The Weekend Special

Pieces are given up to three Boyles (for fiction), Harrimans (for essays), or Parkers (for random picks). As with restaurant stars, even one Boyle, Harriman, or Parker indicates a generally positive review.

🌱 Fiction

“Hatagaya Lore” by Bryan Washington. Two Boyles. adventure, adjustment, Adonis. A cleverly constructed episodic narrative of queer life and otherness in Japan. It makes sense that this was written as an exercise to deepen a novel, because it has a novelistic sweep. Do I think Washington totally achieves the sense that the protagonist grows and changes throughout this story? (“He becomes more open. Less quick to judge.”) Well, not really. He seems to me like someone who, after pushing past an initial wariness, pretty quickly recovers an innate optimism and ability to acclimate, despite a self-image of wary cynicism. Some people are just sweeties under their masks. It’s at times a self-consciously celebratory story, and Washington probably didn’t need to include scenes like a character becoming enveloped by a pride parade to get that idea across. But his astonishing ear for dialogue is at its sharpest here; despite a lack of punctuation every character has a totally distinguishable voice. Washington’s vision is warm but hardly saccharine, and the optimism of small joys despite huge difficulties which he discusses in the interview is totally expressed by this parade of loves and lovers, each with their own endless battle.

🌱 Weekend Essay

“Your A.I. Lover will Change You” by Jaron Lanier. No Harrimans. simulation, similarity, simplification. I don’t really feel like discussing this dreary, not-well-written take on A.I. romance, by a tech-insider white dude with dreads who pioneered VR goggles and cybergloves and now works for Microsoft. About half of Lanier’s points are right and half are wrong, but all are uninteresting and repetitive. A dumbass surrounded by the delusional may correctly point out their delusions, but that doesn’t make his solutions correct. Lanier assumes a skeptic’s pose, but when the bubble pops, this piece will still have aged poorly. 

🌱 Random Pick

“Rob Jobs” by David Shaw. (June 10, 2013.) Two Parkers. entry, escape, emptiness. Shaw’s pan of Now You See Me is delightfully withering (the director “has a restlessly incompetent style”), and while he’s a bit frustrated by the “cool and slightly distanced rigor” Sofia Coppola brings to The Bling Ring, he still understands it. (The film “lacks the edge or the insight that would make it great”, much the same note the critics give to every one of her films.) No particular reason why you must hear what Shaw thought of these two movies from twelve years ago, but he nails the assignment anyway.

🌱 Something Extra

I’m moving to Bay Ridge!

Sunday Song: