keith — Page 80

→ August 19, 2019
→ By keith

The Golden Compass.

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is about to get a new adaptation this fall, with the BBC and HBO distributing a television series based on the three books, starting with The Golden Compass (also known as Northern Lights). That book also appeared on the Guardian‘s list of the 100 greatest novels ever written that I’ve sort of been working my way through, which seemed to make this an apposite time to start Pullman’s work with this book, which is a cold, dispassionate counter to the very fantasy novels Pullman seems most apt to criticize. It appeared on the Guardian‘s list of the 100 greatest novels that I’ve been working my way through the last few years.

The protagonist is Lyra Belacqua, around 11 or 12 years old at the start of the book, whose somewhat idyllic life in a castle in England in a universe parallel to our own is interrupted both by the mystery of children vanishing around London and the arrival of an enigmatic woman, Mrs. Coulter, who takes a specific interest in Lyra’s future. In this universe, all humans have familiars known as “daemons” who can shapeshift while their humans are young but who eventually take on a permanent form when their persons reach adulthood. The mystery of the children, which of course eventually merges with the story of Mrs. Coulter (and more), appears connected to something known as Dust as well as to the phenomenon of aurora borealis, colloquially known as the northern lights. The quest to solve the mystery takes Lyra on a voyage north to the archipelago Svalbard, which (in our universe) hosts the northernmost permanent human settlement on earth, on board a vessel filled with “gyptians” (essentially Roma), some of whom have lost children to the kidnappers.

Everything in this book is cold, including the setting and the weather. Svalbard sits at 74 to 81 degrees latitude, so in the winter it’s dark and average temperatures are below freezing. Much of the book’s action takes place there or on the trip there, and it is perpetually dark and cold in the prose, which mirrors everything about the main characters. Lyra, the ostensible star of the book, has very little charm or character of her own; she has the drive to find her missing friend, and believes she’s on a mission to help her uncle Asriel and thwart Mrs. Coulter, but she’s surprisingly inert compared to the child heroes of other classics of YA fiction. None of the gyptian characters is memorable, and even Mrs. Coulter is on the dull side for a villain in either YA fiction or in the sort of sci-fi/fantasy genres in which Pullman is treading. Great YA genre fiction endures because of readers’ connections with the main characters as much as the plot, and The Golden Compass misses on that point entirely.

The plot, however, has much more going for it, although much of the question at its heart remains unresolved at the end of the first book. The conceit involves the many-worlds hypothesis of quantum physics, although the exact mechanism by which it works in the books isn’t revealed in the first part of the trilogy – discovering that is tied into the various mysteries of the missing children and Mrs. Coulter. Pullman abjectly despises C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, writing in a 1998 essay of “the misogyny, the racism, the sado-masochistic relish for violence that permeates the whole cycle” of Lewis’ books, and at the very least he’s right about the violence part. There’s some violence in The Golden Compass, but it’s secondary to most of the action and is never glorified. What Pullman doesn’t mention in his essay is his antipathy for Lewis’ specific version of Christianity; in response, his novels rely not on myth but on science, trading elements of fantasy for the grounding of science fiction, but in the process he loses some of the whimsy of better fantasy series like the Harry Potter novels or even the more mature Magicians trilogy.

The second book in the series shifts the setting to our version of earth, and the third combines the two to finish the story. I’m mixed on whether I’ll continue; I’m a completist by nature and hate dropping series without finishing, but I’m also not driven to complete Lyra’s story or see how Pullman resolves the Dust mystery.

Next up: Hilary Mantel’s first Booker-winning novel, Wolf Hall.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: british literature, fantasy, science fiction, young adult literature

→ August 17, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 8/17/19.

I was on vacation with my girlfriend last weekend, taking a few days to go offline while at a resort in Jamaica (my first trip there, so $countries_visited++;), and while I did go see a game right after I got back, I haven’t written this week. My parents also came to visit for a few days, so I had to skip the chat this week. I’ll do one either Tuesday or Wednesday of this upcoming week instead.

I did an interview a few weeks back with a site called the Good Men Project which ran while I was away. I don’t think that makes me a Good Man but I can hope.

Thank you to everyone who has signed up for my free email newsletter and sent kind, thoughtful replies to my last few editions. I’ll send another one later this week after I’ve written some more content around the interwebs.

And now, the links…

Before I get to the longreads, I’ll start with this wonderful piece on the Saturday Evening Post about the culture of inclusion evident at Gen Con, North America’s largest convention dedicated to tabletop gaming. I’ve gone for four years now, speaking and moderating panels at the associated writers’ symposium for the last two, and can’t get over how open and friendly the environment is. I went from thinking “have a good con!” was a vaguely ridiculous salutation (I hear “con” and I think The Sting) to saying it as a matter of course. My Gen Con wrapup should be up any day now for Paste.
Now, the longreads: the New Yorker‘s Jelani Cobb profiles Stacey Abrams and her fight for voting rights, while also detailing why so many people, myself included, believe Georgia Governor Brian Kemp stole the election last year – such as their policy of cancelling registrations of voters who hadn’t voted in seven years, even though such registrations may still have been valid.
The Guardian‘s Long Read describes the pointless fretting over the “decline” of the English language. I’m more prescriptivist than descriptivist, I think, but arguing that language should be static flies in the face of linguistic history.
“For all our careful sorting, less than 5 percent of plastic in the U.S. gets recycled. That’s not a typo.” There are over 75 million metric tons of plastic in the world’s marine environments and it’s only getting worse. Outside‘s Rowan Jacobsen went on an ocean summit between environmentalists and corporate executives designed to help find solutions to address our global plastics problem.
The New York Times has a series of columns on the origins and lasting effects of Gamergate, a massive campaign of cyberharassment dressed up to look like it was a bunch of (mostly) men who cared about ‘ethics in gaming journalism.’
Speaking of the Grey Lady, The Daily Beast has the scoop on a New York Times internal town hall meeting about the paper’s repeated missteps in covering the President and issues of race.
Dr. Jill Emanuele of the Child Mind Institute went on NY1 to talk about how to discuss mass shootings with your kids. Jill’s also my cousin.
My editor at Paste, Garrett Martin, wrote about the absurdity of Wal-Mart discontinuing sales of ‘violent’ video games while the chain still sells guns.
In the midst of a spreading Ebola outbreak in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, there’s been some good news on scientific front between an effective vaccine and a new treatment for those infected, but that won’t be enough to stop the disease, caused by a filovirus that is highly infectious and easily transmitted.
Women are not better at multitasking than men; we just ask women to do more.
The Washington Post‘s Anne Applebaum looks at two Italian pro-vaccine activists who took different tacks in their fight against denialists and conspiracy theorists.
Two Italian researchers used endometriosis as a cover for a funded, peer-reviewed paper where they examined patients for their physical attractiveness, asking the patients to disrobe without explaining why. It was published in 2013 in Fertility and Sterility; the editors who published it have yet to so much as acknowledge that it might have been problematic.
Jeff Bezos’ $150 billion fortune is a policy failure, or, rather, a series of policy failures that took place over decades. The article does not mention a political party or faction behind those failures, but one party is behind nearly all of them.
Guardian football writer Nicky Bandini came out as transgender this week, explaining in her column how long it took her to accept that this is who she is.
There’s a new ‘lost’ album from John Coltrane coming out on September 27th.
Michael Chen, a current Harvard student from Honolulu, created a computer program that can predict drug resistance in a tuberculosis strain in under a second.
Board game news: Dire Wolf Digital released a trailer for its upcoming digital port of the dice-drafting game Sagrada.
Martin Wallace’s Struggle of Empires Deluxe Edition is on Kickstarter.
Renegade/Dire Wolf announced a new expansion for Clank! In Space! called Cyber Station 11.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, environment, jazz, linguistics, links, stick to baseball, vaccines, voter suppression

→ August 16, 2019
→ By keith

Patchwork Doodle.

