2024-03-18

Let's start with the untimely deaths

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If you subtract the murdering and the heroing and the poeming, there's really not much left.

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022) The Life and Death of King John by William Shakespeare, finished February 28

Another very strange play. I know I say this every time I read a new one. I'm starting to think Shakespeare might be a good writer. Although he deals with similar themes and milieus and motifs, each play is distinct.

King John is arguably the most forgotten of the plays in 2024 (apparently this, too, is the Victorians fault) and I'll admit I'm a bit flummoxed as to what it's all about. John is supposed to be a terrible king and he is terrible. But the play doesn't really treat him as terrible. Even when he's ordering the death of a child, he doesn't seem like and he turns out much differently then, say, Macbeth or Richard III when they do the same. The role of the female characters is fascinating. They dominate the first half then they all die offstage in an instant. The appearance of Prince Henry is only the most perplexing of the sudden appearances. The early battle feels like the sort of battle that should appear at the end of any other play. The role of the bastard boggles. In short, very fun! Excited to read more about it and to talk about it with my classes!

three days


022) Might Jack and the Goblin King by Ben Hatke, finished February 29

More Hatke goodness!

I'm guessing this book is skewed older given some so-so language but intellectually we're in the same place.

one sit


023) Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez, finished March 4

Considering how short this book is, how did it take so long to read? I didn't feel like I dallied, but everything from rain to roadtrips got in the way.

Chronicle reminds me of Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey: someone has died and someone else is doing research, putting together the story and trying to figure out what it all means. Chronicle was released fifty-four years later and although some very lazy searching doesn't suggest a connection, I can't help but to wonder if ol' Gabo's responding to Thornton Wilder's novel. The researcher is now an insider, rather than an outside. It focused on one person and their actual community network verses looking at several people and hoping to find metaphysical connections between them. I dunno. But it feels likely.

(Yes, even though it's based on a true story. Bigshot award-winners must read each other, right?)

Anyway, it starts "On the day they were going to kill him" (trans. Gregory Rabassa) and ends with his murder. Although the timeline is far from straightforward, shooting years into the past and future and all over the day in question, the basic setup of nonsuspense is clear from go. The book will end with the murder of Santiago Nasar. And what a gruesome murder it is.

The narrator seems to think Nasar's a solid fellow and the town generally seems to agree although, when it comes to the girl working at his house, he does seem to have the sort of wealth that leads to men saying when you're a star, you can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy, for instance.

But that's hardly the most alien element to me reading this story as a 2024 American. The matteroffactness of honor killing, for instance, is even more shocking. But it's this very simple-strangeness that I appreciate the most. I believe in this world he's created. And it has its marvels and charms. But hoo. I wouldn't want to live there.

But what a tragedy---for everyone in town to know you're about to be murdered. Everyone except for you.

somehow like six weeks

 

024) Millay by Edna St. Vincent Millay, finished March 6

I recently read an article about Milly and it made me realize that aside from the figs, I didn't know much about her. So I picked a volume from the library and I read it.

And I really liked it! I did cotton to her earlier work more strongly, but I did find other favorites like "Wraith," "Burial," "Lament" (which has an interesting echo in "The Ballad the Harp-Weaver"), and "Exiled."

Also, I sent a research request to the Schulz Research Center because these lines from her 1919 play remind me of something from 1959:

 

PIERROT                                  Don't stand so near me!
   I am become a socialist. I love
   Humanity; but I hate people. Columbine,
   Put on your mittens, child; your hands are cold.

 

 
We'll see what they say.

In the meantime, color me sad Millay isn't yet rediscovered by the women and youth of Gen Z. I think they'd really like her.

nine weeks but really only the weeks on either end of that span

 

025, 026) The Life and Death of King John by William Shakespeare, finished March 6, 8

Always interesting to see how classes will take to a play I've never taught before. In general, I fear the histories just because . . . just because. Even though Richard III is the only other one I've taught and I love teaching Richard III. Anyway, King John is an early play and Shakespeare's not quite Shakespeare yet, but it does have some great moments. The plot's a little hard to follow and a bunch of characters talk too dang much but, as always, we're latching on. There's more confusion that usual but I'm feeling positive it'll all work out before the test. We'll see!

two weeks max

 

027) Murder Book by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell, finished March 11

I found this book because I loved Campbell's essay in The Peanuts Papers and was learning more about her. I also like her New Yorker comics.

