My Summer Media Diet

I haven’t writ­ten one of these in a while, but now that sum­mer has near­ly wrapped up, it felt like as good a time as any to cov­er the music, TV, movies, games and books that have cap­tured my atten­tion when I’m not ful­ly immersed in Tik­Tok or my job search.

Read­ing

  • We Want Every­thing, by Nan­ni Balestri­ni — The eas­i­est way to mar­ket a book to me is to have even the most ten­u­ous con­nec­tion to Rachel Kush­n­er. She men­tioned this book in her essay col­lec­tion The Hard Crowd and I’m not sur­prised that I found it an engross­ing account of how indus­tri­al­iza­tion affect­ed Italy in the ’60s. As we as a soci­ety come to grips with the impact AI may have on our lives and our liveli­hoods, this was a brac­ing read about work­ers try­ing to main­tain some con­trol over how they work and how that trans­lates to their abil­i­ty to live.
  • Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biog­ra­phy in Sev­en Songs, by Greil Mar­cus — Some­times I real­ly miss the late glo­ry days of music crit­i­cism as seen in alt week­lies. That kind of writ­ing seems even more gnom­ic now than it did then. The ref­er­ences are often even more obscure now, but in the hands of a mas­ter of the form, all the more won­der­ful. I don’t know if I’ve real­ly got­ten to know Dylan bet­ter as I work through this book, but the kalei­do­scop­ic por­tray­al match­es the sev­er­al Dylans he’s been through­out his long career. Did­n’t hurt that Rachel Kush­n­er had a blurb on the inner jacket.
  • Board­walk of Dreams, by Bryant Simon — This is so good I wrote the author an email. I’ve longed for a great piece of urban polit­i­cal econ­o­my about the arc of Atlantic City, and this is it. Bet­ter still, Simon does a fan­tas­tic job of out­lin­ing how the dynam­ics that shaped Atlantic City are per­ti­nent for any city that’s been trans­formed from an indus­tri­al cen­ter into a tourist play­ground. The com­mon thread of how pub­lic spaces are cre­at­ed and for whom illus­trates not only how the Board­walk scenes can be con­nect­ed to the casi­nos, but by the tran­si­tive prop­er­ty, how vibrant down­towns con­nect to sub­ur­ban malls. If you’ve spent any mean­ing­ful amount of time in Atlantic City as my fam­i­ly has vis­it­ing friends on the sound end of town, this will help you under­stand what real­ly hap­pened there and why. He also just shared a Jason Isbell inter­view con­duct­ed by Cap­i­tal Moves author Jef­fer­son Cowie and I’m just smitten.
  • Red­dit. I’m the last per­son on Earth to get lost here. I final­ly fig­ured out how to make it work for me now that I’m not spend­ing time refresh­ing Twit­ter. I get far more enjoy­ment out of it than I ever did most social media. What if forums were the answer the entire time?

Watch­ing

  • Bar­bie — Felt like we had to see it in the the­ater. Helen wore a pink dress and I wore the “sun­ny side up” Pave­ment t‑shirt. I loved so much about it, but felt like for all the talk about dis­man­tling the patri­archy, we spent a dis­pro­por­tion­ate amount of time reha­bil­i­tat­ing the men. It was a fun movie, but I think I want­ed more Ghost World than it could offer.
  • The Bear — Is this the only pres­tige TV I like? Maybe! “Fish­es” and “Forks” were stand­out episodes, but the whole show evolved this sea­son into some­thing more than anoth­er fre­net­ic, trou­bling restau­rant dram­e­dy. Also, Oliv­er Platt rules.
  • What We Do in the Shad­ows — I did­n’t love S4, with baby Col­in Robin­son danc­ing around, but the show seri­ous­ly bounced back in S5 and com­plete­ly pulled me back in just when I thought I might let go. “The Cam­paign” is to Col­in Robin­son what “Forks” was for Richie.
  • Cut­ter’s Way – 20 years ago I was a video store clerk respon­si­ble for main­tain­ing the Amer­i­can actors por­tion of the store. I can’t tell you how the VHS box for Cut­ter’s Way taunt­ed me all these years, along­side Hack­man’s Night Moves and Keach’s Fat City. I dust­ed all of them, but nev­er watched them. Now all three are stream­ing on Cri­te­ri­on Chan­nel togeth­er and after watch­ing Cut­ter’s Way, it’s time I address this over­sight. If I learned any­thing from my time behind the counter at TLA Video, it was that some movies are, well, just a vibe, and this is no excep­tion. The dis­il­lu­sion­ment, much like in We Want Every­thing, just res­onates so pow­er­ful­ly in the cen­tral con­flict and the char­ac­ters are well-developed.

