On the Accumulation of Crap

So - I was going to move yesterday, but through a complex series of events that I don't fully understand, I've ended up having to move tomorrow.

Sorry, I wish I had a longer post for you, but I've been packing for the last three days and it seems like I'm nowhere near done. It's at times like this that I have to ask myself how did I get 400 books? Why do I have 14 coffee mugs? I understand why I have all the sex toys, but where did all the commemorative pins  come from? 

Where did I get all this? It feels like living is literally literally just the accumulation of objects that momentarily excite you until they fade out of your mind until you wonder where you got it and why its cluttering up your life. 

Anyhoooooooo... I'll see you after I move. 

  

Real Brief Post

Hey folks, 

Real brief post today as this week and next week I'll prepping to move sometime on the 27th. I'm really busy with prep work for that, so no big post this week or next week. I'll try to have some life updates as I go, post some pictures of the new place. 

Anyways, I'll chat later.  

Boy Erased: Book & Movie Reviews + Personal Thoughts

Caveat Emptor: this post will address some weighty subjects, conversation therapy, suicide, sexual assault, self-harm and loss of religious faith among them. 

In the opening moments of Boy Erased, a pastor compares a room full of damaged people with a dollar bill, reminding them that even if the bill is crumpled or is ripped up, that doesn’t change it’s inherent value. If it’s damaged it can be taped together, and it’s still legal tender. As such, people who are looking to heal their scars can be treated, they can find peace, and their scars can fade. 

All true (provided your dollar isn’t more than 50% destroyed.) But it’s a deceptively wholesome moment. After all, a Dollar only has value because we’ve agreed societally that it does, and because most of the people in that room aren’t damaged in the way the counselor says. I see I’ve left out some crucial information. Before introducing the dollar to the conversation, the counselor leads the room in a call-and-response mantra: "I am using sexual sin and homosexuality to fill a god-shaped hole in my life. But I am not broken and God loves me." You’ll question just how much the pastor believes the second sentence over the rest of the movie. 

Based off Garrard Conley’s memoir of the same name, Boy Erased is a slightly fictionalized account of conversation therapy practices. (I say slightly fictionalized - while the movie doesn’t follow Conley’s life entirely, it remains true to the events of the book, while removing some elements and adding real conversation therapy practices that didn’t take place in book.) Before addressing the book and the movie’s main subject matter, I have to take a quick detour and address the film making. 

This project was adapted and directed by Joel Edgerton (young Owen Lars of the Star Wars prequel fame) and stars Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe in a career best performance, and Edgerton himself. The supporting cast is made up of American theater staple Cherry Jones and two musician cameos, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and singer Troye Sivan. There are no bad performances here. I’ve already mentioned Russell Crowe’s performance as a career best, but Cherry Jones, Kidman and Edgerton all deserve praise. Hedges and the other performers who play the “patients” in the conversion program were all awardworthy and it's a shame that most major awards chose to ignore this project. They play scared, determined, angry, confused, and they hide all that under masks of complete sincerity. That’s a lot to ask of any actor and it gets brutal. 

As for the movie itself, it occasionally plays like a horror film, full of dark shadows, intense psychological harm, and self-loathing that can make it hard to connect to the characters, especially the parents of the kids being forced into this awful situation. Two minor, monstrous characters spring to mind; one a literal bible-basher who treats his son to a mock funeral that plays like the blanket party from Full Metal Jacket. The other monster is a coward and a rapist. Here, I have to bring up that the movie accurately portrays Conley’s outing as coming from an abuser who took advantage of, and raped Garrard. He later posed as school counselor, called Garrard’s family and outed him, including accusing him of abuse. This sequence is arguably the most horrifying moment in the movie, as the trauma of the event is shown to torment an already conflicted Garrard to the point of self-harm. It doesn’t help that Garrard’s father is implied to not believe his son’s protestations of innocence, or at the very least blames the victim, which feeds into Garrard’s self-loathing spiral. 

Given the subject matter, I think I can forgive the movie as coming off like a horror film. That said, I have to clarify that the movie is never exploitative or shocking for the sake of being shocking. It’s difficult to watch, but nothing is played for cheap drama. Instead, it’s brutally, depressingly real. And somehow, it manages to keep to the memoir’s goal of finding understanding. 

Garrard Conley’s memoir is not a muckraking expose; plenty of those have been written or filmed about the immoral and fraudulent practices of conversion therapy. (I wont go into detail of actual practices, but I am going to link to several stories from survivors and the APA’s condemnation of the practice.) Instead, Boy Erased is an account of traumas stacked upon traumas, search for understanding and healing - not just for Conley, but for his entire family. Ultimately, it’s Conley’s attempt to understand his father; a difficult love letter to a complex family. He doesn’t chastise his father for sending him to conversation therapy, nor does he denigrate his father’s faith. In fact, he implies that his relationship with his father, whose Christian faith remained intact, improved to a more understanding if not totally accepting relationship. 

I feel like I’m loosing my point here. Let me return to something before I sum up; both the book and the movie of Boy Erased are definitely worth your time. Outside of some inconsistent tonal moments, the movie is a wonderfully filmed, if difficult to watch story and I believe it’s important to watch. Sadly, some of the book’s more poignant moments and some characters were removed for pacing reasons, but the essential story about healing and understanding remains. The book is powerful, compelling reading. It’s clearly affected me. 