The book is okay. I daresay it was a good learning experience for her. By the end of the book she's gotten better at panels and guiding the eye, etc. But it's a pretty long book about being obsessed with true crime. And while I enjoyed every page, I'm not sure it needed to be so many pages. The epiphanies she arrives at are pretty mundane. Plus, all her women have the same face. And there's some editing issues, eg, one character's skin keeps changing color. Or tone, I suppose, this being a black-and-white book. And, um, did we really need to see her on the toilet So Many Times?

Anyway, solid proof of concept. I think her next one will be better.

maybe ten days

 

028) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

This classic Fifties work of science fiction is about a world after our world ends. A nuclear holocaust happened—my guess is sometime in the 1960s—and the novel opens 700 years later. It's an almost medieval world. Our main characters are Catholic monks striving to maintain the shattered (and burnt) remnants of human knowledge so that someday, when people care again, that knowledge will still exist. They remind me of the monks in How the Irish Saved Civilization. And rightly so.

But hold your hat! At the end of part one, we zoom forward another 700 years. And at the end of part two, another 700 years.

In other words, Leibowitz is like The Fifth Head of Cerberus in that you have three novellas. I think each of these could stand on their own but each is so clearly informed be the one before, it's hard to say. You read them out of order and let me know.

In some senses, in terms of normal expectations for a novel, this can be a frustrating book. Main characters die and we don't know what happens until 700 years have passed. That sort of thing.

But of course those great distances allow for the examination of hefty questions like: what do we learn from the past and what is just being human? does booklearning actually make us any wiser? et cetera.

And the constantly present lens of Catholocism allows for a deliberately contemplative and multiplyingly provocative look at the many questions and issue the novel raises. Which isn't too say it isn't fun to read. It's crazy fun to read.

The reason I finally picked it up is because I finally had a group of AP Lit students choose it off the dystopia list for the group project. (Incidentally, though often described as dystopian, I'm not so sure it is. I'll be interested to see if they think it should stay on the list.) Since I wanted to have my own experience with the book, I've been hurrying to get it read before they do. I just beat them.

Anyway, I was worried in the early pages that they would be bored. But by page forty or so, I'd lost that worry. In fact, when I told them this and talked about the first few pages, they thought they sounded fascinating. And they've been devouring the book. I'm excited to see what they do with it.

Anyway, three times it's placed for the Locus for best sf novel of all time. Those votes weren't spaced 700 years apart, but still. Impressive.

about two weeks

 

029) The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett and Paul Kidby, finished March 15

Something about fantasy books with realistic paintings throughout always turn me off. I think particularly so when the author is Terry Pratchett. I'm skeptical a painter can be appropriately funny. Or, more accurately, appropriately witty.

But you'll see I added Kidby's name to Pratchett's uptop and that's because he earned it. Not only is appropriately witty, he's also working in tandem with Pratchett to tell the story. By no means is this a comic, but, in the same manner, the text and the images are working together to tell the story. Neither stands on its own.

As a Pratchett novel, it's short. But it feels just as rich. And the art is spectacular. The image of our protagoists standing on the moon watching Discrise with the frame dominated by the enormous face of an elephant . . . breathtaking.

 about five days



030) Karen's Roller Skates by Ann M. Martin and Katy Farina, finished March 18

It's still fine.

one sit


PREVIOUSLY THIS YEAR

 2024 × 10 = Bette Davis being Bette Davis

001) Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished January 1
002) The Complete Peanuts: 1977 – 1978 by Charles M. Schulz , finished January 6
003) The Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman et al, finished January 10
004) Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished January 17
005) Touched by Walter Mosley, finished January 19
006) Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer, finished January 20
007) Evergreen Ape: The Story of Bigfoot by David Norman Lewis, finished January 24
008) What Falls Away by Karin Anderson, finished February 1
009) Peanuts Jubilee: My Life and Art with Charlie Brown and Others by Charles M. Schulz, finished February 3
010) Legends of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished February 3


