poisoning the Cubs at the end, we were not playing "clean games" and various baserunning and fielding errors exacerbated struggles at the plate. I'd imagine the organization is putting a premium on this, with the emergence of Pete Crow-Armstrong (hereinafter, "PCA") as a defender extraordinaire. Happ is also the most prominent switch-hitter on the team. He may not strike deep fear in the opposing pitchers, and remains something of a hidden weapon, even though he has been around long enough to say he was part of the "first competitive window." Look for Happ to make another case for himself as an All-Star in 2024. The dramatic increase in walks this year is a clear sign that, if he remains consistent, he deserves that designation. I do think that he deserves to be near the top of the order for that. (I originally gave him a B+ but I figured if Dansby got an A-, Happ deserves that, too, because they were quite comparable, with Happ having slightly better offensive numbers.)

Mike Tauchman: B

I hadn't heard of Mike Tauchman the first time I saw him at the plate (along with several other Cubs players and relievers this year), but anecdotal experience reminds that, he started playing semi-regularly in the 2nd half of the season and quickly established himself as a difference-maker, responsible for at least two or three wins (one notable walk-off HR and one notable game-saving HR theft). His defense impressed but it appeared that PCA eclipsed him in terms of Ross's confidence, at the end. Despite these clutch moments, I did not feel especially hopeful when he would come up in a crucial situation, same as I might for say, Suzuki or Bellinger or Gomes. Tauchman is a fine utility player and suitable for platooning and sharing duties, but I do not see him as an everyday starting player for a World Series champion. Perhaps he could be, in the 9th slot. He hit leadoff very often. Though he was sometimes good, let's be totally honest here: we need someone that was as good as Dexter to qualify as a bona fide leadoff hitter. This was Tauchman's best season yet, and while there is a place for him on this team, he should be monitored and played according to the ebbs and flows of the season. He seemed like a rather streaky player. For those periods when gets hot, he's a valuable hidden weapon. But we need a true leadoff hitter, still. We can put Happ, or Nico, or Morel, (or Tauchman) in the leadoff spot, but some consistency in that part of the lineup (like say, the Braves or Dodgers have, even though Betts and Acuna Jr. are more in the vein of Soriano as a leadoff hitter) will go a long way towards proving we have a solid Championship formula. Tauchman's contract status makes it appear that he will be relatively easy to retain for a modest salary, so it probably makes sense to do that. Give him credit for those true "WAR" moments.

Jameson Taillon: C+

Taillon came to the Cubs this year after a very strong year for the Yankees that saw him go 14-5 with a 3.91 ERA in 177 innings pitched, which any Championship contender would take for spots #3-5 in the rotation. He got off to a slow start and multiple publications in NY took note and took the opportunity to call him "crappy" and claim that the Yankees dodged a bullet by letting him to go to the Cubs for 4 years and $68 million. And, yeah, he did end up going 8-10 with a 4.84 ERA in 154 IP, but he showed significant turnaround towards the end of the season. He would still struggle occasionally, but he seemed to "figure it out" and return to excellent form, at times. Several of his starts at the end were near-heroic, and then squandered by an overwhelmed bullpen. He did not make excuses for himself, and despite these encouraging signs, viewed the overall performance this season as a letdown. With the current state of the bullpen, Taillon does not look bad at all--there's no reason to think that he can't return to excellent form on a more consistent basis, and at the very least, deserves a spot in the rotation, even if he and Drew Smyly are basically treated interchangeably (both flirted with no-hitters in one of their starts, both occasionally entered long relief roles). Whether it's as a #4 or #5 starter or long reliever, he'll be on the team. He could be a trade piece, but I do not see his 2023 performance as an abject failure. It was middling, but I prefer to view the improvement as an encouraging sign.