There’s a line from the books epilogue that speaks to me; “I will not call on God during this decade-long struggle. Not because I want to keep God out of my life, but because his voice is no longer there. What happened to me has made it impossible to speak to with God, to believe in a version of him that isn’t charged with self-loathing. My ex-gay therapists took him away from me.” (Boy Erased, page 335)

It reminds me of scene from the movie Spotlight (2015), where Phil Saviano, founder of SNAP, tells the Spotlight investigative team that priests who molest children don’t just cause physical and emotional damage, they also cause spiritual damage. 

Whether or not you believe in God, you have to recognize the danger of so-called reparative therapy practices. Insisting that a fundamental part of a person is worthless or corrupt or evil damages not just the psyche, but also the way these people see God. Most of the people who enter these conversation camps already see themselves as broken or sinful, and all they are told inside only compounds this negativity. 

I’ve never had any conversion experiences like Garrard Conley, but I do come from extremely religious circles that condemn homosexuality. Much like the characters in Conley’s memoir, I grew up sincerely loving my faith, and over time exposure to the toxic beliefs of my peers or my friends wore down on my beliefs. I don’t know if I’ll ever seek any kind of religion again. Frankly it’s too soon to say. 

The insidious thing about the opening of the movie is that the pastor is almost correct. People do have inherent value and that value isn’t dependent on anything, especially not an foundational part of human life like sexuality. But unlike a dollar, a human life’s worth isn’t just a social construct. That’s the hardest truth to relearn. 

As the World Turns

 Happy Easter, One and All. 

I wish I had a book to review for this post, because I don’t have much to really talk about. I could talk about my personal life, but I have explicitly tried to avoid that with this project so far. I’ve been trying to share cultural  opinions on here, keeping my personal life to a minimum. I’m realizing that this goal might be misguided. Not that wanting to keep a private life is a bad thing, but sharing critical opinions means that you have to share personal opinions, thoughts and beliefs. (I refer you back to my post about the Big Nowhere.)

Of course I don’t have to share more than that, and I am going to keep my private life private, but I’d be lying to you if I didn’t acknowledge my personal beliefs creeps in from time to time. And if my beliefs sneak in, my personal life might too from time to time. Now that the Easter holiday is on us, I think I’ve been reflecting on where I am in my life and where this year has been going. I apologize if this a maudlin topic, it’s just what’s been on my mind. Either that or it’s way too late on a Friday night and I’ve been drinking more than usual. 

...

OK so it’s the next morning, and I was totally drinking too much when I wrote the opening paragraphs here. I do like what I said though, maybe I should be drinking more when I write...

In any event, trying to review where this year has been going isn’t a bad idea. I started this year with only one goal in mind, improvement. I have now realized I really needed to specify what I want to improve on. OK then. I really want to get more mobile, I want to exercise more and I want to be healthier (jury’s out on progress.) I want to find a new job that’s better paying and that fits my skills better. I want to spend more time writing (work related burnout has been killing me here, but I’ve recently joined a writer’s group that will hopefully force me back into exercising creativity. 

What sucks about some of these goals is that they’re outside of my control (the job market is FUCKED) and I basically just have to be incredibly lucky to achieve them. In terms of being healthier, I’m battling genetics and some serious anxiety issues. In terms of being creative I’m battling the same anxiety and burnout. Well, frankly, fuck all that. I’m still going to try and do it. It’s not like any of these goals are impossible. It’s not like the world is so fucked that I can’t do any of these. 

*You raise your eyebrows, stand up, walk over to the window, pull the blinds apart to reveal a world on fire set to a soundtrack of agonized human screams. You close the blinds, cutting off the screams, and raise your other eyebrow at me, making a mad-eyed-staring-face*

OK, yeah, the world is fucked. I know that. I’m trying to keep a sense of hope about things. That’s kind of the point about Easter, isn’t it? 

Anyone who reads this probably knows I was raised Catholic, and while I’m more agnostic in my spiritual beliefs now, the effects of the traditions I was raised in still have left their impression. Easter (or if you prefer the old Saxon pagan term Ēostre) as a time of renewal, of spiritual growth seems like the perfect time to remind ourselves that we can always improve, and that life gets better. As fucked as everything seems right now, well, we can still hope that things will change for the better as the world turns. Isn’t that what hope in the Resurrection really means? 

Anyways, I hope you all have have a wonderful day. 

Shorter Post Today

For whatever reason I’ve been a little too burned out this week to sit down a write a long post about the things I usually write about. I’ll blame work and stress from doing taxes and the possibility of moving next month as the cause of said burnout. So here’s some random reflections I’ve had about the month of March. 

Reading goals

Largely fell behind this month thanks to extraneous pressure. What didn’t help is that I started another one of Brandon Sanderson’s MASSIVE fantasy novels too soon after finishing my last one. Seriously I needed to wait longer. I’m still planning a post in appreciation of Brandon Sanderson but I think I’m going to wait until after I finish the Stormlight archive. Meanwhile I’ve transitioned to reading some smaller books, a biography of Harvey Milk and the Swedish book A Man Called Ove. Oh and the Akira manga. (Those in the know will laugh when I call it “shorter.”)

Writing goals

Fallen behind. Long Story. Don’t ask. 

Movie watching goals

Early this month I started watching all the James Bond movies in order, I’m almost done with them and I’m thinking about writing a multi-part retrospective on the entire series. I’m not certain if I’d break it down by decade, by movies or by lead actors, but I’ll think of something. 

