A highly distractable review of the new Tracy Jones album

 

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This is a review of the new Tracy Jones album “You’re a Legend” (YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal). It’s good. You’ll like it. It’s a sort of nuevocountry with a quasiurban California spin. Take the song “In No Time” for instance which namechecks Oakland and L.A. and smog and flying Southwest. That’s what I’m talking about.

Anyway, that’s the third song on the album. The second song on the album borrows its melody from Eric Wreckless’s “Whole Wide World.” I really like that song. I never heard it before watching Stranger than Fiction (a movie I really like).

 

This is one of those music beats where the movie clearly thinks I know the song but, in fact, I don’t. This happens a lot to me. To my wife’s everlasting embarrassment, this is the first time I heard, for example, the following songs, (spoilers!):

 

 Where were we?

Oh yeah. Tracy Jones.

The promotional text for the album called it “your chill-suburban-faux-country-get together choice for these times” which could well be true. I’m not sure I’m up on the chill-suburban-faux-country-get together genre, so I might not know about the most relevant competition, but, I mean, as chill-suburban-faux-country-get together vibes go, this one definitely goes.

But I’m not so sure what is country and what’s faux-country. I think my favorite country album at the moment is Jason Isbell’s Weathervanes, but I don’t think that’s because he was born in an unincorporated community on the Alabama/ Tennessee border and his parents were both under twenty when he was born. I think it’s because his melodies are catchy and he’s maybe the best storyteller working in music today. The best I know, anyway.

“You’re a Legend” is more vignette-based storytelling. Little glimpses. I like that. It’s safer, if you know what I mean. Helps the album work as both something to pay attention to and something to leave running in the background.

But speaking of who should be allowed to be country, how about the re-surgence of black artists to the genre? They were there at it’s birth and it’s nice to see them insisting on their space. Of course, it can’t happen but man alive would I kill for a Charley Pride / Rhiannon Giddens duet!

You know, fifty years ago, if you were to guess which Beatle would have a #1 album, I don’t think many people would have said Ringo Starr. But it does make a weird kind of sense. He was the least stressed about being a Great Artist or whatever—he was just happy having fun making music with his friends. The All-Starr Band exemplifies this. And his new album’s genesis sounds like it was built from more happy accidents through time spend with friends.

I haven’t managed to make a Tracy Jones concert yet even though he regularly holds free ones around town when I’m out of town. I suppose it’s my timing that’s terrible. But as Tracy Jones might say, we might as well chill and do the mostest.

Give it time. It’ll happen.

Marx Madness Coming in Clutch

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You guys. I saw SIX MOVIES IN THE THEATER THIS MONTH. I'm not doing an audit, but that feels close to a record. (I mean, there was that one time Lady Steed and I watched five movies at Movies 8 in one day back in 2000, but that seems like another life.) So I'm pleased with that. Just hitting the theaters every other week would feel like a big success for my soul, so I feel good about that. My favorite of the six? Black Bag. I fear it might be out of theaters by the time you read this but if it's still there, dally not! It's worth your time.

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Sorcerer (1977)

I read something where Friedkin said that Sorcerer, even though it to is about some foreigners taking nitroglycerin through a Latin American jungle to earn enough money to leave, really had nothing in common with the much more famous stonecold classic Wages of Fear. So when the endcredits here said it was based on the novel Wages of Fear, I was pretty upset.

Anyway, this is a good movie with some truly intense moments. I had some issues with the editing which could make bits of plot unclear until later and didn't always successfully introduce us to characters we'd need to know later. Lady Steed says they cast men who looked too similar and that could be as well.

Friedkin has said this is one of his favorites of his movie but it didn't do great box office and it's been mostly forgotten and I think that might be because of the title (and the competition with the previous film which is, again, a stonecold classic). Who the heck is the sorcerer? What does that title even mean?

Although it was perplexing, I did like how the film opened with the vignettes about the men who would eventually come together at the halfway point to make their way through the jungle. And although it successfully startled me, I don't know that I liked the last-minute twist in literally the last minute.

So it was good, but for my first Friedkin movie, especially with the passing of Gene Hackman, I suppose I should have gone with The French Connection.

THEATER
Cinemark Century Hilltop 16

Riff Raff (2024)

When I looked yesterday, Riff Raff had a 58% on Rotten Tomatoes. Which sounds about right. Not quite fresh. The film has a lot going for it. A good cast, some of whom do great work. Ed Harris is terrific even though he's not written that well. Bill Murray and Pete Davidson make a surprising excellent pair of villains. Jennifer Coolidge isn't given that much to work with but she's still Jennifer Coolidge. Gabrielle Union does good work but we still can't understand why she married a bum twenty years older than her. Miles J. Harvey does fine work but, again, the writing makes him say some things he shouldn't.

But I'm not sure how much of the issue is writing and how much is direction and/or editing. While parts of the film are tight and exciting, other parts have no imagination. And are as pedestrian as can me. Plus, thematically, the film's not entirely coherent, to put it nicely. It's trying to say things about romantic love and about family and who knows what, but it doesn't quite come together. And while Ed Harris pulled off that final look into the camera, why that final look into the camera? It's like the voiceover. It's supposed to clarify things but it just don't.

What I'm curious about is how I'll feel about this a year from now. Will I remember the good parts fondly? Will I be annoyed at the wasted potential? Will I have forgotten it entirely?

THEATER
BAMPFA

Velvet Goldmine (1998)

A friend had an extra ticket to go to BAMPFA and see this, introduced live by and with a Q&A following with director Todd Haynes. So of course I said yes though I knew nothing about this movie even though it came out in 1998 and stars stars I would shortly become quite invested in: Christian Bale, Ewan MacGregor, Toni Collette. It is, as David Bowie allegedly said, a gay man's fantasized version of David Bowie's story. It's rather a longform music video. And while it is bvery good, I cannot love it for the same reason I can't love some of Richard Linklater's films (eg, Dazed and Confused or Boyhood): to love them, you must feel nostalgia for the era. Doesn't mean you need to have lived through it! No, but you need to wish you had. And I just don't. And so love is not an option.

