Culture – Page 17 – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

Sunday Morning Reading is back while we continue to unpack. The environs are different, but everything remains the same.

Everything changes and everything remains the same. We’ve completed the Big Move and are now in our new abode. Heads sleep on the same pillows, coffee is sipped from the same mugs, but we’re still living out of boxes and unpack others. That’ll be the state of things for a bit still. That’s life on the home front as everything has changed but remains the same. That seems to be the case in the world in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

Kicking things off is an excellent series of articles from The New Republic. What American Fascism Would Look LIke is a collection of essays by a collection of writers, each one worth your time. Start with Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s The Permanent Counterrevolution, but check them each out.

The Roberts Supreme Court continues to show its true colors witih all sorts of flag flyiing controversy from Samuel Alito. Blaming your wife is becoming a thing also. Check out Alitio and Thomas Aren’t Really Jurists. They’re Theocratic Leninists by Michael Tomasky.

There was lots of big news on the Artificial Intelliegence front. There was also not much new in much of that news. LLMs still bung things up. Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI pushed their newest in a race that feels very much like the runners keep tripping over themselves. Nico Grant in the New York Times points to the ongoing snafu in Google’s A.I. Search Errors Cause a Furor Online. At some point this is all going to end up like the streaming entertainment wars. Once all the players are on the field there will be consolidation. There will still be problems. Those new subscription prices will rise. And everyone will complain.

Even so, Steven Levy says It’s Time to Believe The AI Hype.

Naveen Kumar takes a quick look at how AI might be worming its way into live performance in AI Is Getting Theatrical.

David Todd McCarty takes on the contradictions of believing that more than one thing can be true at the same time in An Angel With An Incredible Capacity for Beer.

NatashaMH pens a nifty piece about how the act of writing gives a teacher a window into the mind of her student in Writing The Unpretentious Prose.

And while we were busy moving, Apple released new iPads. Not surprisingly everything changed and everything remained the same. The new software that may or may not yield potential changes is due to roll out in a few weeks, but until it does, those iPads remain behind the software curve while setting the hardware pace. Or at least that’s the accepted line in Apple circles. Federico Viticci penned an excellent summary of what he feels iPads are still missing in Not an iPad Review: Why iPadOS Still Doesn’t Get the Basics Right and Steve Troughton-Smith also put out The iPad Pro Manifesto (2024 Edition ).

Closing things out this weekend as I try to get these old bones moving again to unpack some more boxes, check out Margaret Dean’s A Mutiny of Bones about recalcitrant bones and aging and how it’s not just the joints that stop bending. The one constant as everything changes around and within you, some things just don’t work the same as they once did.

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.

Things We Know

Life sucks when there are things we know and can’t change.

Things we know and it doesn’t appear we can do anything about.

Judge Cannon is on the take.

Our judicial system has been exposed as corrupt beyond repair, much like our political systems. Neither is going to save us from a deranged orange tinged rapist who is willing to blow anything and everything up. Regardless of how the election turns out.

Destroying musical instruments for advertising purposes is apparently a sin against nature.

There are bears in the woods.

There are no answers for the problems in the Middle East. Too many prayers. Not enough thoughts.

Streaming entertainment consolidation continues. Prices will go up, and we’ll see more of the same ads because there’s not enough advertising to go around.

At times Social Media can be anything but.

Moving sucks.

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

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday Morning Reading to share amidst prepping to move.

I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to rub elbows with folks from all corners of life. Those who live the high life, those who live the low, and many in between. One thing those on the high side have in common is that however they achieved their status above it all is their predilection towards self-delusion increases commensurate with the size of their bank accounts. The first few links in this edition of Sunday Morning Reading feature three interesting pieces about life on that side of the tracks.

The Blindness of Elites by Thomas Chatteron Williams takes on Walter Kirn and the empty politics of defiance revealing how much of a luxury it is to make life up as you go along. It also reveals how wacky it is when elites go after others for being elite.

This piece by Elizabeth Mika is from 2016 but it could have been written at any point since, so it’s worth a revisit. The Pivoting: On Narcissistic Collusion of How Evil “just happens” reminds us that we can’t escape black holes, especially those of our own making.

Dan Adler takes on The Life and Times of Fergie Chambers. It’s a strange journey into the life of a rich, radical communist with time on his hands that only money can buy.

