→ April 13, 2023
→ By

The Whale.

I don’t know what The Whale was like on stage, but Darren Aronovsky’s adaptation, which took two Oscars home last month, is excruciating on so many levels that even a strong performance from Brendan Fraser can’t salvage it. When the main character’s daughter screams at her father “Just fucking die already!” she could be speaking for all of us, because at that point there’s still nearly 40 minutes of misery porn to go. It’s manipulative, sermonizing claptrap, and I can’t believe no one saw this film before its release and saw how bad and offensive it was.

Fraser plays Charlie, a morbidly obese man who lives by teaching English and writing classes online while keeping his camera off. His eating disorder is his reaction to the trauma of the death of someone close to him, the details of which are revealed in bits over the course of the movie. The entire film takes place in or just outside of his apartment, where he’s visited by a young missionary named Thomas; Charlie’s nurse and friend Liz; Charlie’s estranged daughter Ellie, whom he hasn’t seen in nine years; and Charlie’s ex-wife Mary. As you might expect from a movie adapted from a play, the dialogue between all of these characters exposes their back stories and gives Charlie some modest depth. We discover why that particular death has sent Charlie into what is essentially suicide by binge-eating, why he and Ellie haven’t seen each other in so long, why his friendship with Liz is both profound and complicated, and some inspirational-poster advice about writing honestly.

What we don’t get, unfortunately, is any real insight into Charlie, or what it means to be capital-f Fat. Charlie’s obesity is handwaved away as the product of trauma, which is facile enough but could work in the service of a better story. Instead, the movie spends too much time pushing that angle while tying it to religion, homophobia, and a fairly naïve interpretation of both grief and eating disorders. This isn’t new, and it isn’t interesting, and if you don’t have either I’m not sure why you make this movie.

Charlie is the only remotely interesting character in the movie, which is important since he’s in almost every minute of it. (I think there are two conversations that do not involve him and take place in a different space.) Even so, there’s little exploration of who he is other than that he’s very sorry. The film isn’t laughing at Charlie, or inviting us to do so; it’s telling us to gawk at him, condescend to him, and maybe, if we’re feeling charitable, pity him. He’s pathetic, a mess, a slob, apologizing to everyone for merely existing. He’s not a bad person because he’s fat; he’s not a bad person, but he’s fat, and that is supposed to make us think less of him. Rather than spend more of the dialogue showing us who he is under all that excess weight, it embarrasses us by embarrassing him: Liz saying “beep beep” when he’s backing up, when he chokes doing routine things like eating or nearly dies laughing or masturbating (a scene the movie really, really did not need), it’s all just fat-shaming of a different sort. You can extrapolate from what we learn to see Charlie is probably an interesting person, an intellectual who loves words, whether in prose or poetry, and who has a lot more empathy for other people than they do for him. I wouldn’t mind getting to know him. The Whale won’t let us.

The ending is a huge tearjerker, ruining one of the very few real emotional moments in the entire movie with an excess of gimmickry and artifice. It got me, even though I know better, because it’s just so manipulative, especially given everything that came before. The Whale hasn’t earned the right to make the audience feel this way.

Fraser is the only saving grace in the film, and while he wouldn’t have been my pick (Colin Farrell and Paul Mescal were slightly ahead for me), he’s worthy of the various Best Actor accolades he received. If he hadn’t been good this might have been the worst movie of 2022. He manages to get somut e range of emotions into the character, and when he’s hurt, ashamed, embarrassed, and so very often sorry, you feel it, probably the only honest emotions that come out of this film. Hong Chau was also nominated for an Oscar, as Best Supporting Actress, but she’s very flat in this movie and often comes across as whiny; she was better in The Menu with a character who was only slightly more multi-dimensional. Sadie Sink gives the second-best performance as Ellie, but it’s an extremely one-note character who might as well be from Flatland. (Fun note: In a flashback scene, Sink’s sister Jacey plays a younger Ellie.) Adrien Morot, Judy Chin, and Annemarie Bradley won the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and I think they were the most deserving of the nominees, although I can see the argument that this was all about a single character rather than an entire cast. The transformation of Fraser into a 600-pound man is completely believable.

Lindy West (of Shrill) eviscerated this movie and its ridiculous view of fat people better than I ever could. I’ll just leave it that this movie was awful, and while I’m very happy for Fraser and love the stories of actors who go from acting in bad mainstream movies to turning in Oscar- or Emmy-worthy performances (Michael Keaton being the best example), he’s not reason enough to suffer through The Whale. I’m too much of a completist to skip it, but you should feel no compulsion to join me.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
→ April 10, 2023
→ By

Holy Spider.

In 2000-01, a seemingly ordinary man in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad began killing sex workers, claiming he was doing his religious duty to “cleanse” the streets of “corrupt women,” with 16 victims before he was caught and executed. Holy Spider takes the story of Saeed Hanaei, a builder, Iran-Iraq war veteran, husband, and father of three who was also a serial killer, and retells it via a fictional journalist character, Arezoo Rahimi, who comes to Mashhad to write about the killings, only to find the authorities disinterested in solving it because they tacitly support what he’s doing. (It’s on Netflix, or you can rent it on Amazon, iTunes, etc..)

Holy Spider is entirely in Farsi, and was Denmark’s submission for this past year’s Academy Award for Best International Film, as the Iranian filmmaker, Ali Abbasi, lives in Copenhagen. Much of what happens with Hanaei is drawn from reality – he lured sex workers, many of whom were drug addicts as well, back to his apartment, gave them a little money, and then would strangle them with their own headscarves. The Iranian press at the time nicknamed him the “Spider Killer,” and some even questioned whether his murders were even a crime, given the victims; wasn’t Hanaei just cleaning up the streets?

Rahimi arrives in Mashhad and immediately finds that the men are being … well, men. The best among them, such as the local reporter whom Hanaei calls sometimes to tell him where he left his latest victim’s body, is benevolently sexist towards her, trying to deter her from investigating the killings at all and constantly telling her not to go to certain areas or run down certain leads because it’s all so dangerous for a lady person. Others interfere more directly, or lie to her, or threaten her, or in one case assault her. As Hanaei keeps killing and the police seem to do nothing, Rahimi begins to investigate more directly, putting herself in Hanaei’s sights, but also creating the best chance for the police to catch him.

Holy Spider tries to be both a thriller and an exploration of cultural misogyny, but isn’t quite deft enough to do both, so once the thriller part is largely resolved with Hanaei’s arrest, the film finally gets to be one thing, and does it well. There’s no real mystery to Holy Spider – even if you didn’t know the original story, the first thing we see is Hanaei committing one of the murders. The film gains some tension from the knowledge that the longer it takes for anyone to figure out what’s going on, the more women will die, and from the unspoken conflict between Rahimi and pretty much everyone she encounters as she tries to cover the story or find the killer herself. Once he’s arrested, after the film’s most intense scene, the focus can be entirely on the way Iranian society, from the police and the religious authorities down to the people they’ve indoctrinated, devalues women. Hanaei even becomes a sort of folk hero to some Iranians. One victim had a child; another was pregnant when killed. Rahimi and her reporter ally even interview one victim’s parents, only to find the mother say she’s glad her daughter is dead rather than still engaging in sex work and using opiates. A woman’s life is simply not worth as much as a man’s to this society. Or this one, for that matter.

