Uncategorized — Page 52

→ December 1, 2020
→ By keith

Mariposas.

Elizabeth Hargrave’s Wingspan is the most decorated new board game of the last five years, maybe of the last twenty, winning the Kennerspiel des Jahres (making Hargrave the only woman to do so as a solo designer) honor in 2019, taking home seven different awards in Boardgamegeek’s annual honors, and earning the only perfect score of 10 I’ve given a game since I started reviewing for Paste in 2014. I was among many gamers excited for her follow-up, Mariposas, which came out this summer from AEG, but while it has the same evident love of its subject (monarch butterflies) as its predecessor (birds), it doesn’t have the same magic, and the game play falls a bit flat.

Mariposas simulates three seasons and up to five generations in the life cycle of the monarch butterfly, asking players to move their own butterfly tokens up the map from Michoacán into the U.S. and Canada, collecting flower tokens, visiting waystations, and breeding new butterflies when next to milkweed, eventually getting to fourth-generation butterflies that will return to Michoacán by game-end for points. Each season also has two or three objectives, mostly based around the locations of butterfly tokens at the end of that season, that players can achieve for smaller point gains.

Players have two movement cards in their hands at all times, and on a turn will play one and move one or more of their butterfly tokens according to the cards. You start the game with just one first-generation butterfly, and may move it several times from one card, since you can’t spread the movement actions across several tokens. Whenever your token ends an action on a hex space with a flower showing, you get one matching flower token (or two, if you hit one of those spaces up at the top of the board). When you have three of a kind, or just any four flower tokens, you can move your first-gen butterfly next to a milkweed icon and spawn a second-generation one. First-generation butterflies die off at the end of spring, and second-gen ones die at the end of summer, but each generation has more possible tokens than the last, so you will have more tokens as the game progresses. Your primary goal is to breed several fourth-generation butterflies that will return to Michoacán at game-end – you can also breed from a fourth-gen token, flipping it over so it counts as two butterflies for scoring – for the largest point gains available anywhere in the game.

There’s no interaction between players in Mariposas; you’re essentially all playing solitaire, on the same board, with the movement cards the only real difference between players. The one bit of in-game competition comes from the sixteen waystations, which all have face-down tokens at the start of the game. When any player’s butterfly first visits a waystation, they flip the token over and take the reward shown. Twelve show life cycle cards, four stages in each of three colors; three show additional waystation bonus cards with extra movement actions; the last shows a wild flower icon, allowing the player to take a flower token of their choice. If you collect all four life cycle cards of one color, you get an additional bonus, the most valuable of which seems to be the one that lets you score an additional butterfly in Michoacán at game end. The first player to reach a waystation also gets to roll a die for a free flower token, but every player after them to visit that station gets the reward shown on the token anyway.

There are two major problems with Mariposas’ play. One derives from the setup, where 16 waystation tokens are randomly distributed and placed face down at the start of the game, so a strategy that involves collecting the four matching tiles of any of the three colors is fruitless. You could spend all game searching for the fourth tile, only to find it on one of the most distant waystations (Winnipeg or Quebec City, probably), and most of the the rewards don’t justify the effort. You could just reveal all of those tokens at the start of the game, and remove the flower token bonus for the first player to get to each, or just use some other method to keep track of which waystations have already had visitors, to alleviate this issue.

The second problem is more fundamental, and I think results from Hargrave’s devotion to accuracy within her games. With just three seasons to move around the board, you have to strike a very specific balance between moving your butterflies up the board into the northern U.S. and Canada to gather rewards and score the seasonal bonuses, and the need to get your fourth-generation butterflies back to Michoacán by the end of the game so they can score. You don’t get that many movement points per season – a maximum of 30 points in fall, which you would distribute over all of your butterflies – and you have little control over what movement cards you draw. This might be very realistic, but it doesn’t do much for game play, because as soon as fall starts you’re left calculating how many movement points it’ll take to get your 4^th-gen butterflies home, and you may not be able to do anything else for the season.

The game looks great, and the rulebook is easy to follow while also featuring quirky or interesting facts about monarchs, who are threatened by climate change and environmental degradation, yet are also essential pollinators on which our global food supply depends. Two of the five flowers on flower tokens look similar, but at least it’s a function of Hargrave’s commitment to authenticity. It’s just not that compelling a game – perfectly fine, but lacking the brilliant mechanics and deeper strategy that made Wingspan an all-time great.

→ November 29, 2020
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/29/20.

I had one piece this week for subscribers to the Athletic, on the Reds-Rockies trade and Atlanta’s two free agent signings, as well as a piece last week on what we can learn from the various pro leagues’ approaches to the pandemic. I held a Periscope video chat on Thanksgiving day while I spatchcocked the turkey.

Over at Paste, I ranked the ten best deduction board games, including Coup and this year’s The Search for Planet X.

I held off on sending the next issue of my free email newsletter until after the holiday so I could write up the trade and signings, but I’ll get one out in the next 48 hours. You can sign up for free here.

My first book, Smart Baseball, got a glowing review from SIAM News, a publication of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. You can buy Smart Baseball and my second book, The Inside Game, at any bookstore, including bookshop.org via those links, although Smart Baseball has been backordered there for a while. You can check your local indie bookstore or buy it on amazon.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: This GQ article, about the author’s parents and a promise each made to never put the other spouse in a nursing home, is just heartbreaking.
The New Yorker details the underground network (with many Korean-Americans) trying to topple the North Korean government.
NiemanLab details the moral and business cases for increasing diversity in the newsroom, although with newspapers dying it may be a bit of a lost cause.
The Justice Department is now looking into the questionable stock trades by Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) that I mentioned in a link last week. If you’re still voting for this crook – who still refuses to debate Jon Ossoff, his Democrat opponent – I really don’t know what to tell you.
The logic of COVID-19 restrictions is falling apart, because they’re determined by economic factors, not by science.
SCOTUS’ decision last week on COVID-19 restrictions, written by “scientifically illiterate judges,” will cost Americans’ lives, writes economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs.
YouTube finally suspended the feed of the nationalist One American News Network for spreading bogus information on the pandemic – not for spreading bullshit about the election.
A coffee brand that had capitalized on its conservative political leanings ran into trouble when it (rightfully) declined to support accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse.
Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Anti-Racist, discussed how to make higher education less overtly racist in an online talk with Radcliffe and Harvard College Everywhere.
From 2010, Ed Yong, who has written some essential pieces on the COVID-19 pandemic for The Atlantic this year, wrote about a woman whose amygdala was so damaged that she can no longer experience fear.
The Wall Street Journal profiled the conservative social media network Parler, but the real revelation here is that it’s backed by the Mercer family, whose views are about as neo-Nazi and white nationalist as it gets.
Anti-lockdown twits like to point to Sweden as some sort of success story, but so far there’s no evidence herd immunity is working there – and they’re faring much worse than their Nordic neighbors.
Greg Burton writes for the Arizona Republic about how the modern environment has made it more dangerous for journalists to do the most routine tasks for their jobs.
On Tuesday, December 1^st, the Welsh Rugby Union is hosting a free community talk on autism and the autism community in Wales. (I’m friends with one of the scheduled speakers.)
Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff locked students out of remote class sessions if they failed to get required COVID-19 tests. Getting tested isn’t just about you, but it’s a responsibility to your community.
Several board game publishers have Black Friday sales going on right now, including Renegade, Capstone, Floodgate, and Japanime.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, autism, board game news, coronavirus, georgia, longreads, science, stick to baseball, sweden

→ November 22, 2020
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/22/20.

I had one post this week for subscribers to The Athletic, about what lessons we can learn from MLB, the NBA, and the NHL (and other pro leagues) after they completed seasons during the pandemic. I spoke to numerous epidemiologists about the leagues’ approaches, from the full bubble of the NBA to MLB’s more open approach with all US-based teams playing at home, and of course the hoaxers were in the comments before the electrons were dry on the article.

Over at Vulture, I wrote about eleven board games you can play over Zoom while you can’t (or shouldn’t) see your friends and family, which seems more relevant with potential lockdowns looming in most of the country.

My guest on this week’s episode of The Keith Law Show was Bill Baer, talking with me about the state of baseball and what he hopes the Phillies will do with their front office openings. My podcast is now available on Amazon podcasts as well as iTunes and Spotify.

