Wicker as a Renewable Resource

Did you have a good May Day? I observed it as I usually do by watching the original 1973 Wicker Man. How strange that it's become a comfort movie for me, that I find myself whistling melodies from its score about a month ahead of time in anticipation. One reason is that its among a few works of fiction that most accurately resemble my experience living in Japan.

The Wicker Man is essentially about a cult. Most likely influenced by the Manson Family, this post '60s film finds a conservative Christian cop visiting an island, Summerisle, where the inhabitants follow a New Age religion founded in the 19th century loosely based on the beliefs of the pre-Christianised inhabitants of the British isles. Among their beliefs is in the efficacy of human sacrifice.

Japan's problem with cults has been fairly well established though there is an apparent effort to downplay it in media. It wasn't long ago that former prime minister Abe Shinzo was assassinated by a man angry at how his mother was taken advantage of by a cult to which the prime minister belonged. In Japan's educational system, there's a war between forces eternally seeking to modernise the country and forces that value cultivated ignorance. So it didn't come as a surprise to me that a few years later a poll revealed that many students were unaware that Abe was dead. The reason so many Japanese people are vulnerable to cult indoctrination is that many aspects of mainstream education and morality resemble the qualities of a cult.

Like the inhabitants of Summerisle, many of the core aspects of modern Japanese culture are the result of social engineering. It's an ongoing effort but there were two primary waves, first in the 19th century and then in the aftermath of World War II. A key difference between Summerisle and modern Japan is the existence of the internet and the inhabitants' access to global media. There are many people in Japan who know how deranged the faux-traditionalist subculture is though many are understandably reticent to talk about it publicly. I wonder if Summerisle would survive the introduction of the internet.

What The Wicker Man captures so well is the attitude of the locals to the foreigner. Their shifting goal posts for Sergeant Howie to prove his arrogance in assuming the role of "King for a Day". They lure him in by fabricating a story of a missing child. It's not arrogance that prompts Howie to search for the girl but the inhabitants are so secure in their moral superiority to Howie's barbaric Christianity that the rationale continues to make sense to them. It's still a perfect justification for their efforts to humiliate him and, finally, murder him.

Getting to the Top

A woman's pursuit of adrenaline leads her into the clutches of a deranged cannibal in 2026's Apex. This latest iteration of "The Most Dangerous Game" is pretty good with capable direction by Baltasar Kormakur and uncompromising performances from Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton.

Eric Bana's briefly in the film as Theron's husband. The two are a couple who like seeking thrills around the world. We meet them climbing the Troll Wall in Norway. When a blizzard hits, Bana's character is killed and the film jumps ahead a few years to find Theron on a quest to kayak alone in the wilds of Australia. This gives her some interesting subtext (though one could say this is "fridging"). It's too bad Bana couldn't have stuck around, though. He's such a good actor but you hardly see him anymore.

The film is shot almost entirely from the point of view of Theron's character as she at first grimly paddles through rapids, the rush achieved under the shadow of unrelenting grief. Then, as she meets Egerton's character in the jungle after her pack is stolen, it becomes a story of her fight for survival.

Egerton's performance is impressively deranged and I loved the reveal of his especially abnormal predilections, though it verges on cheesy when it's revealed he wears dentures to conceal his sharpened teeth. I'm not saying he wouldn't sharpen his teeth, I just don't know why he'd conceal it when he's hunting a woman alone through the jungle.

Anyway, the suspense is good and never lets up. Apex is available on Netflix.

Blank Page

Yesterday, ahead of watching the new Daredevil: Born Again, I was seeing a lot of articles crop up about how dismal the ratings are for the series this season, much lower than for the first season. It doesn't surprise me. The show has kind of a cheap aesthetic, less unified and streamlined than in its previous incarnation, and it lacks the amazing action choreography that was a calling card of the old series. But primarily the problem is the writing. It's not the wokeness. Andor had progressive, revolutionary politics but now Andor is the benchmark of quality at Disney+. Daredevil: Born Again, meanwhile, makes me think there's some credence in the theory that Disney's secretly having AI write scripts. Last night's episode was credited to Heather Bellson, but it, and many other episodes, feels sort of like a theoretical model of what a show like this should be.

