What I'm Enjoying Now (Nonfiction Edition)

I've been reading a lot of these nonfic books about trying to understand the world by looking at things a little closer and trying to make sense of the facts and the data that's in front of us. Nate Silver's book The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail But Some Don't is heavy on statistics and data, what Silver is most known for mastering. In Signal, Silver presents many cases where data and deep diving into statistics may present a better view of what's really going on, from evaluating baseball prospects to projecting election results. The book compares and contrasts differing viewpoints regarding analysis and how they can be used in unison as well as be used off each other to prognosticate and predict possible outcomes. He stresses that searching for the signal, the probable truth as opposed to the perceived popular opinion, the noise, may lead us to better predictions and eventually better long-term understanding.

Similarly, William Poundstone, in his book Rock Breaks Scissors: A Practical Guide to Outguessing & Outwitting Almost Everybody, stresses that by merely paying attention to the seemingly random and arbitrary patterns that people unconsciously abide by, we may be able to gain knowledge and understanding with which to gain favor, outwit foes and win Oscar pools and games. It's an interesting read, like Silver, Poundstone integrates real-world concerns like figuring out the stock markets and Big Data with sports, where the intersection of data analysis and unscripted action meet. A lot of what the book purports is that you can outguess simple events like multiple choice tests and card games by merely studying and understanding the things that people are most likely unconsciously going to do and using that to your advantage.

Nassim Nicolas Taleb, one of the world's foremost predictive analysts, writes in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, that we tend to come up with simple answers to complex problems after they've already happened, instead of doing the work and the research ahead of time to prevent them from happening in the first place. Taleb focuses on events such as the 9/11 attacks and the 2008 financial crisis, which Taleb predicted in the book, published in 2007, to prop up his "black swan theory," which, by using psychological and mathematical & scientific approaches, may help us understand and predict seemingly significant acts of randomness, and how to cope with them after the fact. Black Swan is a bit heavier of a read than Silver and Poundstone, and admittedly a bit over my head at some points, but extremely informative and interesting.

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, the latest from Malcolm Gladwell, explores the phenomenon of that mythical battle between an unstoppable force and a diminutive challenger and how easy it actually is to combat Goliath by using his own weaknesses against him. Gladwell uses historical events and battles, both physical (such as the titular fight) and cultural (civil rights movements, basketball, etc.) to show how underdogs can outwit their more dominant foes by engaging in unexpected behavior and using perceived weaknesses to exploit holes in expected favorites. Some of the arguments are a bit weak, such as a chapter where a successful Hollywood producer with dyslexia claims he would never wish it upon his worst enemy but wouldn't have wanted to grow up not suffering from it is uninspiring and drags a bit but nonetheless Gladwell's point of view when it comes to addressing the benefits of outliers and underdogs is evident here. It shows us that by merely taking a second look at our battles and re-assessing our strengths and weaknesses may perhaps help us beat the odds.

The most recent book of essays by one of my favorite culture critics Chuck Klosterman, I Wear The Black Hat: Grappling With Villains (Real And Imagined), explores the phenomenon of cultural villiany and how it affects the way we consume pop culture and the way we see our society's most infamous characters. For example, why we like some sports figures but loathe others, and why a character like Batman is heroic, but we look at real life vigilantes as dangerous criminals. What Klosterman is trying to understand is what we as a society are trying to get at when we label someone as a villain, and why, perhaps, those people are much more rewarding and interesting to study and learn about because, as he states as part of his thesis, as he gets older, the villains are just more fun. This is the most fluid and least concrete of the bunch, more of an opinionated criticism of pop culture than a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of it all but Klosterman is a brilliant essayist and has one of the keenest eyes for this kind of stuff. 

