Tag Archives: Hannibal Buress
Omnibus (week of Aug. 19, 2017)
A normal week once again. A bit smaller than usual, I guess. But I honestly quite enjoyed the media detox I went through in Newfoundland. Might try to cut back a bit. We'll see if that sticks. 14 reviews.
Stephen King: The Drawing of the Three — You know, I didn't realize how much I missed reading page-turners. I've been reading mostly nonfiction and "literature" (or at least ambitious genre fiction) for so long that I nearly forgot the pleasure of reading something where the prose and story structure is custom made so that the pages fly by. Two books in, it's pretty clear to me why Stephen King is such a phenomenon, because I've read two books in two weeks, and I can't remember the last time that happened. Which isn't to say that there's no ambition in King's writing: The Dark Tower is, after all, an eight-volume epic genre mashup inspired by Robert Browning. But King manages this while also asking relatively little of the reader. Your mileage may vary, but you can get plenty out of this without really pondering things like structure or, heaven forfend, "themes." This is refreshing. That said, let me tell you the weird thing I find most remarkable about The Dark Tower thus far. In both The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three, our protagonist Roland is moving through a series of unforeseen obstacles towards a goal, the Tower, that he doesn't know why he's seeking. Moreover, we as readers don't even really know what prompted Roland to begin his quest in the first place. Contrast this with The Lord of the Rings, a confessed inspiration for The Dark Tower, in which copious exposition is employed to inform the reader of why Frodo and company are heading to Mordor. There's no missing the whole Sauron/Mount Doom/one-ring-to-rule-them-all thing. This blank space where the exposition should be gives The Dark Tower a dreamlike quality: oftentimes Roland will find himself somewhere, and a thing will happen, and he's faced with the consequences of that thing without really understanding any of the logic that underpins the story he's in. I imagine this is partially the result of King's somewhat improvisational approach to writing fiction — evidently, he didn't know how it would all turn out either. (Fun fact: Damon Lindelof is a fan of The Dark Tower. Does Lost make more sense now?) But that's turning out to be the real joy of this series. Much like the death of Laura Palmer was supposed to be in the original Twin Peaks, the Tower is just an excuse to take some characters and have weird shit happen to them while they're searching for something. I expect the Tower itself will take on more of an active role in later books, but for now it's a distant McGuffin exerting an uncertain influence over the more proximate narrative. In this book, the weird thing that happens to an unsuspecting Roland is that three doors open up into other people's minds, all of whom are living at various points in time in New York City. (Why these people? Why New York City? By what mechanism do the doors appear? We don't know, and our protagonist doesn't care so we don't either.) So basically, the story is split into three parts, involving Roland's interactions with three different characters (well, four really, but I'd spoil it if I explained why). These three parts are not created equal, i.e. the first is far and away the most compelling. (Also, as a personal aside: I read the first few pages of the book in an airport. The plane started boarding just as I got to the moment where Roland steps through the first magic door, so I closed the book there. Moments later, I got on the plane and started reading again, only to realize that Roland, too had found himself on an airplane. I love these moments of synchronicity.) This part of the book works best because, added to the book's usual aesthetics of fantasy and Western is a crime story, and a marvellously tense one at that. The second part is weighed down by a central character who is a deliberate, and perhaps not completely irredeemable racist caricature (or perhaps so), and that becomes tiring. Things pick up again towards the end, but in general the first half of thereabouts of The Drawing of the Three is much stronger than the second. This book also makes it clear why the relatively slight first volume, The Gunslinger, was necessary. That book has little in the way of plot, but it allows us to spend time with Roland and it establishes him as the centre of this narrative. The structure of The Drawing of the Three requires us to spend substantial amounts of time inside other characters' heads (sometimes quite literally). Without The Gunslinger, Roland's centrality wouldn't be as clear. A final random note: it's awfully amusing to see King referring to the camera work in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining for a descriptive passage, given how much he famously hates that movie. Always one for the Easter eggs. I enjoyed this enormously. I figure I should finish one or two of the dozen or so other books I'm reading before I move on to volume three, but I may not be able to resist. Pick of the week.
Robert Browning: "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" — This is of primarily academic interest to me at this time: mostly I wanted to read it for the sake of seeing how it inspired Stephen King. Still, it's an awfully compelling yarn, especially when you hear it read aloud. Interestingly, the nature of the Tower and the route towards it is even more uncertain and dreamlike here than it is in King. I'll read this again when I'm done King's series, to appreciate it a bit more on its own merits.