I sent out the latest edition of my free email newsletter on Monday, and hope to send another one before the holiday.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: Cal Newport, the author of the superb book Deep Work, writes in the New Yorker about the problems with personal productivity in the age of the knowledge worker. Our business world is very poorly built for the current environment of remote work and associated challenges like child care and remote schooling.
Also from the New Yorker, Shane Bauer looks at how a violent police force ruled Vallejo, California, killing residents (usually people of color) with impunity.
The Guardian describes how the Colombian army killed thousands of innocent civilians and claimed they were insurgents, a scandal known as falsos positivos (false positives) that have turned a former military hero into a villain.
Rebecca Solnit argues that Democrats should not meet those who advocate racism, misogyny, homophobia, and authoritarianism halfway. When the LA Times turned its editorial page over to letters from Trump supporters – under the disingenuous claim that we hadn’t been “listening” to those voices – Fox News and the Federalist did not and were not pressured to give time to Biden supporters.
Jezebel looks at how the online wellness community, already pushing various forms of woo, has latched on to the hoax conspiracy theory QAnon.
There’s a new study out of Denmark that deniers and other anti-mask loons have been citing as evidence that masks don’t work against COVID-19, but they’re completely – and deliberately – misinterpreting that study’s methods and conclusions. Among other things, the study didn’t even look at whether wearing a mask prevented transmission to other people, which has long been the main reason cited for mask recommendations.
Sen. David Perdue (R), fighting Jon Ossoff for re-election in a January 4^th runoff, made tens of thousands of dollars by helping a defense contractor in which he owned shares via a bill that directed Navy funds to the contractor.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is accused of multiple abuses of power, including an ongoing indictment for securities fraud charges that is now five years old, but impeachment is very rare in the Lone Star State.
Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State says fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, have been pressuring him to exclude legal ballots. The whole party appears to have gone down the same bottomless pit.
Christian nationalists are becoming a more important voting bloc, backing Donald Trump and Republicans in huge numbers in 2016 and 2020. My own hypothesis is that as overall religiosity continues its decades-long decline, the percentage of religious Americans who identify with these authoritarian beliefs will increase.
Trump’s foreign policy people are reportedly trying to set as many “fires” as possible so that Biden’s Administration is hamstrung the moment they take office, unable to push new initiatives because they’re trying to put those fires out.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs tweeted about death threats she and others in her office have received in the wake of this year’s election, where Joe Biden and Mark Kelly, both Democrats, won the majority of ballots in her state.
Raw Story spoke to a neuroscientist about how Americans can recover from the harm four years of Trump has caused. I think he said something along the lines of “Lock him up.”
Ian Millhiser points out just how undemocratic the United States Senate is, where a minority of the population controls a majority of seats.
LA Times food critic Patricia Escárcega tweeted about how she lost a grievance over the fact that she’s paid less than her male colleague who does the same job that she does. Both were hired in the wake of the death of their legendary food critic Jonathan Gold. UPDATE: she just tweeted another thread in response to the LA Times‘s public statements about the case.
A new marine sanctuary around the archipelago of Tristan da Cunha in the southern Atlantic will be the world’s largest.
A peer in the United Kingdom’s House of Lords referred to Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris as “the Indian” in a tweet, but won’t be sanctioned for it.
Defector has the dope on Bill Simmons’s efforts to thwart the Ringer’s union, while the New York Times looks at how the Ringer is using contractors to reduce the importance of full-time employees.
Donald Clarke of The Irish Times asks why all these terrible films are being called classics, citing Hocus Pocus and The Family Stone.
McSweeney’s presents Olivia, the COVID-19 era American Girl doll.
BBC Radio 1 announced they will no longer play the original version of the Pogues’ Christmas song “Fairytale of New York,” which includes a homophobic slur.
Morrissey claims he was dropped from his record label due to “diversity,” not because he’s a racist, Islamophobic asshole.
Zach Hayes explains the case against Curt Schilling for the Hall of Fame on PitcherList.
The Chicago Public Library eliminated fines for overdue books last year, and saw missing materials return while patronage increased.
The BBC has a primer on the brewing civil war in Ethiopia, where Tigrayan and Oromian people have been at odds since the fall of Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991.
A wrongful death lawsuit claims that managers at a Tyson Foods plant in Iowa placed bets on how many workers would contract COVID-19 after those employees were ordered to report for work even in unsafe conditions.
My former employers at Disney have been accused of withholding royalty payments to author Alan Dean Foster for books he’s written in the Star Wars universe.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: arizona, baseball, colombia, coronavirus, disney, ethiopia, georgia, links, longreads, religion, stick to baseball, texas, the swamp

→ November 21, 2020
→ By keith

The Queen’s Gambit.

The Queen’s Gambit, adapted from the 1983 book of the same name by Walter Tevis, is ostensibly about chess, but it’s really a coming-of-age story about a chess prodigy who overcomes multiple family tragedies and drug addiction to become one of the absolute best players in the world. The story is somewhat flawed, and perhaps ties up too neatly at the end, but it’s a compelling ride from start to finish with a very strong cast.

Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy, who is certainly a star now if she wasn’t already) ends up in an orphanage when the series opens after her mother dies in a car accident from which Beth walks away physically unscathed. While in the orphanage, which is strict but not quite Dickensian, she spots the gruff custodian (Bill Camp) in front of a chess board and demands that he teach her to play. He’s a strict teacher, explaining the game and chess etiquette, but realizes how incredible her mind is and introduces her to a teacher at a local high school who runs a chess club. She’s off to the races … except that she’s also hooked on the tranquilizers that the orphanage feeds to the kids to keep them docile, which presages a long battle with substance abuse even as Beth continues to stun male players and rise up the ranks in the chess world, eventually facing the Soviet champions in Moscow.

There’s a lot to recommend in The Queen’s Gambit, not least of which is the dedication to getting the chess scenes right. I’m not a chess expert, or even much more than a beginner, but I never felt like they were faking the ‘action’ on the chess boards – there were no obvious mistakes like moving a bishop straight up a row or column, or claiming a player was checkmated when it was visibly false. The series spends a lot of time on the chess itself, a difficult creative choice given how hard it is to make what is essentially an intellectual activity exciting on screen. The director emphasizes the tension inherent in chess (and most great two-player games of any sort), where you must figure out your opponent’s likely responses to any move you might make, and they use a gimmick to demonstrate Beth’s prodigious chess mind where she visualizes the board on the ceiling upside-down. The gimmick is cute, maybe a bit overused, but the way they parse the moves on the board with shots of the players – and some help from music and editing – makes the matches seem as tense as the end of any close athletic event.

Taylor-Joy has been on a steady ascent over the last few years, from The Witch to Thoroughbreds to this year’s adaptation of Emma, but The Queen’s Gambit is probably going to be the role that makes her a star. She’s especially good here when she’s not speaking – she’s good at expressing a broad range of emotions just with her face and body language, and handles the transition from awkward teenager to fashion plate (someone had a lot of fun dressing her in mod clothes highly evocative of the mid-60s) with aplomb. Her speech can come across a bit affected, although that’s a minor quibble. This series doesn’t work without her nailing the lead role.

There are a lot of very strong supporting performances, including Camp, Marielle Heller as Beth’s adoptive mother, and Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Beth’s obnoxious rival Benny Watts, but none made a stronger impression than Harry Melling, whose transformation into a series and versatile actor has been a remarkable surprise. Melling plays Harry Beltik, an early competitor whom Beth defeats on the board and enraptures off it, turning him into both a suitor and a friend whose loyalty she doesn’t always deserve. He shows up as an arrogant, overconfident local chess champ, but softens as he grows up, and eventually becomes a voice of maturity and reason that Beth needs, even if she’s not always willing to heed it, and Melling plays that second version of Beltik with compassion and a very amiable nerdiness that makes him the most compelling character in the retinue of men orbiting Beth’s star. Melling was good in The Old Guard as the villain and excellent in a small role in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, but this is the best thing I’ve seen him in since he finished up his run as Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter movies.

The Queen’s Gambit has a couple of problems that didn’t detract from its entertainment value but did keep it from becoming a truly great series (that might, say, win all the awards). One is that its depiction of drug addiction and alcoholism is facile, and there have already been many thinkpieces accusing the series of glorifying substance abuse by depicting it as essential to Beth’s chess genius. That isn’t the ultimate lesson of the series, but she’s probably far too functional as a chess player for someone who is constantly shown drinking and taking benzodiazepines. A second is the use of Jolene, a Black girl whom Beth meets in the orphanage, as a Magical stereotype that ends up coming across as racist even though Jolene’s inclusion was probably an attempt to make the cast more diverse.

The one flaw in the show that did detract from the entertainment value is that Beth’s story arc is just too smooth in its upward trajectory, so there isn’t as much drama at the chess tables as there might have been. Some of this is unavoidable: she’s not going to bomb out in the first or second round of a chess tournament, playing some junior player, because chess has absolutely no luck or randomness in game play. But much of the potential fodder for drama away from the chess board is frittered away by the script, including multiple tragedies after she’s adopted, where potential difficulties are just resolved by good fortune or exceptional foresight. By the time we get to Moscow in the final episode, it’s all seemed a bit too easy for Beth to go from the orphanage basement to a match against the best player in the world.

That wasn’t enough for me to dislike the show; I was still hooked, and my partner and I watched the whole thing inside of three days. It’s paced so well that my attention never flagged, and several of the episodes ended sooner than I expected. I could have used more balance in the story, and the way Jolene returns in the last episode is borderline cringey – a shame, as the actress, Moses Ingram, does the best with what she’s given – but I completely understand the hype. The Queen’s Gambit is worth the binge.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in tv, chess, highly recommended, netflix, tv

→ November 17, 2020
→ By keith

Fort.

The deckbuilder Fort is the newest title from Leder Games, who’ve had two pretty sizable hits with their medium-heavy games Vast and Root (which got a very strong digital port this fall from Dire Wolf). Unlike those games, though, Fort is light, quick, and whimsical, with artwork from Leder’s Kyle Ferrin that really works to enhance game play.

In Fort, two to four players compete to build the most appealing clubhouse or tree fort for neighborhood kids, playing cards from their hands each turn to acquire more pizza or toys and then using them to upgrade their fort from level 0 to level 5. All of your cards depict kids in the neighborhood, but they come in six different ‘suits,’ and cards may have a public action, a private action, both, or neither.

You deal yourself a hand of five cards after each turn, since you may get to play cards on other players’ turns, and when your turn begins you can play one card from your hand that has at least one action on it. You get to execute the public and private actions if you wish; other players can follow the public action, but not the private one. If either action has the symbol X and a suit symbol, you can play further cards showing that suit to multiply that action – gaining more resources, for example. (Other players can follow by playing one card of the matching suit, but can’t multiply by playing additional cards.)

Any cards you play go to your discard pile at the end of your turn, as do your two Best Friend cards if they’re still in your hand. Any other cards you didn’t play go to your Yard, where you might lose them to other players during the Recruit phase. During your own Recruit phase, you get to take one card for free either from another player’s Yard or from the display of three cards from the main deck. So turns are quick: play a card and use its actions, discard, recruit, deal yourself a new hand of five cards. At the start of your next turn, you’ll take any remaining cards in your Yard and put them in your discard pile.

Nearly all of the points you’ll get in Fort come from upgrading your fort, which you do by paying resources, with the cost increasing as you move up the fort track. However, you do have some other avenues to gain points from cards. One is via Made-Up Rule cards, which each player gets when they get to fort level 1, which are private objective cards that can give you additional points at game-end for things like all your blue suit symbols on cards, for trashing both of your Best Friend cards, or for stopping at fort level two. Another is the Lookout, where you can tuck cards under your board, up to your current fort size plus one, which makes them unavailable for the rest of the game. There are cards that you can play that will give you one point per card in your lookout, and those cards do count toward Made-Up Rules. Your storage is limited to four resources of each type, but you also have a backpack space on your board, and can store resources in there up to your fort level plus one, and can play cards that will get you points for what’s there as well.