The unevenness of Holy Spider crosses into some of the direction and editing as well. The film lingers too long on the murders, coming across as lurid rather than shocking – it does nothing to humanize the victims, each of whom gets a sliver of a character before their on-screen deaths. Focusing on his face during a killing ends up giving him more screen time than the character deserves, time that could have gone to exploring more about the women he was murdering. The ending, after Saeed’s execution, is also very on-the-nose and could have gotten its point, that Saeed’s internalized misogyny and religious zealotry are cultural phenomena rather than just his individual madness, across in less than half the time.

Holy Spider still works, with flaws. It’s buoyed by a great lead performance by the exiled Iranian actress Zahra Amir Ebrahimi (profiled here last fall), who lost her career to the entrenched misogyny of Iranian society; and a strong supporting performance by Mehdi Bajestani as Saeed. Ebrahimi’s performance successfully threads the needle between making Rahimi seem to weak and making her seem implausibly strong or confident; an early scene, where she’s checking into a hotel and they try to turn her away because she’s a woman traveling alone, establishes her toughness while also setting the scene for the various indignities to come. Had the film chosen just to focus on her character, even though she’s entirely fictional, it might have been even stronger in the end.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,
→ April 9, 2023
→ By

The Trees.

Percival Everett has been publishing novels since the mid-1980s, but the 66-year-old author has come into much greater critical acclaim with his three most recent works, becoming a Pulitzer finalist for 2021’s Telephone, a Booker finalist for 2022’s The Trees, and, so far, already a finalist for the NBCC Fiction award for Dr. No. I’d never read any of his work before The Trees, which I read on my flight to Phoenix and enjoyed so much that I went to Changing Hands that same day and bought Dr. No. The Trees is a massive fake-out of a novel, starting out as a bawdy, neo-noir sort of detective novel, before taking a sudden turn into more serious and philosophical territory, resolving the question of the crime in the least satisfying way possible – because that was never the point.

A couple of white men are found brutally murdered in the minuscule, backwards town of Money, Mississippi, a town only known for being the site of the murder of Emmett Till. In each case, they’ve been castrated, with their genitalia in the fist of a Black man’s corpse found in the same room. And each time, it’s the same Black man’s corpse. It goes from the morgue to the next murder scene, making a mockery of the local authorities, who did not need the help. Two Black detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations show up to try to solve the murders, which doesn’t go over well with the white cops in Money or even the victims’ families, although the assistance the two receive from some of the Black residents is only slightly better. The victims turn out to have a surprising connection, and just as the MBI agents and the FBI agent assigned to help them have started to put this together, reports come in of nearly identical crimes in Chicago, Los Angeles, and elsewhere.

The Trees is part dark comedy, part revenge fantasy, part detective story (at least at the start), but it is entirely a story about the weight of history. The systemic racism that pervades the entire history of the United States is reflected in the murders, the authorities, the investigation, almost every aspect of The Trees. It’s in the banter – much of it very, very funny – between the two MBI agents, who absolutely could have stepped out of The Wire. It’s in the diner where Gertrude, a fair-skinned woman who lives in Money, works as a waitress, often serving white people who conveniently forget that she’s Black. It’s practically woven into the pages of the book.

While the novel doesn’t have the same psychological horror element as Get Out, it mines very similar thematic territory, combining it with the sort of over-the-top humor that made Paul Beatty’s The Sellout such a critical success. There’s a seething rage beneath the surface here that Everett holds in check with the various layers of humor, especially with the MBI agents Jim Davis and Ed Morgan, who combine the “old married couple” vibe of McNulty and Bunk with wry commentary on the dangers of their situation as two Black feds in a town that has is still debating whether to acknowledge the advent of Reconstruction. (These two characters could have their own TV series, although doing so would strip out the theme of historical racism that underlies the novel, and I think the novel is unfilmable given its somewhat ambiguous ending.) It’s a delicate balance to strike, and Everett never seems to waver, mixing in humor highbrow and low, even throwing in some ridiculous character names like Cad Fondle or Herberta Hind, to allow him to escalate the extent and violence of the crimes at the narrative’s heart without turning the reader away.

Where The Trees ends may frustrate you if you need a firm conclusion that wraps up all of a novel’s loose ends, as Everett does very little of that. You’ll know who’s responsible for the murders, but beyond that, he offers little resolution and far more doubt than is conventional for any novel, let alone one that at least draws on the traditions of the detective genre. It’s in service of the book’s larger themes of historical racism and the double-edged sword of vengeance. Your mileage may vary, of course. I found myself so drawn in by the humor and the tight prose that I was willing to follow The Trees wherever it led me.

Next up: Elizabeth McCracken’s The Hero of this Book.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,
→ April 8, 2023
→ By

Stick to baseball, 4/8/23.

I had two new pieces up this week for subscribers to The Athletic, my second minor league scouting notebook from the Cactus League and a draft blog post on a few potential first-rounders I saw in Arizona. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday. I’m down with some sort of cold right now, though, so I’ll be away from the stadium for a bit.

My first column for Wirecutter on board games, giving recommendations for five great roll-and-write games for different age/skill levels, ran this week.

My podcast will return this week, now that I’m off the road (and even if I’m still not 100% on Monday). I am about to send out a new issue of my free email newsletter today, though.

And now, the links…

  • Longreads first: The Atavist has the story of Lesley Hu, whose ex-husband was so brainwashed by anti-vaxxers whose content he found online that he killed their son rather than allow him to be vaccinated. It’s a horrifying story of misinformation, mental illness, and a court system unprepared to deal with these cases.
  • BMC Infectious Diseases is set to retract a paper published last year that claimed, with insufficient evidence (to put it mildly), that COVID-19 vaccines had caused up to 278,000 deaths. How did such a terrible study get through peer review? The problem is with the process, not just this particular paper.
  • I linked to a story a few months back about a U.S. Marine who used the courts to kidnap an Afghan baby whose parents had been killed but who had living relatives willing to take her in. This past week, a different U.S judge voided the adoption. It’s not over, but this is a step in the right direction. The Marine and his wife used their Christianity as a justification for taking the child, who is now 4 years old.
  • Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his handpicked, denialist Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo omitted key data from a flawed COVID vaccine report that claimed that young men should not get these safe, effective immunizations. Infection with COVID-19 carries a much greater risk of cardiac-related deaths than the vaccines do, but the report left out data showing this.
  • Why do so many of the people on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list of entrepreneurs and business leaders end up in prison?
  • I wasn’t familiar with the Indian metal band Bloodywood, who fuse Western styles from thrash to death metal to rap-metal with Indian folk music, but they’ve become a breakout act in a country that has never embraced the metal genre the way other nations with comparable arts scenes have.
  • Board game news: Klaus Teuber, the designer of the game now known simply as Catan, died this week at age 70. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Boardgamegeek all published worthwhile obituaries, honoring the man whose creation has sold over 40 million copies and divided board game history into Before and After. Catan and Ticket to Ride are the two games that did the most to turn me into a board gamer, and in turn into something of a board game writer, too.
  • Inside Up Games has a huge hit on its hands with Earth, which I’ll be reviewing this month or in early May and which I think is the favorite right now to win the Kennerspiel des Jahres. Their next big release, the route-building and resource management game Terminus, is on Kickstarter now.
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
→ April 7, 2023
→ By

Music update, March 2023.

