Remember how last week I told you about how I was writing about Jethro Tull for a week? That got a bit out of hand. I was up until 3 a.m. three nights in a row. On the other hand, I learned I can write 22,000 words in a week and a half. No joke. Before we get to our 15 reviews (it’s a miracle I got through that much, considering), lemme just… here’s the link to the whole week of posts. There are 30 of them. If you’d rather the Reader’s Digest version, here are the posts that I think make up the spine of the whole thing:

This introductory post
This analysis of their two biggest radio hits
This interpretation of Thick as a Brick/personal manifesto
This exploration of empathy in Minstrel in the Gallery
This account of the response to A Passion Play
And finally, this last essay about Stormwatch

There we go. Now. To business.

Comedy

Mike Birbiglia: Thank God for Jokes — Birbiglia is for sure one of my favourite comics. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some things I’d change. He seems unable to do a special without a framing device now, which is fine given the extent to which he’s as much a storyteller as a comedian. But after this and My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, I feel like I can anticipate the beats to an uncomfortable degree. At this point it would be nice to hear him just tell jokes and stories in a linear fashion without constantly flashing back to his A-story. And I could do without the moments of earnestness he peppers throughout. I get that he’s trying for something bigger than just getting laughs, but it doesn’t really work here. That thread of the story is about the Charlie Hebdo shooting, and the line that’s supposed to carry the most weight is “I just love jokes.” It’s weird that he made it personal. I dunno, watch this and see if you agree. Because that is the full extent of my criticism. The material is really, really good and he’s becoming a better performer with every subsequent special. There’s even some top flight crowdwork in here with an audience member who feels like just a gift to a comedian, but of course you make your own luck.

Hannibal Buress: Comedy Camisado — I like Hannibal Buress a lot, but I think I like his delivery better than his material. I’ve seen one other special of his, Live from Chicago I think? I remember that material being a bit better than this, though his characterization of the media response to his Cosby bit is spot on.

Television

Last Week Tonight: “March 5, 2017” — I had decided not to watch this anymore and just to check out the YouTube segments from time to time, but a whole episode ended up flitting past my eye on the YouTube homepage and I figured, ah sure. As ever, it is more interesting than funny. A pandering Moonlight bit especially got on my nerves. And Oliver’s interview with the Dalai Lama is cute, but he didn’t get to the key point: what is actually going to happen, politically, to Tibet if he dies and the Chinese government appoints a new Dalai Lama who is loyal to them? I understand not wanting to break the mood of a fun interview with an adorable, lovely and really powerful world leader — but he travelled to India. Couldn’t he have pressed him just a little more???

Ways of Seeing: Episodes 1 & 2 — I’ve always meant to watch this, but left it until now because I had absolutely no idea how engrossing it would be. John Berger has what would now be considered No Television Presence, but it doesn’t matter at all because he’s interesting and lucid. That’s the standard by which worthiness should be judged in public broadcasting. The first episode of this is mostly remarkable for how obvious all of it is to a contemporary viewer. (Or maybe I’ve just read the Walter Benjamin essay that it’s based on. I know it’s his most famous, but I honestly can’t remember.) Berger’s argument about what happens when a painting becomes infinitely reproducible is in no way surprising, since we interact with reproduced images on a minute-by-minute basis, and anybody who’s paying attention should be able to determine the way in which its reproduction is manipulating its meaning. But that’s the thing, isn’t it — it’s only those who are paying attention. And that’s more the point of the first episode than actually explaining anything complex or surprising: it’s about increasing your cognisance of the presentation of images. The second episode is where things really pick up. This is the episode that argues that the traditional European nude exists not to show women being themselves, but rather women in the state of being seen. This is extremely penetrating, and Berger really makes his point by offering up a few selected exceptions to the rule, which are completely, electrifyingly different from the other images in a way I would absolutely not have detected without guidance. Or rather — without Berger’s ability to strip away the usual art criticism line about nudes being “a celebration of women” and allowing me to see the images as they are. However, Ways of Seeing shows its age in the second half of the episode, where Berger talks through these issues with, and I quote: “five women.” Wait, what? Who are these women? He seriously doesn’t even say who they are! Clearly they’re very smart and articulate, but but… who are they and why did you choose them for this program? “Five women.” Anyway. Also, why are there more glasses of wine on the table than people sitting around it? And why are you even drinking wine? Isn’t this the BBC?? What is going on!?!?! Is this the Twilight Zone?? What is happening? Berger! I don’t understnadddrkjf,namflkjfio^%&*()Mbkhjb