Personal Goals

All over the place this month. The week I disappeared and didn’t write anything I was at a convention making friends. Specifically I was at the Texas Bear Round Up, which for the uninitiated is a gathering of Bears (my gay social group) and the people who like Bears. I had some friends flying into town and it was lovely to see them all again. I had a lot of fun, made a lot of friends, and I’m doing well afterwards. Otherwise I’ve failed on some of my movement and exercise goals for this month. April will be better. 

Conclusion

So that’s where I’m at. I’m moving next month and I don’t know how closely I’ll be sticking to any posting schedule as a result. Hell I don’t know how well I’ll be sticking to a reading schedule. Like so much of life, it’s all up in the air right now. I’m doing well though. I hope you are too. 

Movie Appreciation Time

My apologies, I missed last week’s post due to an unavoidable mission of revenge. It was a thrilling tale of bereavement, alcohol, curses, barbecue, dance clubs, and jaywalking. I’ll tell you all about it sometime. But now that I have achieved satisfaction, I’m free to rant about somewhat topical movies. 

I’m not the biggest fan of the Oscars, (not until they start recognizing stunt performers at least - Casting’s a step in the right direction.) But I do like to keep abreast of winners and losers each year, if only to compare the actual best movie of the year with the movie whose producers have deep enough pockets to win. See, I do really like movies, and I do kinda care about what the “best movie of the year” is, if only because it’s so hard to tell sometimes. Like in 2005 you had Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, and Munich competing as “best picture” for any number of critical lists. Meanwhile the Oscars picked Crash, a movie that most retrospectives agree is one of the worst picks for any year. (I haven’t seen it so I’ll reserve judgment, but considering the line up... Good Night at least should have taken it.) 

I don’t go out to see many movies, but it seemed like 2025 didn’t really have a knock out good lineup like 2005 did. What a difference 20 years makes, huh? I hadn’t even heard of a few best picture nominees when they were announced (which, shame on me, was mostly because they were foreign language movies that actually seem really good.) 

But the only three I had seen, One Battle After Another, Frankenstein and Sinners all seemed like strong contenders for Best Picture. I was immediately and absolutely certain of three things right off the bat: 1) Sinners was the best movies of 2025 and it would not win best picture. 2) One Battle After Another was so-so and would 100% win best picture. 3) In the event it didn’t, Frankenstein would be selected on the strength of it’s visuals. I have no way of verifying prediction 3, but 1 & 2 were spot on. 

One Battle After Another

I called this one as the obvious best picture winner because of its nominal political relevance. But for a story about former leftist revolutionaries battling a psychotic anti-immigration officer, this movie really doesn’t have much of a political message. Far from it. Not, it’s actually about a frankly inept father setting off to rescue his daughter from psychotic white supremacists after her mother abandons the revolution and her family. 

Yeah it’s a strange one. It’s adapted from Thomas Pynchon novel, so of course it’s strange. The question is, is it good? Uhm... yes? 

Obvious praise time: the cast and crew do a good job. Paul Thomas Anderson’s direction is fine and Leo DiCaprio as Pat / Bob does a good job, but I feel like they both shouldn’t get a free pass just for doing their jobs anymore. Are they exceptional here? Not really. PTA’s direction is really good during the last 30 minutes, but before that was merely fine. Leo’s acting was good throughout, but I was honestly was much more interested in the other characters. Chase Infitii as Willa, Bob’s kidnapped daughter, Benicio del Torro as Bob’s best friend, Sean Penn as the villain Col. Lockjaw. Comedy writer Jim Downey gets a memorable cameo and the rest of the cast is fine. 

And that’s kind of the problem. It’s just fine. It’s not exceptional in any way worthy of Best Picture. It doesn’t have a memorable or important political message, or even anything interesting about fatherhood or living as the daughter of a former revolutionary. 

Frankenstein 

I tried to write down what I thought of this movie when it first came out, and ended up with a shambling, 2,000 word mess of an essay that was neither positive nor negative. The conclusion I drew is that it’s a good movie, but it still pales to the Karloff / Whale duology from the 1930’s. 

I don’t want to be harsh on del Toro’s vision here, but I feel that this movie misplaces it’s affection for the Creature. Thematically, the movie is focused on sympathizing with “the Other” - and the creature is indeed very sympathetic. Compare this too the book, where the Creature, while sympathetic, is filled with wrath against his Creator for bringing him to life and abandoning him, swearing vengeance upon Victor. That sort of happens in del Toro’s version... but the Creature isn’t really angry that he was abandoned. He’s more upset that he’s cursed to be lonely for the rest of his unnaturally long life. 

Thematically, this version just fell flat for me. I love a lot about this movie, the visuals, the set design, the costume design, the inclusion of the North Pole expedition from book. The cast is mostly good, Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen and Charles Dance are memorable, if a little undersold by a strangely flat script. I have my issues with turning Victor Frankenstein into a mustache-twirling villain, but Oscar Isaac plays him well enough. I have to praise two performances especially; Jacob Elordi as the Creature and David Bradley as the Blind Man. Both bring incredible pathos to their characters and have a really sweet relationship in their scenes together. 

On his own, Elordi kills it as the Creature. I wasn’t enthusiastic about his casting mostly because I knew him from Saltburn (which I hate having to think about) and Euphoria (which I straight up hated). Well, that’ll teach me to judge a performance without seeing it. He’s phenomenal and really should’ve gotten best supporting actor, not Sean Penn.

Sinners

Sinners was one of the few movies last year I was genuinely excited about once I heard of it. A genre-twisting southern-gothic vampire musical set in depression era? Staring Michael B Jordan and directed by Ryan Coogler? Sign me the fuck up. Yeah, it’s plot is basically a remix of From Dusk Till Dawn, but it’s the kind of remix that takes a good central idea and reworks it with different themes and directorial choices. 