Hannibal Buress: Animal Furnace — This is by far my favourite Hannibal Buress special, and certainly one of the most densely-packed hours of standup I've seen. With the exception of a few bits that are a tad too "bitches be crazy" for my liking (including a bit about rape statistics that almost makes his later Bill Cosby bit seem like an apology), this is unimaginably original stuff. Buress's ninja move is trying to rationalize inexplicable experiences with absurd hypotheticals: an airport security officer inexplicably swabs his hand with a cloth, and he speculates: "Good thing I didn't have bomb juice on my hands. Was that the bomb juice test?" But what if he did have bomb juice on his hands? What if his friend offered him the rare opportunity to hold a bomb just before he went to the airport? ("I'm open to new experiences!") Hannibal Buress's mind is a place where extremely strange things happen on a very casual basis. And that is why he is one of the best comics working today. Plus, this has the classic Young Jeezy bit. Can't go wrong.
Mitch Hedberg: Mitch All Together — Mitch Hedberg is comedy's most brilliantly counterintuitive thinker. His jokes are like zen koans. I particularly love his bit about do not disturb signs. It should be "don't disturb," he argues. "'Do not' psyches you out. 'Do!' Alright, I get to disturb this guy. 'Not!' Shit! I need to read faster!" Marvellous.
Wind River — So I hated this when I walked out of the theatre, but the people I saw it with were smarter about it and talked me off the cliff. What I saw was a movie by a white, male writer/director, headlined by white actors, about the murder of a teenage girl on a Native American reservation. Moreover, it is a tense thriller in the vein of Sicario (written by the same guy), the thrills of which are motivated by the death of a native woman. This seemed exploitative to me, and the elongated depiction of the brutal crime itself did nothing to endear me to the film. But I am a white man, and my barometer isn't always well calibrated in these situations. I've been partially brought around to the idea that this film is directed specifically at people like me, who have none of the life experience depicted in the film, and it is supposed to make me squirm. I'm one of the people who won't be triggered by this, just disturbed. And I suspect that's what Taylor Sheridan is up to: lure in the audiences who need to see this story the most with posters featuring two Avengers, and shake us out of our complacency with a ceaselessly fucking brutal depiction of a reality we don't know. If we take this charitable view of the film, it still has a big problem in that the story is told through substantially through the perspective of Elizabeth Olsen's outsider FBI agent. Realistically enough, one expects, this character shits the bed constantly, both in her social interactions with locals on the reservation and in her police work. This would be more effective, however, if the movie didn't centralize the perspective of an outsider: if the movie were as concerned with the trauma of the community as it is with the personal growth of this interloper. Jeremy Renner's character is more complex, given that he has family on the reservation and he works there. Still, it's easy to regret the scenes in which he delivers hackneyed monologues about coping with grief while Gil Birmingham quietly gives a better performance, out of focus. I didn't like this movie. I don't know whether or not I admire it. I would be very careful about recommending it. I am open to being swayed further in either direction.
Game of Thrones: Season 7, episodes 5 & 6 — Man was it ever nice to have two episodes stacked up to watch. I am still incredulous about how much I like this season. "Eastwatch" seems uneventful in retrospect, but only because of what comes after and I still enjoyed it a lot. As for "Beyond The Wall," say what you like about the stupidity of the characters' plan in this episode, which is profound, this is still an episode where a group of characters including Jorah Mormont, Tormund, and the Hound go questing through majestic Icelandic wastes. I love it, and if you don't you're missing the point. The speed with which GoT is currently introducing hitherto unintroduced characters to each other is extremely satisfying this season. Also ice zombie dragon. Oh shit. Also this making-of featurette is incredible.
Twin Peaks: The Return: Parts 14 & 15 — Okay, so Lynch and Frost do know that the Dougie Jones thing is frustrating. The "look how many Douglas Joneses there are in the phonebook" thing is definitely trolling. If this show moved as fast as Game of Thrones, for instance, we'd learn that Janie E is Diane's half-sister in one scene, and Dougie and Gordon would be face-to-face in the next. But this is Twin Peaks, so no such luck. Still, these are two incredible episodes: the most consequential since the two-part premiere, though the eighth part is still the clear standout. The sequence with Dark Cooper and Phillip Jeffries (voiced by somebody doing a good impression of David Bowie's bad southern accent) is a satisfying descent into this show's weird supernatural depths. But the following episode one-ups it with the sequence of the sheriff and deputies in the woods. I love how every consequential step towards this point was the result of Hawk and Bobby's efforts, and it's still Deputy Andy who gets to receive the epiphany. If you'd asked me to list the characters least likely to visit one of the lodges in the new Twin Peaks, Andy would have been close to the top of that list. That character in that place is a marvellous juxtaposition in itself. I love how he instantly loses his bewildered aspect upon arrival, just like Cooper loses his effusiveness. There is only listlessness and manic terror in the lodges. And jazz dancing. Also, I guess maybe that's a wrap on Big Ed and Norma? This story has been intensely simple in a way that the rest of the show is not. I sure didn't expect the primary function of the Nadine/Dr. Jacoby plot to be bringing Big Ed and Norma back together, but I'll take it. I'll take what gratification I can get. Still, there are weeks when this show is easy to love. These have been two of them.