Shooting Down the American Sniper

This American Sniper story is supremely interesting to me. There are so many different levels to this story and so many controversies that it covers just about every base in social, political and entertainment circles. Chris Kyle was a US Navy SEAL who served four tours of duty in Iraq and he lived an odd, interesting, public life, wrote a book, became an icon, was murdered, and posthumously had a movie based on his life. What may or may not have actually happened in real life apparently somewhat differed from what Kyle put into his book, which was adapted and abridged by Clint Eastwood and a team of writers into what is now the number one movie in the US and the largest ever opening for an R-Rated movie in history. Kyle, a blustery, overconfident, uber-patriot is portrayed in the film by Bradley Cooper, who made the film his pet project after Kyle's death. Cooper plays Kyle as a humble, dedicated man who simply wants to protect his country from enemies foreign and domestic. As a long-range sniper, Kyle provides cover for ground troops fighting insurgents and clearing buildings. He doesn't enjoy killing but sees it simply as his duty to protect his brothers. He has his mission broken down to it's simplest form; If he doesn't kill them, they'll kill him. The fact that Clint Eastwood, the Godfather of the lone wolf vigilante film and noted conservative icon, is the architect of Kyle's onscreen story is not lost on the film's critics.

First, the film. American Sniper is, at it's heart, an action movie. Seth Rogen famously called it propaganda but it is really just a run-of-the-mill action movie. It feels hastily put-together and rushes through what should be important parts in Kyle's development. That being said, it does what the best films of its kind do right, namely, putting the battle between the life lived in service and the live lived back at home at the forefront. Kyle, compelled to enlist after seeing the twin towers fall on September 11, 2001, leaves behind his wife, played by Sienna Miller, and children to lay prone on top of crumbling buildings in Iraq to lay cover fire for his fellow servicemen. By the end of his first tour, Kyle has earned the nickname "Legend" among his brothers in arms and has become a god among men. We see Kyle and his squadron as they attempt to gain intelligence on a local warlord known as the Butcher, all the while dodging RPG's and the long range bullets of a very lethal sniper in his own right whom Kyle sees as his own personal mission to eliminate, even at the expense of going off-mission. The film is about determination and obsession and hero worship. Kyle says at one point, "The only thing that haunts me is all the guys I couldn't save." He's explaining to a therapist and himself and the audience that he has no regrets. It's hard to not imagine Eastwood himself playing Kyle if he were 40 years younger, stoically grimacing through the entire affair. Is it worth a $100 million opening weekend? Probably not. But the film itself isn't the only reason it became such a behemoth.

Which brings us to the controversies.

As previously noted, there are three versions of the Chris Kyle story. The film is, frankly, a watered down, cleaned up version of the man's life. That fact should not be held against Eastwood and Cooper, as the abridging of an autobiography for the big screen is a common tactic. However, that glossing over of some of the more controversial aspects of Kyle's life has, in itself, turned into a controversy. It seems that the film has become a litmus test for ones political beliefs, with patriotic right wingers applauding the film as a piece of good old fashioned patriotic filmmaking and liberals complaining that the film glamorizes a war and a soldier, in particular a soldier who is a long-range sniper, which Michael Moore this week called a "cowardly" act, in a way that signifies American imperialism and American warmongering. There have been many blog entries and articles about the lies and lessons that the film is supposedly telling us dumb, impressionable American viewers but I'm fairly certain that nobody is coming into a viewing of this film with a blank slate, you've already made up your mind by now. The only thing to discuss is your already formed opinion. Eastwood has said that the film is not meant to be taken as a political statement but it's hard to separate the man and his well documented statements as a conservative Republican from his work.* A secondary aspect of the controversy that has followed the film is it's surprise appearance on the Oscar ballot, perhaps in lieu of the MLK biopic Selma. While both American Sniper and Selma were both nominated for Best Picture, David Oleyowo's name was absent on the Best Actor in a Leading Role ballot while Cooper's name surprisingly snuck in. The lack of diversity on the ballot this year^  happened at the exact time that the American Sniper hysteria was reaching a full boil and the film was in due course roped into the conversation; a film about a white man of questionable moral fortitude who killed hundreds of people achieving more acclaim than a film about the most important civil rights advocate in American history. Not to mention that the film's director, a black woman, was also absent from the list of Best Director nominees (as was Eastwood). Normally, awards show quibbles are meaningless but when the topic of race is at such a forefront in the national consciousness, this type of oversight becomes an issue. The final aspect of this whole story is the fact that {SPOILER} Chris Kyle was murdered in 2013 by a fellow veteran at a shooting range. The man, Eddie Ray Routh, suffered from PTSD and shot and killed Kyle and another veteran at a shooting range in Texas and led police on a car chase before being caught and confessing to the crimes. Routh is currently awaiting a trial in February where a jury will determine if he was sane or not at the time of the shooting. The problem is, the Kyle legend has become such a big story, both to local Texans and because of the book and film that prosecutors believe the trial may become tainted. It's rare that a major legal trial and a mainstream film based on the true events of that case run into each other at the same time like this. After the film's theatrical run is winding down and after the Oscar's are handed out, the results of the trial will again add a new twist in this complex, strange story.

