Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 114
November 4, 2020
Grounds for Optimism the Day after the Election
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 154, in which I explain how Joe Biden is winning the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
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Grounds for Optimism at 9:30 in the Morning, the Day after the Election
Joe Biden is close to being called winner in Wisconsin. He's beginning to move up in Michigan (AP is already calling Biden leading in Michigan). AP and Fox News have Biden winning Arizona. He also won a district with one electoral vote in Nebraska. That's enough to make him President.
And ... Philadelphia's mail-in ballots, to be counted tonight, could well give him a victory in Pennsylvania, too. Even Georgia's still in play. I'm moving from guardedly optimistic to solidly optimistic.
The course of true democracy never did run smooth. It's beset by ignorance and fascistic impulse in the populace at every turn. An impulse that bids people to act on their worst instincts, to ignore facts and throw away logic in favor of gratifying grievances and delusion. Trump has fanned these flames at every turn.
But the counting continues nonetheless. Hope and truth and respect for truth persist. And I expect, before this day is over, that it will triumph over the despoiler in White House, and consign him to the ignominy of history.
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October 30, 2020
The Queen's Gambit: Will Check Your Attention and Keep It for a Long Time
If you'd like your soul lifted, refreshed, and recharged for a long time, check out The Queen's Gambit, a seven-episode mini-series, on Netflix. Its story of Beth Harmon, a fictitious child chess prodigy who grows into a flawed but splendid champion, shines on so many levels.
The closest analog in real life is Bobby Fischer, an American child chess prodigy who went on to become World Chess Champion in 1972 by beating Boris Spassky, who held that title and represented the Soviet Union. Fisher's career went downhill after that, and The Queen's Gambit ends right after Harmon gains that victory, so there the similarity ends. But we're left with an extraordinary set of scenes and relationships.
Among my favorites -
Beth with Mr. Shabel, a janitor in the orphanage who recognizes Beth's talent and teaches her chessBeth with the variety of boys and young men she usually beats in matches, and can't quite connect with or fall in love with.Beth with her adoptive mother, who comes to deeply believe in her.Beth in the Soviet Union, where she meets and bests a whole new series of masters and near-mastersBeth and Jolene, a friend at the orphanage, who turns out to be quite a friend indeedAs this list which I could go on with indicates, Beth is the centerpiece of just about every scene in the mini-series. And Anya Taylor-Joy delivers this role memorably, animating a character who ranges from almost autistic at the beginning to alcoholic and almost serenely triumphant at the end. Same for all the other characters - memorably performed that is - ranging from those chess boys young and old, to the pharmacist with whom Beth has her own unique relationship. Come to think of it, she has a unique relationship with just about each and every character in this narrative.One of the main reasons The Queen's Gambit is so good is precisely because it comes from a novel, not real life, which all too often is not quite as incredible as the story told here. And, though I haven't yet read the Walter Tevis novel of the same name from which the mini-series is derived, I see on Wikipedia that he authored six novels before he died in 1984 at way too young an age, and three of them, including The Hustler, were made into movies before The Queen's Gambit.
All of which adds up to a real phenomenon on our hands, and cause for a big round of applause for everyone concerned, including Netflix for getting it on our televisions, computer screens, and phones.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
Queen's Gambit: Will Check Your Attention and Keep It for a Long Time
If you'd like your soul lifted, refreshed, and recharged for a long time, check out Queen's Gambit, a seven-episode mini-series, on Netflix. Its story of Beth Harmon, a fictitious child chess prodigy who grows into a flawed but splendid champion, shines on so many levels.
The closest analog in real life is Bobby Fischer, an American child chess prodigy who went on to become World Chess Champion in 1972 by beating Boris Spassky, who held that title and represented the Soviet Union. Fisher's career went downhill after that, and Queen's Gambit ends right after Harmon gains that victory, so there the similarity ends. But we're left with an extraordinary set of scenes and relationships.
