Weekend Reading: September 30, 2016

30 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by chrisbarsanti in Omnium Gatherum

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election, guns, syria, Truman Capote, Trump, Wells Fargo

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The week that barbarism triumphed.
About three percent of American adults own half the guns.
Stay classy, GOP!
Well, if that didn’t change your mind…
Quite possibly the saddest thing to brag about, ever.
Somebody bought Truman Capote’s ashes for $43,750.
The guerrilla art gang who smuggled subversive political art into Melrose Place.
Will, Grace, Karen, and Jack debate some politics.
Do Northeasterners love Dunkin’ Donuts so much because of the taste or because there’s one on every corner?
Everything about Wells Fargo shows that Bernie was right about big-bank culture (racial discrimination, wide-scale fraud, money laundering, just to begin with) and it’s time to start sending some folks to jail.
Print and read: So what would President Trump’s first term be like?
Bonus print and read: Happy to let Syria burn, Bashar al-Ashad creates a new template of dictator.

Screening Room: ‘Deepwater Horizon’

28 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by chrisbarsanti in Film - New

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British Petroleum, Deepwater Horizon, John Malkovich, Mark Wahlberg, Peter Berg

On April 20, 2010, an explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 crewmembers and sent 210 million gallons of oil flooding into the Gulf, devastating the coastal ecosystem and economy. Peter Berg’s action-oriented take on the disaster only deals with half the story.

Deepwater Horizon opens wide Friday. My review is at PopMatters:

Movies about titanic events have a built-in problem. They have to pluck out the individual stories while still keeping a deep focus on the larger issue. That’s true whether you’re talking about a squad of GIs amidst the carnage of the Second World War or The Rock trying to save his family while CGI earthquakes shred the California scenery. Somehow, this basic premise was forgotten in the making of Peter Berg’s Deepwater Horizon…

Here’s the trailer:

Writer’s Desk: It’s Going to Take Some Time

25 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by chrisbarsanti in Books, Writing

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books, Rebecca Solnit, writer, writing

Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explains Things to Me, has a few tips at LitHub for the aspiring, or just plain struggling, writer. Her advice is less aspirational and more hard-working than most. In short, don’t pretend it’s going to be easy:

It takes time. This means that you need to find that time. Don’t be too social. Live below your means and keep the means modest (people with trust funds and other cushions: I’m not talking to you, though money makes many, many things easy, and often, vocation and passion harder). You probably have to do something else for a living at the outset or all along, but don’t develop expensive habits or consuming hobbies. I knew a waitress once who thought fate was keeping her from her painting but taste was: if she’d given up always being the person who turned going out for a burrito into ordering the expensive wine at the bistro she would’ve had one more free day a week for art.

Remember the rule that Malcolm Gladwell popularized about needing 10,000 hours to master something? That’s what you’ll need to do for writing, at the very least.

Weekend Reading: September 23, 2016

23 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by chrisbarsanti in Omnium Gatherum

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Bill Murray, ISIS, libertarian, O.J. Simpson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, travel

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Do you care about endangered places? Then stay the hell away from them.
Bill Murray as bartender.
How conservative lawmakers can just overrule laws they don’t like.
Parties unknown probing crucial sites as a way (probably) of taking down the entire Internet, just in case a full-on cyberwar happens.
Don’t forget Pence, and what he’s truly like.
Here’s how The Donald launders his money.
P.J. O’Rourke on the election: “Better the devil you know than the Lord of the Flies on his own 757.“
A list of things that New Yorkers are more afraid of than ISIS.
So what happens if (or when) Saudi Arabia becomes another failed state?
This is what a Congressional temper tantrum looks like.
Hey, where can you find a million-dollar pile of art-dirt in Soho?
“There are effective Green parties in Europe , but ours is a hot mess.”
Thinking of voting Libertarian? Make sure to read their (crazy, crazy) platform first.
Yes, the media is to blame, but not in the way you think.
What do you say, time to stop “orange Muppet Hitler”?
Yes, about half.
Print and read: Ta-Nehisi Coates on what O.J. Simpson meant to him as a young black man.

