When you bookend with original grace and socialist revolution, things are going okay.

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081) Original Grace by Adam Miller, finished September 7

This was a serendipitously confluent book to follow Meritocracy Mingled with Scripture. Both preach a similar love-your-neighbor gospel from the perspective of how God would manifest his love to us. They fit together nicely even though their rhetorical positions are deeply different.

Anyway, Adam Miller posits that we of the Restoration, for all our verbal rejection of Original Sin, still think and behave as if sin is the driving engine of life on earth and the source of our suffering. Then he suggests imagining what it would be like if we felt that grace was the engine of life—but not, of course, the source of our suffering. What would such look like in our lives if that's what we truly believed?

In the process, among other feats, he redefines justice as God's means of providing grace according to his law. And sin as a failed relationship to grace. When we fail to accept God's grace, that is sin. When we fail to provide grace to others when we see they are in need, that is sin.

Anyway, the thinking in the book is great, as is its use of analogy. Describing ongoing creation in terms of the spreading seafloor? Beautiful.

What I had no idea of coming into the book is how deeply Miller would rely on his father's telling of his own stories to provide a grounded structure for what could be untethered theology. Miller's father spent the final, painful years of his life sending long biographical and testimonial texts to his progeny and Miller relies on them to explain our relationship to God. It's quite a wonderful thing.

And all this in just 110 pages! 

two weeks

 

082) The Skull Beneath the Skin by P.D. James, finished September 9

P.D. James has been on my to-do list for quite a while, but if you'd asked me to guess what I'd read first, I would have said Children of Men or Death Comes to Pemberley as we own both and I'm intrigued by both's premises. But this one turned up for free somewhere and I mean, come on.

 

 Getcherself t'Etsy and buy this copy so you can open the front cover and see what that punchcut reveals.

Anyway, I've heard good things about James and I am happy I've finally given her a chance. Her work's a fancy mix of straight genre pleasures and "literary" thinking. The early chapters alternate povs like normal thrillering. In fact, most of the surface details feel like the cliches of the last 50 years of mystery and thriller. Which is why I didn't see how any of the characters could be the murderer without cheating. As we'd spent time inside everyone's head, it felt like she'd painted herself into a corner. But revealing that some core clues had in fact been red herrings, and having new information occur after the multiple-povs era had come to a close (and having that information be deeply impactful) allowed her to present a lot of twists and resolutions a) without cheating and b) alongside indirect commentary on society's true ills.

I wouldn't call it a masterpiece of modern literature or anything but it's surely a tour de force of what can be done withing the traditionalist restraints of a given genre. It was, in fact, pretty great.

I'm sad to see this was this detective's last outing. 

a year more or less (perhaps quite a bit more or less) 

 

083) Sock Monkey Treasury by Tony Millionaire, finished September 11

Tony Millionaire's work is so wonderful and strange. He writes wonderful things for children and drunken things for adults and then you have a collection like this which manages to be all these things and more, sometimes all at once.

He is one of American comics' great poets. A symphonist of violence and nonsense. A beacon of hope in a world gone mad. 

Sometimes our world feels no more mad than Uncle Gabby's. And I would be happy to have him name the angel at the edge of the world.

two or three days 

 

084) The Sleepover by Michael Regina, finished September 16

This is a surprisingly scary little middle-reader comic that manages to kill its monster and redeem her too.

Perhaps weirdly, it reminded me of My Best Friend's Exorcism.

Recommended! 

an evening 

 

085) The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare, finished September 23

We watched it a couple weekends ago, now I've read it solo, and I'm about to read it two more times with classes.

It's Shakespeare season! 

friday monday tuesday 

086 & 087) The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare, finished September 29

I always worry but it's always fun to read Shakespeare in class. Even a second-tier play? Absolutely. giving kids permission to notice Shakespeare's weak spots is empowering and, done correctly, only sets them up to look forward to more in the future.

four school days

 

088) The Iron Heel by Jack London, finished October 1 

The Iron Heel is "a truer prophecy than either Brave New World or The Shape of Things to Come," said George Orwell, and it's easy to see how this novel may have influenced Nineteen Eighty-four. It essentially tracks the early hears in which Big Brother (the Iron Heel) take over society, destroying much in their path, and setting up the systems of an Inner Party, Outer Party and the meaningless proles. The result of The Iron Heel, as recognized by the book itself, is centuries of Nineteen Eighty-four. But the rhetorical voice of The Iron Heel and Nineteen Eighty-four's appendix both offer proof-positive that the Iron Heel (Big Brother) ultimately must fail.

