Hello Again
Hello, friends.
Happy new year! Oh, wait. It’s now July, and my most recent newsletter came out on December 31st. I guess I took a bit of a hiatus there, didn’t I?
So where have I been?
The short answer is that I’ve been spending my time and energy in other areas, both personally and professionally.
But now I’m intending to return to this space with some regularity in the coming days. I may not adhere to the weekly schedule I followed in 2023, but I’ll figure out the right balance as I go along.
I’ve missed the creative outlet this space gave me, the engagement it encouraged me to have with all kinds of art forms, and the connection I felt with this audience.
So here I am again. And thank you for sticking with me.
I’m still not quite ready to fully dive back in as a work commitment at the Olympics is going to be keeping me busy for the next month. But just to whet your appetite…
The Best…
…Series I Watched This Week
The Bear (Season 3) — Created by Christopher Storer
Streaming on Hulu
Perfection is on everyone’s mind in Season 3 of The Bear. (You can read my comments on Season 2 here.)
Chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), now having replaced his steady stream of cigarettes with an endless supply of Nicotine gum, wants to take the new restaurant unveiled in Season 2 to the next level — he wants a Michelin star.
And he’s stressed out.
Family trauma, professional scars, searing ambition, and the aftermath of his relationship-killing tirade inside a meat locker at the end of Season 2, are all converging on him.
So he does the reasonable thing: he chomps harder and faster on his gum while demanding the impossible from himself and everyone around him.
“If it’s not perfect, it doesn’t go out,” he barks from the kitchen as he throws another beautiful plate of food into the garbage.
His striving, and its (toxic?) impact on Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Richie (Ebon Moss-Bacharach) and others, propels the season forward in ways that can be fitful and hard to watch. As a result, the show has been enduring a backlash among critics and audiences.
Perhaps this was inevitable. After two seasons of remarkable television — some have called them “perfect” — that brought acclaim, fame, and a slew of awards to its makers and stars, the show throws a curveball in Season 3 by changing its pacing and timeline. (It’s 10 episodes, yes, but apparently half of a 20-episode arc.)
I understand these negative assessments to a degree. Sure, the series can veer into pretentiousness. At times, its celebrity cameos are distracting. Yes, the show seems to lose focus in some episodes.
But for me, these criticisms don’t add up to an overall negative impression of the show.
Because The Bear, even in its imperfect third season, is still exciting in its ambition, and its world remains compelling, interesting, and, yes, entertaining — though I admittedly found myself teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown while watching it (not entirely the show’s fault).
Above all, it still moves me. That’s even better than perfection.
…Movie I Watched This Week
The Princess Bride (1987) — Directed by Rob Reiner
Streaming on Disney+
I’ll make this quick: even after all these years, Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride still holds up. Go watch it again if you need a break from life’s noise for 98 minutes. Just try not to say all the lines of dialogue out loud if you’re watching with someone — I’m told that’s annoying.
(And for some great stories about the making of the film, I recommend As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes, who stars as Westley, and Joe Layden.)
…Article I Read This Week
“Divided and Undecided, 2024’s America Rhymes with 1924’s” — By Dan Barry, The New York Times, July 5, 2024
I’m not spending a ton of time reading, thinking or talking about what President Biden or anyone else should or will do as the Democratic National Convention approaches in August. Whatever I say or think has no bearing on anything, so I prefer to expend my energy in other ways.
What I do appreciate, however, is the idea that history can remind us that the seemingly “unprecedented” times we’re living through aren’t necessarily new at all. And that there are lessons we can learn from the past to help us deal with the present and future.
Though I know that the Great Depression, World War II, and the Holocaust were just over the horizon in 1924, I found strange comfort in reading this story, about that year’s incredibly divided and contested Democratic National Convention. It reminded me that in some very fundamental ways, our country has seen this before — and hasn’t changed as much as we’d like to believe.
Great to have you back!