All right then. I’ve got a few random links for you, then later today I’ll probably have a couple of posts, one on the Netflix show Beef. Which is very good. Not to everyone’s taste, but what is?
Also, I will be undertaking the very painful task of telling you how terrible Lucky Hank is. I’m not surprised, but still disappointed, because it’s not only a bad adaptation of a great novel, but it’s just bad. I’ve watched all four episodes aired so far, and I come away each time almost shocked – it’s so…well…bad. I can’t imagine anyone who hasn’t read the novel having any interest in the world that’s been put onscreen here, despite the interesting actors involved.
Here’s just a minor example that doesn’t even really illustrate the bigger problems: In the novel, the protagonist English department head Hank Devereux (Jr.) goes a little nuts, picks up a goose by the neck while television news cameras are rolling (you had to be there) and threatens to “kill a duck a day” until his department gets funding. In the series? Hank happens to have boxing gloves in his bag (because he’s been working out) and he threatens to “box a goose every day” until he gets the funding. I mean…what? That’s just pathetic.
I could go on about how the lot of fantastic characters Russo creates is just deracinated and the humor is drained. And I will. Oy.
Anyway.
Beef is far better. More anon.
Before I get going on the links, I want to just hash out something I’m thinking about. I’m contemplating Substack. Yes, there is Trust Walk – more on that in a moment – but I’ve been wondering if I should do something else there, something with a (gasp) paid subscription. The trouble is, I can’t think of a single subject area about which I could write that I wouldn’t feel terrible charging people for. It makes no sense, I know. People purchase my books. I am published online in other places that yes, pay me. But this is different, at least to me. I even think about the possibility and I cringe.
Maybe I’m just lazy. Who knows. I mean, that’s absolutely a part of it, but not all.
To clarify: I’m not contemplating it as a replacement for this. Never, ever. And I don’t trust new shiny New Media in this sense: I don’t want to put a lot of effort into a platform that might be gone tomorrow or change in a way that’s unhelpful to my sense of why am I online. Great example: Facebook. I never did much with Facebook except post links anyway, although when the kids were younger, I had a pretty small “travel list” of (actual) friends that I would share travel posts with. But now, given the stupidity of that platform and its algorithms, I’m very glad I never put any energy into developing a meaningful presence there, and I’m thinking Instagram is heading in the same direction, which makes sense, considering who owns it.
Substack, however, seems to have legs, and Notes – which went public today – is a good feature, although it has some limitations. For example, I don’t see that a Substack user/publisher/whatevertheycallthem has a distinct Notes URL – and that’s a serious limitation. (Correct me if I’m wrong, please) But for now, what I will probably do is try out Notes and pretend it has no relationship to Trust Walk. We’ll see if people notice.
Anyway…Trust Walk exists. My thought on it back in the fall was that I would take a break over the holidays. The holidays came and went, and I decide to go to Italy for almost three weeks, so I got obsessed with planning that. And then I went to Italy. And then people came home for spring breaks. And now here we are. I’m not sure if I’ll be posting anything new to it any time soon. Sorry for being lame.
Anyway, random:
- Oklahoma eyes approving first religious charter school. It’s a Catholic virtual school. Not sure what I think about that. It’s unfortunate that the Church herself – which means, us…we… – cannot or will not support this kind of effort independent of government funding.
- LitHub, in the tradition of mainstream media everywhere, publishes, in honor of Easter, a list of books about spiritual disillusionment, (In case you don’t understand the reference, it got to be a joke, back when newsweeklies were still a thing, that Christmas and Easter would always be the times that Time or Newsweek would choose to publish a big splashy cover story about New discoveries hint that author of Gospel of John was 17th century Portuguese Nun which would probably feature John Dominic Crossan.
Oh, anyway, here’s the list of books, and despite my initial reflexive response, upon reflection, I’d say that the list is worth perusing and the books probably worth reading, depending on your interest. Reading about the loss of faith – whatever the form of that faith and whatever the reason for the loss – is important. It’s a human experience and most of us, do, indeed, experience it in great or small ways.
(One of my favorites of the genre, from the fiction side, is The Damnation of Theron Ware. )
- Okay, okay, LitHub. I forgot you published this during Holy Week as well – an excerpt from a new book about a year visiting and thinking about the Sistine Chapel.
I looked at Nicolas and Luca trying to make sense of the ceiling. These boys had seen more than their share of biblical imagery growing up in Rome. The story was not the problem. But it was obvious that they didn’t know why all these people would willingly crowd into this room and stare upward. My first visit to the Sistine Chapel was irritating. All my experiences of it have been irritating in different ways. I was beginning to see that this feeling that had seemed like an obstacle was actually a part of the experience of something that is so much larger than I expected.
Arriving without preconceived ideas didn’t help them, I could not help them, and the audio guide for children didn’t really help either. I suggested we leave and find the museum café. Nicolas looked a little saddened, as though he’d let me down. “I’m sorry,” he said, as we left the room and the crowds behind us. “I don’t know what to look at.”
Without thinking it through, I had hoped that encountering such an exalted work as children would give them a chance to see it fresh, to see it more naturally than I had done, and without the weight of its fame. I didn’t expect it to be a sudden revelation, but I wondered if they would have any reaction to it. But now I see there is something about this work that is like life, in the way that we are just born into the flow of time. We don’t start at the beginning, and we don’t have the whole picture. It is also like life in the way it can—periodically, when we change our perspective a little, shift our weight, and turn our head—suddenly appear to be so painfully beautiful, so filled with meaning, so sublime.
This is how Hayes alters himself to play Oscar Levant, the pianist and raconteur, in the new Broadway play “Good Night, Oscar,” which opens on April 24 at the Belasco Theater. Levant, who died in 1972, was as renowned for his interpretations of George Gershwin’s music and his roles in films like “An American in Paris” as he was for his dyspeptic appearances on TV game shows and talk shows, jesting ruefully about his struggles with mental health and prescription drug addiction.
The play, written by Doug Wright and directed by Lisa Peterson, imagines Levant on a fateful day in 1958 when he has finagled his way out of a psychiatric hospital to be interviewed on Jack Paar’s “Tonight Show.”
Beneath its Eisenhower-era period details, “Good Night, Oscar” sets out to comment on enduring ideas about the burdens of celebrity and creative genius. Whether it succeeds will depend largely on Hayes’s ability to embody the dour Levant, a sort of public neurotic who may no longer be familiar to contemporary audiences.
One member of the contemporary audience who is familiar with Oscar Levant is me, being one of the few teens in the 1970’s who read his memoir A Smattering of Ignorance. A couple of times, believe it or not. (It was in my parents’ massive library) Pretty ridiculous when you think about it – hey, more on brand for the 70’s teen, I read Go Ask Alice a bunch of times too, so I wasn’t that weird.
I have been reading your blogs off and on for a couple of decades (forget the name of the previous blog). I don’t know about a pay-to-read platform. I do support the Pillar as I think it is quite helpful in its niche, also First Things. I enjoy your writing and perspective, not sure what would be of extra value?