I should say now that The Iron Heel is a thrilling read. It feels so relevant to 2025 that the simple plot is no barrier to rushing headlong through the pages in thrall. The description of income disparity is now. The description of institutions that see as their first duty the continuance certain economic benefits for certain portions of society is now. The frustration and anger is now. The inability of many who are doomed to recognize their doom is now.

There are some parts, naturally, where London guessed wrong. He almost made me a Marxist as his charismatic lead explained the theories, but it went off the rails just as Marxism went off the rails IRL. But we tend to forget how close to accurate it was. Violence did break out between labor and capital. The change of our economy from agrarian/rural to tech/service creates different outcomes that weren't so easy to see in 1908, but the mirror and warning are just as relevant and prescient. This book has aged well, in short. Sure it's been eclipsed by Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-four, but perhaps its time to put an American novel back in the conversation.

One wild example of how the book is now is the characters' discussion of the 1903 militia bill which allows the federal government to nationalize the state militias and turn them against the citizens of another state. Talk about a Trumpy idea.

The novel purports to be a manuscript written in the 1930s and covering the couple decades prior presented by a scholar 700 years in the future after the Brotherhood of Man brings about a socialist utopia. (One thing I admire about this book is it has optimistic dreams of a utopian future, but the path to utopia is paved in a dystopian pessimism; the contrast serves the aims well.) The future editor of the manuscript has voluminous footnotes, some of which were funny to me (did you know grub means food? fake means false???) and others which astonished me, such as this quotation from Abraham Lincoln:

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

Abraham Lincoln, ladies and gentlemen.

The book is filled—by both the manuscript's author and its editor—with quotations real and part of the fictional world. And, in one case, part of a poem London put in the novel in part with hopes that this would uncover the author's identity. (No luck.)

I'm now going to share two quotations reasonably construed as spoilers but which, together, demonstrate how well the book can unsettle a reader.

1__________________________________

The oligarchs...were going through a remarkable...development.... They were taught, and later they in turn taught, that what they were doing was right.... They looked upon themselves as wild-animal trainers, rulers of beasts. From beneath their feet rose always the subterranean rumbles of revolt. Violent death ever stalked in their midst; bomb and knife and bullet were looked upon as so many fangs of the roaring abysmal beast they must dominate if humanity were to persist. They were the saviours of humanity, and they regarded themselves as heroic and sacrificing laborers for the highest good. They, as a class, believed that they alone maintained civilization. It was their belief that if ever they weakened, the great beast would ingulf them and everything of beauty and wonder and joy and good in its cavernous and slime-dripping maw. Without them, anarchy would reign and humanity would drop backward into the primitive night out of which it had so painfully emerged.... In short, they alone, by their unremitting toil and sacrifice, stood between weak humanity and the all-devouring beast; and they believed it, firmly believed it. I cannot lay too great stress upon this high ethical righteousness of the whole oligarch class. This has been the strength of the Iron Heel.... [F]or the great majority of the religious, heaven and hell are incidental to right and wrong. Love of the right, desire for the right, unhappiness with anything less than the right.... [S]o with the Oligarchy. Prisons, banishment and degradation, honors and palaces and wonder-cities, are all incidental. The great driving force of the oligarchs is the belief that they are doing right. Never mind the exceptions, and never mind the oppression and injustice in which the Iron Heel was conceived. All is granted. The point is that the strength of the Oligarchy today lies in its satisfied conception of its own righteousness.

2__________________________________

The inner doors to the entrance were locked and bolted. We could not escape. The next moment the front of the column went by. It was not a column, but a mob, an awful river that filled the street, the people of the abyss, mad with drink and wrong, up at last and roaring for the blood of their masters. I had seen the people of the abyss before, gone through its ghettos, and thought I knew it; but I found that I was now looking on it for the first time. Dumb apathy had vanished. It was now dynamic—a fascinating spectacle of dread. It surged past my vision in concrete waves of wrath, snarling and growling, carnivorous, drunk with whiskey from pillaged warehouses, drunk with hatred, drunk with lust for blood—men, women, and children, in rags and tatters, dim ferocious intelligences with all the godlike blotted from their features and all the fiendlike stamped in, apes and tigers, anaemic consumptives and great hairy beasts of burden, wan faces from which vampire society had sucked the juice of life, bloated forms swollen with physical grossness and corruption, withered hags and death’s-heads bearded like patriarchs, festering youth and festering age, faces of fiends,crooked, twisted, misshapen monsters blasted with the ravages of disease and all the horrors of chronic innutrition—the refuse and the scum of life, a raging, screaming, screeching, demoniacal horde.

__________________________________

Whhhoof!

Besides the fact that these are individually terrifying for distinct reasons, the way they fit together like pieces of a puzzle only heighten the total horror.

I occasionally think I want to start a collection of public-domain classics with an essay or three giving the text a strict Latter-day Saint reading and hoogolly but would this book be part of the series.

