~ Mark

We make ourselves lists in order to know if we think what we think.

Sasha Frere-Jones.

There is no finality in a list, just a promise that we will argue about everything listed, adjust our thoughts, and watch our feelings change over time.

Minority Report: The Real Problem of the Atlanta Hawks Implosion

~ Mark

An interesting byproduct — perhaps a trick — of labeling someone a racist is making them an exception. Racists, once outed, are banished to Racism Island, and then it’s business as usual for everyone else. That’s the Sterling example. But Bruce Levenson isn’t an anomaly. Who doesn’t know a Bruce Levenson? Who hasn’t overheard someone at work or a friend’s dad talk like this before? They’re everywhere.

Minority Report: The Real Problem of the Atlanta Hawks Implosion

Serena Williams Is America’s Greatest Athlete

~ Mark

When the culture at large grants athletic adoration to women, it is often of a temporary, fleeting kind directed toward teen-age American sweethearts at the Olympics. Williams has never been America’s sweetheart. […] The failure to fully appreciate her importance is perhaps evidence of our inability to appreciate the stubbornly unfamiliar narrative arc of her career. Williams is underloved because, at times, she has been unlovable and, in the end, mostly unrepentant about it

Serena Williams Is America’s Greatest Athlete

The U.S. Open’s Federer-less Final – The New Yorker

~ Mark

So what is happening here? Other players are winning tennis matches. They are doing so by playing better than their opponents, even the ones, like Federer and Djokovic, who usually win. A couple of new guys, who are likable, hard-working, and talented, get their shot at the big fancy trophy and the giant check. Many fans will have a hard time accepting this. It requires a categorical adjustment, a recognition that a tournament is merely a process of narrowing down a pool of athletes to the one who beats the rest, rather than an expression of the Form of the Good.

The U.S. Open’s Federer-less Final – The New Yorker

~ Mark

Louisiana Loses Its Boot — Matter — Medium.

According to the U.S.G.S., the state lost just under 1,900 square miles of land between 1932 and 2000. This is the rough equivalent of the entire state of Delaware dropping into the Gulf of Mexico, and the disappearing act has no closing date. If nothing is done to stop the hemorrhaging, the state predicts as much as another 1,750 square miles of land — an area larger than Rhode Island — will convert to water by 2064. An area approximately the size of a football field continues to slip away every hour.

Blue Ruin

~ Mark

Blue Ruin. Holy. Crap. Watch this movie. There’s some kinship with Shotgun Stories here, swirling around revenge and vicious family rivalry. Just multiply the intensity by 3 or 4. A wee bit of Fargo, too, what with the bumbling? Great acting, sound, editing, the whole package is legit. This will probably be very high in my 2014 rankings.

Locke

~ Mark

Locke. I really liked this movie. Two things it reminded me of: Arbitrage, because he’s in a really crappy position and he’s trying to make do. And Bronson, because it’s Tom Hardy putting on a one-man show and just nailing it. About 99% of it is watching him on phone calls while he’s driving. I love it when movies play with constraints like this. So good.

~ Mark

Don’t focus too much on this idea that your influences will be similar to people whose films you admire. In fact, it’s really the opposite: You like people who are doing something completely different, and it’s very relaxing to you because they’re dealing with all kinds of problems you don’t have to deal with.

Whit Stillman. Filed under: Whit Stillman, influence.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

~ Mark

I read Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and I loved it in the end. I might even say it changed my life in a few pointed ways. It’s a mildly science fictional story that pairs a good sense of humor with some great thinking on memory, nostalgia, wistfulness, and stories we keep telling ourselves.

Time does heal. It will do so whether you like it or not, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. If you’re not careful, time will take away everything that ever hurt you, everything you have ever lost, and replace it with knowledge. Time is a machine: it will convert your pain to experience.

The writing is slightly distant and self-aware because it’s more fun that way. Like this heavily-footnoted passage, where he’s describing the time machine he lives/works in, which leads to a minor footnote on particle physics:

This unit, this phone booth, this four-dimensional person-sized laboratory, I live in it, but, over time, through diffusion and breathing and particle exchange, the air in here, the air that travels with me, it is me, and I’m it.* The exhaled carbon dioxide that gets recycle and processed by the pump, the oxygen-rich air that is piped back in, these molecules* move around me, and in me, and then back out, all* of it* the same matter.* I breath it* in, it* is in my bloodstream. Sometimes, they* are part of me, sometimes, I am part of them.* Sometimes, they* are in my sandwich,* […]

There are plenty of little aphoristic moments that come up, like…

Life is to some extent an extended dialogue with your future self about how exactly you are going to let yourself down over the coming years.

…or like this aside on growing up in a household with parents arguing and fighting:

Call it the law of conservation of parental anger […] bouncing around, some of it reflected, some of it absorbed by the smaller bodies in the house.

One of my favorite turns of phrase came up in one travel scene, picking up on that swelling, aching beautiful uplift you can feel when flying:

As the machine banks into its approach and we angle into our steep descent spiral, looking down into the city, I have, for a minute or two, some clarified sense of scale, the proper balance of awe and possibility, a kind of airplane courage […]

There’s also some clever meta-textual work relating to the physical book itself and some interludic commentary (like how people in recreational alternate universes can qualify as “protagonists” or even “heroes” in these fantasylands, or diagrams that clarify the plot, background sketches on history/setting, magazine tips for time travel, etc.).

I have to acknowledge that there’s a definite patch just after the halfway point where it dragged a bit for me. (You can see him getting carried away, piling ideas between commas.) But the opening half is so fun, and the final sprint led to a goosebumps ending for me. Very much recommended. Earlier this spring I also really liked Yu’s collection of short stories, Third Class Superhero.

Sacred Hoops

~ Mark

I read Phil Jackson’s Sacred Hoops, and mostly liked the more biographical stuff. His tales of the early days (in a Pentecostal family in North Dakota) reminded me of my father and grandfather, devoted Christians growing up in the midwest and geeking about about basketball and eventually other spiritual traditions. One nice treat of reading books like this – recent history when there are always cameras rolling – is the ability to check YouTube for the highlights.