But the music was good and the credits/titles were awesome. A good time was had by all.

THEATER
Cinemark Century Hilltop 16

Mickey 17 (2025)

No, it's not as good as Parasite, but few movies are. It's more like Snowpiercer and Okja, both because of the scifiness of it all and the way Boon Jong Ho uses that milieu to get a bit over-the-top, almost allegorical with it's political messaging. That kinda ruined Okja for me; Snowpiercer rose above it. And so did Mickey 17.

Robert Pattinson is terrific as is the supporting cast. I'm amazed by the variety of blowhards and idiots Mark Ruffalo is capable of creating. Naomi Ackie's subtle evolution of character was a solid bit of acting with support from director and editor.

The film is fun, though on first viewing I'm thinking it could've been ten minutes shorter? But I have a feeling I wouldn't feel that way on a second watch.

Anyway, Bong Joon Ho never disappoints.

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A Mormon Maid (1917)

So it starts out with selections from a history book about the Mormons. At first, the text talks about how they've been abused from state to state and they're courage in hardship. Then, phew, it tells us they're all a bunch of suckers led by devious leaders. The two primary leaders are The Lion of the Lord (were they afraid Brigham Young's voluminous decendents would sue them if they used his name?) and a fictional apostle, Darius Burr, who is apparently the one who gets all the revelations. I had thought the Lion's beard was pretty bad, but Burr's might be the worst fake beard I have ever seen in any movie ever.

Anyway, the Mormons have their new city surrounded by legions of armed men in white sheets which, the history book tells us, later inspired the Ku Klux Klan. (I'm not flattered.) It's interesting to me that two years after Birth of a Nation made the Klan big American heros, this movie uses similar iconography for its villains. (De Mille was involved in both movies!) And although they are kinda scary, they're also hella goofy. They reminded me of the Klan in O Brother.

Anyway, out in the wilderness somwhere a family (man, wife, teenage daughter; the latter played believably by a woman in her thirties; incidentally, I think she's meant to be the eponymous character [not sure there are any other candidates], but I never saw her become a Mormon, so who knows) is living a happy life until a nice Mormon boy shows up to warn them about Indians. They'd rather take their chances with the Indians than the Mormons and, sure enough, the Indians burn their house down. So they move to Salt Lake and in two years Dad is a big success, Daughter has gone from pants-under-her-dress wild critter to a proper dress-wearing and spinning-wheel-spinner lady. Mother is unchanged.

Anyway, because Dad's so well regarded in town now, the Lion and Burr are afraid the whole Celestial Marriage thing will fall apart if Dad doesn't approve. So the Klormons drag him into a council meeting where he is eventually forced to marry some woman. He's given the option to let his daughter marry someone instead (Burr's had his eye on her for all two years) so he does it. Simultaneously, she's been forced to watch this and so she agrees to marry so her dad doesn't have to. Haha, they got them both.

The film's depiction of temple clothing seems like they read a so-so description once and went for it. It's awful on multiple levels, starting with its very depiction and going on from there.

Anyway, when Mom learns what Dad did, she shoots herself in, frankly, the most shocking moment in the film. I'm amazed that made it to print. I mean, it's pre-Hayes, but I've never seen anything quite like it in a pre-Hayes film.

Then Dad and Daughter and Nice Mormon Boy try to escape but the Klormons surrounding the valley chase them down. Our heroes kill I think three of the Klormons before they shoot Dad two or three times. He's left for dead, but don't worry. Somehow he's mostly fine. Expect to see him again in the twist ending.

Anyway, to get out of her marriage to Burr, Daughter pretends to not be a virgin. Since Mormon Boy, shocked as he is to hear this, comes to comfort her anyway, you might think we'll get some sort of good-guy-overlooks-sex-detail like in later Mormon novels like Dorian or Charley, but no, she was lying. Phew! Nice Mormon can smile again!

Bummer, though, she gets kidnapped again by the Klormons and taken to Jordan Rock where, I don't know, Burr is going to blood atonement her or something. But good news, her dad's fine and disguised as a Klormon and they kill Burr and some other Klormon which I guess opens a magic portal and lets them escape to . . . California? It's not clear.

Anyway, it's a terrible movie. The only decent part is Mae Murray who plays the daughter.

It's not the only film of the era to depict Momrons as KKKish horrors out to steal your daughters but even if you want to accept that nonsense, you still have the buckets of anachronisms and lousy character development preventing you from buying anything they're selling. You are, I'm afraid, unlikely to be entertained.

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One Man's Treasure (2009)

This movie is no masterpiece and if you want to nitpick you can nitpick all day long. But I really love it. I love the running gag about eating and I cry at the end. For all its flaws, it's an effective film. And I hope everyone involved has been able to make more movies and keep growing.

(If you click on IMDb you'll see they've been busy but I haven't seen any of that stuff.)

Hard to believe it's been so long since the previous watches!

(By the way, the uptight missionary because exactly what you might fear based on how the actor who played him promoted his passion project last year.)

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Perfect Days (2023)

I loved this movie and there's so much to love about it. The music, the pacing, the characters the dialogue (and lack thereof). I could say many things. But what I most want to talk about is the penultimate shot--it's a long one—about two minutes—and it's just the protagonist's face as he drives through Tokyo, passing through all the emotions. He is happy. And he is sad. And these emotions both have a home inside him. And he holds onto them both. They both make him up.

It's an amazing bit of acting on the part of Koji Yakusho.

I came into Perfect Days believing it would literally be just this guy going around town cleaning toilets the exact same routine over and over. And while that's true, there is plot, there are characters who change. But the film is as quiet an undemanding as its protagonist. And I loved it.

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Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe (2020)

Plenty of solid gags and wordplay. And a pure reliance on cartoon logic.