The socialists preach and atheistic gospel that, save missing God, sounds very much like what the Book of Mormon and Doctrine & Covenants teach about wealth and its distribution among the rich and the poor. That deserves serious consideration.

But then the Iron Heel and the socialists both get engaged in secret combinations—and what happens next? Hundreds of year of death, violence, and misery. 

Yeah. If there was money in it, I probably have twenty pages exploring this. I suppose I could try floating such an essay in Ships of Hagoth or Wayfare to see if there's interest. Would you be interested?

I should go through these writeups and see if I can re-identify others that would be part of the collections....

Anyway, I'd like to say more about things important (female narrator!) and trivial (Danites!), but when I started this journey I wrote one paragraph per book and I still recognize that as wisdom. 

perhaps as long as ten days

 

 

 

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

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

007) Chas. Addams Half-Baked Cookbook, finished January 29
008) Monica by Daniel Clowes, finished February 3
009) The Unexpurgated French Edition of Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland, finished February 19
010) Peach and the Isle of Monsters by Franco Aureliani and Agnes Garbowska, finished February 20
011) Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, finished February 28
012) Comic Poems edited by Peter Washington, finished March 7

Love, Beauty, and a complete lack of sasquatch 

013) Love that Dog by Sharon Creech, finished March 11
014) Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper, finished March 21
015) Antelope Spring by John Bennion, finished March 24
016) Shelley Frankenstein by Colleen Madden, finished March 28
017) Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew #21: Double Take, finished April 5
018) The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clark, finshed April 8
019) Rave by Jessica Campbell, finished April 13
020) The Creeps: A Deep Dark Fears Collection by Fran Krause, finished April 14

Do not ask what she does with the babies.

027) Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito, finished April 21
028) Somna: A Bedtime Story by Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay, finished April 23
029) Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto and Ann Xu, finished April 24
030&031) The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, finished April 25
032) Raised by Ghosts by Briana Loewinsohn, finished April 26
033) Ephemera by Briana Loewinsohn, finished April 26

Brighter and brighter until we all get our heads lopped off 

034) Brighter and Brighter until the Perfect Day by Sharlee Mullins Glenn, finished April 27
035) Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett, finished May 3
036) The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, finished May 5
037) Equus by Peter Shaffer
038) Travesties by Tom Stoppard, finished May 8
039) The Art of Intimacy: The Space Between by Stacey D'Erasmo, finished May 10
040) A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, finished May 16

Criticism & Comics

041) Arts and Inspiration: Mormon Perspectives, edited by Steven P. Sondrup, finished May 18
042) The Waiting by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, finished May 19
043) Odessa by Jonathan Hill, finished May 22
044) Barnstormers: A Ballad of Love and Murder by Tula Lotay and Scott Snyder, finished May 22
045) Bingo Baby, finished May 26 

Books on the Fourth of July

046) Final Cut by Charles Burns, finished May 28
047) Fever Beach by Carol Hiassen, finished June 12
048) How to Talk to Your Succulent by Zoe Persico, finished June 17
049) Poetry Comics from the Book of Hours by Bianca Stone, June 24
050) Night of Camp David by Fletcher Knebel, finished June 25
051) The Serial Killer's Son Takes a Wife by Michael Libling, finished July 3

An old friend makes some introductions (and more)

052) The 5th Generation by Dale Jay Dennis, finished July 7
053) To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, finished July 10
054) Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout, finished July 25
055) Meet Monster: The First Big Monster Book by Ellen Blanca and Ann Cook, illustrated by Quentin Blake, finished July 26
056) Last Pick by Jason Walz, finished July 29
057) Death Comes to Eastrepps by Francis Beeding, finished August 2

A lot of comics and then not Twain

058) Gilt Frame by Matt Kindt and Margie Kraft Kindt, finished August 2
059) Monkey Meat: The First Batch by Juni Ba, finished August 3
060) Abbott by Saladin Ahmed and Sami Kivelä and Jason Wordie, finished August 4
061) Mendel the Mess-Up by Terry LaBan, finished August 9
062) Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath, finished August 9
063) James by Percival Everett, finished August 13

The last books read before school starts

064) Stranger Planet by Nathan W Pyle, finished August 13
065) Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley, finished August 13
066) Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, finished August 18