Fort encourages player interaction, which distinguishes it from a lot of deckbuilders. You can steal cards from other players in the Recruit phase. You can also play certain cards that encourage you to trash cards from other players’ Yards or even discard piles, often netting you resources for doing so. The gist is that you’re all competing to build the coolest hangout, and then you have to entertain the kids you attract enough to keep your competitors from wooing them away.

Ferrin’s art is great – it’s colorful and imaginative, and each kid has a nickname, many of which are wonderfully goofy. We all immediately had our favorites, from Puddin’ to The Ant to Bug to the Noodle Twins (no actions, but worth two suits), and there are two copies of many of those cards, so there are only a few cards where if someone else gets it you’re out of luck until it ends up in their Yards. (There are two cards that are unique, but shouldn’t be, which let you score one point for each pizza/toy resource you have. At least one of those cards is essential if you get the Make-Up Rule for keeping your fort at level 2.) It might almost make you think it’s a game for kids, but it’s probably too complex for players under 10 – it’s actually a retheme of a game I’d never heard of before, 2018’s SPQR – between some of the strategy and the iconography, which is language-independent but not intuitive. There are too many cards that have actions written in forms like (do this -> that) X suit, and I don’t think that’s going to be obvious to new players unless they’ve played a lot of games before.

Fort’s definitely one of my favorite new games of 2020, between the art, the interaction, the smarter twist on deckbuilders (a genre that often disappoints me), the replay value, and the small box for portability. I would take this over Root, which is one of the most highly-regarded strategy games of the last decade, at least, because it’s just that much more accessible, and plays in well under an hour once everyone knows the rhythm of turns. It’s also just plain fun, which is something I think gets underrated by the online board game community, which values high strategy (and complexity) over everything else. There’s something to be said for threatening your daughter if she thinks about stealing The Ant from your Yard that you just won’t get in a two-hour worker placement game. Now if you need me, I’ll be in my clubhouse.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board games, deckbuilding games, highly recommended

→ November 16, 2020
→ By keith

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.

Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm can’t match the shock value of the original Borat film, since we already know the deal and that Sacha Baron Cohen is willing to do anything for the sake of the gag, but I think in the end it’s actually funnier for it. There are still a few moments here where he and his new co-star, the Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova, go too far with a joke, but Cohen seems to have also realized that the real staying power of the original was that he could get the unwitting subjects to go along with him and show their worst selves on camera – which said more about America than it did about his fictionalized Kazakhstan.

After some early setup, the once-disgraced Borat returns to America on a second mission for the Kazakh government, this time to deliver a bribe to a high-ranking U.S. official – eventually settling on Mike Pence. He’s joined after some silly plot contrivances by his daughter Tutar (Bakalova), whom he decides to “offer” to Pence as a bribe, traveling across the southern United States and speaking with many ordinary Americans and some not-very-ordinary ones, most of whom come off far worse for the encounter. He gets a bakery employee to write “Jews will not replace us” on a cake, goes into a “pregnancy crisis center” with Tutar, and spends several days living with a pair of QAnon believers. He also meets a very kind and open-minded Jewish woman after he walks in a synagogue dressed as a giant pile of Jewish stereotypes, and hires a babysitter for Tutar who turns out to be the heart of the film and so popular with fans that a GoFundMe started by her pastor has raised over $180,000.

There are many laugh-out-loud moments in Borat 2, most of which come when one of Cohen’s jokes lands and the Americans he’s mocking do more or less what he’d hoped they would do. You’ve probably heard about the Rudy Giuliani scene – in which he doesn’t acquit himself well, at all, despite his later protestations to the contrary – but that’s not even among the top half-dozen scenes in the film for humor or impact. Borat takes Tutar to a Houston plastic surgeon, who takes the bait and describes how a “Jewish” nose would look by drawing the shape in the air – someone who’s highly educated and likely deals with high-income customers is completely comfortable trafficking in anti-Semitism. There’s a long setup to get to the pregnancy crisis center, but the result is a combination of old-school sitcom misunderstanding and the most cringey behavior imaginable by the pastor at the facility, who clearly has no concern at all for Tutar’s well-being.

Some of the jokes don’t land, though. There’s a menstruation joke that’s just about grossing out some Southern snobs at a dinner for debutantes, which is both unfunny and useless at exposing their elitism or the anachronistic nature of the whole practice. The end of the Giuliani sequence doesn’t really work either. It’s actually funnier to watch Cohen try to avoid fans who recognize him on the street in Texas than to watch those scenes or the drawn-out way in which he tries to reunite with Tutar after she runs away (thanks to the babysitter, who is beyond patient in explaining things to Tutar, including that women in the United States have actual rights).

Nothing is so damning as how easily many white Americans in this film show themselves to be racist or anti-Semitic, even when they know full well they’re being recorded, much as the South Carolina frat boys did near the end of the first Borat when they wished slavery still existed. The plastic surgeon is unapologetic for his comments on “Jewish noses” or his lecherous comments towards Tutar. I don’t think the bakery employee or the propane salesman who says his tank can wipe out a whole van of Roma people have said anything publicly or all the people singing along with the racist lyrics of “Country Steve.” And what would they say? This is who they are, and this is who we are. All Cohen had to do was turn his cameras on Americans and let us do the work.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 best adapted screenplay nominees, 2020 best supporting actress nominees, 2020 movies, comedies, highly recommended, mockumentaries, satire

→ November 14, 2020
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 11/14/20.

For subscribers to The Athletic, I wrote about the major rule changes in MLB in 2020 that might stick around, and which ones might be worth keeping. I also held a Klawchat on Thursday.

Over at Paste, I reviewed The Search for Planet X, a deduction game that is one of the best board games I’ve played all year.

My guest on this week’s episode of The Keith Law Show was Fangraphs managing editor Meg Rowley, talking with me about the state of baseball, free agency, and some recent managerial hires. My podcast is now available on Amazon podcasts as well as iTunes and Spotify.

I’m due for another edition of my free email newsletter, this weekend, I hope.

As the holiday season approaches, I’ll remind you every week that my books The Inside Game and Smart Baseball make excellent gifts for the baseball fan or avid reader in your life.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: In Arkansas, tenants who fall behind on their rent can end up in jail, because apparently that state is still operating like the setting of a Dickens novel. The law dates back to the turn of the last century and even prosecutors say it’s probably unconstitutional. ProPublica examines the law and cases where people, often women and people of color, have been further victimized by it. Arkansas voted overwhelmingly red this month, giving Trump, his sycophant Sen. Tom Cotton, and three of their four Representatives at least 60% of the vote, while elections in the two chambers of their state legislature went more than 3 to 1 for Republicans.
An extensive disinformation campaign run by Russian and Syrian intelligence agencies led to the suicide of the founder of Mayday Rescue, best known as the group that helped create Syria’s White Helmets.
Scientists may have solved the information paradox of black holes, which was first described by Stephen Hawking. Black holes appear to be able to ‘shed’ information, rather than simply absorbing (and thus destroying) all information that enter them. This goes against Einstein’s theory of general relativity, instead relying on quantum gravity.
From September of 2019, this Washington Monthly story profiles a far-right Youtube hatemonger whose rise in popularity has been a nightmare for establishment conservatives – yet they have no problem courting that audience’s votes come elections.
Protocol has a brief history of Discord, the popular social media app for gamers (which I’ve used several times to demo board games with publishers), although it’s still not really clear how the company can monetize this large audience.
Taiwan’s 2014 Sunflower Revolution led to a change in how its democracy works, powered by a new platform called vTaiwan that facilitates discussion of policy matters and encourages consensus rather than the chaos typical of social media.
Rev. Raphael Warnock is a Democrat running against Sen. Kelly Loeffler in one of the two runoff elections in Georgia in January, and Republicans are attacking him for a 2002 arrest for obstruction of justice … which was for objecting to police interrogating minors without a lawyer or guardians present. The investigators later apologized.
Meanwhile, multi-millionaire Sen. David Perdue (R), facing Jon Ossoff (D) in the other runoff, is a climate change denier who owns a beachfront mansion in a neighborhood that has taken extensive steps to protect itself from rising sea levels.
And major GOP donors are pouring money into the state to try to preserve the GOP’s advantage in the Senate.
Several State Senate candidates in Florida were fake candidates funded by dark money to confuse voters into not voting for Democrats – such as an Alex Rodriguez running against the Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez in a district the Republican won by just 31 votes.
This was published the day before the election, but Vox described some activist groups’ plans to fight back when Trump refused to concede the election, some of which we’ve seen already in action.
A Republican firm run by a top aide on Trump’s campaign sent out mass, unmarked tests to Philly supporters urging them to protest vote-counting in the city.
From Nate Silver: Joe Biden won pretty convincingly in the end.
Jennifer Rubin (writing in the Washington Post) writes that changing demographics spell trouble for the Republican Party going forward as their path to the Presidency gets narrower.
The same paper reports on the shift of Latinx voters in the Rio Grande valley towards Trump, even as the state as a whole moved towards Biden, underscoring the diversity of the Latinx population, especially when it comes to what issues and policies matter to each voter, and the Democrats’ messaging failure in that region.
Roxane Gay wrote for the New York Times that the continued support for Trump is a disgrace, but that she’s energized and ready to fight for a better future. I don’t understand how 70 million Americans can see (gestures wildly around self) this and say they want four more years of it.
This Twitter thread undercuts any arguments in favor of the Electoral College, asking whether its defenders even understand what they’re defending.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito went on a steeply partisan rant while speaking at the Federalist Society. Not for nothing, but the house impeached SCOTUS Justice Samuel Chase in 1804 on grounds that he was too partisan.
Public health experts and scientists say Utah’s government is ignoring their calls for action to stop the state’s COVID-19 surge, with an infection rate of 1.17, 81.3 daily new cases per 100,000 residents, and less than 25% of their ICU beds available.
Meanwhile, Florida hired an unqualified, conspiracy theory-touting sports blogger for its COVID-19 task force. He showed up in my mentions one time with some bullshit about masks being ineffective (fun fact – they are, and the CDC just updated their recommendations to say that masks offer the wearer more protection than previously believed).
WHYY’s The Pulse podcast looks at the ongoing efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and the upcoming battle to get people to trust it.
Have you seen the claim that suicides are up 200% due to the lockdown, often cited as an argument against a second closing of the economy? It’s false, and it’s gross to try to use suicide, a very real problem, to fight policies designed to reduce the spread the coronavirus.
The Cut looks at several youngish Americans who are ignoring the pandemic and guidelines for limiting its spread by traveling around the world without regard to the consequences of their selfish actions.
High Street on Market, my favorite restaurant in Philadelphia, has closed temporarily but plans to relocate and open again in 2021. Their sibling restaurant Fork is still open, with outdoor seating, as they had a different lease and landlord.
Geneva now has the world’s highest minimum wage, about US$25 an hour, to allow the many service workers in its city to pay their rent and feed themselves without having to rely on public assistance or food pantries. It’s the same problem facing low-wage earners in many U.S. cities like San Francisco – they can’t afford to live in or near the city where they work.
Chris Archer wrote on the Players Coalition site about how absurdly hard it was for him to vote.
Vogue offered a quick appreciation of Stacey Abrams’ role in turning Georgia blue – which may matter even more in those upcoming runoffs. You can volunteer to help the Democrats try to win those seats or donate to Abrams’ Fair Fight.
VICE explores the history of the Great Barrier Hotel, once floating near the reef of that name but now moored and disused on the coast of North Korea.
Sarah McBride became the highest-ranking trans elected official in the U.S. when she won election to the state Senate here in Delaware this month.
This Inside Hook article on The Strand bookstore is the most balanced look I’ve seen at the controversy around the store’s actions this year with its workforce and PPP loan. (The owner’s purchase of shares in Amazon is a red herring, mentioned to get an emotional reaction but logical for any high net worth investor during a pandemic.)
The New York Times‘ nepotista Maggie Haberman has made a career out of normalizing and excusing Donald Trump and many of his supporters; Drew Magary skewers her, the Times, and the paper’s bizarre decision to run a profile of her in its own pages.
The Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas has failed in its response to dozens of claims from women that they were manipulated or sexually abused by men on that certification body, which certifies Sommeliers and Master Sommeliers in the U.S. and Canada. They’re on their second apology already.
Philadelphia was prepared for post-election violence, but street protests turned into dance parties. That was no accident, but was the result of planning efforts by the Working Families Party, a pro-labor, semi-progressive political party mostly active in the northeast.
Board game news: Asmodee introduced Connect and Play, guides for playing some of its games over Zoom or other remote communication services, including Just One and Dixit.
Satish Pillalamarri, one of the co-founders of North Star Games (publishers of Evolution and the Quacks of Quedlinburg), passed away this month at the age of 42 due to cancer.
Quined Games, a European publisher of primarily mid-weight to heavy games like Agra and Keyflower, announced that the new game Carnegie will hit Kickstarter on November 23^rd. It’s from the designer of Carson City and co-designer of Troyes.
Z-Man Games has released Pandemic Legacy: Season 0, the final installment in this trilogy, this one a prequel to the other two games and thus not a continuation of that storyline.
Evolution, which has been out for Steam and tablets since late 2019, is coming to Nintendo Switch in December.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, florida, georgia, links, longreads, philadelphia, physics, social media, stick to baseball, syria, taiwan, utah, voter suppression