David French takes on The Magic Constiutionalism of Donald Trump. There’s nothing magic or constitutionaal about it.

James Jordon has a terrific piece about racism called My Grandfather’s Response to a Racial Slur Shaped My World.

David Todd McCarty says America is in crisis because voters are completely uninformed. I concur. That’s a state that doesn’t get votes in the Electoral College, but it’s one too many prefer to live in. Check out For They Know Not What They Do.

Changing course, last week Natasha MH wrote about dancing. This week she’s ridiing carousels in Riding the Taylor Swift Carousel.

And closing things out this week is Anne Spollen with An Unedited Day In An Ordinary Life. Pro Tip: Every day is unedited. Often we’d be better off trying not to make it make too much sense.

Sunday Morning Reading

Some serious stuff in our world this week, but we must dance on. Here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share.

The world is a very serious and uncomfortable place based on what I’ve been reading this past week, so the topics for this edition of Sunday Morning Reading will lean that way. Good writing all around that meets the seriousness we’re all dancing around.

The United States Supreme Court is about to alter the world we’ve all thought we’ve lived in. Rick Wilson of Everything Trump Touches Dies fame writes:

“The Supreme Court will delay Trump’s case and then make the most cataclysmic legal mistake in American history.

We’re not talking Dred Scott bad, Plessy bad, and Korematsu bad.

We’re talking about previously unimagined levels of bad.”

He’s correct. Check out The Red Court Strikes Again.

Bryan Tannehill says The Court Just Sealed Everyone’s Fate, Including It’s Own. Again, correct.

While this may be a bit less current than most articles inlcuded this week, Brian Gopnik reminds us that it takes more than one man to turn the world upside down in The Forgotten History of Hitler’s Establishment Enablers.

Wars, protests and political shenanigans about those wars abound. Mo Husseni has laid out his thoughts about what’s happening in the Middle East and our reactions to it on Threads and published them as an essay on Medium. Well worth your time to read his piece titled Hmmm… do I need a title?

A few topics on the tech front, the mechanism that one way or the other bring us all this news and writing about that news, Edward Zitron tells us about The Man Who Killed Google Search.

Craig Grannell tells us to Just Say No: Not Every Piece of Tech Needs Subscriptons and AI. He’s correct and he nails the reason why this is becoming pervasive.

I don’t agree with everything Allison Johnson says in The Walls of Apple’s Garden Are Tumbling Down, but she makes good points and provides a piece of the necessary frame around this unfolding story.

Changing the subject, it is tough to laugh given all that is swirling around us. But laugher is crucial. Always. As unprovoked a release of emotion it is, laughter does take on different forms and come from different places. Christie Nicholson takes on The Humor Gap between men and women. Hat tip to David Todd McCarty for this excellent piece.

A Summer Place by Natasha MH reminds us that whatever we’re mired in, we should always dance on and quoting Neil Gaiman we should

Face Your life

It’s pain,

It’s pleasure,

Leave no path untaken.

Shogun Is A Sensation Without The Usual Hollywood Shortcuts

A worthy tale, told well and with a maturity in story telling often lacking.

American media and entertainment is such a crazy world. Pitching a story, telling a story, and reporting on a story all require some degree of shortcutting the experience and in the end the story and the storytelling. That’s currently happening with Shogun, the wonderful FX/Hulu series adapated from the novel of the same name.

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It’s excellent and worth the investment of your time in viewing it. Assuming you’re looking for something of substance and style, told well while avoiding the typical shortcuts. There’s care and attention paid to every aspect of the production in ways that should make most of our current filmmakers blush with shame. It’s a mature, complex story that demands an equal maturity from its audience. If open to it, the payoff is powerful. That’s not a shortcut. That’s it. That’s the review.

What I find both amusing and annoying is the now clichéd description of the show as “not since Game of Thrones.” Certainly the scale and scope is comparable. But Shogun does what it does far better than anything that ever happened with Game of Thrones. Quite honestly, I think the quick pitch shallow comparision does a disservice to both and will ultimately lead many who tune into Shogun being disappointed.

Ignore the quick hit comparison. Invest the time and enjoy the journey.

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

Sunday Morning Reading

Imaginations run wild when the grandkids come to visit grandpa’s house.

