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Tag Archives: Twenty Thousand Hertz
Omnibus (week of Sept. 17, 2017)
Well hi. Here's the link to the latest segment on CBC Radio, in which I discuss the slippery notion of "creative beginnings." Also, if you listen really closely you can hear my quarter-life crisis humming in the background. Fun! I'm at 1:21:19.
23 reviews. The classic number of reviews. (I think there's been 23 more than any other number of reviews.)
Everything — Not long after I posted my last, very satisfied review of this, I finished the section of the game that apparently constitutes the tutorial. Well then. It's a clever structural tactic, actually: once all of the game's mechanics are introduced, Everything beckons you back to the place where you started: an oddly shaped golden gate that you can now actually enter into. It leads to an inescapable prison, where every object is miserable and solipsistic. But if you've been paying attention to Alan Watts' proto-hippie voiceover lectures, you'll know that they've all got the wrong idea. They don't realize that everything is everything else. This is the one part of the game so far that presents a clear objective: escape. And of course, you can do so by using the mechanics you've learned already, in a neat bit of symmetry with the more abstract set of realizations the game takes for granted that you've internalized. Once you escape, you're treated to a very late-90s cinematic that has the feel of an ending, but which culminates in the words "Welcome to Everything." Because a game like Everything can't have something so banal as an ending. The object of the game is to explore, and that's not an objective that can be deemed complete by anybody save for the player. Another note: this game has a highly customizable autoplay mode that takes over when you stop playing, basically rendering it a deeply contemplative screensaver. This is far more satisfying than you might think. I let Everything play on its own while I made lunch today, and I saw more of it than I probably would had I been in control that whole time. So if you're playing this, don't discount that mode. Put it on while you're reading, or something. If I had a television in addition to this damned laptop, Everything might make nice ambience for the apartment. I've never seen anything like Everything before. In a sense it's staggeringly ambitious — a game that illustrates the whole of creation. But in another, it's a pleasantly modest and quirky little confection that can take the edge off if you're stressed out. I've come to like it a whole lot.
Battlestar Galactica: Razor, Razor Flashbacks & Season 4.0 — BSG is not so much a show as a hole you fall down. This week I fell down the hole. For clarity: I watched the TV movie Razor, the series of short webisodes Razor Flashbacks and the first half of the fourth season, officially known as Season 4.0 (as opposed to 4.5, which is next week's project). I understand I'm a season and a half into the part of the show that people think isn't good. I only halfway understand that. Seasons two and three are in my view equally patchy, with the high points of season three being among the most staggering episodes in the series. So far, this is holding up that pattern. Razor and its largely redundant flashbacks are not among the show's finest hours, but it's fun to see the events of a fascinating moment in the show's timeline through an unfamiliar perspective. I can imagine that it might have been frustrating on original transmission, seeing how it has very little to do with the enormous cliffhanger of the season three finale. But from a binge-watching perspective, it's exactly what the show needs at this moment: a reprieve from the acceleration of the show towards its much-prophesied endpoint, and a trip back to the simpler times of mid-season two. As for the season itself, it feels creaky at times, but only to the same extent as the last two seasons. Occasionally there'll be a joke that falls flat or a line that doesn't make sense. "It's time to take a stand. And that time is now," Baltar says at one point. Half of that line shouldn't have made it to the shooting script. But then, Baltar is getting to be the show's biggest problem. He was fun at first, and I enormously enjoyed the arc that led him from the presidency to the trial of the century. But as a prophet, and an increasingly sincere one at that, he's less fun. The spiritual element of Battlestar Galactica has always been my favourite thing about it. The collision of political power, military might and religious devotion that fuels this show's large-scale conflicts are starting to feel increasingly like a far more interesting (and earlier) version of what Game of Thrones is at its best. But having Baltar at the centre of it strikes me as a bit arbitrary — just something new for him to do. (Also, where has Head Six been these last few episodes? She vanished like Lear's fool as soon as Baltar took the lead of his cult. Will she be back? I sure hope so.) I don't really have much more to say about this in general. Only specific gripes like the fact that I'm not especially happy to see Lampkin back. He was overbearing at best during the trial arc, and he's even more tediously gothic in "Sine Qua Non," a nonsense episode of television. I'll resist the impulse to generalize until next week, by which time I'll surely be done this.
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale (audiobook) — The genius of this, both in terms of the book itself and this audiobook adaptation, doesn't become entirely clear until very near the end. Spoilers ahoy. In my view, the thing that makes the main body of The Handmaid's Tale great is its worldbuilding and the beauty of its prose, more so than its story. The story is perfectly fine, and it's cleverly parsed out in a smattering of recollections of times past among the present-day narrative. But in my head I can't stop comparing it to later Atwood novels like Oryx and Crake and especially The Blind Assassin which just rocket along with one twist and turn after another, and this is a much less dense book than either of those. But the ending of The Handmaid's Tale, which takes place at a conference years later, at which the text of the narrative you've just read is examined as a factual, in-universe document from a bygone time, kicks what was a good book up to near-masterpiece territory. Hearing a professor jocularly question the veracity of the whole narrative thus far — thereby failing to learn from the lessons of history in the way he explicitly deems necessary — is perverse in the extreme. As much of a narrative rug pull as this surely is in print (I've never read the book in its original form), it's even cleverer in this audio adaptation, where the final chapter makes good on the ad copy's promise of a "full cast." These historians unearthed Offred's narrative in the form of audio, which is precisely what we audiobook listeners have just experienced. The very limited sound design elements at the start of each part of the book are suddenly explained as the sound of Offred taping over what was once a mixtape. The producers of this audiobook managed to turn it into a (very minimalistic) radio play, without really needing to change anything. If you've been meaning to finally read this, or re-read it in light of recent events (Atwood's afterword for this audiobook edition, written this year, details some of her thoughts on the book's new relevance in the Trump era), you should consider the audiobook. Claire Danes's reading of Offred's story will ring in your head long after the credits roll. Pick of the week.
China Miéville: October — This was more of a slog than I'd expected. Miéville is one of the most virtuosic writers alive, but his mandate to tell the story of the Russian Revolution as straightforwardly as he can leaves him hog-tied, with none of his usual structural ingenuity to rely on. His clinical prose never quite gives the impression that we're talking about a turning point in history, and his fascination with the minutia of party in-fighting causes whole chapters to pass by without much of interest. I understand why Miéville made some of the choices he did. If he'd written in more ornamented prose, he'd run the risk of producing something close to Soviet kitsch. And if he'd chosen to focus on the narratives of individuals, as many nonfiction writers do to lend a human dimension to cataclysmic events, he'd be implicitly denying the grassroots reality of the revolution. The only characters in this who really come alive on the page are Lenin and Kerensky, and I'd still like to have gotten into their heads a little more. It seems to me that Miéville set himself an impossible challenge with this book. I respect him for trying, but I don't believe he produced the history that he intended to.
Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Emmy Awards 2017" & "Fall Movie Preview" — I missed this year's Emmys. Doesn't sound like much happened. The coverage of this makes me realize how much I need to watch Atlanta, which is seemingly the consensus pick for "thing that deserved better." As for the fall movie preview, I can't honestly say that any of this sounds especially interesting to me. The nearest movie that I'm super excited for is Isle of Dogs and that's not out until March.
The Daily: Sept. 18 & 20, 2017 — The September 20th episode, breaking down Trump's address to the U.N. is actually still worth a listen even this long after the fact. I actually feel regret that I can't find time for this every day. It is an astonishing undertaking.
Fresh Air: "Hillary Rodham Clinton" — This is worth hearing even (especially?) if you are not fond of her. Terry Gross takes the opportunity to address her previous interview with Clinton, which was taken advantage of by right wing interests to undermine Clinton in the eyes of her base. This event, which predates the heat of the 2016 campaign, now seems like a prophecy.
All Songs Considered: "New Mix" Björk, Neil Young, Burial, Kelela, More" — I am so out of the loop about the year's new music, and that is mostly because I haven't been listening to this. Still, new music by Björk is reason to tune in. That's a funny thing to say, isn't it? Since I can hear that music in many other places that are also free. But I still like to hear new tracks on this show first, because I know it'll also introduce me to stuff I wouldn't have otherwise heard. Neil Young's Hitchhiker was always something I was going to hear. (I am still technically planning to hear all of his albums in chronological order, but that project has been on a long hiatus because I'm not in the mood.) But having heard this gorgeous acoustic version of "Powderfinger," which in defiance of Robin Hilton I will happily say is at least in my top three Neil Young songs, I clearly need to hear the album very soon.
The Gist: "The Frat Doesn't Have Your Back" — As an alumnus of two Canadian universities, I have no idea why American students are so taken in by frats and sororities. This episode about racism in frats only surprised me during the bits where it outlined some of the reasons frats are not terrible.
The Heart: "Bodies: Goddess" — The "Bodies" mini-season concludes with an episode about the poet Maria R. Palacios, whose work deals with her body: she uses a wheelchair as a result of childhood polio. This mini-season has been a solid continuation of The Heart's best year yet.
99% Invisible: "The Finnish Experiment" — Universal basic income from a design perspective. This is essential listening for anybody curious about how this whole thing might work. The short answer is that nobody knows. But this will tell you about the people who are trying to figure it out who you should be keeping tabs on.
Twenty Thousand Hertz: "Watergate" — It's been ages since I listened to this show, but the idea of them doing a sound-focussed political story interested me. This is the story of how recording technology in the Nixon White House became so much a part of the scenery that it led to the president's downfall. Fun stuff.
