Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Where’s Wanda? Is Worth A Watch

Good laughs to be had in this screwball black comedy.

Where’s Wanda on Apple TV+ is certainly worth a watch but it also begs the question my wife asked after we concluded viewing the first season, “where was the advertising and marketing for this show?”

Perhaps we missed whatever short marketing window Apple opened for the series, but it escaped our radar, and we only recently stumbled on it at the tail end of our queue by accident. Regardless, as I said, it’s worth a watch, especially if you’re in the mood for some good laughter.

Where’s Wanda? is a German language streaming series written by British writer Oliver Lansley, and directed by German director Zoltan Spirandelli. It was and is marketed as a black comedy, but I think black screwball comedy is more appropriate. Yes, there are subtitles. They also have some fun with that throughout.

The Wanda of the title is a young teenage girl gone missing and the plot ends up involving not only her family but their entire small town in searching for her. While the family drives the story, they guide us through enough of the town to be charmed and amused by the folks we meet with both recognition and surprise, as the plot evolves and involves more and more of the town in its mysteries.

The cast is uniformly excellent and I especially thought Heike Makatsch as the mother was superb. The moments between the younger cast members were some of the most engaging, hilarious, and touching scenes about the awkward moments in young people’s lives I’ve seen in a while. Where’s Wanda? gets silly, it gets serious, and it gets under your skin because of excellent work all around by the team that put it together.

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.

Apple’s 1984 Commercial Strikes A Different Chord 41 Years Later

Who is marching in lockstep now?

The legendary Apple 1984 commercial turns 41 today.

The commercial, directed by Ridley Scott, has become as iconic as the computer and the company it advertised. Given everything going on in the world currently as we watch Tim Cook and other so-called leaders of the tech industry fall into lockstep with the new U.S. administration, the message has a much deeper and darker resonance than it did when it was just advertising a new computer.

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.

Add ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ To Your Streaming Cue

Worth a watch or a re-watch.

Last night after a rough, though totally not surprising day, I posted the following on social media:

Certainly it was how I felt and was indeed an homage to Mr. Murrow and what he stood for. I didn’t go immediately to bed after posting that “good night” message. Instead I re-watched the excellent film containing Murrow’s famous sign-off, “Good Night and Good Luck.”

As we all go through what we’re going to continue to go through (and who really knows what that is), I’d recommend watching or re-watching the film again. It’s on most streaming services so it’s easy to find.

There are and will be pressures all the way around and certainly a dramatization of any kind compresses events to create that drama. Given that we may never hear about any of the recent conflicts that I can only hope happened inside corporate media headquarters before they folded up their tents to march willingly in step with the new administration, the story of taking on McCarthy, while also relevant to our current moment, is really just the stage for the one behind the scenes that impacts what we see or don’t see on our screens of so many sizes.

This isn’t some moment of nostalgia for a time gone by. It is a recognition that where we are now is a place we’ve been before. This time around those that control the media and messaging have, for the moment, much more control than they did in Murrow’s day. Make no mistake, they had some control then, but now it’s more pervasive and the Murrow’s, Friendly’s and Paley’s are fewer in number.

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.

Facebook Is Now Official State Social Media: Users Can’t Unfollow Trump/Vance

Meta and Zuck Find New Ways to Suck and Suck Up to Trump

This is weird and weirdly disturbing, though not surprising in our new world. I’ve heard from several friends this afternoon who have claimed that both Trump and Vance are showing up in their Facebook newsfeeds. They were not following the convicted felon and his vice president previously.

What’s disturbing is Facebook won’t let you unfollow them. You can only hide their posts. Thanks to Dave Spector on Mastodon, it appears that if you try to unfollow the accounts you’re immediately and automatically re-followed back on your account. I haven’t been on Facebook in a while, but the friends I’ve heard from are pretty upset.

I guess this means Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is now the official state social media for the new regime.

That’ll probably accelerate the exodus that was already underway given Zuckerberg’s knee-bending, ass-kissing attempts to keep his own ass out of jail.

A couple of updates here.

First, apparently this is a moving target. Some are seeing this as described. Some not.

Leaving it to the younger generation, one of my friends said her daughter figured out how to stop the re-following was to unfollow, then quickly block the account. Your mileage may vary.

More updates:

This BBC link reports what I’m hearing others are experiencing who use Instagram. The issue is if you search fore #Democrat or #Democrats you get a response that says “results hidden.” Meta says it’s working on a fix urgently. Sure they are.

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.

All Things Come To An End If You Ignore The Warning Lights

Proceed with caution.