I think March was a pretty good month for new music, although I was on the road so much I had less time to explore than I do in most months. We did get comeback songs or albums from three of my favorite bands from the ‘80s, though. As always, here’s the direct link to the playlist if the widget below won’t load for you.

The Beths – Watching the Credits. This New Zealand quartet shared this power-pop gem, recorded during the sessions for my #1 album of 2022, Expert in a Dying Field, but failing to make the final cut.Also, check out their mini-concert as part of the NPR Music Tiny Desk series, including my two favorite tracks from that same LP.

Jungle feat. Erick the Architect – Candle Flame. Jungle announced their upcoming fourth album, Volcano, due out in August, and released this very upbeat lead single with rapper Erick the Architect of Flatbush Zombies, who gives the song a Q-Tip/Chemical Brothers sort of vibe.

Killing Joke – Full Spectrum Dominance. An actual new track from Killing Joke, released to honor their sold-out show at London’s Royal Albert Hall last month. Jaz Coleman is 63 and still delivers, with a track that would have fit well on 2015’s Pylon.

Depeche Mode – People Are Good. But I thought people were people? This is probably my favorite track from Memento Mori, Mode’s fifteenth studio album and first since the death of Andy Fletcher last May. The album is hit or miss but its best tracks recall the gothic new wave sound they brought mainstream in from Black Celebration through Violator.

Arlo Parks – Impurities. Parks’ second album, My Soft Machine, is due out on May 26th, and all of the advance tracks indicate a vocal style similar to that of Collapsed in Sunbeams but with more electronicelements than the first album offered.

The Japanese House – Boyhood. Not to be confused with Japanese Breakfast or Japanese Wallpaper or Japandroids or the ‘70s band Japan, The Japanese House is Amber Mary Bain of Buckinghamshire, England, and this lush, dreamy song is just lovely – she reminds me quite a bit of Ben Howard circa Old Pine.

Daughter – Swim Back. I’m thrilled that the English shoegaze trio Daughter are back, six years after their last album Music from Before the Storm, a soundtrack to the video game Life is Strange: Before the Storm and maybe the best such example of an album I’ve ever heard. Their third proper album, Stereo Mind Game, comes out on Friday.

Bully – Days Move Slow. I’ve never loved Alicia Bognanno’s nasal, raspy vocal style, which often gets compared to Kurt Cobain’s but I think misses core differences in how they sang (or screamed, as the case may be). This song, about grieving the death of her dog, is one of her best melodies and recalls a lot of 1990s post-grunge indie rock, although once again she’s half-singing through her nose and I have a hard time getting around that.

Black Honey – Cut the Cord. Black Honey released their third album of sunny indie rock, A Fistful of Peaches, in March, featuring this track, “Heavy,” “Charlie Bronson,” and “Out of My Mind.”

Temples – Afterlife. The fourth album from this English psychedelic-rock band, Exotico, drops on April 14th, their first new music since 2019’s superb Hot Motion.

Bartees Strange – Daily News. Another bonus track from Strange’s 2022 sophomore album, the excellent Farm to Table, where he continues to craft his own sound independent of his indie-rock influences.

Hatchie feat. Liam Benzvi – Rooftops. Hatchie can really write a melody, and she’s one of the best songwriters of dream pop working right now, but I have always lamented the lack of power to her voice. It’s boosted here by vocals from Brooklyn singer-songwriter Benzvi,

Christine and the Queens – To be honest. The lead single from his upcoming album PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE is also a throwback to the grandeur of Chris and his prior work. The lyrics explore both his transition and the last four years since the death of his mother, although some of the lines – “I’m trying to love, but I’m afraid to kill” probably lose something in translation.

Alison Goldfrapp – So Hard So Hot. This is indeed the lead singer of Goldfrapp, who released their first album in 2000 (Felt Mountain), releasing her first proper solo record, with this electronica gem as its lead single.

Nabihah Iqbal – This World Couldn’t See Us. Iqbal used to work with the late producer/DJ Sophie as a vocalist, and is about to release her second solo album, Dreamer, on April 28th. This track sounds like something right out of London’s post-punk/”cold-wave” scene circa 1981, right down to the reverbed vocals.

boygenius – Satanist. I will never love boygenius the way critics do, in part because I don’t love the laconic vocal style of all three members (Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker), but their second album, the record, is a big step up from their first record musically, with much better hooks.

BLOXX – Television Promises. BLOXX first hit my radar with 2020’s Lie Out Loud, which had two bangers in the title track and “Coming Up Short.” This new song has a similar punk-pop vibe but more topical and denser lyrics, with some clever turns of phrase at the cost of some of the track’s energy, and comes in advance of their EP Modern Day, due out in August.

Project Gemini – After the Dawn. I could have sworn this was a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard track at first, but it’s actually British multi-instrumentalist Paul Osborne, who also works as an editor at Shindig! magazine. This track draws deeply on ‘70s and even late ‘60s psychedelia with some nifty guitarwork in the middle.

Slow Pulp – Cramps. Slow Pulp’s first new music since the 2021 EP Deleted Scenes brings back their grunge/shoegaze hybrid, with elements for fans of Snail Mail and Velocity Girl alike.

Island of Love – Fed Rock. This London band describes their sound as “brutal slamming death metal” on their Instagram, but they’re much more punk – no death growls here, fortunately, although this seems to be a running gag – and post-punk with a surprising sense of melody beneath the frenetic guitar and drums.

Metallica – 72 Seasons. I have to admit, this is pretty good. They’ll never be the Metallica of Puppets or Justice, but I’ll accept this substitute.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
→ April 6, 2023
→ By

Klawchat 4/6/23.

You can read both of my Cactus League dispatches plus my latest draft blog post if you subscribe to The Athletic.

Keith Law: A moment, a love, a dream aloud, a Klawchat.

Guest: Frisco RoughRiders have 8 infielders on the roster for 4 spots (and DH).  I assume that Acuna & Frainyer Chavez will have 2 spots. Does Thomas Saggese get the start and consistent playing time? At what position? How do you see their infield shaking out?
Keith Law: There is no way in hell Saggese gets less than full playing time. He’s a prospect and they see him as a prospect. I wouldn’t sweat positions too much as most teams move their infielders around a ton, both to give those players some added versatility and to try to improve their potential trade value – e.g., you may not think your guy Joey Bagodonuts can play shortstop, but what if the New York Mammoths do?

JT: I asked this of you on your Salas post on FB, but I’m following up now because it’s still interesting. I’d asked whether catchers have different attrition rates, and you correctly pointed out that their development takes longer. I’m curious to follow up: for a Salas or similarly fundamentally sound defensive catchers, do the ability and willingness to receive pitches with good hands increase the floor substantially? I know he’s only 16, but is it already possible to know that he’s at least Luke Maille if he learns nothing more about the sport? It’s curiosity about catching as a distinct player pool driving this.
Keith Law: I think the floor is quite high for Salas if he stays healthy – it is very hard to imagine him failing to become at least a quality backup catcher. This is Reese McGuire’s skill set from his draft year, but with more future power. McGuire wasn’t a good first-round pick but he has played 234 big-league games already through age 28. That’s a floor, mind you, not a projection for Salas.
Keith Law: I think catchers develop more slowly as a class because of the added wear and tear plus the difficulty of learning two jobs. No other fielder has to do as much work during or between games as the catcher does. That doesn’t mean that no catcher will develop as quickly as the best players at other positions. Salas could be in the big leagues before he’s 20, but that wouldn’t change or invalidate the axiom that catchers overall come more slowly.

addoeh: All Marmol should have done is say “We’ll take care of it internally.” with regards to O’Neill. And doubling down was even worse.
Keith Law: I completely agree. You don’t handle that stuff in public – ever. That’s true in just about any business. Handle internal discipline privately.