Perhaps the only winner of this entire story is Hollywood. For an R-Rated movie to make $100 million in it's opening weekend in the barren wasteland of January is a major win for the industry. It won't win any Academy Awards but the fact that the film even made it into the conversation is interesting in itself. Recent films treading similar subjects in the same war such as The Hurt Locker are better but the film is still worth watching. If anything, Bradley Cooper is in top form and Clint Eastwood is still proving that he can make a big action movie with the best of 'em. Go see it and then do some reading, I'm interested in seeing where everyone lands on this. 

*The fact that an 84 year old man directed two major motion pictures this year is, in itself, something that should be noted. While American Sniper has turned into a major success, Eastwood's Four Seasons biopic Jersey Boys was somewhat of a flop earlier this year.

^All twenty actors nominated this year are white, a statistic that, while probably a big picture problem, only adds to the confusion of some of the nominations this year, in my opinion. 

What I'm Enjoying Lately

BBC RADIO DRAMAS - Existing somewhere between an audiobook and a live stage play, full cast dramatization radio plays are kind of like listening to a movie without watching it. Where a standard audiobook will have one voice portraying all dialogue and narration, presentations like these BBC Radio Dramatizations I've been listening to lately employ an entire voice cast along with sound effects and music to create an entire piece. This type of radio play goes way back to the time before television where audiences would tune in to serialized weekly radio shows with recurring and popular characters in all genres. Orson Welles famously adapted H.G. Wells' The War Of The Worlds into a radio production that was produced to sound so realistic that audiences actually believed that they were hearing a radio report of a real-life alien invasion. These shows I've been listening to lately include a series of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett adaptations as well as various H.P. Lovecraft stories, which are particularly enjoyable. I don't drive as much as I used to so the thought of getting through a 10 disc audiobook is now a chore rather than a treat but these fun and different 1 to 2 hour abridged stories are perfect to add to the daily playlist.

WHIPLASH - At this point, it takes a lot for a movie to stick out in my mind in a film landscape awash with movies that are cookie-cutter retreads of the same stories over and over again but every year there are a couple that make the cut. Among all the biopics and controversial films this awards season lies an arguably underappreciated, underseen film made by a first-time 28 year old director called Whiplash. The film gives you the titular sensation as it follows 19 year-old Andrew (Miles Teller) as a talented but troubled music student at a prestigious music academy in New York as he goes from practice room to classroom to stage practicing and practicing and obsessing and bleeding and crying and practicing, practicing, practicing. He wants to be great, not just great at playing the drums, but literally one of the Greats. He stares at photos of his idols tacked to the wall and listens to CDs trying to imbibe their brilliance straight from the speakers. He curses himself and sweats and bleeds all over his kit attempting to perfect his music. His dysfunctional relationship with teacher, tormentor and timekeeper Fletcher (Oscar nominee J.K. Simmons) exists as the classic protagonist v. antagonist until they inevitably realize that they are exactly what they were both looking for, even perhaps they are two sides of the same coin; Andrew wants to be Charlie Parker, Fletcher wants someone to prove they have what it takes to be the next Charlie Parker. Like the song "Caravan" that Andrew plays in the climax, the film slowly builds to a screaming boil until it finally erupts into a brilliant cacophony that literally left me in awe and short of breath. This was the film I've been waiting for Miles Teller to make, something away from the YA adaptations and frat boy schlock he's been associated with for the past few years. Like Jennifer Lawrence was able to do, I think he might be ready to become a real movie star.

THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE by Lou Berney - The Long And Faraway Gone is a novel that explores the mysteries of memory and how it plays a part in the way we see the world and remember what is important to us. The story consists of two stories told in two different time periods, the summer of 1986 in Oklahoma City and 2012. Wyatt, the only survivor of a massacre at the movie theater he worked at as a teenager and Julianna, whose older sister disappeared at the state fair never to be seen again. Wyatt, now a wiseass private detective in Las Vegas, is forced to return to Oklahoma City on a case and inevitably confront his past in an attempt to find out what really happened that day at the theater and try to find out why he was the only one spared. Julianna, now a nurse struggling to live a normal life, is thrust back into that summer years ago where she was left sitting on a curb eating cotton candy waiting for her sister to return from a chat with a carnival worker. The carny from that day has resurfaced and she is compelled to finally talk to him and find out what he really knows after all these years. What Berney excels at is finding a Dennis Lehane-type way of drawing the reader into a world that is built on the memory of events long-past, where a single act of violence continues to ring through the lives of people struggling to move past it. These two people still in limbo finally and briefly cross paths and in reminiscing about their lives long ago, they might finally be able to uncover what it takes to move on.

THE MARTIAN by Andy Weir - The Martian is a book that I was able to sit and finish in the span of two days, which is rare nowadays for me. The science, math and jargon was way over my head but Weir concocted a story so compelling and interesting that I couldn't stop reading. Mark Whatney, the 17th person in history to set foot on Mars, becomes it's sole inhabitant after his Ares 3 mission goes awry and his crewmates are forced to evacuate the planet after believing him dead. Equipped with a MacGyver-like set of skills and a gallows sense of humor, he survives for over a year and a half on the red planet by cannibalizing his habitat and using the equipment and vehicles like a mechanic uses old cars for spare parts. He builds and takes apart and re-purposes just about everything in his HAB in order to put off the inevitable day where he would run out of food, water, power or all three. The book shifts between Watney's mission logs and the goings-on of NASA back on Earth as they deal with the PR nightmare that erupts after satellite imagery reveals that Watney is, in fact, not dead and that they must now figure out a way to get him home. I have no idea how accurate the tech talk in the book is and frankly I don't really care. It's a very fun and interesting read and will hopefully become a fun, interesting film in the hands of director Ridley Scott and writer Weir. Matt Damon, playing a character noticeably similar (on paper) to the one he played in Interstellar, will anchor a cast that includes the ever-amazing Jessica Chastain as well as Michael Pena, Kate Mara and Sean Bean.

Why I'm Excited About The Return Of Twin Peaks

It'll probably be well over a year until we return to Twin Peaks but we will be returning to Twin Peaks, that's what is most important. David Lynch and Mark Frost simultaneously announced on Twitter a few days ago "That gum you like is going to come back in style" which thew everyone for a loop at the possibilities and finally later confirmed that a deal had been struck with Showtime to air nine new episodes completely written and directed by Lynch and Frost. Much has been written and Tweeted about this announcement in the last few days, everyone trying to outdo each other's favorite obscure lines from the show or make jokes about what life in Twin Peaks would look like in the present day. Within 24 hours, I'd read numerous pieces about how disappointed certain bloggers and TV writers already were about something that won't happen for a year and a half still and of which they've seen no footage of nor any details about. Some concerns I heard were that the numerous second-rate canonical pieces of Twin Peaks pop culture in the last 20 plus years were going to mean nothing if this new series continues where season 2 left off. Which is ridiculous because wherever Lynch and Frost want the series to go is where it should go. There is no reason to believe that this new season, which will apparently be a present day continuation of storylines we last saw at the end of season 2, in 1991, as opposed to the dreaded "reboot" or prequel of some sort, will be shoddy or uninteresting. The first season of Twin Peaks is extraordinarily original and interesting and David Lynch was on board completely, however, season 2 was plagued by network intervention, declining ratings, and the exit of Lynch as the head creative vision for the show. The mystery of the death of Laura Palmer was the biggest thing on television for a while but when the story was forced to stretch out and expand the world, it started to fall apart a little. It's still a wonderful watch but it gets a little strange. The hint of the darkness in the woods becomes a little too visible, a lot of quirky characters go completely off the deep end and there are aliens. Lynch came back to wrap it up when it got canceled and then did the prequel film Fire Walk With Me, which chronicled the final days of Laura Palmer and was not received well, but the legacy of the show still lives on and is remembered fondly.