Longform: Reply All two-parter — These two interviews with the hosts of Reply All are among the most fascinating documents of the world of podcasting that I've heard. I'd argue that Reply All, more so than StartUp, is the show that made Gimlet Media an institution. It is an ongoing classic, and a thing that couldn't really exist if not for podcasting. It is a seamless integration of This American Life-style reported storytelling with the sort of loose chatter that's native to podcasting. These interviews highlight how both sides of that coin came together. They go into detail on the story development process of the show's six-person team (I can hardly believe this show is made by only six people) and they also shed light on how Vogt and Goldman's rapport developed. This is fascinating stuff. Reply All is eminently deserving of a two-hour peek behind the curtain.
Constellations: "adriene lilly – migraines & tsunamis" & "michelle macklem – ode to my last 10 years of dating" — Here is a new podcast dedicated to boundary pushing, sound art-adjacent radio. In other words, it may be the medium's saviour. Time will tell. Of these first two I've heard, "migraines & tsunamis" is the standout. It is a marvellous collage that deals with two very distinct, but oddly analogous kinds of pain. I want more like this from the podcast space. I will be listening to this one closely.
Code Switch: "A Weed Boom, But For Whom?" — A fascinating look into how the oncoming post-legalization weed boom will likely mostly help white people. Also, a fascinating look at the pre-history of the drug war, which predates Nixon by decades.
Reply All: "At World's End" — A two-story episode focussed on Newgrounds. Remember Newgrounds? What a cesspool. I recall it with fondness.
Theory of Everything: "Concrete and Respect (Wisconsin part I of II)" — This is so great. It's co-produced by Mathilde, who is the episode announcer on the show, and Benjamen Walker's wife. (I cannot find a reliable spelling of her last name on the internet, otherwise I'd give it.) The two of them and their young son Arthaud head off to Wisconsin for a family vacation to see some weird art and talk to people who aren't politically aligned with them. They're a family with an unorthodox idea of fun. But Mathilde brings a well-read thoughtfulness to this show that's different from Walker's trademark informed paranoia. She's been reading Tocqueville lately, and it deeply influences her take on what she sees. I love this. It's a great example of what makes this show totally different from anything else out there. Pick of the week.
Imaginary Worlds: "Worldbuilding With Music" — Weird episode. A guy from a band got in touch with Eric Molinsky to suggest an episode on concept albums, which is a great idea. But this focusses mostly on that band, which is yet to release their first EP. And by all indications here, it doesn't sound that great. I would have loved to hear from Del the Funky Homosapien, Neil Peart, and maybe Tony Visconti, or somebody else who worked with Bowie on Ziggy Stardust. I guess they're hard to get in touch with. But something like that would have been great.
StartUp: "An Announcement from StartUp and Introducing The Nod" — The announcement that StartUp will be devoted specifically to serialized seasons from here on out is EXTREMELY welcome. Guess I won't drop this show after all. And the episode of The Nod that they play here is great: it's a fashion-focussed episode and I still liked it, which means it must be very compelling storytelling. I should listen to this show more often.
Nocturne: "Shortboard" — I feel like I need some new podcasts in my life. This one has been coming up in the New York Times podcast club Facebook group, so I figured I'd give it a go. I'm a fan — though this particular episode could almost be Love and Radio. The premise of the show is just, stories that happen at night. That's a promising premise, although I generally don't listen to podcasts at night, so I might have trouble being in the mood for it. Still, always nice to find a new show that's good.
Showcase from Radiotopia: "Ways of Hearing #6 – NOISE" — This final episode of Ways of Hearing is one of the strongest. It details how digital instruments are noiseless, and how layering them thus loses the noisy richness of analogue recording. It finishes with a slightly forced attempt to link the concepts of signal and noise to every other episode of the show, but prior to that, it's good stuff. I had high hopes for this series, and it didn't really even come close. But when it was at its most insightful, it was really good.
Radiolab: "Oliver Sipple" — This is an overall pretty good story about a guy who saved the president's life and then had all of his privacy and his family taken away from him by the press, who seized on the fact that he was gay. The story has two weak points: one, nobody involved really tries that hard to litigate the central conflict in the story which is whether or not the public actually had a right to know about Sipple's sexuality. This is the sort of conflict that Radiolab used to thrive on, and it comes and goes in about 30 seconds here. The other problem is that the story starts with original interview tape of the attempted assassin that Sipple stopped. She never reappears. I have no idea why this was necessary for the story, aside from to shock and titillate us with the notion that we're hearing from that person. There's some great archival tape in this, though.
On the Media: "Trust Issues" — A really good one. The highlights are a particularly persuasive argument that government deregulation of tech giants has led to us being "governed" by private companies, and another conversation on how a code of ethics might come into effect in Silicon Valley. It also contains a not too confrontational (but confrontational enough) conversation with the guy who runs Gab, the free speech absolutist, conservative dominated social platform. In their now infamous post-election day episode, the hosts of OTM talked about how they'd need to find a new paradigm for the show, the same way they had to when Obama was elected. I think the close examination of social media might be a viable new paradigm for this show. Certainly it's the only one that seems to understand it at all.
This entry was posted in Books, Omnibus, Omnireviewer, Podcasts, TV, Video games and tagged 99% Invisible, All Songs Considered, Battlestar Galactica, China Miéville, Code Switch, Constellations, Everything, Fresh Air, Imaginary Worlds, Longform, Margaret Atwood, Nocturne, On the Media, Pop Culture Happy Hour, Radiolab, Reply All, Showcase from Radiotopia, StartUp, The Daily, The Gist, The Heart, Theory of Everything, Twenty Thousand Hertz on September 24, 2017 by Matthew.
Omnireviewer (week of Jan. 22, 2017)
If things seem a bit scant this week, well, I've been busy with my annual wrap-up, which I posted yesterday, and from which some of this is repurposed. 21 reviews.
Arrival — I came out of this genuinely feeling that it's the best movie of the year. One gradual process I've been through this year is that I've come to see how spoilers are an actual thing that's worth avoiding. And it's really hard to talk about Arrival without dealing with the twist. This is one of those movies that becomes an entirely different film from start to finish once you know the whole of the story. I suspect that's probably why everything I've seen written about it seems more effusively positive than it can actually back up with analysis. To talk about what makes this movie extraordinary as opposed to great is to spoil it. This movie's ending is a narrative rug pull of Steven Moffat proportions. Still, for the bulk of Arrival's running time, we don't know the big secret, and it's still an excellent movie. Amy Adams gives one of the best performances of the year (again, a performance that is elevated by knowledge of the ending) as the person that the military brings in to help them communicate. Specifically, with aliens. Couching a first contact story in terms of understanding language is a winning premise, especially when the story introduces the idea (a real idea in linguistics) that language actually fundamentally affects the way that a person thinks. That makes it critical to any understanding of another culture, yet alone another species. As far as I can tell all of this comes straight from the Ted Chiang story that Arrival's excellent screenplay is based on. But if the movie were only a brute force expression of some clever ideas, it wouldn't be my favourite of the year. Director Denis Villeneuve imparts an element of profound lyricism to the story by allowing us to see small moments, and letting our eyes linger on images that one assumes the citizens of this movie's world are being fed through a much more frenetic TV news approach. Villeneuve is a director that I've been aware of since he made Incendies in 2010, but this is the first of his movies that I've seen. It's clear that he's a major talent, and one hopes that he'll continue making movies like this, even after he's made his franchise juggernaut debut later this year with the new Blade Runner. Pick of the week.
Mad Max — I saw Fury Road when it was in theatres, because it was essential viewing. And oh my god am I ever glad I did. But I hadn't seen any of the previous Mad Max movies. Now I'm rectifying that. This is astonishing for having been made for $2.3 million, adjusted for inflation. So much is communicated by implication here, with cuts made in opportune places so that major events are left to the imagination. It's both dramatically effective, and a great way to cut expenses. Considering how far off from Fury Road this movie is — in terms of time, budget and the series not having yet built its cultural legacy — it's incredible how many of the ingredients are already in place. The deranged gang of predatory biker dudes in this are so over the top that they don't even need makeup. But, when you throw a bit of magic character design juice over that same basic formula, you get Fury Road's war boys. And of course, their leader is the same guy, just younger and with more of his face visible. Neither of the Mad Max movies I've seen have especially involved stories, but of course this isn't a problem. It's more of a problem in Mad Max, though. Because, in Fury Road, the chase scenes are so detailed that plot can occur at a micro level: every chase and fight scene has dozens of tiny plot events. A character gets plucked from a friendly vehicle into an unfriendly one; a man being pursued spies the promise of sunlight through a grate; the unconscious guy chained to Max as he's fighting wakes up. That's what $150 million well-spent buys you. In the 1979 rendition, you have to be content with a slightly blunter instrument. Still, well worth the hour and a half.
Downton Abbey: Season 3, episodes 6-9 — At its best, this season is like a less thoughtful, more conservative, British Horace and Pete. More than either of the previous seasons of Downton Abbey, it foregrounds the series' central tension, which is that things can't remain as they are. Lord Grantham is the most interesting character, at least symbolically, because he is the primary representative of the old guard, and we see him undermined again and again: regarding how his estate is to be run, the church in which his granddaughter will be Christened, whether his middle daughter should be allowed to write a newspaper column, and most compellingly which doctor to listen to when there's a life at risk. The fact that he makes his every decision based on a crumbling value system that will only lead to his own ruin is a tremendously interesting throughline that also serves to explain at a granular level why the big houses like Downton fell, historically. It really comes down to people like Grantham being entirely out of touch with any traditions and ways of life save their own. (A personal favourite moment: Grantham's valet is released from prison and his chummy advice for how to spend his first day of freedom is: "Stay in bed! Read books!" Honest to god.) However, that's where the positives stop. This is the first season where the upstairs plotline has struck me as substantially more interesting than the downstairs plot, which in this season is completely insufferable. It revolves around O'Brien trying to take brutal revenge on Thomas for something I don't remember, and a messy, dull love pentagon between Thomas, two new footmen, Daisy and the kitchenmaid. Good lord, kill me now. And then, off in their own tangentially connected world, are Matthew and Mary, who have been highlights of previous seasons, but who are actually worse in this season than the love pentagon. Even if the huge twist at the end of the season is incredibly contrived (and Jesus Christ, the writing around it could not be more hamfisted), I'm quite happy that it's removed a relationship from this show that has become a source of aggravation. Actually, the entire final episode of this, a Christmas special, is awful. The worst episode of the show so far. At some point during its running time, Lord Grantham bids his fellow toffs "good hunting," which only reminded me of that other show I'm much more enthusiastic about getting back to.
