#after all both gallows humor and comedy comes in threes

[lightdancer1]

Wrote up my AU's equivalent of Seeing Red:

Now I will also note that this AU uses a bit of an episodic/Quentin Tarantino-ish framework to emphasize that unreliable narrator effect on the one hand......and this is an AU that opts not to have Willow save Tara (hardly a spoiler) but she gets to save herself and have some fun being like that Audible series' magnificently hammy evil version in the process of doing so.

[theroyalmile]

No Returns, No Exchanges

Disclaimer: I have debated for quite a while whether or not I should post this blog.  Social media is such a curated space for joy and happiness, it can feel oppressive at times.  There is so much life-changing positivity, from engagements to new jobs; and don’t get me wrong, that happiness is great to see.  But on the other hand, all of that positivity makes me feel like sharing any kind of negative information is attention-seeking and an immense overshare.  So let’s ask ourselves why I feel that way.  Why is happiness celebrated while the sad, sometimes harsh realities of life are thought to be oversharing?  More specifically, why do we feel like life-changing news can only be shared when it doesn’t make other people uncomfortable?  Our expressions of pain should not be regulated by the comfort levels of the people who surround us.  There comes a time when not sharing something begins to feel like hiding something, and hiding something turns to shame.  That is a feeling that I refuse to welcome into my life right now.  So here we go. 

It has been a while since I posted anything… a really long while.  It has been rare, these past few years, that I have even felt I had anything much to say let alone write anything, mostly because my life has been fairly normal, fairly unextraordinary, and I am rather blessed to be saying that during such a difficult time for so many. The few moments where I have felt like I had something to say have been fleeting, and after a good 2am word vomit on paper, I have filed these musings under “not to be seen by the light of day” which is probably for the best.

 Sometimes in the past I would find myself wishing I had something interesting going on in my life, something worthy of commentary… I don’t know, I was thinking like a cool hobby, an interesting skill, a kick-ass career, or a run in with Tom Hardy like I’d always dreamed of… something.  

 Well, to whoever is in charge, this is not what I meant, and I would like to request a refund. 

 Because as its final parting kick in the ass 2020 decided to gift me with breast cancer.  This isn’t a bad punch line, it’s just the truth.Let me give you a second to process that one.  I certainly needed a few.

 The thing is, a little itty bitty 3-centimeter tumor- that’s not something I can give back, as much as I might want to.  It’s not a too-large sweater you can return with a gift receipt, and it’s not a bad haircut you can complain about and get your money back (though it certainly will include one in a week or so!)

 A lot of you already know this story and frankly it’s not one I can tell with much finesse or humor, so I will keep it brief.  It was a dark and stormy 6pm when I found a lump in my breast in the shower back in November.  My initial thought was “you’re a crazy lady and a hypochondriac, let’s give it a few weeks since this is probably nothing.”   A few weeks, when my imaginary lump seemed to not actually be imaginary, I figured okay, it’s time to see my doctor, it’s probably nothing but we need to make sure.  I was in fact so unconcerned about it that I didn’t even see my regular doctor. I figured I just needed a medical professional to feel me up and let me know what to do next.  I didn’t even bother mentioning it to my parents. (For context of my laissez-faire, when I was 14 I found a lump in my breast that turned out, after little fanfare, to be a cyst which was unceremoniously drained on a cold metal table by a male doctor in a somewhat traumatizing but ultimately benign event.  That’s a longer story for later). 

 Cue a physical exam, confirming I was not crazy and there was a lump, but it was probably nothing; an utltrasound, confirming the lump was a shape that they did not like, but it was probably nothing; and an ultrasound guided biopsy, in which the probably nothing was sampled.  The week between Christmas and New Year’s was spent impatiently waiting for the news, increasingly feeling that my probably nothing was maybe, actually something.

 On December 28 around lunch time I received a phone call in the middle of the work day from the radiologist, who while very nice, was someone I had only met once while she shot a needle in and out of my boob.  She asked me how I was doing and then told me my test results were in.  “I’m sorry to say it’s not good news,” she said.