Sinners is about music’s power to reach from the past and connect us in the present. A simple animated prologue establishes the power of music to heal communities, specifically highlighting the musical traditions of the Irish, the Choctaw tribe, and descendants of African tribes. What do these three communities have in common? If your answer is they are all subjugated cultures, you have been paying attention. 

Of course, Sinners focuses on African-American culture. Sinners is set during the Jim Crow era South, and makes full use of the setting. The atmosphere of the central location, references to hoodoo culture, and Blues music enrich the setting. I can’t praise the soundtrack enough; movie-original blues song I Lied to You is a highlight, a showstopper sequence that bridges the blues’ origins in African music and it’s future in rock and roll and hip-hop. It’s one of the most beautiful musical sequences I’ve ever seen. 

I have to praise the final act’s turn to violence. Not only is it a brutal vampire slaughter that rival’s Midnight Mass’s final episode, but Michel B Jordan gets to unleash hell on a hapless set of Klansmen, which is cathartic as all hell. Seriously, I much more prefer Sinners’ approach to contemporary politics than One Battle After Another.

Since I just mentioned him, I’m going to say that Michael B Jordan deserving his Oscar for playing twins Smoke and Stack. The rest of the cast is great; Hailee Steinfeld is incredible, newcomer Miles Caton sings his heart out during the aforementioned I Lied to You scene, and Delroy Lindo and Omar Benson Miller give us some wonderful moments of comedic relief, and Wunmi Mosaku brings a sense of wisdom and gravitas to her role as the hoodoo practitioner Annie. Jack O’Connell plays a great villain, Irish vampire Remmick, simultaneously sympathetic, fun and pants-crappingly scary.

Conclusion

Clearly I loved Sinners, so I might be biased. I won’t go so far as to call the Oscars racist for not choosing it as best picture (they did give it 4 deserving awards after all: Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Original Score) but I do think that the Oscars are reluctant to award Sinners anything because it’s a horror film. 

My take on it is the Oscars were trying to be a little more politically conscious this year (Conan O’Brien’s alternate Oscars joke was proof enough - Coco was great by the way.) Frankenstein would have been a safe middle of the road choice, but it was never going to win. So the only two viable choices for Best Picture were One Battle and Sinners. (Well ... Weapons should have been nominated for Best Picture but the most the Oscars would stoop to recognizing it was Best Supporting Actress - and Amy Madigan fucking deserved that win.) I don’t know if Sinners was a step too far or if One Battle After Another was just the more palatable option. But, if you want my opinion, while One Battle comes from a good place, it’s really messy in execution and refuses to explain itself. Sinners comes from a place of great artistic inspiration, and it has the nuance to parse its themes to the point where you can draw your own conclusions without needing to explain itself.

The Other Side of the Big Nowhere

 Fair warning; this post might delve into some heavy themes including suicide and homophobia. 

I’m reading a history books about gay life in Washington DC during the 20th century, which spends a decent page count on the concurrent Red and Lavender Scares of the early 1950’s. If you’re unaware and can’t guess, the Lavender Scare the expunging of queer people from governmental roles. It began roughly the same time as Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting bullshit, but if this book I’m reading is to be believed, it lasted much, MUCH longer than the Red Scare, well into the late 1960’s. This expunging largely targeted gay men by the look of it, or at least this book doesn’t go into fate of lesbians that much. (btw, I won’t name this book because the author is - apparently - a jackass and I don’t want you to support him. It’s a shame because this is a fascinating side of history that needs to be recognized; while there are apparently other books on this subject out there - such as this one  - I’m finishing this book before I move on.) 

Anyway, this book I will not name has produced several good effects in me, namely, it’s led me back to today’s subject, The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy. 

If you’re unfamiliar with Ellroy’s output, I can’t adequately express what a kick in the head it is to read him for the first time. He seems off-putting at first, and that’s way too tame a descriptor. Even if you know his works, you you might assume he’s a horror writer rather than a crime writer or the Historical Romance writer title that Ellroy prefers. You could call his books copaganda the way the LAPD is glorified, but at the same time, every police officer in Ellroy’s books are unfailingly presented as draw-string shitbags barely better than the criminals they catch or kill. Watching any of Ellroy’s interviews leaves the (accurate) impression of a raconteur with a vocabulary from a 1940’s GOP locker room. He’s big, he’s bold, he’s the self-proclaimed Demon Dog of American Literature, literally in your face and barking. The hardest thing about reading an Ellroy book is the violence, the raw sexuality, the aberrant criminality that abounds on every single page. Very few cops are not corrupt, bigoted, arrogant or unreliable and very frequently are dealing with criminals barely worse than the cops themselves. These are stories about bad men hunting worse men, while beautiful women look on. 

That’s Ellroy’s surface. His critical reception has largely been positive thanks to his peerless ability to write stories about LA, but there’s much more to him than historical fiction. There’s a reason Joyce Carol Oats called him the American Dostoevsky. The slightest amount of digging into his story reveals someone intimately familiar with the true darkness humanity is capable of expressing, and the light that is so often buried underneath. Ellroy has tried to find that light for himself many times. His mother Jean was murdered when he was 10, and he’s has stated that her murder haunts him and influences his writing. He’s tried to solved her murder on his own several times, documenting his investigation and their overall relationship in several memoirs.  He never found his mother’s killer, never even came close, but he did find some kind of light in the darkness. Usually, his characters will too. His protagonists are very rarely better than the criminals they catch, but on rare occasions, you may even see a glimpse of nobility in them, buried under miles and miles of genuinely unpleasant actions.

