Warner Crocker

Two Shows Worth Putting In Your October Streaming Queue

Sometimes it’s about the script. Sometimes it’s about the performers. Often it’s about the directors. The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix and The Changeling on Apple TV+ are two streaming series I’d recommend watching for the directors. Especially if you like something fun and a bit scary during the Halloween season.

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Personally, I’m not a fan of most of the Halloween genre. Hollywood has drained the life out of the fun and scary in the same way the overabundance of Christmas movies have stripped all of the joy out of that holiday viewing. But my wife enjoys a scary movie or two so we try to pick some that are worthwhile. We lucked out with these two.

Neither are perfect. Both have flaws. But both have directors who use the opportunity to experiment with their storytelling skills, the camera and the genre. Both are good viewing fun. Both are based on existing literature: The Changeling by Victor LaValle and The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. Although part of the fun with Usher is how so many other of Poe’s tales weave in and out of the main story. If you’re a Poe fan you’ll have a blast with the obvious and not so obvious references.

The directors for The Fall of the House of the Usher are Mike Flanagan and Michael Fimognari and the directors for The Changeling are Melina Matsoukas, Jonathan van Tulleken, Dana Gonzales, and Michael Francis Williams. All of the directors know when to crank it up and when to let their actors do their thing. There’s not much fear in creating fear here. But there’s more than enough intelligence in doing it well while only occasionally going over the top.

Both series also have some delicious performances especially Carla Gugino in Usher and Adina Porter and Jane Kaczmarek in The Changeling. That’s not to slight any of the other actors. Both casts have some remarkable opportunities and actors who take full advantage.

If you enjoy watching directors have fun I’d highly recommend both The Fall of the House of Usher and The Changeling. If there’s a disappointment it’s that there’s no news yet as to whether or not The Changeling will get a second season after it’s cliff hanger ending.

Sunday Morning Reading

Fall’s shadows deepen daily, so too do troubling clouds darkening our skies. And yet another Sunday morning dawns. With that here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share featuring a mix of interesting writing and topics unveiling a few writers looking into some of their own and the world’s shadows.

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The United States is consumed with what pretends to be politics but discerning eyes are on the difficulties in the Middle East. Wherever you cast your gaze you can find hatred fuelling conflict. But you can still discern moments of hope. Natasha MH looks in on that struggle in The Highland Between Conflict and Peace. Here’s a quote: “So much absence of truth is robbed by our ego, our vanity, our obsession for power and control.”

And on the western shores of Lake Michigan Greg Jaffe and Patrick Marley rack focus from the larger world view down to the local, yet still revealing the same challenges in The Pandemic Is Over In This Michigan County. The Mistrust Never Ended.

Speaking of smaller views into smaller pictures, Daniel Immerwahr in his piece Beyond The Myth of Rural America takes a look at Steven Conn’s The LIes of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is —and Isn’t.

Nitin Dangwal takes a look at The Language Of War and the stories it tells. Over and over again.

Robert Sapolsky doesn’t think Free Will is a thing. Scary concept given all that’s going on in the world currently. Corrine Purtill takes a look at his thinking in Stanford Scientist, After Decades of Study, Concludes We Don’t Have Free Will.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball links to a Washington Free Beacon piece, NYU Law Students Say Classmate Losing Job Offer Over Pro-Hamas Statement Is ‘Violence.’ John chimes in with his thoughts on this and I’m linking to Gruber’s link for his comment on that article. Well said.

There certainly seems to be a lot of bad news, fake news, news news, and it’s all tough to discern what’s what. (I’m bordering on depression just sharing these links). Annie Lowery takes a look at how frustrating it is for consumers these days in The Annoyance Economy.

And to close out this week’s edition David Todd McCarty takes a look at the discerning difference between discerning and difficult in A Difficult Man.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.

Next Moves in the Jim Jordan Speaker Gymboree

Noted liar, insurrectionist, and favorite of those who cheer on child sex abusers, Jim Jordan, has decided not to seek a third humiiating vote for Speaker of the US House of Representatives. He still wants to remain the Speaker designee of the GOP and is reserving the right to ask for a vote on his chances in the future.

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Here’s how this will play out. Congress has some big and serious issues on its doorstep. Action will need to be taken on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and hey, they actually have to vote on whether or not to keep the government open.

