Shows come and go. Some create bonds that transcend the impermanence.
One year ago tonight we opened The Lehman Trilogy at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis. Openings come. Openings, and shows, go. This one has stuck with those of us who lived, worked, sweat, froze, caught COVID, and finally got the show in front of an audience. You can watch the trailer below.
My undying love and gratitude to the three gentlemen who played the Lehman brothers (and everyone else) in the show, Michael Gravois, Kevar Maffitt, and John Maness (pictured left to right below.)
Along the way they became my brothers as well. It was one of those shows that creates a bond that will never break, regardless of the adventures we each and all pursue in the future. Those are the rare shows. They are the rare talents I got to work and play with and always cherish.
Onwards.
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.
Good reading and good writing is just a heartbeat away in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading
What do Aristotle, Katherine Hepburn, Garth Hudson, beautiful minds, and ugly hearts have in common? They all make an appearance in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. Or at least writers doing their thing and writing about them do.
Hearts can be ugly things, yet they draw our poets, songwriters, and story tellers like moths to a flame. NatashaMH flutters around the heat in The Beautiful Mind Of An Ugly Heart.
Speaking of ugly hearts, quite a few of them are on appearing on shirt sleeves alongside all the chest thumping and Nazi salutes going on here in the U.S (and elsewhere). We’re only a week into the victory laps and lapses of humility, yet already writers are wearing out keyboards with words of resistance. Ian Dunt has penned How To Resist The Tech Overlords. In this new and hot category of writing, let’s hope none of this seems like fiction down the road.
Another way to resist the tech overlords is to just say no when they overreach. Microsoft overstepped by raising everyone’s Office 365 subscription prices on the inclusion, wanted or not, of its Microsoft 366 Copilot AI features. There’s a way to avoid the price hike written up by Mark Hachman on PC World. You might want to check that out.
For a good read on the entire Microsoft situation, Ed Bott chronicles the story of Microsoft’s latest AI unintelligent move in The Microsoft 365 Copilot Launch Was A Total Disaster.
Meanwhile the Chinese might have found a way to fight the AI money grab and spend long before we reach the cash out stage. Zeyi Yang lays it out in How Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek Made A Model That Rivals OpenAI. The sexy stories about TikTok might be taking a back seat to this one.
Alex Himelfarb tells us The Politics of “Common Sense” Is Making Us Meaner. He’s right.
Joan Westenberg takes it all on in Clash: Power, Greed, And The Fight For a Fair Future.
If you’re concerned about what the tech side of all of these moments of madness we’re living through might mean, remember it’s not the tech and it is. Check out Nina Metz’s review of the Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy flick Desk Set. As Ms. Metz puts it, This Movie With Katherine Hepburn And Spencer Tracy Anticipated Anxieties About The Internet And AI. Oh, also check out the flick. You won’t be sorry.
There really is nothing new under the sun, including cribbing and cropping from the work of others. Massimo Pugliucci takes a look at Ayn Rand’s Objectivist theories and her claims to be influenced by Aristotle. As he puts it well, “one can hardly imagine what possible points of contact the two might have.” Take a look at On Ayn Rand and Aristotle.
These are indeed challenging times and often they feel quite dark. Alexander Verbeek gives us the always needed reminder that When Darkness Returns, Art Exists.
And on that note, and since we lost one of the greatest musical artists of my generation, Garth Hudson, this week, Check out Amanda Petrusich’sRemembering Garth Hudson, The Man Who Transformed The Band. Remember many of Hudson’s and The Band’s creations came in another turbulent era in our history. A beautiful musician and beautiful mind.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’sLooking for God, Sitting in Hell. Summed up nicely, “we get so lost in semantics that we forget the important parts.” Indeed.
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?
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.
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.
Complex pieces, whether successful or not, dominate my end of year list for 2024
2024 was a complex year on many fronts in my life. We moved. Politics and culture seemed to daily turn the world upside down and inside out. And for some reason the movies, TV, and books I enjoyed the most were, while not necessarily the top of class, very complex.
I certainly didn’t see or consume everything during the year. Heading into the holiday movie release schedule I found myself thinking it had been a better year for streaming TV than it had for movies. I think that still holds. Some titles may have been released prior to 2024, but they didn’t cross my radar until this year soon to pass, so they get included.
For the record I don’t believe in “Best of.” As I continue to say, there’s too much good being created by too many good (and some not so good) folks out there, that I pick what attracts and holds my attention.
This year that leaned towards complex pieces that may or may not have been utterly successful. There’s also just some well done entertainment. There is still lots of mediocrity out there, but here’s the complex cream that rose to the top of my list. If I wrote something about the titles, there will be a link.
I’m not sure where to put YouTube videos on this list, but this presentation of Ubu and The Truth Commission by the Handspring Puppet Company was high on my list of favorite viewing this year.
Books
James by Percival Everett
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich
Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
On Freedom by Timothy Snyder
The Freaks Came Out To Write by Tricia Romano
Infinite Detail by by Tim Maughan
Apps
Either I’m slowing down or software App development is. There’s only one new App that landed on my devices that I would recommend:
Croissant. A social media cross-posting app by Ben McCarthy and Aaron Veigh. It’s still got some quirks, but it is handy enough that I use it frequently hoping they’ll work the kinks out.
Have a Happy New Year!
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.
My wife and I had a holiday tradition of going to see movies around the holidays. We always chose the earliest morning showing because, hey, they are the cheapest ticket. One of the other benefits was the crowds were less. At times it felt like a private screening.
All of that was pre-pandemic, and of course that tradition got shelved during those years, and has remained so even longer. But this year we kicked things back off again as my wife gifted me tickets to see Wicked.
If I’m being honest, I like the private screening feel.
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.
Red One won’t save Christmas, but it is quite jolly.
Red One, now streaming on Amazon Prime isn’t a classic, nor is it a loser. It’s fun in all the right places, and bad in all the right places. In the end, it’s worth streaming if you’re looking for some good brainless streaming fun over the holiday.
Overflowing with familiar names in the cast including The Rock, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, and J.K. Simmons, among others, it’s a romp that tosses a bunch of Christmas themed traditions into the mixer, shakes them up, and sprinkles enough one liners and almost too many special effects on top to keep it entertaining.
I’m not sure it’s quite family fare if you have wee young ones, but for an older mix of generations it’s might be worth the sleigh ride. Explaining Santa Claus might never been the same again.
The different world creation is a well done enough that the movie creates its own Christmas world view allowing a pretty insane mix of mythic magic and technology to propel the story as the characters try to save Christmas.
If you’re like my families, silly and goofy Christmas movies are a part of the holiday tradition. This one probably makes the cut going forward.
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.
Hearts can be ugly things, yet they draw our poets, songwriters, and story tellers like moths to a flame. NatashaMH flutters around the heat in 
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 