The Big Nowhere is where I finally understood what James Ellroy was trying to do with his books. It’s the second book in a series of four novels collectively known as the LA Quartet, the other volumes being The Black Dahlia, LA Confidential, and White Jazz. (LA Confidential was adapted into a movie in 1997 and remains how most people - including myself - are introduced to Ellroy.) The Quartet is a sort of secret history, telling the story of LA from 1948 through 1960. It’s fiction, but to aid with historical verisimilitude Ellroy includes real crimes, providing fictional solutions to events as diverse as the Black Dahlia murder to the Sleepy Lagoon killings. The Big Nowhere runs concurrently with the infamous HUAC hearings that produced the Hollywood Ten blacklist, with the main plot thrust being a red-baiting LAPD investigation into a stagehand union. The second main plot running through the book is about a young and naive LA County Sheriff as he traces a serial killer who mimics the killing patterns of Wolverines - and who exclusively targets gay men. 

Beware - major spoilers lie beyond. I’m doing my best to minimize. 

In crime fiction, the private eye’s greatest motivation is obsession, and Ellroy’s detectives are masters of that sordid art. They get obsessed with the usual suspects, women, drugs, money, and the all-important elusive solution. This sheriff in The Big Nowhere, Danny, becomes obsessed with his case, obsessed with catching this killer of men. The only problem is - his colleagues and his enemies wonder why he’s so obsessed about a homo snuff killing. 

You can draw your own conclusions, conclusions Danny is reluctant to draw himself. 

For understandable reasons, as it turns out. When Danny is outed (and framed for the murders he’s investigating) his life is ruined. Faced with the decision of suicide or being outed under a lie detector questionnaire, Danny chose the less painful option. If my most recent history read is accurate, that was a fate all too common in the era.

From the perspective of a person familiar with Ellroy’s style of protagonist, I was amazed that he didn’t treat either Danny or the serial killer - who is also gay - as simplistic character. Yes, bury your gays applies and they’re not exactly positive depictions of gay people, but they are first and foremost complete characters - complex, tragic and strangely sympathetic. (I won’t describe the events that drove the killer to violence, but they are horrific and make an almost irredeemable monster into a disturbingly sympathetic character.) 

I want to show that kind of sympathy to the characters in the books and stories I write. Hell, that’s the kind of sympathy / empathy I want to have for people in the real world. That really is the miracle of Ellroy’s style. Beneath the bluster and the conservative raconteur persona lies a sympathetic, remarkably kind author who understands the depths humans can sink to. He respects his characters, but they don’t get special treatment. The good leave for the big nowhere and the bad live on. That’s life, depressingly enough. That’s our history as a country. 

On a personal note, The Big Nowhere is the book I was reading when I was finally starting to accept my own sexuality. That is largely why it's remained my favorite book. As you can imagine, Danny’s story resonated with me - especially in his final scene. That moment... wooof. It’s one of those rare times where you just have to put the book down and stare out the window after reading. 

At the time that I read it, I realized I was facing a decision like Danny. I want to be clear, I wasn't facing the same stakes, I was never that desperate. But the choice was similar. Acceptance or letting my soul step into the big nowhere. I know I made the right decision. 

Heroes of Their Own Story for Once

Change of pace here, let’s talk about what I’ve been watching instead of reading. There will be some crossover with what I’m reading, but that’s neither here nor there. 

I’ve realized that my favorite type of characters are supporting characters. The type of side characters who steal the show from the protagonists and antagonists by virtue of their usefulness in the plot. They exist entirely to help or hinder the heroes on their journey, and frankly, they make the world of stories feel real. Below are two micro reviews for shows that feel like side stories, where every single character plays a supporting role to the rest of their world’s stories. 

I hope everyone is watching the The Pitt. It’s one of the few shows I’ve seen in the last few years that actually feels hopeful. If you’re unaware, The Pitt (on HBO) is a medical drama following the particularly hectic 15 hour shifts at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center. Created by ER alumni R. Scott Gemmill, John Wells and Noah Wyle (who also stars), the Pitt plays out in real time and has been acclaimed for the accuracy and level of realism in its depictions of medical procedures. 

Mostly accurate, I should say. I don’t know from experience, but I have seen reviews from medical professionals who critique some aspects of the show; notably that CPR doesn’t exactly look violent or deep enough, the number of complex cases that enter the Pitt is unrealistically high. (I refer you this this article here.) 

I mean, it a drama series, the amount of complex cases will be unrealistically high for the sake of the story tension. And tension really is the word for the show. One aspect that the medical community has unequivocally praised the show for is it’s depiction of mental health struggles among ER workers and GOD does the show make you feel that. Many of the characters struggle with the stress of their job, a stress which is compounded by under funding, short staffing, administrative demands, drug addiction and yes, violence against healthcare workers. It’s sad to say that these aspects of the show have been praised as accurate too. 

It’s a phenomenally well-written and acted show. Noah Wyle deserves all the praise he’s received as the lead Dr. ‘Robby’ Robinavitch, but I also want to praise Patrick Ball, Katherine LaNasa, Tracy Ifeachor, Taylor Dearden and Gerran Howell for their performances. Really the whole cast deserves praise, but I need to highlight the performances of two other guest stars, Samantha Sloyan, best known to Mike Flanagan fans as Bev Keane, and Drew Powell, best known to Gotham fans as Solomon Grundy. They play two wildly different characters, patients at the Pitt, but they leave a huge impact on series. 