 And believe it or fucking not my immediate thought was “It’s not good news… it’s great news!” My brain supplied this as if on autopilot like some kind of 90s game show host, knowing fully well that I would not be so lucky because we are not living in a Brooklyn 99 episode.  It’s weird where your brain goes under duress.

 It was one of the most uncomfortable phone calls I have ever had, wherein I found myself trying to reassure a complete stranger that I was okay and I’m pretty sure I even said, “it is what it is.”  I was told a breast surgeon and oncologist from my provider network would be in contact and the call ended. Ultimately, I was diagnosed with Stage 1B Triple Negative Invasive Ductal and Lobular Carcinoma.  No returns, no exchanges.

 I am two months into my diagnosis, and 1/8 of my way through chemotherapy, the first part of a three series treatment (to be followed by surgery and then likely radiation.)  This Friday, after my second chemotherapy treatment, I will begin to lose my hair.  Anyone who knows me at all knows that the hair loss will be a pill likely far harder for me to swallow than the chemo itself.  And while the look may have worked for Demi Moore in GI Jane, I do not have her bone structure, nor her body.  I anticipate I will look more like the yellow peanut M&M, which while obviously the best M&M of the bunch, I think we can all agree is not a cute look for me.

 I do not say this to be melodramatic, I just say this because I am cynical and pragmatic by nature: I am not particularly surprised that I have cancer.  And this is for several reasons, some of which probably deserve a longer blog later.  To put it simply, I have been surrounded by cancer, both by choice and by cruel fate and happenstance, my entire life. 

 Cruel Fate and Happenstance: Having several relatives who have gone through cancer, and a mother with a BRCA 1 genetic mutation (which I had a 50% chance of inheriting, and in fact did) I always figured it would eventually happen to me.  The odds this condition dealt me? “About 13% of women in the general population will develop breast cancer sometime during their lives. By contrast, 55%–72% of women who inherit a harmful BRCA1 variant… will develop breast cancer by 70–80 years of age.”  That 55-72% is the kind of percentage you want winning the lottery, but the lottery this most certainly is not, and that much I understood. So, I always figured something like this would probably happen.  Did I think I would be 28? No. But I figure that just makes me an overachiever. 

 Choice: I volunteered at a cancer support non-profit from the time I was 12 to the time I was 22, and I wrote my college senior thesis in anthropology on women with ovarian cancer, the cancer that killed my aunt Lizzy when I was 4 years old.  I have likely read more books on cancer than your average newly diagnosed person, which I find to be both a blessing and a curse.  On one hand, I know some of what’s coming.  On the other hand, I know some of what’s coming.  Of course I don’t think any of these things gave me cancer but you might say I have been training for this my whole life.  I think this joke is far funnier than pretty much everyone I say it to except my immediate family, because the Tenney/Koss folk are very big on gallows humor, in which case this is hilarious.  Comedy is our family coping mechanism, and I am guilty of occasionally forgetting not everyone is wired like that.   

 So where are we right now? Taking it day by day.  Do I frequently find myself wallowing in self-pity these days? Sure.  But all the same I feel truly lucky.  This is a feeling I am trying to hold on to, because I think the other options might be truly unbearable.  Why? Well, I found this tumor.  I’m 28-years-old, which means I am hardly old enough for a regular mammogram and MRI.  My last yearly physical was a TeleHealth appointment (hence no actual physical) and I will be honest, I never made a habit of regularly checking myself like I should have.  But this tumor just presented itself casually during a shower.  Breast cancer, when caught early, is highly treatable and curable, and I am fairly confident, knock on wood, that is where this particular nightmare is headed.  The fact that it was caught early: pure luck. 

Another reason I feel lucky is for the most part, I feel like I actually have the stability to handle the oncoming struggle.  I have a large and wonderful support system, an incredible and supportive partner, a savings account with actual savings in it, and a job where I am cared about as a human.  If this had happened to me three years ago, almost none of these things would be true.  There will never be a good time to have cancer, but some times are apparently better than others.  Of course, the ongoing pandemic means I can’t have people go with me to chemo, or my wig fitting, or my surgery consultations, and alone a lot of this seems much more daunting and difficult than it might otherwise have been, but I am trying to make a habit of counting my blessings, and despite this terrible thing I’ve been given, my blessings are many.