It's missing all of the character development that made the old series so interesting. The episode focuses a lot on Karen, though it's still a mystery why the law firm retroactively included her name, especially since there's no question of her mounting her own defense when she's in a courtroom in this episode. We get a reference to her brother but viewers will be lost if they didn't see or don't remember the episode in season two of the old series that gave her character a prolonged flashback. Similarly, no-one would understand why Bullseye would want to do a "good deed" unless they saw how his character developed in the third season of the old series. The show leans on this stuff but doesn't have anything new to introduce.

There are some interesting performances by Matthew Lillard and Michael Gandalfini but Lillard's character never becomes more than an extended cameo. Gandolfini has an arc but what motivates him? Is it just his attraction to BB? BB, meanwhile, had only one interesting moment, in the previous episode, in which she felt conflicted about what to do with regards to Gandolfini's character.

I guess you could describe the show's fundamental problem in that way; the characters are rarely in situations where they need to make meaningfully difficult decisions. There's an emerging conflict between Matt and Karen but that's another one that started in the old series and on the old Punisher series. Here's an opportunity for the show to make a meaningful comment on the use of violence in politics but Matt's side of the argument is really hazy. Is he conflicted over whether or not he should kill people? Not really.

Also, what, exactly, is Karen charged with? The courtroom dialogue in particular feels disconnected. The opening statements both conclude with "Guilty" or "Not Guilty." But of what? Out of curiosity, I asked Google's ever diplomatic AI, which responded:

In Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, Episode 7 ("The Hateful Darkness"), Karen Page is arrested and faces charges related to aiding vigilante activity following a protest clash, heavily pushed by Mayor Wilson Fisk. She is processed and held in the 15th Precinct, where Fisk confronts her, seeking to punish her for past actions and current defiance.

The fact that the charges are vague could've been part of the drama. It could've been something her lawyers mentioned. It's almost impressive how well the show evades committing to specific plot details. Why are there so many people at the trial or is it only a hearing? Why is everyone interested in this one woman arrested at a protest?

What Disney needs to do is not only hire good writers but give them time and autonomy to develop their ideas. The impression I get is that's something they really don't want to spend money on.

The sad thing is, especially after the shooting on Saturday, this show about a lawyer who's also a masked vigilante who believes in not using lethal force, could've been the most relevant series of the year. Its irrelevance shows the extent of Disney's blunder.

Daredevil: Born Again is available on Disney+.

Media and Punishment

This past weekend, a another man attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, this time at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Also this past week it was announced that Gerry Conway, the writer who created the Punisher (along with two artists), passed away.

The Punisher is famous for being the Marvel character who kills people in the name of justice. Critics on the left have generally disliked the Punisher who was introduced in an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man in 1974. He was similar to a popular character type appearing in films of the period, the uncompromising enforcer, the justified revenge killer, as seen in movies like Death Wish and Dirty Harry. The Punisher is a popular character in the U.S. military and law enforcement, a fact which Marvel writers and artists have long been uncomfortable with.

And yet, for years now, political assassins in the U.S. have almost exclusively been left-wing. Violent video games are often also blamed for inspiring shooters but the White House Correspondence Dinner shooter, Cole Allen, was so opposed to violent video games that he developed a video game he specifically labelled as non-violent. Of course, these correlations are statistically irrelevant and anecdotal.

In his manifesto, published in The New York Post, Allen labels Trump a paedophile and a traitor. The reference to paedophilia is presumably to do with Trump's association with Jeffrey Epstein. There are also claims from individual women that Trump engaged in sexual behaviour with them when they were minors. However, unlike other criminal charges that have been levelled at Trump, it hasn't been proven that Trump did commit sexual crimes against minors.

In that first Punisher story, the issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, Conway, perhaps unintentionally, shows the flaw in the Punisher's M.O. He targets Spider-Man and seeks to kill him because he believes Spider-Man is a murderer. It's only Spider-Man's extraordinary powers that prevent the Punisher from killing him before the vigilante realises his mistake. This is one reason that executions are not left in the hands of individuals. Individuals are more prone to error, are more prone to being biased and influenced by emotion.