Drew Smyly: C

Never forget April 21, 2023, when Smyly nearly threw a perfect game in a 13-0 victory over the Dodgers. Many did forget that by the end of the year. But at the beginning, for a minute, it seemed our rotation was on fire. Smyly joined the team in 2022 after a strong year for the 2021 World Series champion Braves, as a tried and tested veteran. He started the same number of games (22 or 23) over the past three years, but his numbers arguably looked better last year. By the end of the season, both the rotation and the bullpen were in shambles, and sometimes Smyly saved us and sometimes he set us back even further. The word is inconsistent, and why it is not unfair to put him and Taillon in almost the exact same category: they have shown flashes of brilliance, but have been unable to maintain. It is, admittedly, a very difficult thing to do at the MLB level, in highly-competitive pennant-race games. The team needed a strong long reliever, and Smyly filled that role *mostly* admirably. He's a few years older than Taillon, but cost about half as much. He has a mutual team/player option for a 2024 contract, and if we can get him to stay for $10-11 million, that might be worthwhile. It wouldn't be the most shocking thing in the world if he "figured it out" for an entire year in 2024, the way he did for the Braves in 2021, and the way Taillon did for the Yankees in 2022. It's worth the gamble, and at the very least, he remains useful.

Jordan Wicks: A- (B+ due to small sample size)

We are wary of rating Wicks too highly (a la Frank Schwindel--never forget Frank the Tank), because he only started 7 games, at the end after Stroman went down, but he went 4-1 and looked like a total stud. Yes, his ERA landed at 4.41 ERA---but I think that was due to 1 or 2 bad starts, and that in all the others, he pitched about as well as anyone. He stepped up in a big way when he needed him to. He handled the pressure of the pennant race as a rookie that got thrown into it at the last minute, in an emergency situation. He probably deserves an A-, but nobody seems to be getting quite as excited about him. The clearest comparison I can make is to Alec Mills, who also wore glasses and threw a no-hitter in 2019; the B+ accounts for "fluke-potential," which every rookie success must overcome. Wicks did not throw a no-hitter, but in his debut, he retired something like 15 batters in a row, which drew a comparison to Mark Prior. No one is saying he is Mark Prior, but if he is, take it. Prior may not have lasted, but for those few years when he was a stud, he was a stud that anyone would have wanted. This team drew comparison to the 2004 team, failing at the very end after hopes of another postseason birth. 2005 wasn't too bad either, but we are hoping that 2024 will have the better end result. Wicks deserves a spot in the rotation with his performance. Yes, I hope we bring in a new starting pitcher that will be a strong anchor in the rotation (or 2, if Stroman walks), and in that case, Wicks at least deserves at shot at the #5 slot. The only problem is that Rowan Wick is gone. We may actually, one day, get Brad Wieck back in the bullpen, but if we can't have an army of Wicks, two might be enough.

Javier Assad: A- (no qualifier)

It might be overblowing things a bit to give Assad a flat A, but he almost deserves that for how he stepped up, time after time, throughout the entire course of the season, and most crucially at the very end. There probably was no single decision that Ross made that upset me more than when he took Assad out on 9/2/23, when he had the opportunity for a complete game shutout and we ended up losing to the Reds 2-1 (this was before the wheels totally came off on the playoff push, but the first signs of trouble). He had 98 pitches, and Ross was arguably justified, and hindsight is 20/20 and no single game mistake is cause for termination, when the season is comprised of hundreds of such intangible moments. But the loss wasn't Assad's fault, and he was as good as he could be, for how he was used. Is he a starter or a long reliever? It's not totally clear. He's in a similar category to Smyly, though he unquestionably performed better than him or Taillon. He was the 3rd or 4th best pitcher on this team, depending on when Stroman was injured. At the very end of the year, when Stroman returned, he was the more reliable of the two. Assad is straight up, a no-brainer. Don't let him get away, because I think may get even better. He's only pitched for 2 years, but the encouraging rookie performance was not a fluke, and he he has earned our trust.