 There isn’t a “right way” to have cancer, but I think there might be a “right way” for me.  I am a private person and I find sharing some of these details difficult and more than a little uncomfortable, but I am also intimately familiar with the healing nature of writing and comedy, so I am going to give it a shot.  

 And now that I think of it… the peanut M&M is going to make a really great Halloween costume. 

[itsblosseybitch]

Stuck In SoHo by Spencer Rumsey (Griffin Dunne article from NY TALK magazine, September 1985)

What happens to the hapless Hackett (played sympathetically by Griffin Dunne) in Martin Scorsese’s offbeat new comedy, After Hours, shouldn’t happen to the most obnoxious New Yorker. He takes a cab and his money flies out the window; he goes on a date and gets chased by psychos in Soho; he can’t return to his Upper East Side apartment because after midnight the subway fares go up to $1.50 a token (”terrible, terrible night”). And all for the love of a woman Hackett just met in a bar. 

But that wasn’t just any woman, it was the “very, very attractive” Rosanna Arquette, as Griffin Dunne himself says as he leans back in his chair in his tiny production office in the Brill Building. The 30-year old Griffin, who doubles as After Hours’ co-producer, first worked with Rosanna in 1980 in a three-hour adaptation of John Hersey’s The Wall. “We were in Poland for four months at the height of Solidarity,” he says, “and there was always a chance that the Russians would come across the border at any moment and we’d never get out of there. Gallows humor took over, especially about the food.”

How this film came about sounds like a dream come true. “It was all luck on our part - we all have the same lawyer!” laughs Griffin. At Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Institute in Utah, visiting director Dusan Makavejev showed co-producer Amy Robinson a script he’d brought along by one of his students in Columbia - Joseph Minion, then 26. She read it and got Griffin so excited by the project (”Amy could picture me!”) they optioned it with the hope that Scorsese would share their enthusiasm. He did. Everybody wanted to work with Scorsese.

True to its name, the After Hours cast came out after the sun went down. “I stayed up all night for nine weeks,” Griffin recalls with a weary shrug. “As the sum was coming up at 6:30 AM, the crew would set up margaritas and beers. I’d get home at 8:30 in the morning carrying a cold beer and walk by the doorman who gave me frosty looks. He thought I was very disturbed.”

[OP NOTE: Solidarity was a trade union founded in August-September 1980 in Poland. It was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognized by the state. To achieve its goals, Solidarity used civil resistance tactics, and held numerous strikes to meet their demands. Government attempts to destroy the union failed, as did the imposition of martial law. Solidarity was supported by significant funding from both The United States and the Vatican. The union is widely recognized to have played a key factor in the end of communist rule in Poland, and to a lesser extent, the end of the Soviet Union. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.]

[OP NOTE: Dusan Makavejev was a Serbian film director and screenwriter, famous for his groundbreaking films in Yugoslav cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s - many of which belong to the Black Wave. The Black Wave was a film movement in Yugoslavia during the 1960s and 70s, and are usually known for their non-traditional approach to film-making, dark humor, and their critical examination of Yugoslavian society. Makavejev’s most internationally known film is W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism. Read more here and here.]

[cryptke]

Hey,

How are you doing? I hope everything's going smoothly - as smooth as life can be, at least. You asked for updates on Blackbird as I read, and I'm kinda here to do exactly that, I think?

It took me a bit, I'm sorta in the middle of moving half across the damn globe (Australia, out of all places, because why not...), but I finally got to reading properly today, and just reached the Seattle chapter, wow, this book is twisted, and graphic. i love it. like thoroughly. I'm usually not the biggest fan of the 1st person narrative, but the way Edison narrates the whole story, alongside Xtians point of view, feeds off of each other so well without overindulging in senseless inner monologue or emotional outbursts... it reads super fluently and is super descriptive (which I'm a slut for, i love descriptions of all sorts, especially the lyrical kind - which, as a sidenote, you do so fucking amazingly), while bringing across Edison's worldview and self-percetion in a way that seriously had me like "yeah, yeah I get that", which is amazing writing and pacing on Fiegel's part, and perhaps mildly concerning on my part.