Of course, Trump has shown repeatedly that he is above the law. Cases against him, both for personal wrong-doing and overextentions of presidential powers, have invariably melted away, leaving him unscathed. What choice do we have in such a case? Allen evidently decided there were no other choices.

I am someone who enjoys violent video games and I like many Punisher stories, particularly the first season of the Netflix series with Jon Bernthal. However, I recognise the difference between cathartic fiction, which presents a simple narrative, and complex reality, which is often distorted by the individual's need for simplicity and emotional gratification. For real life, I prefer to take the example set by Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings who checked Frodo's wish that the villainous Gollum had been killed by reminding him that even wise people cannot predict the outcomes of such actions. One might ask how often assassinations have led to positive change or how often they've instead merely instigated cycles of violence.

I think Cole Allen's demon was more likely born of news media that increasingly present simplified narratives of good and evil in the political spheres. This is one reason I've always preferred fiction.

Ai of the Beholder

A friend of mine on Live Journal, poliphilo, recommended the above AI movie this morning. I hope he doesn't mind me picking on him, he's a really nice and insightful guy, but I can't get it out of my mind that he said the above film, The Patchwright, is like "Blade Runner- only better." I strongly disagree. To me, this statement is like saying "Oasis is like The Beatles, only better."

It's worth noting it's not an entirely AI generated film. It's not a case of someone opening an app on their phone and writing the prompt, "Make a twenty minute cyberpunk movie," and pushing a button. It has a director, presumably someone who crafted compositions and made editting decisions, as well as writers and human voice actors. Generally I find AI produces inferior product but I'm not categorically against the idea of people being able to use it to craft films of apparently quality production values at a tiny fraction of the traditional cost. But the film's story is derivative to say the least. A cyborg treasuring memories that aren't necessarily his, questioning the nature of memory and human sentiment and the significance of the individual, is Rachel's story from Blade Runner retold.

Sure, originality isn't everything, but I don't find this a better version of the story, for some reasons that may be subjective. I don't like excessive closeups and one reason I think Blade Runner does a better job at establishing a sense of a world space is that it features more shots establishing space, it has more dialogue scenes in which multiple characters are simultaneously visible and in which a majority of the screen isn't dominated by their faces but by the environment.

Patchwright favours portraying older and more grizzled characters, which seems less plausible in a world in which people customise their appearance as preferences generally lean towards more youthful looks. This has long been an aspect of computer generated imagery; weathered skin, objects with tiny bumps and pronounced textures, have tended to look more impressive for about 25 years. Youthful beauty tends to manifest in less detail rather than more.

In terms of visual design, I don't find the film more impressive than Blade Runner either. The aesthetics of the costumes, makeup, and facial prosthetics draw from very obvious influences, including Ghost in the Shell, Alita: Battle Angel, and David Lynch's Dune. Honestly, I don't think Blade Runner is even a fair comparison. Director Zack London has more in common with the makers of Alien from L.A. or City Limits or dozens of other Blade Runner and Mad Max knock-offs from the 80s and 90s. The only difference is that computers give him access to better special effects.

Though, on that subject, I remember how impressive the opening scene from Final Fantasy VIII looked when I saw it in a shop window in 1999. Now it looks pretty cheap and quaint. I suspect AI will also age poorly.

I also don't like the performances, but this may also be subjective. The facial expressions seem over-exaggerated and lack the subtle nuances of real actors. But one could accuse Baz Luhrmann films of the same thing.

Anyway. Sorry poliphilo.

It's Newport

I've been in Newport, Tennessee for nearly two weeks now. Yesterday I took a walk around the little downtown area.

But can one truly ever leave Japan? I keep having to stop myself from saying "ohayo gozaimasu" and "sumimasen" to people. I have been saying "Excuse me" more than Americans tend to.

Downtown is about a dozen very old buildings. There's a courthouse, lots of little law offices, bail bonds places, pawn shops, and bars.

This is one of the buildings I dimly remember from childhood. I was born in Tennessee but my parents divorced when I was very young and I think I was four years old when I moved permanently to San Diego, California.