Those are most of the "major guys," and these posts become too long as they are, finding pictures of every single player and writing a personalized evaluation--one other guy deserves one:

Adbert Alzolay: B+

The Cubs never quite figured out how to use Alzolay until this year. He has pitched in fits and starts since 2019, debuting with some hype and showing some flash, bouncing back and forth from the minors, experimented with as a starting pitcher in 2021, and finally emerging as the closer in 2023. There's no question that he was the most reliable person in the bullpen for the job. (The bullpen should be addressed separately, here.) And he contributed to the team in a bigger way than he ever had before. And he was very good in the role, though not perfect, and the only blown games came at the crucial moment, and he also went down at the crucial moment, forcing the Cubs to use Julian Merryweather and Mark Leiter Jr. and Daniel Palencia as closers, which worked as often as it did not. It appears that he blew 3 saves, which is not great, but his ERA of 2.67 was the best on the team (unless you count Shane Greene, who pitched 3 innings and gave up 2 hits and 2 walks and 0 runs, or Tucker Barnhart, the catcher, who oddly pitched 4 innings in 4 games, giving up one run for a 2.25 ERA).

Adbert is the only player on the team besides Morel with an infectious personality. As previously noted, you shouldn't let these kinds of guys go lightly. The only issue is whether Adbert can cut it as a World Series champion closer. And that is a big ask. The team could swing big and bring in someone like say, Wade Davis or Craig Kimbrel, and no one will complain. Adbert would likely make an effective setup man, though I have a feeling he thrives on the emotion of the closing role. In any case, if the team is seriously competing, I find it hard to believe they wouldn't do something similar to what they did with Aroldis Chapman in 2016, "renting" a closer to take a little pressure off of Adbert (as they did with Rondon) and the rest of the bullpen. Whatever the case, there should be a place for him on this team, and hopefully for many years to come.

Honorable Mention: Jeimer Candelario: B+

In 2016, Jeimer Candelario, one of the many heavily-touted prospects on the Cubs at the time, made his MLB Debut. It wasn't impressive. He got 1 hit in 11 at-bats, good for a .091 batting average. He played 11 more games for us in 2017 and did marginally better, hitting .152, but then was shipped off to Detroit, where he remained until 2022 and appeared to play perfectly average baseball, except he could be called above-average in 2021 (and actually led the league in doubles). He started off the year on the Nationals, and he was doing alright, probably the best he has done apart from 2021, and the Cubs did not fold but instead added.....by bringing back Candelario in glorious fashion. Candelario's performance in the first couple weeks of that acquisition jumpstarted this team in a serious way. The team was never hotter. They looked unstoppable. They looked like the Braves in 2021. Then he went back down to earth, and also got injured as the team went into a tailspin. I am not sure if there is a place on this team for him in 2024 (I have basically said we should keep all of the players, which most certainly will not happen) but I hope we keep him. I'm not sure if he's *good enough* to be an everyday starting player for a World Series team, but if he could replicate his 2021 year, or even this year (which probably is his best season so far, split between two teams, in terms of power), it would probably suffice. I include him to highlight his contribution because I do think he was the biggest difference-maker after the trade deadline, apart from Jose Cuas who was less terrible than several of his peers in the bullpen.

The Bullpen: C+ (overall)

Why can't we go back to 2017, or even 2021, when we had a really sick bullpen? Why can't we have Ryan Tepera, Andrew Chafin and Craig Kimbrel in innings 7-8-9 when we really need them? Why can't we have "nice things?" Because this is the Cubs.

There are several tiers of relievers in the bullpen, and few of them are reliable. At the top end, people that might get an A-, we have Julian Merryweather, and even he could not escape all blame in that final 2-week skid. He was about as trustworthy as anyone apart from Alzolay, and he throws hard, and he strikes a good number of guys out. He's a guy I'd keep in the bullpen.

I'd say the same thing for Jose Cuas (B+). He was the other "difference-maker," brought over from the Royals after the trade deadline. He wasn't perfect, either, and I might give him a B+, but he seemed fairly reliable. Alzolay, naturally, falls into this top category.