Isaac: Do you think Ronny Mauricio has an impact on the Mets this season? If so, at what position?
Keith Law: I do not.

JT: For a guy like Berrios who’s cratering now into another season, how do you go about judging what’s wrong and whether continued hope is possible?
Keith Law: I don’t think there’s any easy fix there, or someone would likely have spotted it. The one thing that’s jumped out at me is that his four-seamer was always flat but now it’s so straight you could hang laundry from it. He’s also putting the thing belt-high often, which I would advise that he stop doing. I know this is all very helpful.

Freddie: Should the Reds transition Elly de La cruz to the OF once he’s healthy? Seems like a good fit compared to all the other IF prospects that have
Keith Law: If you really think he can stay at SS, you leave him there. I might try him at third base before sending him to CF, because I think if and when he goes to center he’s never coming back to the infield again.

Colonel Homestar Runner: Draft dodger, eh?  We’ll see if those trees you’re always hugging save you when Gordon Lightfoot’s creeping ’round your back stair!
Keith Law: So funny story – I never entirely got that joke until almost 20 years after I first saw that Homestar sketch when I heard “Sundown” (and learned to play it – it’s four chords) and realized that was a quote from the lyrics. Fun fact – “Sundown” was Lightfoot’s only #1 single here in the U.S., even though he’s far better known for “The Neverending Song about the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

Billyball: I never seem to read much good on gunner hoglund. The brief stats he’s put up doesn’t scream anything bad. Has his stuff not fully returned? I thought he had a #2/high 3 type of future. Is it performance or merely staying healthy?
Keith Law: Never a #2 – a strong command guy pre-TJ whose stuff hasn’t come all the way back and now projects more like a 4 or a 5.

Guest: What do ypu think about Brody Brecth from U of Iowa? He recently left football to focus on baseball.
Keith Law: 24 walks in 33 IP this year. He throws really hard, but that is not the performance of a top 10 pick.

Freddie: As purely prospects, who would you of had rated higher, Soto or chourio?
Keith Law: I never rated Soto as high as I had Chourio – Soto played about a month or so in low A, got hurt, made my top 100, and then was ineligible a year later because he was already in the majors.
Keith Law: Claiming I would have had Soto higher would be just revising my own history.

KEN: Here in Cleveland, we love the way the guardians have won the past few years, but can they really contend without more pop in the lineup? Maybe even a few bats? Is Valera a realistic option when healthy?  Thanks Keith
Keith Law: I wouldn’t bank on Valera helping the lineup this year – it’s possible, just unlikely, given his contact questions in AAA. And yes, they do need to find some more pop. Maybe Josh Naylor is finally having the breakout year I predicted for him (in 2021).

Athletics fan: Your thoughts on Kyle Muller? Esteury Ruiz?
Keith Law: They’re both in my top 20 A’s prospects ranking.

Orioles GM: You are the Orioles GM.  What trade(s) would you consider?  Front line starter?
Keith Law: In theory, sure, although I’m not sure which front line starter is available right now. I would try to package some of the upper-level bats who are probably superfluous – Westburg, Cowser, Ortiz, possibly even Mountcastle – given who else is coming to try to get the best starter I can get who’s more than a rental. If they could make such a trade now, which is historically rare for this time of year, it could easily add 4-5 wins to their total for the year.

Jason: Do you think Chourio could be called up mid year with a big showing at AA/AAA?
Keith Law: A big showing at AA gets him to AAA by midyear. He’s only 19. I’d be surprised if he debuts this year, especially with all of their other CF.

Twinkie: Jose Salas was a player I thought could be a star a few years back. Now that his brother is getting all the attention, are people sleeping on jose, or did the projections just never materialize?
Keith Law: I don’t think either is accurate – he’s 5th in the Twins’ system right now, not a superstar but a very solid prospect with upside.

Guest: Is PCA’s floor what Almora became?
Keith Law: I would call that a disappointment. Almora’s approach never improved past about AA or so.

Guest: Keith, thanks for all the great work. I followed you to the athletic when you moved.
Keith Law: thank you! I’ve never regretted the switch for a minute.

benjamin: thoughts on the Angels mgmt and their attempts at censorship. if i was Ohtani id run as far away from them as possible
Keith Law: They have a right to say certain people can’t appear on their flagship station, and we can mock them mercilessly for being the only snowflakes in Anaheim. All they did was buy themselves worse publicity than they would have gotten had they just used Sam Blum less without actually banning him from the show.

Guest: Does Jasson make to the Bronx this year?
Keith Law: It would be just for show if he did. I doubt he’s up early enough to make an impact.

Luke: What is your take on Lodeil Chapelli in the White Sox system? Excites me that he is starting in AAA.
Keith Law: He’s not – he’s starting in high-A, on Winston-Salem. He ranked 20th in a weak farm system this winter.

Zac: Can I start believing in Torkelsons exit velo from spring training and the start of the season or SSS?
Keith Law: Still SSS, but I’m optimistic. The three Tigers bats I liked coming into the year are off to promising starts, at least. Shame they won’t prevent many runs…

Michael: With alvarez about to come up, do you think he holds onto the job for good?
Keith Law: I do not.

Michael: Is there a legitimate development purpose for the mets keeping vientos down in AAA, or is it more about roster management? Seems like he more or less is who he is at this point
Keith Law: Not sure where he fits on the roster.

Mike Rizzo, Washington, DC: Is there any conceivable way I pass on Paul Skenes?
Keith Law: Yes. There are two premium college bats in this draft, Crews and Langford.
Keith Law: I don’t understand any ranking of those three guys that claims any one is clearly above or below the other two. Stick ’em in the dice cup and roll ’em.

Tim: Do you think Justin Steele can have a Mark Buehrle type career or is that too optimistic?
Keith Law: I’d take the under on that. Buehrle was a pretty rare bird.

NIck: Do you see Andres Chapparo being anything more than a AAAA player? He seems to be developing more than expected with his bat.
Keith Law: I do not.

Colin: Who’s your favorite offensive prospect that will stick at shortstop but is currently not on the top 100?
Keith Law: Jett Williams.

Matthew: A couple Guardians questions: 1- Any word on which random pitching prospect they magically added 5 mph to since being drafted last year? 2- Aggressive assignment for Leftwich, starting in AA. What should we be looking for early in the year from him?
Keith Law: Leftwich finished last year with 10 starts in high A – I don’t think AA is aggressive for an SEC product who’s 24 this year.

Salty: Do you have any favorite local eats when checking out the Blue Claws, or do you head back home with maybe a stop along the way?
Keith Law: I haven’t been since the pandemic, because they play in Wilmington 2-3 times a year. The place I used to like most in Lakewood closed in 2019.