→ November 12, 2020
→ By keith

Klawchat 11/12/20.

I have a column up on rule changes from 2020 that might become permanent up for subscribers to the Athletic.

Keith Law: Pull my shirt off and pray … for Klawchat.

Guest: What is your take on what the orange POTUS is up to now?
Keith Law: I wish I felt more confident that Democrats were taking this more seriously. I don’t think this is all some harmless cover-up.

barbeach: You’re back! Thanks for another chat. If you are the Yankees, do you give Gleyber Torres another year at SS or move him back to 2B and figure out how to fill SS through trade/FA?
Keith Law: I’d let the market decide that to some extent – if they land one of the good SS on the market, then move Gleyber. I don’t think he’s as bad as he looked in 2020.

DRB: I’m sure you know the quote “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” I’m not smart enough (I wish more people would admit this about themselves), but do you think perhaps we need to split up the union like how the USSR was split up? I don’t know why people in North Dakota should benefit from the work being done in Cali/NY, etc.
Keith Law: Or why Mississippi, where an elected official said the state should “succeed from the union” (a testament to their worst-in-the-US education system), should be propped up by taxpayers in blue states, only to exert undue influence over the country’s policies? That’s the real problem I see with our current system. Of course, eliminating the electoral college and making the Senate more representative of population would remove most of that problem and both are a lot less dramatic than, ahem, “succession.”

Jim: Keith, MLB.com just published the list of Rule 5-eligible MiLB players. I know you firmly hold that there’s rarely a player worth taking in the draft, but will you be posting an article on the eligible players? (What with everything going on, I can’t recall what you did last year.)
Keith Law: I probably won’t. There isn’t a list out yet because the rosters don’t have to be set until November 20th. If someone of note is omitted, I’ll write about him (or them, I guess), but usually I don’t because there aren’t any.

xxx(yyy): Any (new) cookbook recs for 2020? Either new to you or that came out this year?
Keith Law: Looking at my shelves … I think there are more books I’m hoping to acquire in the next two months (like Hugh Acheson’s How to Cook, Nik Sharma’s Flavor Equation) than new ones this year I’ve used. I’ve cooked a lot from books I already owned, but used new recipes because we joined a CSA.

Jim: So, everything points to the Republicans not having a leg to stand on re: “voting fraud”. However, in light of the rhetoric, firings in Pentagon leadership, etc., how aluminum-foil-hattish is it to be worried about Trump deciding not to leave?
Keith Law: I don’t think it’s irrational at all to worry about it.

Eh Team: What is George Valera’s ceiling as a player? And how has the lack of a minor league season impacted players, especially younger players like Valera?
Keith Law: The lack of a season is going to impact all players, but each of them will be hit differently. Some pitchers could be better off from the year of rest. Many hitters will be worse off – and I’d guess Valera might be one, given how raw he is as a hitter – but some won’t, because they’re just that good, or their approaches are that advanced. And players had access to different resources, depending on where they were this year and what funds were available. So there’s no one answer; it’s bad for the sport as a whole, and for most players, but the degree it affects players will vary by individual.

JC: What do you think the Rockies will do with their infield/outfield?? They going to leave Josh Fuentes at 1B? Ryan McMahon at 2B? Keep Brendan Rodgers in reserves if they trade Story / Arenado? Do you like Raimel Tapia in LF? What is your thoughts on Sam Hilliard?
Keith Law: They should trade Arenado, although I understand any Rockies fan who loathes that idea; it’s just the best move for the franchise long-term. If they were to do that, they could try McMahon at third and Rodgers at 2b. If not, McMahon might still be their best option at 1b, although he has not hit up to my expectations yet. I like Hilliard’s power/speed/arm combo but you can’t punch out 37% of the time as a Rockie and be productive. IIRC it’s breaking stuff, especially sliders, that have always been his weakness.

Bill: As a Red Sox fan, I am not sure how I feel about the Cora signing. He seems to be well respected and Boston is not the easiest place to work so its probably a good signing. However, past events should be considered (yes people deserve a 2nd chance (even Bonds, Rocket) but for some reason ). What are your thoughts? Could tehy add Fuld as a bench coach?
Keith Law: No issue at all with Cora or Hinch getting jobs – they’re both highly qualified and both served their MLB penalties. I’m good with Carlos Beltran getting another shot at some point, although if I were him, I’d try to go manage a year in AA or AAA and then go for a job next winter, when I think he’d be an immediate front-runner.

Ben (MN): How did the local candidate that you were supporting do in the election?
Keith Law: She won! Flipped a seat that had been red for 40 years. We had 70% turnout in the district, so those of us who volunteered felt like we all made a difference. The incumbent is a very nice person, but the most notable aspect of her tenure was that she sent constituents cards on their birthdays (and several voters mentioned that while I was a poll greeter on Election Day … as if that’s a good way to fill out your ballot).

Mark: Is there a good product I can buy for home use to keep my knives sharp ?
Keith Law: I own this Chef’s Choice sharpener and I like it. Just don’t use it too often – it’s actually grinding the steel on your knives.

addoeh: With Stroman taking his QO, what does that say about the market this winter? As Meg Rowley and you discussed on the pod, this is something owners have wanted to do for a while and COVID has just given them the opportunity. I think the number of teams that are looking to add 10+% to their payroll this offseason is going to be low.
Keith Law: I’m not sure if we can generalize from that because Stroman didn’t pitch at all in 2020. He is the perfect example of a player who should at least consider the one-year deal, taking 2021 to reestablish his value (and health) and go for a multi-year deal next winter. Andrelton Simmons is in the same boat – his defensive metrics were down in 2020 because he was hurt.

Key Frederick: Zach Lowther of the Orioles doesn’t have the best velocity, but he seems to have been very successful in the minors. From what I read (I haven’t seen him) he sounds a lot like Sid Fernandez (which is super-optimistic, I know). I don’t believe he actually will be the second coming of Sid Fernandez, but can a pitcher with his pitch repertoir actually succeed as a MLB starter? Especially with the apparent change of focus in organizational pitching philosophy.
Keith Law: I would bet on yes, at least as a back-end starter. Huge extension, great spin rates. Will just never wow you with velocity or power, but hitters have a very hard time seeing the ball or squaring it up.

Ben (MN): I made Hugh Acheson’s carrot soup that you had recommended in a previous chat, and it was delicious even though I don’t have access to fresh carrots. I find myself doing more “real” cooking in the winter when it is cold, but find it a bummer that I don’t have access to any fresh produce in MN in the winter. I’d imagine you have a similar problem n Delaware too. Do you find that your cooking habits change in the winter, and if so, how?
Keith Law: Yes, especially since we try to cook a little bit seasonally, so the produce we use changes (and we use more frozen vegetables too). We work in more soups and other ‘hearty’ dishes in the winter, and do fewer salads or cold dinners.