Two dozen is a reasonable number of eggs, too many donuts

067) Monte Cristo by Jordan Mechner and Mario Alberti, finished August 20
068) What We Don't Talk About by Charlot Kristensen, finished August 21
069) The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (translated by Lynn Solotaroff), finished August 23
070) The Village Beyond the Mist by Sachiko Kashiwaba (translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa), finished August 23 
071) Meritocracy Mingled with Scripture by Justin Pack, finished August 24
072) God's Man: A Novel in Woodcuts by Lynd Ward, finished August 27
073) He Done Her Wrong: The Great American Novel and Not a Word in It—No Music, Too by Milt Gross, finished August 27
074) The City: A Vision in Woodcuts by Frans Masereel, finished August 27
075) The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk, finished August 28
076) Destiny: A Novel in Pictures by Otto Nückel, finished August 28
077) The Piano Lesson by August Wilson, finished August 29
078) Passionate Journey: A Vision in Woodcuts by Frans Masereel, finished August 30
079) Madman's Drum by Lynd Ward, finished August 30
080) Murder Mystery Mystery Murder by Ben Abbott, finished September 3 

PREVIOUS OTHER YEARS IN BOOKS

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

 

Do you remember? (the fun films we watched in september)

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I think it's safe to say that everything watched this month has a reasonable claim at being a classic or one sort or another. Some by any standard (Double Indemnity) and some by very . . . particular standards (Dick).

How would you rank them?

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Baby Face (1933)

This is the first film my son's watching for his film class during this his first year of college. And, may I say, interesting way to open the year? I'm interested to hear what the professor has to say tomorrow.

This is such a pre–Hays Code movie. Barbara Stanwyck is sleeping her way to the top, just as Nitzsche would want. I'm not quite sure how to interpret the ending, but I suppose it is a harbinger of Hays to come.

It had some cool shots and nice setpieces, but I'm not sure I liked it. But it certainly has something to say. If there's nuance in that something, I hope future mulling turns it up.

THEATER
Cinemark Century Hilltop 16

Jaws (1975)

With this viewing, Jaws joins the other seventeen movies I know I've seen in theaters twice. Absolutely worthy of the attention.

I went with my wife, brother, and 8yrold, all of whom were seeing it for the first time. Kind of wild the 8yrold wanted to come; kind of wild my wife managed to avoid it all the times we've watched it at our house.

Anyway. It blows my mind this was once the highest grossing film of all time, but no doubt it's a great film. Felt more like an adventure movie than a horror movie this time, but that's not to knock the scary moments, including one of the greatest jump scares in movie history.

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Tubi

All the President's Men (1976) & Dick (1999)

We were rewatching All the President's Men for film group and I felt that it was only fair that IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARD I share Dick with all who wanted to watch it.

All were delighted.

And I do believe I was right—it was even better following immediately upon the heels of its predecessor.

It's interesting to note how in some ways they are quite the same and other decisions could not be more different. Nobody famous appears in AtPM unless in archival footage on a tv. Dick is littered with them. And of course one is a drama peppered with elements of the 70s paranoid thriller and chockfull of exquisite and patient shots. The other is a fairly broad comedy that is bright and colorful and cheerful and funniest when most paranoid.

The final reveal of info via text has never been done better than in 1976. The final reveal of info via text for Dick had to've been workshopped and had tons of options for them to choose from and they went with the one that's most visually fun at the expense of options that I belive had to've been funnier and truer to the characters. But whatever.

My only real complaint is that the Sixpence cover of "Dancing Queen" over the final credits isn't more Sixpencey. It's pretty much just ABBA with Leigh Nash's voice. Which is great! Don't get me wrong! But I would love to know what a true Sixpence-sounding cover would have been like.

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Double Indemnity (1944)

Don't date Barbara Stanwyck. That's the big lesson this month. She may work her way to loving you, but good luck that meaning you get a happy ending.

I last saw this c. 2002 and I've been saying it's great ever since. Not exactly a controversial opinion, but I'm glad to say I was right.

How happy when both the book and its movie can both be masterpieces.

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North by Northwest (1959)

So good! Holy smokes I loved it. The thrilling parts were so thrilling and the sexy parts were so sexy. The cast? Amazing. Incredible shots. Terrific score. I do not know what I was thinking in 2023. Makes me wonder if I made a similar mistake last month.

Anyway, great films deserve multiple watches. Especially if you're not sure the first time. All those people can't be totally wrong.

Incidentally, was this the last major movie to have such a huge 48-star flag? And was that overhead shot of the UN building based on Diebenkorn?

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The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

It took me over a decade, but thanks to Largesse's desire we've finally rewatched this movie—one that has since arrival become, I think, a plurality of cinephile's favorite Wes Anderson. I was a bit underwhelmed on first watch (in large part because some of the incidents of violence were staged such that it threw me entirely out of the movie. This time, perhaps prepared for such, I loved it. I don't know if it's my "favorite" but it's terrific and it really worked for me, aesthetically and emotionally and humorously.