That's me with a Big Bird birthday cake I also dimly remember. A lot of the time I've spent here has been going through my father's many, many, many photos of family and friends. That's one improvement of our digital age. Mountains of photos can now be stored in a few kilobytes.

That's the old train station which you can also see on Newport's Wikipedia page in a photo dated 1939.

Some of the old buildings are pretty cool.

A lot of places were closed because it was Sunday morning although the churches I passed were quiet. A lot of places looked permanently closed.

Another place I dimly remember is this old car wash.

I remember it being about as creepy when I was a kid.

The really strange thing about visiting Tennessee is that when I last visited six years ago, just before leaving for Japan, I visited my grandmother, her husband, my father and my father's girlfriend. Over the course of those six years, all of them died. The executor of my father's estate is his best friend from high school and he did most of the work dealing with my father's things while I was in the process of getting back from Japan as fast as I could, which was still almost a month. Now I have no family here, it feels like a completely different town.

Face It

It's often said that Batman has the best rogue's gallery of any superhero. I was watching the much lauded and influential Batman: The Animated Series from the early '90s last night, the two parter that introduced Harvey Dent/Two Face. The character has such a simple concept but, as with the Joker and Poison Ivy, it seems to be an infinite resource for stories.

The Animated Series follows some of the reconceptualising of the character's origins that had been established in the late '80s comics, making the two halves of his personality the result of childhood trauma that's exacerbated by his disfigurement. The climax of the story has Harvey arguing with his fiancee; he argues life is dominated by chance and she insists he has the responsibility to take control of his life. That's an interesting way to go with the character, I wonder if it's an argument from one of the comics.

I went back and read the 1942 introduction of the character in the comic. Apparently the story was written by Bill Finger, Batman's co-creator, though Bob Kane, Batman's other co-creator, is credited as Two Face's sole creator for some reason. He was originally named Harvey Kent, his name obviously changed to avoid confusion with Superman, though interestingly his introductory comic features a scene in which he attacks a movie theatre where people are watching a Superman cartoon.

I actually find his derangement more interesting in the original comic. The "childhood trauma" angle sounds very much like late 20th century pop psychology. In the original comic, his fiancee is a sculptor and she's not the saint she's portrayed as in The Animated Series, nor is she a villain. She's horrified by his appearance. A lot of people would be. We act like we're above valuing people by appearance now but you don't see Hollywood stars without perfect teeth, often even if they're playing a character whose teeth would realistically be unsightly. A lot of the importance we put on appearances is something we don't consciously acknowledge which is a very effective way of rendering Harvey a fundamental outsider, someone society can't even consciously contemplate. This is an idea explored in Abre los ojos and its remake, Vanilla Sky.

It's also interesting how the comic shows Two Face actively performing good deeds when his coin toss ends up on the unblemished side. He robs a gangster and gives the loot to charity. Usually the coin coming up "good" just means he refrains from killing someone, as in the Christopher Nolan movie. It would be interesting to have a longer story in which the concept of his duality being truly random is played out. Though, really, it could never be truly random because Harvey always chooses the parameters. He chose the gangster, he chose the charity just as he chooses the particular crimes and the particular targets. The coin chooses good or evil, but it's Harvey who defines that good and that evil.

Sonnet #1989

The domino entreats the icy die.
From piece to piece, the plastic game divides.
In other times, the iv'ry turned a try.
The shady rule within the alley hides.
The darkened clouds above the hill advanced.
The grass was cold beneath the heated air.
Within the earth, the stormy spirits danced.
And launched their darts aloft with noise and flare.
The thunder thoughts defined the shape of land.
As lightning burned the anxious felon clouds.
A rain descends and turns to active sand.
The atoms seek a match to light the shrouds.
Continued motion shows the normal street.
But something waits beneath our busy feet.

Battle of the Blondes

Sydney Sweeney goes to work for a haywire Amanda Seyfried in 2025's The Housemaid. Many reviews say the first two thirds of this movie are good and the last act is ridiculous and lame. Those reviews are correct.