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3 Dev Adam (1973)

Boy oh boy oh BOY did this movie live up to its building! The Turkish police import Captain America and a lucho libre wrestler to help them fight an evil Spider-Man and his gang of strippers and counterfeiters. It is astonishingly bad (you could learn a lot about editing by watching this movie and figuring out why the cuts are so wrong) and absolutely wonderful. I mean—if my first sentence didn't sell you, this is not the movie for you. If it did, it is. Just that simple.

ELSEWHERE
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Electrick Children (2012)

I feel like most of what I was told about this movie was wrong. Yes this is a fundamentalish (spelling intentional) Mormon community, but I didn't see any evidence of polygamy. Which, honestly, weird. And her journey into the city was a) not the city I expected nor b) at all the sort of adventure I then anticipated for her.

I did not expect (spoilers start here) that the movie would be so mystical nor so serious about its mysticism. I believe we are to believe that she did immaculately conceive and that she is correct: God has some sort of plan for her. Which plan makes no more sense to me than to any other character in this movie. Which does sound a bit like God, tbh.

Anyway, it's a beautiful film. The editing and sound design are not totally original but unusual and put to good effect. This seems like a movie that would improve upon future viewings.

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SOURCERY

Anora (2024)

While Mikey Madison does give a good performance, it can't reach its full potential until Yura Borisov. His is one of the great supportive performances. His work is subtle, entirely in his eyes and mugless face. As we get to understand him and to understand his value as a person (in contract to virtually every other character), and as the adrift Anora's mooring is torn from her, the movie allows us to hope for something a little more beautiful than anything they have shown us so far. Do we get it? The movie ends before we can be sure. But it seems to depend on whether Anora can move beyond her brokenness. The final scene could either show this is not possible for her or it may give her the final catharsis necessary to move on.

Ambiguity, baby.

Anyway, were Yura Borisov not in this movie, I think would have been a mere curiosity.

THEATER
Cinemark Century Hilltop 16

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

You can make complaints about this movie (and I will in a minute) but it was great. It was entertaining and occasionally moving and pretty good-looking overall.

Among its flaws are the unavoidable (eg, occasional lip service to death and desctruction doesn't really cover the horrors these films put nonheroes through) and the unsurprising (eg, trees not great, fight choreography involves little taps sending people flying backwards, stupid-simple geopolitics [are there really only three nations on Earth-616??]), but paying to see one of these movies kinda demands setting this stuff aside. I haven't watched on in theaters since Thor: Love and Thunder, July 2022, which I liked fine, but . . . I was done. I think the insane love for the Infinity War movies kinda turned me off. Plus both Eternals and No Way Home were inferior product and, you know what? Marvel doesn't need my money. Why aren't I watching smaller movies?

I was still willing to go see them but only if a kid asked me. Which a kid finally has. And I'm glad. Because it was fun.

But onto those complaints.

Carl Lumbly, who was awesome in scenes that required emotion, was terrible during smalltalk. And he wasn't alone. Most of the smalltalk in this film is bad. And I don't think it's the actors' fault. I think it's in the edit. While this edit isn't as bad as in the last superhero movie I watched, this editing is merely workable. They clearly hired someone who should never do a Woody Allen film.

The last of the original MCU movies for me to see was the Hulk movie in 2021, thirteen years after it came out. Then and now, the biggest failure of that movie has been, in my opinion, not coming back with that Tim Blake Nelson supervillain. First of all, it's Tim Blake Nelson. Second, that's a real challenging villain they'd created. Now, here we are, almost twenty years after he appeared, bringing him back. Who do they expect to remember him? I mean, this is a character the MCU spent over a decade pretending didn't exist and now here's one filled with dialogue reminding us of what happened.

I will say that Harrison Ford was terrific and Liv Tyler's little cameo worked very well even though I don't know how. I suspect it was Ford's performace regarding Ross's relationship with his daughter and Tyler was able to step into the space his pain had created? It's a theory anyway.

Anyway, back to Tim Blake Nelson, he was given almost nothing to do here. I don't know if there's ever been a bigger waste of Tim Blake Nelson and that is a freaking tragedy.

The Bucky cameo made no sense. All I can guess is it's setting up what he has to lose in the upcoming Thunderbolts? It's a bizarre place for the character to be and the scene, which was good, was deflated by a half-baked version of a gag best done in Ocean's Eleven. And if you think we should remember 2008, why should we have forgotten 2001?

But I did like the speech. The good thing about Sam Wilson as a character is he gives the MCU a chance to deal with important issues and somehow they haven't made him preachy yet. Frankly, I find that the most impressive accomplishment of the film. Sam's strength of character and Ross's quest for redemption provide the intellectual and spiritual depth that's there. And so while, yeah, there are silly little gags left over from the Joss years and plot machinery that's squeaky as a jumpscared humpback, most of the plot and performances work because they are grounded in ideas that matter. So I say mission accomplished. Why not.

THEATER
Cinemark Century Hilltop 16

Black Bag (2025)

From what I knew about Black Bag I was hoping it was Steven Soderbergh's Nick and Nora do spy stuff a la Ocean's Eleven. And that's exactly what I got, down to the David Holmes score. Loved it.

I should note the mumbly Brits were a lot harder to understand than the characters in Ocean's Eleven and that nothing is nearly as cool or as fun in Black Bag, but regardless: we had a good time piecing it together and talking about it afterwards. Plus, it engages in important stuff that's happening Right Now. It's been a while since we left the theater together with so much to talk about. Thank you, Steven Soderbergh. This is a winner.

UPDATED THOUGHTS:

After listening to the discussion on Filmspotting, I realized that what's making this movie sink into me is its exploration of marriage, marriage versus work, and marriage as identity. It's a smart movie with things to say and we'll need to revisit it at some point.