Emily Nussbaum: "How Jokes Won the Election" — This feature is a good corollary to HyperNormalisation. It argues that the rapidly thinning line between "joke" and "not a joke" is a clear contributor to Trump's victory. It also contains an excellent assessment of Trump, Obama and Clinton as varying comedic personalities.
Michiko Kakutani: "Why '1984' Is a 2017 Must-Read" — Here is a confession. I have never read 1984. Here is another confession. I have been lying about having read 1984 for years. In fact, I think I've been lying about having read 1984 for so long that this isn't the first time I've gone public about not having read 1984. It may actually be the third. But nonetheless I feel another confession is necessary, because it's a lie I've repeated as recently as a couple of weeks ago. And it's such an easy one to keep up, given how familiar the central tenets of 1984 are in our culture. But perhaps I should take this opportunity, while this whole American fascism thing is going on, to see for myself why it is so enduring. I'll add it to the list.
Olivia Laing: "The Lonely City" — The very act of writing a book about one's own loneliness is an act of bravery. If this book were simply Olivia Laing's account of the period in her own life when she felt the most alienated, it would still be worth reading, and not at all self-indulgent. Nothing could be less self-indulgent than proclaiming loneliness, because we all intuitively know that such a proclamation will have the counterintuitive effect of worsening one's own isolation. But Laing only uses her own narrative as a spine: a framing device that she uses to string together her readings of the lives and works of several definitively lonely American artists. Though it is often conflated with depression, Laing considers loneliness as a unique affliction: an undesirable one by definition, but one without which the human experience is incomplete and possibly less inspired. The chapter that focuses on Andy Warhol's outsiderness, his alienation through not having a firm grasp of language, is shattering and actually makes Warhol's famous repeated images take on a bittersweet quality that I had never detected in them before. Laing is sensitive to the alienating tendencies of patriarchy and heteronormativity, and offers compelling portraits of people who lived lonely lives due to a society-wide lack of understanding. A substantial amount of the chapter that begins by focussing on Warhol veers off to consider Valerie Solanas, an early radical feminist of some genius who has since become known for only one thing: shooting Andy Warhol. The Lonely City is a beautiful book: equal parts sad and validating. It made me want to jump on a plane to New York to go look at art. By myself.
The Tragically Hip: Live Between Us — I've been into live albums lately, and it occurred to me that maybe I could start to understand the Hip a little better if I heard a full live show from them in their prime. I think it worked. Gord Downie has always been the part of the band that I liked: his lyrics, his whimsical character as a frontman, his conscience. It's the rest of them, with their almost aggressively generic sound that always posed a problem. But live, that sound is almost a virtue, because there's no more semiotically rich sound than two guitars, a bass, drums and a screaming crowd. This is straightforward rock and roll, with a very non-straightforward frontman. I'm sold.
Reply All: "Man of the People" — This is another story from the annals of American demagoguery — and one that played out on a similarly massive scale to the current one, relative to its time. It's about John Brinkley: a fake doctor who patented a raft of fake medicines and marketed them to a nation of credulous customers on a radio station that he owned. (This was the earliest days of commercial radio, and it already sucked.) It's gratifying to hear that flimflam was always a thing. It's depressing that it's still just as much of a thing in an era where we're each equipped with far more of the facts than we were in the 20s.
99% Invisible: "Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle" — The story of the taser is as fraught as you'd think it would be. Framing this as a design story is a great idea, because then it becomes the story of whether the design of the taser is a fitting design or a catastrophic one — and that depends, of course, on whether you're talking to a police officer.
Crimetown: "Power Street" — Ohhhh, it's back. This show is catnip to me. It's basically everything that Criminal isn't, which isn't a slight to either of them. Criminal is a show that demonstrates the multifacetedness of criminality, and thrives on telling stories of all sorts of different characters. Crimetown is True Crime, note the capitals. It's got charismatic gangsters, fisticuffs, mob hits, and corruption that goes right up to the top. It's a yarn that you can just get lost in the grisly details of. It's the best. I'm just as much looking forward to hearing what city their next season will focus on as I am to how they deal with the rest of this one.
Welcome to Night Vale: "[Best Of?]" — This basically proves that it's the structure of Night Vale that annoys me most. Every time they break from the structure, I love it. This episode responds to Cecil taking a bit of time off by installing a mysterious new host in his seat. It features a clip from Cecil's early career (but not as early as you'd think, considering) where he reports on the invention of radio, which of course begs the question… how was he reporting it? This is clearly one of the classics, and has an absolutely haunting twist at the end. If I can expect periodic episodes like this one, I'll happily groan my way through a few potboilers. Pick of the week.
Chapo Trap House: "Mr. Chapo Goes To Washington" — An incredibly edifying hour of the Chapos and their guests bitching about the inauguration, which is clearly the worst thing that ever happened. Just as good: general bitching about Washington, D.C., which is clearly the worst place that ever happened.
On the Media: "Future Tense" — This is an hour on the future of the White House press corps in the Donald Trump administration. The usefulness of that institution isn't universally agreed upon, even in the media. So this is a contentious hour with no easy answers. But easy answers are not what you come to On the Media for in the age of Donald Trump. You come to it for the BIG WIDE 70MM SUPER CINEMASCOPE view of how fucked we are.
The Gist: "Don't Mind Us, We're Just Collapsing" — Ahhh, lovely. This features an interview with an archeologist who's actually calling from the jungle to talk about the warning signs before the fall of a civilization. I love that they thought to talk to somebody like this. Pesca's spiel about reconsidering #oscarssowhite is less convincing to me — last year's Oscars were so white.
Twenty Thousand Hertz: "What Makes up a Movie Soundtrack?" — This isn't that interesting, story-wise. A big segment of it is given to the great sound designer Ann Kroeber. She's a good talker, but the stories she tells about getting animal sounds for movies don't really go anywhere. (This is something that 99% Invisible does too — where it just throws stuff at you rather than telling a linear story. But I think you've really got to be a radio grandmaster to pull that off.) The most interesting bit is where they take apart the layers of sound in a movie explosion. I could have listened to more like that: an entire episode of deconstructing sound effects would have been great. (Explosion Exploder?) Anyway, this show has mostly been really good in its short life so far. It's allowed an off week here and there.
The Gist: "Deregulation Nation" — I think I need to read this guy's book. Jacob Hacker argues that it was the effective use of government that made America prosper in the first place, and that Republicans have fundamentally misunderstood the history of policy-making. Really interesting.
The Gist: "Yeah, We're Scared Too" — Oh, good. Here's an interview with a Bush appointee about how establishment Republicans are still as terrified of Trump as during the primaries. Excellent. Flippancy aside, Eliot Cohen is a reasonable person, and it's good to know they exist in Trump's party, even if they have no hope in hell of actually swaying him to the centre.
On the Media: "New Reality" — Bob Garfield visits the flailing White House press corps, and commiserates and berates in equal measure. That's something we needed. Also, there's an interview with Jay Rosen, who's always great to hear on this show, on the question of why the hell anybody would even bother interviewing Kellyanne Conway.
99% Invisible: "The Revolutionary Post" — The post office invented America. That's a hell of a premise, and with evidence found at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and in the life story of Benjamin Franklin, it doesn't seem absurd.
On the Media: "Week One" — Sean Spicer is a piece of shit. Honest to god, there are no decent people among Trump's staff at all. The most powerful country in the world is being run by goblins. The only thing that makes him seem a little less noxious is that Steve fucking Bannon is even worse.
Imaginary Worlds: "Winning the Larp" — I love the idea of LARPing. I just love it. The part of me that used to do improv and also the part of me that admires Wagner for fusing a bunch of art forms together are both complicit in this. But I don't think I'll ever do it, because there are lines that even I won't cross.
This entry was posted in Books, Movies, Omnireviewer, Podcasts, TV and tagged 99% Invisible, Arrival, Chapo Trap House, Crimetown, Downton Abbey, Emily Nussbaum, Imaginary Worlds, Mad Max, Michiko Kakutani, Olivia Laing, On the Media, Reply All, The Gist, Tragically Hip, Twenty Thousand Hertz, Welcome to Night Vale on January 29, 2017 by Matthew.
Omnireviewer (week of Jan. 8, 2017)
Big week! 31 reviews! I'm working part-time and it feels GREAT. Also, I have some magical new running pants that allow me to run in the cold. So, podcasts! But first, everything else.
Ken Doctor: "The Newsonomics of Podcasting" — Doctor's analysis of the current state of podcasting is probably the most in-depth bespoke piece of journalism out there on the matter at the moment. (I say "bespoke" because the best way to stay informed about the podcast biz remains a subscription to Nick Quah's weekly newsletter Hot Pod.) There is much here for podcast producers and enthusiasts to be scared about — especially in the fourth of the five parts in this series, which details how dynamic advertising (something that contributed to the web's current state of dilapidation and skeeziness) will soon be implemented into podcasting at the cost of its current, open RSS-based model of distribution. However, the fifth and final section offers some reasons to be optimistic, as it seems that the people at the heads of the companies responsible for many of the most popular podcasts don't want to see this industry go the way of commercial radio, or of digital publishing. As long as there are people in powerful positions at big podcasting companies who believe in the primacy of good programming over all other concerns, we'll be fine. Right? Right??
