Stringers

 Chris Panatier's novel Stringers is a sci-fi novel with a protagonist who does not want to be a protagonist. It is written in a wry, modern tone that makes poop jokes and online references, and provides cover for Ben (the utterly normal person protagonist) to hide behind his feelings and avoid closely scrutinizing the world around him.

Have you ever wanted a protagonist who avoided scientific knowledge and thinking, even though he inexplicably has the ability to recall a lot of (true!) science facts? This is your guy. He and his stoner friend Patton get abducted by aliens and are gradually revealed to be unwitting participants in a huge, galaxy-spanning, civilization-obliterating scheme. Are they committing a heist? or the object of one? How many times can the book zoom out to a broader perspective, showing us how insignificant the views of a couple nobodies from Earth are? Or how consequential, given the actual reality of living in a universe where interstellar travel is possible (but not for human civilization, yet), faster-than-light travel is impossible (but there are ways to sneak around this barrier), and some aliens don't experience consciousness, memory, or existence in the same way as everyone else?

The sarcastic tone becomes self-reflective a few times --- for example, one of the antagonist/teammates who keeps finding a way to sneak into being crucial so that they don't get left behind, says in a rush of trying to depress everyone else (p 242-243):

"You know, there is an odd sensibility among some species --- one that you seem to share with humans for instance --- to see every person's story as an arc or a circle where, for some reason, they grow as life grinds them down, become wise and forgive. As if adversity is some kind of fertilizer for thesoul. It's like this fiction they put in their television shows --- now those are sick --- a million different angles an the theme that suffering si redemptive. Would you believe that some of them actually worship that idea?  Perverse, in my opinion. Yet there is a bias to only tell those stories, I think. People love a redemption story and so those are the ones we hear. ... I believe the opposite outcome is far more prevalent. Suffering begets suffering. ... Don't let happy myths about trial and redemption cloud the reality of the way things are. The Universe is life and death. Everything else is a nudge in one direction or the other. In the end, we only have ourselves."

I'd group this with John Dies at the End and If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe. A fine whirl through a sci-fi adventure, fun in the moment, but I probably won't reread it and I decided to pass it along to a friend to read next.

This post's theme word is viscid (adj), "sticky, glutinous, slimy." The final sequences take place in a drug-addled state of viscid hallicinations and horrors.

KPop Demon Hunters (sing-along)

I'd recommend that you watch the animated musical KPop Demon Hunters in its sing-along version, with a room full of singing child fans (English lyrics good, Korean lyrics need practice). The movie follows a k-pop trio whose connection with their fans establishes/strengthens a worldwide mystical shield that prevents demons from encroaching on the earth and stealing souls. The tone is playful and modern, with many smash-cut jokes lasting less than a second, and modern social and technological references: everyone has a smartphone that can take video and livestream music, trends are observed to the minute, and the k-pop dramatic choreography is accurate to the point that I am certain actual choreographers are being referenced.

Stylized violence and camera movement made some parts feel like a video game. The fact that teenage girls in a band are ravenous all the time, and are valorously depicted for eating as much as possible and for taking breaks to just hang out, seemed like great messages. Family and friend connections were emphasized; romantic connections were deemphasized but still present. Numerous "plotholes" are visible in this world, but it's a cartoon! Maybe it's normal for mega-concerts to start halfway through the opening song, feature pyrotechnic shows which convincingly appear to include onstage murder and disintegration, and end after a single number. The in-world fans don't seem phased at all!

Overall: a great way to spend a sweltering evening indoors, avoiding mosquitos and wondering if any song would ever get a second verse.

This post's theme word is recumbentibus (n), "a knockdown blow." The twiggy teens delivered one recumbentibus after another while harmonising at the top of their lungs and, occasionally, rapping in Korean.

The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop

The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop is a documentary about modern board gaming.  It is a brief, tiny view into one specific hodgepodge handful of people who are enthusiastic about board gaming.

As an enthusiast myself, I spent the entire viewing experience wondering:

• how did the filmmakers pick this subset of people?
• how did the filmmakers pick this particular event (The World Series of Board Gaming tournament in Las Vegas)?
• why did the filmmakers ignore any number of other, more interesting filmic facets of this hobby?
• who was this made for?

To non-board-gaming audiences, this "documentary" doesn't really explain anything about board gaming. To board gaming audiences, this "documentary" is myopic and overly generalized, without getting into anything fun. (Why show someone boringly assembling pieces of a prototype game, but NOT show them explaining the prototype? Why avoid talking about Essen, or PAX Unplugged, or live-action roleplaying? How can you NOT mention Warhammer when talking about wargames? Why do you only interview adults and grown-ups, not families with young kids? Why interview several board game creators extensively about their love for games in general, but NOT discuss game publishing or marketing for their games in particular? Why let the issue of racism and audience be raised, but refuse to investigate it?)

My general takeaways were a sense of dissatisfaction, and the observation that absolutely some filmmaker got paid a paycheck to make this, and I'm so glad that they did. Their choices made little sense to me: they did not assemble a coherent story to follow; they did not attempt to interview a broad and representative range of people; they did not explore the details of the games or why the games are so interesting; they also did not explore the personalities! of! the! interviewees! or why we, the audience, should be interested in them. They did follow people into a variety of different lighting settings and across several costume and location changes.