The killer roles by Ralph Fiennes and Saoirse Ronan make me want to write a post arbitrarily ranking the best one-off performances in the Anderson canon. Maybe I'll do it. It'd be a fun distraction from the things I should be writing.

*Top*Twenty* one-off performancesin Wes Anderson movies

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Having just rewatched The Grand Budapest Hotel and having admired the exquisite performance of Ralph Fiennes—a performance some say was robbed of an Oscar nomination and others say is the finest performances in any Wes Anderson film—I got to thinking about another thing people say: How curious it is that a director so famed for reusing actors over and over has never again tapped the Fiennes well.

I almost wonder if some of these one-off performances are somehow sacrosanct to Anderson, and thus he cannot use the actor again? Some, of course, are unavailable absolutely (Gene Hackman, Bruce Willis), but I do think some of these actor-role combos are so perfect they have already reached the apotheosis of what can be done in a Wes Anderson film and thus—they should not be used again.

Who knows. Maybe.

Anyway, that set me to thinking about all the terrific performances by actors Wes Anderson has only used once.

The internet loves a good ranking, so that’s what I’m doing now. Ranking the best performances by actors who have appeared in only one Wes Anderson film. (If someone on this list appears in another Wes Anderson film later, you’ll be able to accurately judge the date of this post even if you recover it amongst our postapocalyptic wreckage.)

To make the options more manageable, I have determined to ignore all kids (whether the actor or the role), even when they are terrific. Which is often.

Also, someone must make a “leading”-enough appearance to qualify. I admit this is a fuzzy line. For instance, I am including Margot Robbie even though she appears in only one scene because a) she’s great in that scene b) that’s a vital scene c) she is the unquestioned star of the scene and d) reading an article about her excellence in that scene the same day I rewatched Grand Budapest is why I am writing this post.

I also decided to ignore people whose one appearance was not in a feature. In part because, although I’m up for watching “Hotel Chevalier” again someday, it feels like rewatching it without rewatching The Darjeeling Limited is a mistake; and I don’t remember Natalie Portman’s performance well enough judge without rewatching. Plus, I think she’s naked the whole time? Let’s give the woman some privacy.

Incidentally, I don’t plan to rewatch anything for purposes of this post. Which means performances from, for instance, Darjeeling or Steve Zissou, may get overlooked. I mean. The idea that I’m making a list for which Cate Blanchett is eligible and not included seems insane. Go watch Black Bag and I promise to finally revisit Steve Zissou, deal?

Still. I certainly hope you will insist on drawing my attention to vital work I have overlooked. Or, in my foolishness, thought was subtwenty. (However, if the person you recommend appeared in two movies and you just forgot like I forgot [prelistmaking] that Saorsie Ronan’s in The French Dispatch, that’s on you.)

1. George Clooney in Fantastic Mr. Fox

It can be difficult to compare voice work with “regular” acting but I think we can make a strong argument that Clooney’s effortless cool and capacity for heartbreak makes this the single strongest performance in the Wes canon. It takes all of Clooney’s best skills and distills them to their essence. And here they are. In a movie with some of the best voicework ever and a could-be overwhelming visual aesthetic, George Clooney carries the entire thing. Amazing.

2. Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums

Often credited as Hackman’s final great performance, we also have to consider that it just might be his greatest performance. It kinda sounds like he didn’t understand what Wes was all about, but he inhabits this world like the sun in the solar system. And like the sun, it doesn’t matter if he understands what’s going on. The planets have to understand him.

3. Ben Stiller in The Royal Tenenbaums

Maybe the single greatest line delivery in a Wes Anderson film is “I’ve had a rough year, Dad.” The line work not because of Ben Stiller alone, but he’s so good and this movie was almost a quarter century ago and that this is his only appearance might be more amazing than for anyone else on the list.

4. Danny Glover in The Royal Tenenbaums

The other old guy in The Royal Tenenbaums is vital to the movies success. Where Royal is wild and crazy and seeking mercy, Henry is stolid and calm and capable of being the embodiment of justice. I’m not sure Danny Glover gets the props he deserves for providing the foil Hackman needed to reach his heights.

5. Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel

With the exception of George Clooney as Mr. Fox, I’m not sure any other character in any other film has as much responsibility for their film as Fiennes does here. M. Gustave possesses unflappable veneer which makes his occasional cracks all the more significant—which in turn make his triumphs and catastrophes all the more deeply felt. Plus, does anyone has as much insane dialogue to deliver (outside the Dahl shorts, naturally)??

6. Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme

Cera is the first person on the list whom I expect to drop off it sooner rather than later. He was supposed to be in Asteroid City (I’m guessing in Steve Carell’s role [see below] but it’s fun to imagine him in any of them) and consensus is he fits into Wes’s world as well or better than anyone (Wes himself has said this), but it doesn’t change the fact that as of today, it’s his only Wes Anderson role, and he killed it.