Everything comes to an end. Ignore the engine warning lights on your car for too long and eventually the car stops.

What does a check engine light look like.jpg. What I’ve thought of as America came to an end today. Sure the country will go on. What it meant will be forever changed, regardless of whatever the politics of tomorrow bring.

We ignored the warning lights far too long and the engine seized up.

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

History has its layers and facts might be damned, but that’s what myths are made of.

Tick. Tock. Or is that TikTok? Regardless, it’s the last Sunday Morning Reading column before things take a drastic turn here in the United States. Plenty to be concerned about, but Sunday Morning Reading will sill keep chugging along until they turn out the lights. That said, quite a bit of today’s chugging focuses on that messy intersection of tech and politics, because, well, you know, that muddled mess of things is what attracts my attention. They are no small things.

Speaking of small things, David Todd McCarty suggests that when we get too overwhelmed perhaps it’s time to get small. Check out Let’s Get Small.

There’s A Reason Why It Feels Like The Internet Has Gone Bad is actually a short interview with Cory Doctorow by Allison Morrow about a term Doctorow coined that I think fits much (and not just on the Internet) of what we’re already living through and what we’re in for: enshittification.

George Dillard wonders why modern business tycoons are like their forbears in Nerds, Curdled.

Jared Yates Sexton has some thoughts on dealing with what’s coming in Back Into The Breach: Thoughts On The Second Trump Presidency. Good read.

The toadstools salivating to use government to dismantle government no longer grow in shadowy, dank places. Joan Westenberg takes on Silicon Valleys’s Secret Love Affair With The State.

John Gruber highlights and expands on an article by Kyle Wiggins at TechCrunch that hit amidst the growing chaos this week when Google announced that’s its ever declining search product would now require JavaScript in order to use Google Search. Check out Google Search, More Machine Now Than Man, Begins Requiring JavaScript.

Joseph Finder takes a look at The Russian Roots Of American Crime Fiction—And The O.G. It’s not that the characters created by Dostoevsky and Gogol were Russian. They were merely human.

We love stories, but we love our myths more. Neil Steinberg takes on The Myths of Telephone History. The lies we agree upon might just be the most pungent of them all.

To close things out, NatashaMH reminds us in Chestnut Roasting On An Open Fire that some say that “the strength of a superhero is determined by the strength of his villain—the greater the adversary, the mightier the hero.” We’re about to find out if that’s true or not.

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. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

The Farce of Ritual

The ritual games cowards play.

We’re a bunch of cowards. Mostly. And we take cover behind rituals, ceremonies, and traditions.

I’m sure at some point in your life you’ve attended or participated in a wedding which you knew was doomed. Yet, when the officiant asked if you were willing to support this union you went along and agreed. I’m guessing you never spoke up when given the opportunity to do so either. You later danced with the bride or the groom, wished them well, went back to your beverage and whispered into the ear of your plus one that there was no way the marriage would last.

Their choice. Their life. Their bad.

Perhaps at some point you’ve participated in a meeting of the PTA, or some other local body, or a social organization with an elected structure. Or perhaps you’ve been both lucky or unlucky enough to perform public service in a government organization of some sort.

Regardless of the situation, the mission, or the efforts of those involved, if you’ve done any of the above or similar, you know just how much of a farce the rituals we hide behind in these circumstances don’t really offer much cover, because if those you’re working with don’t see through the thin veneer of the farce and the roles they play, eventually someone watching catches on.

Yet we perpetuate them. We don’t rock the boat out of some misguided quest for comity, community, or conviviality.

We’re doing that on a national and global scale these days as the U.S prepares to descend into a maelstrom that everyone sees coming, and like that moment in a wedding ceremony when the rolling waves make us a bit queasy, there’s no stomach for stopping the proceedings.

Certainly there are folks sounding the alarms about what’s to come politically, socially, and economically in the coming days. Those voices unfortunately are drowned out by a chorus of congratulations, traditions, and a fear of sticking necks out.

When a marriage ends in the failure you knew would happen and did nothing to try and stop it’s easy to take comfort in the knowledge you were right all along. Smug self-righteousness and reliance on traditions isn’t going to be worth much when this shotgun wedding comes to an end.

Watching the ritual confirmation hearings that accompany the change of administrations confirm my view that we prefer farce even when it presages a tragedy we can all see coming. Better to just surf along with the current and not make waves large enough to capsize the ship of state. Eventually those waves crash home and nature’s rituals wash away those we’ve built.

For the record, nobody ever says bad things in public about the deceased at a funeral either.

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.

Name Games On The Internet And In Life

Real names matter. Why is that so unreal?