Jed Gottlieb: "Curtains fall on arts critics at newspapers" — Well, this is intensely discouraging. Still, it's gratifying to read a quote from a formerly full-time critic that calls the situation for what it is: "It's all for kids. The papers, the movies and music. There is nowhere to go for smart analysis, beautiful features. Social media means everyone has a voice but what's lost in the cacophony is that intelligent voice commenting on intelligent art." Welcome to the abyss.
Olivia Laing: The Lonely City — Another 2016 notable book I'm hurrying through before my end-of-January list. This is unexpectedly cathartic: a study of urban loneliness in American art, and an examination of how that art can help ease loneliness. Halfway between straight art criticism and memoir, Laing's book sets out exactly the headspace she found herself in when she became obsessed with the art of loneliness. The first chapter focusses on the work of Edward Hopper, whose paintings I have apparently seen plenty of without actually ever knowing who he was. But it also focusses on the way that the experience of loneliness of the acute sort that Laing has experienced, and that I can sympathise with in a much more muted form, has a tendency to further isolate you from the people that you want in your life. Moreover, Laing notes that there's social science research that details how, once the loneliness subsides, we tend to forget the sensation altogether and fail to recognize and sympathize with it in others. So, for anybody who has experienced what Laing describes and has come out the other side, this is a useful read because it contains a description of the sensation that you may have forced yourself to forget. The appeal of this book lies in the intersection between Laing's ability to articulate the experience of loneliness and her ability to look at and interpret pictures in interesting ways based on that experience. Familiar Hopper paintings like Nighthawks take on more beauty when seen through the lens that Laing offers. The next chapter's on Warhol. No idea where she'll go with that, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
Steve Jackson's Sorcery!: Part 4 — Not finished yet, but I'm happy to report that this is everything I'd hoped it would be. It incorporates the mechanical improvements of the third instalment into a setting that has more of what appealed to me in the second part: I'll always prefer a text-based game that takes place in a city to one that takes place in a vast wilderness. Even a vast wilderness with nifty time beacons. So much of what makes me like interactive fiction is getting to interact with NPCs from fictional civilizations. Or fictionalized versions of real civilizations. The other advantage in this game is that the rewind feature is disabled at a crucial point, so that your decisions aren't reversible and you can't be tempted to try all of the routes through any given situation: a big part of what sunk the last instalment for me. That said, I'm only just getting to a situation where I wish I could rewind my choices, because I think I might have actually trapped myself somewhere I can't get out of without rewinding back past the point where the rewind was disabled. My final assessment of this will likely depend on my level of frustration in getting out of this situation. But let's just bequeath something on this pre-emptively, in case I decide I hate it later for unfair reasons, namely that I'm a terrible and idiosyncratic gamer. Pick of the week.
Battlestar Galactica: Season 1, episodes 5-13 — Okay, so I powered through the rest of this season faster than I've watched any show since before I entered the workforce. Here's a thick slurry of thoughts. There's something marvellously David Cronenberg about the way that the Cylon spacecraft are semi-organic. I don't think I've seen spaceships that bleed in any other bit of science fiction. Also, those ships' capacities feel refreshingly analogue: if the humans destroy a fleet of eight Cylon scouts, they're safe. They haven't been discovered. For 2004, this feels really pre-internet. What does it say about 2017 that Battlestar Galactica feels like a retreat into a world with less sophisticated surveillance? On the other hand, it's clear now that Commander Adama has an extremely selective code of ethics. He has previously advocated for leaving behind huge swathes of the remaining human race for the safety of even bigger swathes. But when one of his pilots is stranded on an inhospitable moon, he risks the lives of his entire fleet to save her. It's a clever decision on the show's part to make Starbuck that pilot, because she's far and away the most sympathetic character the show has. It's the only thing that could make us support Adama in what is increasingly obviously a series of horrible decisions. (Also, it's telling that Adama gets his way with this in the end — and he also comes damn close to getting his way when the president starts making seemingly awful decisions of her own in the two-part finale. The power of the presidency is dependent on the goodwill of the military.) However, putting Starbuck in that scenario specifically is also a bit of a cop out, because we know that she's smart enough to find her way out of this situation without Adama's help. We aren't genuinely ever faced with a potential consequence, because Starbuck's survival is never really in serious doubt. Still, "You Can't Go Home Again" is one of my favourite episodes so far. Ditto for "Six Degrees of Separation," in which Six appears to have superpowers. I'm generally less invested in worldbuilding and mythology than I am for the actual plotline of a series, but I confess to being fascinated by Cylon spirituality, and I wonder if this will end up being a Game of Thrones situation where one of the religions turns out to be correct and allows its worshippers to do seemingly impossible things. The seemingly prescient nature of President Roslin's visions only makes the question: which one? Both? Also, intriguingly, given the show's much vaunted willingness to engage with the ongoing war on terror, the human religion is founded on the belief that time repeats itself. "All of this has happened before and will happen again." Perhaps the show's metaphors are meant to be literal recurrences of the early 21st-century sociopolitical events they're critiquing? (When you consider that there's a line in "Colonial Day" about how the largest point of speculation at the start of an event regards whether or not two political figures will shake hands, the show seems oddly prescient — and thus backs up its own point.) "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" is by miles the stupidest episode in the show thus far. It is only redeemed by Mary McDonnell's performance of intense suspicion and strained tolerance of Tigh's wife — about whom, oh my god get this character off of the screen. I think that's just about all of my thoughts. In any case, it seems like enough. Also, much as I enjoyed Todd VanDerWerff's Deadwood recaps on the A.V. Club, I halfway think that Sonia Saraiya's BSG recaps are even better — specifically the one on the Starbuck two-parter. Check that out for sure.
Sherlock: "The Lying Detective" — Bizarrely, I think I liked Mark Gatiss's episode last week better than this one by Steven Moffat. It's not that it's bad, certainly. It's just that the tension of this episode rests largely on whether Culverton Smith (Toby Jones, at his leering creepiest) is actually a serial killer or if Sherlock is just finally too off his head on drugs to know up from down. That's not a particularly interesting tension, and it isn't resolved in an especially interesting way. The huge twist at the end is indeed a huge twist, but it doesn't have much to do with the actual story of this episode: it's just laying groundwork for the next one. On the plus side, Amanda Abbington is still in the show, as we all knew she would be. On the down side, Mary is still dead, and seemingly for no good reason.
Hans Abrahamsen/Ensemble MidtVest: Works for Wind Quintet — Abrahamsen is responsible for my favourite newly-recorded classical work of the year, let me tell you, a song cycle for the magnificent Barbara Hannigan. I don't generally write about the stuff I listen to for work on this blog, to avoid cannibalizing myself. But you can find my remarks about that recording at the top of this list for CBC Music. This recording is the only other music of Abrahamsen's that I've heard. Being wind quintet music, it'll be of limited accessibility to lots of listeners, I'm sure. But I've always loved the explicit heterogeneity of wind music, probably because I grew up playing in wind bands. Abrahamsen uses this format to its greatest possible advantage, allowing the instruments to play independent lines that are meant to diverge as much as they're meant to blend. It's interesting to note that the two original pieces featured here predate let me tell you by nearly 40 years, because they sound identifiably like they're by the same person, even if let me tell you is a lot more satisfying. Abrahamsen took a ten-year hiatus in his compositional career, which the history books will look at as a dividing line the same way as they do with Bob Dylan's motorcycle crash. But as with Dylan, the two sides of that line aren't as distinct as all that. The latter half of the disc is devoted to Abrahamsen's transcriptions of Schumann and Ravel, which if they were by anybody else would be derided as curiosities, or mere necessities to pad the limited repertoire of the wind quintet. That's unfair, of course. But these transcriptions are genius of the same sort as Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms's G minor piano quartet. Schumann has always been my very least favourite of the major composers, and I confess that I enjoy Kinderszenen more in this formation than the original piano version. At least there's timbral variety in a wind quintet. Abrahamsen's transcription of Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin is less surprising on account of Ravel's familiar orchestration, but it is lovely and intimate. The wind players of Ensemble MidtVest comport themselves ably. Nothing's perfect: especially not wind quintet playing. But this comes acceptably close. I will certainly not be returning to this as often as let me tell you, but it leaves me assured that Hans Abrahamsen is a voice in classical music that I ought to be keeping track of.
Brian Eno: Reflection — This is an excellent alternative to silence. Perhaps that sounds like faint praise, but for anybody who admires John Cage as much as Brian Eno does (and indeed as much as I do), it is among the highest compliments to offer a piece of music. Eno's ambient music projects fall into two camps. There are the sublime ones like Music for Airports and On Land, which in the midst of their drones and textures contain memorable musical material, spread out judiciously. These records are deeply unobtrusive, as Eno intended, but they still announce their presence in the gentlest ways possible. The melodies on Music for Airports are like supportive friends. Along with Brahms's German Requiem, it is the most profound musical expression of human compassion that I've ever heard. Loving these records so much can tend to make you underestimate the power of the ambient records that fall into Eno's other camp: records like Thursday Morning and this new one. These records are built differently. They feel like audible spaces as opposed to audible objects. As such, they're unlikely to be perceived as something so specific as "compassionate," because they're seemingly conceived to be neutral. Music for Airports is a record you turn to to lower your heart rate and quiet your mind. Reflection is a record you turn to as an alternative to silence, to bring us back to where we started. Any attempt at finding true silence will inevitably fail. Cage taught us that. But we can substitute what passes for silence for music like this: music that proceeds nearly invisibly, whose musical events possess the seeming uniformity of randomness. Reflection will allow your mind to remain a bit noisy. It can help you get things done. It can help you think in a straight line. It is perhaps a less profound gift than some of Eno's more intentionally beautiful music, but it is a gift nonetheless.