7. Olivia Williams in Rushmore

If The Royal Tenenbaums represents full immersion into Anderoniana, the Rushmore is the last chance to see regular film interact with it. And Williams offers us a performance filled to the brim with realized humanity as she deals with purely Andersonian creations (by which I mean the two male leads). Although their performances are topnotch, it’s her eyes brimming with tears that will last forever.

8. Meryl Streep in Fantastic Mr. Fox

Streep : Clooney :: Glover : Hackman. Plus, she has a couple line deliveries that pierce the heart and make the stakes of her character’s silly fairytale world truly life or death

9. Mia Threapleton in The Phoenician Scheme

It’s easy to note that Wes likes to hire the children of famous people, but the thousands of auditions landed on Threapleton and she turned in a pure Anderson performance. She is the emotional heart of this movie and she does it through nearly unbroken stoicism. As such, she’s like the less-fun version of M. Gustave.

10. Margot Robbie in Asteroid City

I already discussed her above and linked to an entire article expounding her virtues, so let’s leave it at that.

11. Bruce Willis in Moonrise Kingdom

How many Bruce Willises are there? The man who was miscast in Die Hard only to make the film a bonafide classic was miscast again in Moonrise Kingdom only to let his weary sadness permeate this joyful picture so every spoonful has a depth of flavor only experience and failure can provide. I’m referring to the character of course and not to Mr. Willis.

12. Maya Hawke in Asteroid City

Another nepobaby who slays. Her face work is so good here. And in combination with her out-of-her-league voice makes her among the most memorable characters in a film filled with them. The brief moment we see her as the actor is an entirely different person. I’m not sure I even realized it was her on first viewing.

13. Alec Baldwin in The Royal Tenenbaums

The movie predates 30 Rock so I was unable to recognize what was, for most Americans, a recognizable voice. I was fine not knowing. Wes Anderson’s not above a literate narrator and there are excellent ones in Grand Budapest and Isle of Dogs, but in his solo turn in a Wes movie, Baldwin gives the definitive example.

14. Gwyneth Paltrow in The Royal Tenenbaums

Of all the Tenenbaum children, Margot might be the most iconic visually. They’re all sad, but her sadness is ineffably cool such that we’d almost be willing to trade places with her if only we looked so good. We want all three of them to come out of this better than they went in, but Margo, if she hasn’t fallen the furthest, has certainly fallen the largest number of ways.

15. James Caan in Bottle Rocket

Caan wasn’t the Wes choice; he was demanded by the producers. And he clearly had no idea what kind of movie this was going to be. How could he? It’s the first one there was. But he brought energy and madness all his own and it works. It often feels like he’s in a different movie, but maybe that’s why petty crooks under him can’t grasp the lessons he’s teaching.

16. Jude Law in The Grand Budapest Hotel

Tom Wilkinson as the elder version of the character just missed the list, which is a shame as they two together are part of their success. Regardless, Law’s role is largely to set off F. Murray Abraham’s performance and he does this admirably. He keeps the story rolling without requiring more for himself. An excellent straightman.

17. Matt Dillon in Asteroid City

A small role but deadpan funny. Imagine if Michael Cera had been given this one.

18. Steve Carell in Asteroid City

Another small role, but I’m not sure the joke of his schemes would work so well without his patented blend of brash confidence and absurdity.

19. Timothée Chalamet in The French Dispatch

Who knew he could do beautiful idiot so well?

20. Henry Winkler in The French Dispatch

It was hard to rank these final spots—who’s in, wh'o’s out—but Winkler’s brief turn as a dopish art collector was great. We hope to see him back in Andersonville, don’t we?

Poo-tee-weet: A Svithe for Michigan

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Although I was startled to learn this morning that President Nelson had died, it feels a little selfish or absurd or foolish to feed “sad” that a 101-year-old who lived his best timeline has died. “Celebration” feels like a more appropriate response.

But then, having those feelings circulating in my heart, to learn about the shooting at an LDS chapel in Michigan—multiple casualties, building on fire, no further details (there are some now; none good)—metamorphosed them into something else entirely.

But there is nothing sensible to say after a massacre. So instead, I thought I would share art from the Latter-day Saint sculptor Franz M. Johansen.

 

sources:
artaroundthecorner.org
artistsofutah.org
books.google.com
moa.byu.edu

 

the previous svithe on : thutopia | thubstack

The Meaning of Life

 

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Yesterday with the sophomores we read “The Meaning of Life Is Surprisingly Simple,” one of a series of similar articles by Arthur C. Brooks for The Atlantic. For our purposes today, let me share a brief excerpt:

You can [find the meaning of your life] most effectively—and without too much obsessing—by assessing your life along three dimensions, which the psychologists Frank Martela and Michael F. Steger defined in The Journal of Positive Psychology in 2016:

• Coherence: how events fit together. This is an understanding that things happen in your life for a reason. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can fit new developments into your narrative the moment they happen, but you usually are able to do so afterward, so you have faith that you eventually will.