Patchwork is one of my favorite two-player games, and is probably the forerunner of all of the polyomino (Tetris shapes) games that have been flooding the market in the last year. Patchwork only plays two, and there’s very direct competition for the game pieces, each of which is unique, you use to fill out your 9×9 board, as well as specific rewards on a progress track that also serves as a sort of timer to restrict the length of the game. Designer Uwe Rosenberg has since created a line of polyomino games in the same vein as Patchwork, but that allow up to four players and run longer, including Cottage Garden and Indian Summer, while he experimented with mechanics like how players select their tiles; they’re good, but Patchwork is still the king.

This year saw Rosenberg bring out two new flip-and-write titles in this subgenre, Patchwork Doodle from Asmodee imprint Lookout games and Second Chance from Stronghold. I have both and have played Patchwork Doodle a bunch of times already; it does a solid job of bringing part of the Patchwork experience to more players (the box says “1 to 6+,” but the maximum is really ten players), but the game is also very streamlined and there’s zero player interaction, so it’s more of a brand extension than a sequel or a reimplementation.

This is a flip-and-write game, which means there’s a core deck of cards, and players will use those cards to write on their individual scoresheets. Each player here gets a sheet with a blank 9×9 grid, and gets one of ten unique start cards (which is why I say you can play with up to ten people), each of which shows a shape that will cover seven squares. You can fill in that shape anywhere on your board – I tend to do it somewhere in the middle, as placing it on an edge risks creating some hard-to-fill areas right out of the chute – before players take their first turn. The game itself comprises three rounds, and players will get to fill in eighteen more shapes across those rounds, scoring after each round, and possibly using any or all of their four special powers across the game.

The cards show more polyomino shapes, as you’d expect, although this time they’re not all unique. You start the game by flipping the top eight cads from the deck and creating a circle, placing the start token anywhere on that circle, and then having one player roll the die to move the token. The die lets you move the token 1, 2, or 3 spaces on to a card, which all players then get to fill in on their grids, after which the card is removed from the game. You do this six times in a round, after which you stop to score, saving the two unused cards to start the next round, when you’ll draw six fresh cards to bring the circle back to eight. In the last round, you’ll stop after the fifth card is used, and every player can choose one of the three remaining cards to fill in on their grid for their final move.

Some example cards and player sheets

Players also have single-use powers they can bust out at their discretion over the course of the game. One lets you fill in a single square rather than using the card for that move. One lets you choose to use either card adjacent to the one with the token on it, whether one space ahead or one behind. One lets you make one straight-line cut to the polyomino shape on the card into exactly two shape, after which you fill in one of those shapes (but not both) on your grid. The last power just lets you reuse one of the three powers you’ve already used.

Scoring is a little confusing at first, although everyone I’ve played with got it after a round or two. When a round ends, you identify any completed rectangle on your grid, and then score one point for every space in the largest square inside that rectangle, plus one more point for every row outside the square. So if you had a 4×6 rectangle completed already, you would score 18 points: 16 for the 4×4 square, plus 2 for the additional rows that were in the rectangle but not the square. It’s just not intuitive, but the way the game plays out, it starts to make sense both for strategy and from a design perspective – the scoring absolutely affects where you choose to place your shapes.

After the last round, you score the largest square inside your chosen rectangle, then subtract one point for every space you didn’t fill in at all over the course of the game. You add up your three scores from the rounds, subtract that penalty, and that’s your final score. Games take 20-25 minutes, really depending on how quickly players choose which areas to fill.

There is zero player interaction here, which is true for most roll- or flip-and-write games, but you aren’t even competing in game-end scoring categories like in games like Welcome To; Patchwork Doodle is very much a solitaire game where you compete at the end of the game. Also, the box comes with six colored pencils that are kind of useless, so I recommend you gather your own before playing. It’s very portable – I just took it on vacation with my girlfriend, only to have her trounce me by filling in all but 5 squares on her grid – and easy to pick up once you grasp that square-in-rectangle scoring, but I would still suggest the original Patchwork if you’re going to play with two people.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: boardgames, family games, roll and write games

→ August 10, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 8/10/19.

One ESPN+ post this week, a scouting blog entry on Luis Robert, Nick Madrigal, Deivi Garcia, Triston Casas, and more. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the delightfully named card game Point Salad, which mocks the trend towards complicated scoring by giving you over a hundred different ways to earn points as you collect vegetable cards from the table.

My latest email newsletter edition went out on Tuesday, after I returned from Gen Con. You can sign up here for free to get more of my personal writing.

And now, the links … I assembled this on Thursday night before leaving for vacation, so it’s shorter than usual and anything that happened on Friday won’t be reflected here.

Longreads first: This piece in Rolling Stone describes some of the history behind Prince’s new album of original versions of songs he gave to other artists. At least four songs he wrote became massive hits for others: Chaka Khan’s cover of “I Feel 4 U,” which hit #1 on the U.S. R&B and dance charts; Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which spent four weeks at #1 on the U.S. singles chart; the Bangles’ “Manic Monday,” which reached #2 on the singles chart; and Sheila E’s “The Glamourous Life,” which hit #1 on the dance chart and the top ten on the pop and R&B charts.
The Guardian Long Read has an excerpt from Caroline Fraser’s upcoming book on the cult known as Christian Science, which eschews all modern medicine, including vaccines, claiming that illness is merely a manifestation of bad thoughts and the real world is an illusion. Her father died in agony as a result of the cult’s practices, which are still legal in most of the U.S. and can even be covered by Medicare.
The creator of the anarchic forum site 8chan told the New York Times the site should be shut down given its prominence among white nationalist shooters.
Marianne Williamson is an anti-science crank who doesn’t belong anywhere near the Democratic nomination for President, or any office that has influence on science policy. She’s expressed bogus doubts about vaccines, claimed clinical depression is a “scam” diagnosis, and said the AIDS virus “is not more powerful than God.” She needs to leave the stage to the adults.
I saw a game called Ceylon, where players compete to build tea plantations on that island after the coffee crop has been wiped out by disease, last week at Gen Con. A little googling led me to this NPR piece on how coffee leaf rust devastated the island’s main export back in the 19th century, and how it could happen elsewhere.
My friend Tim Grierson wrote about The Sixth Sense and how the real twist is Bruce Willis’ character’s workaholism.
Jumia is trying to be “the Amazon of Africa,” but faces challenges on a continent without western-style infrastructure.
Ohio representative Candice Keller (guess) blamed recent mass shootings on “drag queen advocates” and open borders, even though the perpetrators have nearly always been straight, angry white men.
The Foxconn con just keeps getting worse for Wisconsin, as attempts to ‘fix’ the deal for the state still won’t solve its fundamental problem: It’s a giant boondoggle for the company at state taxpayer expense.
This made me embarrassed to be a male human: several studies have found that pro-environment behavior is seen as more feminine, so men who do things like bringing reusable bags to the grocery store are more likely to be seen as gay. This is so fucking dumb (and yes, I bring my own bags, call me whatever orientation you like).
Harvard biologist George Church has apologized for his contacts with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein even after the latter’s conviction and prison sentence in 2008 for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
The Guardian looks at Cosmo Park, a village built on top of a mall in Jakarta.
Fans of N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, which made her the first author to win three straight Hugo Awards for Best Novel, may be excited to hear that Green Ronin Publishing is turning it into a role-playing game, due out in the fall of 2020.
I made the Wigan Today‘s post on Wigan Athletic’s new mascot.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, environment, harvard, movies, Music, religion, stick to baseball

→ August 8, 2019
→ By keith

Klawchat 8/8/19.