It kind of reminded me of the 1972 Hammer film, Fear in the Night, a gaslight movie from the point of view of a young woman who goes to live in an expensive old house with her husband in an attempt to start a new life. The first two thirds of the movie is a terrific sequence of developed tension. Then the inevitable twist changes the narrative and distances the audience from the point of view character, thereby diluting the sense of credibility in every threat it tries to establish.

The Housemaid begins with Millie (Sydney Sweeney) as a desperate young woman living in her car who can hardly believe her luck when ridiculously wealthy Nina (Amanda Seyfried) hires her to live in her home and perform general chores for Nina, her husband, and her prepubescent child, Cece. Shortly after Millie takes residence, Nina's personality flips and she becomes a psychotic, tyrannical boss. Nina's husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), is the only solace and voice of reason and Millie finds herself increasingly drawn to him.

I will say I went into this movie assuming that a third act twist would somehow reveal that Nina is the true sympathetic character and that Andrew was the true psycho. I won't spoil the movie for you to say whether or not that ended up being true but it did mean I had my eyes peeled in the first two acts to spot anything that might undermine such an eventual twist. And there were many things. I won't say whether or not my prediction was accurate but I will say the last act is ridiculous and jettisons all the tension accrued in the first two acts by suddenly asking the viewer to ignore almost all of the character development from the first part of the film.

This film was directed by Paul Feig. Yes, the same Paul Feig who directed the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot almost everyone hates and who directed a slew of unpopular comedies. Somehow, the one good movie he made, Bridesmaids, has apparently made studios want to keep giving him chances. The Housemaid did well at the box office because it stars the two most beautiful blondes of the past twenty years. The idea of Sydney Sweeney in a sexy thriller was the primary draw. You know that won't stop someone from looking at all the Sydney Sweeney fans lining up to see the movie and saying, "Wow, people sure like Paul Feig."

Feig very reluctantly delivers the sexy scenes people wanted but, viewer be warned, he does his best to avoid indulging the so-called "male gaze". He goes so far as to put Sweeney in a hilariously unflattering, boxy dress for the big romance sequence. The sequence, in which she goes to a luxury hotel with Andrew, still kind of works because the threat of Nina has been well established at that point so the tension is ever present. There are many components of a good movie here.

Money in the Snow

An embarrassed young woman asks a handsome stranger to pay for her drink, not knowing he's hiding from the law in 1956's Nightfall. This low budget Jacques Tourneur film noir is a slightly delirious, cock-eyed suspense story centred on characters played by Aldo Ray and Anne Bancroft. The two have a surprisingly sweet, effective chemistry that pairs well with the film's weird, convoluted crime plot.

Ray plays Vanning, a World War II veteran who's being pursued by two tough guys (Brian Keith and Rudy Bond). Circumstances throw him and Bancroft's character, Marie, together but despite the two obviously criminal thugs chasing him, Vanning won't take Marie's suggestion that he call the police. Unbeknownst to Vanning, a man working with the cops has already been shadowing him.

The backstory is given piecemeal in intermittent flashbacks. Vanning had been up in the mountains with his friend when the two had a tragic encounter with bank robbers. There's some terrific shots of snow covered mountain scenery.

Like a lot of noirs, though to a lesser extent than in a movie like Detour, the improbable convolutions of the plot become more interesting if you read the protagonist as a not entirely reliable narrator. And Vanning has plenty of motive to add varnish to his past when he's talking to the beautiful young woman who miraculously enters his life. Ray and Bancroft are so cute together. The first time he kisses her when she's lying on his couch is so innocent and simple that it's impossible not to root for these two, whatever the truth might be.

Nightfall is available on The Criterion Channel.

A Modicum of Daring

Last night's new Daredevil: Born Again was one of the better written of the Born Again series. It's kind of a low bar, though, and there were a few weak bits in the teleplay by Devon Kilger and Jesse Wigutow. But I appreciated how the story got weird at points.

This episode had some of the best moments for characters introduced in Born Again. There was some nice tension in BB's visit to Blake's mother's house. It was the first chance BB had to make a difficult decision, for the actress to convey some kind of internal conflict, and she felt real for the first time. Blake's assumption that the data drive he found in BB's coat was connected to the Fisk parody broadcasts was pretty extreme but not in a bad writing way (even though it was clearly ADR), more like a legitimate paranoia way. Blake's actually shaping up to be an effectively tragic character.