Telling an 8 year old girl you just kidnapped from a diner after shooting it to pieces, that you are a "serial mass murderer" is about as tactful as a tick sucking your blood, and it was also the thing that made me laugh the hardest. The scene where she had Nick (fuck him, honestly) by the balls, was a close second, that exchange amazing.

The whole scout-cookie-selling betrayal was bitchy as hell, on Nick and Co's part, and damn do i love the way the action scenes are written, especially with all those technicalities, it's like a little movie running in my head, and the whole concept reminds me a little bit of Leon the Hitman? if only distantly.

literally can't thank u enough for that recommendation, it reads like macabre poetry, and I will probably be re-reading it many times in the future. It's weirdly humorous at times, in a very gallow-humor typo beat, and the whole thing probably won't let me go for weeks to come.

This isn't exactly an MLA style essay, though the length might compare, and if u want, i can share my thoughts once I've finished it - which will probably be in a few hours, tops.

On another sidenote, I'm wholly and dyingly in love with the way you portray Daryl. I come back to read the three pieces you've written for him a lot (in desperate need for more), because I genuinely can't find anything quite like it for him. You make every scene, every detail, seem so alive and real, it's like you're actually writing down the lives of two real people in a very real world, has me at a loss for words. It's when you read something and you fall in love with it in a way that you'd preferably consume those words, have them engraved into your bones, or let them consume you so they just never leave you, because it's that fucking good...

kinda spitballing at this point - sorry for this overly lengthy, not-quite essay. sending lots of love and good energy your way!

please tell me, why in the *fuck* are you moving to australia? and when can i come down? i look smoking in a bikini

"amazing writing and pacing on Fiegel's part, and perhaps mildly concerning on my part." LOL. & yes, i remember in some sort of review that someone compared the theme of Blackbird to that of leon the professional's! more grotesque, obviously. but both still strumming up that older male/younger female codependency based on something that's neither romantic nor familial. also reminds me of american psycho for obvious narrative reasons.

i totally agree with your perspective on the book. dark, but almost like a dark comedy at parts. not entirely a tale of despair though it does carry a permanent shield of nihilism.

ANYWAYS, if it turns out you do like incredibly dark reads/horror genre in general, as it appears you do because of TWD/Blackbird, i have another rec. but like, this one is incredibly dark. very good but VERY horrific, depressing, etc. step up from Blackbird. extremely interesting social commentary. so lmk your thoughts on THAT

i am fucking touched at your words on my daryl portrayal <33 on and off again these days i'm working on the request you actually prompted. about the only thing i actually have time for. but: i love writing for him! and i love consuming non zombie au pieces that feature him. he is such an interesting dynamic to explore, i want to make him real and pick his brain. or, alternatively, climb him like a tree

i am doing okay though, thank you for asking <3 the last time we talked, i was just getting over a very massive depressive episode, but things are decent now. dare i say, halfway good. i have a love interest that could rival any of the shit i write about, and it's my birthday soon! i had a photoshoot for my fake id last night and then today i toured apartments so we're on a wave of big girl productive shit. not a lump of lethargic deadweight atm.

[phantomofthepairofdice]

Elaine May’s “Mikey and Nicky”