Lis­ten­ing

  • Yo La Ten­go — This Stu­pid World. There’s lit­er­al­ly noth­ing to say about this band that has­n’t already been said. They’re one of a hand­ful of bands that con­sis­tent­ly pro­duces music that I know I’ll enjoy before I’ve lis­tened and they’ve been doing it for decades. This album is no excep­tion, but you already knew that.
  • Mix­cloud. It’s the best music dis­cov­ery app for me, hands down.
  • This Andy Beta mix that was just shared via his Sub­stack this morning.
  • Indiecast. This is the clos­est I get to music crit­i­cism dra­ma near­ly 13 years since last writ­ing about music for mon­ey. It’s as close as I want to get, I think. Steve and Ian are the Siskel and Ebert of 40-some­thing crit­ics and at a time when so much music crit­i­cism has real­ly focused on fan ser­vice, they offer up indif­fer­ence as a refresh­ing coun­ter­point to all that.
  • Jok­er­men & Nev­er End­ing Sto­ries. More Hyden! I’ve loved Jok­er­men, but NES may be my new favorite. The inter­play between the guys is just fan­tas­tic and height­ens my appre­ci­a­tion for Bob and all the sil­ly things he’s done through­out the years.
  • WRTI. What a gem this radio sta­tion is. It was there the entire time. I should’ve been lis­ten­ing since before I got to col­lege, but glad I start­ed now.
  • WFMU. I’ve long aspired to sup­port the sta­tion and I’m glad I final­ly did. Jesse Jarnow’s The Frow Show was a gate­way to so much great music and the broad­er net­work does not dis­ap­point in that regard either.

Play­ing

  • Assas­s­in’s Creed Val­hal­la. I think I’ve spent the last two years play­ing Assas­s­in’s Creed Val­hal­la. It’s equal parts embar­rass­ing and enthralling. I have lit­er­al­ly no friends play­ing this game, but I fell in love with all the Viking back­sto­ry thanks to liv­ing in Scan­di­navia 30 years ago. The sto­ry was real­ly sat­is­fy­ing, so much so that I actu­al­ly com­plet­ed the game and can’t stop wan­der­ing around the coun­try­side. I can’t wait for Mirage to hit.
  • Starfield. I haven’t start­ed play­ing yet, but I’m hop­ing this game cures me of my Assas­s­in’s Creed Val­hal­la habit!

Can We Talk About Forks?

As a 45-year-old sud­den­ly adrift on the job mar­ket, the “Forks” episode of The Bear hit dif­fer­ent. Sure, “Fish­es” was an absolute tour-de-force, cap­i­tal “P” per­for­mance, and “Hon­ey­dew” was a pow­er­ful med­i­ta­tion on growth, but “Forks” spoke to me so direct­ly and hope­ful­ly. Watch­ing Richie trans­form from a lov­able, but deeply flawed dirt­bag liv­ing in an eter­nal present into per­haps the most self-actu­al­ized char­ac­ter on the show was com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed and absolute­ly wel­come. The moment Syd says “Dri­ve,” he’s a man pos­sessed and ful­ly in his ele­ment, con­fi­dent and self-assured, will­ing the team forward.

What I think I espe­cial­ly love about this on a per­son­al lev­el is how Richie and oth­ers are giv­en oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow into them­selves. Carmy sees their poten­tial and puts them in spots to real­ize it. If you’ve ever been stuck or lost in your career, it res­onates deeply, espe­cial­ly when you know what you’re capa­ble of doing, but won­der if you’ll ever get the chance. That’s why Richie’s sto­ry has meant so much to me. The pur­pose he seeks is the anti­dote to “qui­et quit­ting,” or if you’ve tak­en an entry lev­el soci­ol­o­gy class, alien­at­ed labor.