Hayden Wesneski (C) is an interesting case because he also falls into that Taillon/Smyly/Assad situation--starter, long reliever, or reliever? That remains to be seen. He actually started 11 games. There were more positives than negatives, I think, but it certainly wasn't so positive that I think he must start the year at the major league level. He may bounce to AAA and back again, but he did show some potential. He might be middle tier, or higher.

Others in the middle tier could include Brad Boxberger (B-), who was a great pick-up from the Brewers, who has been a very successful reliever in the past, and who had some very encouraging performances, but also struggled somewhat, with injuries and otherwise. A healthy Boxberger could be a key component to the bullpen, the way he was in Milwaukee, as the setup man for Josh Hader. I think he is worth a small gamble for 2024 (mutual option). He's getting older, but pitchers can age gracefully in this game, and if we got 2021 or 2022 Brad Boxberger (A), we'd have one high quality bullpen staple.

Michael Fulmer (B+) arguably belongs in the "top-tier," and should be re-signed for 2024 as well. He could be considered somewhat trustworthy alongside Merryweather and Cuas. He didn't have a terrible year by any stretch, but he wasn't around (injured) when we were needing him the most.

It's not fair to say Luke Little was unreliable, because of a very small sample size. I think the main thing to say about him is, like Canario, Ross did not give him enough opportunities, opting for others with more experience to often disappointing results. Little actually didn't suck at all. He actually led the team in ERA. He actually pitched 6.2 innings and gave up 0 runs. Hard to say he will be an integral part of the pitching staff, but still very young and promising.

Keegan Thompson (C-) is still kicking around. He was very encouraging over the past year or two, but something seemed to happen (I think injuries) and this season was a step in the wrong direction. I believe he will stay part of the organization and bounce to AAA and back again before being given another opportunity. His success in the past is enough to justify that.

I don't have much recollection of Michael Rucker (B-) but he was used fairly often (he was likely injured near the end) and seems to fit in the middle tier, or possibly the top-tier.

Brandon Hughes is worth mentioning because it seems like he's always been a stud, and he only pitched briefly this year, performing poorly and then recognizing injury and being on the IL most of the year. If he comes back as the pitcher he was before, you can keep him as a key component to the bullpen.

I don't ever like being mean, because as noted above, this is an incredibly difficult game to play at the highest of levels. But I would not mind if either Daniel Palencia (D+) or Mark Leiter Jr. (D+) were traded. They both have their qualities. Palencia apparently has electrifying stuff and throws 100 MPH, but I mostly saw him give up home runs. Same for MLJ. While he is retained for facing left-handed hitting, and did have some measure of success (clearly, Ross trusted him, putting him in 69 games, which tied for the most appearances with Merryweather), late in the year, it seemed like Cuas, Palencia and MLJ were pitching like, almost every single game, and it began to show. I am not a full-time sportswriter or statistician or highly-analytical fan, but I go by the feel of what I see, and yeah I watched a lot more in July, August and September than April, May and June, but MLJ just did not give me major confidence. I wouldn't mind if either got traded (and I know other teams would like both, and both do present value propositions), but I think they will get another chance, and hopefully they will be used in more specific situations, and not just because they're the only options left.

***

There are some other notable players. Nick Madrigal (B+) probably deserves his own picture in this post and he played a lot this year and he probably played better than he ever has in his career, but I could say the same for his sub, Miles Mastrobuoni (B/B+ at the end). They should at least get awards for best names, best naming by parents. Can they play in 7 games of a World Series? Maybe. Madrigal certainly was touted in his prospect days as being a player of that caliber. He hasn't quite delivered on that promise, but he took a step in that direction.