Keith Law: True identity hidden inside secret tabloids. Klawchat.

Mickey Callaway: Given the silly ball, are groundball pitchers like Stroman more valuable than in a normal environment?
Keith Law: I don’t think so offhand, but that’s a question someone could answer with empirical evidence.

Ben: Have you read (or do you plan on reading) The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, winner of the 2013 Man Booker? If you haven’t yet gotten to it, I’d offer a slight nudge against any aspirations to do so. Too fat for such little character depth has me questioning that Booker panel..
Keith Law: I haven’t because of its weight (been reading shorter books this summer or e-books since I’m traveling/going to games a lot).

James: Thoughts on the Blue Jays rookie hitters so far?
Keith Law: I’m buying Vlad and Bichette, of course. Gurriel’s power is real, not sure there’s much OBP there. That’s it.

Moe Mentum: Adam Haseley – SSS, but is he performing above, at, or below your expectations in the majors so far? Anything sustainable as a long-term starting/platoon OF?
Keith Law: Probably above expectations. Just an extra OF.

Joe: Can you think a reason why Chris Davis is still on the Orioles? The only reason I have heard is that he isn’t blocking anyone, but even though that is true it is a silly reason.
Keith Law: I would just cut him at this point. He’s below r-level, never getting better, and not worth the roster spot.

zuke354: Is it ok to start believing in Arozarena? Just a little bit?
Keith Law: I think the .432 BABIP might be both a fluke and driven by the silly ball in AAA.

Bob: Can Isaac Paredes ride his contact ability/bad body combo to become an above average infielder at either 2B or 3B?
Keith Law: I would bet the under on that. Maybe an average regular. No projection there.

zuke354: How long before somebody skips the walmarts and opens fire in a crowded stadium?
Keith Law: It’d be hard to get a weapon into a major league stadium, but the minors … there are simply too many guns out there. It seems inevitable that this will happen in an extremely crowded place and we’ll see 100+ dead.

Chris: Mets should offer Wheeler QO regardless, right?
Keith Law: Yes.

Bob: Cal Raleigh has started to hit in AA. Can he be an average regular?
Keith Law: I would buy that.

Robert: Is Luis Campusano on the short list of top C prospects behind Adley, Bart, Ruiz and may he be a first div regular?
Keith Law: Yes, and yes. Behind Cartaya, I think.

ndrah: some talk about the twins calling up one or two of their top pitching prospects this fall. Do you think Graterol could contribute?
Keith Law: Maybe in relief?

Robert: I was pleasantly surprised to see X Edwards on your top 50. Do you see more upside with him long term than Urias?
Keith Law: Absolutely. Urias is more ready Edwards has more upside.

Christopher: Should I expect a reasonably intelligent 6 year old (my son) to have reasonable chance of being able to play Splendor?
Keith Law: My daughter played it competently at age 7.

JSG: What do the Dodgers do with Gavin Lux? He appears, judging from his small AAA stat line, to be MLB-ready or close to it. But Seager can’t be moved to third while Turner’s there, and Turner is still productive.
Keith Law: Second base?

Jason: Is Anthony Santander just a guy having a hot streak, or is he something more?
Keith Law: Something more. Might be a regular there. Shouldn’t his nickname be “Banco” by now?

Devin: Have the Nats pushed Luis Garcia too aggressively? Only 19 put struggling at AA 258/285/309 at AA
Keith Law: They have pushed him aggressively, but I also don’t find any support for him from scouts.

Allison: Thanks for allowing a glimpse into your life away from baseball in your newsletters. The benefit of hindsight notwithstanding, do you understand argument (not necessarily agree with) that the A’s were prudent in taking high risk prospects like Austin Beck and Kylar Murray with consecutive top-10 picks because they couldn’t sign players with tools like than in an open market? Do you see a 10% chance that Beck could ever perform well enough to justify his high draft position? Thanks.
Keith Law: I do understand the philosophy, but perhaps not those specific picks. What happened with Murray was a bit out of nowhere – I don’t think anybody saw him as a first-round NFL talent until last fall – but I’m not sure he was really a top ten MLB talent anyway.

MHG: What is the spread of what teams spend on scouting and player development? Tigers can’t seem to do either. Is it lack of resources or personnel or both?
Keith Law: I don’t think it’s financial. I think in this case it’s philosophical.

Aaron C.: Do you have the correct opinion on the movie “Field of Dreams” like Craig Calcaterra or do you like it?
Keith Law: I like it. It’s fine, not my favorite baseball movie, definitely on the sappy side, but it’s fine.

Fan of team you hate: How have the reports been on Trevor Rogers? Surface numbers look solid.
Keith Law: Reports have also been solid, not spectacular, but solid enough to say 4th starter.

Uli Jon: Just returned from a trip to Colombia and could not recommend it more (well at least Medellin and Cartagena, Bogota is just ok). What is the baseball program like there? Obviously soccer is king, but from what I understand there’s a bit of baseball on the Caribbean coast.
Keith Law: Would love to go there for vacation or work. Good baseball there, just not enough volume of players yet to think of it in the same breath as DR/Venezuela, but it’s coming on.

Tribe called jest: Aaron Bracho seems to be holding his own in the AZL, anything to get excited about? Thank you.
Keith Law: Yes, wrote him up positively in March when I saw him.

BigDaddeh: Was Frazier+Schmidt fair for Robbie Ray? Or did Dbacks truly need more from NYY
Keith Law: What is Frazier’s upside at this point? Can you bet on him becoming a regular? I wouldn’t.
Keith Law: And Schmidt’s delivery has always been a big red flag for me even before he had TJ.

Todd: Who do you ultimately think becomes the better ML pitcher between Sixto and Edward Cabrera?
Keith Law: I have Sixto ahead of Edward right now, but a healthy Garrett is ahead of both of them.

Ben: Is Luis Arraez a potential GUY? The Twins’ coaching staff just gushes about him but he looks kind of like a slap hitter with limited upside. He also seems to have taken Schoop’s job.
Keith Law: I think a good utility guy.

Derek: Do you envision Brock Burke as a future rotation piece for the Rangers?
Keith Law: Sure.

Jason: Seems like the Mets have found a hot streak, but that the the front office still has no real long term plan. Just a little luck.
Keith Law: And a very soft schedule the last month.

Nick: Seth Corry is currently having a breakout season. What’s his ceiling? TOR potential?
Keith Law: No. Mid-rotation potential.

Pramit: Can you recall a GM who’s made as many absurd comments talking up an organization the way Ross Atkins has?
Keith Law: He’s really bad at the PR part of his job. Saying less would be better.

Jeffrey : What do you think about the hard and fast July 31 trade deadline? With all the brains in the front offices I’m surprise that waivers is complicated. Is that why they change the rules?
Keith Law: Preventing teams from trading DFA’d players in August is both dumb and regressive. They’ll need to fix that.

J: This isn’t a question, this is a comment. Every time someone is a dipshit about you being light on someone you should just cough and say you had Tatis, Jr. in your top 50 when he wasn’t in BA’s Padres top 20.
Keith Law: One thing I’ve learned in this job is that far more people will point out my misses than will acknowledge my hits. I had people argue I was wrong about Zack Godley, Tony Kemp, and Maikel Franco when those guys had brief periods of productivity, and not one of them came back when those players were DFA’d in the last few weeks to say they were wrong.

Carl: Thoughts on Joey Cantillo? Does he need to add some velocity to be a guy? His numbers/age seem impressive.
Keith Law: He does need to add velocity to be a GUY, still potentially a major leaguer as is.