Nick: Do you think the Dodgers see Kody Hoese as their future starting third baseman, or do they need to find an answer post-Turner (whenever that is) elsewhere?
Keith Law: No, it’s not Hoese. He’s not very good, and he’s not a 3b.

Guest: Keith, at what point this off-season are owners going to argue that they can’t afford to pay players their full salaries next year given likely attendance restrictions? And then what happens?
Keith Law: They will, and there will be an acrimonious negotiation.

Moe Mentum: Who has done more long-term damage to our system of government – Donald Trump (sowing public hysteria and mistrust) or Mitch McConnell (re-writing rules and revising protocols to suit the party in power)?
Keith Law: I say Trump, because he has convinced so many (gullible) Americans of so many false things.

Gerry: What is your honest opinion on ridiculous assessment by MacPhail re: uprooting during a pandemic as a reason for the Phillies “snails pace” FO search? Embarrassing and bad optics I would think
Keith Law: I don’t agree with him. I know highly qualified candidates who are interested in that job right now.

Moe Mentum: Do you agree with Cash and Mattingly winning 2020 Manager of the Year awards? If not, who were better candidates?
Keith Law: (yawn)

ck: Kolten Wong would be a nice fit for the Cubs right? Defense, speed, and obp at the top of the lineup. Or do you guess they are not spending money again this year…
Keith Law: No idea on their budget but yes, Wong’s a good fit for most teams. Still shocked the Cards just let him go.

DRB: I want to ask your opinion on Blake Snell’s last start. When does the long view of analytics become a disservice to individual games? Blake Snell was dealing, just like pitchers have dealt since the beginning of baseball. Even though if that game was played 100 times, going to the pen may have been the higher percentage play, doesn’t randomization mean that some times the manager should play a hunch and just leave Snell in the game?
Keith Law: Snell wasn’t dealing, though; wasn’t his fastball velocity starting to slip, which has always been the traditional indicator that a pitcher is tiring and needs to come out? Plus ‘dealing’ isn’t really a thing – you’re dealing until the moment you’re not. It has no predictive power.
Keith Law: (I would have left Snell in to face Betts, who nobody gets out, and then Seager, so you get the LHP vs LHB. But I don’t share some of the ire for the decision that many people feel.)

Jon: Keith, what can the average person do to help ensure that we don’t end up with a savvier, Trump-like individual take over in 2024?
Keith Law: Get more involved, starting at the local level. Don’t take the midterms off from activism. Register more voters. Fight voter suppression if it exists in your area. And support real fact-based journalism when you can.

Brian (Austin): Keith, have you had any experience with Goldbelly yet? Thinking of ordering some Pizzeria Bianco and was wondering it if will be worth the price.
Keith Law: I have – a friend with the Bianco Group sent some of their pizzas through Goldbelly and they were great. It’s a different experience frozen & reheated at home, but the flavors were all still there. You just get more of a cracker-like crust than the softer version at the restaurant.

Tim: Any surprises to you on who did and did not accept the qualifying offers?
Keith Law: Nope. I assumed Gausman would, expected the four who declined to do so, and wasn’t sure either way on Stroman.

Todd Boss: Delaware certified their results 11/5/20! First state to ratify the Constitution, and now the first state to certify the election that ousts the greatest threat to that Constitution since.
Keith Law: We do some things right here. And I like our chances to do even more with so many progressive voices in our legislature.

Matt: You gonna join Parler and give them your driver’s license and passport information?
Keith Law: Is there anything more telling than how many people signed up there and agreed to those absurd terms, and how those are the same people who believe bullshit conspiracy theories like QAnon? It’s all a grift.

DRB: Since you’re a big music guy, what do you use to listen? What kind of speakers/headphones do you use? I have the Harman Kardon set up in my car, and it’s life changing, highly recommend.
Keith Law: Nothing fancy. I have never really seen the value in those investments. Also I listen to a lot of music in the car or while moving around the house so I use speakers.

Todd Boss: The Nats are on the hook to pay significant amounts of deferred dollars in 2021 (somewhere in the $26.5M range including buyouts of 2021 options). Do you think they’ll use these dollars (which are already accounted for in prior year’s luxury tax salary cap considerations) as an excuse not to go near the $210M 2021 cap figure?
Keith Law: Possibly, and we always knew eventually they would have to pay for the investments they made in some of those players (which helped them win in 2019). It may be more of an excuse to keep payroll down than an excuse to avoid the luxury tax specifically.

Todd Boss: Do you think newly-minted Cy Young winner Bauer will stick to his 1-year contract only demand? What could he realistically command on a one year deal? Could he beat his former UCLA teammate and best friend Gerritt Cole’s $36 AAV figure?
Keith Law: I’ve assumed he’d get to free agency and take a five-year offer, which he should get, but I don’t think he’d get Cole money – he just doesn’t have Cole’s track record.

Alex: Is there any doubt in your mind Steve Cohen is going to make at least one big FA signing if nothing else to appease the fan base and announce to MLB owners the Mets are going to be a serious contender for all free agents going forward?
Keith Law: I assume they’ll be among the biggest players in free agency, and given their roster, they should be.

addoeh: Just saw your new Athletic article. Would a roster like the NFL, where there is a 53 man active roster but a 45 man gameday roster, work? There would be a limit on how many relief pitchers you could have on a gameday, but you could have more on an active roster for the next day. Guys could easily move between the two and would get service time “credit” just for being on the active roster.
Keith Law: I worry that that would be too easy for teams to manipulate.

Michael: Do you agree that the Dems didn’t fare as well as hoped in part because they are so wishy washy on what they stand for and using their power to affect change? E.g. lack of house subpoenas. Also how do you feel about them trying to blame the AOC wing for their problems?
Keith Law: It seems that Dems fared worse where their candidates were more moderate; progressives have clearer, stronger messages about ways they intend to help the working class voter, and that resonated. That’s an overgeneralization across the whole country but my takeaway from the overall results is that the Democrats need to embrace progressive messaging and make sure they are explicit about policies they will enact. Running against Trump only worked to elect Biden this year, not the whole ballot, and that will not be a factor in 2022 (we hope).

Sammy So-so: Trevor Bauer seems really difficult to value based on his uneven career. Do you think he’s an elite starter now or will just be paid like one? Thanks.
Keith Law: He’s been an elite starter once in a full season, and again in this truncated season. I wouldn’t call anyone with that little of a track record an elite starter.

Seth: I know you generally think the Rule 5 draft is a lot to do about nothing but considering how many minor leaguers didnt play last year, do you think there maybe more to it this year where teams may be able to find someone available they previously did not?
Keith Law: I do not. Teams have no data or scouting reports to use to make those determinations.

Nick: The logic behind the Phillies not interviewing anyone for GM is…nonexistent? Are they just going to wait for Theo Epstein next year?
Keith Law: I’ve heard that hypothesis. Theo’s track record is superb, but I’m not sure waiting a year is in the franchise’s best interests.

silvpak: though they have insane roster flexibility, do you see the dodgers actually doing anything of real note during the offseason? i’d assume they resign turner to something like 2/22 or 3/30 (that’s a certainty if the universal dh comes in and beaty and rios can spell him at 3b) and i think they’ll resign kike, as that marriage makes sense for both sides, but that’s less certain pending lux. other than being opportunistic with the bullpen, i just can’t see la getting into any big ticket items unless the lindor price drops to maybe 2/3 of what mookie cost (which would push turner and kike out, you’d assume), they want to drive the price up (lemeihu), or there’s a ‘steal’ on a one year prove it deal. thoughts?
Keith Law: I could see them extending Seager or trading for Lindor (it’s either/or, though). I’d guess they’ll surf the lower end of the market for one-year relief options, but do they have a substantial need anywhere else?
Keith Law: Glad you mentioned Rios. He can help a major-league team.

Guest: Minasian announced as Angels GM. Should I have more hope as a Halos fan?
Keith Law: He’s great. That’s a great choice. Super bright, energetic, comes from a great front office in Atlanta as well. We’ll have to see how he handles Trumpy Moreno, and of course there’s the endless mandate to build and win at the same time there. He does inherit a far better system than Eppler did, though.

James: Broke down and subscribed to the athletic because of you. Royals question – not likely competing until 2023 at the earliest, shouldn’t they trade soler, Duffy, merrifield and any reliever? I understand keeping salvy because of what he means to kc.
Keith Law: They don’t think they’re that far away given the wave of pitching coming. I would trade (or have traded?) Duffy, though, and would explore the same for Merrifield given his age.

J.O.: Instead of “runner at 2nd” – why not just have a tie after 12 innings? I mean – there would be like 10 a year.
Keith Law: Ties are anathema to all baseball fans. I’m not even saying that’s right, but we are as opposed to ties as anybody.

Wadi: Will you be following Winter Leagues this year? Lots of prospects playing, especially in the DR.
Keith Law: Define “following.” I don’t know that I’ll pay any more attention than usual.

Jake: Brandon Nimmo has the 7th highest wRC+ in baseball amongst all outfielders since 2018 yet I’ve seen people treat him as a 4th outfielder or a throw in in Lindor trade packages, what gives?
Keith Law: Because he doesn’t hit LHP well and doesn’t face them as often as a full-timer. wRC+ and similar stats can be misleading for part-time players; if you had a hypothetical LHB who literally never faced a left-handed pitcher, his wRC+ would be much higher than it would be if he had a full-time role and faced lefties 1/3 or more of the time. He’s the same player either way, but how he’s used would dramatically alter his rate stats.

Steve Cohen: Do you want a job?
Keith Law: You have some great people there and can pretty much hire anybody you want … and I know a lot of people who’d like to be the GM there, too.

Communism: Is Stroman taking the Qualifying offer good or bad for the Mets? Good or bad for Stroman
Keith Law: Good and good.

