Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Verified, but limited!

This is a big f—–g deal.

Shocking, but not surprising.

Wetsuit optional.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity.

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

No one could have predicted…

What fresh hell is this?

Naturally gregarious and alpha

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

Mission Accomplished!

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

We have all the best words.

Just a few bad apples.

Lighten up, Francis.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

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Late Night Bad Ideas Theatre Open Thread

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One of the minor tragedies of the pandemic is that witless, exploitative crap gets dug out of the virtual garage and dumped on a desperate public.

I really thought this was a twitter joke, but no: Genuine Hollywood professionals took the money to make this into a movie, which sounds every bit as witty and attractive as a rubber dog turd. But at least you can scoop out the base of a rubber turd and use it for a key hider…

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Later Night Open Thread

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Looks like we could use a new thread.

Myself, I don’t have much to report. Writing a lot. Summer proceeds apace. NYC is lovely as always, and safer than a lot of American cities right now. Been chewing my way through the two extant Kingkiller Chronicle books. Currently watching Luther, Avatar, and My Hero Academia. Samwise is doing well, as always. He’s currently enjoying a takeout bag.

Later Night Open Thread

What fun stay-at-home activities does everybody have planned for tonight? I will probably do one of the things I just mentioned. Play with a paper bag, perhaps.

Open thread, clearly.

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What Do You Know About These New Shows?

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What do you guys know about these new shows on HBO?

I can watch the trailers and read about them, but you guys are more tuned in than I am.  What’s the word on the street?  The only one I knew about was Perry Mason.

There are 7 that look interesting to me, 8 if you count Perry Mason.  Speaking of which, I am liking Perry Mason.  Now that we’re halfway through, what do you think?

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Also, for anyone who missed it yesterday, gwangung had a zoom reading of his play yesterday.  Here’s the post where we talked about it:

She Devil of the China Seas

Tickets were $5, I think, or whatever people wanted to give, but it is now available on YouTube.

There’s no obligation to donate in order to watch it, but if anyone wants to make a donation, you can do so at this link.

 

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TRAILERS!

Tokyo Vice (coming in 2020, couldn’t find a trailer)

Upcoming Shows on HBO

 

The Third Day (Fall 2020)

 

The Undoing  (Fall 2020)

 

We Are Who We Are  (sometime in 2020)

 

I May Destroy You  (6 episodes in)

 

The Undoing (Fall 2020)

 

I Know This Must Be True

 

Perry Mason  (4 episodes in)

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In Need Of A Good Book?

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In late February/early March, when everything was juuust starting to fall apart, I read a lovely book that enveloped me in a comfy fantasy world, much like the warm honey that is one of its motifs. The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern’s sophomore novel, tells the story of… well, it tells a good number of stories. The throughline is Zachary, graduate student and son of a fortune teller, who is pulled inexorably towards The Starless Sea, a mysterious land full of stories, every story, all the stories.

Each of the book’s sections alternates chapters between Zachary and another text, often a storybook he has found. While it first seems like these are exposition dumps or thematically-appropriate asides, in the end it all weaves together to be a meditation on love, narrative, and the nature of stories. At its core, it is also a romance. Here is one example of an interleaved text, which should give you a good idea of whether you want to read the other pages; click through to see the end:

Looking at reviews to jog my memory, now, I’m seeing that some readers found it weird, pretentious, and too intertextual. But I won’t let that stop me! Besides, I have a feeling there are more than a few weird, pretentious lit-crit types here. I can see where the reviewers are coming from, though. And it does take a little work, as with any non-linear narrative. So if you find such things off-putting… you have been warned. I’ll file this one under “it’s not for everyone, but it is for me.”

Consider this a recommendation thread for all your book, TV, movie, etc. needs! I’ve been watching Bosch, which one of you yokels recommended, and it’s pretty good. Going to start Homeland and Upload soon. What about you?

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Open Thread: Programming Notes for the Weekend

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And since at least a couple commentors will be interested — Perry Mason:

… From avid armchair detectives to Supreme Court justices, everyone loves Perry Mason, right? But what did we ever really know about the guy, other than he almost always won his cases? Gardner, who died in 1970, wasn’t inclined to give Perry much of a backstory — believing, perhaps, that too much personality interfered with the formula. Perry was forever right, and could always dig up the evidence to prove his case at the last minute. He’s a classic character, with the all the dimension of cardboard.

That’s why Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald’s superb new “Perry Mason,” an eight-episode miniseries premiering Sunday on HBO, is the perfect lesson in how to update an icon, honoring the character by giving him the emotional depth and complexity that he previously never had.

Don’t get the wrong idea. The Perry Mason we meet in this version isn’t a pushover. As played by Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”), this Perry is a day-drinking (and night-drinking) underemployed private investigator who gets into plenty of unseemly scrapes. He makes his living, barely, by surreptitiously taking pictures of movie stars in flagrante delicto, in violation of moral clauses in their contracts; the studios then pay Perry to make the photos go away.

Perry’s wife (Gretchen Mol) left him and took their young son with her. He clings to what’s left of his deceased parents’ defunct dairy farm on the outskirts of a rapidly expanding — and always corrupt — Los Angeles. He’s also suppressing some pretty intense trauma from his time on the French battlefields in World War I…

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Medium Cool with BGinCHI – What Helped Shape the Person You Became?

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Tonight we kick off Episode 9 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series:  Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

You can find the whole series here:  Medium Cool with BGinCHI

Tonight’s Topic:  What Helped Shape The Person You Became?

Take it away, BG!

We’re going to keep this week’s Medium Cool simple, as it’s been a trying, emotional week. I’d like this to be a space where we not only stretch ourselves and do some thinking, but also where we can just come together as a community and talk about the things we love and are passionate about.

So, for today’s Medium Cool, tell us about a book, or a movie, or a TV show that shaped how you see the world, how you treat people, or some other life lesson you learned that has always stuck with you.

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Note: BG has a “thing” with kids in his neighborhood today – the dad of his son’s friend is a musician who is playing a neighborhood porch concert.  Complete with social distancing and masks, of course!  So we will be on our own much more than usual as BG will have to bail early and then come back to the thread later. ~WG

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Medium Cool with BGinCHI – What If?

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Tonight we kick off Episode 5 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series:  Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

Tonight’s Topic:  What if?

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – What If...

Take it away, BG!

In this week’s Medium Cool, we ponder the now only half-hypothetical question, “What if you and everyone you knew were forced to stay at home for 2+ weeks and could only choose one author or filmmaker?”

The twist is that once you’ve made your choice, you get the use of one of those Men in Black Neuralyzer thingies that erases your memory of that person’s work. So you’d be reading or watching it for the first time.

What literary or cinematic body of work would you gift yourself?

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