It almost seems crazy to say it considering just how influential she is, but no one would be held in contempt of public opinion if they were unfamiliar with the name Elaine May. May, the latter half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, which was massively popular in their time, has not maintained her place in the spotlight the way that Mike Nichols did. Aside from being a foundational member of the ever-popular improvisational comedy format, May also wrote, directed, and starred in films. Her third film, Mikey and Nicky was released in 1976 after undergoing a tumultuous production, and saw an incredibly small theatrical run before being brushed into obscurity. The film is led by Peter Falk and John Cassavettes as the respective titular characters and features Ned Beatty, Rose Arrick, and Sanford Meisner - creator of the fittingly titled Meisner Technique of acting. It seems appropriate for an acting coach and trendsetter to be a part of the famous improviser’s film since it’s a project driven by the spontaneity and creativity of its cast and creator. It tells the story of two small-time gangsters rambling through the night as one is overwhelmingly paranoid about being murdered. The main tragedy of the film is that Mikey, a man who introduced Nicky to the mob before he surpassed him in rank, has been sent to keep Nicky in one place long enough that he can be killed by Beatty’s assassin. While the plot description may seem like a familiar one that lends itself to cliché and tropes of a well-worn genre, the innovations in its inception and execution are what make it what it is: a rediscovered classic.

Even the title suggests that the main point of the film is its lead characters and performances. Cassavettes and Falk were friends and their chemistry together onscreen exemplifies that offscreen relationship very clearly. They’re gangsters, but not in the grand tradition of glamor seen in films like The Godfather. These men wear suits, yet they’re rumpled and open, barely covering their worn, sweaty flesh and stubble. I really can’t emphasize how much these two look like bruised knuckles and worn-out leather belts. The two actors stare at each other in tight close-ups, challenging the other to see how much they know. For Mikey, he wants to keep a man at the brink of paranoid delusion in check, while Nicky tries to figure out if Mikey is in on the conspiracy to kill him. Throughout the film, the characters reflect on their lives together as comrades and their shared experiences before diverting on separate paths as a result of their work. The two performers shout, tussle, and run with an explosive verve, but it’s the quieter moments that make it so special - like when Mikey tries to get his spun-out friend to take an antacid to quell his raging ulcer. There’s a sensitivity buried beneath the brash exteriors of these so-called tough guys as Mikey embraces a paternal instinct by caring for Nicky like a sick child. As the film progresses, the audience sees that their raging tempers come from insecurities and fears, but any viewer who resists the urge to empathize with these men has plenty of reason to withhold that response. After all, the tagline to the film upon initial release was the informal “… don’t expect to like ’em.”

Viewers’ empathy is particularly tested during a scene where the two barge into a woman’s apartment and Nicky attempts to seduce her before practically offering her up to his pal Mikey. The scene shows them as aggressive and commodifying of this soft-spoken woman, especially considering that both of these men are married. The direction that scene goes after her refusal offers even more reasons to find these men distasteful. The beauty of the technique in the scene is in such stark contrast to the content of it, causing a dissonance that’s at the beating heart of the movie. There’s a shot at the midpoint where Mikey waits in the brightly lit red kitchen attached to dark living room where Nellie and Nicky are necking on the couch. It’s a perfect visual representation of the situation and the characters within it. Mikey, the man hired to turn his lifelong friend over for death is trapped in a flush, confined space. Nicky, on the other hand, is literally in the dark. He’s unsure of his fate because he’s too busy indulging in his vices like he did enough to get marked for death in the first place. This set-up in particular is so striking because of its deliberate nature in a film that often feels captured rather than composed.

From a technical standpoint, the film is a bit in shambles. Perhaps it was the unique shooting experience or the arguments between May and Paramount, the studio behind the picture, that caused such a ragged finished product. It was at least partially deliberate. Producer Julian Schlossberg said in a recent interview that May “did not want a pretty movie.” The result is a film where certain shots are out of proper focus, a boom microphone is visible hanging in the top of a frame, and conventional film grammar is consistently broken. In Mickey and Nicky, continuity is broken in plenty of scenes. It’s not that dissimilar from Cassavetes own directorial efforts where the priority is honesty and feeling in performance and tone, and that on-the-go, rushed, uncouth formalism ends up being in service of the movie – those imperfections are a feature rather than a bug.