Jason: Early thoughts on Unbearable Lightness? The movie with Day Lewis, Binoche, and Olin is terrific, but loses Kundera’s philosophical views.
Keith Law: Almost done; this sort of novel is a bit out of my wheelhouse as I have so little background in philosophy. Kundera renounced the movie for the reason you mentioned. I’m moving through the book rather quickly – 50 pages left, trying to finish before vacation – but I haven’t connected with whatever he’s trying to say.

Joseph: What are your thoughts on Brailyn Marquez? Not sure how excited to be about him.
Keith Law: Every scout I’ve asked about him has been positive but said he’s a high-end reliever rather than a starter.

Mike: Ryan McMahon has been decent for Col this season, what do you think his offensive output ultimately is like in his prime?
Keith Law: I’m still shocked he strikes out as often as he does, but he can be productive at this level. I think he’s a .500+ SLG guy by next year.

BigDaddeh: Mlb game at Field of Dreams site. Cool, tacky or eh whatever?
Keith Law: I’m out. Play these games where we can grow the audience. Maybe that’s overseas, but what about putting games in potential expansion markets, like Portland or Austin or Charlotte? Bring MLB games to markets that typically don’t get to see them.

Kevin: Could Dalbec next year hit 30 HR with a 340 OBP in the majors?
Keith Law: I would bet the under on that OBP.

Jason: Did Zaidi make a big mistake in not selling everything, including Bumgarner? The hot streak has faded and they just got swept by the Nationals.
Keith Law: I think they should have sold everything, but who knows what ownership told Zaidi to do.

John: I read this evaluation of Dustin May earlier today – how many people in the industry think like this? “He’s not part of the exciting crop of starters that present legit upside for years to come. His sinker has life at 95+, but he didn’t have great command with the pitch. His cutter is solid and was effective here against the lowly Cardinals, but that’s it. His curveball is nothing to write home about, and I’m worried the heater is too susceptible to blowup games without enough upside.”
Keith Law: Nobody. That’s a big miss.

Adam: Like the promotions of Pache, Waters and Anderson to AAA? Would Pache, Waters and Acuna be the best defensive OF in baseball?
Keith Law: Three guys who could play CF.

Felix: Do you have any information on Tahnaj Thomas?
Keith Law: Up to 100 without command.

Andrew: KLaw: “Il meglio è l’inimico del bene” – i mean, no philosophical chasm across Dem candidates is as consequential or enormous as that between any of them and the current president – surely people will understand this by Nov ’20 and do the right thing, right? I’m disturbed by those who stubbornly go with the “my candidate or bust” stance…seems selfish, short-sighted and, well, stupid.
Keith Law: I got some of this today from Mariane Williamson supporters, who appear to all be made of stardust and oblivious to the strongly anti-science views she’s espoused for thirty years, to say nothing of her outright promotion of pseudoscientific bullshit or bigoted statements against people with disabilities. They don’t care. They want to talk about peace and love and good happiness stuff. The fucking mediots falling for this shit – AGAIN – should be ashamed. Cover the candidates who talk policy, not the ones who shoot rainbows out of their asses.

Corey B: Braxton Garrett is producing in A but is 22. What should I make of the success?
Keith Law: Age is largely immaterial for pitchers. Also, he’s 21 by seasonal age (turned 22 last week), and in high-A, which is appropriate for a 21-year-old player.

Aaron Houston, Tx: Klaw, I mentor a young college bound boy who recently changed his career path from engineering (my field) to journalism. Can you provide a few insights where I can advise him to get his feet wet. I feel blogging could be a good start. Maybe some volunteer work for a local paper or club. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Keith Law: Eek, tough field to get into right now. Unfortunately, I didn’t come up through any sort of traditional career path, so I don’t know how people typically get into journalism.

romorr: Dean Kremer has looked sharp of late, is he still back end? What could he do to raise his profile, if he can that is. TY
Keith Law: Still a back end guy with that cross-fire delivery.

romorr: Most Oriole fans love Mountcastle, but I can’t get over the 3-4% walk rate. He is 22, but isn’t that a harder skill to teach? Just worried he is going to have to hit .290-.300 to have a respectable OBP.
Keith Law: Unlikely he gets to the point he can be a regular. I know some people were angry I didn’t have him on my top 100, but he clearly didn’t belong between low on-base skills and lack of position.

David (OR): Hi, Keith. Thanks for everything. Will Smith (Dodgers) – what’s his future with Keibert Ruiz on his heels? Are his solid numbers offensively just a result of SSS or is he a legitimate first-division starter?
Keith Law: Smith is an All-Star. Ruiz is probably trade bait at this point, but a very good prospect in his own right.

Brendan: Is Dante Bichette Jr a future major leaguer?
Keith Law: Org guy.

Robbie: How big is the gap between Nick Allen and Nick Madrigal? Am I way off in thinking that Allen is underrate estimated as a prospect?
Keith Law: Not that big. Not sure I would have Madrigal above Allen, since the latter can play a good SS.

Adam: Alex Jackson isnt setting the world on fire in AAA but if he can produce that stat line isnt he a MLB Regular at catcher?
Keith Law: He’d have to be a good enough defensive catcher to do that.

Oscar: Is it time to accept that Buxton’s body is just not going to cooperate with him? I love seeing him play, but it saddens me to think that injuries are going to rob him of the opportunity to do so.
Keith Law: No.

Dean: Have you heard from anyone inside baseball that that there will be an effort to revert to the pre-2016 baseball? This silliness can’t continue. The baseball currently being used in MLB is making a bigger mockery of statistics then PEDs ever did. Agree?
Keith Law: I haven’t heard anything along those lines – MLB does not seem to want to discuss the altered baseball, at least not in public. I agree it’s making a mockery of the game, not just stats, but in trying to evaluate players … imagine being a scout who’s assigned the AA and AAA affiliates of a specific team. You see the same hitter at both levels, but in AA he’s nothing special and in AAA he’s launching balls over the fence. How do you write *that* up?

Cashman: Garcia or Gil long term?
Keith Law: Garcia. I haven’t seen Gil myself but I hear he’s more likely a pen guy. Contreras > Gil right now.

Phanatic: Been hearing positive things on Phillies OF Johan Rojas. Got any intel on him?
Keith Law: Good feel to hit, with some speed and a good arm, not sure if he’s a CF in the long run.
Keith Law: A real prospect, though.

Ryan: The Brewers Devin Williams a legit late inning RP prospect, or more of a middle reliever?
Keith Law: He’s a real prospect as a reliever, but I don’t feel confident saying exactly what sort of reliever.

Graham: Why is Joey Bart so well regarded when reports generally hold that he possesses 2 subpar tools (defense and hit)?
Keith Law: His defense is subpar? What?

Craig: Keith, what you got on DBacks OF Alex Thomas? Just promoted to High A which I believe makes him one of, if not the youngest player in the entire A+ level.
Keith Law: He was on my top 50…

Ryan R: What is Jesse Winker’s ceiling? Guy consistently puts up a high OBP but defensive metrics haven’t been kind to him. Is his offensive profile strong enough to carry him into a everyday lineup spot?
Keith Law: He’ll never be a good defender, most likely, but I think he’s capable of getting on base like he did in 2018 and hitting for 200+ ISO like he did this year.
Keith Law: That’s an everyday player.

Mike: Jeff McNeil seems like an odd situation with him being 27 and finally being in the big leagues/MLB. What held him back from being a prospect?? General health or did he just improve?
Keith Law: Missed several years – 2.5? – to injuries. Also has one tool, really, the hit tool, specifically his ability to put the ball in play, which tends to be harder to scout/not something you want to bank on in the absence of any other tools.
Keith Law: I know he’s a fan favorite but by the time he’s arb-eligible he’ll be 30, and that skill he has does not typically age well.