Daniel Lanois: Goodbye to Language — This construction of ambient sounds with pedal steel is the kind of ambient music that has presence. It feels like a person making sounds with an object, and then making decisions about what to do with those sounds. It isn't ethereal at all; it's physical. There are times when this feels like an intentional attempt to bend time. It's like there's an early version of Goodbye to Language sitting somewhere that's a straight line, but the one that got released is full of knots, and swerves and loops. Of the numerous ambient albums from 2016 that I've heard, I like this one the best — with the proviso that I don't consider Tim Hecker's Love Streams to be ambient.
Esperanza Spalding: Emily's D+Evolution — Oh, I like this. I really like this. I have nothing against virtuosity. I'm for it. And I do think that it's a viable end in itself. But personally, I'm more attracted to music with a big plan, these days: an idea. And Emily's D+Evolution has a plan, and ideas o'plenty. This is virtuosity placed at the service of poetry. And equally, it's poetry placed at the service of virtuosity. Spalding's singing and bass playing are both astonishing here, and the lines she writes for herself to deliver with both instruments are worthy of her abilities. That's not something you come across a lot. This is socially conscious music, delivered through a Bowie/Janelle Monaé-esque constructed persona. And it's also a record you can listen to for the sheer joy of hearing people play instruments really freaking well. It is equally strong in concept and execution. I'm hard pressed to isolate favourite tracks, because the whole thing is so strong, but I'll suggest "Good Lava" for its unison lines, "Ebony and Ivy" for its killer lyrics and awesome a capella opening, and also the extended cut of "Unconditional Love" for Matthew Stevens' shit-hot guitar solo. Truly awesome.
Mitski: Puberty 2 — A good album, but I tend to prefer this kind of messy, grungy indie rock in song-length doses. All the same, there's plenty of variety here, and the best tracks on the album ("Happy," "Fireworks," and especially "Your Best American Girl," which is staggeringly good) are intensely repeatable. Mitski is a good songwriter and a committed enough rock 'n roller that she doesn't let her songwriting skill get in the way of making a gigantic loud noise. I'll inevitably revisit my favourite tracks more than I'll revisit the album as a whole, but that's fine. Not everybody has to be an album artist.
Childish Gambino: Awaken, My Love! — A lovely little divertisment, with some truly impressive range from Donald Glover as a singer. He's doing something different on nearly every track. The songwriting is a bit whatever, but that's hardly the point. The point is this beautiful production that's at once modern and a throwback to the 70s. Miles Davis and Teo Macero would have loved this. I haven't heard either of the previous Childish Gambino records in their entirety, but what I have heard doesn't leave me feeling entirely convinced about Glover as a rapper. I can definitely get into him as a person who does weird creative projects like this alongside big things like Atlanta, which I will certainly try to get to eventually. Nice.
All Songs Considered: "Viking's Choice 2016" — Bob Boilen references Tales from Topographic Oceans! Never thought that would happen. I am so excited for more Lars Gotrich on All Songs in 2017. This guy has the most interesting taste at NPR. For every bit of hardcore that doesn't connect, there's a piece of weird synth music that I need in my life. He's not as articulate as Ann Powers or Stephen Thompson, but he's got such a depth of knowledge about music on what's generally considered to be "the fringes" that it makes him essential to this operation. This is a great episode. The tracks by Oathbreaker and Zao were the standouts to me. I'll at least check out the complete tracks, if not the complete albums.
Song Exploder: "Oathbreaker – 10:56 / Second Son of R." — I actually like this song less upon hearing it in its entirety. I love the juxtaposition between quiet acoustic music and hardcore, but it doesn't coalesce structurally in the way that I like. Maybe it would be a grower, but I think I'm past the point where I can listen obsessively to heavy music. Ah, well.
Chapo Trap House: "We Live in The Zone Now" — This show hits me where I live. This is their post-election episode, and it is the second-most indicative podcast episode I've heard of that destabilizing moment (the first being the On The Media post-election story meeting tape). I do think that in their (justified) zeal to tear down the DNC and the mainstream media for allowing Trump's rise, the Chapos downplayed the material role of racism in the election, i.e. a segment of America either doesn't recognize racist attitudes in themselves and their candidates or openly supports those attitudes. And either way, they were profoundly unprepared to prevent overt racism from overtaking the white house. In a decent world, rule number one ought to be "Don't vote for a racist. Every other quality is secondary." (You could also easily replace "racist" with "sexual abuser." That is an equally valid rule number one.) But regardless, the red hot rage that these guys can articulate against the DNC is refreshing. I have been of many minds about the kind of comedy I want in a post-Trump world. And in spite of what I've written in the past, it's not Samantha Bee. This is closer, at least.
Welcome to Night Vale: Episodes 63-65 — "There Is No Part 1: Part 2" is a single joke stretched too thin. But the following two episodes are excellent, and I'm very much enjoying the plot arc about Cecil periodically losing consciousness only to find upon awaking that he's saved the mayor yet again. I have a suspicion about who purchased Cecil as lot 37 at that auction, which is verifiably either right or wrong, considering how behind I am on this. Nonetheless, here it is: I think Cecil purchased himself. I think he got tired of only reporting on the struggles of his loyal friend and former intern Dana, and decided that he could only get involved if he could do so under the pretense of unconsciousness. This will preserve his journalistic integrity, and also allow him an extra measure of bravery. I'm not clear on the mechanism by which he purchased himself. Maybe it has something to do with time travel. Maybe he'll go visit Carlos in his desert otherworld, and time will turn out to work differently there in such a way that future Cecil can purchase past Cecil at a bygone auction. Just a guess. Anyway, I'm backed up on podcasts again, so who knows when I'll actually get back to this and discover whether I'm right.
Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Small Batch: The Golden Globes" — This appears to be all of the Golden Globes 2017 that I could possibly need, i.e. eleven minutes of recap on a podcast, plus Meryl Streep's speech on YouTube. Jimmy Fallon is the worst host on late night, so it stands to reason that he'd be awful here as well. I couldn't care less about who won or lost, save that I'm disappointed Kenneth Lonergan didn't win in one of his two categories. But WHATEVER.
The Gist: "The Secret to Meaningful Work" — Not Pesca's most revelatory interview, but it's nice to know that there are people doing research on how work does and doesn't relate to personal self-worth.
Longform: "Terry Gross" — The most revealing moment in this great interview with America's interviewer-in-chief is the bit where she talks about how she gradually became more willing to do media herself. As recently as a year ago, when she went onstage with Marc Maron, she seemed deeply uncomfortable with the idea of talking about herself. To be fair, that was in front of a live audience, whereas this is an intimate conversation in her Philadelphia office. But there's something reassuring about hearing Gross talk about her own process and why she does what she does. It makes it clear that she's not just a disembodied consciousness with above average levels of empathy. I also admire her approach to interviewing politicians. They're the only group of people who don't get the option to take back something they say or to refuse to answer a personal question. And hearing that clip from her Hillary Clinton interview again made me remember just why she sets my teeth on edge.
Twenty Thousand Hertz: "From Analogue to Digital" — If Twenty Thousand Hertz's episodes thus far were compiled into an album, this would be filler. It doesn't really have much to say about the value of analogue sound technology other than that it's different from digital sound technology in ways that everybody is entirely aware of: i.e. there are rituals associated with analogue music that have died off. No matter, this show's batting average is still high.
NPR Politics Podcast: "Obama's Farewell, Russian Intel Reports, Senate Hearings" — Oh my god there is so much news right now. The real value of podcasts like this is that sometimes you only have time to catch the headlines of things that happen. On days when you're not inclined to trawl through news articles, you can turn to this show instead and they'll shove context and analysis directly into your head. It's nice! It's a good feeling. Makes things make sense. Well, no it doesn't. But it allows me to be aware of the nonsensical, inexplicable things that are happening in the world, and also sometimes the reasons for them.
99% Invisible: "Mini-Stories: Volume 2" — I've enjoyed these two episodes because it's nice to hear unscripted conversation on this show. Not as a usual thing, but every so often it's nice to hear the facade drop away.
The Gist: "How the Onion Remade Joe Biden" — Joe Biden has been the best character on the Onion for a while now. It's interesting to hear the editor talk about how the character came together, and particularly how they handled the death of Biden's son. Lovely stuff.
The Heart: "Twirl" — A very promising start to the new season, which I suppose is going to be about femininity in male-identified people? Anyway, this particular episode where Kaitlin Prest interviews her exes (and her current boyfriend) about their feminine aspects is as thoughtful and intimate as the show always is. The high point is the conflict between Prest and her current boyfriend about whether his aversion to being thought of as having feminine traits is masked misogyny or not. It's much deeper than "yes it is," "no it isn't." Pick of the week.
Imaginary Worlds: "Atari vs. The Imagination Gap" — I had no idea that the culture at Atari was so intense. I suppose the madness of the videogames industry goes back right to the start. That aside, the most interesting thing about this is the notion that the packaging and promotional materials surrounding janky old Atari games served a purpose beyond marketing: it helped to fill in the gaps left open by the games' primitive graphics. I happened to flip through the book mentioned in this, The Art Of Atari when I found it at my comics shop the day I listened to this, and it really is some fantastic stuff. Worth checking out.