THEATER
Pixar

At the Circus (1939)

I haven't been to see a movie on Pixar campus since the week before Brave came out in 2012. And it's a shame because I love that theater. I love how when the lights go out you can see stars and, when a shooting star goes past, everyone says ooo and when another goes past, we all say, ahhh. I've known that they show movies on the regular, evenings in that theater. Apparently Mondays, apparently from the print collection of a man named John. This month, March, was Marx Madness and he showed the four films (actual films) he owns, ending with At the Races. Which isn't top-tier Marx Brothers, but it does have "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" and a few inspired comic routines. It also has a number as in A Day at the Races in which the brothers (or in this case, just Harpo) makes friends with the black underclass, making music and dancing. I have an essay inside me for the other film and I need to figure out whether At the Circus supports my thesis or complicates it.

(ps: this was the introductory short)

Not a lot of people were in attendance (maybe ten?) but it was cool to be in a theater with people who can't help making happy sounds the first time they see Margaret Dumont.

Three «Come, Follow Me» thoughtsto blow your friends' minds this weekendlookit me, writing by way of wisdoma svithe

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[ Intro for the uninitiated: In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of late, the recommended curriculum of study has been titled Come, Follow Me. This year’s course features the Doctrine and Covenants. ]

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D&C 27:2 For, behold, I say unto you, that it mattereth not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink when ye partake of the sacrament, if it so be that ye do it with an eye single to my glory—remembering unto the Father my body which was laid down for you, and my blood which was shed for the remission of your sins.

Just as Peter learned God does not show favorites among animals or people, Joseph Smith learned God does not show favorites among food or drink. So while we generally eat bread and drink water as we celebrate the sacrament, if the apocalypse arrived and all we had was Doritos and goatmilk, that would be fine. In fact, in order to serve folks with celiac disease I’ve used bananas and unpleasant crackers in the past. While this Sunday it would be silly to have the priests breaking Doritos in half, one can imagine gingerbread at Christmas or lettuce for Easter. People would undoubtedly find this distracting, but I live in a ward where people (not just visitors) sometimes moan in delight when they partake. I was talking to a former member of our stake last summer. He used to be in our ward often as our assigned high councilor and he missed our bread. He about died when we told him about the recent appearance of sacrament bread with a sugar-cardamom–glaze crust. Who can blame him? But the real question is, can that moment of delight turn you to Jesus? Certainly not less than freezer-burnt Wonder Bread, imo.

 

D&C 27:5 Behold, this is wisdom in me; wherefore, marvel not, for the hour cometh that I will drink of the fruit of the vine with you on the earth, and with Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the Book of Mormon, containing the fulness of my everlasting gospel, to whom I have committed the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim;

While I’m a big fan of the Word of Wisdom, having made it so much a part of me that I can’t really even imagine wanting to “drink of the fruit of the vine“ and would feel weird doing it even if I got to do it with Jesus and Moroni, I can’t deny that this prohibition doesn’t seem like an eternal one but one for us now here in this dispensation. Although, I mean, Jesus and Moroni. That’d be cool. But hang on! As we continue to read, we learn that also invited to this party—in addition to Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Jesus, and Moroni—are Elias, John the Baptist, Elijah, Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, Michael/Adam, Peter, James, and John. Those are fifteen dudes I would definitely love to spend an evening with! BUT THAT’S NOT ALL, FRIENDS. In addition to these fifteen (and fifteen’s an interesting number in LDS tradition if you want to get conspiratorial about it), verse 14 tells us that he’ll also be drinking “with all those whom my Father hath given me out of the world.” And that ain’t just top-tier prophets and Oliver. No, no. It might even include you and me. Now that‘s a party.

 

D&C 28:5 But thou shalt not write by way of commandment, but by wisdom;

The context here is Oliver’s being given instructions at a moment where a rival peepstoner is getting attention from Church membership. Oliver gets the scoop that “no one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church excepting my servant Joseph Smith, Jun.” but if he’s “led at any time by the Comforter to speak or teach, or at all times by the way of commandment unto the church, [he] mayest do it.” But writing? Uh-uh. He can’t write by way of commandment, only by wisdom. (I love this because it seems applicable to everyone with a blog, newsletter, or bad habit of scrawling upon the subway.) Also, Oliver, don’t tell Joseph what to do because he’s been “given…the keys of the mysteries, and the revelations which are sealed, until I shall appoint unto [the Church] another in his stead.” Presumably, this is referring to the passing down of the office of Church president to Brigham Young to John Taylor all the way down to Russell M. Nelson in 2018. But I’ve been thinking a lot about this line of succession the last few days thanks to a terrific little article by Matthew Bowman that points out that canonically, the president of the Church isn’t a “prophet, seer, and revelator” (or, perhaps, it would be better to say, not just a prophet/seer/revelator) as we sustain him as each April General Conference (and at ward and stake conferences for a total of three times a year, am I counting right?), but the “President of the High Priesthood of the Church; Or, in other words, the Presiding High Priest over the High Priesthood of the Church.” Why isn’t that title recited as we sustain? Discuss.

 

previous svithe: thutopia | thmusings

What would you sacrifice to become a classic?

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I don’t remember now where or how I heard of Sheri S. Tepper or her novel Beauty, but when I managed to run down a copy, I was expecting Sleeping Beauty Finds her Way to a Modern Dystopia. Which sounded like it might be a fun addition to the ever-evolving list of dystopian novels I offer my students each semester.

Spoiler alert: it’s not making the list. Her time in the dystopia is not that many pages, although those pages have a blackhole-like gravity that changes the shape of the rest of the novel.

The novel is wonderfully varied. It starts in the 1300s with precocious young Beauty. She sneaks out of the curse but then bumps into documentarians from the future who take her back to their home, a place that reminded me most of THX-1138. Eventually they escape to 1990s Los Angeles (it ends up, the explosion of homeless populations in the ‘80s and ‘90s was largely do to dystopian escapees. But then she goes back to her home time and then to an entirely imaginary world and to Faery and eventually even to hell and all kinds of strange and marvelous places. We see her age well past age one hundred (being half faery herself, she can live quite a long time). These places are marvelous to visit and their inhabitants too are wonderful to meet and observe.

By any reasonably measure, this book should be considered an absolute modern classic up there with Princess Bride or Earthsea or The Last Unicorn. So why isn’t it? It won the Locus Award. It’s not like people didn’t discover it. So why is there only one copy (in a plain mass-market paperback, no less) in our 65-interconnected-library-systems system? Why has it vanished away?