Regardless of which Republican has the gavel, compromises will need to be made. Compromise is a dirty word to the GOP. So, Jordan’s play is to let all of that work its way out with Patrick McHenry as the Speaker Pro Tempore calling the shots and taking all the fire.

If a motion is made to give McHenry more power that just sets the stage for one to be made to vacate the chair he would be sitting in after the compromises with Democrats actually keep the lights on. Then Jordan would move again. The situation is actually a setup that could be a win-win for Jordan in the long run and the rabble that wants to continue to gum things up in the House.

That prediction of course depends on the rest of the House Republicans continuing to keep their brains detached from the real world and not pulling off some other sort of compromise.

UPDATE: Apparently the temporary Speaker approach is now dead in the water. For now.

Netfilx Prices Going Up and the Internet Yawns

Once again Netflix is raising prices. Gotta keep that bottom line solid, show some growth, or maybe it’s to help fund the new Netflix Destination nonsense. Who knows. The reality is Netflix is raising prices. And the Internet just yawns. Sure, people are bitching on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, etc…and probably around a kitchen table or two. But the cash registers still ring.

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There’s really nothing to keep streamers and other “got you for life” services from raising prices. Except customers simply amputating the stream. But obviously not enough to staunch the bleeding. Certainly there are reasons people don’t want to let go, but doesn’t this seem just tailor made for an Internet protest moment?

I mean everything gets a protest these days. Most don’t matter. But I would think that any loosely organized Internet campaign getting users to cancel Netflix for a month or a quarter would be able to gather some quick steam before it fizzles out. One hit on those quarterly numbers might have an effect. But that’s probably just hot air. It would have to be large numbers to have any real meaning. It takes a lot to overcome inertia.

The wheel always turns and the prices will always go up. Pipers have to be paid and quarterly numbers have to show growth. Until they don’t.

How The Dems Can Strip the Pants Off Jim Jordan

The Democrats have a chance to strip the pants off Jim Jordan while the GOP continues to operate with their heads stuck up their nether regions. Insane speculation? You bet. But then everything we know about US politics in this moment is insane, so why the hell not?

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This speculation makes several assumptions:

1. Not much legislation is going to happen in the US House until after the next election in 2024 regardless of who is Speaker.

2. Some Republican puts forward a name other than Jim Jordan. This would have to happen on the floor of the House while in session.

3. There’s no way there’s going to be any sort of negotiated compromise candidate between the parties at this point. There will at some point be a GOP Speaker of the House. The wish-casting for a Dem speaker is just nonsense.

So, here’s how it works. A GOP member puts forward a name trying to keep Jordan from getting the requisite number of votes. Assuming the name is one that is somewhat palatable, say the current Speaker pro-tem, the Dems then vote in unison for that member. If the Dems throw 212 votes at another candidate who might garner 5 votes or more from the GOP side, Jordan is out of the game.

Could it work? I doubt it. But the math is there. The moment could be there. I doubt the courage is there on either side of the aisle. Given that I think chaos is going to reign until after the 2024 election regardless of who has the Speaker’s gavel, there’s nothing really to lose. We’ve already lost any simidgen of integrity Congress might have had. But there is a chance to punt Jim Jordan out of the picture.

Sunday Morning Reading

Time for another edition of Sunday Morning Reading. Today’s collection is a scattered selection of topics some of which might feel a bit dark. But it is a dark time scattering many of us into our corners or maybe to have an extra drink or two.

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For reasons, other than stupidity, we’re steal dealing with forces that want to ban books in America. This sadly isn’t a new thing, and Chris Klimek gives us A Brief History of Banned Books in America in this podcast transcript from the Smithsonian magazine podcast “There’s More To That.”

What’s happening and about to happen in the Middle East has the world on edge. Technology brings these moments to us in moments. Joanna Stern in the Wall St. Journal gives us a look in When Our Smartphones Became Windows to a War.

Continuing with that news of the moment Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic gives us There Are No Rules. As she describes it, our norms and values define how the world ought to work. We continually learn that’s not the reality.

Here’s a pallet cleanser with the first of a couple of tech topics. Jared Newman in Fast Company takes a look at the note-taking app Obsidian in The Cult of Obsidian: Why People Are Obssesed With The Note-Taking App.

