Culture – Page 12 – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

A Trip Worth Taking: Billy Joel Documentary ‘And So It Goes’

Terrific trip down my lanes of memories.

Talk about bringing back the memories and the feels. The excellent Billy Joel documentary, And So It Goes, is a must watch if you’re a fan. Or even if you’re not. I am a fan and have been since I worked a load-in, load-out shift for a Billy Joel concert back in my college days and partied with his road crew.

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The excellent two-part documentary chronicles the ups, downs, and of course there’s plenty of Joel’s music, because it’s always about the music and where it took Joel and those of us who grew up with him. It’s more than a trip down memory lane, the four hours is a well spent vacation back in time. I highly recommend this.

It’s interesting, and I dare say rewarding, that two of the music artists I grew up with, Joel and Bruce Springsteen, have had excellent recent documentaries about their careers. As they and I both hit later decades of life it’s a good way to look back and dredge up memories often buried in the hurly burly of the current day to day. I consider these documentaries on HBO (or whatever it calls itself this week) gifts well received.

For those interested further, there’s a playlist of the music from And So It Goes available on all the usual music streaming services. If your library, like mine, is filled with the entire catalog of Joel’s music, it’s worth adding just to track and hear how some of his songs have matured, yet not lost any of relevance, and even gained both relevance and resonance with time.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Rest in Peace, Ryne Sandberg

Chicago Cubs legend passes away.

Watcing the Chicago Cubs lose to the Brewers last night when word came over the broadcast that Ryne Sandberg, the Cubs superstar second baseman had died, succumbing to cancer.

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Hit me harder than I would have thought imaginable. Not sure exactly why, but guessing it’s because Sandberg represented an era in my life when life itself seemed simpler, more sane, and as true as a line drive cleanly smacked to the outfiled.

I’m probably deluding myself with those thoughts, but that’s how it struck me last night.

Sandberg played baseball. He was a great at what he did. By all accounts he was genuinely kind to others. That’s all we should ever aspire to because in the end that’s all that matters.

And it is more than enough.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

A bit of this, a bit of that. All good bits.

It’s the Dog Days of Summer and it’s been a hot one so far. We’re traveling again, but there’s still some interesting Sunday Morning Reading to share. Some of it hopeful, some elegiac. Some just geeky and fun. Enjoy.

Kicking things off is a piece in The Atlantic from Anna Deavere Smith called When You Don’t Look Like Anything. She’s a singular artist always worth paying attention to. Her story of her 50-year search for the American character is certainly more than worth your time. Damn good stuff.

A.R. Moxon popped up on my radar this week with a piece called Total Eclipses. It’s part 2 of a series, the first being Be Bolder, Not a Boulder. If you’re like me and looking for any light at the end of any tunnel these days, do give both pieces a read.

NatashaMH offers up An Ode To The Poetic Detours. It’s about writing and where she finds inspiration, but more broadly, it’s about observing, noticing, listening, seeing, and feeling between the lines we sometimes get trapped within.

Will Dunn asks Are Emoji’s Killing Language? I’ve been saying they are for quite some time. For the life of me I don’t understand why we seem intent on regressing back to an age of hieroglyphics instead using the complex beauty of words and language.

Mathew Ingram says The Google Link Economy Is Dying and It’s Not Coming Back. He’s not wrong. Actually, he’s very right.

Health is a big deal in tech these days, especially when it comes to adding features to improve monitoring what’s going on in our bodies. Frankly, as someone who uses medical devices for monitoring my diabetes, the promises to add that kind of monitoring to smart devices, along with blood pressure and other conditions, sound hollow, seeming as realistic to me as self-driving cars. We may get there one day, but for now it’s mostly a clever way to market something new to increase the bottom line. Victoria Song takes a look at Samsung’s recent effort to check out our level of antioxidants with their smartwatch in I ‘Fooled’ Samsung’s New Antioxidant Feature With a Cheez-It.