Fresh Air: "Why More Americans Are Giving Up On Banks" — I came to this thinking that it would be about credit unions and all that: people who are leaving their banks as a protest against their investment in fossil fuels, etc. It's not that. It's actually about people who use cheque cashing services and payday lenders. Which is interesting in its own way, but I should have read the description more carefully. Still, one thing about podcasts as opposed to actual radio is that you don't often hear something by accident. This isn't the sort of interview I'd normally listen to, and I learned something. Maybe I should institute a further element of randomness to my listening practices.
NPR Politics Podcast: "Trump's Press Conference, Tillerson's Hearing" — Once again, there is too much news. Also, has anybody else noticed how dangerously interesting the world is these days? Would I be paying attention to senate approval hearings if Clinton had won? No, I wouldn't, because they'd be dull. Which, to be clear, I'd definitely prefer. And also, I don't deny that this speaks to my insufficiency as a citizen. Though I do have an ironclad excuse where American politics is concerned: I'm Canadian. In any case, this is good. I don't so much recommend this episode as I recommend that you definitely listen to whatever episode of this show is most recent when there's a lot happening in American politics and you feel the need to make sense of it.
On The Media: "January Surprise" — Brooke Gladstone breaks down the ethics of Buzzfeed's publishing the unverified Trump dossier with a Slate writer. It is what it is, and what it is is intensely valuable.
Code Switch: "Obama's Legacy: Callouts and Fallouts" — Part two of maybe Code Switch's best project yet: their wrapup of the Obama presidency. This one is about the various ways in which he failed people of colour during his administration. Especially interesting is the final interview with the immigration advocate who called him the "deporter-in-chief." This offers a bit of necessary context to that remark, i.e. she was responding to allegations that Obama wasn't enforcing the current policies. There's more. You should listen to this.
Reply All: "The Reversal" — When I heard that Reply All had an ALS-related story, I assumed it would be about the ice bucket challenge, but it is mercifully not. It is actually about a doctor who set up a site by which he found that every so often, there's a person who seems to recover from ALS. And by the providence of the internet, he may yet be able to find enough people to do a study on why it happens and whether it can be used as a treatment. Fascinating.
Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Hidden Figures and One Day at a Time" — I love Brittany Luse on this podcast. I hope they bring her back again before she's utterly consumed by whatever her big new secret Gimlet project is. I never liked Sampler, but that's because the premise was dumb. She was great on it, and I'm confident that whatever is replacing it will be better. Also, this show is about two broadly admirable things that I don't have a lot of interest in. Maybe Hidden Figures. We'll see. But I'll definitely go to Hell or High Water, given Stephen Thompson's intense enthusiasm and the fact that Glen Weldon agrees with him. I wouldn't have thought it would be something that either of them would like. Good sign.
This entry was posted in Books, Classical Music, Omnireviewer, Podcasts, Popular Music, TV, Video games and tagged 99% Invisible, All Songs Considered, Battlestar Galactica, Brian Eno, Chapo Trap House, Childish Gambino, Code Switch, Daniel Lanois, Esperanza Spalding, Fresh Air, Hans Abrahamsen, Imaginary Worlds, Jed Gottlieb, Ken Doctor, Longform, Mitski, NPR Politics Podcast, Olivia Laing, On the Media, Pop Culture Happy Hour, Reply All, Sherlock, Song Exploder, Sorcery, The Gist, The Heart, Twenty Thousand Hertz, Welcome to Night Vale on January 16, 2017 by Matthew.
I'm beginning to put together my belated year-end list, as per tradition. Part of that involves going through a bunch of stuff I meant to get to when it actually still was 2016 that I didn't. So, a bit of that here. Not sure any of it will make the list. But there's a fair bit of good music here. And lots of other things. 29 reviews.
Doctor Who: "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" — More than anything, this demonstrates how Steven Moffat writing Doctor Who is pure joy in basically any configuration. This is a purposefully slight, silly romp with virtually no consequences either held over from or contributing to past and future episodes of the show, and yet it kind of made my week. It's a bittersweet reminder that this show, under this writer, is still pretty damn good even when it's spinning its wheels. I say bittersweet because this is the last year when we'll get to see it. Anyway, Moffat's take on the Superman/Lois Lane situation is exactly what you'd think it would be, in the sense that it cranks the farce up to eleven (Twelve? Joke credit Sachi Wickramasinghe). And that's basically what this is: a farcical reinterpretation of Superman. The story belongs to the new characters, Grant (our Clark Kent) and Lucy (our Lois Lane). The Doctor just sort of gets to be there — which is basically the only way to do a standalone Doctor Who story at this point. The Doctor's plotline is too continuity-heavy for anybody to be able to just jump on board at Christmas. But there are some Easter eggs (Christmas eggs?) that I think are worth noting. Think about this: Moffat's final season will surely clue up some lingering Twelfth Doctor plotlines, even if Capaldi stays on. The last line spoken before his era properly began was Eleven's final line: "I will always remember when the Doctor was me." I've always thought that was a bit of a limp exit. But the Doctor seems to be keeping his promise: not only is he mourning River Song (primarily an Eleventh Doctor companion), but he seems to be trying to cope with his grief by attempting to contact Amy and Rory with his huge New York time antenna. Maybe series ten will focus on legacy and remembrance in some way. That would be a good theme for Moffat to go out on. For most writers it would be bombastic. But I think if anybody's earned it, it's this guy.
Sherlock: "The Six Thatchers" — I never thought that one of the best episodes of Sherlock would be one solely credited to Mark Gatiss. And I never thought that Mark Gatiss would produce my favourite episode of television in a week also featuring a new episode written by Steven Moffat. Yet here we are. This is a marvellous, tightly-wound episode that manages a huge amount of business with remarkable grace and poetry. This story continues (and supposedly concludes) Mary's story from last season, at first in the guise of a new and self-contained case for Sherlock to solve regarding the smashing of Margaret Thatcher busts (satisfying in itself). And it does this while never forgetting about the show's new status quo, in which Sherlock is primarily motivated by Moriarty's final plot. It incorporates a wonderfully obtuse pairing of a man who meets death in Baghdad with footage of sharks, which comes full circle in the episode's climactic scene. That will be the brainworm of this episode: the thing that sticks for the longest. It contains typically wonderful performances from its leads (and I'm including Amanda Abbington in that: she's the best part of this) and an absolutely stunning series debut from director Rachel Talalay, who seems to have become Steven Moffat's virtuoso of choice: the person he goes to when he needs something really complicated taken care of (i.e. the last two season finales of Doctor Who). Sherlock has always been a deliberately stylized sort of show, but Talalay gives this an artful elegance that it has occasionally lacked in the hands of other directors. The scene in the aquarium, and all of the visual references to it that play out subtly in other scenes are brilliantly deployed. There's one moment where it's done with just a hint of shimmery blue light on Sherlock's face. Another director might have cut away to a shot of the shark tank, which would have been fine, but this is so much less intrusive. It's a non-hamfisted way to portray the looming spectre of death. And that's a difficult thing to pull off. So, incidentally, is killing off your best supporting character, and the one female character to have ever held any real purchase over the show's major story arcs. And they don't pull it off, because there's no real way to do that because it's both a bullshit trope and an obvious net loss for the show. But I won't cry foul just yet because if they can keep finding ways to bring back Andrew Scott's Moriarty, I'm sure we'll be seeing more of Mary yet. Even if she is actually dead. Which, I repeat, would be a bad thing. But let's think about that a bit more when the season's over. If I have one other complaint about this, it's that for the second season premiere in a row, Gatiss has glossed over what was supposedly a game-changing plot twist in the preceding season finale. In "The Empty Hearse," he blithely declined to reveal the true means by which Sherlock survived the events of "The Reichenbach Fall." And now, he allows Sherlock's status as the murderer of Charles Augustus Magnussen in "His Last Vow" to be brushed away in the cold open (though, who's to say how permanent that will turn out to be). There's an argument to be made that Magnussen's death was rendered essentially moot by the return (in some form) of Moriarty and the events of "The Abominable Bride." And certainly that's the argument that Mycroft would make. But this is becoming a concerning pattern, and if this season ends with a huge twist like the last two, I might find myself a bit sceptical of this show's ability to solve its own puzzles. Still, none of that seems especially important given what a fabulous story "The Six Thatchers" is in itself.
All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace: Episodes 2 & 3 — This three-part documentary on the way that ideas from computer science won an unwarranted psychic victory over humankind is one of the most astonishing pieces of documentary filmmaking I've ever seen. The third episode is especially haunting. The filmmaker, Adam Curtis, is both a lucid guide through some fairly complex ideas, and a spectacular aesthete. The documentary is effectively a work of collage, with lengthy clips from news footage, satire programming and previous documentaries all given entirely new meaning by way of clever juxtaposition with Curtis's voiceover and musical choices. And the actual story in the third episode, where a computer scientist and a geneticist collaborate to justify a concept of humans as machines — all while horrible violence is playing out in the African nations where the materials for computer technology are mined — is a thing of intense power. I would almost recommend the third episode as a standalone television masterpiece to anybody who feels they only have an hour to spare. But I'd much sooner suggest watching all three parts of this. It will change the way you think about the legacy of modern technology. I will say, though, that there's something almost unacceptably perverse about using music from West Side Story over footage of the Rwandan genocide. I'm sure that to most people it slipped right past. But I find that slightly tasteless. It's a vanishingly minor point. Pick of the week.
Charlie Brooker's 2016 Wipe — I think I'm over my Charlie Brooker phase. There are maybe about three good lines in this (aside from those given to Philomena Cunk who, as usual, is the funniest thing in the world), and aside from that there's just a whole lot of rote reiterations of how awful 2016 was, without any attempt to offer a new take. However, it is a good way of recalling some of the smaller bits of weirdness that happened this year, like The Great British Bake Off leaving the BBC. And, the Trump rap that concludes this is strangely cathartic. Also, apparently Jeremy Corbyn supporters have their knickers in a twist about this? Seriously? He comes off better than any other politician in the country in this. Or maybe I'm just naturally attracted to leftist political figures with absolutely no clue how to court an electorate.