Obviously, PCA and Alexander Canario are very exciting (even though PCA batted .000, as a lifetime little league .000 hitter with a ~.500 OBP, I am sympathetic). So is Jared Young, to say nothing of Matt Mervis. The sample sizes are too small. Add Canario's grand slam to the list of ridiculous offensive debuts (yes, technically his debut was with a strikeout on 9/6/23, but consider his first start on 9/19/23) his debut) with Nico Hoerner, Javier Baez, Jorge Soler, Kosuke Fukudome and Starlin Castro. And that leaves two final individuals to highlight.

***

Pour One Out for Patrick Wisdom (B-)

Wisdom earned $763,000 this year, and one imagines, less than that from 2018-2022. He is arbitration-eligible this year, which I believe means, the Cubs will either need to pay him a *reasonable* salary, or release him. Some peg this number at $4 million. Some think that he is not worth $4 million/year. As noted above, we cannot keep everyone. I'm not going to make any predictions, but if both happen, I'll miss Patrick Wisdom more than Cody Bellinger--not because of the confidence they provided as a fan, but because Wisdom represents something important about the team through those fallow years of 2021-2022. When the team ripped (almost) everything up and went back to the drawing board, a slightly-tweaked update on the strategy implemented in the previous fallow years of approximately 2012-2014, Kris Bryant was gone, but Patrick Wisdom materialized in his place. It's questionable whether Wisdom has more power than Bryant, but Bryant is certainly the better hitter. Wisdom strikes out a ton. Kris Bryant was the National League MVP in 2016 and the National League Rookie of the Year in 2015 and is a 4-time All-Star.

Wisdom has none of these accomplishments, and he was never seen as part of a "new core," like some of the names mentioned above (Happ, Hoerner, Swanson, Suzuki, Steele). But Wisdom is the only other player--apart from Morel and Alzolay--with an infectious personality. In 2021, when all was lost, it was him and Frank Schwindel that allowed fans to indulge in the delusion that, with a rag-tag team of replacement players, they could still occasionally compete with the best (2022 was not 2021, but see the Cubs dominance of the Phillies in 2022, for one example). He led the team in home runs the entire way--until this year. And despite being benched significantly more this season, he still led the team in home runs for a very long time (mid-August). Even when all hope was lost at the end of this season, Wisdom emerged as a pinch-hitting threat. It was demoralizing when Craig Counsell called for the batter ahead of Wisdom (Tauchman?) on 10/1/23, to be intentionally walked and load the bases for him because he knew they could strike him out. He had a chance to be a hero one last time, there. If he had hit a home run, would it have made a difference in what they decide to do with him in 2024?

Some people seem to think Wisdom is "washed up," but I believe, with proper coaching this offseason, with better plate discipline, he is capable of a significant role on a championship team--so long as the strikeout liability is tempered. Look at Kyle Schwarber. Just look at Kyle Schwarber. Wisdom isn't Schwarber, but he's like a mini-Schwarber/Kris Bryant hybrid, and we can't have either of them back, it seems, so Wisdom is the next best thing. If Schwarber can be an everyday starting left fielder and leadoff hitter of a World Series contender, then there is no reason Wisdom can't do the same as a part-time player, and pinch-hit weapon. Of course, there may not be room for him on the roster, if we become totally stacked. He provides depth at multiple positions (even at catcher, at one point, like Schwarber as well) and his presence on the team, similar to the other 2016-veteran Kyle, provides an intangible: continuity, presence, gravitas.

All I'm saying is, he deserves $4 million next year, and whether it is provided by the Cubs or another team, it will be interesting to see if getting paid for his fair value leads to a corresponding increase in production. Unless they can bring back Javier Baez, Wisdom doesn't need to go. Certainly, you wouldn't want both on the team--but then again, remember Javy in 2018, remember MVP-era Javy, and recognize that miracles can happen.