Brian in NoVA: How much longer should Washington wait before ending the Corbin experiment and cutting him outright? I know they still owe him 60 million or so but he’s unplayable at this point.
Keith Law: Whenever they need the roster spot.

Rob: Is there a Marlins prospect you like that maybe isn’t well known yet? I’ll hang up and listen.
Keith Law: I think if Joe Mack were a Mets prospect he’d be far more well known. As I said, the story goes.

Kerry Wood: The Cubs talk a lot about their “pitching lab” and a couple of their free agent signings said that was a big deal in choosing them. Is that a real thing or just fancy talk for we watch film with you?
Keith Law: Teams do have pitching labs of varying degrees of sophistication. I would like to see the Cubs have some real success stories out of that lab before getting too high on it.

Marc: Who has the higher ceiling, Mike Burrows or Quinn Priester?
Keith Law: Priester.

Dallas: Of the 3, are any of these the Pirates 2B of the future? (Nick G, Rodolfo Castro, Ji-Hwan Bae?)
Keith Law: I hear Bae far more in CF. Could see them pushing Gonzales there to justify the pick.

Bye Bye Balboni: Giancarlo Stanton to Mets for a couple non prospects. Yanks get the contract off the books and Mets offense instantly improved. Who says no?
Keith Law: Why on earth would the Mets do this?

John: Any hope for Ian Anderson? Crazy downfall from what looked to be a solid MOR guy for years to come.
Keith Law: I think he’s like Berrios – I don’t think he’s hopeless, but clearly he needs a significant change to his approach. Anderson always got away with a mediocre breaking ball because its spin-based direction was the opposite of the FB/CH, but that doesn’t work when guys are hitting the fastball this hard.

Chris: If you were in charge of a draft like the mariners have where they have the 6th most money, would you try to buy a top 10 guy down or would you prefer 3 bites at the apple?
Keith Law: Someone they rank as a top 10-15 guy gets to them naturally. Just set up to take that guy if/when it happens.
Keith Law: You don’t want to pass on someone you think is the best player available just to save money for later picks.

Candler: Of all the young Braves starters rotating through the 5 spot, who do you see sticking long term? Shuster, Elder, Dodd, maybe even Soroka?
Keith Law: Shuster’s a starter if healthy. Soroka is too, but he’s never healthy. Elder’s a 6th starter type for me.

Andrew: Has Dylan Crews pretty much locked up 1-1 (absent below slot  etc)?
Keith Law: Absolutely not.

Rahj Da Dodge: What are your impressions on Gleyber Torres’ strong start? Is he finally reaching his peak?
Keith Law: It’s been one week.

SG: I know it’s quite early, but do you think Paul Skenes has a shot to overtake Crews or Langford as the number 1 prospect in the draft?
Keith Law: See above. Any of those three could go 1-1. If I had to bet, because it’s Pittsburgh, I’d bet on a position player, though.

Dave: The new rules seem to have worked exactly as the owners wanted them.  I like all aspects of them but for the limited amount of throw overs to 1st since it drastically changes the game and strategy.  Any chance they change that or do you think we are stuck with it going forward?
Keith Law: I hate the endless throws to first that have polluted the college game like dioxin in the Love Canal.

Frank: Does Henry Davis make it to the Majors this season or is next year more likely?  Do you still believe he stays behind the plate?
Keith Law: This year if healthy, I believe he’s a catcher but not everyone agrees.

Zirinsky: Hi Keith. Thoughts on the impact of the rule changes so far?
Keith Law: It’s been one week.

Mike: as of right now, is it: crews 1, skenes 2, langford 3?
Keith Law: See above.
Keith Law: Langford might be … uh, half the man he used to be, but I don’t think he’s any less of a prospect.

Guest: Any new or classic games, etc. to recommend for a soon to be 8 year old (he didn’t type this btw)? Thanks!
Keith Law: I’m happy to recommend a bunch but it does help to know what he has played and what he likes, so I’m not just saying games you know (e.g., Ticket to Ride is always my first suggestion for that age and new gamers).

Mike: think masyn winn gets the call by June?
Keith Law: I do not.

Mike: can Josh Lowe be an every day regular? How do you evaluate him now?
Keith Law: Still like him a ton, might end up a platoon guy rather than a regular but does have the fielding/athleticism/power to be a regular if he hits LHP enough.

Shawn: Can you tell me anything about Luis Perales in the Boston system?  Just starting to hear about him for the first time.
Keith Law: Very good arm, still a ways off beyond arm strength, not a good delivery for a long-term starter. I believe he’s starting on a loaded low-A Salem roster (Bleis, Romero, Anthony, Coffey).

Nick: Is Clayton Beeter a GUY or do you see him as more of a reliever?
Keith Law: Probably a reliever between health issues and lack of FB quality.

Shawn: How can it be that Cleveland has so much success developing pitchers? I watch my team’s prospects come up and get shelled, but theirs just plug in and get good results, year after year. How can one team be doing something that different on the player development front?
Keith Law: I think there are a lot of ways teams can differentiate themselves on the player development front. Cleveland has identified certain characteristics in pitchers that make them candidates for improved velocity in their system, and they target those guys in the draft & trades.

Alex: It’s early, it’s small sample size, but there’s a real buzz around Josh Lowe in Tampa.  (1) do you buy that he could still be an impact bat and (2) if so is there anything more to glean from his early struggles than “MLB is really hard and sometimes it takes time?”
Keith Law: Players don’t all develop on our timetables. They develop on their own. Giving up on talented players before they’re even 25 is just foolhardy.

Mike: How excited are you to see a stacked wilmington blue rocks lineup this year?
Keith Law: Always nice when the home team is stronger. I should be there for the opener, weather permitting.

Evan: Do you think the padres org will be ranked top 18 or so by end of year? Salas and lesko enough to boost them?
Keith Law: Top 18 is … awfully specific?

Michael: When you talk about a players floor or ceiling, do you consider that in absolute terms (barring a major change in circumstances) or more like X standard deviations from the average possible outcome?
Keith Law: A floor, to me, is “barring injury or 34 felony counts, this is the worst case scenario.”
Keith Law: Ceiling is really “everything goes right.”

ChicagoSteve: Is Mitch Keller ever going to happen? This has really been an amazing five-year odyssey for a once highly regarded SP prospect who has never been derailed by a major injury, but instead by constant tinkering.
Keith Law: Two things. One, I think he’s never going to be more than a fourth starter if he can’t get LHB out consistently, and right now he doesn’t have that weapon. Two, I wonder if we’d all have ranked him lower after his big A-ball year if we’d had more advanced data that showed that the fastball was pretty ordinary for its velo.

Kerry Wood: Is the Padres owner blowing the small market fallacy out of the water or do places like KC, Cleveland, Cinci, etc not actually notice?
Keith Law: Both.
Keith Law: Can’t notice what you refuse to see!

Billy: Can Ryan Noda be an everyday player in Oakland? I wasn’t familiar with him before the As picked him up.
Keith Law: Unlikely. He might play regularly for them, but I interpret “everyday player” as someone who produces enough to play every day for most teams.

Shawn: Does Triston Casas end up looking like Nick Johnson?
Keith Law: More power.