Is there a show I’m more con­cerned about falling apart as col­lat­er­al dam­age of the writ­ers’ strike? No, not like­ly. Maybe it’s just me adopt­ing the Indiecast mind­set, but I lost a taste for most pres­tige TV when Mad Men end­ed. Most of it just feels too self-impor­tant to be gen­uine­ly engag­ing. Like, I know I’m sup­posed to like it, but what even is pres­tige TV in 2023? Is Myth­ic Quest pres­tige TV? I liked that. Are FX shows still pres­tige TV? Is pres­tige just swear­ing and sex on basic cable? Or is it just TV from pre­mi­um services?

The Bear was engi­neered in a lab for young Gen X. “Strange Cur­ren­cies” was my nation­al anthem in 1995. Mon­ster, as I’ve writ­ten else­where, is a cul­tur­al touch­stone with­out equal from my teenage years. The yearn­ing expressed in that song con­nects so per­fect­ly with the mood of sea­son two. But nowhere is it more real­ized than in Richie’s tra­jec­to­ry from “Forks” for­ward, cul­mi­nat­ing in his Jesus-take-the-wheel moment in episode ten and his lac­er­at­ing tough love for Carmy, trapped help­less­ly in the walk-in.

Some­thing I thought about, espe­cial­ly dur­ing “Fish­es,” was Bunuel’s Dis­creet Charm of the Bour­geoisie, where the din­ers await a meal that’s nev­er served. In that sense there’s a real poet­ry to The Bear end­ing before open­ing night and I can be hap­py if it does. Mean­while I will be absolute­ly floor­ing it down back alleys to “Love Sto­ry (Tay­lor’s Ver­sion)” from here on out.

Breaking Up with Twitter

Yes, I’m already on Mastodon. I knew I joined back in 2016 when it was clear Jack had no idea where to take Twit­ter next. Mastodon is fun now that more peo­ple are join­ing. I don’t hate that it’s hard to find peo­ple; that was part of the fun of Twit­ter orig­i­nal­ly. What’s bet­ter is that it’s 2023, not 2008.

My approach to Mastodon is sim­ple: how can I rebuild the expe­ri­ence I had with ear­ly Twit­ter, focused on smart peo­ple I actu­al­ly know who might even be local to me and sec­ond­ly, musi­cians and music crit­ics I enjoy.

This expe­ri­ence has been chas­ten­ing. I com­mit­ted unrea­son­able hours to relent­less­ly refresh­ing Twit­ter. Now that I’ve quit cold turkey, I’m embar­rassed I did­n’t do it soon­er. More embar­rass­ing is the recog­ni­tion of all the paraso­cial rela­tion­ships I built as an out­growth of my career.

Pro­fes­sion­al­ly, it has­n’t made a dif­fer­ence. There are oth­er tools to let me know if some­thing is hap­pen­ing at work. I don’t need to be on the bleed­ing edge of break­ing news — for every­thing — around the clock. What I’ve been able to gath­er from peers is much the same as my expe­ri­ence: Twit­ter has long been a low-per­for­mance social plat­form for most brands, espe­cial­ly those that don’t have a cus­tomer ser­vice function. 

How many brands start­ed chas­ing their “Dunk in the Dark” moment 10 years ago and it nev­er hap­pened for them? My viral tweet is lit­er­al­ly about tak­ing down a Christ­mas tree! Why did this seem so vital for so long?

Remapping My Digital Footprint

Twit­ter’s volatil­i­ty has me rethink­ing every­thing. Words like “inten­tion­al­i­ty” spring to mind, but also, I don’t need to be on the plat­form quite as much as I have been since 2008. It’s offer­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to rethink how I show up online and where I choose to cre­ate and con­sume con­tent. Not the first time, cer­tain­ly not the last, but one of those, you know, inflec­tion points that gives you a moment to pause and reflect.

Have I been doing it wrong the whole time? Maybe I have.

I’ll unpack that. I just logged into Feed­ly for the first time since Google Read­er shut down in 2013. It was like open­ing a bunker that closed the moment the war end­ed. There were blog posts wait­ing for me from cor­po­rate sites I used to fol­low for work and thou­sands of unread music and tech news items from near­ly a decade ago. It was rev­e­la­to­ry. It was the web we lost!

Flash for­ward a decade. We’ve been con­tend­ing with algo­rith­mic feeds at every turn. Even a glimpse of a pure­ly chrono­log­i­cal time­line made me thing: what if I just go back? I can’t pre­tend any­one will fol­low suit, but how can I make my own expe­ri­ence of the web better?