David Ross: B

Ross inherited this team from Joe Maddon in 2020 and performed well enough to win National League Manager of the Year, though the Cubs themselves could not last more than two games against the Miami Marlins. I had no problem with the way he managed the bullpen that year. No problem at all seeing him trust Jeremy Jeffress to a 4-1 record with a 1.54 ERA. I absolutely had no problem with the way he managed the 2021 bullpen through one of the best scoreless streaks (38 innings) in MLB history. Even last year, when we had no hope, I had no problem with the way he managed the bullpen to lead the league in strikeouts (716). The man has a track record.

We have to be fair and say that the team did not invest enough in the bullpen for the obvious reason that they did not expect to fully compete. In June and July, it looked like Bellinger and Stroman might be leaving the team for contenders, and that someone might even try to take Steele away. They got Boxberger and Merryweather, and they were solid choices, but they didn't put themselves in the market for a marquee closer (even last year, we got David Robertson). Alzolay did his part, and has been addressed above. We cannot blame Ross for the failures of the bullpen, but one of the things I like about him is that he accepts the blame, he does not blame the players. He wants to be blamed.

He did, however, call out the Pirates as a bad team, which was not a good idea when they were about to play a very important series against the Marlins, where we needed to count on them to win and bail us out. The Pirates almost did in that first game anyways. Regardless, it did not make anyone in Pittsburgh a fan of Ross, nor harbor any positive feelings for the Cubs. Now it's fine to start fights with the Cardinals, or maybe even the Brewers, but you should have other teams that are at least, semi-allies. Teams that will want you to win, too. The Cubs are unique in this. Perhaps no one feels bad for them anymore after 2016, but I have to think, the nostalgia factor survives. People wants to see the Cubs win (except in St. Louis).

Ross, I believe, will stay, though many are calling for his termination. The only other thing I don't like that much about Ross is the way he handles the media. He once noted that, "Twitter probably knows better than I do" about certain in-game decisions, and the comment was double-edged--sarcastic, but actually accurate. He became prickly whenever his bullpen decisions were questioned, which felt like projection. And yet, hindsight is 20/20, of course, and Ross knows enough about winning in this game that he deserves the chance to do it with the guys that he has fostered and developed over the past four seasons. One more chance, at least.

For all of the heartbreak that this season carried with it, I probably had more fun following the team than any year before. I went to Toronto to see Steele beat the Blue Jays on 8/12/23, went to Milwaukee to see us win that pseudo-lame-duck game on 9/30/23, saw us come from behind to beat the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate on 7/26/23, and saw us beat the Brewers at Wrigley on 8/30/23. I watched too many important games from Murphy's Bleachers. I invested more in this team than any year before, and though it didn't end up being "worth it," sometimes the journey itself is the pleasure.

Flying Houses

Addiction, Inc. - Emily Dufton (2026)

Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald (1934)

2026 Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture

The Harder I Fight, the More I Love You - Neko Case (2025)

Chicago Cubs 2025 Year End Review

You Dreamed of Empires - Alvaro Enrigue (2024)

Taste in Music: Eating on Tour with Indie Musicians - Alex Bleeker and Luke Pyenson (2024)

James - Percival Everett (2024)

The Amplified Come as You Are: the Story of Nirvana - Michael Azerrad (2023)

The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut (2023)

2025 Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture

jackknorps’s review published on Letterboxd:

The Secret History - Donna Tartt (1992)

Rebel Girl - Kathleen Hanna (2024)

Uproar and Heresy (Volume II of The Latecoming West) - A.P. Andes (2023)

Chicago Cubs 2024 Year-End Report Card

Molly - Blake Butler (2023)

Authority - Jeff VanderMeer (2014)

Shellac - To All Trains (2024) / Steve Albini - 1962 - 2024

Sonic Life - Thurston Moore (2023)

2024 Academy Award Nominees for Best Picture

Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture--and the Magic That Makes It Work - Jesse David Fox (2023)

Doppelganger - Naomi Klein (2023)

Sure, I'll Join Your Cult - Maria Bamford (2023)

The Perfection Trap - Thomas Curran (2023)

Chicago Cubs 2023 Year in Review