When I moved to California from Toronto (by way of London), I was shocked by the prevalence of gun stores and, by their implication, that so many of my reasonable-seeming neighbors were doubtless in possession of lethal weapons. Gradually the shock wore off—until the plague struck. When the lockdown went into effect, the mysterious gun stores on the main street near my house sprouted around-the-block lines of poorly distanced people lining up to buy handguns. I used to joke that they were planning to shoot the virus and that their marksmanship was not likely to be up to the task, but I knew what it was all about. They were buying guns because they’d told themselves a story: As soon as things went wrong, order would collapse, and their neighbors would turn on them.
Somehow, I couldn’t help but feel responsible. I’m a science-fiction writer, and I write a lot of disaster stories. Made-up stories, even stories of impossible things, are ways for us to mentally rehearse our responses to different social outcomes. Philosopher Daniel Denning’s conception of an intuition pump—“a thought experiment structured to allow the thinker to use their intuition to develop an answer to a problem”—suggests that fiction (which is, after all, an elaborate thought experiment) isn’t merely entertainment.
But McConaughey wants readers to look beyond the boldface name on its cover and focus on its fundamental message. No one can escape hardship, he said, but he can share the lessons “that helped me navigate the hard stuff — like I say, ‘get relative with the inevitable’ — sooner and in the best way possible for myself.”
Codifying his beliefs and putting them down on paper was one test. The next challenge comes as McConaughey releases “Greenlights” into a world that feels increasingly unsettled and dismissive of values systems — one where, like millions of Americans, he and his family have spent the past several months spent “trying to outrun the ol’ Covid,” as he put it.
To Cappello, in fact, distraction is the heart of the form. She argues that lectures are a tool for sparking thought, not for imparting information. (Presumably, she excludes certain highly concrete fields: I doubt that Lecture applies, say, to medical-school professors.) She believes that the lecturer’s role is to activate listeners’ minds—and if that sucks some into daydreams or rumination, that means the lecture is a success.
When PBS arrived a half century ago, television was essentially a three-network game, and PBS thrived by championing programming and audiences ignored by NBC, CBS and ABC. But that distinctiveness has faded in today’s world of hundreds of cable channels and seemingly unlimited streaming services, many built after rivals saw the commercial value in PBS’s embrace of food lovers, costume drama obsessives, home improvement tinkerers and other niches. PBS may still execute many of its programs better than its rivals, and its content remains free and over-the-air, crucial for reaching those with lesser means and those without broadband. But in a country where the vast majority gets their TV through a paid service, that distinction rarely registers.
This cornucopia of programming viewers can enjoy across the television landscape only intensifies the political pressures facing PBS. Why should the federal government subsidize public broadcasting, conservative politicians and others ask, when the commercial marketplace appears to be doing just fine delivering those types of programs?
Karaage sat comfortably because I perceived in it a refinement I overlooked in its deep south counterpart. It contained ingredients I could source only in specialist shops. And, ultimately, it was Japanese, from the same nation of sushi and sashimi, of culinary refinement and gastronomic precision.
Back then, I was not even conscious of the racist baggage fried chicken came with in the US. But it was seeping into my subconscious, and I felt it.
Doctorow’s world might no longer map our current events, but it still charts the universal currents of the human heart and soul with precision.
Messud isn’t a writer who grabs her subject matter by the throat or pumps her prose full of kinetic energy. She moseys, she circles, she lies in wait. She sighs where others might scream, mists up where others might sob, ponders “holistic foulness” where others might just run for the cleaner-smelling hills.
But more often than not, it works.
Bit by bit, we chart his growth as a master joke craftsman. Decade by decade, we follow his life journey, viewing the world through his perspective of what he found to be funny.