I'm not embarrassed to admit that my lasting memory of the show since I first saw it about 10 years ago is that of Sherilyn Fenn as the Lolita Audrey Horne. Audrey is a bored, rich, curious and lovelorn teenager who has her eye on FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. She may or may not have actually cared that Laura Palmer was murdered but becomes interested in getting to the bottom of the mystery in order to win the heart of Cooper and make him realize that she is the woman of his dreams. One night, Cooper returns to his room and is greeted by a naked Audrey in his bed, beckoning him to join her. Cooper resists but it pretty much takes a pack of wolves to drag him away. In rewatching the series this week, I became interested in the battle for my affection between Audrey and Laura's best friend Donna Hayward. Donna is the kind of girl you take home to meet your parents but Audrey is fun. The image of Audrey changing out of her saddle shoes and putting on her red heels perfectly illustrates the dual nature of much of Twin Peaks. What seems wholesome on Sunday morning is dark, sexy and seductive on Saturday night. The tutor to a mentally-challenged kid is actually a cocaine addicted escort. Still, the array of wonderfully written and acted female characters in the show holds up. While most of the men (and some of the women) are duplicitous and evil, you can't help but be charmed by Lucy in the Sheriff's office or Norma in the Double R Diner or stunned by the image of Audrey in a little black dress humming to herself and shimmying her body to the tune of a song in her head. Even the more insidious characters like Catherine Martell or the flat-out insane characters like Nadine Hurley or the Log Lady are intensely interesting. Even by the end of season 1, a mere 8 episodes, every character is so fleshed out that you seem to know everything about them. Twin Peaks is a seemingly quaint town that instantly charms the newly arrived Cooper but is very quickly turned upside down and shaken when Laura dies, the secrets, lies and misdeeds becoming very evident and changing everyone's lives. This theme, that of an idyllic small town and the darkness that lurks below the surface and in the shadows, is a favorite for Lynch, most notably in Blue Velvet, also featuring Kyle MacLachlan. In addition, the episodic, serialized single-crime plot of Twin Peaks is, to yet again use the popular phrase, coming back in style. Incredibly popular and well-made shows like True Detective and Fargo this year and lesser shows like The Killing owe a debt of gratitude to Twin Peaks. The fact that Lynch at his peak would step down a notch and helm a television show is also something that is becoming vogue, with such illustrious directors as Stephen Soderbergh, Cary Fukunaga, and Alexander Payne creating shows for pioneering networks like FX and HBO. Twin Peaks is more of a soap opera than a crime drama but it excels at the latter while poking fun at the former. Mark Frost even directed all the scenes of the fictional soap that many of the residents watch on television entitled Invitation To Love, which slightly paralleled what was happening in Twin Peaks. It was a cheeky little homage to the genre disguised as a goofy way of furthering the plot that included backstabbing, murder and too many affairs to count. The murder mystery wasn't too shabby either and there was plenty of blood and mayhem to satisfy the most hardened procedural fan.

In retrospect, I might be more interested in the renewed love for Twin Peaks and the excuse to watch again and write about it. However, the fact that there will be new episodes set in present-day Twin Peaks is wonderful news and I will be counting down the days and scouring the internet for any news about the production. I'm not looking at this as a cash-grab for Lynch and Frost or a shameless attempt by Showtime to cash in on an already established brand name, I see it as an artist going back to a world he loved as much as us and being genuinely curious himself about what has happened since we've been gone. There was so many iconic, lasting, cool pop culture items that were spawned by Twin Peaks that just to see the red room again or hear the Angelo Badalamenti music once more will make it completely worth the wait. Diane, it's been a while but we're going to taste that heavenly coffee and pie once more real soon.