Writer’s Desk: Cleese Says Steal It

18 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by chrisbarsanti in Books, Writing

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books, John Cleese, Monty Python, writer, writing

And now for something completely different…

John Cleese was one of the hardest working members of Monty Python. Outside the troupe, he had a brisk sideline in other writing gigs, not to mention advertisements, and his side business in business training films (weird, but true). Eric Idle said that Cleese used to say that he’d do anything for money, so Idle offered him a pound to stop talking. Cleese took it.

Given Cleese’s work ethic, it’s fair to assume he’s a good fellow to listen to about writing. Even when his advice is counter-intuitive:

I tell [young comedy writers] to steal, because comedy is extraordinarily difficult. It’s much, much harder than drama. You only have to think of the number of great dramatic films and then compare that with the number of great comic films … and realize that there’s very, very few great comedies and there are lots and lots of very great tragedies, or dramas. That tells you, really, which is the hard one to do. So at the very beginning, to try to master the whole thing is too difficult, so pinch other people’s ideas and then try to write them yourself, and that’ll get you started…

In other words, comedy is hard. Learn from those who went before you.

Reader’s Corner: Eric Idle’s Rules

17 Saturday Sep 2016

Posted by chrisbarsanti in Books

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books, Eric Idle, reading

If you’re ever stuck for something to read, somebody else’s reading lists can be a help. Eric Idle posts a continually updated one that’s pretty smashing on his website here.

An inveterate bookworm of the highest caliber, Idle has also compiled a few rules for reading:

Rule 1: Never be without a book.
Rule 2: Skip all Prefaces, Forewords and Introductions.
Rule 3: If you’re bored with a book, chuck it. There are millions of books you will never get to read, so if one doesn’t grab you, put it down.
Rule 4: You don’t have to finish a book. You can always come back to it.
Rule 6: You may read several books at once.
Rule 7: You may skip and skim. This is not a class, this is life.
Rule 8: Try and buy from your local bookshop while you still have one.
Rule 9: There is no rule 9.
Rule 10: Enjoy!

Weekend Reading: September 16, 2016

16 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by chrisbarsanti in Omnium Gatherum

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Chris Christie, Donald Trump, Serial

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Trump and 9/11; a sad spectacle of lies.
Flashback, Lt. Gen Michael Flynn (ret.), last heard from being restrained by Chris Christie during Donald’s intelligence briefing, was several months ago making unsupported accusations on the final episode of Serial.
When the temperature goes up, tempers fray, students do worse on tests, and more “witch killings” occur in Tanzania.
Pennsylvania Dutch superstitions and the “Hex Murders” of Rehmeyer’s Hollow.
If this is civilization, you can keep it.
The people who think that mountains are actually the remains of great forests.
Netflix spends $6 billion a year on content, are they taking over?
Colin Powell is angry – heed his words.
Print and read: Of hillbillies, poverty, drugs, and who’s to blame for it all.

Screening Room: ‘Command and Control’

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by chrisbarsanti in Film - New, Film-Documentary

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American Experience, Book, documentary, Eric Schlosser, film, nuclear weapon

Getting a brief theatrical run before its PBS debut, one assumes to qualify for the Oscars, Robert Kenner’s adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s book Command and Control is a bracing documentary about a nearly forgotten threat: America’s sprawling nuclear arsenal.

Command and Control is opening this week in limited release. My review is at Film Journal International:

The post-9/11 adage about how security services have to be right all the time while terrorists only have to be right once could easily be adapted to Robert Kenner’s vivid new documentary: People who work with nuclear weapons only have to make one mistake for everything to go to hell…

Here’s the trailer:

Writer’s Desk: Get Started

11 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by chrisbarsanti in Books, Writing

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comedy, Mike Birbiglia, writing

While touring the country promoting his film Don’t Think Twice, comic Mike Birbiglia was asked variations on the same question at pretty much every stop: “If I want to be a comedian [or actor or writer or improviser or film director], how do I get started?”

Birbiglia boiled his advice down to “6 Tips for Making It Small in Hollywood. Or Anywhere.” The first tip, though, is the most helpful for people who ask that question:

1. Don’t Wait — Write. Make a short film. Go to an open mike. Take an improv class. There’s no substitute for actually doing something. Don’t talk about it anymore. Maybe don’t even finish reading this essay.

The sooner you get started, the sooner you can start failing all the dozens or thousands of times you will need to fail in order to get somewhere, creatively.