10.03.2025 - Weekly Digest
A bit staccato this week but I'm glad to report some progress getting things figured out. Hope you're all well as you can be.
-JA
9.30.2025
In the interest of forcing myself to cheer up and think positively I'm going to focus on some things I like. Here's a thing I liked recently. I enjoyed the show Alien: Earth. I liked watching it on someone else's service because I am a morally superior person. I liked that they introduced some new species of aliens into the franchise, and how all the themes from that universe (Blade Runner included) intersect and accumulate without losing any of the creepy horror feeling of the original movies. I enjoy Timothy Olyphant in just about anything, and have since I first watched Deadwood twenty years ago, and I like that the actor who played young Alan Turing and the brainy kid who wrote the manifesto for the Rebellion in Andor was in it. And I liked that all the damage and chaos of the story could have been avoided if two of the world's four richest trillionaires or whatever weren't so hell bent on dominating each other. I like how Noah Hawley is making an awesome career out of finding new life in movies he likes and I hope he keeps doing it.
10.01.2025
I also enjoy Jeopardy! Once I wanted to be on the show. Back when I was writing trivia questions and hosting games every week I was pretty sharp with the recall. I hoarded references materials. I was sure if I got on the show I would smoke the competition. I recognized contestants on the street and in bars in Chicago. When Ken Jennings was on his historic run (74 wins, not even closely contested some twenty years later) I put on a blue blazer and a cardboard cutout of the front of the contestant podium from the show, attached with suspenders, with the name 'KEN' written on a blue background with however many dollars he'd won at that point and wore that to work at a brewery. I should mention this was Halloween. Almost immediately I had to take that off in order to do my job, which involved a lot of darting from side to side and nimble dancing around my coworkers in the pursuit of glasses and pitchers for which to serve the patrons their lagers and ales. This was 2004 and I had my hair parted and slicked over like him. Without the placard in front nobody knew who I was supposed to be. A couple people guessed John Edwards. John Edwards. Can you imagine dressing up as John Edwards? The only thing I remember about John Edwards is this happening to me when I was dressed as Ken Jennings. If there were a Jeopardy clue about John Edwards I wouldn't even ring in.
10.02.2025
I also like Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. It's the only podcast I listen to weekly. I like how manic and crazy he is and how he's cultivated a perfect morning-show dynamic with his assistants and how the guests are all in on all the jokes. His hybrid persona of a humble middle child and an outsize evil dictator and how he moves fluently or occupies all spaces all at once in a multidimensional fugue state. And the stories he gets to tell after forty years in the business. The long-form conversations after decades of having to cram simulated acquaintanceships into six minute segments with ad breaks. Even the ads are funny. I wish he would read more copy for bidet manufacturers. The only episode I didn't listen to is the Rahm Emanuel one. And I won't. Otherwise no notes.
10.03.25
I like that the Tigers and the Cubs both won yesterday and that the possibility of a World Series matchup between them for the first time since 1945 is now only a far-fetched dream but not impossible. I like Yoga with Adriene and her dog, Benji. I like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (not all the new shows are good but that one is). I like how many people are concerned about democracy for the first time and I hope it's not their last chance to explore their new hobby. I like listening to KEXP in the evenings out here. Makes me feel like a hip youngster up on all the hot new sounds. I like that I'm going to an event introducing a new Oakland media collective in a few hours and to a First Friday Black Artist Walk event called "Healing Through Art" after that. I like that I can go out the front door, down a hill, and come back up a long steep hill alongside a Jewish cemetery for a brief and intense five minute workout. I like American cities. Stay strong everyone.