A Return
Hello! And welcome to the other side of a long, long break – the longest I’ve gone without writing to this space since its inception three years ago.
Today I’m going to touch on what I’ve been doing, I’m going to wonder aloud what this publication means to me in this moment, I’m going to talk about some art I’ve been enjoying lately, and I’m going to announce – and explain – a coming change.
I’ve kept busy since I last wrote you in August: watching movies, reading books, coaching a sports team, hosting social gatherings, learning about tariffs, traveling, worrying, working through the worst injury of my life, becoming a full-throated baseball fan, writing several entries for my second blog about the upcoming WNBA Portland Team, playing music, learning how to play music, building a shelf for my record collection, and sixteen or twenty other things.
I didn’t stray from this publication for a lack of inspiration, material, or even time. Rather, it was prioritization that took over: a different hobby, other relationships, different crafts. I didn’t mind the growth I experienced elsewhere while my writing stagnated, but I missed the act of writing every day that I wasn’t practicing it. Now that my coaching season is over, and that the days are almost exclusively dark, I am excited to move towards practicing again.
I thought it would be worthwhile, before digging into some recent works I’ve been taken with, to revisit the mission of this place, the vision I had for it previously, the vision I have for it now. I started this project when the sludge of the pandemic still stuck to my bones. I had time, a lot of art, and endless thoughts filling my days. I was in my early thirties, and I felt I was rapidly expanding in my appreciation, understanding, connection to, and interest in art, in culture, in storytelling, in criticism, in the work of those that came before me, the connections between them all, this art’s ability to hold the answers to all of my current questions, and hold the inspiration for everything I thought was new. I loved the idea of finding something new to you, something you had not seen before, which does not mean that it is brand new to the world, just that it hadn’t come across your attention before. Casablanca is a film that is locked in place, locked in time, never to change, but every single person that has ever seen it, that will ever see it, has a completely unique experience. No one will ever feel exactly the same way I did when I first saw it, nor when I saw it for a second time. There is so much beauty in the idea – genuinely infinite. That was the sort of feeling and sentiments I had when I first sat down and clicked something into existence.
It has been several years writing about those feelings and ideas, but also writing about whatever I found interesting at the moment. Another design of this place was to be open to any idea, any whim. I have enjoyed every minute of it.
After spending time away from the work of writing and publishing, I felt it necessary to check-in with myself, to make sure that this was something that I want to be doing. It’s my own silly little project, after all. I get to decide how long it runs, how and if it will end.
I find that I still believe in the power of writing, of sharing that writing with others; of transforming your thoughts from wherever they come from, down through your nerves, into your fingers, onto a page, onto a screen, organizing them, changing them, letting them sit, changing your mind, throwing things out, finding something you believe in, finding truth in something you made that came from nothing, polishing it, and sending it out into the world to live on its own, subject to criticism and to misinterpretation, but also to find another mind that might receive it kindly, lovingly, with an open mind, with room to read and learn and grow towards wherever your ideas come from.
I definitely still believe in the power of art, the power of creativity, the power of spending your time consuming other people’s crafts, even if – especially if – it feels like that work might not have a single thing to do with you and your life. I believe in remaining open to changes in culture, to the history of different mediums, the beliefs of others expressed in different ways. I have spent more time than ever before reading the news, reading analysis of the news, reading take-downs of others’ analyses of the news, and other oddities of trying to be informed in the current world. If anything, our rapidly changing, unbelievably scary and threatening times, have helped me find more value in art, and the emotions and experiences it makes available to me.
Digging into the archives is worth your time. Browsing new release albums is worth your time. Going to the movie theater for a premiere or a classic re-run is worth your time. Intermittently checking a little free library is worth your time. Reading criticism of that book you just read, or a TV show you think you’ll hate, is worth your time.
I don’t know if reading what I write is worth your specific time. Our tastes might not align, or my project might not be effective for you. I do know that thinking through how a 1979 kung-fu action movie made me feel is worth my time. I know that expressing my thoughts and feelings clearly, and hopefully with zest and joy, is worth my time. I know that sharing what I work on, for others to find, is worth my time. I know that this is one of the better ways that I am able to share myself with people that I care about, and nothing could be more worth my time.
