October 3, 2021

An update on some things:

• My house is partially clean. I am hoping to get to the rest of the most pressing stuff by the end of the week. At which point I'm sure it will need to be cleaned again. The struggle never ends. I haven't even brought up the once or twice a year tasks I still hope to get to.
• I am on page 200 of Dune and wish I was a faster reader.
  
• My frail aging body may force me to finally keep posts short. Typing is start to cause severe discomfort to my right wrist/hand/arm/shoulder. I don't think this carpal tunnel, but I think this needs to be addressed by a doctor at this point.
• I went to see a movie in a movie theater - Free Guy. Quick review: It's a fun movie. I would go so far as to say it is a good movie, but you may have to be into video game culture to enjoy it. The main cast of Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, that guy from Stranger Things (not that guy, the other guy, no no, the other other guy - the one with the hair) are good. Taika Waititi is enjoyable, but his character lacks his trademark subversive wit and is a two dimensional boilerplate bad guy. I'm sure some lamented that the movie was too glitzy, superficial, and less original than it thinks it is (It did have a lot of Lego Movie vibes.). If you want to get deep, it did have an opportunity to be the comedic counterpart to Ex Machina. But just the fact that I recognized the common thread means the movie at least addressed deeper philosophical issues of sentience, AI, simulation theory, humanity and morality. But, aw shucks, not everything has to be a film. I enjoyed it as a zany action/comedy/romance. While it may not be as clever as it thinks it is (perhaps one or two pop culture references went a bridge too far in the climactic scene), I found it more clever than most.
• I also watched Judas and the Black Messiah recently. I'll remember that film for the dramatic performances of Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield. I will expose my whiteness by confessing I had to turn subtitles on because Fred Hampton had a dialect I am not too familiar with and talks fast. Like a man who know knew he was running out of time. But I had fun watching Free Guy. I think that counts for something.
• Fat bear week is about to end, so go vote for your favorite bear.
  

The CBS SUNDAY MORNING POWER RANKINGS

1) Dan Bergmann

Dan recently earned a degree from Harvard Extension School. I kind of just want to leave it at that tell you watch his commentary video. Once you have, you can come back before I give thoughts.

(Don't worry, I'll wait.)

In my day to day life, I occasionally come across a non-neurotypical person. Through no fault of theirs, I am uncomfortable around them. That's my problem. When something makes you uncomfortable, I suppose a fight or flight instinct kicks that makes a lot of people (including me) just want to run away from it. I wish I had more exposure so that the non-neurotypical person was less atypical to me.

Anyway, the people who helped Dan to break down his barrier to communication are heroes. The idea that someone has something to say, but cannot, is terrifying, heartbreaking, and uplifting. Terrifying because it shows how little we understand about our minds. Heartbreaking for obvious reasons. Uplifting because it contributes to the notion that inside everyone is a person that has something worthwhile to say - no matter how they say it. Maybe no barrier is too high for any of us.

2) Serena Altschul

Three weeks in a row for Ms. Altschul! Is she becoming the new David Pogue or something? I don't have connection to the show, nor am I going to act like I'm a journalist and try to research why it seems like Serena has come out of some kind of intermittent hiatus to coming back to being a full fledged contributor once again, but from a story on Raffi from not so long ago, I know she has a young girl. I shouldn't speculate, but I will. I'm guessing directing more energy towards parenting and now that her daughter is getting a little older, she has time for segments again. Again, no idea if that's remotely accurate, but if it is, thanks to her daughter for sharing her Mom with Sunday Morning. She's delightful.

Reductive summary: Roberto Lugo is an artists working in the form of ceramic pottery.

Less reductive take: Roberto Lugo is modern artist who co-opts a bit of anglo-saxon (i.e. White) culture and transforms into a commentary on the overlooked and underprivileged. Watching him teach random people on the street to throw pots puts a new spin on a "Teach a man to fish..." adage. Not every learner is going to listen to every teacher and not every teacher is going to be able to get through to every learner. Diversity is important because Roberto Lugo is the type of artist that can reach the marginalized because that's where he came from.

3) Kelefa Sanneh

I now understand my attachment to Kelefa Sanneh.

Some of my CD collection

For me, it wasn't listening to a punk mixtape that expanded my horizons and turned me a music aficianado. I think it was when my brother gave me a Beck album as a present. I was not christened a punk. I'd say I was pretty squarely in the hipster category. Although, also like Kelefa, my musical tastes cast a wide net. I would say my tastes are eclectic, but that's such an annoyingly overused word to genre preferences thanks to KCRW - I sort of wish radio stations still mattered (WOXY forever!). If I had to choose a musical allegience, I was born an Indie kid and I'll die an Indie kid. It kind of a cop out because Indie can sort of be whatever you want it to be.

Do I need to buy and or read Kelefa's book? It would go on a stack of books I'm not sure I'll ever catch up on. I'm sure I would enjoy it (if I got to it). It seems like it would fit well next my encyclopedia of works by Chuck Klosterman.

Fast forwarding, the death of the brick and mortar record store coincided with an enthusiasm decline in music on my part. I'm really more like Kelefa's lawyer friend, who grew out of it his angsty teen punk phase, than I am like Kelefa himself who turned his passion into a profession.

All of this reminds me of the one of my favorite Onion articles of all time. Surprisingly accurate. Let it be known, I've seen Crooked Fingers in concert. They opened for Spoon at the Southgate House on April 3, 2003.