I Took A Walk Today

I took a walk today. I headed up Bonar and then turned East onto Channing. I was going somewhere but it didn't really matter. I had my trusty iPod with me and was listening to the On The Go playlist I always have loaded up. As I was clicking through songs looking for a worthy song to begin my journey, I remembered reading that Apple is finally discontinuing the iPod's like mine, the ones with the wheel, non-touchscreen. I tried to remember how long I have had this iPod; before I lived in Rancho, before I lived in Huntington Beach maybe? At least 6 or 7 years I think. Centuries in digital technology time, far longer than such a product is supposed to last. I love my iPod though, it's always been there when I needed it, holding any and every song I ever needed at any particular moment. I finally decided which track would hold the honor of batting lead-off. It was a good choice. The drummer counting off 1-2-3-4 and then off they go. There seemed to be a lot of houses under construction on this street, a lot more than normal. Some small single units being re-sided or being remodeled, while a few large, stately three story homes were being gutted down to their skeletons. I briefly wondered if I would ever own a home and if so, would I be so unhappy with it that I would tear it down and build another one? I can barely afford to buy groceries so the thought of buying a home and having a mortgage was so foreign that I laughed off the thought completely. It was a quiet night, no traffic save for a few people passing by on bicycles, the ones heading West downhill enjoying their ride more than those heading uptown, the slight grade becoming more evident the further you go. The track changed and yet again, an immensely familiar and wonderful sound came out of my headphones, the voice of one of my heroes, as much as a full grown man in this day & age can have a hero, the voice of Laura Jane Grace. I instantly flashed back to three days ago when I stood in a large, ornately decorated theater and watched her onstage singing my favorite songs and having so much fun. I started to tear up slightly at the thought of it, the live performance being so enthralling and majestic, bringing a whole new sound to the same songs I've heard a thousand times before. I hate seeing pictures of myself but if someone would've taken a photo of me at that exact moment, I think the image would reveal a happiness that is very fleeting for me. I think it would be a good photo. But, of course, there was nobody there, just me on the sidewalk. It was dusk on a Tuesday, most of the homes lit up from the inside, figures passing by second floor windows, girls in tank tops sitting at computer desks in front of their windows, so when they get bored for a fleeting moment they can gaze out the window into the outside world and perhaps gain inspiration, a few people on their stoops taking phone calls. Mostly I just caught a glimpse of televisions showing something. The local Oakland A's are playing a one-game playoff tonight, maybe people are watching that. They were the best team in baseball for much of the year but they really fell off the last month or two. I could get into details but suffice it to say, they shouldn't have traded their best player Yoenis Cespedes. They haven't been the same since. There are a lot of cats on my walk, cats that are just sitting on the sidewalk in public, which slightly blows my mind. I'm a rural kid, pets either stayed in the house or at least in the yard and cats never went outside because they would get eaten by coyotes. Around here, as in many other places, I presume, they're free to roam. They seem calm and unafraid. Good for them. They have their freedom but they know their limits. A new song is playing now. It makes me think of things that are nice but that I don't necessarily want to think about right now, 'bittersweet' is the term for that, I think. I should clarify; it makes me think of someone. The thought of her makes me smile but the thought of her has, in the past, plunged me into long, deep misery. The kind of misery that isn't brought upon by work or family or friends, the special kind of misery  that envelops you and makes you feel like gravity is extra heavy at that moment and makes every other thing in your life seem so petty and trivial. Thinking of her makes things foggy, I can feel myself becoming uneasy and my mind beginning to replay the same flickering movies in my head so I do the only thing I can think of to stop it and click to the next song. After about a minute, the storm has passed and I'm listening to John Darnielle sing about what I think is Montlair, CA. Is it the same Mills Avenue? I'll say it is. It makes my connection to that song even greater. I finally reach MLK Boulevard and witness the world again; cars flying by, people running in place on the corner, waiting for the light to change, high school kids in pads on the football field across the street going through hitting drills. The next block brings me to what is technically my destination and I more or less get what I came for but not really and realize that it's suddenly dark. As I head back down Channing, I see another cat darting back and forth between the planter of an apartment building and a parked car. I wonder briefly how far he has ventured from his home; has he ever met the cat I saw further down Channing? Do they call out to each other in the night, hoping to see each other again at some point and share stories? I think even in the city, cats lead pretty solitary lives. They have their domain and keep it at that. Even though it's dark now, it's still nice out, cool but not enough to have to roll down my sleeves. The streets are dark but it's not a threatening neighborhood, people around here mostly just go about their business. Most residents are either young people going to school or families. There are always block parties and yard sales around here, lots of parks and playgrounds. For a short while, I start walking in a way which has me stepping on each square of cement with each step I take. It requires me to ever so slightly take bigger strides but I stop shortly after I begin when I reach a stretch of sidewalk that has been re-done or paved over and has no such continual pattern. The next song gives me an idea for a tattoo possibly, a line that would look good somewhere on my arm perhaps, a place where I would forget about it and then take off my shirt in front of a mirror and read it and be reminded of what it means. But tattoos are expensive, I can just remember it. Or write it down somewhere. The walk back seems quicker even though I'm not actively trying to get back home any faster. Maybe that slight grade is making me walk faster. I reach Bonar and turn back onto it and see my building. The lights are on in my neighbor's apartment. Two girls live there but I don't know much about them. They're quiet and seem to keep to themselves, certainly much less social than the other tenants in our building. I briefly think about how perhaps I'll run into them in the stairway, one of them going somewhere and me returning, and awkwardly extending the offer to come over for dinner or drinks one evening, just to be neighborly. I don't drink but I don't really have to mention that until the time comes and then I can just shrug it off and give the same explanation I've given a hundred times about not enjoying the taste of alcohol. Maybe she'd find me charming, maybe she'd regret agreeing to the offer. For now, neither of us would have to worry about it because I ascended the stairs without running into anybody. For some reason, I had forgotten to turn off the television before I left and the baseball game was still going on. Maybe someone else had walked by and had the same thought as me, 'Looks like they're watching the game up there.' The A's were winning but knowing them, they'd blow it. I sat down on the couch and was immediately beset upon my one of my feline housemates. She climbed on my lap and up my chest in order to give me a tiny, furry head-butt. I patted her on the head and looked at her and wondered if she desired freedom, desired a life outside of this apartment. The world is a scary place, if so for me then definitely for her. We were okay there on the couch. It was a nice night.