I really liked the moment when Cashman tells Heather to choke him. There's an eroticism in the scene that makes her trauma uncomfortably confusing, as real trauma often is. It makes Cashman into a truly Satanic character and makes Heather a lot more interesting than she ever was in season one.

I like Jessica Jones a lot, especially the first season of her series, but her first scene in this episode was annoying and her meetup with Daredevil felt superfluous. The scene with her daughter annoyed me because it introduced yet another peculiarly fearless kid like Leia in Obi-Wan Kenobi or Ant-Man's kid in Ant-Man 2 or a dozen other examples. I suspect there's a mandate from Disney that discourages writers from portraying children as frightened. And the scene introduced another annoying potential "pass the torch" kid character. The only one of those that's been any good was Yelena and Thunderbolts tanked despite being a good movie.

The fight scene between Daredevil and Fisk was good though I think they've long since milked that white painting dry of all dramatic potential. I also liked the continuation of Karen turning into more of a Punisher sidekick than a Daredevil sidekick, despite the fact that her dialogue was some of the stuff I was able to predict before it came out of a character's mouth.

Daredevil: Born Again is available on Disney+.

Desmond Morris

Desmond Morris died a few days ago at the age of 98. I've never read his books but his Human Animal series from the '90s, along with James Burke's Connections, left a lasting imprint on my perception of human nature. He was criticised for the broadness of his inferences sometimes but perhaps those critics failed to notice that every episode began with a title card describing the programme as "a personal view". Much of his work was opinion and you can judge for yourself the validity of his opinions. I was watching the second episode this morning and I don't think I agree with his assertion that eating a meal alone is invariably an inferior, anxious experience, though I wonder if my preference for watching movies or reading books while eating provides a substitute for companionship.

I find his thoughts on the contrast between carnivorous and herbivorous diets fascinating. The idea that carnivores have more leisure time comes with a lot of implications for the nature and development of abstract thought and any example of behaviour outside of actions taken purely in the interest of survival.

It's strange how innocuous shows like this seemed in the '90s when there's been little of the type or quality ever since.

He's Probably the Man You Need In Some Kind of Crisis I Think

A man of ambiguous occupation is probably the one force standing in the way of an ambiguous menace ambiguously tied to another man of ambiguous occupation in 2007's Michael Clayton. This is a good example of a movie that's a little too clever for its own good.

George Clooney stars as the eponymous protagonist. He's referred to as a "fixer". At one point, a police detective remarks that Michael has cops thinking he's a lawyer and lawyers thinking he's a cop. He works for a firm headed by a character played by Sydney Pollack and they're tied up with what Wikipedia calls an "agricultural conglomerate" called U-North who are up to some kind of shady shenanigans. Michael's colleague, Arthur (Tom Wilkinson), knows something about U-North so he's being tracked. He's also losing his mind. He strips naked during a deposition and runs across a parking lot for some reason.

Tilda Swinton plays someone involved with U-North. I wasn't really sure what her motives were for most of the movie but I think she was a villain.

There's so much cloak and dagger and double talk and people being cagey that it all boils down to people walking around and looking intense, it all kind of greys out. Star Wars was a really good thing for Tony Gilroy, Rogue One and Andor tethered him to something solid. He's obviously very clever but sometimes cleverness can fly off into the clouds and that's what happens with Michael Clayton.

Michael Clayton is available on The Criterion Channel.

Short of Middling

I'd heard "Meridian", a 1994 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, was unpopular both with fans and with people who worked on the show. Watching it last night, I could see why, but it has its moments.

It has, like many episodes of '90s Trek, an A and B plot. The A plot is based on the Gene Kelly musical Brigadoon about a Scottish village that magically appears once every century, its inhabitants not experiencing the intervening period of time. Kelly plays a modern guy who falls in love with a girl in the village played by Cyd Charisse.