I think I know the answer. And it comes down to Tepper making subtext text.

She has political opinions and she needs you to know about them. Some of them (like the evils of mass extinctions and overpopulation and men who write horror novels) are hit hard—and over and over. Some just get a couple deeply unsubtle sentences (abortion, for example), but regardless, she doesn’t want you to misunderstand her. And she’s a-gonna cram’m all in.

Look: I also don’t like mass extinctions. And while the risk of overpopulation doesn’t really seem like the problem it did in the 1970s (overconsumption on the other hand…), I get being worried about it. The problem is Beauty harps on these issues So Much (like a lazy dystopian novel) that it starts jumping in front of the novels many, many excellent qualities, waving its arms and shouting, Do you get it? Do you get the point? Do you see the point I’m making and understand why this point is important? Do you do you do you? And it’s upsetting because this novel is so dang good in so many ways.

In one sense, this is just a matter of aging poorly. And this I take as a lesson. I have a novel that’s a third written which is going to demand me diving into contemporary politics and their eventual results. And another that a publisher actually wants to see that is always trying to get me preaching my opinions about the current state of law enforcement. In both cases, the issues are plot-centric and vital to the overall story. As they were in Beauty. But I need to be careful or they may render my novel entirely and solely an artifact of the 2020s. And I don’t want that.

In another sense, maybe Tepper made the right decision. Maybe it’s better to assure no one can miss the important issues you want them to see. Perhaps that’s the responsible thing to do when you’re given a platform. Maybe I’m just being an aesthete and a snob rather than a proper human being and contributing member of society. Could be.

I dunno. But I think that’s why Beauty is not today in 9 out of 10 American libraries.

But I want to come back to another of her soapboxes, her tirade against men who write horror novels. It seems pretty clearly aimed at writers of the era like Stephen King and Clive Barker (not that I am equating those two). This novel explicitly says that novels like theirs lead to people committing evil acts. It explicitly states that their making of these works gives power to the devil. It says that creating evil art (which is what she says they are doing) is morally equivalent to actually performing such evil actions in reality. Because art as creation is just as real as acts performed within God’s creation.

Needing to discuss this aspect of Beauty is why I finally wrote the Neil Gaiman essay I’d been postponing. For two reasons.

First, few people have written more elegantly or voluminously than Neil Gaiman about how believing in things make them real, even if they are born of pure imagination.

Second, because, as I discussed in that essay, many people see bad things in art being evidence of the artist being a bad person—and vice versa.

Never mind the irony of Beauty having one of the most upsetting rape scenes I have ever read (or its horrifying descriptions of a hell made up of male artists’ evil imaginings), I just find it kinda bonkers that a writer of Tepper’s skill and depth can be so dismissive of other people’s work. I’m not saying art intended to be evil cannot exist, but to spend so much of your own novel preaching down to the sinners whose work you don’t like is wild to me. (Not that writers don’t do this all the time, but man, does she come down hard on horror writers. She might not like that Wikipedia says the same of her.)

The point of all this is, I think, writing advice to myself.

Character and story, plot and setting, these are the true providence of the novel. As the horrible person Stephen King wisely wrote in On Writing, of course books should have themes and whatnot. And yes, in rewrite, the text should be sculpted so such things resonate to maximum effect. But never should they be the most visible and pointed-at aspect.

Beauty is an incredible accomplishment. And I think its forgotten entirely because it forgot the reason people read novels. All the points and arguments in the book could have been left below the epidermis of storytelling and still come through just fine. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t risk us missing them.

And so future generations will.

If you’ve read the novel, I’d love to hear your take on it.

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Discarding Neil Gaiman

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If you haven’t read the Vulture exposé on Neil Gaiman, here it is. It ain’t pretty.

I first heard about this in hints from William Morris; I did not immediately seek out more information. Perhaps for the same reason I take issue with this observation:

Don’t people deserve time to grapple with new information? to mourn?

William’s responding to a fellow who said that the only appropriate response to Gaiman’s actions would be life in prison. Which I find even more troubling.

I want to be clear: in no way am I defending Neil Gaiman. But we as Americans are already way too happy sending our fellow citizens to prison. This call for suffering to solve the problem of suffering is never great but in a time where we are battling authoritarianism within our own nation, that impulse could be used against us in a hurry.

But I never would have written this little essay were it not for something another friend posted on Bluesky:

This led to others (including people I like quite a lot) piling on, saying they’d always felt this about him and complimenting the term “cruelty mining” as being just the right critical lens through which to view his work. To the exclusion of all others, I suppose.

Again, I’m not here to defend Gaiman’s actions as described in Vulture. They’re abhorrent and sad. But we’ll get to them.

My first thing, the thing I felt I had to say something about, was this Calvinistic take of Meg’s and how I find it deeply troubling.

The fact that folks from many marginalized groups have found themselves in Gaiman’s work for decades should count for something. His longtime allyship with Tori Amos, including in her role as public rape victim, should count for something. That women in particular have felt seen and accepted through his work should count for something. Discovering his late sins does not retroactively turn him into a monster-since-birth.

Reminds me of a seven-year-old who knew the penny was heads all along—as soon as he sees it is heads (whether he had said heads previously or not).

Anyway.

Enough with knocking the rhetoric of my friends.

I’m on record (many, many times) as saying that Gaiman’s shorter work is better. His comics, short stories, and children’s novels tend toward the excellent. I haven’t read a single novel of his for adults that struck me as all that good.

(A list of reviews [likely incomplete] available over on Thutopia: The Sandman [comics]; “Metamorpho” [comics]; Fragile Things [short stories]; Best American Comics 2010 [as editor]; Chivalry [comics]; Fortunately, the Milk [children’s novel]; Norse Mythology [retellings;] Trigger Warning [short stories]; Black Orchid [comics]; The Graveyard Book [children’s novel]; Neverwhere [novel]. Among the other works I’ve read but are not listed here, probably because I read them before I started keeping track, are Coraline, Smoke and Mirrors, American Gods, Death: The High Cost of Living. Also, little books like picture books generally don’t get reviewed. Yet no matter how you count, I’ve read a good amount of his work.)