So, I’m going to keep writing, and keep publishing, as much as I can, as often as I’m able.
So now, without any further ado: here is some content.
Are Men Okay?
Not only is this the question of the moment in our depraved world, but it is also a theme of most of my favorite work that I have taken in this summer and fall. Gee, I wonder if men being the worst has anything to do with most artists reflecting that in their art for basically all of time?
Lonesome Dove, written by Larry McMurtry in 1985, is the best novel I have read this year, and probably the best in years. It is a true Western that spans thousands of miles and months of adventure, while also being just a handful of men walking some cows across an empty country. With stark clarity, and devastating ease, McMurtry introduces you to a dozen of the best drawn characters you can find, none of which can be assumed safe from an untimely, grim demise – at the hands of animals, of nature, of weather, or of people. Especially people. It has been years since a book has had passages that made me stand-up off the couch in order to churn through them. Dove did it more than once.
Beyond its deft capturing of time, place, action, and stillness, it puts you in the minds of so many different people, all set in their individual ways, all seen without judgement from their author. It is a book that is as generous as it is violent. It will stick to your bones, just as it did mine, and it will help you better understand this country, and this world, and the people that inhabit it.
In a turn of events that still shocks me when it occurs, a blu-ray distribution company has recently acquired the rights to a trove of previously hard to find films – this time: iconic Hong Kong cinema from the 1980’s and 1990’s. They were restored beautifully, and made available to anyone that wants them. Portland’s Hollywood Theatre has been programming an ideal selection of these films, action classics from Chinese directors that genuinely changed the course of filmmaking worldwide.
Nearly all of these films focus on a man, or a couple of men, who have similar problems: they’re a cop, or they’re a gangster, and they are up against a lot of gangsters, or a lot of cops, and they have to deal with all these guys while robbing a bank, or stopping a bank robbery, while also trying to bag a woman who is playing hard to get. But don’t worry, they all have an extremely close relationship with another man (a father, a grandfather, a police chief, a mafioso, a detective partner, a mobster partner) who is there to crack a joke or crack skulls alongside their best friend. That is, until Trouble Comes Their Way.
A Better Tomorrow (1986) and City on Fire (1987) are the two that I have caught so far – both starring the now infamous, then simply young and hot Chow Yun-Fat – both electrifying action movies that look gorgeous in their restored prints. They’re strange, effective comedies, gratuitous dramas, and filled with unforgettable cinematic innovations. Works of art like this are beloved by thousands, yet can still get so close to destruction and decay and erasure, despite attempts at salvaging. Successfully saving these films from obscurity is always monumental. I don’t know if the men in these movies are alright, but the dozens of men who packed the Hollywood Theatre on two weekday nights to see these movies on the big screen? They are definitely alright, even if just for a couple of hours.
The Lowdown is a rare television show: it takes place, and was filmed locally, in Oklahoma; it stars a Big Name Actor while also casting many non-white and Native actors; it is directed by a Native filmmaker; and it is a filmmaker’s second show with creative carte-blanche. Sterlin Harjo, the filmmaker here and of FX’s Reservation Dogs, is back with another show about local yokels, this time starring a snooping Ethan Hawke as a local writer and investigator who is trying to oust a fishy group of local politicians who are also tied up in local real estate, and maybe the local nazi gang.
Inspired by the shaggy, bumbling detective movies of the 1970’s – mainly Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) (good movie!!) – the show is a total farce (complimentary) filled with clear allusions to our real world, with incredible and unique laughs, a love-to-hate-him/hate-to-love-him central character, with indelible supporting performances, with great local, American myth-making photography and production design of rarely-captured regions of our country. It’s a great show immensely worth watching, worth listening to, worth reading into, worth savoring, worth reading criticism for. In the age of a slackening sense of individual agency, watching this show is a vote for a real artist, and a vote for letting real artists create their visions. Your vote always matters.