In "Meridian", the crew of Deep Space 9, cruising about in the Defiant, their little warship, witness an entire planet suddenly appear out of nowhere. The inhabitants turn out to be a standard group of Star Trek humanoids in vaguely Renaissance alien costumes. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) falls in love with a local guy played by Brett Cullen. First he's going to go off with her to Deep Space 9, then she's going to stay with him on the planet. It doesn't work out, of course. There's no weight to the tragedy because neither the actors nor the characters have even an ounce of chemistry. There is an effective scene of Dax bidding farewell to her old friend Sisko (Avery Brooks), though it's undercut by the lack of effectively established motive on Dax's end.

The B plot involves Quark (Armin Shimmerman) trying to get a holographic scan of Kira (Nana Visitor) so he can make a pornographic simulation featuring her for a client who's been lusting after her. This disgusting endeavour is played for laughs and both Quark and the client get their comeuppance in a satisfying way, though I gather many fans feel Quark ought to have received severer punishment.

The client is played by legendary genre actor Jeffrey Combs, best known for the '80s adaptation of Lovecraft's Re-Animator. It was the first of many characters Combs played on Deep Space Nine and Enterprise. Combs appears at a minute and ten seconds into this clip from the beginning of "Meridian".

People Under the Moon

That's my grandfather, on the left, in his moonshiner days. Apparently moonshiners generally wore fedoras. An old man at a local deli two days ago got a kick out of seeing me in mine as it reminded him of his own grandfather, also a moonshiner. I've been going through a lot of family photos at the home of my recently deceased father here in Tennessee.

Here's one of me around 25 years ago, unknowingly emulating my grandfather's style. I'm with my father and grandmother.

There were lots of photos of me, most of which I didn't care for. I kind of like this one in which I have some fish.

Sonnet 1988

Approaching time returns the leaves to dust.
They left a shade about the living wights.
A dappled tomb resists encroaching rust.
A troupe of empty sockets take the sights.
A ragged band descends the verdant hill.
The gang still play guitars, trombones, and drums.
They form a ring around a copper still.
The morning liquor quites the group in sums.
But living viewers, note the silence reigns.
Beyond an echo, spirit voices speak.
As spirits fill a cup and deathless veins.
A figure plants a flag atop the peak.
As songs unheard enrich our quiet dreams,
The dust will dance in palid morning beams.

Postmadamism

Western music seems to be entering an era of pretty young ladies. I say "seems to" because I don't entirely trust my impressions anymore since the algorithms are always putting together a particular tapestry of what it is it thinks I want. Sure, I like pretty young ladies. But doesn't everyone? Hasn't everyone always? From Juliet to Marie Antoinette to Madonna. Now YouTube is feeding me Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, and Sabrina Carpenter. I was watching Rodrigo's new video in which she dances around Versailles in a frilly postmodern frock and asked myself if I would enjoy this song sung by a balding old man. Probably not. That doesn't make it bad, though. "Pretty" "young" and "lady" are all relevant parts of our existence and engaging with all three is certainly valid.

She makes a lot of references to older songs in her lyrics, in this case The Cure's "Just Like Heaven". In "deju vu" she references Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl". In both cases, she also claims to have special insight into the songs. She says she knows why Robert Smith wrote "Just Like Heaven" and she boasts that she introduced the music of Billy Joel to the ex-boyfriend who's now introducing him to his new girlfriend. She's the very model of the postmodern major hipster. But, hey, I do like watching her and I dig her references.

Chappell Roan seems like the artsier alternative though I'm not sure how much depth there really is in her most popular song, "Pink Pony Club", about a young drag queen in west Hollywood. We can all applaud her espousing progressive sexual values but would the song have been as popular had it been performed by an actual drag queen? Maybe not, but I find something heartening about it anyway. And there's her seemingly Caitlin R. Kiernan inspired video for "Casual" that makes me feel like, "Hey, this young person likes the things I like."

The lyrics of the song at first seem to have little to do with the content of the video but both seem to be questioning how to categorise a developing relationship.

"You said, "Baby, no attachment"
But we're
Knee deep in the passenger seat, and you're eating me out
Is it casual now?
Two weeks, and your mom invites me to her house on Long Beach
Is it casual now?"

