Book Talk

 So, after last week’s mammoth post I was wondering what I’d be writing about this week. I’m compiling notes for an indepth review of the game Cyberpunk 2077; I thought I could write that this week, but I don’t think I’m ready yet. I haven’t talked about books I’ve read for a while, and now seems as good a time as any. So I’m just going to go through some of the few recent books I’ve read. 

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller’s first novel, this is a retelling of Greek myth that canonizes the speculated romantic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus during the Iliad. It’s a perfectly fine, but truth be told I wasn’t really into the central relationship. If you’re familiar with the Iliad, you’ll be relieved to see that the circumstances of Patroclus’ death remain mostly the same, with only a few deviations. Miller goes into greater detail for the cause of Achilles and Agamemnon’s feud. The real genius of the story, and the reason I’d recommend the book at all, is that  fictionalized account of Patroclus’ childhood. It bleeds seamlessly into rest of the story, and creates a compelling character out of an ancient archetype

Side Note: I really should reread the Odyssey before Nolan’s adaptation comes out. That would be fun. 

Carol or The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith published this lesbian love story under a pseudonym in 1952. While lesbian / queer fiction was nothing new at the time, it was mostly relegated to under the counter, pulply pornography that usually ended badly for all characters. Carol defies it’s peers by being a non-pornographic romance with a relatively happy ending which has proved vital to it’s enduring charm. It’s a dreamy story of a young woman pulled off her feet by her first true love, and I won’t lie, it feels amazing to finish the story and realize that she could continue that love affair. 

Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore’s niche is quirky, comedic fantasy novels that draws humor from a Lynchian juxtaposition of the supernatural and the frustrating. It’s very Terry Pratchett, come to think of it. Practical Demonkeeping is about a 90 year old teenager who has been the personal master of a demon since 1919. openly hating the demonic fucker, Travis tries to get rid of it in a variety of ways when he stumbles into the Northern Californian town Pine Cove. Hilarity, witches, genies, and a whoooooole lotta murder ensue. It’s fine. I didn’t laugh as often as I have with Terry Pratchett books, but I still think you should read it. 

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 

Speaking of Terry Pratchett. This was a reread for me as I was anticipating the third season of Good Omens and I wanted to refresh for the story. As it happens, the series adapted the book almost perfectly within the first season, and the second and third were built off an idea Pratchett and his writing partner Neil Gaiman had for a sequel. I’ll discuss it more when I review the show (possibly my next post.)

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Did you enjoy Downton Abbey but thought that its endless melodramatic plotlines needed reining in? Well here’s a novel about only a few dramatic plotlines set in the generations after Downton Abbey official ended. It follows the prim and proper Stevens, butler to the late Lord Darlington. Stevens narrates the last few years of Darlington’s life - slowly revealing that Darlington had been a Nazi sympathizer who fell into disgrace following the end of WWII. Told in parallel is the tale of Stevens’ doomed romance with his fellow servant Miss Kenton, a romance doomed because Stevens is unable to be personable in any way shape or form. It’s a sad story, watching a man unable to admit the faults of the man he had pledged to serve or to see him painfully unable to admit his obvious feelings. It’s a good book and will probably end up on my best of the year list. 

Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly

I’ve been a fan of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels for a few years now, and I’m pleased to say that this one remains as taught as the previous entries. I kinda prefer the Lincoln Lawyer books, so I’m happy to see Mickey Haller make a brief appearance in this entry. Despite some heavy subject matter and a slightly unbelievable plot, this is a decent entry in the Bosch series, and if you want a rip-raoring crime yarn, here you go. 

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

Although this is the first one of his books I’ve read, I’m not the biggest fan of Walter Isaacson. Something about his Steve Jobs and Elon Musk biographies haven’t really struck a chord with me. I dunno why, I think that they seem a little “great man theory” on the surface. Fortunately, Isaacson’s biogrpahy of Leonardo da Vinci is a good introduction to his writing style. It’s perfectly serviceable as a life story, even if it does occasionally feel like a TED-Talk on how much the modern world owes Leonardo. 

Faggots by Larry Kramer

This one... this was a lot and I’m not entirely certain how I feel about it. Faggots by Larry Kramer is the story of New York’s gay scene in the 1970’s. Yes, plot wise it’s about only a few people searching for love, but in all actuality, it really is about New York’s gay scene. It’s a deeply unpleasant satire about how flippant, image obsessed, and sex-hungry gay culture was in the 1970’s. Kramer’s characters obviously want something deeper. Noble goal for any character, hell, any person. The problem is the book has more than a whiff of self-loathing homophobia in it. It’s hard to say that any of the characters in the story feel like anything other than characters. It’s also chock full of gratuitous sexual content that’s clearly not meant as pornography. This is a heavily mixed recommendation for me. 

