Writing

Any time I finish the next day's column for THE WEEK before 10 pm, I feel pretty good about life. Except when I think of a better line at 1 am.

Three thoughts about NOMADLAND

 Three thoughts about NOMADLAND....

* This would be a great double bill with WILD, the Reese Witherspoon movie from a few years back. That featured a young woman moving through the wilderness, dealing with her demons and encountering similar adventurous souls. This movie features an older woman moving through America's vistas, doing much the same. 

* I'm trying to think of another recent movie that deals so much with the act of work. Frances McDormand's character, Fern, holds a series of seasonal jobs -- Amazon warehouse worker, camp host, Wall Drug cook, beet harvester -- portrayed in nonjudgmental fashion. (Controversially so, in the case of Amazon.) In so much of popular entertainment, work is the setting for other adventures, not the story itself. SUPERSTORE might've been a recent exception. Fern does this because she has to -- early retirement won't provide the benefits she needs to live -- but also, it's clear, because she wants to. She literally cleans up shit, but you're never under the impression that the work is beneath her or that she's degraded by it. It says something about the cliches of storytelling that I kept expecting an evil boss moment, but never got one.

* But mostly, this movie sits with death, or the prospect of it. The people we meet in this movie are mostly "nomads," living in their vehicles and moving from job to job, place to place. They live with the cycles of life more intimately than those of us living in the suburbs and cities, receiving the Amazon packages that Fern and her friends pack up. Fern is living with the memory of her dead husband. Another character dies, but not dramatically or unexpectedly: It's just part of having lived a long life. We're here and then we aren't. In that sense, we're all nomads.

* Bonus thought: It's fitting that this movie sits alongside SOUND OF METAL during this awards season. Both flicks move through something that looks a lot more like the real world than what most big-budget cinema, neither has any real villains to speak of, and both feature affecting, naturalistic performances by supporting characters. They are movies made for adults.

'Exterminate All The Brutes'

 We sat down as a family to watch the new Raoul Peck documentary about colonialism. Made it 24 minutes in before my 12-year-old son burst into tears. Deservedly. 

Pumped Up Kicks

 Every time I hear that song, I have flashbacks to lying in a hospital bed in an intensive care unit. 

Update: I explained myself in this Twitter thread:

Regrets, I have a few

And looking back, they seem to stem mainly from cowardice. 

My own, of course. 

Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America

Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis

This book feels like a companion and sequel -- an epilogue, even -- to George Packer's "The Great Unwinding," which told the stories of the Great Recession and how we got there through the stories of individuals across America. Macgillis goes just as deep, describing the evolution of America's economy from manufacturing and local retailers to the dominance of Amazon today. He focuses on the changes Amazon's hometown, Seattle, and witnesses Baltimore's evolution from a steelmaking colossus to logistics hub. It's not a happy story.

But this book is highly recommended. Masterfully reported and briskly written.

Birthday reflections

I think one of the goals I had, when I got into opinion writing was to be part of The Discussion. 

I've achieved that, to a limited degree, but with a couple of realizations along the way.

* That I'm not the intellectual I'd like to be. That's not to say I don't have value. I just see my limits rather clearly these days.

* That a lot of intellectuals are as driven by their emotions and flaws and passions as anybody else, but they have a better vocabulary, and sometimes -- not always -- more self-awareness about it.

Obvious, perhaps. I think I imagined a certain level of smart people would be kind of like Spock -- rigorous, brilliant, and with an interest in putting aside their basest emotions to get at the logic of an issue. Nah.