Ultimately, this was a fluff project which successfully got me to (1) spend social time at someone else's house, and (2) watch some Amazon Prime inserted ad content. I would not recommend this documentary, going to hang out at a friend's house is free and comes without ads.

This post's theme word is canescent (adj), "turning gray or white; becoming hoary." While writing this post, I rapidly aged, and ended up canescent and waving a cane to get these pesky neighborhood filmmakers off my lawn!

Jack's wife

I was out walking with my dog, hurrying as the weather became more ominous and blustery. We aim to be home before the rain!

Oncoming pedestrian: (indicating overcast skies) "You'd better head home!"

Me: "Yeah, we're more than halfway there on this walk!"

Him: (pointing to my dog, me, and the block behind us) "No, you're not. You're Jack's wife."

Me: "Nope."

Him: (beat)

Me: "Have a good evening!"

This post's theme word is "pettifog" (v. tr.), "to quibble over trivial matters." I have no idea who Jack is, but let's not pettifog about his marital status.

What is the longest amount of time you have gone without using the internet?

I take attendance by having the students answer a question. (Previously 2017, 2019, 2024.)

What is the longest amount of time you have gone without using the internet?

• 5 min
• week
• a week
• maybe a week
• 10 days
• 2 weeks
• since I started, the longest stretch was ~1 month
• 3 months
• until ~5 years of my life
• 6 years
• first ~6 years of my life
• until I was 7: 7 years
• 9 years before I was 9.
• first 11 years of my life
• not long enough

"5 min" is worrisome: what about sleep?

I also note that the "first X years of life" answers haven't really changed over about a decade of asking this question, so more recently-born students are not being raised entirely by computer.

This post's theme word is runagate (n), "a person who has run away" or "a wanderer". The runagate's internet availability was limited until they obtained roaming data capablities.

What would you like to try, just one time?

 I take attendance by having students answer a question.

What would you like to try, just one time?

Popular answers: skydiving, flying a plane, paragliding, bungee jumping. Also some people want to try hiking or backpacking just once (or climbing Mount Everest).

One driving a train. One getting a tattoo. One dunking a basketball. One simply "humanity courses".

And of course, the eternal favorite, "I don't know."

This post's theme word is pandiculate (v), "to stretch oneself." Shake off your nap, pandiculate, and seize the day!

Parasite

Parasite is a 2019 movie that most people watched during lockdown. I ambiently understood that it was a widely acclaimed movie, that it was tense/funny, that it featured some social commentary, and that it was somehow relevant to a worldwide pandemic and lockdown, but overall I managed not to watch Parasite until this week.

The film starts with a con family --- daughter, son, mother, father --- who incrementally replace the staff of a richer family (same 4-person composition). This is a little funny, a little devious, and brings attention to class inequities. The poor family is willing to work and has a lot of skills (forging documents to be qualified as a tutor, providing elementary-school art therapy/instruction, driving skills, cooking), but nevertheless rigid social structures mean that they must cheat in order to have their skills pay off and help their lives to improve. They literally live in the lowest point in the city, at the end of a street, where neighbors regularly piss against their front windows and the entire city's sewage overflows and floods their apartment in a rainstorm. By contrast, the wealthy family live at higher elevation, have very few apparent skills, and are shown using their money to make their lives easy and low-effort. If this was set in England, the upstairs/downstairs dichotomy would be the strong social commentary; I am not conversant enough with Korean social conventions to dissect everything going on here. The first half of the movie arranges these details for the viewer to do a sort of self-assembly of a social commentary on which family is truly the parasite.

Then the movie takes a sharp turn.

The movie starts revealing the displaced previous housekeeper's misfortune as a collateral victim of the scam, but pulling on this thread unravels an insane byzantine set of scams and counter-scams all precariously stacked into a house of cards which the main family has disrupted with their up-and-coming scam. Suddenly the movie jumps the rails --- it's still funny, it's still social commentary, but also it is unexpectedly dark, psychological, tense, and ominously, threateningly violent. I did not anticipate any of these twists and was surprised, delighted, horrified, and on the edge of my seat. Many details from the beginning of the movie are revealed to have secondary and tertiary meanings, with layers of significance that the viewer has to unpeel. The end of the movie is unsettling, possibly a hypothetical, possibly reality, and everything remains a loose end. The story is unsatisfying, like stepping off the end of a staircase where you expected one more step.

This was great. The accolades are completely deserved. There are layers here for people who want to think about meaning, layers of filmmaking and angles, layers of which shots were reality and which were memory and which were imagined, layers of lies and scams and trying to get ahead while society wants everyone to stay in their assigned place, even if that place sucks.

I highly recommend Parasite, but I don't think I'll watch it again (the tension and violence were unexpected and visceral).

This post's theme word is cumberground (n), "a useless person." Every character seemed at first to be a cumberground but later showed their skill in their particular niche.