Movies

Get Out — The first great movie of the year. Here is what strikes me as particularly interesting about this: I think it’s the only comedic horror movie I’ve ever seen that isn’t primarily a parody. None of the comedy in the movie is derived from subverting horror movie tropes. Rather, the comedy and the horror actually come from the same place. Jordan Peele’s script (and crucially, the way he directs it) takes the experience of being a black person surrounded by white people and gets both comedy and horror out of it. This is because comedy and horror are both genres that stem from our natural responses to the absurd. When confronted with something that doesn’t make sense or seems wrong, we tend to either laugh or feel afraid. That’s the connection that Peele exploits to make this movie both scary and funny — and also to make a satirical (not parodic) point about microaggressions etc. It’s the same line traversed by Welcome to Night Vale, which is also not primarily a parody (though I suspect that stems as much from production ineptitude as from intentionality, but that’s a different review). Get Out is pitch perfect. Every shot, every beat in the editing, every performance is perfectly calibrated to ride that line between the horrifying and the (literally) hilarious. Calling it a horror movie is an oversimplification. But if we do lump it in with that category, it’s the best one I’ve seen in years. Yes, including It Follows. (Also, don’t watch the trailer. The trailer is full of spoilers. In this instance, spoilers are bad.) Pick of the week.

Games

Half-Life — So yeah. Still playing this. Didn’t switch to Source, because I heard it was buggier than the original. I’m progressing slowly because a) I’ve been writing about Jethro Tull all week and b) I’m terrible at video games, but I’m starting to enjoy this. I’ve read up a little on the ways it differs from previous shooters, and that does actually enhance the modern-day playing experience. You kind of have to take it as a bit of a relic. But I’m impressed by the verisimilitude of it all. It’s 100% first person so far, and at no point has my control over the character been halted to progress the story. The story happens incrementally around you as you proceed and is as much a matter of mood and atmosphere as actual writing. And yes, there isn’t a lot of story to speak of, but it’s still impressively unobtrusive. Plus, running around and shooting things (often the same things over and over, because I die constantly, even on easy mode) has therapeutic value for its almost Zen repetitiveness.

Literature, etc.

Philip Sandifer: “Haunt the Future” — This is a relatively brief and witty account of the way the “alt-right” repurposes Situationist tactics towards their own ends. It also contains very brief introductions to the neoreactionaries Mencius Moldbug and Nick Land who are horrifying, but oddly compelling.

Podcasts

Code Switch: “The Horror, The Horror: ‘Get Out’ and the Place of Race in Scary Movies” — This contains an extremely disquieting take on why the black character always dies first in a horror movie, and many other troubling things. On the other hand, Get Out sounds great.

Code Switch: “Ten Thousand Writers… and Two Intrepid Podcast Hosts” — I just remembered I listened to this a while back. It was good, I think? I seem to remember an interesting conversation with a guy who always gets invited to speak on the same writers’ panel about race. Mostly I’m disappointed in my recall.

Reply All: “Worldstar” — A complicated story of a complicated person. Q’s story strikes me as just another tale of the cheapening effect that the present-day iteration of the internet has on culture. But I’m inclined to see that narrative in basically everything.

Theory of Everything: “The Rainbows of Inevitability” — A dark look inside what Facebook knows about you and how it thinks it can use that information. Basically this is a bunch more reasons why Mark Zuckerberg is wrong about the world.

Radiolab: “Update: CRISPR” — CRISPR is terrifying. It’s official. It’s going to be used for evil. I feel like a ninny saying that, because obviously a cure for cancer would be nice, but holy shit the consent issues surrounding this are bewildering.

This American Life: “Vague and Confused” — The first story, with Sean Cole, about an island of private property off the coast of Honolulu, is super. It’s a source of constant amazement that TAL can do stuff like this on a weekly basis. More than I could ever keep up with. Pick of the week.

Crimetown: “The Ghost” — This story features a gangster killing another gangster’s pet wolf. That’s a real-life thing that happened. This show is so good.

All Songs Considered: “Alt-J, Elliott Smith, The New Pornographers, Girlpool, More” — The Alt-J song is great. The Magnetic Fields song is spectacular. Unmoved by the rest.