Much has been made of Paramount’s caving to Donald Trump, leading to the firing of late not comedian Stephen Colbert. That was quickly followed up by the Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s skewering new season opener of South Park. Paramount paid up, got its merger, and in an Aristotelian, if not Mel Brooksian sense there’s some grand comedy in the entire thing. I’m a fan of Alexandra Petri’s piece examining the moment pre-South Park titled Are You Laughing Yet?

Sometimes we just need to laugh at what feels like no laughing matter.

(Image from Milen Kolev on Unsplash)

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. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Are You Laughing or Crying?

Comedy kills or killing comedy?

Just a quick link to this piece from Alexandra Petri that had me laughing called Are You Laughing Yet? She also had me angry, but then that’s my state of things these days. I laughed because the writing and commentary is excellent. I got angry, because, well if you’re not angry at what’s going on these days, you’re either dead, or… well, I’ll just leave it at that.

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Petri has a blisteringly funny take that begins with Trump’s takedown shakedown of Stephen Colbert via his pressure on Paramount. But it quickly spins into a larger take that’s well worth your while, especially if you enjoy comedy.

Well worth your time. Scroll back up and click the link.

(Image from Miguel Alcântara on Unsplash.)

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

With aging comes awareness. Or at least it should.

We’re on Lake Time this weekend, but there’s still time to share some Sunday Morning Reading.

Two weeks ago I shared a piece from youngster David Todd McCarty titled When I Was Old. I’m resharing it this week since I celebrated a birthday on Friday, getting one year closer to marking seven decades on this rock. Also sharing another great piece from David, called I Was Told There’d Be More.

“Scented memories.” I like those two words put together by NatashaMH in her piece, The Fragile Geometry of Becoming.

I’ve been an Elmore Leonard fan for as long as I can remember. Anthony Lane’s Elmore Leonard’s Perfect Pitch may not be perfect, but it is damned close enough.

David Struett delivers a terrific ode to Chicago bike messengers, their culture and their jobs in Meet Chicago’s Last Bike Messengers. Here’s How They Survive.

You might notice a touch of sentimentality and reminiscing in the pieces above. Comes with the thoughts during a birthday weekend. Fair warning though that most of the links shared below are a bit darker, and yes, more political than those above. With aging comes awareness. Or at least it should.

Mathew Ingram wonders What Do We Do When The Facts Don’t Matter? I think we’re not liking what we’re finding out.

Mike Masnick’s piece Facism for First Time Founders offers the next generation a clue or two, assuming the current generation doesn’t crash it all before they get a chance to discover them.

I’ve written about the concept of enshittification in tech quite a bit. Mostly as regards the Internet. Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman take a look at The Enshittifcation of American Power.

Another big contributor to enshittification is the media who increasingly seem more and more clueless and devoid of any self awareness. Charlotte Kim takes a look Inside The Media’s Traffic Apocalypse.

Speaking of things toxic and shitty, Adam Aleksic explores How Incel Language Infected The Mainstream Internet — and Brought It’s Toxicity With It. I’ve spent almost 70 years on this planet. I have no idea why guys turned into such misanthropic, self-loathing idiots.

In a world seemingly more and more intent on criminality, there are very few surprises, but there are legacies. Jessica Winter’s What I Inherited From My Criminal Great-Grandparents. Great story.

To conclude this week I’m sharing a film review by Sonny Bunch. This one of the new film Eddington. I haven’t seen the film. I plan to. Rarely does a review encourage or discourage me from seeing a film. If it’s anything like Bunch describes one way or the other I’m sure it will be worth it as it sounds like a fun, yet conflicted, summary of lots of things we’ve all been living through since 2020, and continue to do so. I’ll leave it with this quote:

The feed never stops, the algorithm never tires. There’s always more. It never ends. Just a few more videos. You can sleep later. You can never sleep, if that’s what you’d prefer. Who knows what you’ll miss when you’re asleep?

And we wonder why everyone has gone a little nuts.

You Can’t Break What You Never Had

You can be surprised to see what you thought was real shatter.

The one thing I hope people take away from this entire episode of our lives is that contracts, oaths, laws, constitutions, compacts, vows, etc… matter less than the character of those who swear by and agree to them.