I also really need to praise the writers and director who managed to balance the pacing of several intense story lines pitch-perfectly. In the end, what I love about this show is that it’s story of people who care working in a system that doesn’t care at all. It’s frustrating, surprisingly cathartic, sad and uplifting at the same time. I haven’t seen anything of season 2 yet, but I’ve heard it’s more of the same, which is exactly what I need from television right now. 

Here’s the crossover with my reading, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. I just finished reading George R R Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas, which have provided the basis for this next Game of Thrones spin off. I got to admit, I’m excited for this new series. I didn’t watch this as it aired (I kind of prefer the bingewatch model of television - it lets me multitask) but a 6 half hours episodes, it’s short enough to watch in an afternoon. I’m also surprised by just how closely the series followed the story; outside of an extended flashback in episode 5 and one major change at the end of the series, it’s practically a page for page translation. 

The main theme that the Dunk and Egg novellas play with is nobility through humility. Ser Duncan the Tall is a hedge knight (knight errant) of no fixed abode or Lord. His squire, Egg, is secretly a member of House Targaryen, and is promised to one day sit up the Iron Throne, despite being 4th in line of succession. Both Dunk and Egg despise seeing nobility using their privilege to hurt the small folk of the Seven Kingdoms, and use their sub-rosa travels through Westeros to right wrongs, sing songs and learn about their country. 

They're both really fun characters. Egg is the dictionary definition of “precious little scamp” while also possessing a royal bearing and great knowledge of the country they travel. Ser Duncan’s strength doesn’t come from his stature but from his humble heart. He’s certainly an ambitious character, dreaming about one day becoming a member of the Kingsguard, something that a lowly hedge knight has never done. But he’s an honest man, a kind man and he might just make it that far... if this weren’t the Song of Ice and Fire Universe, where being a decent person gets you killed. So thank the seven Ser Dunk is also a fucking berserker who has no compulsion about starting and ending fights with assholes. He’s the type of hero I love, noble and honorable and willing to throw hands with the best of them. 

The TV show focuses on the first novella, The Hedge Knight, which pits the newly knighted Ser Duncan against Egg’s older brother, the haughty and vile Aerion. It’s the humble knight with his unlikely retinue of supportive friends vs the power of the Iron throne. It ends in tragedy, with one of the show’s best supporting characters dying.

We’re supposed to get a new season next year and I’m all for it. Peter Claffey as Dunk and Dexter Sol Ansel as Egg carry the show thanks to their chemistry, and the other cast members do well too. Notable standouts being Daniel Ings, Tanzyn Crawford, Bertie Carvel, and Finn Bennett. I really want to see Daniel Ings return, but his character isn’t in the other novellas, so that might not be possible. 

Like I said at the start of this post, The Pitt and Knight of the Seven Kingdoms are stories about side characters. They have their main protagonists, sure, Dr. Robby and Ser Dunk would make for an interesting paring, but the stories these shows tell are not the main stories in their respective worlds.

The Pitt takes place in a world the necessitates but mistreats Healthcare workers because everyone else is just so much more important. Real things happen in the rate race outside of hospitals, and medical professionals are just the pit crew that repairs shattered people and sends them back out into the world. (Yeah, the pit crew analogy isn’t me being clever, it’s said in universe.) Meanwhile, a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is explicitly a side story to the main Song of Ice and Fire. It’s not an epic, it’s a fun little romp where no major characters from the main story will ever be hurt, and where the true heroes, the silent, noble warriors who go unpraised can finally get their due. 

These respective shows are stories of side characters - the most important people in their respective worlds. Here’s to ‘em. Cheers. 

What I’m reading: 

Bored of the Rings by the Harvard Lampoon (It was a slow week)

Dan Pelzer, Ray Bradbury, and Me

 Last December I stumbled across a lovely article about Dan Pelzer, a man who had kept a list of the 3,599 books he’d read in his lifetime. That list is publicly available in two different formats (pdf) and his website, along with some great information about Dan’s life. 

I bring this up because I realized that I’ve been keeping a similar book list since high school, and it’s actually pretty far along. No, I haven’t read 3,599 books yet, but I up to 816 odd books. I don’t post that number to boast (hell if I wanted to boast I’d go to my parent’s house and scour the shelves for all the books I can remember reading before high school - and from there I’d have to go to my old library and look for all the books I’ve read from *there*.) No, I bring it up because because 1) Dan’s life story is lovely and should be shared and 2) it raises interesting ideas about reading habits. 

Scrolling Dan’s list for books you’ve read is kinda fun, there’s the obvious classics you would expect (ie Sherlock Holmes, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Charles Dickens) but you’ll also find books on a diverse range of subjects form Buddhist theology to the ethics of animal rights to contemporary history. He had his favorite genres of course, mysteries, thrillers and theology were pretty common genres, but he also didn’t seem to care about the perspectives of the books. Conservative, liberal, believing, atheist, Dan read them all. You can wonder why. For my part, I assume Dan had two reasons. 

First, because he was curious about the world, and his library was the best place to learn. I presume he had his own perspectives on the world that guided his decisions after reading, but Dan still took in all the diverse perspectives on the world that he could lay his hands on. From any country, from any religion, from any political system, from any joke available. 