• Purpose: the existence of goals and aims. This is the belief that you are alive in order to do something. Think of purpose as your personal mission statement, such as “the purpose of my life is to share the secrets to happiness” or “I am here to spread love abundantly.”

• Significance: life’s inherent value. This is the sense that your life matters. If you have high levels of significance, you’re confident that the world would be a tiny bit—or perhaps a lot—poorer if you didn’t exist.

You can think of these three dimensions as macronutrients: the elements that we need for a balanced and healthy sense of meaning in life. They might already be part of your spiritual diet. For example, Christians believe that life is significant because God loves us; that our purpose is to love and serve God and other people; and that God has a coherent plan for our lives, whether it is clear to us or not.

Anyway, today we have a librarian from the county come visit us and one of the things he pitched us was making zines. He left some office paper with a bunch of zine ideas printed on one side and instructions on how to foldup on the other.

I actually do this with my students every once in a while and so I have a collection of little minizines I’ve made over the years. The one I made today was inspired by yesterday’s reading. And since the meaning of life is relevant to all, I figured I’d share.

I hadn’t planned to post it here or I might have troubled myself to write a leeettle beet more clearly.

Ah well.

Seriously not joking: Make me the American Taskmaster

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I had never heard of Taskmaster before an article in The Atlantic a couple shows into the Jason Mantzoukas season (as we call it in America). I figured I’d watch a couple episodes and that would be it. After all, I don’t really watch tv. The only season of anything I’ve watched from beginning to end in the last couple years (other than, spoiler alert, Taskmaster) was the latest season of Andor. Not even Severence season two, even though I’m deeply excited about it, live in constant terror of it being spoiled, and know perfectly well it came out six months ago.

Anyway, other than occasional clips of Fool Us on YouTube, I never watch game shows or reality shows, so not for a moment did I think I would watch that entire season of Taskmaster as well as full seasons of Taskmaster New Zealand, Taskmaster Australia, and Taskmaster Junior.

And all those shows are good and have high highs, but the original Greg Davies remains the best of the Taskmasters and I think it’s for the reason the cognoscenti loves to go on about, a detail that I long dismissed as irrelevant but now suspect might be, in fact, exactly it: Greg Davies once worked as a teacher.

Presumably, from online chatter, he was a stereotypically strict and switch-wielding British schoolmaster—and who knows: maybe—but I can tell you that teaching certainly is excellent practice for finding clever and funny ways to offer criticism so people take their licks and willingly come back for more. I’ve spent approximately 20,000 hours in a classroom. I suppose thirty teenagers is similar chaos to five comedians.

You know, anytime I consume any kind of entertainment I think about where I would fit in as a participant. The obvious ones with Taskmaster are creating and completing the tasks, and the first many hours of watching I certainly imagined doing both. After all, both would be great fun and I believe I could do them well but, also, I don’t think I could do them better than any other reasonably talented individual. It’s come as a surprise to me, as I come near to finishing my fifth season of one Taskmaster or another to realize that my real strength would be in the role I had initially dismissed as the Taskmaster’s surface traits are being mean, bring rude, being cutting. But surface is the point. The episodes work because he is mean. The seasons work because you like the guy. In other words, it’s exactly like the first three weeks of AP Lit. At first I am scary and say awful truths about the quality of your writing you never wanted to hear. But I said them in a funny way that made it possible to keep listening. And then, by the end of the semester, you’re an English major.

Of course, my big disadvantage here is that I’ve never been a professional comedian, which is generally considered to be a requirement. And, having never been a professional comedian, I don’t bring a sizeable national audience. At best, you get my four thousand former students and maybe some of their parents, the ones who thought my share of back-to-school night was the best fifteen minutes of their week. (BTSN is improv night: parents through out suggestions and I perform in response. Or, in other words, it’s a Q&A.)

But, Little Alex Horne, if you’re listening, swing by my classroom sometime. Preferably at the beginning of a semester. Observe my endless bounty of facepunching metaphors.

You could do worse.

A couple other bullets:

1) I'm cheap. I only cost a SAG card, lodging for a week, and basically whatever minimum wage is for that job.

2) I don't have preexisting relationships with comedians to build on or to garner respect but hey. That's nothing new for me.