If you’ve paid attention to my tech writings here you’ll know I’m having some challenges with Apple’s iCloud failings and flailings. I’m not the only one and my challenge isn’t the only iCloud issue. In TidBits Glenn Fleishman describes his in Cloudy With A Chance of Insanity: Unsticking iCloud Drive.

And back on the politics and follies of mankind beat, this piece by Michael Tomasky, I Never Thought I’d Live to See Democracy Die. But Now I Wonder is worth a look. He’s not alone in his wondering if Democracy is just a phase.

And after all of that, if you think you might need a drink, here’s a look at The Bad Law That Made Good Bars, from Peter Suderman on The Raines Law. Never heard of it? Pour yourself a beverage of choice and take a read.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.

Unimaginable?

Unimaginable? I keep hearing and reading how unimaginable the horrors that Hamas visited on Israel are. They are horrors. Brutal. Disgusting. They are not unimaginable. They are very imaginable. They are far too easily imaginable. We just don’t want those thoughts in our imaginations, in our nations, or anywhere in our consciousness. But they are far too imaginable.

Humans are capable of all sorts of things we want to banish from our imaginations and thus make them unimaginable. But in reality that’s a fool’s errand and only leads us deeper into shock and grief when the “unimaginable” happens. If we stop imagining away the reality that horrible, brutal, hateful people will do harm to others and instead will see some sort of light we’d be better off in my opinion. Otherwise it’s willful or wishful blindness that allows ignorance to grow. And those who visit the “unimaginable” on the world love to prey on the ignorant.

There’s an interesting cultural disconnect in our imaginations, especially at this time of the year when horror films dominate popular culture featuring horrendous humans doing horrendous things to other humans. Most see both the real world horrors and the Hollywood horrors through the same screens. Is there really a difference? Obviously there’s an appetite for that kind of “unimaginable” entertainment. And yet, we claim to be surprised and shocked when it happens in the real world. Imagine that.

We are not going to imagine hate away. We are not going to imagine violence away. We are not going to imagine ourselves into a safer world. We can work for one. And yes, that requires some imagination. But the world is what the world is and humans do to humans what humans are capable of doing. Especially when there’s profit in it.

Yes, I’d like a calmer, saner, more peaceful world where we can all live together with respect, kindness, and love. If there’s something that’s unimaginable to me, it’s that place.

Sunday Morning Reading

Fall’s cooler temperatures are settling in and it’s a Sunday, so time for some Sunday Morning Reading to share with a mix of topics covering a range of interests. Enjoy!

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Leading off is a bit of politics because, well, US politicians seem to be knocking each other over in their quest for who can do the most damage to their so-called profession. First up is an excellent piece from Will Bunch, America Needs to Talk About the Right’s ‘Red Caesar’ plan for U.S. Dictatorship. This is happening. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

And continuing in the poltiical vein, David Todd McCarty says We’ve Seen the Best Republicans Have to Offer. Sad. But true.

Off Camera is a terrfic piece by John Paul Scotto about his visits through his memories as seen through old home videos.

And speaking of things through lenses, the debate about over what exactly is a photo is heating up as Google (and others) keep moving the goal posts on doing things in post. Check out The Pixel 8 and the What-Is-A-Photo Apocalypse by Jay Peters.

Live theatre and the arts in general are going through some tough times. Spaced Out in Chicago: When Storefront Theatres Run Out of Storefronts by Amanda Finn in American Theatre Magazine focuses on the once thriving storefront theatre scene in Chicago and the challenges when real estate becomes less real.

James Parker in The Atlantic wonders what comedy is for in Comedians Only Care About Comedy. It’s a piece on the new Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture-and the Magic That Makes it Work. The joke’s on all of us if you ask me.

And David Todd McCarty gets a second hit this Sunday with his excellent The Myth of Fingerprints. As his subhead describes it “In which I explore the wisdom and efficacy of investing emotionally in the long-term outcome of America.” Read it.

And to close out this week, the week that brought us the anniversary of Steve Jobs’ death, take a read of this piece from Lisa Melton, simply titled Memories of Steve. She republished this April 2014 piece. It’s not just terrific. It’s an amazing memory from someone who was there.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.

Working Multiple Projects Again

One project, a staged reading of An Afternoon with My Mother by Fouad Teymour going in front of an audience tomorrow at Chicago Dramatists for the Out the Box festival. Great cast working with one of my favorite playwrights.