I wrote a little something for the publication Ellemeno on Medium about names and anonymity on the Internet. Take a look at What’s In a Name?

Prompted by a new display name policy adopted by the publication, this is something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time. I always publish my writing and anything I do on social media under my real name. It’s the same way I conduct my professional life as a theatre director, always using the moniker I was given.

Certainly there are reasons folks adopt other names, handles, and nom-de-plumes and I don’t judge anyone negatively for doing that in an increasingly dangerous world. That said, I’ve always believed the world would be a better place if we all had the courage to conduct ourselves under our real names. But that’s perhaps naive.

Obviously there’s a lot more to say in the piece. I hope you take a few moments and read it.

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.

The Lack Of Intelligence In Adding AI To Pro Football And Other Sports Broadcasts

Not a smart move.

Joe Reddy for the Associated Press writes up a nice piece about Amazon’s AI on its Prime Video broadcasts of NFL Football games. While Reddy’s piece covers the what is, (that’s his job) it doesn’t talk about the what for.

Here’s the thing, the prevailing wisdom in sports coverage these days seems to be that the games themselves must not be enough to hold fans attentions long enough for them to watch the commercials, so we need to add distraction upon distraction before, during, and after the games to keep the fans interested. Certainly one can say that this season’s slate of NFL games wasn’t that terrific, at least the ones I watched. (I watched more than Chicago Bears games, because the Chicago Bears don’t play real football.)

Sports used to be a pastime. Watching a game was a luxury on TV or in person. And that was before the tremendous cost of attending a game in person went nuts. In many places, you could always catch the local games on TV, but that’s an age coming to an end sooner than we’d all like.

Certainly, these AI generated statistics do deliver an interesting factoid now and again. So this is not to say there’s not any value. It’s just not redeeming enough in my opinion.

Amazon isn’t alone, All of the networks are fumbling over each other to have the latest, greatest whiz bang graphics fill up our screens. They’re not mining data, they are mining dollars. The insertions of stat upon stat, mid-game interviews with coaches and players all come at a cost.

In my humble opinion it’s a cost that cheapens not enhances. But that’s the way we’re headed, because eventually we can tack even more sponsors and ad dollars on to each stat and distraction.I’m sure betting on what the AI will predict will soon follow.

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 nod to Billy Joel, a little Faust, a little Shakespeare and the cycle of life keeps turning.

We may not have started the fire. In the words of Billy Joel, “it was always burning.” Still we can always try and fight it. I’m not sure how that’s working out but it does seem to be our lot. Sifting through smoke and ashes, here’s a little Sunday Morning Reading to share.

Kicking things off is David Todd McCarty’s Looking for God, Sitting in Hell. Summed up nicely, “we get so lost in semantics that we forget the important parts.” Indeed.

David Sterling Brown tells us What Shakespeare Revealed About the Chaotic Reign of Richard III – And Why The Play Still Resonates In The Age of Donald Trump. The only thing I question is the word “still” in the headline. There’s not a moment of being human that isn’t contained in the stories and characters of Shakespeare. We haven’t invented a new way of being good, bad or indifferent in quite some time.

And while we’re on the literature beat Brian Klaas give us Faustian Capitalism. Again, there’s nothing new under the sun here as we watch this country’s wealthiest men bend their knees in supplication, but there’s some small comfort in knowing we’ve been this selfishly stupid before.

John Pavlovitz hits a nail on the head with The California Fires Are a Disaster. The American Cruelty Is A Tragedy. It may be beyond our capacity to comprehend devastation, but as the previous two entries show, it shouldn’t be beyond our ability to know we keep repeating the same mistakes. Or maybe that’s really just the hell we’re living?

Speaking of Faustian bargains, Mike Masnick lays out The Good, The Bad, And The Stupid In Meta’s New Content Policies.

This piece should scare you, but again, its subject is as old as humankind’s penchant for inhumanity. Stephanie McCrummen shines a bit of light as The Army Of God Comes Out Of The Shadows.

Derek Thompson takes a look at The Anti-Social Century and how our reality is changing as we spend so much of our time alone.

Perhaps one of the keys to being less alone and less anti-social is choosing your friends wisely. Natasha MH says that “To survive this life, it’s crucial to discern which friends are worth keeping and which aren’t. You are the guardian of your own peace of mind” as she lays out The Optimist’s Dilemma In A Pessimistic World.

And finally, Ian Dunt offers A Little Bit Of Hope After A Terrible Week, in what he calls a survival guide for the next four years. Ian says “History has no direction.” He’s correct. It’s a circle, a cycle, a carousel.