Foundational Essays

Recent Essays

  • ChatGPT Doesn’t Think. It Just Guesses the Next Best Word.
    Isn’t that what we…? ChatGPT and LLMs (Large Language Models of which ChatGPT is an exemplar) have taken the world by storm and triggered a hype cycle equivalent to the original dot.com boom. Almost everyone has tried ChatGPT (200 million active users and counting), and EVERYONE has seen the results of LLMs just by using… Read more: ChatGPT Doesn’t Think. It Just Guesses the Next Best Word.
  • Whatever Our Beliefs, We Suffer Together
    C.S. Lewis’ short book on grief covers the slow curve from the abyss to recovery. I read C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed because…well, when you’re a reader and you’re struggling with losing someone, you naturally read about…grief. Lewis lost a wife of not so many years. A wife he found late enough in life to know how precious their affection… Read more: Whatever Our Beliefs, We Suffer Together
  • First Man
    Babylon was one of the few movies ever downvoted on StreamGems. It’s supposed to be streaming recommendations, after all. It wasn’t that Babylon was all THAT bad. There are a lot of worse movies you can stream on any given night. But if, like me, you were a huge fan of Damien Chazelle’s first three… Read more: First Man
  • What is it About Music that Plucks the Strings of Grief?
    Three times in the past few weeks I have found myself in tears. Three times! This is not normal for me; sadness is not my métier. A descent into tears is as unusual for my remorselessly cheerful nature as passing up a good bakery. There are reasons for grief. Reasons good enough that I need… Read more: What is it About Music that Plucks the Strings of Grief?
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost
    Perhaps the most flawed of Branagh’s Shakespeare films, Love’s Labour’s Lost is a fitting adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s weaker plays. It’s a silly story and Branagh leans hard into the silliness while transplanting the action into a pre-war (WW2) setting and transforming the play into a Porter and Gershwin jukebox musical. Too much of… Read more: Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus
    I won’t pretend this is a movie for everyone. You need to like modern classical music or I suspect you will find this film interminable and probably sleep inducing. But if you check that box, Opus is an intimate private piano recital in your living room. It’s a 1hr 40minute concert with nothing but Sakamoto… Read more: Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus
  • Remembering Gene Wilder
    There is a wonderful story in Remembering Gene Wilder about making The Producers. Brooks worked on it for years before getting it off the ground, and he’d wanted the not-at-all-famous Gene Wilder to be Leo Bloom after seeing him on stage and doing a reading of the first scenes. But when Zero Mostel was cast… Read more: Remembering Gene Wilder
  • Inside Out 2
    My children grew up with Pixar and they carry with them the natural love we have for the things we cherished when young. But it’s not as if taking my daughters to Pixar movies was some kind of penance. Between 1999 when my first daughter was born and 2010, Pixar produced one of the greatest… Read more: Inside Out 2
  • Rebranding Atheism
    A recent essay by Benjamin Cain on Medium got me thinking about something that, to be honest, I don’t spend much time on – religion. Cain’s essay is a convincing takedown of John Vervaeke’s nontheism as a real alternative to atheism. Vervaeke claims that atheists and theist share a common conception of the sacred — a conception… Read more: Rebranding Atheism
  • Finally, the Election We Deserve
    For most of my adult life I, like most Americans, have found myself, as the minute hand nears the top of that great four-year election clock, wondering why we can’t do better. Compared to what the nation seemed capable of, the two politicians chosen for the top job have ranged from wildly disappointing to laughably… Read more: Finally, the Election We Deserve

Asides

  • Whatever Our Beliefs, We Suffer Together
    C.S. Lewis’ short book on grief covers the slow curve from the abyss to recovery. I read C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed because…well, when you’re a reader and you’re struggling with losing someone, you naturally read about…grief. Lewis lost a wife of not so many years. A wife he found late enough in life to… Read more: Whatever Our Beliefs, We Suffer Together
  • First Man
    Babylon was one of the few movies ever downvoted on StreamGems. It’s supposed to be streaming recommendations, after all. It wasn’t that Babylon was all THAT bad. There are a lot of worse movies you can stream on any given night. But if, like me, you were a huge fan… Read more: First Man
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost
    Perhaps the most flawed of Branagh’s Shakespeare films, Love’s Labour’s Lost is a fitting adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s weaker plays. It’s a silly story and Branagh leans hard into the silliness while transplanting the action into a pre-war (WW2) setting and transforming the play into a Porter and Gershwin… Read more: Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus
    I won’t pretend this is a movie for everyone. You need to like modern classical music or I suspect you will find this film interminable and probably sleep inducing. But if you check that box, Opus is an intimate private piano recital in your living room. It’s a 1hr 40minute… Read more: Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus
  • Remembering Gene Wilder
    There is a wonderful story in Remembering Gene Wilder about making The Producers. Brooks worked on it for years before getting it off the ground, and he’d wanted the not-at-all-famous Gene Wilder to be Leo Bloom after seeing him on stage and doing a reading of the first scenes. But… Read more: Remembering Gene Wilder
  • Too Old (or Too Comfortable) for Romantic Love
    About two months ago I picked up J.M. Coetzee’s The Pole — a compact story of late life romantic love. I enjoyed it so much I immediately went on to Waiting for the Barbarians and then Disgrace. You know you’ve enjoyed a story when, after finishing, you immediately find another by the same author. But… Read more: Too Old (or Too Comfortable) for Romantic Love
  • Godzilla Minus One
    I’m not a Godzilla fan though I’ll admit to a soft-spot for Blue Oyster Cult’s Godzilla. So I came to GMO with mixed expectations. The reviews were sterling. The franchise not so much. And when all was said and done and Tokyo was saved, I leaned toward the reviews. The… Read more: Godzilla Minus One
  • Bob Marley: One Love
    When it comes to Bob Marley, I’m of that typical class of loose fan who know next to nothing about someone except their most famous work. From that perspective, One Love will both reward and frustrate you. Kingsley Ben-Adir (impossibly handsome and showing none of the real-world mileage of Marley)… Read more: Bob Marley: One Love
  • The Blue Angels
    Can a documentary that is exactly what you expected ever be good? The Blue Angels is here to answer that question – at least if you love spectacular flying and wildly gung-ho fliers. All that’s missing is the Top Gun Anthem and Take My Breath Away. But hey, you do… Read more: The Blue Angels
  • Damn It! Politeness is a Virtue
    Nobody seems to give a damn about politeness. Until, that is, they are treated rudely, ignored, made to feel ignorant or displaced, or pushed aside in a queue. Then, suddenly, we see all too clearly how much we appreciate polite society. Those moments do not translate into the world of ideas,… Read more: Damn It! Politeness is a Virtue

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