Starting pre-production on the next today, The Lehman Trilogy for Playhouse on the Square in Memphis. Opening scheduled for January 26, 2024.

Feels good (and strange) to be overlapping projects again.

Time for Apple To Come Clean About iCloud

Dan Moren of Six Colors might have found a hint that might help unlock the Apple Migraine Mystery I have slowly been piecing together clue by clue in my ongoing Apple iCloud woes. He recently ran into his own iCloud issues (thought different than mine) and blogged about what he suspects might be one of the root causes. Again, his situation is different than mine, but if his conclusions are correct it comes closer to confirming my suspicions that iCloud is the culprit.

Here’s an excerpt from his post Bitten by the black box of iCloud.

. . . after perhaps 20 minutes on the phone, he seemed to hit on something. I heard him laugh and say something along the lines of “that explains it” and then, with my consent, put me on hold. When he came back, he said—and I’m not exactly quoting, but close enough: “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you any more than this, but all your services should be back up pretty much exactly 12 hours after they went down.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you any more than this, but all your services should be back up pretty much exactly 12 hours after they went down.” It’s a tantalizing clue for what I think might be behind this migraine mystery. Spoiler alert, Moren saw things begin to return to almost normal after waiting the requisite 12 hours.

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Backstory

Here’s a brief recap of what I’ve been tracking with my iCloud migraines. All features relating to Continuity/Handoff/Sign in with Watch would just switch off. No warning. No nothing. Just working one minute. Then not the next. Intriguingly I began to notice this would happen on the morning of each new OS update (iOS, watchOS, and Mac). This has been going on for almost a year since the fall of 2022. This includes beta releases since WWDC 2023, even though I ran no betas on any of these devices. The pattern that I began associating with OS releases became apparent to me in late spring of this year. Things flipped off the mornings of iOS (and sibling) releases from 16.4.1 last April and has continued each morning through the release of 17.0.3.

I would try to fix the issues with a series of reboots that for a time seemed to rectify things, but then that eventually failed as a solution. And then I noticed that within a day or so, often the next morning, things would magically come back, with zero intervention from me. Since this fall’s releases of iOS 17 and its siblings this has also occurred with through 17.0.3 which was released on Wednesday of this week.

Add this to the clues.

When this situation first surfaced last Fall I spoke with Apple Support. After jumping through the usual hoops and getting to a higher tier of support we would eventually step through possible fixes until we reached the dreaded “log out of iCloud” solution. I say “dreaded” because if you ever need to do that there’s never any degree of certainity that everything will come back to “normal.”

And then…

I was literally on a support call in July when we had reached the moment I knew was coming. I said to the rep that I was going to have to sign out of iCloud. And the answer was “no, we don’t suggest you do that.” I was floored. This was the first time I had gotten that type of response. Of course my response was to ask what I should do. I was placed on hold and then the response came “our engineers are aware of this and we suggest waiting until they reach a solution. We’re working on it.” The next morning things were working again.

That sounds somewhat similar to what Dan experienced although there was no mention of a 12-hour timeline. I’ve gotten this “please wait” suggestion on this issue three times now. The third one was a most interesting reiteration of the first two. I’ll recount that below after some more backstory.

Backstory continued

I’ve had two previous show stopping issues with Apple products. Both times I’d reached the point when I was ready to toss in the towel. The first was with the original Apple Watch. The second was with Notes.

Both times I was getting zero satisfaction from Apple Support. So, I decided to write Tim Cook. I explained my dissatisfaction with the lack of solutions. Within a couple of days I got a response from someone obviously higher up in the chain saying they would work to make sure I was satisified. They were always very nice, very thorough and followed up as if their job depended on it.

The first time resulted in me receiving a new Apple Watch after returning the malfunctioning one. The second resulted in me getting connected to an engineer. That experience led to them essentially taking Notes on my account offline after I saved them all locally. They rebuilt my Notes database on their end. Called me back. I logged in and almost everything came back. (The original problem is that Notes would not sync at all and some data was getting lost as I may work situation was I was switching back and forth between devices.)

In both instances in follow up, I was asked not to write about these interactions. Until today I haven’t. So given that after Apple’s latest round of OS updates didn’t solve anything I thought I would reach out to Mr. Cook once again. That third time I referred to earlier was not the charm. Here’s the response I got back:

Hello Warner,

Thank you for your recent correspondence to Apple. We apologize for the delay in our response.