 A few of my favorite things

011) Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, finished February 3
012) The Return of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, February 9
013) Things in the Basement by Ben Hatke, February 10
014) A Charlie Brown Religion: Exploring the Spiritual Life and Work of Charles M. Schulz by Stephen J. Lind, finished February 10
015) 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction by Joseph M. Spencer, finished February 10
016) Dendo by Brittany Long Olsen, finished February 11
017) The Ten Winners of the 2023 Whiting Awards, finished February 12
018) The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life edited by Andrew Blaune, finished February 17
019) Do Not Disturb Any Further by John Callahan, finished February 17
020) Mighty Jack by Ben Hatke, finished circa February 19
021) 2nd Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction by Terryl Givens, February 24

 

2024-03-01

Feature Filmbruary 2024

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After the (covid-fueled) bounty of January, I suppose we can't be surprised that even a long February fails to meet that high-water mark. The good news is we run the gamut here from the classic to the overrated, from the good to the bad. We got it all. And if not for Leap Day, we woulda averaged one movie per two days.

Honestly, that does seem like it should be enough.

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HOME
our dvd
Groundhog Day (1993)

It's been a while since we last watched Groundhog Day and I'm delighted to say we all enjoyed it. Although the 7yrold maybe missed some of the finer points.

It's earned its status as classic.

Incidentally, rewatching again so shortly after watching Palm Springs, it really feels like Palm Springs is trying to answer all the questions people who've seen Groundhog Day a million time have unavoidably have come to. That's not to suggest the movie is full of holes or something, but that's what'll happen no matter what movie you watch a million times.


HOME
Disney+
Hello, Dolly! (1969)

This took four or five sittings over three or four months, but we finally made it through! The 7yrold found aspects of it very stressful and we had to stop, and we tended to pick it up again just before bedtimes. So it took a while. But she said it deserves "five, no ten" stars, largely for the singing.

It's interesting how both Barbra Streisand and Michael Crawford wiggles their jaws back and forth when they sing. And I get why Streisand became her generations great comedienne and why no one thought Crawford was a good choice for the Phantom.

Anyway, I don't buy the change in Horace Vandergelder, and I'm mystified by how looooong it is. This made good theatrical sense? Honestly, I needed the breaks as well. It kinda goes on and on and on.

I was surprised how many of the songs I knew (most of them); I was not surprised that the film is charming and lovely.

Now, time to show her WALL-E!


HOME
library dvd
In the Mood for Love (2000)

Probably should've watched the special features and read the essays before watching this one. It's a lovely film (Maggie Cheung's dresses alone!) but 90% of the subtext is lost on me, the American viewer. I can't tell there are multiple dialects of Chinese being spoken or that the dishes the cook is making are marking the changing of the seasons or what the years mean to those storied in Hong Kong history. So I get the basic story of two lonely, betrayed people finding a connection, but now I understand the whole thing's heavily allegorical and, yeah, missed all that.

What was most striking is how the camera and edits do all the can to keep up as far away from the characters as possible. We can do nothing for them. Not even understand them

Since it's generally agreed to be one of the greatest films, we'll have to give it another shot sometime.


HOME
our dvd
Napoleon Dynamite (2014)

One of my absolute favorite films, all time.

Few things bring me this much joy, reliably, time after time after time.








HOME
Paramount+
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)

I think this is the first TMNT feature I've seen since the original. It's hard to believe I never saw the second, but I don't remember doing so if I did. Certainly I saw the first more than once, but still: we're talking over thirty years ago. Do no ask me to make comparisons.

What I will say is that I really liked this movie. It's playing with appearance like the Spider-verse movies and the Peanuts movie and I hope mainstream films keep playing in this way. The movie is a solid and intelligent entertainment. Nothing more, but why would it need to me?

Also, I just want to say that the thing I was most skeptical of was a teenaged April but I loved this version of April. And it's fun in the credits to discover that it's Ayo Edebiri whom I'd never heard of before a couple weeks ago when she absolutely KILLED on SNL.

Glad it made money. I was so (plesantly) surprised by what they did with Bebop and Rocksteady I'm ready to see what they do with Shredder.


THEATER
Rialto Cinemas Cerrito
Poor Things (2023)

One of the first things I remember reading about Poor Things was that it's another version of Barbie, I assumed somewhat in plot and yesalot in theme. And I suppose that's a reasonable take. But Barbie is better at what Barbie does and what Poor Things is up to is just as complex but much less obvious. I mean—you can reduce either of those movies to a feminist catchphrase that can then me mocked on X (the appropriate use of X is when it is bad; Twitter is still the prefered usage for good and neutral usages).