Seth: A question for you about HS baseball in general.  When trying to develop a good player at that level, considering size and growth come into play so much for a 14-17 year old, should hitters just be trying to make solid hard contact while developing sound mechanics know the results will come?  I hear so many parents concerned with results vs. mechanics and fundamentals that I am starting to wonder if I am on the wrong side of the discussion.  Thanks.
Keith Law: Just try to hit the ball hard and don’t get hurt.
Keith Law: We have seen guys get paid more for HR power as teenagers but I think their overall track record isn’t great. (Joey Gallo is a little bit of both – he did show enormous HR power at 17-18, but was also a great athlete who sat 95 mph as a pitcher.)

Sean: Has Jaden Hill recovered his stuff from pre injury?
Keith Law: I have heard no. He wasn’t great in March. Still has some time.

Jon: You worried about the lack of preciptation in this area? We had no snow up here in Lancaster County this winter and now we have a string of eighties days with no rain coming up. I feel this does not bode well.
Keith Law: Half inch of rain coming tonight, and yes, we need it.

Derek: If Skenes maintains the same performance for the rest of the year, would you consider him at 1-1? Or is it just impossible for any breakable pitcher to be preferable to Crews/Langford given how good those guys are?
Keith Law: Personally, I would not take a pitcher at 1-1 with an elite college position player available, and this year there are two of those guys. Skenes looks Gerrit Cole-level good right now, but all pitchers are breakable – even if you think he IS Gerrit Cole, you’ve got two hitters who project to that kind of output as well.

Shawn: Why is the “AAAA player” a thing?  Are there just as many guys who are too good for AA and not good enough for AAA, and we just don’t hear about them?
Keith Law: AAAA player = too good for AAA, not good enough to be more than a bench or up-and-down guy for the majors.

Kevin: Anyone interesting I should try to see in the Florida State League (or whatever it’s called) this year? Thanks for doing the chat!
Keith Law: I don’t have the rosters in front of me (or memorized), sorry.

Jon: What happened to Jackson Ferris? The Cubs drafted him and I thought signed him but he has yet to play.
Keith Law: He just signed last July, out of HS, and none of those kids has played this year yet. The non-AAA teams start tonight.
Keith Law: He’s fine, he pitched in Mesa last month.

Chad: I realize that it has no impact whatsoever on your job, but do you find the Savannah Bananas fun and a way to get the youth excited about baseball? I’m seeing them in June, with my kids, and they’re so pumped for it.
Keith Law: Eh. It’s not exactly baseball, is it? I don’t object to them like some old curmudgeon, but I don’t see the appeal myself.

Freddie: Watched Miguel Bleis’1st preseason game. He really jumped off the screen compared to what I had imagined. Is he star talent type, he’s been getting hype, but I’m surprised he’s not getting more considering his market
Keith Law: It’s superstar upside with swing and miss concerns, which is probably why he’s not getting more hype.

Candler: Michael Harris’ approach at the plate doesn’t seem to be improving much to my untrained eye. Anything to be concerned about, or just young player growing pains?
Keith Law: I’ve had that concern on him since A-ball. Just something he’ll have to work on to maintain or improve on last year.

Pat: How many teams provide nutritionists for their minor leaguers? &/or provide healthy food in the clubhouse? Asking because Jace Jung mentioned yesterday that Detroit did neither of those last year..which seems like criminal negligence to me
Keith Law: I actually thought every team did at least some of that by now.

Chris: Somerset is gonna be a fun team this year – Martian, Pereira, Wells, Sweeney, looking fw to first road trip up here to Portland
Keith Law: Dominguez & Pereira are big draws for me. The others less so.

ML: Keith, what do you think about Vaun Brown? Seems like a “scouting the stat line” guy, but more and more evaluators seems to like him…
Keith Law: I’ve talked to plenty of evaluators, all of whom think he’s a big leaguer but none of whom thought he was more than a solid regular. Older guy whose best tool is his speed but who’s already had issues with both knees.

Rob: Cam Collier is starting with my home team of Daytona in the FSL this year.
Keith Law: And he’ll be 18 all year, I believe.

Mj: Did you watch The Last of Us? If so, thoughts?
Keith Law: Zero interest, sorry.

ML: Do you think a player’s name has an actual impact on how he is viewed by scouts/front offices?  Does a guy names Wilmer Flores suffer  because of the blandness and common nature of his name, in comparison to a guy like Cedanne Rafaela?
Keith Law: I do not. I do think it matters if his name is, say, Gwynn, or Marichal, or Holliday.

Trey: What does Kahlil Watson have to do to make it back to your top100 list in 2024?
Keith Law: Make a LOT more contact, and probably avoid any on-field conflict.

ML: Is DL Hall ever a quality MLB starter?
Keith Law: Has the stuff. Has to throw more strikes. He’s too damn athletic not to figure this out.

Derek: Strasburg vs. Cole vs. Skenes as a college pitching prospect?
Keith Law: I’ll see Skenes later this month, but Strasburg was the best I’ve seen, and was slightly ahead of Cole. Strasburg showed you four pitches and the fastball played. Cole was more three pitches, but he’d get hit on the fastball more (and Savage called it too often).

Tyler: Does anyone currently playing specifically stand out to you as someone has reached their “everything goes right” ceiling?
Keith Law: I think that’s true of a lot of the guys I got wrong over the years, or guys like Arenado and Betts who just blew past even pretty favorable evaluations when young.

JR: If game times stay shorter (fingers crossed) do you see teams moving game start times around, maybe pushing start times back 30 minutes?  And who will be the first owner to gripe about food and beverage sales being down since games tend to be shorter?
Keith Law: Aren’t the start times about selling commercials early in the game?
Keith Law: Manfred claimed yesterday that concession sales aren’t down even with reduced game times. I don’t really care if I get home 20-30 minutes sooner without losing any baseball.

Zihuatanejo: Is it too early to proclaim Miguel Vargas the next Ed Yost?
Keith Law: It is pretty impressive that he’s become this patient (SSS) this quickly.

Chris: Why would the Yanks keep Franchy over Florial?  While theres no evidence Florial can hit, he has speed and defense.  We know for a fact Franchy has none of the three.  Is it simply a matter of him having an option for when Bader comes back?
Keith Law: Honest question – is it likely to matter? If either guy is playing often for you, something has gone seriously awry.

Heather: As a HOF voter, do you think the Baseball Hall of Fame has lost its luster?  It feels like every decent player eventually gets in these days.  The other night, on MLB Network, I actually heard Dan Plesac and the guys beside him start to make a case of John Olerud’s candidacy.
Keith Law: Yes, I think it’s lost its luster for many reasons. The various vets committees letting in guys like Baines and Morris have made it a bit of a farce.
Keith Law: That’s all for this week’s chat – thank you all for reading and for all of your questions!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:
→ April 5, 2023
→ By

Arizona eats, March 2023.