Martin: Which free agents should the Mets target?
Keith Law: Realmuto and another starter.

Jason (go brewers): What are your thoughts on how MLB handled the turner issue? My thinking is that if they really cared, they could have physically restrained him from going on the field. It probably had to go through multiple levels of people saying “whatever” and letting him. Pathetic.
Keith Law: Completely inexcusable across the board. The moment they got his positive test result he should have been isolated from everyone else. He should have received a lengthy suspension, and MLB should find out exactly how the protocols broke down and taken action against everyone who fell down on the job. Turner remaining in the stadium and going on the field meant continued exposure for his teammates and staffers, and thus increased risk of infection.
Keith Law: I wouldn’t sign the guy for any amount of money after that stunt. At best, it is a complete failure of judgment.

Chad: How ridiculous was Ke’Bryan Hayes finishing 6th in ROY voting?
Keith Law: The BBWAA did a pretty lousy job overall this year, not that I’m shocked, but Hayes finishing 6th was embarrassing for the ROY voters. Either a bunch of them submitted their ballots early, because they’re lazy, or they didn’t bother to check the players’ actual performances, because they’re lazy.
Keith Law: Voting for postseason awards is a privilege and a responsibility. If you’re not willing to make the modest effort to do it well, just decline to vote.

Guest: New Knizia game My City, good for 2 players?
Keith Law: Yes, that’s how we’ve been playing it. (My review.)

Brandon J: Hey Keith, what do you envision the Dodgers doing with May and Gonsolin next year? Full time starters, swing men, up and down to AAA?
Keith Law: Both should be full-time starters, behind Buehler, Kershaw, and Urías. (Did I forget someone?)

Chris: What do you think of the Yankees’ decision to leave Trenton and Staten Island for Somerset and Hudson Valley? What do you think are the chances that either lands another affiliated minor league team?
Keith Law: Personally disappointing as both affiliates are now farther from my house. (This is all about me.) I don’t believe either will end up with an MLB affiliation – certainly not Staten Island.

Mike: Hi Keith, do you think Spencer Howard’s future is as a starter? He seemed to have trouble after the first time through and lost velo. Could that be attributed to the weird offseason?
Keith Law: I attribute it to his on-and-off shoulder issues. More time off might be helpful for him, too.

Brian: How did Williams win ROY with only throwing 27 innings? Also is Arenado just winning the GG based on his reputation now? He missed 20% of the season and still won.
Keith Law: People were dazzled by Williams’ low ERA, when of course his RA and FIP and other stats were much higher.

agu_iii: The dodgers pipeline has been producing major leaguers for awhile. I see they have dropped in the rankings because of graduations. Are there more prospects coming up that have a chance of being quality players?
Keith Law: Yep, still more on the way, like Cartaya and Josiah Gray and Michael Busch, all top 100 prospects right now.

Sdewy: Have you played the AGoT board game? If so, have you had a chance to check out their Steam port of it? If not, then why are you a monster?
Keith Law: I’ve played the physical game but it’s not my cup of tea at all. Too convoluted and way too long.

Jibraun: Do you think playoffs will be expanded in any form in 2020? And beyond? And if so, does 12 teams look more likely or 14?
Keith Law: I’d bet on no fewer than 12.

Jake: Do you have a target date for rolling out your prospect lists this year? I believe last year they were later than usual with the move to The Athletic.
Keith Law: We haven’t discussed that at all yet, but on my end, I think the package overall will be smaller because I don’t have anything new to say on so many players. I’m not a fan of writing just for the sake of writing; I have to have something to tell you.

Matt: Do you have any clue what the White Sox are doing with this “wait and see how this plays out” process? If there’s bloodwork showing he was above the legal limit, are they just hoping he gets off on a technicality? I know it’s hard to get inside the mind of the worst owner in baseball but hopefully there’s a path to get TLR out before the season starts
Keith Law: My guess is Reinsdorf doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks. He hired his friend.

tom: It took maybe a hundred Facebook posts, along with a horribly botched pandemic response, but I FINALLY succeeded in convincing my Republican parents in PA to not vote for Trump. They didn’t vote for Biden, of course, but it’s still a huge victory. As awful as FB is, you gotta reach them where they are!
Keith Law: One of my best calls while phone banking involved convincing a woman in Arizona to vote for Jo Jorgensen rather than Trump. She was a Mark Kelly voter – no idea how you reconcile those two things – but repeated some alt-right claims about Biden that were utter nonsense. It’s sad when seemingly nice people are unable to distinguish real news from that kind of crap.

Johnny: Where do you see Abrams in ‘22? 2B or CF?
Keith Law: Why not SS?

Rey: If it was your choice, what would you do with the Pioneer League?
Keith Law: I was OK with losing the Pioneer and Appy Leagues. I’m not OK with losing short-season entirely. I think that hurts player development.

White Socks: does la russa cost the team wins? or just their soul?
Keith Law: Both. The guy hasn’t managed since 2011, he’s now 76 years old, and there’s no reason to think he can or will work with their R&D department, the way 29 other managers seem to.

BaseballThug: Jo Adell – how much of a hit did his trade value take? Are there real concerns, or can 2020 be thrown out because of COVID & him being rushed to the bigs?
Keith Law: None. Pretty sure every team would take him now in a trade.

Guest: I know there were no minor league games at all, but are there ANY players you can say improved their stock significantly this, based on info you’ve gathered from other sources, people you trust, etc?
Keith Law: No. It’s way too speculative.

Aaron: Hi Keith. Wondering if your opinion on Cavan Biggio has changed as we reach 600 major league PAs? The eye test does not seem to match some of the statistics that he has put up thus far (OPS+ 116, 368obp). I see a player with a fairly passive approach and below average bat speed but his stats have thus far seemed to suggest an above-average regular.
Keith Law: Nope. He’s just not very good, and those stats are really skewed by a big September in 2019 when he feasted on some garbage pitching. Tampa Bay had his number – they attacked him with velocity and he couldn’t adjust.

Bryan (Montclair): Thoughts on the Steve Cohen/Sandy transition presser this week? I don’t think I’ve heard even anything remotely negative from media or fans. Also – any thoughts on Michael Hill as a candidate for the GM role?
Keith Law: Hill’s tenure in Miami doesn’t give me great confidence in what he’d do in New York. They drafted and developed very poorly while he was there, and I don’t think we can conclude anything from the major-league side because he was always constrained by ownership.

Greg: It’s it just crazy to think that losing one of those GA senate seats wouldn’t be the WORST thing? I’m a little worried about increasing Republican enthusiasm, and the Dems taking a slim margin into the midterms would put them in real danger of losing both houses. If they go into 2022 down 49-51 in the Senate, with the GOP obstructing everything, maybe they can make that the big midterm issue and win the senate by more than one seat?
Keith Law: I’d rather see the Dems take the Senate and get something accomplished in two years – including statehood for DC and PR – that they can use in 2022 if we survive that long.

Brian: Is there any team that’s surprised you with how they’ve handled their personnel (good or bad) in terms of either keeping employees employeed or laying off too many scouts/analysts/general employees and crying poor?
Keith Law: How about the Dodgers and Rays?

Tom: You keeping up with the running as the temperatures drop? I started running much more seriously during the pandemic, and now with less daylight and colder temps it feels much harder to motivate. Trying to overblast my goals now in anticipation of the holidays.
Keith Law: The temps haven’t stopped me but we’ve had a lot of rain lately and that does. I’m not unreasonably concerned about slipping on the wet leaves everywhere.

silvpak: re: trump – it is entirely a con job (he’s broke and the money people are donating will be used to satisfy his campaign debt) and a branding exercise for trump world news. the installation of trump loyalists in the governmental ecosystem is to slow transition down, ensure loyalists are locked into hard-to-fire positions, and lay the road for a 2024 run, or gubernatorial run in florida by ivanka. the reality show era of politics is in full swing and we will not be able to walk it back.
Keith Law: And the damage done will be permanent.
Keith Law: Also, the complicity of so many Republicans in Congress should concern everyone.

Mike Trout: Do you know what is actually in Biden’s power to make elections more fair for dems going forward, if he doesn’t have the Senate? The trends in the Rust Belt and Miami-Dade/Florida make it look pretty bleak for winning the Electoral College again.
Keith Law: Demographic trends across the south are favorable to Democrats, actually. Arizona turning blue was a result of that, and Georgia and Texas are heading that way. North Carolina might as well. They’re getting younger and more nonwhite. Getting more of those voters registered and to the polls, and even more white women to the polls, would help.

Jonas: Sportsnet in Canada suggested Gurriel/Groshans/de Castro as a reasonable offer for Lindor from the Jays? Too much? Not enough?
Keith Law: LOL

bartleby: Understanding that weed is legal in California…how much were the Giants smoking when they agreed to Gausman for $18.9 million?
Keith Law: No issue here. One year for a guy who was very good for them and still has some upside remaining.

JR: Will you be reading JK Rowling’s new books (published either under her name or her pseudonym)? Or will you boycott based on her stance on transgender? Can you appreciate an artist’s talent in one area even if you disagree with their public stance on certain issues?
Keith Law: I don’t see myself spending more on her books … I read the first two Strike novels but skipped the third when I heard how transphobic it was, before her public comments. If she wrote something else in the HP universe, though, I’d probably read it.

JR: Personal question: have you had a vasectomy? I’m getting one in a few hours. Any last minute advice if you’ve had one?
Keith Law: I haven’t. Good luck though. I hear ice is helpful.

Brint: Any chance Bohm can stick at 3rd? If not and no DH in NL moving forward, should the Phillies look to move Hoskins this winter? While he’s affordable I can’t imagine his value is all too high right now.
Keith Law: IMO no. Bohm is 90% or better to end up at 1b.

Chris: IIRC you are a Taika Waititi fan; check out Hunt for the Wilderpeople, watched it last night, enjoyable 2016 film w Sam Neill.
Keith Law: Watched it this summer. It’s wonderful.