Second, for the pure joy of it. Look at the list and try to understand the order that he chose books to read. Outside of stretches where he was working on a book series or was just on a mystery kick (I sympathize) Dan basically read everything he could get his hands on, nonfiction and fiction alike. I’m reminded of a video where Ray Bradbury addressed a class at Point Loma Nazarene University, encouraging them to read widely on any subject that interests them. He exhorts people to go to the library (or a movie theater for that matter) without prejudice and find anything that speaks to them. One line from Bradbury in particular stands out, “I want your loves to be multiple! I don’t want you to be a snob about anything!” (Check out 15:00 though 18:25 in the video.)

I feel like Dan embodies the spirit of Bradbury’s suggestions, and I can only hope that’s why I read. I look back over the list of books I read, and I think most of my reading during college years were assignments for various literature classes. In the years after that, I can see a development in my reading, going from books I knew to similar books, to related genre books. That’s mostly how I bought books or found them at the library. 

My family has a tradition of giving bookstore gift cards out for Christmas, and this past January I went into a HPB with my card. I had some good finds, all by authors I didn’t know or who were only vaguely familiar. Most of the time I made these selections because the cover was striking and the back cover or inside slips sounded interesting. Three of them were translations from modern French, Italian and Japanese authors. They join a huge TBR pile that I can’t wait to sink into. I wonder if Dan would’ve been interested in them. 

Anyways, last week I mentioned I had read Dante’s Inferno and A Clockwork Orange again. I was going to write about them, but I really couldn’t think of anything interesting enough for a blog post. So, brief thoughts: 

Dante’s Inferno (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation.) My sister recommended Longfellow’s translations as it was fairly similar to the Esolen translation she and I had read before, but in her opinion the poetry scanned better. I’m not in any place to comment on that, but I did enjoy this version. To be honest, as profound and beautifully written as Purgatorio and Paradiso are, I’m not surprised most people skip them. Inferno is simply more fun that the other two, and not just for the amount of self-aggrandizement that Dante indulged in. 

A Clockwork Orange. Probably best known for Kubrick’s 1974 adaptation which has more or less shaped the popular understanding of the book. I mean, really, what can I say? Yes, the book still tackles issues of free will, government overreach, juvenile delinquency, systemic failures, communication breakdown between generations, sex and Beethoven, but to be honest I didn’t find the book as profound as when I first read it. My first experience reading the book left me horrified at the violence and sexual assault that the protagonist Alex perpetrates, but what struck me more with this read through was the language. 

Final Word: both good to reread, but I’m eager for something new. 

So what I have I been reading? 

This week I’ve been reading Brandon Sanderson’s massive epic Oathbringer, book three of his Stormlight Archives. I don’t know if I’ll write about that book or just write a general Sanderson appreciation post. We’ll see. 

For my bookclub I read Something Close to Nothing by Tom Pyun, a story about a couple that breaks up right as their surrogate daughter is going to be born. I don’t really know what to say about this one just yet other than it made me laugh and cry alternatively. 

If It Bleeds, a collection of Stephen King’s novellas that was generally pretty good. 

What Am I reading Next? 

Skeletons in the Closet by Jean-Patrick Manchette, a French mystery (thanks New York Review of Books)

Cierce by Madeline Miller

Car Crash Cluster Fuck

I don’t want to get political, but has anyone noticed that humans are kinda fucked up? 

How fucked up are we? Well, we invented boredom and if you tell me you’d need another example, I’ll tell you I don’t believe it. Fine. War, genocide, fascism, chemical weapons and the Olympics, those are pretty fucked up too. But how heinous is manufactured isolation? Can you imagine being so trapped by the rat race or social media that all the things that are supposed to make you feel *anything* numb you instead? Can you imagine being so bored and so lonely with life that you can only find solace in the thrilling, highly erotic rush of a car accident?

No I didn’t just turn over two pages at once. Stay with me. Crash by J G Ballard is a science / transgressive fiction novel about people who are so disaffected by modern society that they turn to vehicular collisions for their erotic thrills. 

(Sit down, you’re not getting out of this that easily. I read the damn thing, you just have to experience it vicariously.)

I’ll be honest, and I won’t live this statement down: I kind of fucks with the premise. People being so far removed from the human experience that they can only feel human connections through extreme actions is an inherently interesting theme, and fair’s fair, Ballard handles it well. When he’s thinking about it, that is. Plot wise, Crash centers on mad scientist Robert Vaughn and his menagerie of violently auto-aroused test subjects who he goads into psychosexual experiments (read; recreations of celebrity car crashes.) I say “goads” loosely, most of his subjects are happy to see how far they can push their arousal. Robert Vaughn has his own fetishes, specifically fantasizes about killing Elizabeth Taylor in a head-on collision where he can orgasm right as they both die. 

(If I didn’t make this clear before, the tone Ballard adopted for this book is blatantly pornographic, and I’m not certain how I feel about that. One the one hand, the book is so gross it completely fails as porn. On the other hand, it’s exploring the boundaries where technology and sexuality meet, so writing it as gross porn makes an obscene amount of sense.)

Yeah. Don’t go looking for a happy ending (hahahahahahaha) in this one. Or for pleasant, redemptive characters, so far as that goes. In his introduction to the book, Ballard commented that he saw the book as a new type of pornography, where technology and human sexuality are pushed to their limits to see if intimacy can survive. Very Black Mirror idea, actually. Loath as I am to agree with an author’s intentions, here’s what I take away from Ballard’s perspective: Technology as an extension of the human body at the cost of intimacy. 