The parties with whom you have previously communicated are empowered by Apple to address concerns such as yours. In each of your communications you have been provided with the same answer from Apple. According to your case number 102054684817: Apple is still investigating the issue and we won’t be able to provide an exact ETA on when it will be resolved. There is no further escalation point that will deal with this matter differently.

We regret that you are not satisfied with this response, because Apple strives for customer satisfaction. It is our sincere hope that this situation will not diminish your enjoyment of the products and services that we provide.

You can also provide feedback to Apple by visiting Product Feedback – Apple.

We apologize for any inconvenience or frustration.

Kind regards,

Apple

Back to the plot

For quite some time based on the clues I’d assembled prior to Dan Moren’s post I have thought this issue I was dealing with was tied to iCloud. I’ve gotten no firm confirmation of that from Apple Support. And given that others I’ve talked to about this suffer from different sets of iCloud issues it has literally been a slog to try and piece it all together.

Apple has quite a few services, features, and devices tied into each user’s AppleID. Scratch that. All of them are tied in. You literally can’t go anywhere within the Apple ecosystem without it. Frankly, it’s one of the attractions. But it’s becoming less so. Comments from support personnel and engineers have indicated, but not directly pointed the finger at iCloud as the potential culprit.

And some of Moren’s comments make sense to me along this line of thinking. For example.

Now, in my initial forays on social media, I had gotten a reply from someone on Mastodon mentioning that Apple’s iCloud servers were sometimes put in maintenance mode for 12 hours—but upon going back and looking for that specific reply, it was nowhere to be found.

It did, however, support the theory that something had gone wrong with the particular iCloud server on which my account was located.

In one of my calls I pressed the support person who warned against signing out of iCloud as to why. It was quite telling that I couldn’t get a response other than tacit agreement with my statement that it was problematic that things never came completely back from signing out and signing back in. That didn’t used to be the case. I can’t begin to remember how many times I’ve signed out and back into iCloud at Apple’s suggestion.

Moren did see things “flip” back on 12 hours later. After I read his post I made a note to check things out when I returned home after rehearsal in the evening to see if my devices had seen any such flipping. (My devices flipped off around 8am CDT). I checked about 11:15pm CDT and sure enough everything was working. I normally don’t wake up my Macs until morning and that’s typically when I would discover things had flipped back on.

So I’m feeling my suspicions firm up. This is all tied into how Apple’s iCloud services work behind the scenes. Apple doesn’t want to talk about that. I’m in violent agreement with this statement from Dan Moren:

Moreover, if this was some kind of scheduled procedure, why not warn affected users ahead of time? The idea that my email—which I rely upon for work—and a slew of other services might be interrupted for essentially an entire workday with no notice whatsoever is technological malpractice. My cable company tells me when it’s doing work in my area and there might be service hiccups, and you can bet that the hosting provider I use for my website communicates whenever there might be something that affects my service.

And this:

The thing is Apple fundamentally doesn’t want you to think they’re like “other” service companies. They’re not going to send you emails about upcoming outages, or a digest of all the spam that silently got blocked from your account so you can find the ones that should have gotten through, because it flies in the face of the image that Apple wants to put forth, that their magical system “just works.” But the problem with a black box is that once you’re inside, you have no idea what’s going on—and it’s even harder to get out.

Look. I get it. There’s no easy or ideal time if there’s work of some kind going on in the backend that might lead to a service disruption. But Apple should at least empower its support personnel to communicate to users who call with an issue if that is the case. Even if that won’t solve the problem until some engineer somewhere flips things back on, it would at least remove some frustration and wasted time in the support conversations.

I’m beginning to think that Apple keeps this as another one of its secrets from not only users but user facing personnel as well. If so, it’s a self-destructive policy that gives lie to Apple’s image-making. Even if “a small minority of users” are facing this issue at any one time. If true, it certainly speaks to how Apple values what it perceives as its reputation over the cash value of paying Apple support personnel to sit on lengthy support calls that can’t offer answers.

I encourage you to read Moren’s post in full. In the meantime maybe I’ll find and configure a 12-hour timer as one of the fancy new interactive widgets that I can activate the next time Apple flips the switch.