In both this and Rodrigo's "Drop Dead" and Sabrina Carpenter's "Manchild" the singer's primary point of concern is how to define a relationship, what label to give it or a partner, or what significance to derive from shared interests. Did Mick Jagger wonder what satisfaction was when he complained he couldn't get any? Did David Bowie need to know how to label the relationship with the Rebel Rebel who didn't know if she was a boy or a girl? These young artists seem to live in compulsive analytical space. Perhaps this is just what the children of postmodernism look like. Though it may be fruitful to compare "Manchild" to "Mannish Boy", "Manchild", both song and video, is kind of peak postmodernism.

Magic and Resentment

I've been watching Ingmar Bergman's 1958 film The Magician over the past several weeks, sometimes just parts of it, sometimes the whole movie. I first wrote about it back in 2019 and I don't have much to add to that review except I didn't mention how Bergman shows what the travelling magician does is an expert version of what all the other characters do in their daily lives.

The consul's house which the Magician, Vogler (Max von Sydow), visits is filled with servants, functionaries, and their wives. There's an old woman who claims to know witchcraft and gives a "love potion" to a young man which is really rat poison but provides the social lubricant necessary for him and a servant girl to sleep together, which they both already wanted to do.

Magic and stories are used as pretext or diversion. The wife of one of the officials becomes obsessed with Vogler and wants him for her lover until she sees him without the wig and false beard that everyone already knew was fake anyway. It's not the revelation of his deception that disturbs her, it's the revelation of her self-deception, her indulgence in a fantasy that he only provided an inspiration for.

But it's still primarily the obsession of Dr. Vergerus (Gunnar Bjornstrand) with proving Vogler a fake that fascinates me. Again and again, Vogler is easily proven a fake, if it weren't already clear from his wig and beard, but again and again, Vogler demonstrates his power over Vergerus. If Vergerus is so sure there's nothing to Vogler's abilities, why does he want to dissect Vogler? Why does he shrink in fear away from Vogler when he encounters him in the attic?

The most frightening thing about the film, for an artist, is how authentic it is. No matter how effective an artist is, however ingenious his ability to give the audience a valuable experience, "rational" observers with unshakeable faith in their own ability to think logically, will be there to deride the artist as a fraud and freeloader.

The Magician is available on The Criterion Channel.

Daredevil: Watch Again

Here comes the nostalgia. The new episode of Daredevil: Born Again, written by Jesse Wigutow, relied heavily on past content. If you like to linger thoughtfully over past episodes of TV series, you may enjoy this episode more than the less sentimental among us.

We have duelling flashbacks with Matt recalling his times with Foggy and Wilson recalling his first meeting with Vanessa. In between, there's the sloppily written story of Blake, Michael Gandolfini's character, kind of leaking information to the press about Vanessa being in critical condition. Most of the dialogue between Cashman and Blake indicates Cashman and/or Fisk is upset about Vanessa's location being leaked to the press and Blake is suspected of having doing so but at some point in production the makers of the show must have realised BB found the location with no help from Blake so they looped in some dialogue of Blake telling BB that Vanessa was in critical condition while Blake was facing away from the camera. Either way, it seems odd that Blake is their prime suspect for the leak in a hospital full of people. It seems odd they had any expectation of keeping a lid on the information.

Foggy fans got their wish to see the man again and Foggy haters like me got their wish to not see Foggy resurrected. So far. A story about Foggy helping a disagreeable client in the name of justice parallels Matt's present struggle with Bullseye. It's funny, I call him Bullseye but keep referring to Matt as Matt. They're showing him in the costume a lot more so maybe they want me to think of him primarily as Daredevil. I guess the old Netflix series did too good a job moving the show away from a costumed superhero show.

The Fisk/Vanessa stuff felt like it justified flashbacks a little better but going over her decision to exhibit the white painting was kind of like a Star Wars prequel explaining more than anyone ever wanted or needed. Vincent D'Onofrio gives a really good performance in the episode, though.

Oh yeah, and we get to see Fisk's old right hand man, Wesley. Were there people out there who really wanted to see him again?

Daredevil: Born Again is available on Disney+.