I’m struck now by a story that appeared in Smoke and Mirrors, “Tastings.” This is a super-graphic story that takes place entirely during a sex scene. The costly male prostitute is wonderfully successful at his job because his has psychic powers that let him know what women want, nibble by thrust, before they know it themselves. This preternatural skill, as you might imagine, makes him very popular. In the story, however, the woman he’s having sex with is some sort of succubus who sucks away all his psychic powers. And while he will remain skilled at the sex, something is gone that will never return.

It’s easy to see myriad ways this story might apply to the Vulture story, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

What I’m thinking about more than the story itself is the author’s note for that story. And just how embarrassed Gaiman was to have written it. He was as shocked as we were. Even through the words on the page you could see the red in his cheeks. He had fulfilled the assignment he was given but he wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

The first time I was disappointed in Gaiman as a person was 2007 when he divorced his wife of 22 years. This felt like a true celebrity divorce; behold! a man who had found fame and success and fans upon fans upon fans—then suddenly discovered he was too cool for the wife of his youth, for the mother of his children. That decision felt then (and now) portentous. While his art might survive the transition, it seemed probable that his soul was now a different man’s soul.

This, too, is judgmental, I admit. But I want to be clear that my judgment, while also faulty and preferably avoidable, is based on actions and not my “always was” reading of a person’s art. The reason I was saddened-but-not-surprised to hear of this once-good man’s fall is because he had already fallen—when he left his family. Not because I didn’t like American Gods.

The Vulture article reveals a man who has now had decades of experience justifying one thing and then another thing and then another thing until he became a monster.

Now, sure, we might find out next that he was a-raping people in 1992, and that will be a new conversation. But let’s not assume that.

What’s troubling me now, what I need to speak out against today, is how, upon uncovering a crime, voices insist this person was predetermined for hell. I don’t believe that. I won’t believe that. And painting an entire person’s life (and work) with a brush dipped in their current sins is, I think, wrong. We shouldn’t do it.

It is better to mourn than to have been right all along.

Maybe we should just pretend this set begins and ends with Wednesday Addams

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I look over this collection of recently read and . . . I mean the beloved cartoonists and the Novel Prize–winner come close, but I think maybe the best thing here is the pornography? Can that be right?

Egad. I need to read better books.

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007) Chas. Addams Half-Baked Cookbook, finished January 29

It's a lovely little collection off Addams's culinary cartoons, interspersed with peculiar recipes you'd assume he made up but which come from various cookbooks over the last couple centuries.

between bouts of arguing teenagers

008) Monica by Daniel Clowes, finished February 3

I don't really love Clowes, though I appreciate him and wish I liked him more. I often tell myself that I'll read his new thing but, if my brief search is accurate, I haven't, not since 2011.

So when I say I liked this one perhaps the most of all his work, I don't know what I'm talking about. (My favorite thing of his remains the Ghost World movie.)

I like how this one is broken up by time and narrative and takes a moment to settle on Monica as our point-of-view characters. How some of Monica's fiction filters in. I like how he slides through her story, focusing on different parts in different orders. This aspect is similar to My Favorite Thing Is Monsters but it arguably works better and more naturally with an older narrator.

I'm undecided, if I think the final two panels are a copout, simply bad, or appropriate. I'm leaning copout at the moment. It kinda felt like it was just a way to finish this project. Did he have a deadline to meet or something?

But perhaps I am wrong.

three days

 

009) The Unexpurgated French Edition of Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland, finished February 19

This edition is introduced by Louis Untermeyer who edited one of the most influential books from my childhood. His intro is largely about the history of banning and charges of obscenity and such the book's been subject to over the years and the inevitability of its ultimate redemption leading to this edition. It's not clear to me is that's because we're finally wise enough to see that Fanny's not obscene or simply that, in comparison to what Billy Joel called "British politician sex," the news these days has got nothing on her.

The book took a long time to read because it has minimal plot and minimal characterization. Fanny's really the only character worth noting and she ain't got many notes herself. She comes to the city at fifteen, gets taken in by a madam, and spends the next four years living in a fantasy. If only a life of prostitution was always so cheerful! She really only meets one bad customer in her time (and the more experienced girls teach her how to fool him into receiving nothing at all) and the only truly horrifying thing she witnesses is too dudes in a barn. Sadly she slips and hits her head so they can get away before she turns them in which means that the books can keep its general ethos of consequence-free sex without seeming like it's approving of homosexuality with the same vigor in which it approves of straight sex.

Essentially, it's 250 pages of nonstop Bad Sex in Fiction Award–winners. Although worse in the sense that Cleland clearly has some level of expertise in fifteen-year-old breasts he's eager to share with us and he really, really wants to talk about pensises but he only has so many descriptors available to him.

The gay guys show up when Cleland was getting board as well. That scene is immediately proceeded by Fanny volunteering for a whipping (which she finds interesting but not enough to ever do again) and followed by her friend seducing the local idiot (Fanny herself being to moral than to do more than strip him in order to see if it's true what they say about simpletons).

And then Cleland pretty much stops writing about Fanny's exploits because he's ready to rush through some plot in order to reunite her with her true love.

So is Untermeyer right? Are Fanny Hill's adventure's no longer that dirty in the modern world?

Well, I tried out a lot of definitions for pornography in LDS EROS. Let's consider a couple.

D.H. Lawrence: "Pornography is the attempt to insult sex, to do dirt on it."