Andrew : Giants are apparently promoting Ramos to AA today. Is this a little too aggressive?
Keith Law: Yikes. After last year, I wouldn’t be rushing him up the ladder.

Beau: Why did the Padres give up on Franmil? Will it come back to haunt?
Keith Law: Low OBP/improved pitch recognition from last fall hasn’t held up, also a poor defensive OF who may have to go to 1b or DH. I get it. They have better OF options coming and already have two 1b who don’t hit enough for the spot.

Mary: What is Thairo Estrada’s upside? He looked good in small sample size
Keith Law: Just saw him again on Tuesday – I really like him, probably as a utility infielder, just a really solid player who’ll put the ball in play and help out at 3 positions.

Jason: Does Michel Baez have a future as a starter, or is he in the right spot as a reliever?
Keith Law: Reliever for me.

Gun Control: PASS ME NOW PLEASE!
Keith Law: Mitch says no, while counting his NRA money.

Cole Fired: Do you think given how his profile fits their organizational philosophy (spin rate, k’s, etc) and his age fits their contending window the Yankees should aggressively pursue Cole this offseason?
Keith Law: Yes and I would bet they will.

Joe: Did the Tigers do the right thing trading Castellanos? Seems like the compensatory pick value may have been higher had they simply kept him and made a QO. Admittedly though, some of the new QO rules have my mind twisted in a pretzel so I may be misunderstanding all this.
Keith Law: I think they should have traded him sooner, but the trade was probably fine.

Dylan : Could you see a guy like Micker Adolfo or Luis Basabe get called up in September due to them being on the 40 man already and only having 2 option years remaining
Keith Law: Not for that reason, no. Adolfo could end up getting a fourth option in time.

BBTN: It’s really been a pleasure listening to you on the baseball tonight podcast the last two days, thanks for doing it
Keith Law: My pleasure – always good to get back with Eric again, plus I had two longtime friends on as guests in Alex Speier (buy his new book Homegrown, it’s good) and Joe Sheehan.

Craig: How come Joey Bart and Carter Kieboom did not make your midseason top 50? What are the shortcomings?
Keith Law: Neither was really close. I had more than 50 players ahead of each.

Jeff: JD Davis! Has no position but bat seems legit, right?
Keith Law: SSS.

Zihuatanejo: Austin Barnes almost immediately started killing it in AAA after looking done in the bigs. What are the odds he be a good (or at least serviceable) major league hitter?
Keith Law: Near nil.

Ted: You were on Balazovic as a stud pretty early. What are your thoughts on Jhoan Duran?
Keith Law: That one ‘splinker’ pitch he throws is legit. I hear some starter, some reliever; depends on whether you think that one pitch is enough of a carrying tool to let him turn a lineup over 3x.

Rahn: Sorry if I’m late to your opinion on this, but re: the Pirates holding onto Vasquez, what have you heard/read about the package(s) the Pirates were sifting through from L.A., Atlanta, etc. and why in the world did they not deal him?
Keith Law: No idea. I try not to get too deep into the rumor weeds because some of it is always bullshit.

Eric: I went to journalism school at Florida. My advice to Aaron’s mentee would be to major in something else (polsci, biz, etc), and minor in/take classes in journalism. Much more productive route I wish I chose.
Keith Law: I did wonder if developing subject matter expertise would be more useful. Hell, I took one writing class after high school, only because my college required it, and got a fucking B+ because the clown who taught it (an adjunct) was a poet, not a prose writer, and struggled with the basics of syntax and punctuation.

Will: What kind of player do you expect Isan Diaz to be? Is he another guy that’s tough to evaluate based on this season due to the AAA/MLB baseball?
Keith Law: We have some history on him, though, that says he should be at least a regular, chance for an above-average one.

Mike: Brudsar graterol – solid number 2 in his prime?
Keith Law: Uh, no. No.

westin: yordan alvarez incapable of playing 1B, or Astros just being overly cautious?
Keith Law: I think he’s a DH only. Bad body, doesn’t move well.

Chip: Surprised by Will Smith’s start, or has he always had this power?
Keith Law: Dodgers altered his swing to unlock more power before 2018. He’s legit.

Jason: Has Cartaya progressed to the point the Dodgers would be better served dealing Ruiz in the winter to help an area of need?
Keith Law: IMO, yes, he has.

Roger: How did you rate James Kaprielian before the arm injuries?
Keith Law: Potential #1 starter.

Roger Megardy: Does Pete Fairbanks have a future as a legit MLB reliever?
Keith Law: A reliever, yes. A good one, I don’t know.

Joel: Every prospect site I check still has Travis Swaggerty as a promising prospect. I’m scouting the stat line, but I see almost nothing to recommend him as a top prospect dating back to his junior year in a non-elite conference. Can Swaggerty actually be an impact outfielder in the majors?
Keith Law: At this point he won’t be on my top 100. College products pretty much have to hit right away.

JT: You’ve been down on Lamet because of his 2 pitch repertoire (and down is of course relative). Is his breakout as a SP real, or is he still consigned to the late innings with that FB/SL combo?
Keith Law: He’s had a breakout? He’s a two pitch guy, still, and as a result lefties are killing him.

Josh Nelson: What did you like, and dislike, about watching Luis Robert recently?
Keith Law: I disliked all the swinging and missing. I liked that he was actually in the lineup, though. That’s a welcome change for me.

Pat: As to the “open fire in a stadium” question, you don’t need to get in to the stadium. A bigger concern to me is someone opening fire just outside a football or baseball stadium right about 15-30 minutes before gametime when everyone is being herded like cattle thru a few entrances.
Keith Law: I feel like some other writers pointed that out when MLB started this security theater bullshit of metal detectors … they just create vulnerabilities outside the park rather than inside.
Keith Law: I really don’t think I’d attend many MLB games if I had to pay for them and go as a fan, not as a member of the press. The experience of getting to and into most ballparks is too onerous.

El Zilcho: Has there been any change in perception of the Mariners’ player development system over the last couple of years? It seems like it was terrible for so long…
Keith Law: I mean, they have better players now. That sort of helps.

Chris: Regarding today’s ICE raids in MS, why focus on the immigrant worker and not the employer (prosecution is very rare)? I personally don’t approve of either, but if you believe immigration is a problem it seems more pragmatic to focus enforcement efforts at the massive corporations.
Keith Law: Massive corporations tend to donate more to political candidates than undocumented workers do. I think that might be a factor.

Kevin: Would you consider it an accomplishment or a failure if the Dodgers made it to the WS 3 straight years but lost every year
Keith Law: I would. I know Eric said on the pod this morning he would think that would be seen as a failure.

Chris: Amed Rosario turning a corner? I’m still surprised at how bad is defense is, can you explain how scouts missed that?
Keith Law: Scouts didn’t miss it; it has been markedly worse this year than ever before. I don’t know what the Mets are or aren’t doing but it seems like that has to be on the coaching staff.

Jason: Is Trent Grisham legit?
Keith Law: Yes. I’m in.

Chris: Is Tim Beckham’s career over?
Keith Law: Remember those two weeks when Rays fans were apoplectic they traded him and people thought the Orioles had gotten a steal? That was fun.

Kevin: I know Jake Rogers isn’t going be an All-Star but do you think he is a starting C
Keith Law: Maybe with the defense but I don’t think he’s going to hit.

Chris: ETAs for Peterson and Szapucki? Also is Kevin Smith any good?
Keith Law: Next year for Peterson, maybe 2021 for Szapucki, and I have never liked Smith’s movies.