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

I’m surprised I got through this one in a week, but I’m glad I did. It’s as good as everyone says it is. Strongly recommend. 

The Carpool Detectives by Chuck Hogan 

This was a surprise. A true crime story that’s not overly sensationalized, that focuses on the investigation processes, and features down to earth investigators who are likable and not at all exploitative of their subject matter? “There’s no fucking way,” you scoff. ‘Oh yes there is,’ I say. It’s a story we’ve all heard before: A group of people become obsessed with a 15 year cold case murder, and become determined to crack it after meeting with the surviving family members of the victims. The catch? The investigators are four mothers who are bored during COVID lockdown. In between raising their families and dealing with the stress of the pandemic, they spend a hall of a long time digging up this cold case as a way of staying sane. The best part? - Outside of this being a true story? They succeed. Great read, highly recommend. 

The Good People of the Pitt

Caveat Emptor: Frank discussion of depression, trauma, self-harm, suicidal ideation and sexual assault. 

The older I get, the more fucked up the world gets, the more I reflect on my personal heroes and how they’ve evolved as I’ve aged. When I was 6 my heroes were Batman and Doctor Strange. At 12 it was The Doctor. At 16 I started looking for real world heroes (though I still admire the fictional ideal.) Ulysses Grant, Ernest Hemingway, Hedy Lammar, Rosa Parks. All worthy heroes, certainly. But now, starting down the barrel of 27 years and life not getting any easier, I find myself admiring more down to earth figures. Mr. Rodgers, John Candy, Rosa Parks still. The people who were just good, salt of the earth types just trying to do good and spread joy through their lives. 

As a sort of segue, I’m thinking of “good people” as a theme while watching the second season of the Pitt. A few posts back I made the comment that the Pitt was essentially the story of side characters being presented as the main characters. I’ll hold to that, but I will amend that statement to say that the second season includes a greater depth of character to the protagonists of the show, as any good second season should. 

The Pitt is defined emotionally by two interlinked themes, empathy and trauma. As healthcare workers, the characters of the Pitt must have empathy for their patients, and give them the best possible care. But that doesn’t mean that their patients have empathy, and that’s a major source of stress. Well, that and the causally horrifying amount of death they deal with on daily basis. The first season opened by examining how the healthcare workers at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center were scarred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have adapted to cope healthily with the trauma, some are struggling. The first season closed by re-traumatizing the main cast with an overwhelming mass casualty event. That trauma, and many, many interpersonal conflicts hang over the second season. 

Interpersonal conflicts. Ooof. Remember that empathy I spoke of before? Just as much as the patients don’t exactly have empathy for their caregivers, the doctors and nurses of the Pitt don’t always have empathy for their coworkers. 

E.R. veteran Noah Wyle deserves a hell of a lot of praise for his performance as Dr. Robby, the Pitt’s troubled lead. Last season saw him finally break down after barely holding himself together since the pandemic. It’s not a pretty sight. Now, he’s on the verge of a 3 month sabbatical, and he’s eager to go, he needs the vacation. But he can’t let himself leave the Pitt. He seems to show the biggest change in character between the two seasons, while he remains polite with patients, his frustrations with doctors, nurses and other caregivers frequently boil over. Over the course of the season it’s heavily implied that he’s planning on hurting himself on the trip, possibly killing himself. Yet he confesses to a friend that his active suicidal thoughts happen while he’s working. He just wants to ride off and doesn’t really care about the future at this point. 

Of course it doesn’t help that the Pitt season 2 is set over the 2026 July holiday weekend, (2 months away guys) and it’s busier than usual. When cyberattacks at nearby hospitals force the Pitt to shut down their computer systems and treat patients with analogue systems, everyone feels the crunch. 

Returning characters from the first season are welcome, even if they all face their own demons. Dana (played by Katherine LaNasa), the charge nurse running the whole emergency department is a welcome face, but she has her own traumas to face. (She’s my favorite character, not going to lie.) Last season she was brutally assaulted by an unhappy patient and has started carrying a tranquilizer syringe to protect herself and her nurses. She goes full Mama bear to protect new nurse Emma (Laëtitia Hollard), who is assaulted by patients at two separate points. (Emma seems fine by the end of season, but who knows what the future holds.) Dana’s calm facade snaps when she’s protecting Emma, but otherwise she remains the steady rudder guiding the Pitt, teaching nurses how to deal with patients with great care and empathy. Episode 7 and 8 of the are their highlights; Emma and Dana collect evidence from a rape survivor, and are shown to treat her with great humanity. 

The doctors in training return from last season, with more layers of their personality onions being stripped away. Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) continues with her abrasive personality, this time struggling to keep up with her charting and the difficulties of her private life. She is responsible for exposing another doctor’s drug habit and feels the pressure of silent judgment from her peers. She’s implied to be self-harming from the pressure, and out of all the characters, doesn’t seem to be able to ask for help. 

Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez) struggles to pick a specialization as she ends her fourth years of medical school, dealing with the pressure of her mother’s overbearing expectations and her father’s quieter pressures. Dr. Mel King (Taylor Dearden) struggles with being named in a malpractice lawsuit, and general loneliness stemming from her sister moving on in life. Dr. Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif) shows a little more stability than last season, proving herself a competent doctor with (possibly) a better love life than last season. Dr. Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell) has grown since last season, showing more confidence in his procedures while also demonstrating great empathy in dealing with patients and fellow doctors. One great moment in particular shows Whittaker comforting a traumatized new doctor who just lost in first patient in the worst way possible. This new doctor, Ogilvie (Lucas Iverson) is cocky and flippant, if competent enough, but losing his first patient on the table pushes him over the edge. Whitaker, who had been annoyed by Ogilvie’s attitude all day, comforts him, advising him on how to deal with the difficulty. 

Also returning is Dr. Frank Langdon, (Patrick Ball) the addict that Santos exposed last season. He’s just completed rehab and is back to work, but isn’t as confident as he used to be. While he tries to make amends with his colleagues and patients, he’s distressed by the pushback he receives. Dr. Santos in particular doesn’t want him back, and Dr. Robby doesn’t trust him. The season implies he might relapse into drug use, but he manages to survive the day without relapsing. 

This second season introduces a few new characters, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) being the most important. She’s poised as Dr. Robby’s replacement while he’s on sabbatical, and the two don’t exactly get along. Dr. Al-Hashimi wants to update the Pitt, and while Dr. Robby resents to the intrusion, her suggestions aren’t exactly unfounded, even if they’re not always good suggestions. For instance she pushes an AI transcription software to help with charting and ordering medications. But, she notes, doctors still have to proof read the transcription as it’s only 98% accurate, apparently. This plotline doesn’t feel like a cheap shot at AI, by the way. It’s depicted more as an active experiment than a takeover, even if it’s not that helpful. Dr. Al-Hashimi is at least depicted as being right in her criticisms of Dr. Robby's brusqueness and occasionally harsh moments. She's a great character and I hope she's in the next season. 

So it’s another stressful day at the Pitt. People clash, tensions and the temperature rise. And yet, through it all I find myself marveling over the small moments. An important plot point early in the first season shows the death of a man who worked on Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood, and his children finally bonding over his deathbed. That idea of being a neighbor, and bringing people some form of kindness and comfort remains an important theme in the second season, and, frankly, it’s why I watch The Pitt. You can talk about the show’s subtle (or not so) politics, or realistic approach, or it’s phenomenal writing (mostly; my one niggle with the show is there’s an occasional moment where the dialogue feels like it’s addressing the audience instead of the other characters. It isn’t frequent but feels awkward to hear; however I’m willing to give it a pass because it usually happens when the characters are speaking about some kind of industry failure and how they have to deal with it. If it takes fourth wall break to get effective change in the real world, I’m all for it.) You can and should talk about all of that. But I’m going to talk about the quiet moments of humanity. 

I mentioned Whitaker comforting Ogilvie, but he also encourages Langdon and helps him regain confidence. A Muslim nurse comforts a Jewish burn victim who suffers PTSD from the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. The hospital staff help an overweight man in need of a risky surgery reconnect with his sister. Dana and Emma show kindness to a homeless man, giving him a haircut and shower. The nursing staff comforting a woman detained by ICE agents. Dr. Robby’s friend Dr. Abbot encourages him to come back alive from his trip and to seek help. In the end, the day shift gathers on the roof of the hospital and watches the 4th of July fireworks. 

Notably, Dr. Robby doesn’t leave on his sabbatical at the end of the season. Instead, he’s finally shown comforting a foundling baby that things will be OK. He’s convincing himself, yes. But it’s one of the rare times in the show that he appears with his guard down. 

The older I get, the more fucked up the world gets, the more I want to be like Mr. Rodgers and John Candy (he could have been a wonderful cast member of the Pitt, now thinking about it.) Here’s hoping that everything will be OK.  

Cheers. 

May 3rd Post

Quick note, saying hi.

Exhausted after moving this past week. 

Working on a longer piece for next Sunday. Don’t know what it’s about yet, I have to finish the book first. 

Can’t wait.

Anyhoo. 

Have fun. 

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.