Dreams fill our imagination or sometimes vice versa. Especially when there are young kids around. This week’s edition of Sunday Morning Reading is a smaller list than most given that we’re on grandparent duty, but it should pique your imagination nonetheless.

As mentioned, we’re babysitting the grandkids this weekend. And so it’s only appropriate to kick off this edition of Sunday Morning Reading with The Dollhouse and it’s Discontents by NatashaMH.

With visiting grandkids comes a revist to the land of vivid imaginations. Watching the older one explore grandpa’s house and turn discoveries of the mundane into new found adventures may not approach hypherphantasia, but it’s enough to blow one’s mind. Speaking of, check out David Robinson’s ‘Like a Film in My Mind’: Hyperphantasia and the Quest To Understand Vivid Imaginations.

Speaking of dreams and imagination, Daniel Bessner has a great piece called The Life and Death of Hollywood. The dream factory might be going through some nightmares.

As our world seems both full of imagination and fraught with fear about Artificial Intelligence, Benedict Evans goes Looking For AI use-cases.

Ever wonder how the Internet keeps us connected around the globe? Check out Josh Dzieza’s report for The Verge about the folks who keep undersea cables maintained in The Cloud Under The Sea. Imagine that.

Sunday Morning Reading

Silver linings, taking stock, a revival of the Avant-Garde, and the future of chocolate all in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading to Share

Weekends used to be for taking a breath. That seems so long ago it’s tough to measure it conventionally as it somehow sadly just slipped away. Even so, there’s still time to share some Sunday Morning Reading.

Artificial Intelligence remains on the tip of all the digital tongues these days, though it’s yet to show any real promise that I’ve seen. Except for those who got in early on the cash grab. Steven Levy has an interesting piece, Tech Leaders Once Cried For AI Regulation. Now the Message is ‘Slow Down.’ Sounds like the cash isn’t as easy to grab as much as it used to be.

Speaking of AI, Chris Castle has an interesting piece on Music Technology Policy called Has The Ship Sailed On The Myth of “Responsible AI”? I’m not even sure it ever qualified for myth status, but whatever it is, that ship is out of the harbor. Hat Tip to Stan Stewart.

Kyle Chayka thinks The Dumbphone Is Real. This comes as so many blame smartphones for the decline of civilization among other smaller sins. Call me when every company in the world no longer begs you to pay your bills online, you can reach your doctor’s office via a phone, or tech companies (including those that make dumb phones don’t put you through hell trying to get techncial support from a person. I’ll take that call on my smartphone.

Most things get recycled. Including art movements. Helen Shaw takes a look at one such revival/remount in The Avant-Garfde Is Back On The Launchpad about the Wooster Group’s remounting of Richard Foreman’s Symphony of Rats.

Jamelle Bouie’s When Politicians Invoke the Founding Fathers, Remember This is interesting. First, because the title changed from when it first appeared in The New York Times. Originally it was The Founding Fathers Don’t Have the Answers To Every Question. I wrote about that here. My points remain, so does Bouie’s (which are excellent). The headline writing still suffers.

Richard Stengel suggests that 2024 election coverage should be free and out from behind paywalls. He makes a good argument in Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls.

One of my favorite writers, NatashaMH gets quite poignant and, protestations aside, quite brave in doing so, in The Distance Between a Breath And Sadness. I think we should all learn how to better measure that distance.

David Todd McCarty uncharacteristically goes Searching for Silver Linings.

And to close things out on a bitter sweet note, Isable Fattal takes a look at The Future of Chocolate. It’s a summary for articles about the future of chocolate as she tells us to savor our favorites whlle we can. Apparently, yet another in a long line of sweet life things where we need to measure the difference between a breath and sadness because there may not be a silver lining.

Sunday Morning Reading

The world seems a bit crazier each week when the calendar flips to Sunday. In the lead up to a ‘sun eating’ total solar eclipse perhaps a bit more so. Don’t gamble on things settling down after it passes. Regardless, here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share.

According to Bertrand Russell “fear is the main source of superstition.” That may well be true. David Todd McCarty takes a look at The Disparity Between Fear and Progress.

Kyle Orland in Ars Technica tells us that Google Might Make Users Pay for AI Features in Search Results. I can’t imagine anything less intelligent.

Speaking of AI, NatashaMH wonders Will We Ever Be Ready for the Future? Have we ever?