Mucho: How do you manage to get so much done (work, family, reading a thousand books)? Any tips?
Keith Law: I don’t watch much TV at all and now I’m spending less time online (especially Twitter).

Scherzer’s Blue Eye: I’m always curious about discrepancies in rankings (i.e Garcia). You–and people you talk to–have him down. But evaluators at BA, for example, have him in the 2nd half of the Top-100. What do they see you don’t, or vice versa?
Keith Law: No idea. You’d have to ask them. I’ve seen Garcia and talked to many scouts about him. He’s a nice player, but not a top 100 guy. He’s just young.

JT: I still regret that the Jays didn’t get Dom Smith out of the Mets even at the cost of having added another player to the deal. Rowdy is another case you could use as a feather in the cap, by the by.
Keith Law: People complaining to Mike Wilner (a friend from my Toronto days) about my takes on Tellez was fun.

spcohn: Moniak has really picked up performance and has very good numbers (excluding a April) for a 21 yo in AA. I know that you had been down on him in the past…change your view?
Keith Law: Nope. Saw him a month ago. He’s not good. Reading is the best hitter’s environment in the Eastern League, BTW. Didn’t you try to gotcha me over Deivy Grullon back in the spring when he had a hot start? He’s at .236/.314/.390 since June 1st and still can’t catch.

Brian: I’m wondering if you read any of the reporting (especially Matt Gelb’s piece in the Athletic) on why the Phillies are so aggressive pushing kids to Lakewood after you questioned the move. I’d be curious as to your thoughts on their rationale.
Keith Law: I’ll have to check that out, but the proof is in the pudding: I don’t see any players who’ve benefited from that aggressive promotion philosophy in their system. Their Luis Garcia, who does have tools, looks woefully overmatched, and should have been sent down to Williamsport (which he skipped) a month ago. I have seen him three times already and just feel bad for the kid.

Mickey Callaway: Marianne Williamson has policies worth hearing on reparations. She’s not a good candidate, but she’s leading that charge.
Keith Law: She doesn’t belong on the stage. The Democrats are the one party that thinks science is real. Putting an anti-science crank on the debate stages merely cedes one of the party’s actual advantages.

Jay: Joe Ryan, Rays. Decimating Hi-A ball. Aberration, or for real?
Keith Law: He’s killed one tenth of A-ball hitters? Damn. He’s a back-end starter – a real prospect, just not much upside. Tommy Rancel just saw him a few weeks ago but I don’t know if he wrote him up.

Adam: it seems Padres are planning big offseason moves, Everyone other than Gore and Tatis considered untouchable to you?
Keith Law: Patiño too.

Jim: I know you’re not super high on him, but just curious what your thoughts are on Nick Madrigal?
Keith Law: Soft regular. Saw him again Tuesday, will write that game up this afternoon.

Nick G: Not a question, but the difference in where you rank Carter Keiboom and the rest of prospect evaluators is large. If I read correctly, you have Carter outside your top 100 but many outlets have him in their top 25. Not a criticism, I just find that interesting since I typically lean to your opinion.
Keith Law: I don’t know what they think of him. I see a non-shortstop without speed or power. He can hit but he’d have to have a 65 hit tool to be a top 25 prospect for me.

CB: Will we ever see Alex Reyes after this latest setback/reoccurrence of shoulder pain?
Keith Law: I wouldn’t say “never,” but his odds keep going down. I did not like his delivery when I first saw him, and when I last saw him this spring it was the same. Short stride guys tend to get hurt.

Larry: It looks like Zack Collins made a swing adjustment. How do you think it will affect his future outlook?
Keith Law: I just saw him Tuesday. He did not make a swing adjustment. He was also atrocious behind the plate.

Krontz: My 6 yr old son loves Kingdomino and does well with it. Any other game recommendations based on that for him?
Keith Law: I’m glad to hear that – it’s such a good gateway game. Splendor might work. Ticket to Ride or its kids’ version First Journey would be on my list of suggestions. Lost Cities is good if he’s comfortable with numbers (you really just have to be able to order numbers 1-10, as the rest is just a sort of gambling game).

Craig: Can Cavan Biggio be what he has been thus far? An average-ish hitter (factoring in the walks) who is below average defensively but plays enough positions to aid a Major League roster?
Keith Law: No.
Keith Law: What position can he actually play? He’s been bad everywhere I’ve seen him, and he doesn’t hit.

Jim: Are you buying the breakout from Giolito?
Keith Law: Yes.

Jason: Is there a specific reason for Heliot Ramos’ improvement this year over last year?
Keith Law: Some physical development, some that he was just too young/not ready for low-A.

Sean: Is bukauskas a reliever at this point?
Keith Law: Possible. Would think the Dbacks will try him as a starter for now.

Nathan K: Rosario seems to be improving drastically this summer. Do you still hold him in high regard or do the deficiencies he’s shown to date at the MLB level bring him down future projection-wise
Keith Law: As a hitter, unchanged. But this year at SS has been a disaster.

Jamie: Why wasn’t Yordan on your top 100 before the season?
Keith Law: Because it’s not a list of the top 100 prospects for this season, but for the long term, and it’s not a list of offensive prospects, but of total value. He’s most likely a DH, not a good athlete, and doesn’t move well or project to age particularly easily. He can hit and has power – omitting a player from my top 100, or a midseason top 50, or even a team’s top 10 is not tantamount to saying he’s a bad player or a non-prospect. You’ve probably made one of those mistakes: thinking it’s just about this year, thinking it’s just about offense, or thinking a non top 100 guy must be bad. None of those are true.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week – I’ve got to write up the Luis Robert debacle, and then it’s vacation time for me. Thank you all as always for reading and for the kind words after my last few newsletters. I appreciate you all. I’ll be back next Thursday for another chat.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: klawchat

→ August 8, 2019
→ By keith

Annihilation (book).

I enjoyed the 2018 film adaptation of Annihilation, a gripping sci-fi horror story starring Natalie Portman as the lead scientist on an expedition into an unknown biological anomaly called “the Shimmer” that has taken over a portion of what is probably the southern United States and appears to be expanding. Previous expeditions have ended in varying disasters; the one preceding Portman’s included her husband, who came back alive but was a shell of his former self. The nature of the Shimmer was never explained, but was also beside the point of the story.

The movie was a very loose adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel of the same name, the first part of the Southern Reach trilogy. The book is also very good, but there’s not that much in common between the two other than the general setup, the main character’s identity, and her husband’s history on a prior expedition. The movie was a psychological thriller with a touch of violence, preying on your expectations and the constant uncertainty of an essentially alien environment where the rules by which we live in our world no longer applied. The book also has those rules, and the vague sense of horror from the environment, but VanderMeer seems far more interested in exploring the main character than the region, known as Area X, or the mystery behind its creation and expansion.

No characters are named in the book; the narrator is simply the biologist, the character portrayed by Portman in the movie. She’s part of a four-woman expedition along with a psychologist, a surveyor, and an archaeologist; they cross the border into Area X after the psychologist hypnotizes them so they won’t experience or remember it, presumably because the transition is somehow upsetting or traumatic. Inside Area X, they find a pristine ecological habitat with seemingly impossible life forms, including what appears to be living writing on a tower wall, but something in the area is also clearly hostile to their presence. The team itself starts to fall apart between the strain of the mission, one member’s treachery, and the influence of one or more unfriendly life forms in the area. The text is the biologist’s journal of the expedition’s gradual implosion and a document of what she learned while inside Area X about the strange life forms she found there, with intermittent flashbacks to her life before the mission, including her life with her husband before he entered Area X and the brief period after his surprising return.