I was glad that Lady Steed and I had a lot to talk about afterwards. Unfortunately we had to return home instead of to a nonkid location for continued dialogue, but it's certainly provocative in a dozen different ways. Plus, it's such a cool-looking movie. We just barely got to see it on the big screen and I'm glad we did. (Sorry, American Fiction. Sorry, Lisa Frankenstein.)

And while the male characters speak frequently of Bella Baxter's beauty, the film itself leans into how strange her face can be. But everything is strange here. Appropriate use of fisheyes and irises, for instance. The entire film leaves us offkilter. The chimeras turned out great, by the way.

In the end, I'm not sure how well the film communicates but it's satisfying as a story. It'll be interesting to see if we're still talking about it in twenty years.


HOME
Paramount+
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

So it was entertaining as promised although (as I expected) I didn't really get many of the in-jokes. Which is fine.

It's hard to imagine watching it again but I enjoyed the ride.







HOME
Paramount+
The Rainmaker (1997)

Believe it or not, this is my first time watching a Grisham adaptation. This was has a great cast and is directed by Coppola but I mostly just sorta started it because I had to start something. And this is what I started.

The cast is terrific. Even small roles are filled well. Danny Glover eats up the judge role, and the well-filled roles get smaller than that.

I haven't read the book but I hope the secondary/romantic plot about the battered wife was filled out better there. In the film, a couple corners needed cutting.

But the courtroom scenes thrilled as needed and Jon Voigt makes for an excellent adversary. It's probably a little wrong but I watched it in three sitting so so what?


HOME
Internet Archive
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

I'd heard of this, the only Roger Ebert-penned film, of course. I even skimmed the first twenty minutes once, a few years ago. But I always assumed the general opinion was that it was terrible. But then, reading Opposable Thumbs, I learned that its terribleness was not a universal opinion. In fact, one critic called it the best movie of the Sixties. And it is very, very Sixties. It reminds me of Hello Down There, a 1969 musical comedy that I saw exactly once c. 1991 and loved and can still sing a pair of songs from though they too I have never heard again. (It's a movie I don't want to rewatch because it seems certain a rewatch can only lower its value to me.) Only this movie is dirty.

I mean—of course it is. It's Russ Meyer. But it showed a lot more restraint, sexually, than I'd anticipated. And it's just . . . silly, really. There's usually one naked woman dancing per party, for instance. Just because.

Anyway, I would agree with the terrible camp. Almost every bit of the movie would work wonderfully out of context, but in context? Nope. The movie's dumb. The characters change but why or how is unclear. Maybe it made sense at the end of the Sixties but it just feels like nonsense now. Campy nonsense. Period nonsense. But nonsense.


HOME
Paramount+
Stardust (2007)

Lotta choices here that stick the film very firmly in 2007. It should've had a much lighter touch on the score but it when all Pirates of the Caribbean. It could've relaxed on the cg but it really wanted to show us what can be done with all this new technology. That's now almost twenty years old.

I can see why my wife went and saw it with her friends then didn't want to go back to watch it with me. It's pretty fun but it's not a movie you really need to watch twice. And certainly not in the same month.

I know I've been skeptical of Gaiman's adult prose novels, but the movie did make me want to give this one a shot. We'll see.


HOME
Paramount+
Barefoot in the Park (1967)

It started great, but our young couple got less interesting as the film proceeded. Or maybe they were always that uninteresting but they were attractive and horny enough we didn't notice until there was a much more interesting older couple around to eclipse them.

Hard to say.

Horny and attractive young people do tend to be distracting.


HOME
Disney+
The Last Repair Shop (2023)

This is nominated for Best Documentary Short, but it's long enough to count as a feature here in Thville.

Anyway, it's less about the repair shop for musical instruments run for students by LAUSD and more about the people who do the repairs and it turns them into a metaphor for the students and the instruments into a metaphor for the repairers etc etc etc.

The structure's pretty simple and pretty obvious, but you know what?

This movie works. It's so good. I can't talk about it yet without my voice cracking.


HOME
Disney+
Flamin' Hot (2023)

I know that some of the details are . . . sus. But the movie's loose with fact and fantasy and in the end it doesn't bother me. It's part of the story. A bit meta maybe, but still.