Cunk on Christmas — "Scientists now believe that 80% of all burps occur at Christmas, threatening to put a hole in the Oz-wan layer at precisely the moment the sky is full of vulnerable reindeer." Philomena Cunk is an amazing character because she's not just a generic buffoon, she's a very specific type of buffoon, whose buffoonery has a sort of fanciful logic to it.This isn't one of her best specials, but I did plenty of laughing, and it isn't even Christmas anymore. "Merry Christmas. And a very new year."
Battlestar Galactica: "Act of Contrition" — There are some bits of this where the televisual language hasn't aged well, i.e. the rocket's eye view in the first scene where all the pilots get killed. That's a shot that should only be used for comedy. But that sort of thing is made up for with things like the way that Starbuck's attempts to suppress painful memories is conveyed through editing. Story wise, this focusses on one of my favourite threads in the show so far: Starbuck's grief and guilt. She even throws a bit of heat on what's going on with the two Adamas, who are among my least favourite characters — at least when they're in scenes together.
Steve Jackson's Sorcery!: Part 3 — I so badly wanted to love this, but I confess that I found it tedious in a way that I didn't find the first two parts, in spite of the substantial mechanical improvements made for this third part. Let me spoil just a bit of the game in order to demonstrate why I find it simultaneously brilliant and frustrating. Sorcery 3's key mechanic is a set of beacons distributed throughout the map that you can shine anywhere in a 360 degree radius, and all of the area within the beacon's beam is cast back in time by hundreds of years. Basically, there are two layers to the game's map, one of which can only be exposed in fragments. One thing that you can use a beacon to do is reconstruct a little seaport town that's been gone for presumably centuries. That allows you to hitch a ride across the lake with some fishermen from a bygone time. But if you happen to steer the boat outside the beam of the beacon, it vanishes into the mists of time along with its crew, leaving you to struggle in the cold water. Here's what I love about this: it's not just that any given point on the map can take two possible forms, one past and one present. It's that the act of crossing the threshold has consequences in itself. This is soooo complex, and I admire Inkle very much for attempting it. On the other hand, this mechanic means that you might not discover the consequences of a choice you make on one edge of the map (namely, where to shine a beacon) until you're already halfway across the map from that beacon. And without the benefit of foresight, you're likely to have things happen like boats disappearing from under you quite a lot when you mess with the beacons a lot. This led me to rewind my game and replay the same sequences of events a lot more that I would consider optimal, just to find a particular outcome that would allow me to accomplish the game's key task: killing seven serpents before you find your way to the map's exit. The open-world concept of this game seems to indicate that Inkle learned some stuff from making 80 Days and incorporated it here. But where 80 Days' story moves you relentlessly into new territory, even when you're purposely biding your time, Sorcery 3 forces you to traverse the same parts of its open world again and again. It is immensely tiresome, and at some point I started looking forward to finishing the game. Never a good sign. I still hold out hope that the fourth part might synthesize the strongest points of the second and third parts. We'll see soon enough.
Kate Bush: The Kick Inside: — The fact that this is a) one of the most auspicious debuts in pop history and b) definitely not one of the best Kate Bush albums speaks volumes. Bush would really come into her own when she started producing her own albums, in the period when she's stopped playing live and her label started ignoring her. The Kick Inside finds her instead filling the not entirely befitting role of ingénue: a bona fide pop phenomenon, coming off of the success of a masterful, chart-topping debut single, and having been graciously ushered into "the system." The result is a good album, but one that doesn't yet have Bush's creative DNA in every note, the way that The Dreaming does. The Kick Inside is very much a rock album, in the same way that the second Peter Gabriel album is a rock album. Both of those solo records have the feel of being a band record, because a lot of the same musicians are present throughout. I think that's kind of a defining trait of rock albums: "made by bands." Whereas both Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush would gravitate towards more of a revolving door sort of approach to sessions on their artier, poppier records: using what musicians seem necessary at any given time. That doesn't preclude frequent collaborators on both of their parts, but the sense that there's such a thing as a Kate Bush Band vanished after Lionheart and didn't really return until her live shows with the KT Fellowship. That makes the first two Kate Bush albums (and particularly this one, because Lionheart just isn't very good) really compelling period pieces. And if you focus in on the songwriting specifically, regardless of arrangements, performances and all of the other territory that's often occupied by producers, it's incredible the extent to which Bush started as she meant to go on. Her songs are already defined by incredible specificity: "James and the Cold Gun" comes to mind immediately. As does "Wuthering Heights," which is of course one of the best songs ever, period. Though for my money, the remixed and extended version with the alternate vocal on the compilation The Whole Story is better than the version that appears on the album. You can hear the guitar solo a little better, it goes on for a little longer, and Bush's voice has gotten a little fuller by that time. (It comes from around the time of Hounds of Love, I believe.) Still, the strengths of the song lie in the song itself, and that doesn't change from version to version. It's a fun game to try and decide where the phrases begin and end. Is the chorus three repeating measures in four? Or is there a measure in two on the lyric "…home, I'm so…" and then a measure in six before it repeats? I wrote recently about Syd Barrett's intuitive mode of songwriting, which is also characterized by odd phrasing. But frankly, the sheer naturalness of Bush's oddly-phrased debut single puts "Arnold Layne" to shame. Also, consider the lyric in the chorus: "Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy; I've come home! Let me in your window!" That is the entire chorus of a hit song. How is it possible to turn that into the chorus of a hit song? Anyway, this album is great. And it's unbelieveable that Bush was 19 when it came out. And still, it feels like she's being held back by everybody else in the room.
Bon Iver: 22, A Million — I've always kind of hated Bon Iver. His first album — the one that every beard-having, flannel-inclined person thinks is the best thing ever — inspired more intense resentment in me than any other album not made by Arcade Fire. As far as I can remember, not having heard it since it came out, For Emma, Forever Ago is mawkish and sentimental, and it's slathered in an affected lo-fi aesthetic that calls more attention to its log-cabin origin story than to the mediocre music that it doesn't quite manage to hide. Bon Iver, Bon Iver was not so much a step in the right direction as a massive overcorrection: a grandiose, fussy record of the type that I'm generally inclined towards, but the meticulous production seemed to be attempting to mask the same thing that For Emma's self-mythologizing was: a lack of basic musical material. So, I wasn't planning to listen to this at all, until "22 (OVER S∞∞N)" unexpectedly knocked me flat on All Songs Considered. And having listened to this third album in its entirety, I'm wondering if I haven't gotten Justin Vernon completely wrong from the very beginning. I can't quite put my finger on why I like this so much more than his first two albums, and naturally I resent myself slightly for having confessed this to myself. It's strangely important to me to hate Bon Iver. But this album is so delicate, and so concerned with its fragile surfaces, which always threaten to come apart at any moment, that it offers the immediate impression that those surfaces are the whole product. Nothing is being disguised here. Vernon is simply offering a thin film of gorgeous sounding music: more a sound collage than a collection of songs. And this observation, laid on top of my specific objections to Vernon's first two albums (namely that he uses aesthetics to mask a lack, rather than as an end in themselves) makes me think that I'd best go back and reconsider his earlier work as well. It's possible that my entire distaste for the first two Bon Iver albums came about because I was mistaking a painter of frescoes for an architect. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the songs must be the point for an artist with roots in acoustic folk. But that's an assumption, and possibly a wrong one. In any case, regardless of whether my opinions of the first two records change, 22, A Million is absolutely brilliant.
Run the Jewels: Run the Jewels 3 — I don't want to say I'm underwhelmed by this. I do think it has a fairly sizable mid-album slump, from "Stay Gold" (probably the weakest track they've ever done) through "Everybody Stay Calm." But the five tracks prior to that run and the three tracks after are up to RTJ2 standards, more or less. It's going to take more than one listen to sink in, clearly. What's important is that there's more Run the Jewels. We've heard enough from this duo to know how they work, and know what we should expect from them. But that doesn't mean that they're anything close to played out. It means they've hit their stride. I'll report back when I figure this out a bit more.
Huerco S: For Those of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have) — This kind of thing is the reason I like Pitchfork's year-end list. I didn't hear this mentioned anywhere else this year, yet here it is. It's a nice bit of ambient music that I'm happy to have heard, though I can't say it captured my attention to the same extent as some of the year's other ambient releases by, for instance, Nonkeen, and especially Tim Hecker. I do admire Huerco S for having the guts to just cut his tracks off at the end rather than always fading. It almost makes the music come off more like a work of art you'd see in a museum than something performative. It's like he's saying, "Here, look at this for a while." And then he opens a cupboard, and the thing exists in front of your eyes for a duration of time. Then he closes the cupboard. The music doesn't have anywhere to go, it just is a thing, and it could conceivably keep being that thing for any arbitrary amount of time. Nice.
Danny Brown: Atrocity Exhibition — Oh god I don't know what I think of this. Brown's lyrics are great, and the production is the exact kind of unhinged that I find compelling. But that voice is just nails on a chalkboard. When Danny Brown raps in his lower, more human sounding register, like in "Tell Me What I Don't Know," I'm totally onboard. And I think that his high register could work as excellent seasoning, like in his guest verse on RTJ3. But he uses it on most of this album, and I kind of find it a bit much. When it works, it really works, though. "Ain't it Funny" is probably my favourite track, and that's got Brown's helium voice all over it. Anyway, this is well worth hearing, but I don't think anybody is necessarily guaranteed to like it. That's a good thing.