The assumption is that the biologist at least survives to the end of the book, so the multiple times she appears to be in mortal danger, you know she’s going to make it out alive – but you never know what’s going to happen to the other characters, especially given the high fatality rate on previous expeditions, and Area X itself appears to be some sort of sentient life form and thus another character in the book. VanderMeer focuses as much on the conflict between the biologist and the ecology of Area X as on anything else, using it as a way to explore the psyche of the narrator by putting her into multiple situations where she is both at odds with colleagues on the team and threatened by the immediate environment. Much of what goes awry with the team itself is predictable, at least a general level – we’ve seen plenty of stories in print and film of groups collapsing under pressure – but the bio-horror of Area X is novel and means that she can’t take many basic aspects of life for granted. It’s as if she’s been put into a biological hot zone without adequate protection, and has that stress as well as the stress of the mission, her husband’s vanishing, and the failure of the team to hold together for even a few days after crossing.

This is just part one of three, and it feels incomplete as a result; the world-building aspect is more successful than the biologist’s story. I never felt like I understood her character well, and the journey on which she goes is itself incomplete and a bit unsatisfying. I’ll almost certainly finish the trilogy, though, given how much I enjoyed the world he created and the many mysteries of Area X, even if I never get more details on the biologist’s motivations for doing what she does.

Next up: Still reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

→ August 7, 2019
→ By keith

Climax.

Gaspar Noé has a strong reputation among critics for provocative movies that often skirt the line of good taste, and seems to revel in his ability to shock or even repulse audiences while similarly challenging them with his stories. This year’s Climax is probably his best-received film, even though it was made with just a loose outline, employed mostly non-actors, and took just a few weeks to film. It’s a nightmare come to life, one that is more revealing than horrifying, but also clearly crosses the line into poor taste.

Climax is based loosely on an actual story of a French dance troupe whose afterparty was spoiled because someone spiked their drinks with LSD, although in that case no serious harm came to any of the dancers. That is not true in Noé’s retelling here, as the party devolves into Lord of the Flies-level savagery because someone spiked the punch, made by the troupe’s den mother Emmanuelle, with LSD or a similar psychotropic drug. (The very end of the film makes it seem like it was LSD, although the dancers never know this.)

Things don’t fall apart until about halfway through the brisk 93-minute film; the first half includes an impressive, long modern dance number that incorporates numerous styles and presents more to the viewer than the eye can possibly follow. The party starts out well enough, but eventually the dancers who drank the punch start to feel unwell; no one speaks of hallucinations, but they become disoriented and paranoid, and start to revert to base instincts. As it becomes clear that the punch was tainted, they begin to band together to try to identify the culprit, blaming Emmanuelle, then blaming the two dancers who didn’t drink it, never considering that the person who spiked the punch may in fact have consumed it themselves. This devolution also sees them lose many of their inhibitions, giving in to violence and sex, and by the time the police arrive the next morning there are several dancers dead or grievously wounded, while others are simply damaged by what’s occurred.

The drugs really are beside the point in Climax, which explores the nature of fear and how quickly we come to distrust others when we think we’re in danger. Noé wrote an outline and some general directions but asked the actors, most of whom were professional dancers without acting experience, to simply act as they would if under the influence, showing them videos of people who’d taken LSD or other hallucinogens. There are two professionals in the cast, Sofia Boutella (Selva) and Souheila Yacoub (Lou), who do more heavy lifting than anyone else, the former as the de facto social leader of the group, the latter the one character with something resembling a storyline.

Noé’s hand is all over the film even though there wasn’t a proper script. There’s one continuous shot that runs over 40 minutes, shifting perspectives and angles, drifting to different characters, that helps convey the dancers’ disorientation to the viewers. He also moved the closing credits to the beginning of the movie, and the typical title card with cast listing to the middle, which felt more like a gimmick to me than an important change. (Plus Adam McKay did it better in Vice.) He made one truly regrettable decision, the part of the film that crosses the line into needless suffering; Emmanuelle’s son is at the party, and while I won’t spoil it, what that child is put through did not need to be in this movie at all. Noé could have accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish without that. Assuming the boy’s inclusion was an active decision by Noé, it was a blatant attempt to shock the audience for shock’s sake.

Several days after watching Climax, I can’t decide if I think the film is good. I would say I didn’t enjoy watching it, because it is so unpleasant (by design) to watch the dancers lose control of themselves and their situation, wandering around a dark building that looks like an abandoned school or mental institution. I also couldn’t stop watching it, and was past the halfway mark before I even thought about how much time might have passed, and it’s certainly had me thinking about it in the time since I watched. There is something essential about stories that remind us of the thin line between the way we live and utter anarchy, of the tiny genetic barrier that separates us from chimpanzees, of the social norms we take for granted that allow us to live our daily lives. When one brick is removed, the entire edifice could collapse. Noé is willing to stare into that abyss and show us what he sees.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2019 movies, french films, horror films, movies, psychological thrillers

→ August 6, 2019
→ By keith

A Kiss Before Dying.

Ira Levin wrote seven novels in his long career, as well as the long-running Broadway play Deathtrap, garnering raves from critics and his peers for much of his output despite working across a broad range of themes, with novels as seemingly disparate as Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives. His debut novel, A Kiss Before Dying, was a straightforward noir thriller, a grim take on a ‘perfect’ murder that uses shifting perspectives to keep the reader guessing in the first half of the novel and raise the stakes for the second half. (It’s out of print; the link above goes to the Kindle version.)

The first third of the novel centers on Dorothy, the daughter of a very wealthy copper magnate, who is dating a charming classmate at her college and has just revealed to him that she’s pregnant, which does not comport with his plans to marry her for her expected inheritance. Assuming she’ll be cut out of her father’s will for becoming pregnant outside of wedlock, the boyfriend first tries to get her to abort the baby and, when that fails, decides to kill her and make it look like a suicide. He succeeds, at least at first, but Dorothy’s sister Ellen can’t believe Dorothy would kill herself – especially since no one knew she was pregnant – and decides to go investigate.

At this point, Levin switches the point of view and you realize that he never named the boyfriend in part one, so you enter the college town with Ellen and share her ignorance of the killer’s identity – just a very rough description of his appearance, which means it could be any of several men, and Levin utilizes that puzzle to ratchet up the tension for the first half or so of Ellen’s section. Once you find out who it is, which I didn’t see coming, the story flips, putting the reader into the chase and the mystery of whether anyone will catch Dorothy’s killer before he kills again while exploring the depths of his sociopathy, eventually introducing us to the girls’ father, Leo, and making him a central character in the story even though he tries to avoid accepting that Dorothy was murdered.

The book has been filmed twice, once in 1956 to positive reviews and once in 1991 to negative ones, although in both cases the screenwriters changed the story enough that I don’t think either could possibly match what Levin accomplished here in the book. The murderer here isn’t so much twisted as callous and insensate, viewing Dorothy as a mark to make himself wealthy, and viewing all of his victims as obstacles, with no apparent compunctions whatsoever about killing to protect his own interests. Levin also takes advantage of the author’s privilege of hiding key information from you that would have to be revealed on a screen, which raises the stakes for the reader, makes the reveal especially potent, and then lets him play with perspective throughout the third part of the book, where you’re unsure if the killer will get away with his crimes or if the ‘good guys’ will figure it out in time. It’s very classic, straight noir, with a dim view of humanity that leans a bit towards Jim Thompson but with more balance between the good and the bad.

Next up: Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: american literature, crime novels, debut novels, highly recommended, noir

→ August 5, 2019
→ By keith

Music update, July 2019.