Zach: Never expected that DJ Lemahieu would leave Coors Field and suddenly turn into one of the 10 most productive players in baseball. Have you heard about or seen any mechanical or approach changes he made?
Keith Law: A lot of it was Yankee Stadium, especially the power.

Nate: We obviously saw Marcus Stroman say he would never play for Tony La Russa.

How much of an impact will his hire have on free agents? Surely some will be vocal, but most will remain fairly diplomatic about their displeasure.

Will they struggle to attract FAs they need/want because of La Russa?
Keith Law: I believe you are correct – most won’t say anything, but at least some players will simply decide to sign elsewhere even if the offers are comparable, without us ever hearing why.

Rob: In terms of prospect status, would current prospect Wander Franco rank ahead of pre 2019 #1 Tatis? Is Tatis current level of play within the statistical norm of outcomes for Franco?
Keith Law: I would rank pre-2019 Tatis higher – he added more value on the bases and in the field.

Chris: Surprised Justus Sheffield got no rookie of the year votes?
Keith Law: Yes. See above.

Jackie: I’m OK with Cora getting another shot, but Tony LaRussa … forget about the fact that he leaves a trail of empty syringes everywhere he goes. You don’t get to have multiple DUIs on your resume, as well as the drunk driving death of Josh Hancock in 2007 when he was leaving Busch Stadium.
Keith Law: And his comments not too long ago about players kneeling for the anthem. I know TLR conveniently said the right things this week, but I’m not buying it until we see his players protesting in front of him and him having their backs.

Michael: Cases have doubled in the last 10 days. If that happens again we will be at 300k cases a day by Thanksgiving. Will our country ever take Covid seriously?
Keith Law: No. We’re going to have to lock down again, and people will take it worse than they did the first time, in no small part because the Republican Party chose to politicize a virus.

Andrew: I was a little surprised by some of the bootstraps narrative that emerged about Bauer yesterday. It’s always been there (and seems to run counter to a more holistic view of his career–he as a #3 pick! he was really difficult in AZ!), but was put out by a few sources I was surprised to see it from. Were you?
Keith Law: Same. He grew up with plenty of privilege, and went to a college that has churned out MLB pitching prospects. We can respect the work he’s put in without pretending he’s some Horatio Alger story.

Lee: How is it possible that Trump got 10 million more people to vote for him than 2016? How could people live through the last 4 years and want more of the same? I just don’t understand how this many people can be this delusional.
Keith Law: Talk to some of them and hear the stuff they believe – conspiracy theories and just plain lies they saw on Facebook or alt-right sites, to the point that the beliefs become as immutable as religion.

Jeff: COVID has revealed how stupid college sports are, correct? Sure, the pros had issues, but college football is a mess. Why do we continue to tie athletic development to academic institutions?
Keith Law: The answer, always, is money.

Tom: Have you watched The Queen’s Gambit?
Keith Law: I believe that’s our plan for weekend watching. That and the Eagles/Giants summit.

Jesse: Do you have any fast casual chains you like?
Keith Law: Many I don’t mind – Panera, Chipotle, even Panda Express is fine. We have a local chain called honeygrow that’s quite good and is probably the best fast-casual place I know if you want a real vegetarian meal.

Rocky Balboa: There were 1,800 new virus cases in ND today. Unless my math is off, if you extrapolate that nationally, it’s like having 800K cases. And Mr P gives zero shits.
Keith Law: I can not believe officials in the Dakotas are still singing the same denialist tune they were in April. Both Dakotas have at least 140 new cases per 100K population a day, and positive test rates of 20% or more. South Dakota is likely to run out of ICU beds this month. Both states voted straight red, though.

DRB: Re: value in speaker investments…the value is being able to hear some of the more complex sounds. The bass in some songs come through a lot cleaner and heavier that change the experience a lot more than you would think.
Keith Law: And as an amateur musician since I was a little kid … I really don’t care about that. I just don’t listen to music on a technical level like that.

Gary: Hey. Thanks for the chats! What are your thoughts on Bryson Stott? Has there been any additional reports that you have heard on him from any of the camps?
Keith Law: Same as last year. As I said above, anything from the satellite camp is unconfirmable enough that it won’t budge my opinion on any player.

xxx(yyy): Does John Coppolella ever get off of the permanently ineligible list? Was it an over the top penalty or reasonable in your opinion?
Keith Law: Over the top, by far, but they wanted to make an example of him, and he didn’t have the allies in MLB that John Hart did.

xxx(yyy): Do you use your Vitamix very often? What do you make in it these days?
Keith Law: Great for soups, actually.

Brandon J: For the Dodgers, Is Julio Urias more valuable as a starter, or as a “relief ace”?
Keith Law: I’d start him now, unless there is a reason (shoulder?) he can’t do that.

Jim: Speaking of the Turner issue, any evidence he infected anyone by going back out on the field? Of course this doesn’t excuse his behavior; I’m just curious if you’ve heard anything.
Keith Law: Don’t they have 9 more positive cases? We can’t say exactly when he exposed them but it sounds like he was patient zero.

Chris P: Any word on college baseball in 2021? It seems like the NCAA is just crossing their fingers and letting everything go as if nothing’s happening
Keith Law: I believe that’s their strategy, yes.

Guest: With the lack of a minor league season, do you think there will be more draft picks in your top 100 than usual?
Keith Law: Probably fewer, with more players returning to the list than usual.

Chris P: How much of a slap in the face is it that both Cora and Hinch are managing in the majors again after 1 year?
Keith Law: How much of a leading question is it to ask “how much of a slap in the face is it?” (Answer: None.)

JR: Regarding TLR, he’s a repeat DUI offender too, so you can’t say “he needs a second chance” or “made an innocent mistake because no one was hurt.” Clearly he has no issues driving drunk and thinks he can get away with it.
Keith Law: Correct. And he needs help, not enabling.

Matt: How do you respond to people you like/respect saying reasonable sounding things that you know not to be true? I’m referring both to a bunch of people tweeting about suicide rates as well as a conservative (non-trumpy) friend quoting Alex Berenson as reasons to limit lockdown efforts.
Keith Law: Ask for evidence. The suicide claims are not backed up by any data at all. Berenson claimed we never interacted before I blocked him, but that’s false, as I blocked him for insulting another reader of mine (I was tagged) and told him as much, and he’s also a denialist on COVID-19 and the science around marijuana.

Jeb: Thoughts on Food Chain Magnate?
Keith Law: Never played, sorry.

Pat D: Joe Manchin has already said he won’t support DC or PR statehood. I get where he’s coming from, being that he’s in such a RED state, but that kinda shows that even at 50-50, all it takes is one Dem defection from torpedoing everything. So maybe the better strategy is to unite and do what they can and try to blame the GOP in the midterms? (Despite the fact that the Dems can never strategize properly)
Keith Law: Or try to get one GOP Senator – perhaps one in a purple state – to go along. Manchin’s a DINO anyway.

Greg: How dangerous do you fear Qanon will become with a Democrat as President?
Keith Law: Actually I think they’ll struggle if the major social media platforms follow through on plans to crack down on that content.

Stephen: Your updated board game rankings coming out this month? I gotta know what to request for Christmas this year.
Keith Law: Yes, probably the week of Thanksgiving.

Phillip: Do you think Adam Haseley can be anything more than a 4th OF? Nice level stroke in this Launch Angle world
Keith Law: No, I think that’s what he is.

Shane: Is Kingery a lost cause with the Phillies? I know he had COVID but man, he’s a mess
Keith Law: Someone screwed up his swing, big-time. But I think it’s fixable.

Greg: Here in CO we voted to join the national popular vote interstate compact. Are you in favor of this? Seems like our only real chance to get rid of the EC.
Keith Law: I am in favor of it, but it may not be constitutional.

Michael: Ever take Metamucil? It’s changed my life
Keith Law: I have remedied many of my lifelong stomach problems with psyllium husk (Metamucil) and a magnesium supplement. I understand why the former works, but not entirely why the latter does.

Stephen: Here is some info on the suicide rate not going up during the pandemic for people to send to friends using that argument:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/21/suicide-rates-pande…
Keith Law: Hard evidence seems like as good a place as any to end the chat.
Keith Law: Thank you all for reading, and sorry it had been a while … I was as distracted by the election as most folks, and certainly didn’t want to try to do a baseball chat while the race was still sort of up in the air. I’ll keep these going at least every two weeks in the offseason, and there will be more video chats via Periscope or via The Athletic as well. Please stay safe, wear your masks, and listen to public health officials this month. This virus doesn’t know you’re just trying to see your relatives at Thanksgiving.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: klawchat

→ November 11, 2020
→ By keith

Lanny.

Max Porter’s second novel, Lanny, has a more conventional structure than that of his first, the brilliant Grief is the Thing with Feathers, but has the same ethereal feel and prose that’s entirely dialogue, inner and spoken. This story is bigger, but still short, with a sense of closeness about it that matches his first book and makes it another powerful, compelling read.

Lanny is an 8-year-old boy, an only child, different from the other kids – highly imaginative, prone to statements that sound like they should come from an adult, and possibly communicating with some sort of spirits in his small English town. His parents’ marriage is strained, but they do love him, and his mother is both incredibly attached to him and constantly anxious about his well-being, including his social life. Things look up a bit when the eccentric local artist, Pete, offers to give Lanny painting lessons for free, just because he enjoys Lanny’s company so much. Everything implodes when Lanny fails to arrive home from school one day, setting off a series of events, most of which you’d probably expect from this setup, but with the one complication that we knew from the start: one spirit with whom Lanny is probably communicating, a shapeshifter named Dead Papa Toothwort, exists, a legend among the village who has been there for centuries (at least) and who might be menacing Lanny from the start.

The bucolic town turns very dark when Lanny goes missing, like a shade going down on the story, with Pete coming in for obvious suspicion. He’s a bachelor! Why would he have such an interest in a little boy like Lanny! He’s devastated, and wants nothing more than to help find his missing friend, but the town devolves into gossip and recriminations against Pete and against Lanny’s parents, looking for anyone to blame for the unspeakable horror of a child gone missing and possibly dead. Once the search for Lanny starts, the attributions by character disappear, giving us as little as a sentence at a time from unnamed speakers, adding to the sense of disorder amidst a frenetic search.