Belly Kitchen & Bar’s downtown Phoenix location (they also have one in Gilbert) is easy to miss – it looks like a house and is located on a tiny lot on the southeast corner of 7th Ave & Camelback. The menu is influenced by Thai, Vietnamese, and Japanese cuisines, and the dishes are all supposed to work with the wine & cocktail menu, although I admit that usually after one cocktail I’m not ober enough to make that connection. Anyway, I ordered the bartender’s two main suggestions, the crispy spring rolls and the pan-seared king trumpet mushrooms, as well as their rum and rye old fashioned. (Two of them, as it turned out.) The mushrooms were the more interesting of the two, tossed with some small cubes of tofu and served in a black bean and Sichuan peppercorn sauce that was faintly sweet, a little spicy, and very earthy with a ton of umami from the fermented beans. The spring rolls were a very good exemplar of their type, served with large lettuce leaves, mint sprigs, and nuoc cham sauce for dipping, although it was nothing I hadn’t had before, just generally not this good. And, somewhat unfortunately for the purposes of this blog, that was all I could eat – I was full, and just left wistfully eyeing the plates my neighbors got. I really wish I’d had room for the jackfruit and mustard green fried rice in particular.

Pizzeria Virtù is the second outpost from Chef Gio Osso of Virtù Honest Craft, although he’s also now opened a third place, Piccolo Virtù, so I’m behind. The pizzeria is more than just a pizza outlet, with an assortment of fresh house-made pastas and traditional Italian plates as starters. I went with my longtime friend Bill Mitchell, whose words and photos you may have seen over at Baseball America, and we did one item from each section – their insalata with arugula, grape tomatoes, red onion, shaved Parmiggiano-Reggiano, and a lemon-olive oil dressing; the pizza with ‘nduja, a spicy sausage from the Calabria region of southern Italy; and their rigatoni with tomatoes, basil, prosciutto, and more Parmiggiano-Reggiano. The pasta was by far the best dish we got, cooked truly al dente with bright sweetness from the tomatoes and basil and exactly the right amount of salinity even with two very salty ingredients in the prosciutto and the cheese. The pizza was solid, more Neapolitan-adjacent than Neapolitan, without a ton of air in the outer ridge of the crust but saved by the high quality of the toppings. (They also misspelled ‘nduja on the menu, writing “n’duja” instead, which is only funny because it’s an Italian term.) The salad was a good salad, nothing more or less, but I’m also glad we didn’t get something heavier. I can also vouch for the amaro viale cocktail, a combination of bourbon, three different amari (potable bitters), and sweet vermouth that hits like a negroni but with the smoothness of the bourbon rather than the herbal notes of gin.

Sweet Dee’s Bakeshop is on East Stetson not too far from Old Town, focusing mostly on pastries and sweets. Their breakfast sandwich comes with a scrambled egg, bacon, avocado, and goat cheese on a croissant, and was solid to very good other than the common problem of the egg being cooked more than I like it. I usually stick to the classics when I have breakfast out there – Hillside Spot, Matt’s, Crêpe Bar, sometimes Snooze – but this was excellent for something faster when I had a morning game to hit.

Futuro Coffee has been on my to-do list for Phoenix for years now, at least going back before the pandemic, as its adherents have argued it’s the best espresso place in the Valley. They certainly do take their espresso seriously, with a single-origin option each day, and the standard options to take it with varying degrees of milk. The day I went, the single-origin was an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, which in my experience does not play well with dairy; I asked the barista his advice and he said he thought it was best black. It’s served in a wide terra cotta cup, unlike any coffee vessel I’ve ever tried, which did keep it warm for longer than ceramic would, along with some sparkling water. Futuro is located inside the Palabra art gallery and the space is very cool, weirdly sparse and yet comfortable enough to sit and write for a while. They’ve used a number of top roasters from around the U.S. and Canada, including heart and 49th Parallel.

Fire at Will is in a relative wasteland for good food, up at Shea and Tatum, an area that’s mostly populated by chain restaurants. Their menu is eclectic, to put it mildly – I have a hard time seeing what the core idea is here, or finding any unifying theme among the dishes. I heard the folks sitting next to me ask the bartender if there were any must-try dishes on the menu, and the bartender recommended … the burger. That’s not a great sign, at least in my experience. I tried just two things given how large the portions are – the fried Brussels sprouts and the Iberico ham croquettes. The Brussels were truly outstanding, served with nuoc cham (fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar), chopped peanuts, and a little diced Asian pear; I’ve had a lot of fried Brussels sprouts but this was among the very best, as there wasn’t a single leaf that was overcooked and nothing was too undercooked to eat, while the sweet-sour sauce had the right balance to offset any lingering bitterness in the brassicas. The croquettes were also extremely well-cooked, very crispy on the outside but smooth and still soft on the interior, although I didn’t taste the ham at all, which is a colossal waste if they used real jamón iberico.

I ate one meal down in Tucson after my game at Hi Corbett Field, stopping at El Taco Rustico on N. Oracle on my back to I-10. It looks bare bones but the food is anything but – their carnitas is outstanding and the pollo asado has a ton of flavor, although it paled next to the pork since it’s just inherently less fatty. They also offer four vegetarian options (nopales, rajas con queso, eggs, or summer squash) as well as the fifteen meat or meat-containing choices for fillings. The guacamole starter is pretty generous for $8, with house-made chips, probably not something I needed but I ordered it anyway for the sake of my readers. Chef-owner Juan Almanza opened the restaurant right as the pandemic hit and kept it open with the support of the community during that first year, although now it appears that he’s built a strong following on his own.

I had two bad meals on the trip, one unsurprising and one less so. I ate at Revolu Modern Taqueria near the Peoria Sports Complex, mostly due to time constraints, and it was exactly what I expected, a chain restaurant’s facsimile of tacos, including “diablo” spiced shrimp that a toddler could eat. I also went to my longtime favorite FnB and had by far the most disappointing meal I’d ever had there, for reasons I can’t even completely explain. I’ll just note that the “smoked” salmon salad, which the server highlighted as a favorite, came with salmon so overcooked I couldn’t eat it. I’m not sure if it was smoked or poached, but it was beyond chewing. Maybe I just caught them on an off night.

The rest of my meals were at places I’d tried before, like the breakfast spots mentioned above, plus Republica Empanada, Pane Bianco (which now serves New York-style pizza on some days), Cartel Coffee, Press Coffee, Lux, Frost Gelato, and Defalco’s Italian Market. All lived up to previous standards.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,
→ April 2, 2023
→ By

Stick to baseball, 4/1/23.

Since the last roundup, I’ve written three new posts for subscribers to the Athletic – my annual predictions post, my first dispatch from spring training (mostly Cactus League), my annual breakout player picks, and a draft blog post on three potential first-rounders from Wake Forest and Miami.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the cooperative game Paint the Roses, which has simple rules but poses a difficult deductive challenge for players, working best with three or more.

I appeared on the streaming Scripps News Network to talk about why major-league salaries keep rising while minor leaguers’ haven’t, although this was recorded and aired before the recent CBA announcement.

My podcast will return now that my spring training travel is over, with David Grann lined up as my next guest. I did send out a new edition of my free email newsletter about two weeks ago.

And now, the links…

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
→ March 29, 2023
→ By

Winston-Salem and Wilmington eats.