I always feel a bit disappointed when my monthly playlists are on the short side, like this one is, as if I didn’t look hard enough for good songs. There is so much music released each month that it seems like even a “bad” month should still have at least twenty or so great songs, right? I did look, though, and stalled out with this list, which probably includes a song or two I might have omitted had the list been longer (including a cover and an unreleased track from the 1980s). Anyway, as always, you can access the Spotify playlist directly if you can’t see the widget below.

Prince – Holly Rock. Prince wrote and produced the original “Holly Rock” for Sheila E., whose version appeared on the Krush Groove soundtrack, but this is the first time that his own recording of the song – which is more polished than the demos his estate has been releasing this year – has appeared in official form. It’s vintage Prince with a heavy funk influence and Sheila E.’s ornate percussion work.

Ride – Repetition. I wonder if it’s even fair to call them shoegazers any more; their sound across two albums and a few singles since their return from a 17-year hiatus has been far more upbeat and accessible. It’s a positive evolution, though; I liked their early stuff but have connected more with their post-hiatus output.

Lauren Ruth Ward and Desi Valentine – Same Soul. A very bluesy duet from one of my new favorite singers in Ward and a classic R&B singer in Valentine, who had a modest hit in 2016 with “Fate Don’t Know You.”

Of Monsters and Men – Róróró. The Icelandic band’s third album Fever Dream dropped two Fridays ago, and it’s a definite shift in their sound, with more electronic elements, a mixed bag of a handful of tracks that showcase Nanna Hilmarsdóttir’s voice and others that lose her amidst generic drum machine sounds and weak melodies. This, “Alligator,” and “Wild Roses” are among the highlights.

Frank Turner – The Death of Dora Hand. Turner’s new EP No Man’s Land has three very intimate acoustic tracks that almost feel like Americana (interesting, since he’s English) rather than his usual folk/punk style.

Ceremony – In the Spirit World Now. Ceremony’s transition from hardcore punk band to direct descendants of Joy Division continues with this title track from their forthcoming album, due out August 23rd.

White Reaper – Real Long Time. White Reaper’s punk-pop sound hasn’t failed me yet – they have a real knack for strong, new hooks that always sound just a little bit familiar to me.

DIIV – Skin Game. This is DIIV’s first new track since founder/singer Zachary Cole Smith spent six months in rehab for addiction.

Ben Gibbard – Keep Yourself Warm. This is easily my favorite track from Tiny Changes: A Celebration Of Frightened Rabbit’s ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’, a cover album in memory of the Scottish band’s lead singer Scott Hutchison, who took his own life in May of last year.

Floating Points – Coorabell. The B side to his single “LesAlpx” is also brilliant – another pulsing, driving electronic track that stays accessible despite its experimental leanings.

Just Mustard – October. Speaking of shoegaze, this Irish band’s music might have fit better in that early 1990s movement than it does today.

Vivian Girls – Sick. The Vivs are back together … okay, I didn’t really know their work prior to bassist Katy Goodman’s solo project La Sera, but they’ve now reunited after a five-year absence with their pre-hiatus lineup.

The Struts – Pegasus Seiya. This song doesn’t sound like anything the Struts, who are kind of a glam/pop band with hard rock trappings, have done before – it’s like a strange homage to Judas Priest-era British metal, and I can’t get the thing out of my head.

High on Fire – Bat Salad. This instrumental, part of a three-song EP that includes covers of Celtic Frost and Bad Brains, first appeared for record store day in April, and just hit digital last month. It’s outstanding, and a good track for folks who like heavy guitar riffing but can’t deal with Matt Pike’s yelling vocals.

Opeth – Heart in Hand. Maybe my favorite song of the month, “Heart in Hand” (also released in a version with lyrics in their native Swedish) is a nine-minute prog metal opus that seems to draw equally on the complex progressive styles of 1970s icons like King Crimson while providing more 1980s-level thrash and metal riffing than Opeth has given listeners in their last two albums.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2019 in music, alternative, metal, Music, progressive metal

→ August 3, 2019
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 8/3/19.

Busy week on the baseball front; I had five pieces reacting to deadline trades, on the Stroman trade, the Bauer/Puig/Trammell trade, the Greinke deal, the Jesus Sanchez/Trevor Richards trade, and some smaller moves that didn’t merit full writeups. No chat this week as I’m at Gen Con.

I’ll resume my free email newsletter on Monday; I had one mostly written but never had time to finish and send it before the deadline, and while I love TinyLetter it doesn’t work correctly on my iPad.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This academic paper, co-written by reader Dr. Mike Sonne, finds in a review of existing literature that pitchers’ mechanics and performance break down with fatigue, with the effects apparently interdependent (fatigue leads to mechanical breakdown, which can lead to declining performance and increased stress on joints, leading to more fatigue and performance declines, etc.).
An ESPN Outside the Lines investigation uncovered track coach Conrad Mainwaring’s forty-year history of molesting athletes, often children, under his command.
A podcast helped get parole for a black man in Texas whom prosecutors railroaded into a murder conviction.
The Guardian looks at modern slavery in the United Kingdom and the government’s mistreatment of these victims of human trafficking, focusing on a Vietnamese boy who was abducted and forced to work on a cannabis farm.
Novelist and writing teacher CJ Hauser wrote a harrowing essay on how she called off her wedding ten days before the date after realizing her fiancé had been extensively gaslighting her and denying her the most basic level of emotional attention.
Cultural appropriation is endemic in board game design, but the industry got some needed pushback this spring over a game called Scramble for Africa, which treated the colonization and pillaging of the continent as fodder for game play, gamifying the enslavement and massacres of entire peoples. Maybe it’s not okay to take massive tragedies and turn them into fun?
The fraudulent “documentary” Vaxxed has been disappearing from streaming platforms, with Vimeo the latest to pull it, because it’s full of falsehoods that may scare parents into denying their children vaccines. Skeptical Raptor explains why the film is so bad and lauds Vimeo’s decision.
Films like that exist because spreading anti-vaccine propaganda is very profitable. It’s late-stage capitalism at its worst, and the solution is to attack it on both ends: constricting supply by closing channels, reducing demand through education.
Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax answers a reader who overheard a man she hoped to date grossly objectifying her body.
Because Florida: The state Board of Education’s new chair is a dimwitted creationist who thinks evolution is “only a theory” (you keep using that word…) and shouldn’t be taught in schools.
Right near me in Delaware, vandals removed a new memorial to the lone confirmed victim of lynching in Delaware history. George Lynch was accused of murdering a white person, and a local pastor encouraged residents to break him out of jail and kill him, which they did by burning him alive, taking pieces of his charred body as souvenirs.
Diabetes sufferers are going without insulin because of rising prices; one 22-year-old woman died because she aged out of a state assistance program and couldn’t afford insulin on her own.
The Colorado Rapids cancelled a postgame fireworks display because there’s a plague outbreak on a nearby nature reserve.
The New York Times ran an essay from Timothy Winegard’s upcoming book on how mosquitoes are our apex predator.
A tiny town in Texas, near the Louisiana border, has stirred controversy by declaring itself a “sanctuary town” for fetuses.
There’s new hope for a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Sudan.
Phoenix restaurateur Sam Fox, whose portfolio includes Culinary Dropout and the original Zinburger, sold his company to the Cheesecake Factory, although for now he’ll stay on as head of the group.
I am shocked, shocked I tell you to read that affluent parents are gaming the system of accommodations for students with ADHD or learning disabilities.
The Onion had a good baseball post on Instagram.
If you love the Deep Water Games flip-and-write title Welcome To, which I did, check out their expansion pads showing different themed neighborhoods, like this Halloween edition.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: africa, anti-science, baseball, board game news, colorado, delaware, evolution, florida, links, longreads, phoenix, vaccines

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