It might be a trite observation, but the boundaries between human sexuality and technology have only thinned over time, the amount of power over ourselves we’ve ceded to said technology has grown. Yeah, most people haven’t fetishized car crashes, but technology is rampant in sexuality now. How often do you use your phone or your computer when you masturbate? Have you ever wondered if someone could hack your phone and film you in intimate moments? How often do you use an app when you want to find a quick fling for the night or do you use an app for long term dating? Do tech companies sell your browsing data? Every so often we hear about social rating apps for desirability in mating (As far as I know this isn’t a real thing, but I seem to recall Meta suggesting it at one point?) Can you log on to your favorite VTuber’s private stream and use your phone to gain control of their vibrator for a small fee? VR porn games exist, do you think people haven’t jacked themselves raw over them? 

No one in Crash experiences intimacy. The narrator and his wife start an open marriage basically because they’re bored with each other and can’t be bothered with a divorce. Yet in all their flings and increasingly dangerous and somehow neither ever find any kind of intimacy. The narrator finds obsession, dominating and daring Dr. Vaughn to kill him in his experiments, but the excitement fades. What’s bleakest about the book is there’s no next thing, no new rush for the characters. They keep holding out for gratification but never find the thing that sets them off. Everyone is more isolated by the end, more numb.

I don’t think technology in a sexual context is inherently a bad thing (I’m thinking of whatever medical technology made penile implants possible, for instance.) but the amount of power we decide tech has in sexuality is a concern I wasn’t really thinking about before reading this book. Now that I am thinking about it... I’m not that comfortable, I won’t lie. 

Are you familiar with the male loneliness epidemic that’s been reported recently? How some studies have shown that while both males and females are increasingly feeling lonely and isolated, young males in particular seem to be having a worse time? (FYI, Male Loneliness apparently is a contested issue, and I don’t know how reliable these studies are. For this post, I'm working with the concern that people of all genders are feeling isolated from each other at record rates.) I think of this epidemic level loneliness, and I think of the ways technology grifters and conspiracy theorists give lonely people purposes - frequently towards dangerous ends. ‘Join the cause and you wont be alone’ type of deal? And once the cause has chewed lonely people up and spat them back out while the grifters who pulled them in walk away unscathed? 

Robert Vaughn in Crash is that type of grifter. He’s the only one who benefits, and yeah, he dies, but he dies gratifying his desires. Everyone else is left alone. They’ve crashed, but they haven’t climaxed. They’re left with the same desire they always had, with no outlet for their tension. 

To go back to my original question, yes I can imagine a world where extreme technologies drive us to wild new forms of sexual experimentation. I can also imagine the aftermath. Sticky and gross with more to clean up. 

So, good on J G Ballard for making me think about sex in a new and disturbing way. Did I like his book? No... Do I recommend Crash? Heavily qualified yes... but only if you’re willing to put up with some truly stomach churning pieces of writing. Yeah this book is gross, beyond body horror, and that’s probably why it was so controversial. As I said, it’s basically porn, but written in a really clinical tone with scatological language that’s pretty revolting at times. One of my friends described it as a ‘clusterfuck’ while we discussed it, and it literally is a clusterfuck. I’d say read it if you’re interested, but don’t blame me if you get the wrong kind of thrill when you step into your car next.

Anyways, I just finished reading Dante's Inferno and A Clockwork Orange, so hopefully we'll have something a little more lighthearted next post.   

(PS, in 1996 Crash was turned into a movie by - who else - David Cronenberg. I haven’t seen it, but reportedly it focuses more on the connection between sex and death than sex and technology. I mean fair enough. Sex and death is certainly a theme of the book, but one I admit wasn’t as interesting to me.)

Trying Something New

So. 

I've often thought about inflicting the hazardous wastes that exist inside my head on the outside world, but I've wanted to spew it on my own terms, if that makes sense. "So join social media" they said. Uh ... no. 

I'm not a fan of pushing my thoughts out one bite sized chunk at a time a la Twitter or bsky and I really can't be bothered to document my life one picture at a time a la FB or Insta.  (Yes, I have social media accounts but that's beside the point.) So here's my grim compromise. 

Imma start writing down what I think about books, movies, TV, games, yeah yeah yeah, you all know the drill. I'll say it up front, I don't have anything special to differentiate this place from all the other internet diaries you can find. I'm just another lonely voice in the wilderness of voices, hoping that I luck into big audience of like-minded weirdos who share my sense of humor - or at least find my tastes in literature interesting.  

'Cause I hope that's mostly what I'm going to be writing about. I read a good deal (thanks audiobooks) and I keep hoping that I can build a career as a fiction writer. As I work on that, I'm hoping I can finally make some use of my English minor (and BA in Journalism) by using this blog as a vehicle for my critical opinions.  

Outside of said BA, I don't have any credentials that make me a critic so I'm going to have to make myself one. So, until I start reading books on textual criticism or semiotics, or on film and literary criticism, please note that most of what I write will be of the "I like this because of X" school of criticism. Also, I'm hoping I can post at least every week, and more frequently if I can.  

Anyhoo... 

I'm working on a post about the book I just finished, Crash by J G Ballard. Hooooooooooooo boy that's a hell of a first thing to write about. If you know, you know. If you don't... you'll find out. From me. 

I'm Currently: 

• Reading: 
• Something Close to Nothing by Tom Pyun 
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• Watching: 
• Fallout S 1 (Amazon Prime)
• Playing 
• Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Prokekt Red, on pc, Steam)

I want to _____ next:

• Read
• The Inferno by Dante Alighieti, Henry Longfellow's Translation
• Oathbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
• Watch 
• Fallout S 2 (Amazon Prime)
• Iron Lung
• Code3  
• Play: 
• The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe, on pc, Steam)