Things to like
This is an intense week! And an intense week in an intense year. So I thought I'd share a few wonderful things that I liked recently and imagine a lot of other people might also like:
The first is Bell Book and Candle. Beatnik witches in a snowy Greenwich Village. Makes me wish I had a cat. Kim Novak basically plays a cat. Also, the good thing about a Christmas movie about witches is that it's on time from October through December.
The next one is The Booksellers. I'd put off watching this documentary because I thought it might be too depressing (I *know* cities are gentrifying and that the culture market is cursed by the incompatibility of culture and markets etc etc); but it wasn't like that all. It was quite uplifting, to my surprise. About an odd passion in transition; never quite in step with the modern world, and resilient in spite of everything. Made me miss Michael :/
I don't normally read thrillers or mysteries, but these are the books I'm finding it easier to get into these days. Wounded by Percival Everett is terrific — surprised it hasn’t been adapted yet, since it lands what Taylor Sheridan has been trying to do all this time with his scripts and the dialog is really crisp. Also, I randomly picked up Tana French's The Witch Elm the other week. I had heard it wasn’t her best but it was a true page-turner for me so I look forward to the others.
Sigrid Nunez's Where Are You Going Through is a perfect novel just like The Friend. She can deliver intensity with lightness and the stakes are nothing short of life-and-death while written casually. Contains a sweet and utterly unexpected interaction with a himbo personal trainer that is one of my favorite scenes in a book in ages.
I haven't finished Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future yet, but it has followed up so nicely with Nunez's book: the latter, a despairing take on climate change, and the former, a story of working toward utopian solutions. It is amazing and I'm going to just ignore that the utopian proposal for tech companies is a Lanier/Yang Gang idea of commodifying users backwards (in the utopian future, platforms *pay you*). There was a nice conversation with the author on The Coode Street podcast; where he and the hosts talked about the "new wave" of science fiction as a "rolling wave"—all these countries around the world are having the moment that the United States did in the 60s with Le Guin, Delaney, PKD and etc.
Not sure what I'll move on to next. Maybe David Peace's Red-Riding Quartet?
And I have kept up with Fringe, well, somewhat. It is the perfect show for me, a person who likes the idea of Boston and has sentimental attachment to the idea of Boston, but would ultimately prefer it if the whole place were exchanged for Vancouver.
The setting is always awry; and often just after an aerial establishing shot of the very real city of Boston. I was confused for about five minutes (until finally googling) when I was unsure if a subway stop on the show had been entirely invented (Kent Street. It's real.)
Just this year, I learned that the part of the state where I grew up is a longtime area of interest to paranormal investigators. It's a strange thing to discover late. I missed out on this whole Eerie Indiana childhood I could have had befriending Bigfoot hunters and getting lost in the swamp looking for will-o'-the-wisp. These are the shittiest towns in Massachussetts and people from Ancient Aliens just hang out there? How didn’t I know? Sometime I hope to get back and write about it; especially since it seems a lot of it has to do with paranormal internet communities in recent years.
One thing I like about Fringe is how it depicts technology in culture just before the world would be consumed by it. One of my favorite parts is when the lead character Olivia goes undercover as a singularity enthusiast in order to get information from pharmaceuticals bureaucrat."Science and technology have reached a point where our means are finally catching up with our imagination,” she tells him. “And the only thing preventing us from doing truly visionary work are these moral-based restrictions that lawmakers put up in the name of public policy.” Imagine just making casual conversation with a line like that.
Thanks for reading!