I mean . . . no. Cleland clearly thinks he's exposing sex and beautiful and wondrous and something everyone can get into without moral qualm. Fanny even gives a little (confusing) speech about virtue and vice in the final pages. And it's not entirely clear what her point is but certainly she thinks she has demonstrated the cleanliness of a good romp. That said, her Memoirs are clearly a big fat lie. Teenagers sucked into the oldest trade in 1700s London didn't all live in the kind of carefree luxury, bouncing from one fine appointment to the next, as does Fanny. And if lying isn't doing dirt, I don't know what is. My guess is that Cleland was the sort of well-appointed john who either never saw the awful other side or was skilled enough at lying to hide it even from himself. Or he just had fun writing fantasies about nubile women whilst languishing in prison.

Levi Peterson: "It is gross disproportion that creates pornography. . . . [When things are] amassed, concentrated, enormously emphasized --- if they become the single end and purpose of the writing --- they are pornographic."

Oh, ho! Levi's nailed it here. This is Fanny to a T.

Bruce Jorgensen: "[A pornographic event requires] three elements: a porn author, a porn text, and a porn reader. In fact, it seems to me that the porn event seldom requires all three, though it always requires one: just a porn reader. Porn author and porn text make the event more likely but do not inevitably guarantee it."

It's interesting to not that Cleland claimed he wrote the novel to prove it was possible to write about prostitution without vulgarity. It's not clear to me what he means. The current definition of vulgarity seems quite well met by Fanny Hill, although it's probable Cleland meant "vulgarity" in the sense of "common" or "lower-class." In which . . . I guess so? But I don't really know which me meant. But I do suspect he was certainly a porn author writing a porn text. And even though it took me an insanely long period of time (not sure if I'm counting Octobers accurately), I'm embarrassed I finished it. Even though I do think Untermeyer was correct, at least in that there is something to be said about spending time with our narrator who is cheerful and interesting and good company and, good for her, getting a Dickensian happy ending filled with wealth and happy coincidence.

And if that's not pornography, I don't know what is.

either sixteen or twenty-eight months

 

010) Peach and the Isle of Monsters by Franco Aureliani and Agnes Garbowska, finished February 20

This is...not that good. Franco's trying something new (which is great) but it doesn't work. Instead of characters developing, they just pass through certain cliched story beats with the assumption that'll work for us. Well, it didn't work for me.

lunch

 

011) Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, finished February 28

This book appeared on semester on the dystopian-options list I provide students. It was selected by a group and they loved the book but they said it certainly was not dystopian (possibly even utopian), just the near future and world not that much different from ours. So I removed it from the list.

And I'll leave it off the list but not because I agree with them. In fact, I think Klara and the Sun is deeply dystopian—but in subtle ways that might be difficult for teenagers reading on their own to discover. Largely because this novel takes place as a dystopia is being formed. It's not quite obvious yet. And it's certainly not obvious to Klara who narrates the book.

Klara is a robot—an AF, a term never defined but which to me instantly suggested artificial friend. The first half of the book is dull dull dull. Klara's in the store. Klara's looking out the window. Klara's waiting for something to take her home. It's like if Corduroy never went on his adventure and yet his time in the store was hundreds of pages long. Then she is picked up by a family and nothing continues happening.

But all that stuff is important later on as we come to understand Klara better. She has an alien but rich inner life. She worships the sun, for instance. She's a careful observer. She has a sunny understanding of humanity, even when perhaps she should not.

I don't want to get too deeply into spoilers here although I would love to really dig in and analyze this book and the fascinating decisions it makes. It gets into plenty of fun and sticky topics from the ancient (family, love, growing up) to the contemporary (a.i., climate responsibility, genetic engineering). Ishiguro weaves these together in provocative ways. All through Klara who is about the least provocative character you can imagine. And all the human characters appreciate her purity while never seeing her as a thing particularly human. Which turns into a deep irony when the book's most shocking reveal presents itself.

In the end, as Klara fades away, I'm happy for her. She's lived a good live. She's fulfilled her purpose. She is happy. She has entered into the rest of the Sun.

Yet the world around her, though she cannot see it, is awful and getting worse all the time.

And the people have too many mundane tasks to genuinely appreciate their decent.

Pretty prescient stuff.

perhaps a month

 

012) Comic Poems edited by Peter Washington, finished March 7

Nothing like reading a collection of humor to see how similar you are to a person. I mentioned Louis Untermeyer's collection above. Most of that I liked, some I loved, some I simply did not find funny. Overall, that collection's a win.

I laughed a few times in this one but I was much more often utterly mystified as to why anyone would label this thing "comic." I recommend finding another collection of comic poems, if you're in the market but—and this is important—you are not me.

ten months

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INCIDENTALLY, starting with #12, I think I'm no longer linking to Amazon. I never make that much money off affiliate links anyway and Bezos's final abandonment of seeming principledness with the Washington Post is leading to me stepping away. I'll start here, but as soon as I bite down and drop Prime (will that kill Alexa??) I'll also drop my (once beloved) Washington Post subscription.

(But Bezos is wealthy because his fingers touch even-invisible aspects of our life. I'll never be free of him so long as billionaires are allowed to exist.)

I've already been linking to Bookshop whenever possible. When that's not possibly, I'll now use Alibris as my backup, it being a collective of independent bookstores that sell used. That should work as well as anything can.

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PREVIOUSLY THIS YEAR IN BOOKS

Bro! Tell me we still know how to speak of kings!

001) Beowulf translated by Maria Dahvana Headley, finished January 1
002) Cthulhu Is Hard to Spell: Volume Three, finished January 1
003) Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (translated by Megan McDowell), finished January 8
004) My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris, finished January 11
005) You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown, finished January 12
005) Into the Headwinds: Why Belief Has Always Been Hard—and Still Is by Terryl Givens and Nathaniel Givens, finished January 24
006) My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: Book Two by Emil Ferris, finished January 25

 

PREVIOUS OTHER YEARS IN BOOKS

2007 = 2008 = 2009 = 2010 = 2011 = 2012 = 2013 = 2014 = 2015
2016 = 2017 = 2018 = 2019 = 2020 = 2021 = 2022 = 2023 = 2024

 

Ghost! Gorilla! Rat!

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I was just looking through this month's movies and I had already forgotten I watched Ne Zha specifically so I could wawtch Ne Zha 2.