Among my favorites -
Beth with Mr. Shabel, a janitor in the orphanage who recognizes Beth's talent and teaches her chessBeth with the variety of boys and young men she usually beats in matches, and can't quite connect with or fall in love with.Beth with her adoptive mother, who comes to deeply believe in her.Beth in the Soviet Union, where she meets and bests a whole new series of masters and near-mastersBeth and Jolene, a friend at the orphanage, who turns out to be quite a friend indeedAs this list which I could go on with indicates, Beth is the centerpiece of just about every scene in the mini-series. And Anya Taylor-Joy delivers this role memorably, animating a character who ranges from almost autistic at the beginning to alcoholic and almost serenely triumphant at the end. Same for all the other characters - memorably performed that is - ranging from those chess boys young and old, to the pharmacist with whom Beth has her own unique relationship. Come to think of it, she has a unique relationship with just about each and every character in this narrative.One of the main reasons The Queen's Gambit is so good is precisely because it comes from a novel, not real life, which all too often is not quite as incredible as the story told here. And, though I haven't yet read the Walter Tevis novel of the same name from which the mini-series is derived, I see on Wikipedia that he authored six novels before he died in 1984 at way too young an age, and three of them, including The Hustler, were made into movies before The Queen's Gambit.
All of which adds up to a real phenomenon on our hands, and cause for a big round of applause for everyone concerned, including Netflix for getting it on our televisions, computer screens, and phones.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
U.S. Senate vs. Twitter
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 153, in which I dig into the issues raised by the appearance of the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook, and Google before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee at the end of October 2020. In a nutshell, the issues boil down to violating the First Amendment vs. Violating the Spirit of the First Amendment.
Relevant reading: Postjournalism by Andrey Mir
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October 25, 2020
The Undoing 1.1: A Murder, A Missing Person, and NYC Bustling in the Snow
David Kelley's The Undoing mini-series debuted with a star-studded cast on HBO tonight. I mean, with Nicole Kidman as Grace Fraser a psychologist and Hugh Grant as her husband Jonathan Fraser an oncologist on the posh side of New York City, and a murder and a missing person, we can just stop there and how can you go wrong, right? You can't. The first episode was sleek and blockbuster powerful, an East Coast analog in many ways of Kelley's California Big Little Lies, which was pretty hot, suspenseful stuff, too, over two seasons.
[spoilers below]
The Undoing starts off with a nice long build-up of rich mothers (whose kids are in an elite private school) plus one (who's among them on a scholarship) meeting on some auction committee. Before the hour's over, Elena (the young mother with a scholarship for her son) has a conversation in the nude with Grace in a locker room (that is, Elena has not even a towel around her), Elena on the night of the auction kisses Grace on the lips, and Elena is found brutally murdered the next morning. And, when Grace tries to let her husband know about the murder -- he left in the morning to (supposedly) to attend a meeting in Cleveland -- she finds that he's gone missing. About as good a set-up as you're likely to find on any screen.
So here's where we stand:
1. Is there a connection between Elena's murder and Jonathan's disappearance? We don't know that yet, for sure, but, how could there not be?
2. Did Jonathan murder Elena? He's the most likely suspect at this point, his motive being jealousy, or maybe he was sleeping with Elena and she or he wanted to end that. He did say something to Grace about Elena, and his being missing doesn't help, but that's all still circumstantial at this point, as they say. There's even a chance that he, too, could be dead.
3. Any other suspects? The husband -- Elena's -- is always a possibility, but he seems like a nice guy. I suppose there's a very outside chance that Grace did it, but she didn't really have the time, and she seemed genuinely shocked to find out about the murder. So, make that chance very slight and outside. (My wife suggested Grace's father Franklin. We don't know much at all about him, but he's played by Donald Sutherland, which suggests some kind of significant role.)
4. How about someone not at all in the first episode? I'd say no -- Kelley's too good to pull rabbits like that out of a hat.
So we have a nice, taut, high-octane mystery on our hands, set in snowy, pre-pandemic New York City, which is fun to see in any case. See you back here next week.