Daniel tafjord 9p7nBsrcCt0 unsplash. This is not new. But we delude ourselves into thinking breaches of character and integrity are rare things, not run of the mill occurences.

The only reason we have contracts, oaths, laws, constitutions, compacts, vows, etc… is because humans have always had inherit distrust in one another. We’ve stitched trust together from of words, and sometimes deeds, to keep us together and sometimes apart. But every garment has frays and tears, as does the fabric of our lives.

Everything breaks in the end.

(Image by Daniel Tafjord on Unsplash)

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Notice the good things amidst the bad.

It’s been a week. But I repeat myself. These days it seems like that’s always the case. Superman’s back. (Again.) So too are this season’s butterflies. Everything circles back. Today’s Sunday Morning Reading is a potpourri of topics of interest that stroke a number of chords, some familiar, some not so, some good, some not so. Either way, enjoy.

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In That Was Good, Merlin Mann says that smart people always find the best reasons for being very sad. I can relate. He suggests the cure for that might be noticing some good things. Even the small ones. Check it out. It’s a good thing.

This week featured the news revisiting the subject matter of several plays I’ve written or directed in the past. One of those, Inherit the Wind, the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, is a semi-fictional retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. This year marks the 100th year anniversary of that trial. Neil Steinberg has a terrific piece, both commemorating and commiserating. Given how short a distance we’ve traveled in this circle we keep walking in. Check out 100 Years Ago, The Scopes Trial Gripped The Nation, And Here We Go Again.

Twice a week on social media I post “This is your now weekly, and continuing reminder that we’re still fighting the Civil War.” Frankly, I don’t see it any other way for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain. I don’t often post interviews in this column, but I’m making an exception this week to post Amita Sharma’s interview with political scientist Barbara Walter who has helped forecast civil wars in other countries. Take a look at San Diego Political Expert Details Steps That Could Lead To US Civil War.

I blow hot and cold on Tom Nichols’ political commentary. I very much like his piece Damn You All To Hell! Find out his thoughts on how Hollywood taught a generation to fear nuclear catastrophe. It might have worked with that horror. Funny, yet sad, how it hasn’t worked with all of the goings on currently.

History is indeed always an incomplete picture that’s always evolving and struggling to take hold. In Texas Man’s Fight To Move A Lynching Marker Sparks New Battle For Truth, Christina Carrega pinpoints one of those moments of evolution.

Mathew Ingram says We Shouldn’t Blame AI For The Stupid Things That People Do. I agree. AI is the prime example.

Chris Castle takes on a piece of the Section 230 argument, thinking that a new theory of liability is emerging, grounded not in speech, but in conduct. Give a look at The Duty Comes From The Data: Rethinking Platform Liability In The Age of Algorithmic Harm.

And to round out the circle this week, take a look at David Sparks’ A Remarkable, Unremarkable Thing. Don’t let the small things go unnoticed.

(Image from Anya Chernik on Unsplash)

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. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Mixed feelings and mixed emotions on a Summer Sunday by the lake.

The 4th of July weekend is wrapping up in the U.S. and many are having mixed feelings this year. Today’s edition of Sunday Morning Reading will feature some excellent writing on some of those mixed feelings in addition to some interesting reads on familiar topics from familiar writers, and some not so familiar. Enjoy.

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First up, let’s take a look at Elizabeth Lopatto’s view on the state of things in the states in her post The American System of Democracy Has Crashed. Excellent. Should be required reading.

Neil Steinberg also has thoughts well worth your time in He’s baaaaaaack.

Jack Hopkins gives us The 4th of July: What We Were Meant to Celebrate — and How We’re Failing It. Again, worth a read as we close out the long holiday weekend and this section of today’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Now for some catching up on some links I’ve delayed too long in sharing.

First up is The Chosen Few and the Cost of Global Silence from NatashaMH. History repeats. All the damn time. As she also demonstrates in this piece The Cruelty of Indifference.