What I'm Enjoying Lately

I've been making the most of my summer in the San Francisco bay area by watching a lot of television and seeing a lot of movies. I spend my days taking people's money in exchange for books and every once in a while I even read a few of them. Some of my favorite authors released some new books this summer, including Reed Farrell Coleman, whose novel, The Hollow Girl gave us one final go'round with Moe Prager, Coleman's weary traveler whose regrets and personal tragedies are countless, who bears the weight of every lost partner, every senseless murder, every tragedy life brought to his doors on his shoulders. I kept this one for almost a month, taking it slow to savor every last page I had left with Prager. Another favorite of mine, Stephen Hunter, released Sniper's Honor, the latest in the Bob Lee Swagger series. Swagger, now a bored old man, jumps at the chance to tag along with an old reporter friend around Russia on the trail of a WWII-era sniper nicknamed the White Witch, a beautiful, crack-shot sniper on a personal mission to eradicate the Germans from her homeland. While in Russia, Sniper opens some old case files and some old wounds and is forced once again to use his skills honed in Vietnam as Bob The Nailer, one of our most decorated and feared snipers. On another end of the literary spectrum, one of my favorite reads lately was Bryan Lee O'Malley's Seconds. The book is great at getting at the restlessness that twenty-somethings like me live with, the feeling that whatever we have now isn't good enough and that if maybe, just maybe we try this thing instead of that thing, it'll change everything. It doesn't, not usually. It just creates the same different problems. The book is a fun little jaunt down the rabbit hole with O'Malley's heroine, an increasingly unstable restauranteur trying to grasp for a hold on her own life.