Getting back to creativity in the real world, textile artist Minga Opazo explores being confident, finding solutions, and balancing research with your artistic practice in Engaging With The World In Your Work. Hat tip to Stan Stewart.

On the politics beat, Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski of ProPublica take a look at what appears to be another in a long line of Trump scams, this time with his last minute bond bailout. Ethical concerns abound in Trump’s Lawyers Told The Court No One Wold Give Him a Bond. Then He Got A Lifeline, But They Didn’t Tell The Judges. Too bad ethics don’t matter much anymore.

One thing about the political beat is that most of what we see and read is re-packaging things most of us already know. Details do matter, but not after the orange bull has wrecked the China shop. Lachlan Cartwright tells us What I Saw At The National Enquirer During Trump’s Rise. A too late, but good read.

Our Entire Society Is Becoming Addicted to Sports Gambling says Alex Shephard. I’m sure everyone saw this coming once the Supreme Court gave gambling the go ahead. Don’t forget, someone paid off Justice Kavanaugh’s gambling debts as he was being groomed for the bench.

To close things out, here’s a bit of history about solar eclipses from Leah Sarnoff in ‘The Sun Has Been Eaten’: Inside The History and Mystery of Total Solar Eclipses.

Slam! Destroy! What’s With This Boring Bullshit SEO Headline Writing?

Click bait headline writing has become so ever present, overused, and tired that it has certainly lost all meaning to anyone except the chronically bored or the algorithmically programmed.

Whether it was “Pow!” or “Bam! Zoom!” it was usually the preface to “Right in the Kisser!” That’s what Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Cramden would exclaim to his wife Alice in The Honeymooners when she got under his skin. For some reason SEO experts think we’re attracted to this kind of cartoonish, wrestlemania-type of violence and have slobbishly skewed that assumption into the seemingly never ending stream of headlines saying “So and So Slams So and So” or “So and So Destroys So and So.” Internet publications and ad mills have followed the gravy train right along. “Rips,” “blasts,” and “bashes” also seem popular.

This type of click bait headline writing has become so ever present, overused, and tired that it has certainly lost all meaning to anyone except the chronically bored or the algorithmically programmed. As lazy as it is, I guess it works. Which is not only a sad commentary on humanity but a sadder one on algorithms and the SEO industry.

I mean where’s the creativity? Why not use “lambasts,” “harangues,” “admonishes,” “berates,” “objurgates?” Or for those with syllabaphobia how about “dress down,” “haul over the coals,” “lays into,” “lace into, or “slag off?”

And just imagine how many of those boringly inept and inutile headlines are being fed into AI training engines.

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

Problematic 3 Body Problem

I both enjoyed and was ultimately left frustrated by 3 Body Problem, the Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem. Thanks to fellow Mastodonian @RickiTarr I was finally able to put my finger on the source of my frustration.

I both enjoyed and was ultimately left frustrated by 3 Body Problem, the Netflix adaptation of Liu Cixin’s sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem. Thanks to fellow Mastodonian Ricki Tarr I was finally able to put my finger on the source of my frustration.

Set aside the twists and turns through physics, politics, battles with cancer, romance, and everything else this story throws at you. The fundamental fight focuses on humans who understand that an alien race is coming in 400 years to wipe out our civilization. The aliens are doing so to save their own.

Given that we’re a species that can’t deal with more immediate threats currently facing us in far closer futures it’s hard to imagine trying to marshall the solidarity and resources to try and stave off a threat 400 years in the future. And that’s not even the problem in the title.

There’s not too much discussion of that in the show. Which is probably a good thing for how the storytellers want to unfold their story. But it puts us at a remove that left me and my wife joking throughout the series that Netflix has 400 years to unravel this tale.

Once the alien threat is revealed to all there are the usual sci-fi tropes about how those under threat deal with all such threats, but things quickly focus back on the main characters and their attempts to try and change what’s coming. As far as this adaptation is concerned everyone panics, reacts and then essentially shrugs and leaves it to a group of smart guys and gals to figure out.

I kept waiting for the 3 Body Problem metaphor to manifest in main character chaotic orbits as their arcs developed, but their orbital paths were all too damn predictable to cause the sort of friction that might have ignited the story, much less take hold with any metaphorical meaning.

As I said in the beginning I took some enjoyment from the experience. Some of the individual threads were captivating in and of themselves, but ultimately not enough to recommend the whole.

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