The story is fun and moving at points. It's also a bit paint-by-numbers at times and some of the elements are a tad confused.

But in the end? A ride worth taking.


HOME
Link+ dvd

Heavenly Creatures (1994)

Finally seen this early Peter Jackson film! It's the first of his movies I ever heard of and now I've seen it.

It does a great job capturing both what is wonderful and what is dangerous about adolescence. The passions and lacks of perspective that take you so high and so low.

I didn't know how fanciful part of the moviemaking would be. Overall, I liked the movie. Lady Steed did as well, but found the score frequently distracting.

My only real note was that the opening scene was such that I didn't realize that which mother would be murdered was kept from us through the first three quarters of the film. I misread it and I wish that had been handled slightly differently.

Oh! Also, one of the miniaturists was named The Thorinmeister. Sure hope he got to work on Lord of the Rings.

 




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2024-02-28

Goodhart's Law in education and religion

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I just heard of Goodhart's Law this week thanks to xkcd. This xkcd required a bit more supplementary reading than usual. The comic itself is sufficient to get the joke but not to really get the joke, if you know what I mean.

Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"

In short, some things we deeply care about cannot be measured. But since related things can be measured, we just measure those instead. But, sometimes, we then start to care about the thing we’re measuring more than the thing we care about.

Incidentally, the images in this post will all link back to where I took them from. Starting with these from something called Jascha’s blog:

Never have I seen something that so well explains so much of the crap happening in education. One example that’s been in the news lately is the way Princeton Review and U.S. News and World Report rank colleges.

  1. We care about what colleges are good.

  2. No one knows what that means.

  3. So we measure other things instead. Such as how many more people apply to a college than the college is able to accept.

  4. Thus, the University of Chicago spends tons of money each year trying to get kids to apply whom they fully anticipate rejecting just to get their numbers up.

But this also applies to a lot of the postgrads trying to study what makes teachers good at their job or the weird assessments schools and teachers give kids in order to see if they’re “learning.”

Teaching to the test is an example of Goodhart's Law. No Child Left Behind is an example of Goodhart's Law. As is Race to the Top. Some of those may be results of Goodhart's Law and some may be examples from birth but all of them result in looking at the wrong things rather than what we care about: happy, intelligent, well balanced, educated kids.

Education needs to “[end] the myth that standardized data is a perfect, neutral arbiter.”

Then, as I was sitting in the temple this afternoon, I realized a lot of the same crap is happening in religion too. Or, at least, my own religion.

Crap:

Take for instance the Church’s recent decision to remove women from the stand in Bay Area congregations. This decision has caused a great deal of pain and upset. And why? Well. Goodhart's Law. That’s why. Here are three paragraphs from that article:

The practice was abruptly discontinued last month, according to church spokesperson Doug Andersen, at the order of the North America West Area president, whose jurisdiction includes California.

The Utah-based faith “has a long-established practice when it comes to worship services,” Andersen says. “The general pattern includes presiding authorities sitting on the stand along with other women, men, youth and children based on their invitation to participate in the service.”

Local leaders, Andersen says, “were recently reminded of this practice.”

This has to be the weakest reasoning for official action I’ve ever read. Certainly it’s the least Joseph Smithy reason I can fathom. But if you want to hear me complain more about the dumbness of it all, you got this:

But here’s what I think happened. And thank you xkcd for helping me figure this out.

  1. We want to achieve Zion, to be of one heart and one mind.

  2. No matter where you attend church across the world, the Saints are (more or less) studying the same lessons at the same time.

  3. All surface things must be the same!

  4. Oh no! Women on the stand in Lafayette? That’s not happening in St. George!

  5. Shut it down.

The Church’s unwillingness to kick women off the stand in writing. The fact that not only is this not a canonical doctrine—not even a policy!—just a “general pattern” or “practice.” These facts show that it’s not really defensible.

Having women on the stand led to area women feeling seen and appreciated. It helped us all come closer to the ideal of one heart and one mind.

And the inelegant way this was torn away from the women specifically and Zion generally threw hearts and minds into chaos and pain.

And that’s the danger described by Goodhart's Law.

Zion is, perhaps, an impossible thing to measure.

So better be careful what we do measure.

And we’d better be careful not to let that measurement turn into an idol.

Souls are on the line.


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