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Category Archives: art
Nomadland Reconsidered
This Joshua Keating critique of Nomadland is excellent. He starts off praising it.
“The film Nomadland, which cemented its status as the front-runner for Best Picture with six Oscar nominations this week, includes unforgettable characters and images. It heralds the arrival of a major directing talent in Chloé Zhao, nominated for Best Director, and features yet another masterful turn from Frances McDormand, nominated for Best Actress. But for anyone who has read its source material, Jessica Bruder’s 2017 nonfiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, the film feels oddly incomplete. The filmmakers chose to jettison the book’s muckraking journalistic spirit and economic critique, ending up with a film that’s supposedly an examination of contemporary society, but feels politically inert.”
Lucid, critical, respectful, the phrases “oddly incomplete” and “politically inert” strike the perfect chord.
His main critique:
“These are people who are adamant that they are not victims, have chosen the lifestyle they lead of their own free will, and are grateful for the opportunities they get. This is admirable in some sense, but in the case of modern nomadism, it’s part of the problem. As Bruder’s reporting shows, one of the reasons companies like Amazon like to hire retirement-age “workampers” for physically demanding jobs that seem better suited for young bodies is that they “demand little in the way of benefits or protections. … Most expressed appreciation for whatever semblance of stability their short-term jobs offered.” The scrappy, no-complaints stoicism that makes these people appealing movie characters also makes them extremely exploitable.”
Keating convinces me that a very good film could’ve been even better.
Fake It, Til’ You Make It
I have a great appreciation for all types of music, but as my inability to comprehend entire swaths of this thorough and thoughtful obituary of former Met Opera maestro, James Levine illustrates, I have no feel for it. To be clear, I am about as non-musical as they come; well, except for my dad, for whom I have no memory of him ever listening to music.
Of Levine, Tommasini writes:
“His performances were clearheaded, rhythmically incisive without being hard-driven, and cogently structured, while still allowing melodic lines ample room to breathe.”
My thoughts exactly. No seriously, someone enlighten me, what on earth does that even mean? I may be clueless, but I know how to “borrow” from Tommasini to pretend to know way more than I actually do. Very shortly, when I return to the party circuit post-pan, I intend on asking this cogently structured question of other party goers, “Why, oh why do so many contemporary composers routinely suffocate melodic lines?” Of course, I’ll need you to throw me a life preserver as soon as any of my conversational partners reply.
With respect to this descriptive sentence, if I only was more familiar with Wagner (I deserve partial credit for at least knowing how to pronounce ‘Vaagnr’ correctly) and Mahler, meaning a little, I could follow Tommasini:
“Above all, Mr. Levine valued naturalness, with nothing sounding forced, whether a stormy outburst in a Wagner opera or a ruminative passage of a Mahler symphony.”
Here is faux-sophisticated music party line #2 I’m filing away. “I like how Levine valued naturalness, with nothing sounding forced, whether a stormy outburst in a Wagner opera or a ruminative passage of a Mahler symphony.”
I just hope my convo partners haven’t read, or don’t remember, Tommasini’s obit.
Nomadland
Frances McDormand is Fern, a widower struggling to let go of her past. She’s hard working and resilient. Her van makes for a precarious home. She befriends other “nomads” also living on the road, but only to a point, because she isn’t fully in the present.
Nomadland has the feel of a compelling documentary. A thoughtful window into a vulnerable, but resourceful community of non-conformists prioritizing personal freedom and nature over material comfort. If you enjoy films firmly based in reality, you may like it as much as I did.
Thursday Required Reading
1. Hiking Is an Ideal Structure for Friendship. Love stories like this.
“As soon as we complete one hike, we immediately establish when the next will be. We rotate the organization and planning duties, eeny-meeny-miny-moe style.
That person has complete authority and responsibility to organize the hike, select the location, provide the beer and other refreshments, and make any other side-trip plans. We’ve done breakfast, dinner. We sometimes hit various local watering holes, or we just plop down with a cooler in the woods somewhere. The organizer is responsible for setting up all the logistics, soup to nuts, and is not questioned on the decisions made.”
2. This game has surpassed League of Legends, Fortnite and Valorant as the most-watched gaming category.
3. 2021’s Best States to Retire. I know, I know, how can any state known for the blog ‘PressingPause’ be ranked 31st? Spurious methods.
4. Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College. Don’t know where to start on this one.
5. Mean tweets may take down Biden nominee. If only Neera Tanden had shown the same tact and diplomacy as The Former Guy. Has nothing to do with “civility” and everything to do with political power. It’s a tad bit ironic that the R’s are channeling Malcolm X. “By whatever means necessary.” (credit: DDTM)
6. The most important Western artist of the second half of the twentieth century. (credit: Tyler Cowen)
Amazon’s Virginia Headquarters
A “helix” building that The Verge described as “a glass poop emoji covered in trees”. My view is more generous—bold and strikingly futuristic. I would dig working in it, but somehow I was passed over for CEO.
Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb”
Meet Kidd G
My morning reading included this New York Times profile of Kidd G., a 17-year-old from a small Georgia town who built an audience as a rapper on TikTok and SoundCloud before pivoting to country music.
Still processing these sentences:
“Before committing himself to making music, most of Kidd G’s attention was devoted to sports, particularly baseball and fishing. (He received two college scholarship offers for fishing.)”
Wut?
How 11 Kids Think the Biden Administration Should Spend Our Money
Compliments of The New York Times.
They’re all great, like this one from Dylan Rhys Jubett-Bauer, age 8.
“If Joe called me, I’d be like, How did you get my phone number? Then I would say, save half of the money for later on. But then spend money on gardens and on a place for homeless people to live.”
A One Act Play
The setting: Jeff Bezos’s and MacKenzie Scott’s Medina, WA kitchen. After working together to make Kraft macaroni and cheese with hot dogs, they serve themselves, grab two cans of Mountain Dew, and sit down at their formica dinner table. It’s one of their last dinners together as a married couple. A few days following this meal, they decide to pull the plug on their marriage.
Jeff: Mac and cheese with dogs never gets old. [laughs uncontrollably]
MacKenzie: No, it doesn’t. [inner voice. . . but your laugh has sure started to]
Jeff: What did you do today?
MacKenzie: I spent most of it journaling. Which helped me realize I don’t want to help you turn Amazon into the world’s retail store anymore. I think $182 billion is enough money. I want to make the world a better place through writing and giving my share of our money away.
[All the while, Jeff texts Lauren Sanchez under the table.]
MacKenzie: [Softly, sadly, and with a deep sense of resignation.] Did you hear me?
Jeff: Yes, you said you want to help me make Amazon into the world’s retail store.
[MacKenzie stares at Jeff in silence]
Jeff: [Head in his lap.] Can you pass the applesauce?
Pressing Pause 