For starters, I’m going to sub­scribe to Feed­ly. I’m using Dis­cord to keep in touch with com­mu­ni­ties I’m part of on Twit­ter that are dis­pers­ing. I’m play­ing with Red­dit more inten­tion­al­ly. I’m lov­ing Patre­on and Mix­cloud and pod­casts. I’m obsessed with Tik­Tok. I just edit­ed way back on Insta­gram fol­lows and pro­duced a bet­ter expe­ri­ence. And I’ve joined Mastodon.

Mastodon? Isn’t that just Twit­ter all over again? Maybe it is? But maybe it’s not. I am being very selec­tive about how I build com­mu­ni­ty there. I’m not try­ing to build what I’m leav­ing on Twit­ter. I’ve built an audi­ence around loca­tions and jobs, first as a music crit­ic in Philadel­phia and then as a cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tor there and Detroit, across three indus­tries. The effect is like watch­ing those chunks of the inter­net per­form Google search­es in real time around the clock. It’s exhaust­ing. It’s self-inflict­ed. It’s over.

What I’m lov­ing about onboard­ing to Mastodon is how slow it is. I’m remind­ed of those ear­ly days on Twit­ter when you saw every­one’s @ replies and you held on for dear life. But this isn’t like that. I’m look­ing for some famil­iar faces and then look­ing at who they’re fol­low­ing and who’s fol­low­ing them. What I’m try­ing to do is build some­thing around my inter­ests in music and cul­ture and leav­ing work to LinkedIn. There’s a slow­er web if you want it!

If you’re feel­ing com­plete­ly wiped out by the expe­ri­ence of try­ing to repli­cate what you feel you’ve lost, build some­thing bet­ter slowly.

How Do You Game in 2022?

My pro­gres­sion into gam­ing was pret­ty straight­for­ward. I start­ed with a VIC 20, fol­lowed by a Com­modore 64, then an Apple IIGS, got a SEGA Gen­e­sis for Christ­mas junior year, then off to col­lege with a Hewlett Packard Pavil­lion. My PlaySta­tion 1 got me through grad school and a PS2 got me through years of under­em­ploy­ment. I dropped my Sony loy­al­ty, get­ting an Xbox 360 when we bought our first house. I upgrad­ed to a Forza Xbox One when I went to Ford. We added a PlaySta­tion 4 Pro a few Christ­mases ago, then to an Xbox Series X last spring. My youngest got a Nin­ten­do Switch some­where along the way, too. This Christ­mas we added a PlaySta­tion 5 and an Ocu­lus Quest 2.

It’s at once embar­rass­ing and over­whelm­ing to try to man­age four gam­ing sys­tems simul­ta­ne­ous­ly and eval­u­ate which games make sense for which plat­form. I’ve tried to sim­pli­fy things with Xbox Game Pass Ulti­mate as part of the Series X pur­chase. That’s been help­ful from a dis­cov­ery and every day play stand­point for count­less titles that would­n’t have been worth $60 or more to prove disappointing. 

Where things get trick­i­er is know­ing which Switch titles are actu­al­ly good for a 2nd grad­er. He’s a good read­er, but some of the games ask a lot of the play­er. Addi­tion­al­ly, try­ing to stay on top of PlaySta­tion exclu­sives may be a chal­lenge. I’ve his­tor­i­cal­ly been an EA devo­tee, so sto­ry-ori­ent­ed games are a bit of a blind spot for me. I’ve pur­chased so many games I nev­er had a hope of fin­ish­ing once we had kids. I did­n’t do a great job man­ag­ing across plat­forms on the last gen con­soles we had pri­mar­i­ly because friends had PlaySta­tion and the prospect of play­ing togeth­er online in the pan­dem­ic was attrac­tive. It has hap­pened maybe a hand­ful of times.

Final­ly, Ocu­lus Quest 2 is new ter­ri­to­ry alto­geth­er. I’ve been gen­er­al­ly bear­ish on VR with the excep­tion of some indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions. What I’ve seen in the last week are some pret­ty sim­ple games that are fine, if not espe­cial­ly immer­sive and fun. Look­ing at this list from the Verge, it looks like there are few com­pelling options for a sports-for­ward kid.

What’s com­ing in 2022 that’s worth look­ing out for?