Fresh Air: "Best of: 2016 Pop Culture Wrap-Up" — This TV critic really likes Better Call Saul. So do I, to be clear, but he's made it his best show of the year two years running. That seems a little much. This is interesting, overall, but it's also a reminder that pop culture podcasts are better at pop culture discussion than public radio interview juggernauts. This is neither as fun, nor as thoughtful as Pop Culture Happy Hour's year end episodes. Still fine.
99% Invisible: "Mini-Stories: Volume 1" — This is a lot of fun, and also notable for containing the sound of Roman Mars laughing, which is disorienting. I'm always happy to listen to these "peek behind the curtain" sorts of podcast episodes. I think the highlight is Sam Greenspan's mini-story about a place called Circleville, which was laid out on a circular pattern rather than a grid, making everybody miserable and resulting in a process of "squaring" that resulted in presumably a billion puns. (Roman picks the low-hanging fruit by gleefully proclaiming the city "Squaresville.") Looking forward to volume 2. Also, groovy handpan music at the end. Nice.
This American Life: "Kid Logic 2016" — Marvellous. The great thing about This American Life's structure is that the specificity of their themes. These are all stories about kids using comprehensible logic to arrive at the exact wrong conclusions. And it is hilarious. It starts with Jonathan Goldstein asking children what they think the tooth fairy does with all the teeth, continues with a reading by Michael Chabon, and also contains contributions by Howard Chackowicz (unmediated, for once, by Goldstein) and Alex Blumberg. I laughed more times during this than during most comedy podcasts.
WTF with Marc Maron: "Casey Affleck" — So, the sexual harassment allegations (which warrant a Google for those unconcerned about triggers) cast a pall over this otherwise engaging conversation. I didn't actually know about any of that until Maron mentioned it at the start of this interview. In any case, Affleck is clearly a smart, grounded person with a level of devotion to his craft that isn't surprising, given his incredible performance in Manchester by the Sea. I continue to love that movie, but Affleck's past is distasteful enough that I think this is the last interview with him that I'll listen to.
In Our Time: "The Gin Craze" — One of the most fun, least consequential episodes of this show that I've heard. Melvyn Bragg has a surprising amount of fun talking about drunkenness. The best stuff in the podcast comes after the actual radio show ended, however. And it's always amusing to hear Bragg wheedle his guests about why they did or didn't bring up such a thing during the actual show. Delicacy isn't his strong point. That's why I love him.
Twenty Thousand Hertz: "8-bit Sounds" — Twenty Thousand Hertz is a welcome addition to the "about ten minutes" club: miniature stories about a very specific topic. This particular one is about how a set of extremely stringent limitations resulted in the production of some of the most iconic sounds of all time. If they heard this, Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel would both be proud of the sound designers and composers responsible for the sounds of early video games.
All Songs Considered: "Poll Results: All Songs Considered Listeners' Favourite 100 Albums of 2016" — I have been generally amenable to all of the massively hyped albums of 2016 except for the Radiohead record. I like "Burn the Witch" and "Sleepwalking" well enough, but I imagine that twenty years from now we'll look at A Moon Shaped Pool as Radiohead's Goat's Head Soup: the moment we knew they didn't have much fight left in them. And yet, NPR Music's listeners rated it the number one album of the year, so what do I know. This is a fun listen with a ton of great music, but it's better to just stick with the end that's got Ann Powers and Stephen Thompson on it, because their taste is way more interesting than a horde of randoms (one of whom was me).
Twenty Thousand Hertz: "The Mystery Hum and its Government Coverup" — This episode about a mysterious, ever-present hum in Windsor, Ontario really only needs to mention that such a thing exists to be good. But now I really want to hear the whole season of Serial that discovers what it actually is.
The Gist: "Bob Boilen: Tiny Desk, Big Effect" — The Bob Boilen interview is nothing much, but Pesca's spiel about confirmation bias implicit in the universal dubbing of 2016 as the Worst Year Ever is essential. (Starts at 19:40.) Bits of 2016 were intractably awful, sure. And tons of people that everybody loves did in fact die. But Pesca thinks rationally: we just don't hear about all of the people who could have died but didn't, because they didn't die. We didn't hear about the relative lack of ebola, because a lack isn't a story. It's a good way to go into 2017: knowing that there are certain things that happened in 2016 that will make the world materially worse, but also not pretending that only bad things ever happen.
A Point of View: "The Shape Of Our Time" — A somewhat lightweight essay from Adam Gopnik about the difference between nationalism and patriotism. Still, not unworthy of ten of your Earth minutes.
Twenty Thousand Hertz: "The Sound of Extinction" — This episode about the sounds that we lose over time focusses on modern sounds, like the sound of dial-up internet, or Big Ben. And that's lovely. But I'm reminded of the composer and acoustic ecologist R. Murray Schafer, who has devoted his life to the preservation of what he calls the natural soundscape. It would be interesting to hear a second part of this that deals more with the concerns of acoustic ecology. But I really liked this.
Radiolab: "Lose Lose" — I can deal with sports stories when it's Radiolab, plus Mike Pesca, plus Chuck Klosterman. That's just about the only permutation that works. This is fine, but not a season highlight by any stretch.
Code Switch: "Obama's Legacy: Diss-ent or Diss-respect?" — If this first part is any indication, this three-part series on President Obama's legacy might be one of the best things Code Switch has ever done. Just hearing a lowlight reel of the racist bullshit that Obama had to put up with from his professional colleagues, let alone the right-wing media, is enough to make a powerful point about specifically why he has become a divisive figure. But it's also interesting to hear a take on how Obama was so different from previous visions of a Jesse Jacksonesque possible first black president. Looking forward to parts two and three.
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men: "The Strangest Podcast Of Them All" — Oh, this is a very good thing. I don't know if it's specifically the kind of very good thing that I need in my life, since I am really not that invested in the X-Men. But I'm clearly invested enough to have read two of Jay and Miles's favourite story arcs, namely those by Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon. Whether I return to this or not is entirely down to how fatigued I become with my usual selection of podcasts, and how in need of new stuff I am.
Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Sherlock, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, and Debbie Reynolds" — I mutedly disagree with Glen Weldon on Steven Moffat's supposed tendency to use women as plot devices in his shows, buuuuut the episode of Sherlock that they're actually discussing here doesn't really help me back up my opposition. I also disagree that Sherlock's 90-minute episodes are too much. It seems to me like the only way to fit in all of the plotline that's necessary and also have the very necessary scenes that are mostly just banter. The banter is crucial, and it wouldn't survive if these episodes were cut down to an hour. The in memoriam segment is lovely, especially where Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds are concerned. Maybe I should watch Postcards from the Edge? Definitely I should watch Singing in the Rain.
Fresh Air: "Lin-Manuel Miranda" — It's nice to hear Miranda talk in a bit more detail than in other interviews about the impact of Stephen Sondheim on him as an influence and a mentor. As far as I'm concerned, they are not just the two best musical theatre songwriters of their respective generations, they're also the two best songwriters ever to have emerged from Broadway. Also cool to hear him apparently reference Code Switch. I suppose he's not necessarily referring to the podcast specifically, but it kind of seems like he is. Somewhere, Gene Demby squealed with delight.
Chapo Trap House: "No Future feat. Adam Curtis" — This focusses on Adam Curtis's latest documentary, HyperNormalization, which I haven't seen yet. There is a mindblowingly subtle moment in this where Curtis is explaining what Ayn Rand meant when she said that she wouldn't die, but rather that the world will die. He explains that when you're a nutjob individualist narcissist of Rand's capacity, the world seems to actually be inside your head. So, death actually means the end of the world. At this point in the interview, which has thus far been a pretty standard, lo-fi conversation between three people, the producer edits in a snippet of "Don't Stop Believing." Because (spoiler for the most infamous television finale ever ahead) this is what happens, probably, at the end of The Sopranos. Tony dies, and the world ends. Journey is silenced mid-phrase. The Sopranos didn't actually come up in conversation here, mind you. It's just a lovely little illustration of the idea, for the benefit of the people who will be able to discern what's going on. Very clever. Plus, Curtis has a brilliant critique of modern liberal activism that is tied up in the inadequacies of social media. It goes something like this: social media is great at organizing people and allowing them to do things, but it's terrible at fostering the kinds of complex discourse that leads to viable ideas for how to run a country. So, when Mubarak was overthrown (a wonderful idea in principle), the populace that did the overthrowing was left without a clear idea of what was to happen next. But, as usual, the reactionary right had an idea. And in this case, it came in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood, and soon enough we're back at square one. Silicon Valley has constructed social media platforms not in accordance with any way that ideas have traditionally flowered, but with contemporary, vapid notions of management. Mark Zuckerberg wants to "connect people." He assumes, like many managers I've known, that if the infrastructure is in place for people to talk to each other, that's enough to bring change in the world. It's not. Change requires ideas. Ideas aren't born out of platforms that privilege the simple. I'll be watching HyperNormalization very soon. And I'll definitely be listening to more Chapo Trap House. I will not, however, be following them on Twitter. Pick of the week.
This entry was posted in Omnireviewer, Podcasts, Popular Music, TV, Video games and tagged 99% Invisible, A Point of View, Adam Curtis, All Songs Considered, Battlestar Galactica, Bon Iver, Chapo Trap House, Charlie Brooker, Code Switch, Danny Brown, Doctor Who, Fresh Air, Huerco S, In Our Time, Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, Kate Bush, Marc Maron, Philomena Cunk, Pop Culture Happy Hour, Radiolab, Run the Jewels, Sherlock, Sorcery, The Gist, This American Life, Twenty Thousand Hertz on January 8, 2017 by Matthew.