Dead Papa Toothwort ‘speaks’ in a rambling stream of consciousness that also incorporates snippets of other, unnamed characters’ speech, presented on the page in a nonlinear and often overlapping fashion that looks like someone put an e.e. cummings poem through a Zalgo text generator. His intentions are unclear, but he seems to stand as a metaphor for nature and our environment, which we ignore at our own peril, and Toothwort’s goal turns out to be less evil than simply self-serving, as he feeds off the speech of humans while inhabiting the very soil beneath the village. (Toothworts are part of a broad genus of plants, Cardamine, that tend to grow on forest floors, especially where the soil is damp.) His connection with Lanny relies on the boy’s fairylike character, as Lanny often speaks in riddles or makes observations beyond his years, wandering off to places he finds to be magical, and gives the sense of being barely there even before he goes missing. His mother isn’t immediately alarmed on the day he fails to return home from school because it’s so in character for him to not be where she expects to find him.

There’s a film adapation of Lanny in the works, with Rachel Weisz attached, but I have a hard time seeing this translate to any screen given how much of the book’s value derives from Porter’s poetic prose. There isn’t even that much plot to go around, which makes me fear some screenwriter will invent something to fill in the gaps, rather than letting the search for Lanny play out in something like real time, emphasizing the agony faced by Lanny’s parents and Pete as days pass without any trace. Porter is such a gifted wordsmith that I doubt any filmed version can capture what he puts on the page.

Next up: I’ve been burying myself in genre fiction during these stressful last few weeks, but I’ve got David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten next up on the shelf.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: british literature, contemporary literature, highly recommended, magical realism

→ November 1, 2020
→ By keith

Music update, October 2020.

October turned out to be a great month for new music, perhaps boosted by five Fridays (I feel like music analytics would have to adjust for that). I also think that the pandemic and inadequate responses by many developed nations have left musicians and labels at the point where they don’t feel like they can keep delaying releases – movie studios have a financial incentive to keep kicking the can down the road, but record labels don’t. So this month I have 24 songs on the playlist, with over 90 minutes of new music, running the full gamut of musical styles I like. You can access the playlist here if you can’t see the widget below.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Automation. Maybe the best guitar riff of the year. I don’t love everything King Gizzard does, but I’m always amazed by their musical shapeshifting. They can move from psychedelia to metal to blues rock and in between and still put out two albums a year.

Creeper – Annabelle. Creeper’s first album was a horror-themed punk record, but they’ve remade themselves on their sophomore album, Sex, Death & the Infinite Void, which is one of the best LPs of 2020, a mad, sprawling record that recalls Suede, the Killers, My Chemical Romance (in a good way), Americana, and elements of early 1980s post-punk/new wave. Some other standout tracks on the album include “Paradise,” “Cyanide,” and “Poisoned Heart,” but really the whole album is incredible.

HAERTS & Ed Droste – For the Sky. I don’t know if or when HAERTS will give us a new album – lead singer Nini Fabi just had a baby, which I’m sure impacts their timeline – but this one-off track with Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste is a lovely interlude to tide us over.

Peking Duk & the Wombats – Nothing to Love About Love. I wasn’t familiar with the Australian “mad rock” duo Peking Duk, but this came on my Release Radar because I’m a huge fan of the Wombats – and this sounds like a Wombats song remixed.

Battles, DJ Dairy, & DJ Orient – Stirling Bridge. Battles put out a call for artists interested in remixing tracks from their 2019 album Juice B Crypts, and the resulting EP will come out on November 20^th. This track comes from two members of black midi, and it’s not a remix of any single song but a new creation from the raw tracks Battles recorded when making the original record.

Goodie Mob ft. Organized Noize – Frontline. Goodie Mob’s first album in seven years, Survival Kit, comes out on November 13^th, with tracks featuring André 3000, Big Boi, and Chuck D. This single is an anthem for Black Lives Matter protesters, with prominent mention of the federal government’s use of tear gas on peaceful demonstrators. Cee-Lo also appeared on a new track from Big Boi and Killer Mike called “We the Ones,” which has great work from the two MCs but sluggish music and mailed-in vocals from Cee-Lo, who is a pretty terrible person anyway.

Tori Handsley ft. Ruth Goller and Moses Boyd – What’s in a Tune. Tori Handsley is a jazz harpist who’s been playing with other artists since at least 2010, but is just now releasing her first music under her own name, leading a trio that includes drummer/producer Moses Boyd (whose Dark Matter is one of my favorite albums of 2020). I heard this song before knowing anything about Handsley, and I assumed Handsley was playing a guitar via two-handed tapping, or maybe a Chapman stick, but she gets sounds and patterns from the harp that I don’t associate with that instrument.

Jorja Smith ft. Popcaan – Come Over. This new track from the Mercury-nominated English singer-songwriter Smith appears to be a prelude to a sophomore album, although it’s at least her third single since Lost & Found came out in 2018. It has a more obvious reggae influence than the last few tracks and includes a contribution from dancehall artist Popcaan, although I don’t think he brings much to the table.

Arlo Parks – Green Eyes. Parks’ debut album is finished, and due for a release early in 2021, but this is at least her fifteenth single to date, at least according to her artist page on Spotify. I’ve been late to this party but her voice is gorgeous and whatever you might call her style of music – it’s soulful but not really soul, folk-ish but definitely not folk – I’m here for it.

TRAAMS – Intercontinental Radio Waves. I hadn’t heard TRAAMS before this song, but they released two albums in 2013 and 2015, and a song in 2016, before going dark for the last four years. Wikipedia calls their early music “krautrock” and that’s certainly still evident here, with a flat vocal delivery over a pulsing electronic backdrop.

Slow Pulp – Track. Slow Pulp’s music is indeed slow, and atmospheric, although here they sound more like Slow Smashing Pumpkins (the intro is a lot like the chord pattern from “Today”) – with lyrics about the lead singer’s mother’s anxiety over getting Alzheimer’s disease, which runs in their family.

Artificial Pleasure – The Movement of Sound. Artificial Pleasure released their second album, A New Joy, on Friday, so I haven’t had a chance to crack it yet – we’re seeing a flood of new material this fall, which is great except that I’m never in the car to listen to music at long stretches like I used to do – but it includes this banging track as well as last year’s “Boys Grow Up,” this year’s “Lose Myself Again,” and both parts of “Into the Unknown” as a single song.

Hot Chip ft. Jarvis Cocker – Straight to the Morning. I think I take Hot Chip for granted, because their singles are consistently good, just rarely great on the level of “Over and Over” or “Huarache Lights.” This track includes former Pulp lead singer Jarvis Cocker, although he’s barely noticeable, and the melody is strong enough that the song doesn’t need any help.

Deep Sea Diver – Hurricane. Deep Sea Diver grew out of a solo project of that name by Jennifer Dobson, now the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter of a full four-piece band. Sharon Van Etten makes a cameo on the band’s new album, Impossible Weight, which gives you some idea of their sound, although Dobson’s vocals are far superior and give this song a hint of pop.

The Struts ft. Joe Elliott and Phil Collen – I Hate How Much I Want You. It is entirely appropriate for a band as bombastic as the Struts to call in two members of hair metal icons Def Leppard for a song this ridiculous. I love it.

Dinosaur Pile-Up – It’s Tricky. Another snotty rock band covers another seminal early hip-hop track. This shouldn’t work, but it does.

Are We Static – Wildfire. This new track from AWS starts out a little like that annoying 2014 song “Geronimo” by Sheppard, but instead of turning into a poppy sing-along it converts that nervous energy into a swirling guitar-driven chorus, a quantum improvement in my mind.

Black Honey – I Like the Way You Die. I love Black Honey but this title is on the bleak side for a band this poppy.

All Them Witches – Lights Out. ATW’s Nothing as the Ideal has some incredible psychedelic sludge rock riffs across its eight songs, highlighted by this one and “Enemy of my Enemy,” although the six-minute-plus tracks go too long for their content.

Rob Zombie – The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition). I did not foresee Rob Zombie dropping one of the best hard-rock tracks of 2020, I have to admit, but this is peak RZ content, even hinting back at the last White Zombie album Astro-Creep: 2000 with samples and electronic elements.

Pallbearer – Vengeance & Ruination. The kings of American doom metal – or just modern doom metal, period – just released their 4th album, Forgotten Days, and I think it’s their most accessible work to date, although it still has some longer tracks to satisfy diehards (and perhaps scare off folks looking for more radio-friendly lengths).

Killer Be Killed – Dream Gone Bad. Mastodon vocalist Troy Sanders is involved in two side projects that released new tracks this month; this is the better of the two, as the latest Gone is Gone track didn’t do much for me. KBK includes Max Cavalera of Soulfly and formerly of Sepultura, but the sound is closer to Mastodon’s here, very bass-forward with thrash elements but mostly clean (and strong) vocals.

Dark Tranquility – Identical to None. DT’s newest album Moment will drop on November 20^th; it seems like more classic Gothenburg melodic death metal, with some great thrash riffing below the growled vocals. I haven’t spent a ton of time on this but I think Gothenburg bands have a distinctive melodic sound that works more at the middle and higher ends of the guitar’s range in each song’s standout riffs, whereas comparable bands from other scenes just try to blow you away with speed or riffs at the bottom end of the range.

Carcass – Slaughtered in Soho. And this is the one exception to everything I just said – but Carcass is sort of an exception to a lot of generalizations about extreme metal, coming out of grindcore to create a ridiculous subgenre termed “goregrind” (which didn’t need its own name), only to abandon both the style and the lyrical content with Heartwork, among the greatest extreme metal albums in history and proof that you could craft compelling melodies without sacrificing speed, growled vocals, or other trappings of the death-metal genre. This track comes off their four-song EP Despicable, which just came out on Friday, with tracks that missed the cut for their next album. The riff on this one is great, and remarkably slow and grooved for Carcass.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 in music, alternative, hip hop, indie, jazz, melodic death metal, Music, rap

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