Mission Pizzeria Napoletana near downtown Winston-Salem isn’t just a pizzeria, but a full trattoria with house-made pastas and other incredible dishes made from scratch in the tiny cooking space behind their counter. My daughter was along for the ride on this trip, which meant I got to try a few extra items. We ordered the arancini starter, a special for that day that might have been the best version of this dish (balls of risotto rolled in bread crumbs and quickly deep-fried) I’ve ever had; the pizza with smoked mozzarella & tomato sauce; the rigatoni with tomato and cream; and the dessert special, zeppole, the Italian version of beignets. The pizza was outstanding – I’m pretty sure they use Bianco tomatoes, and the dough was perfectly light and airy around the edges with a thick outer crust and thin (but not wet) center. The pasta was truly al dente and the sweetness of the tomatoes shined through; I’ve come around over the course of my life on so-called ‘pink’ sauces, as just a small amount of cream is enough to bring out the sweetness of good tomatoes. The zeppole came in a paper bag filled with powdered sugar, which brought back memories of going to Italian festivals as a kid on Long Island, although the zeppole I ate at those festivals were never this soft or moist in the center. I can’t recommend this place highly enough.

Bobby Boy Bakeshop is a French boulangerie and patisserie that had a line out the door when we stopped there while driving around the Wake Forest campus’ west side. They offer some very impressive old-world breads, including $3 baguettes, and a real coffee and tea program. We just had some sweet treats – my daughter loved the coconut cake, which was very intensely flavored and actually not overly sweet – so I can’t vouch for the savory items, although they do offer a rotating sandwich of the day on their own bread.

Krankie’s is a popular breakfast spot that also roasts its own coffee beans, offering a Tanzanian peaberry the day I was there (you can’t buy it on their site) that had the slightly sweet berry notes typical of that country. My daughter and I each got breakfast sandwiches on biscuits and once again she defeated me, getting the special with chicken, pesto, and tomato, while I got the Yeti with eggs, house-made sausage, and tater tots right on the sandwich, drizzled with maple syrup. The sausage was the disappointing part, actually, as it was way overcooked, and the biscuit itself wasn’t as good as what I can make at home, but the coffee was very good if brewed a little too hot. It looks like those two places are the best options for craft coffee in Winston-Salem.

Chill Nitro is right downtown and offers ice cream made to order with the help of liquid nitrogen, offering an incredibly smooth product because the nitrogen freezes the ice cream base so quickly that the ice crystals remain very small. They also offer the option to add a shot of alcohol to your ice cream for $6, although I passed on that; alcohol also inhibits freezing but I didn’t think it would be necessary and I wasn’t interested in drinking right before the drive back to Charlotte. I had the peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter cups and a peanut butter drizzle, and it was indeed intensely peanutty with an outstanding texture.

I also went to (other) Wilmington to see Walker Jenkins last week and had one meal there, eating dinner at Savorez, a Latin American/Southern fusion place in a cute space with funky décor. (I wanted to try Seabird, but they’re closed on Tuesdays.) I went with the shrimp and grits, served with a chorizo gravy, goat cheese polenta, black beans, oven-dried tomatoes, and pea shoots. The idea of the dish was better than the execution, as the polenta itself wasn’t very hot and the chorizo gravy – which would have been great on biscuits – overpowered the flavors of just about everything else on the plate. The shrimp were actually quite good on their own, which meant deconstructing the dish was the best option.

I rolled into town earlier than I expected, so I stopped in Bespoke Coffee to sit for an hour or so, which is a very cool café/bar with a wide range of tea options (I don’t drink coffee that late in the day unless I have a migraine). I can’t say much about the booze or coffee offerings but I absolutely loved the space and would definitely end up working there often if I lived in downtown Wilmington. Well, that Wilmington, not mine.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
→ March 24, 2023
→ By

The Rabbit Hutch.

Tess Gunty won the National Book Award in 2022 for her debut novel The Rabbit Hutch, the title of which refers to a low-income housing complex in a declining Rust Belt town called Vacca Vale that is home to a broad cast of peculiar characters. It’s a compelling read and the prose is lovely, although the stories of the various characters don’t tie together that well, giving the book the feel of a series of nested short stories rather than a single, coherent work.

The most prominent characters in The Rabbit Hutch are the four young adults who have just recently left the town’s foster-care system, including 18-year-old Blandine Watkins, the star of the show in more ways than one. She’s beautiful and eccentric, unknowable in many ways, bewitching at least one of her three male roommates (Malik), delving into all sorts of mysticism and woo while redefining who she is as she enters adulthood. Those three roommates are all just a little further into their majority, none of them doing very well at adulting, which is why, we’re led to believe, they so easily fall into a bizarre pattern of ritual violence against animals. Gunty also gives us an extended flashback to a former student at the local high school, Tiffany, who becomes the subject of the school’s 42-year-old music teacher’s advances and eventually his victim as well; and a long digression about Elsie, who was once the child star of a TV sitcom called Meet the Neighbors that’s beloved by one of the Hutch’s residents, and whose son, it turns out, hated her guts and is completely out of his mind. He doesn’t even live in Vacca Vale, and the thickness of the thread that brings him there by the end of the novel could be measured in nanometers.

It’s a disjointed novel, but Gunty has a real knack for crafting characters and describing her settings so that the reader observes from both the bird’s-eye view and from up close, putting you right there in the action through her use of both detail and metaphor. She refers to a dowdy 40-year-old woman named Joan who moderates the forums on an obituaries web site as having “the posture of a question mark (and) a stock face,” which only underscores the woman’s insignificance in the town and to some degree in her own life. She speaks of an older man failing on dating apps as hating women “an anger unique to those who have committed themselves to a losing argument.” Even when the plot was all over the place – and it was, a lot, especially when Gunty jerks us out of Vacca Vale to follow Elsie and her idiot son – the prose carried it through.

The novel opens with a passage where Blandine “exits her body,” which is going to lead readers to assume she’s been killed and they’ll have to wait the whole book to find out how and why. I’m going to spoil this right now, because it’s a dumb gimmick: She is alive at the end of the book. There’s more to it than this, but I can’t tell you how irritated I was even when I figured out before the midpoint that this was a scam – and it’s just not necessary. The progression of the story around these characters, and the way Gunty brings together the various subplots, is more than enough to sustain the narrative greed here. The strong implication that Blandine is dead, boosted by some other hints throughout the novel, only to reveal at the end that she’s not is cheap and unworthy of the rest of the book.

The Rabbit Hutch follows in the Richard Russo tradition of profiling dying industrial towns through their residents, here with less humor but with far better-written women than Russo ever provided. It also reminded me of J. K. Rowling’s poorly-received novel The Casual Vacancy, her first novel for adults and one that received a lot of criticism because it wasn’t Harry Potter. That book was set in a fictional town in southwest England that also seemed a bit down on its luck and followed a very broad, and in that case more diverse, cast of residents in the wake of the death of a parish councillor, working in themes of income inequality, racial injustice, drug policy, and more. I liked that book more than critics did as a whole, and think it’s a fair comparison here, with a more ambitious plot but inferior prose to Gunty’s.

I can’t speak to the National Book Award for last year, as I haven’t read any of the five other finalists, but The Rabbit Hutch feels much more to me like a promising rookie season that points to superstar potential than a “best of the year” sort of work. I enjoyed it, I loved the prose, I thought some of the subplots worked but as many didn’t, and there was too much manipulation of the reader’s interest for a novel this serious. I hope and expect that her next work will play more to her strengths, and dispense with the stunt writing.

Next up: Percival Everett’s The Trees.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,