Relative youngster, David Todd McCarty writes about aging in When I Am Old.

Writers are having trouble finding the right fit when it comes to how to make a living. Matthew Ingram tells us Why Substack Shouldn’t Be The Future of Online Publishing. We

Chuck Wendig argues about and bemoans the loss of downtime in his writing process given all that’s happening around us in A Small But Vital Thing, Taken.

While writers search for new ways and new homes, Joshua Rothman wonders What’s Happening To Reading?

Never Forgive Them is a piece from Edward Zitron from December 2024 that seems relevant again in more ways than it was intended then.

Composer and poet Stan Stewart recently had his computer die on him. He writes about what he lost and found in Of Dead Computers and Really Living.

Matteo Wong says The Entire Internet Is Reverting to Beta. Sure everything is a janky work in progress, certainly in the janky days of AI. But I think that’s how those who think they run the joint like running the joint.

And to close out this week, take a good look at this wonderful long read from Eric Konigsberg from all the way back in 2001, entitled My Uncle The Hit Man.

Image from Giuseppe Argenziano on Unsplash.

Not as Self-Evident as Some Would Have You Believe

History twists and turns in often strange ways.

Some things are indeed self-evident. Some of that evidence gets white washed away.

This video was created as an ad by Ancestry.com to encourage folks to use that service to learn more about their ancestry. It feels particularly relevant again on this 4th of July, 2025.

I can’t vouch for the claim that all of those pictured are actual descendants of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. I can claim that I’d like that to be the case, because to my mind it would be a nice addition to the mythology surrounding this country’s founding and almost 250 years of existence, now that what those who did the signing actually stood for is under threat.

History may be written by the victors. But there’s always more than what the chapters convey.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sinners: A Review

Worth sinking your teeth into.

I saw Ryan Coogler’s Sinners in a movie theatre when it was released in April. I rarely go to movie theaters these days, but in this one instance I was certainly glad I did. Now that Sinners has reached streaming on the 4th of July, I hope anyone who didn’t have a chance to see it on the big screen will take time to view the fireworks it provides at home. I’m looking forward to a second watch. It is excellent. It’s not perfect. But it is sublime in its imperfections.

Sinners01 978x652. Ryan Coogler knows how to tell stories. He knows how to tell stories in big ways. He knows how to tell stories that entertain and unsettle. He knows how to weave the various strands of history, culture, and popular story tropes together in ways that spin out a fresh new cinematic delight that redefines the old and refreshes the tired. He may get a bit carried away here and there, but in the end he delivers as a filmmaker of note.

In Sinners he ties Southern-gothic, vampire horror, and depression era gangster styles together along with a musical storyline that literally burns down the house. Working with his familiar actor collaborator, Michael B. Jordan, playing a set of twins, Coogler creates something brand new, dangerous and in the end just damn dandy. I fully expect Sinners to be quite popular in the Best Picture categories when awards season rolls around. Even with its imperfections, it’s at the top of my list for best films of the year.

Jordan and all of the actors are superb. The music is red hot. The vampire gore is plenty gory. There’s a raw, violent, sexual tension throughout that’s heightened by the rawness of the blues music that infuses the storyline. The sequence when the fateful evening’s dancers are intermingled with ghosts of African and African-American pasts and premonitions of musical genres of a future yet to be is a highlight, even if it is a bit too precious.

Coogler also plays with some larger themes among the music, horror, and history. Questioning why Blacks cleave to Christianity (“Blues wasn’t forced on us like that religion,” and who counts as Black when everyone doesn’t have the same black skin or heritage, cut through many of the myths so easily consumed and assumed about the Black South.

As to the flaws, perhaps the biggest is also its biggest strength. Coogler stretches out a wide canvas to paint this story on. Perhaps too wide, and even so he often paints outside the bounds of that canvas. And once the delicious and setup is accomplished, the violent confrontation we all know is coming at times feels more rushed than we want it to, certainly when it consumes characters we’ve invested in.

Even with those flaws, Sinners yields a bounty that often borders on the rapturous. It is more than worth your time.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.