⫹DESKSPACE⫺ 004
Photo: Arthur C. Clarke, circa 1985, jamming on the most advanced word-processor in the world, the Kaypro II. When this pic was taken, he was very likely communicating via modem with director Peter Hyams, with whom he was collaborating on the screenplay for 2010: The Year We Make Contact, which, in my stupid youth, I actually thought was better than 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Hello from the National Capital Region, where I have once again exiled myself from the social medias, and am experiencing, generally, a sort of ongoing spa-day for the part of my brain that is jealous of the accomplishments of others and infuriated by the state of the world. I highly recommend this.
⫹On My Desk⫺
The latest draft of The Screenplay is finished and in the hands of our consultant, which has given me some space to catch up on other work (ie. the work I get paid actual money to do, which, if I’m ever confident enough to shatter the illusion that I spend my days sipping lattes and making great art, I might tell you about).
I’ve had enough leftover mental bandwidth to catch up on some other ongoing projects, too: a couple short stories I started writing last year (and probably should have finished by now); The Second Book, which I’ve been thinking deeply about (but not making much progress on); and also The Other Screenplay (yes, there’s another screenplay), which, of the way-too-many-things I have on my desk, feels the closest to the finish line.
Also, we may have accidentally started developing a TV project. Because we have so much time on our hands. Oops.
If I could have any superpower, it would be to stop time, live between the seconds, and finish all these things without having to give up any of the precious hours I get to spend with family and friends, or watching old episodes of Girls, or, you know, sleeping.
⫹From My Desk⫺
Seven years after writing a self-referential meta-review of the first Avengers movie (what else is new?), I wrote another piece about Avengers: Endgame, which is, of course, double-meta and full of grandiose proclamations like this:
Objective and subjective measures no longer apply. We have entered a world of inter-subjectivity: we possess, culturally – globally, even – shared desires about what we want from a film like this, and a shared expectation about how it should be delivered. So maybe the only way to judge whether Avengers: Endgame works or not is on a spectrum of gratuitousness to gratification.
You can read the whole self-indulgent thing here.
⫹What I’ve Been Watching⫺
This video, over and over again:
As the last season of Game of Thrones unfolds, I’ve become enamored by this series of crowd reaction videos from The Burlington Bar (the one where Sansa finally turns the tables on Littlefinger is another good one). I’ve been secretly obsessed with reaction videos like this for a while. Stuff like the trailer reveal for the latest Star Wars flick, or audiences cheering the return of Han Solo way back in 1977, or my low-key favourite, the Comic-Con announcement of the Batman/Superman movie, which, sadly, turned out to be the best thing by far about the movie.
These videos conjure in me a state of euphoria that, for a grown man, is kind of absurd. I wonder: what void are they filling in my life? Is it symptomatic of the streaming era that I’m seeking this sort of proxy companionship? We’re all watching the same shows, sure—but at different times, in different orders, on different devices. The joy of watching these reaction videos certainly has something to do with empathy. Maybe I just want my feelings validated? We look to others for cues about how to feel about something, how to interpret it. We do this intellectually when we read reviews and take recommendations from critics. But to experience something with an audience, or to watch an audience react—it’s a visceral form of affirmation. It’s why people go to church, right? So they don’t have to pray alone.
Or maybe I’m just lonely.
Still, check out this absolutely spectacular GoT reaction video from Brazil. Just look how invested they are! They might as well be hiding the crypts of Winterfell with the battle going on above them—that’s how immediate and urgent it seems to them, how relieved they are when it all wraps up.
⫹What I’ve Been Reading⫺
The Linden Tree, by Cesar Aira
I’d never heard of the Argentinian writer Cesar Aira before I came across one of his nifty little pocketbooks at Type Books in Toronto. I’ve had good luck, historically, picking up books at random like this—it’s how I first discovered some of my favorite writers, like David Mitchell and Jennifer Egan—so I grabbed The Linden Tree on a whim, and it was pretty cool. It’s a meta-biographical reminiscence of Aira’s childhood, post-Peronism, in a working-class neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. Sort of plotless, philosophical, full of poetic meandering—very much my thing. Also, it was short. Longer than a short story, but not quite a novella. Which fit in very nicely with my current lifestyle.
Also, I’m convinced that Aira’s possesses that time-stopping superpower I was fantasizing about earlier. From his Wikipedia page:
Aira has published over a hundred short books of stories, novels and essays. In fact, at least since 1993 a hallmark of his work is an almost frenetic level of writing and publication—two to five novella-length books each year.
Yeah, fuck that guy.
⫹What I’ve Been Looking At⫺
This amazing print, which I got in the mail from my friend Christine Fischer Guy, who made it while she was in residence at SparkBox studios in Prince Edward County.
Subjectively, I think it’s beautiful, and objectively I know it’s beautiful, because my wife freaked out when she saw it (and is now arranging to frame it). Christine recently described her new book to me and I was consumed by envy; not just because she actually managed to write a second book, but because her second book sounds goddamn fantastic. You’ll be hearing about it soon. From me and everyone else.
That’s all for now. Thanks for taking the time to listen to me whine about nothing and everything all at once. I should probably get back to work (~immediately reloads the video~).