All Songs Considered: "The 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women" — A lovely and warm conversation about NPR's super awesome list of great albums by women. I'd quibble with some of the album placements, and with some of the ones chosen for discussion here, but it's not really my place. Point is, this is a ton of awesome music, much of which I haven't heard, and I will make the effort to do so now.
What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law: Episodes 7-9 — The tail end of this first batch of Trump Con Law episodes is as informative as everything else, though I can't claim to be preoccupyingly taken with any of it. I know more about American con law now, though.
The Daily: "Special Edition: The Fall of Steve Bannon" — I listened to this super late, and after having read the Times' lengthy article on Bannon's departure the next morning, but it still helps somehow to get a sense of things to hear a reporter talking about them conversationally. That's the genius of The Daily, and why it's one of the most essential developments in podcasting.
This American Life: "Our Friend David" — I'd heard most of these stories from the late lamented David Rakoff before, but they bear repeating. He was one of the funniest and most articulate presences on the radio, and one of those defining This American Life figures, like David Sedaris, Sarah Koenig, and Starlee Kine. The tape of Rakoff reading from Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish while dying of cancer just kills me. The writing isn't even his best: it's clearly rushed because he was racing to the final deadline. But it's shattering when he reads it, especially considering how sick he sounds. Pick of the week.
Radiolab: "Truth Warriors" & "Truth Trolls" — God is Radiolab out of touch. The second of this pair of episodes is one that they've now removed from their feed, but I could still listen to it after the fact because I downloaded it immediately. But let's start with the first. The tape of Robert Krulwich's conversation with Neil DeGrasse Tyson about how a conversation with his barista reflects the process of attaining scientific consensus is a good start. But the rest of the episode is a rerun of a story from 2012, which I would like to have been warned about. My time is too valuable to listen to Radiolab stories twice. (Though when I first heard this story, I wouldn't have felt that way.) Interestingly, this rerun story, featuring documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, is from the same episode as the story that provoked Radiolab's harshest backlash: the "yellow rain" story, in which the hosts insensitively accused a guest of trying to "monopolize" a story in which said guest's family had suffered severe trauma. Appropriate, then, that the following episode, "Truth Trolls," should find Radiolab once again lacking in judgement. Without any context, it might be easy to see how this story of a bunch of 4channers trolling Shia LaBeouf would read as a fun romp. But there is literally nobody in North America who does not have the context to realize that the people this episode treats basically as harmless scamps are hateful bigots. The context is everywhere. How did they miss this? Anyway, Radiolab's not trying to answer the big questions anymore. They're just throwing shit at the wall. It sticks just often enough to keep me listening. And that is the most enraging thing of all.
The Memory Palace: "A Scavenger Hunt" — This is the least self-sufficient of Nate DiMeo's episodes for the Metropolitan Museum, but in being that, it also made me really want to go to the Metropolitan Museum. That's a pricey plane ticket, though.
Long Now: Seminars About Long-Term Thinking — "Nicky Case: Seeing Whole Systems" — I always love these talks. They're satisfyingly complex, and Stewart Brand always asks great questions afterwards. But this one relies too much on visual aids to be a satisfying podcast. It sort of feels like an ad for the video cut that's available to paying members of the Long Now Foundation, which is something I'll certainly be when I've got the money for frivolous expenditures such as that. But there's still a lot to be gained from just listening to Case, who is a clever game designer with a deep knowledge of game theory and feedback loops. I'm not sure about his sweeping applications of these concepts — sounds a bit like the sort of thinking that leads Mark Zuckerberg to try and treat hate as an engineering problem. Still, I'm compelled if not convinced.
This entry was posted in Books, Movies, Omnibus, Omnireviewer, Podcasts, TV and tagged All Songs Considered, Game of Thrones, Hannibal Buress, Long Now, Mitch Hedberg, Radiolab, Robert Browning, Stephen King, The Daily, The Memory Palace, This American Life, Twin Peaks, What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law, Wind River on August 27, 2017 by Matthew.
Omnireviewer (week of Mar. 5, 2017)
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
This entry was posted in Comedy, Movies, Omnireviewer, Podcasts, Popular Music, TV, Video games and tagged All Songs Considered, Code Switch, Crimetown, Get Out, Half-Life, Hannibal Buress, Jethro Tull, John Berger, John Oliver, Mike Birbiglia, Philip Sandifer, Radiolab, Reply All, Theory of Everything, This American Life on March 12, 2017 by Matthew.