I’m compiling my favorite music of the year, I’m going to try and see all of the “it” movies from this year, I’m reading great old books; I’m cooking over here, baby, and I can’t wait to share more great things for you.
I’m glad you’re here.
Keep reading for a technical note on where I will continue publishing this work. But first:
Where to find the things we talked about:
Rose-Colored Buckets: my other blog, about Portland’s new WNBA team!
Casablanca
Stream on HBO Max
Rent wherever you rent movies, including Movie Madness!
Lonesome Dove
Borrow it from your library!
Listen to it on Libby!
A Better Tomorrow
Stream it on The Criterion Channel
Rent wherever you rent movies, including Movie Madness!
City on Fire
Stream it on The Criterion Channel
Rent wherever you rent movies, including Movie Madness!
The Lowdown
Watch it on Hulu
Reservation Dogs
Watch it on Hulu
The Long Goodbye
Stream it on The Criterion Channel
Rent wherever you rent movies, including Movie Madness!
An Announcement
I am going to move this publication off of Substack. Let me tell you why, and let me explain that this shouldn’t have any effect on your reading experience.
After a recent redesign, the amount of clicks it takes to get into the writing page on Substack is simply too many. I do my word processing outside of Substack, regardless, but a disheartening theme continues to develop on the site, and on most others: a clunky user experience aimed to have the user linger on pages, linger on other people’s pages, linger, linger, languish.
For all of the great features that Substack offers its writers, they simply aren’t tools that I need for the experience I am searching for, which is almost completely just the act of writing something down, and having people subscribe to receive it. Stats, insights, growth recommendations, podcast creation capabilities, the entire Chat experience; all things superficial to my needs.
In order to better allow myself to do this one thing I like to do, I want to cut out all unnecessary distractions and actions, and to do that, a different publishing platform will serve me better.
Another problem I am having with using Substack is that I am USING it. They have designed the reading and writing experience to focus on sending users (both readers and writers) to their phone app, rather than their website or to email inboxes. And once you get to their app, the first thing they hit you with is all of the lovely newsletters that you intentionally subscribe to so you can read what you signed up to read. Wait, no, that’s not right: they show you an endlessly scrolling Feed of Posts that anyone can write, sorted by their own internal algorithm rather than from people you actually follow. They made their own Twitter so that you can stay on their app as long as possible, and interact with it as much as possible.
What a huge fucking bummer!
They designed themselves away from their mission, and away from what I want from them. They are doing it by choice, just as every other platform is adapting towards attention retention at all costs, and I decided months ago that I am simply not going to spend my time in digital spaces that are looking to manipulate my experience and my time in that way.
The red flags coming from Substack HQ have been with us, genuinely, for years now. I have reached, for the nth time in my life, a point where I simply cannot pretend that a service I am using isn’t reaping benefits from terrible things they are allowing to happen. Nazi’s, white supremacy, eugenics, all of the dregs of humanity are also found on Substack, and they all generate money for the platform.
Substack is attempting a version of free-speech within its goal of becoming the place for writing online, and some of their methods and ideals are sound, but I do not believe in blanket freedom of spreading genuinely hateful, violent, dangerous ideas.
They don’t have to change their ways despite many writers leaving their platform. They get to choose how they exist in the world. But so do we. If they won’t make a change to better reflect our values, then we need to make the change ourselves.
Bye, bitch.
Note for you, the reader:
You will not need to participate in the switching of platforms. Luckily, all platforms have options to easily export and import subscribers. If I don’t mention when the change has actually happened, I doubt you will even notice.
Unless, that is, if you are a Substack app user, in which case: yeah, things are going to change. You will simply start receiving my publications as emails only, even if you are an app only, no emails kinda reader. There’s no shame in that. Live your best life, boo. I, myself, will be staying in their general ecosystem as a reader, because there really are a ton of great writers working here.
My stuff will always be available on somethingnew.email, even after the transition is made. Yay, domain names!
See you on the other side.
Of course not.
Reading this is worth my time for the content and more than worth my time to hear your voice in my head like we’re hanging out! And I screenshot for my references of what to watch and read twice.