The Weekend Special

Pieces are given up to three Ellises (for fiction), McClellands (for essays), or Whitakers (for random picks). As with restaurant stars, even one Ellis, McClelland, or Whitaker indicates a generally positive review.

⏰ Fiction

“Calm Sea and Hard Faring” by Yiyun Li. No Ellises. outdoors, outside, outliers. Li says in the interview that this is likely the last of her essentially autofictional Lilian stories, and with that comes an apparent desire to press her central point on the reader as directly as possible; namely, that “outlier” children will often, and maybe inevitably, have difficult lives. (Also, though the story stops short of stating this directly, there is definitely a sense that Lillian, and maybe Li, views these children as morally superior.) It’s a pretty obnoxious point, especially because Ginny, the child character who represents the majority of sociable, hyperenthusiastic children, is also obviously neurodivergent as presented, and Li’s assertion that “there would never be a shortage of Ginnys, so Ginny might not have to confront loneliness” strikes me as blithe and cruel. Li’s insistence that we not mandate hope feels like a defensive reaction – don’t we also often mandate despair, and isn’t that just as blind? – and here it’s stated at greater length and with less art than in previous dispatches. Li’s prose is always taut; her dialogue is believable even when her characterizations aren’t quite. But this felt unsurprising, and almost pedagogical, yet perhaps not fully informed.

⏰ Weekend Essay

“The True Story of ISIS’s Rise in Syria” by Anand Gopal. Two McClellands. collapse, control, courthouse. This isn’t tied to current Middle East news, but is instead an excerpt from Gopal’s new book, which follows the town of Manbij, in Syria, as it attempts democracy. This selection covers the end of that experiment, and I do wonder if extracting the ISIS section creates the impression that the book is largely about the causes of tyrannical authoritarianism, which it doesn’t seem to be. Gopal’s point, that these forces promise food and healthcare at the cost of higher values like democracy, then deliver the destructive control without even the food and healthcare, seems about right, but the best stuff here is simple observation; Gopal is an excellent sketcher of scenes, letting us understand key moments as existing in physical space and time, like the courthouse where an early execution takes place. The Middle East has now again been thrown into chaos by American forces. Gopal hasn’t written an indictment here, but it’s still worth understanding these stories, which we Americans have so often fetishized our ignorance of.

⏰ Random Pick

“Surveillance Society” (A Critic at Large) by Caleb Crain. (September 11, 2006.) Two Whitakers. local, location, looking. Listen to Britain is the foremost example of poetic propaganda; I didn’t know, though, that one of its directors pioneered a sui generis social research project that looks a bit like market research, a bit like proto-Social Practice art, a bit like those casual, ascientific sex polls Aella runs on Twitter, and a good deal like none of these at all. Crain was new to the magazine in 2006; he’s continued to be published there, though lately he mostly writes fiction. Crain is also a superb and very-long-time blogger, and along with this piece I recommend you read his blogged errata, still up after 20 years even if most of its links are unfortunately dead. Of course, blogs and early social media more generally had something in common with Mass-Observation themselves; nowadays, the M-O movement is harder to appreciate precisely because what made it so radical has thoroughly saturated our days. Even poetic mundanity is instantly fetishized online. (This linkage to blogging, in its 2006 form, was originally Crain’s lede, but it didn’t make the article.) Not only does Crain still blog (lots of beautiful bird pictures, and much else) but so does Nick Hubble, the writer of the M-O book (exploring radical sci-fi). In keeping with the recent piece on Walter Benjamin in the magazine, it’s worth noting that Hubble’s first piece on M-O linked them to Benjamin, and that same sense of everyday-aura is central to what M-O were doing. Somehow I’ve written a long paragraph while barely touching on what Crain has to say at all; his analysis of the British class system, and whether these somewhat privileged thinkers were “slumming”, is astute regarding a subject of almost infinite minuteness (the British class system requires a map the size of the country); the ways in which each of the project’s founders ended up instrumentalized and to some extent neutralized by the state is given a concise but thorough treatment, as well. These moments are worth your attention.

⏰ Something Extra

Alright, here are my final Oscar picks. In the above the line categories, one of the overall most interesting races from a prognostication standpoint that I can remember. This is will win, not should win. Wherever I’m not predicting what “chalk” (e.g. the most-predicted choice), I’ve added an asterix; I’m using Gold Derby to determine what’s chalk.

Picture: OBAA
Director: PTA – OBAA
Actress: Jesse Buckley – Hamnet
Actor: Michael B. Jordan – Sinners*
Supporting Actress: Amy Madigan – Weapons*
Supporting Actor: Stellan Skarsgard – Sentimental Value*
Adapted Screenplay: OBAA
Original Screenplay: Sinners
Casting: The Secret Agent*
Cinematography: Sinners
Costumes: Frankenstein
Editing: OBAA
Makeup + Hair: Frankenstein
Production Design: Sinners*
Score: Sinners
Song: Golden – KPOP Demon Hunters
Sound: F1
Visual Effects: Avatar 3
Animated Feature: KPOP Demon Hunters
Doc Feature: Mr. Nobody Against Putin*
International Film: The Secret Agent*
Animated Short: The Girl Who Cried Pearls*
Doc Short: Armed Only with a Camera*
Live Action Short: Two Strangers Exchanging Saliva*

Sunday Song:

Caught Peaches at Knockdown Center. Super fun; a pop-star show with full choreography, ridiculous costumes, and such. Hadn’t really been to that kind of thing before!