Were you there, friend?

4) Lee Cowan

Author Anthony Doerr is the subject of Lee's segment. I'm not going to read his new book, Cloud Cuckoo Land, nor will I be reading his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, All the Light We Cannot See, because, in a word, time. But the segment has three things going for it.

First, I was partly raised at a public library. When I was somewhere between the ages of 5-7 I used to check out the numbered Star Trek paperbacks all the time. These were not picture books. At some point in my life, I copped to not actually reading any of them. I just paged through them, picking out how many times the "Spock" appeared in the text.

Two, Idaho is beautiful. I have a neighbor who talks about retiring to Sun Valley. I don't have enough money to live there. If he has that kind of cash, he does a pretty good job of not flaunting his wealth.

Three, it's aspirational. Anthony Doerr is living my dream. Sometimes I really want to quit my job and go for it - aspiring writer that is. And then I die a little on the inside knowing that I won't do it because it's not sensible. Damn my upbringing. Sensibility has led me to a stable job, but, indulge my midlife crisis, not much excitement.

5) Brown Pelicans, Extinct Birds

Birds! So many pelicans. Birds are a staple of the moment of nature. And when they are, it's always brought to you by Audubon Florida, wherever the birds may be. (California in this case.) Why? I have no regular readers, so let the mystery swirl. The brown pelicans are no longer endangered, which is supposed to buoy spirits in a week when 23 other species (not all birds) were officially declared extinct, including a certain woodpecker that has featured prominently on Sunday Morning in both the recent and distant past. (See below.)

6) Steve Hartman

Congrats to Steve Hartman for winning an Emmy! A little part of me feels a little betrayed that it was for the evening news and not Sunday Morning, but just a little.

This week in feelgoodery is about woman caught in a flash flood in Maryland being saved by Marines. (I kind of wanted a date on that, because I feel like I might been caught in the same storm... was it July 30th?) Not just Marines, but Marines in their dress blues. Classic.

Speaking of classic Steve, here's the old segment on the now officially extinct Ivory Billed Woodpecker wherein Steve gets a spiff haircut:

The segment was also recently referenced by a recent Conor Knighton segment on the search for extinct animals.

7) David Pogue

The concept of Facebook as a upstanding corporate citizen is a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham. People talk about Facebook killing people due to COVID misinformation, but how about killing people by using it as a platform to organize genocide in the Rakhine state? None of this should be news if anyone is paying attention. So CBS's Sunday Morning/60 Minutes double whammy on Facebook should not have be a shock to anyone.

I seriously don't know what to do about people who've retreated to Facebook because the "media is biased." But there is a difference be journalism and claptrap. Removal of bias is an impossible goal. Journalists can choose what they cover and how they cover it to a certain extent, but almost none of them lie. If you think something in "the media" is misleading or untrue, present your facts sir. Until then, you are just more claptrap to be ignored.

I really should delete my account. The only reason I leave it up is because once in a blue moon, someone invites me to something cool via Facebook. So basically FOMO. It's not a very good reason.

Here is the nod of a man who asked a question and got exactly the answer he was expecting:

I thought you were going to say that.

No one is shocked.

8) Ben Mankiewicz

Daniel Craig says he's done with Bond, which he's said before, but probably means this time. His run of Bond has been a law of diminishing returns. Casino Royale was good. Quantum of Solace was a terrible title. I think Skyfall was pretty good, but I really don't remember very well. Javier Bardem was involved, right? Well, if I can't remember it, who cares? Spectre, I think I had stopped caring. No Time to Die sounds like it was created by a James Bond title generator..

Can we revisit Casino Royal for a second.

Oh god! Not that scene!

I'm not exactly sure how Casino Royale is easily the best of the Craig Bonds. There's the scene above. The shameless capitalization on the early to mid aught's Poker craze (man is that a rabbit hole I don't want to go down...) quickly dates the film. Also, the climactic scene is essentially stolen from the delightful 1994 film Maverick itself an update of the old western TV show. Also the poker itself... the bad guy weeps blood and somehow Bond is a world class player because he notices that obvious tell? I know, I know... Le Chiffre manipulates the affectation to play the long game and bust Bond who has to buy back into the game with help from Langley...

Anyway, the answer is Eva Green as Vesper Lynd. She's by far the most interesting and complicated of all the "Bond girls". In fact, calling her a "Bond girl" does a bit of disservice to the character.

In conclusion, how did they ever get away with naming a character "Pussy Galore".

9) Jim Axelrod

I'm not going to claim to be a big Doobie Brothers fan. Sunday Morning covers its fair share of dinosaur rock from time to time. I will say, I know and sort of like most of their earlier rockers prior to the arrival of Michael McDonald. Prior to the segment, I had no idea that the Doobies with Michael McDonald were the same band as the Doobies without Michael McDonald. No judgement. It's just not my cup of tea.

10) John Dickerson, Jane Pauley, Martha Teichner (tie)

Pauley hosted.

I love John Dickerson, but an inside Washington roundup is not why I tune into Sunday Morning. Give me more budget reconciliation shop talk said no one ever. But I can't wait for him to decide to do a non-politics segment at some point.

You might be able to tell, I'm losing the will to keep the Teichner bit going. It's still hanging around for now.