3) The Taskmaster is always a second job, so it's not like I'm relying on it. I'll keep teaching. Although maybe if it goes really well I'd make my first job writing books, but let's not hold our breath. I'll keep teaching. You can't get a better human-interest story than that.

4) I recognize that the Taskmaster also likely works as a writer on the show. While my experience in this field of writing is scant, I work well with others. It’ll be fine. Though it might be nice if the network paid for my sub?

 

My last Thubrina post (in which I talk about just about everything but Sabrina)

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First, apologies, Thubrina was blocked from Overdrive for reasons I’m told I received an email about but . . . did not. So you’ll have to wait for Hoopla if you want it from your library. Anyway. It’s still on Apple Books if that’s your thing. The print version’s still in utero.

Anyway, thanks for letting me blab about Thubrina this week. I realized a day or two ago that the experience of working on it was a lot like After Chadwick (obvious) but also like Dorian: A Peculiar Edition with Annotated Text & Scholarship, especially its endnotes.

(Incidentally, the link to Amazon is still sketchy after all these years!)

After Chadwick was inspired by Tyler Chadwick’s Field Notes on Language and Kinship, an excellent little book I can recommend without hesitation. I couldn’t read it without a notebook near me to write a few notes and many poems in response to Tyler’s language. I couldn’t help myself. His book inspired so many pieces from me I decided to make a little book of my own. Then I published it and didn’t write a single post about it. So in the last ten years at least I’ve gotten better at self-promotion?

But that was loose riff. While I suppose Thubrina too is “loose riff” it’s much more structured. Whatever Sabrina did, Theric had to follow. I have as many pieces in my book as she has in her album and they have the same titles.

Maybe that’s why Thubrina reminds me of Dorian’s endnotes? Those were determined by Nephi’s novel. Anything I felt justified an endnote became an obsessive little research project for me. And I learned fascinating things about the names of horses and pats of butter as I grew more and more obsessed with explicating aged facts to a new audience. I danced Nephi’s dance and thus the dance became my one.

Little obsessive projects (here’s an old one I just bumped into) are great delights. But do they have value for the reader?

I often say no. A lot of surrealist and dadaist and absurdist stuff offers waaay more pleasure to the creator than to the consumer. And while, in Thubrina, you’ll find an original short story about middle-aged people dealing with things like “business” and “death,” and a science-fiction sestina, you’ll also find things like this, the first stanza of “Sugar Talking“:

Put your lowboy where your mouthwash is
Your sugar tallboy isn’t working tonoplast, oh
Put your lowboy where your mouthwash is
Yeah, your paralinguistics mean shiver to me
Get your sorry assay to mine

I wrote this using the classic dada game n+7 in which all you need is an original text and a willing dictionary. The nonsense that results is certainly a pleasure and a joy, but is it art? Is it something someone should pay for? And, having paid for, should they read it? I can’t answer those questions.

But there is value in the process regardless.

I think of Tom Stoppard who has thubrinaed plays like Hamlet, Earnest, and Macbeth. And while some are masterpieces and some are good (one of these features a dadaist!), some are just . . . dada.

There are excellent reason Dada and Surrealist poems are remembered more for the ideas behind them than for the work themselves. And that’s because they get old real fast. The concept is better than the piece. And while that may work for grad school (screw you, James Joyce), the works themselves do not deserve immortality.

Thubrina has value right now in 2025 but it’s never ending up in my obituary and I’m not sure any its pieces will get collected in later collections of Thericonia. The value it has in the future is permission to play.

You all have permission to play.

Don’t wait.

Just play.

Especially play with what is big and popular because that stuff’s not special and it deserves to be kidded. And in a moment where certain powerful people are experimenting with curtailing your freedom to speak, now is an excellent time to write thubrinas all your own.

Back in the first Trump presidency, I wrote some “orange shovels”—golden shovels based on Trump tweets. I never did see any of them published (my hope was to publish three or four then publish a book’s worth, but finding a home for none meant I never wrote enough to make a book, more’s the pity), but lemme go find a short one to share now….

Orange Shovel #2: May 4, 2018

My sister stood by the door, holding her bag. “Going
somewhere?” She nodded. “Today, finally, to
stay with Dave.” I set down my phone and looked at her. “Dallas
again? Already?” She laughed and shook her head (the
only way, really, to respond to my, as she calls them, GREAT
LAFFS). The truth is, I don’t even know who she’s with. “State
his name!” is not the sort of thing a brother should ask after months of
on again off again (even he were too from Texas)
—a brother should know. Yesterday, tomorrow, today.
And now all I can do is look at her half smile. Leaving
me and afraid to confess she’ll see me—soon!

Another reason I never made a full book is because that much time with Trump’s nonsense ain’t good for the soul, but my point is:

The words of the powerful belong to us.

Do what you will with them.