Sorry squad: I am subsumed. Which is kind of funny given this week’s entry was meant to be something about work life and The Bear. But the former ate the latter, timewise. I haven’t had time to write.
As I try to psyche myself up to write something for next week, here’s what’s of note in this final week of July:
- Fully recognizing that I am the sole remaining member of the “Stranger Things was good” club, Arrow Video’s authoritative 4K boxed set fuckin’ slaps. Bitrates consistently in the mid-60s, image structure so on-point I actually looked up whether the first season had been shot on film. (It hadn’t.) Maybe now that Netflix has won the Streaming Wars, we might see more physical media like this. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, anyone? (Arrow Video)
- I shouted it out when it started and here’s me shouting it out when it ends: Tansy Gardam’s final Rise of Skywalker episode was (unexpectedly) moving, to those of us (like me) moving on from a time when Star Wars was our thing. (Going Rogue)
- A little something about what happens when we talk about “it” happening. (Oakland Review of Books)
- Pretty good assessment of Musk. I dunno, feels like we’re talking to ourselves here. This all seems to clear and evident to me and yet, as they say, it moves. (Disconnect)
- A thoughtful read on Elliot Page’s Sinon, and what his transness suggests. (Substack)
- So if you haven’t been paying attention, a catchup: Canada now has a centre-right party which is probably left enough of our (now) far-right party that most (presumptively) “liberal” voters won’t notice. I assume that’s what the banker’s banking on. (The Tyee)
- And it’s time to boycott Tim Horton’s, if you were still shoveling that shit in your mouth. (I was.) Expecto transphobionum! (CBC)
- And finally: there’s a part of me that’s starting to adhere strongly to the idea that what we call “enshittification” is actually just businesses now selling us, at a premium, the level of quality assurance that used to be the baseline. Here’s Lane Brown describing that in purely theatrical moviegoing terms, re: IMAX. (Vulture)