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Podcast Review of Borat 2: Camera Epistemology
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 152, in which I review Borat 2: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
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Review of Borat 2: Camera Epistemology
Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 152, in which I review Borat 2: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music
October 24, 2020
Unsolved Mysteries Season 2: Ghosts, DNA, and Missing Children
Unsolved Mysteries has returned with another short, six-episode season on Netflix. Why they just don't do one twelve-episode season is still a mystery, but the good news is this second season is just as good as the first, which to say, quite good.
There's a strong mix of true stories, ranging from who murdered a U. S. government official to whether a woman whose death was ruled as a suicide was in fact murdered. But I'll just say a few words about my three favorite episodes:
Tsunami Spirits is the closest these six episodes come to science fiction, or maybe fantasy, as in life after death. But this ghost story almost could be a serious piece on the anthropology of how people in a community deal with a mass death. In this case, it's a town in Japan hit by a tsunami, leaving many of the survivors with the feeling that spirits of the departed were still at hand, and communicating with the living. The priest interviewed for this episode was especially instructive and memorable in his thoughts and comments. He was and is determined to take these survivors' stories of interacting with the dead seriously, even though that might go against the specific tenets of his religion.A Death in Oslo tells the story of a woman who checks into a posh hotel, only to be found dead in her room of a gunshot to her head a few days later. The gun's at hand, but seems in the wrong place for the suicide that this death is initially thought to be. The woman's identity is not known -- in retrospect, her check-in was suspicious -- and the people who investigate, especially a guy who has devoted decades of his life to finding her, realize their first job is to identify her. They do, eventually, get her DNA. And there the story ends. My question: wouldn't 23andMe and like-DNA family tracers be helpful in locating this woman's relatives? (See my review of Sergio Pistoi's DNA Nation for more.)Stolen Kids is a story of just what it sounds like, and heartbreaking. Two unrelated tots around the age of two are kidnapped just a few months apart from the same park in Harlem, NYC. That happened decades ago, and age progression images are the best hope the police and the families now have of reuniting with their now-adult sons. The episode ends with a whole series of age-progression images of little kids who were kidnapped. I hope that helps get some of those families reunited.In the original Unsolved Mysteries, one of the best parts was when, after an episode, we got an update on mysteries that were solved. I'm looking forward to the next season of Unsolved Mysteries, and hoping we see at least one or two happy resolutions, or at least resolutions of some kind.See also Unsolved Mysteries Is Back with No Host? ... The New Unsolved Mysteries: A Proper Review
"Abraham Lincoln Over There"
I've been thinking about the second and final Presidential debate between Biden and Trump last week. Obviously, and as I said on Twitter and Facebook right after the debate, Trump was less abusive than he was in the first debate (faint praise), but Biden held his own, and delivered a vastly more effective closing statement. But as Election Day -- or the end of Election time -- looms, and that last debate fades into history, I'm realizing the highpoint of the debate, certainly its most memorable line, came when Joe Biden looked at Trump and said, "Abraham Lincoln over there..."
This came a little after Trump had claimed with a straight face that he done more for African-Americans than any other President, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. It had much the same power as Lloyd Benson's rejoinder to Dan Quayle's statement in the 1988 VP debate that he and Jack Kennedy had been of a similar age, allowing Bentsen to say to Quayle, I knew Jack Kennedy and you're no Jack Kennedy. Quayle had been warned by his prep team not to say that in the debate -- he had been saying that on the campaign trail -- and Bentsen had been well prepared for such a statement. In the case of Trump, there's no warning such arrogance, and it didn't matter if Biden had been prepared for that statement and was ready with the Lincoln jibe, it was delivered with just the right tone at just the right time.
Trump unsurprisingly went on to dig a bigger hole for himself, responding that he had never said he was Abraham Lincoln. This was literally true but a lie in effect. Everyone had heard him compare himself to Lincoln just a few minutes earlier. The denial also showed that Trump is metaphor-blind.
In all fairness to the Trump-Quayle comparison, Quayle did go on to win the Vice Presidency in that 1988 election. But that was only because George H. W. Bush ran a much better campaign for President than his Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis. Though anything is possible when the votes begin to get counted next week, and underestimating Trump's support is an ever-present danger, I expect Joe Biden to do much better than the ersatz Abraham Lincoln who masquerades as President.
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