Is it still in theaters?

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THEATER
Cinemark Century Hilltop 16

Presence (2024)

Loved it.

Yes, it's a ghost story, but it plays more like a murder mystery. We don't know what's going to happen, but the clues are being laid out for us. We just have to pick them up. And there are stellar red herrings (SO MANY windows that don't open!), but the revelation arrives just before the revelation, if you know what I mean. And it was a deeply satisfying answer. The more it settles, the more I think it was excellent.

And since I won't get to see Nickel Boys in theaters, glad to see something else from perspective. Even if it's not getting as much chatter.

At least on first viewing, I liked it better than A Ghost Story—although as this one two settles into memory, it'll be a battle.

HOME
my parents' dvd

The Glenn Miller Story (1954)

First, after seeing this movie and how a simple pair of glasses transforms James Stewart into Glenn Miller, I will never listen to another crackpot theory about Clark Kent's insufficient disguise ever again.

I understand this movie is "loosely based" on truth so I have no idea how much I just learned versus how much I am now wrong about, but it's a fun movie. Plus, the crammed SO MUCH music into it. I kept saying, "They've now played all the Glenn Miller songs I know," and I kept being wrong.

History regardless, I liked the performances and I was moved by the ending.

ELSEWHERE
Hoopla

Sylvio (2017)

Showing it to another class. Sometimes it works well. Sometimes it doesn't. I thought this was mostly doesn't but, someone came into class the next day telling me they loved it and they cried when he was among the clouds.

HOME
our dvd

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

We let Sons Two and Three watch and they both loved it and want to read King's original novella. And I think that's great.

HOME
Disney+

Ratatouille (2007)

I haven't really been willing to watch this film since first seeing in in theaters back in 2007 (!). Why? Because I didn't love it. And for so many people, it's a pantheon-level film. Not just a good movie, but a deeply important classic with few if any peers. Many bigshots consider it the finest Pixar film. Lots of people born after it came out consider it the best of all time. I have this one assignment I've been giving for years where each student needs to provide an example from the narrative artform of their choice. I think I've heard "Ratatouille is my favorite movie" more than I've heard something similar about anything else, movie, novel, or otherwise. And I've liked being able to say, "Gee whiz, you know what, believe it or not, I haven't seen it since theaters, so . . . ."

But the littles child's been asking to watch it for a couple weeks now (it's her friends favorite movie, natch) and my pleasure in not being forced to say Ratatouille ain't that great is a terrible excuse not to show it to a child who wants to see it.

(Incidentally, this never happened with the boys because, again, natch, this film appears to be among the most-shown-to-kids-in-school films going. So they'd already seen it.)

And I'm relieved (and delighted?) to tell you I loved it. Every scene worked for me. Every development made sense. The character beats and the plot beats were playing the same melody. The film had the good sense to leave out some of the most important moment because, actually, they weren't necessary. And the complexity of Anton Ego drawn from so few strokes is a masterclass in restraint and clarity. It's astonishing stuff. A really good movie. I'm so happy you were all right.

Though it's still not my favorite Pixar movie.

HOME
Link+ dvd

Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald (1997)

A bright-eyed young housewife gets her radio-drama script picked up and watches and the various egos and lackeys putting it on slowly destroy it on air. The movie starts mildly amusing but gets funnier and funnier as it goes along.

Not a surprise it started life as a stage play. It would be uproarious live theater. I think that's probably its ideal form, but the movie was delightful.

The only actor I recognized was the last one credited—a young Ken Watanabe as a truck driver listening to the show in his truck and always juuuust about to change the station. Only six years from being second banana on The Last Samurai! Amazing.

But I think my favorite character was the young writer. Her journey from humble joy to horror to fighting back and back to innocent joy is fabulous. I'd certainly watch her in something else.

THEATER
Cinemark Century Hilltop 16

Dog Man (2025)

I first became aware of Dav Pilkey circa 2001 when I checked out copies of his 1993 picture books Kat Kong and Dogzilla from the Orem Library. These books are hilarious. I have no idea why Lady Steed and I found them at the library, but we read them many times before we had kids and laughed every time. I am not the least surprised they are still in print. I'm only sad we never bought our own copies. Since our post-Utah local libraries never had them I foolishly assumed they were just out of print until just now. What a fool I've been.

I don't think it should be controversial to say Pilkey is one of the most important American comedic writers of the last thirty years. And if we're measuring by comics of the last thirty years who's influence will be felt for the next sixty, he might be #1. I'm not joking. It's possible all the young Millennial / Gen Z / Gen Alpha / Gen Beta comedy-craftors of the coming decades won't realize it consciously, but on a bone-deep level, they will owe a lot to Pilkey—to Captain Underpants, to Dog Man. You know it's true. His books have been read and reread more than Harry Potter by kids at their most tractable. And the two movies are solid.

All of which is to say this is a very fun movie and dumb as all get out and thus respectful to the source material. Pilkey has the good sense to let the books be the main driver and to keep the movies limited. But I'm sure we'll see more eventually. And rightly so.

He's the best we've got.

HOME
Link+ dvd

eXistenZ (1999)

One month after The Matrix came out, Canada gave us this film, very different and very alike.

People are within the game. Then they go a layer deeper. Then they come out. Or maybe they don't. It's as much like Inception as it is The Matrix.

This is somehow only my second Cronenberg film and it wasn't as gross as I know they get. But I did think it captured '90s gaming very well and it raised the kinds of questions Mark Zuckerberg really thinks are about to be relevant. But in a way, if you get less relevent, they're already hella relevant.

Is this still the game?

HOME
YouTube

Ne Zha (2019)

The sequel is currently making the most money a single movie has ever made in a single market, and it's just become the highest grossing animated film of all time. Scott Mendelson liked it (although his taste is sometimes questionable). And the original's on YouTube and I have some time to kill so why not?

It's good. Dreamworks quality. I did like how different (foreign) it is compared to an American movie. But it's just fine. Can the sequel really be that much better?