The summer TV schedule, while full of shows about vampires, plagues and rapture, has one very bright spot. Masters Of Sex is the most human, the most interesting and the best show on TV right now. The show plumbs the depths of human emotion, to get to the bottom of not just how we interact sexually with each other, but how we get through life with each other. Michael Sheen, as William Masters, is a humorless, brilliant, troubled man who is struggling to see his vision fulfilled and in the meantime, explores his relationship with his secretary/partner/lover Virginia Johnson, played by the radiant, gorgeous, amazing Lizzie Caplan, in every imaginable way, not to mention every imaginable position. The third episode of season 2, a locked room story that takes place almost in real time, lets us be a fly on the wall as the two of them discuss their relationship, break it down, examine the pieces, role play, and attempt to put them back together in any way that fits. A televised boxing match mirrors their night in the hotel room, as Bill teaches Virginia the subtleties of boxing and how maybe, just maybe, the old-timer on his last legs in the ring, might just pull off the victory in the end, against all odds. Segues be damned, over on FX, the one-two punch of You're The Worst and Married on Thursday nights is one of the most pleasant surprises of summer TV. Here are two shows who test the limits of what can be shown and talked about on television in hilarious fashion, two shows that explore relationships at two very different points in their existence. With the end of Justified and Sons Of Anarchy, it's good to know that FX has a few shows to build future schedules on, in addition to shows like The Bridge and The Strain. Two more shows I've been very excited about are The Knick, on suddenly exciting and relevant network Cinemax and Hell On Wheels, the closest thing we have to a good western on television (maybe Longmire as well). The first episode of The Knick was fantastic, and from what I've heard, it's only going to get better. Stephen Soderbergh's distinctive visual style seems so fresh compared to other period shows. The man's own camera movement, choice of music and flat-out flair gives life to all the cases of death in the Knickerbocker Hospital.

On the big screen this summer, my tastes have been varied. For all the times I went to see movies like Neighbors and 22 Jump Street, I tried to balance things by checking out things like Snowpiercer and Mood Indigo. This week, I saw the much anticipated James Gunn directed Guardians Of The Galaxy, featuring instant movie star Chris Pratt, who has toiled away on screen as goofy best friends and transformed himself from irritating hole-dweller Andy on Parks & Recreation to lovable buffoon Andy on Parks & Recreation. The film is full of all the humor, inside and nerd jokes that one would expect from Gunn, who, like Joss Whedon, understands what it takes to helm a giant comic book adaptation and make it good. Speaking of comic book adaptations, Snowpiercer, which can be described as Hunger Games On A Train, is a modern-bloody-masterpiece. In my opinion, the politics take second billing to the incredible visual style Bong Joon-Ho exhibits here, similar to what he did in his other excellent films, including Mother and The Host. The fight in the car with the butchers in masks in the dark is one of the most amazing things I've seen on screen all year. It rivals fellow Korean auteur Park Chan-Wook's single shot fight scene in Oldboy, where an army of henchmen are dispatched with a hammer. Mood Indigo is the latest from Michel Gondry, who is back in full form, after a documentary and a somewhat ill-advised foray into the world of Hollywood superhero films, with this film about a man whose life is turned around when he meets a beautiful, radiant, fun-loving woman (Audrey Tautou, *swoon*) and what happens when she is diagnosed with a mysterious, Gondry-like malady, one which sees a flower growing in her lungs, slowly killing her. The fun, goofy playfulness with visuals that he is known for gives way to some real tragedy that brings the mood down a little, but you're used to it if you've seen any of Gondry's other work. It's good to have the man back. Other highlights lately include Lucy and the previously discussed Cold In July.

Knights of Sidonia game?

Recently I watched the new Netflix Distributed Anime Knights of Sidonia, and let me tell you: it is incredible. From the first episode there is a sense of utter mortality that permeates the entire series. What I enjoy the most about the series is that it is clearly cut from one continuous story and is not in a picaresque/episodic format that so many shows fall into. Instead this series is one giant story with increasing stakes from show to show it was great. Yes it's based on a manga, but there are a lot of shows like that and they just ramble.

What is game-able about the show is that their spaceship's energy (Heigus particles) is used for everything they need to do. Fly out to that alien? Use some Heigus particles. Want to shoot a giant laser beam at that monstrosity tearing your friend apart? Use some Heigus particles. What's that? You're out of Heigus particles? Sorry, bro you're fucked.

I think it would be fun in a tabletop game set in space with giant robots to use just this one resource for everything. Tabletop RPGs like D&D are all about managing the consumption of resources, and this is where a lot of tension comes from. This would make for prime game moments of a player deciding whether to take one last shot at the enemy and risk being stranded in space or fly back to base and maybe have to deal with that enemy again later on.


Obviously this needs more work, but I'm not hosting any space games anytime soon so it can definitely wait.