It sounds obvious and trite to say it directly, but greatness in art doesn’t just come from technique and prettiness. Greta Gerwig, a writer, director, and actor just like May, was asked about how to recognize the greatness of a movie and her response was that it was like the idiom about pornography: that “you know it when it you see it.” When I see Mikey and Nicky, damn it, I see greatness. Frayed edges? Good! They heighten the low-down, rough-and-tumble nature of this story and its characters. It’s not a traditional comedy like many had expected from May after her first two movies? Good! We should want a variety of output from creators. Also, it may not seem like a comedy, but this movie is damn funny so long as you’re able to get with the gallows humor (most clearly seen when the duo go to the graveyard and one cracks jokes while the other tries to pray). Mikey and Nicky has an aggressively uncommercial and non-populist attitude stamped across its forehead. This is a movie that’s raw and honest and nasty and funny and all sorts of tragic – and that’s why I love it.

Mikey and Nicky are emotional. They’re angry, sure, but they’re also scared, regretful, sensitive, loving, and lost. They don’t seem like they’re trapped within the borders of a movie screen, phony and idyllic – they seem real. They posture like they’re the man they were told to be, but that posturing crumbles when it comes to real love and death. It’s impossible for me to pick a favorite scene in the movie, but one that’s in the running for that title comes when Mikey confronts Nicky about talking about him behind his back. He asks Nicky why he creates nicknames and cracks jokes at his expense to look good in front of their boss. Nicky doesn’t apologize, he gets defensive. Here are two grown men who are getting their feelings hurt and lying to look good about it. It’s bizarre that’s such a rarity to see in movies.

Speaking of the world of the movie, I’d be leaving out a massive reason I love this movie if I didn’t mention its dark, smoky, neon-drenched New York that it takes place in. I’m such a sucker for that period. It can’t be nostalgia because I never lived there, and I certainly never saw it in the seventies, but it sure feels like nostalgia. And I don’t even know where to start with how little I have in common with the criminals and cops that populate these types of movies, but there’s that feeling creeping in. Movies like this one, The Warriors; Thief; Manhunter; The Friends of Eddie Coyle; The Long Goodbye; The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three; Get Carter; Marathon Man; The Driver – they all scratch this itch that I apparently have for breaking down the hyper-macho action movie star under neon signs and wool suits of the seventies and early 80s.

The movie is still niche, but it seems to be having a resurgence partially due to a really gorgeous Criterion restoration. I hope that trend continues to swing upwards, because this is an incredibly unique punch in the arm of a movie that I want to share with anyone who’s interested. May only directed four movies, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re all masterpieces. Her name should be recognized as such, especially if she gets the chance to make that long-awaited fifth movie that was supposedly in the works before Covid came along… Mikey and Nicky is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and HBO Max. Check it out, just don’t expect to like ‘em.

Thanks for reading.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

A decade of dicks: How NSFW internet pics changed the world for the worse

Has Jeff Bezos' impressive exposure of Pecker finally broken the curse of Weiner? 

Oh yes, we all laugh at the double entendres in the news that the Amazon founder has accused the National Enquirer's owner of blackmailing him over compromising selfies. But it's a grim gallows chuckle, because we live in the decade of the dick pic — an age where one man's inability to keep it in his pants, and the technology that enabled him, literally changed the course of history by helping elevate Donald Trump to the White House.

That man's name, of course, was Anthony Weiner. The disgraced former congressman was not the first man to ever text a picture of his penis; we don't know who that was, but it probably happened about five seconds after the first camera-enabled cellphone went on sale in Japan in 2000. 

SEE ALSO: A survival guide to dick pics (both solicited and unsolicited)

Rather, Weiner was the first politician ever to accidentally tweet a picture of his package, way back in 2011. The junk-filled photo was supposed to be a Twitter direct message to a student in Seattle he was corresponding with, unbeknownst to his wife, top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. 

This DM fail heard 'round the world was the first in the three-act story of Weiner's downfall, and it was clearly a comedy — with Weiner's old buddy, Jon Stewart, leading the charge on The Daily Show. How innocent the jokes seem now; how little clue we had of what was to come. 

Then came the second act, when Weiner ran for mayor of New York, and another couple of Weiner's correspondents decided to reveal their own dick pics from the congressman. 

Everything about this scandal was captured by a film crew with full access, and you can see the result in the documentary Weiner, now streaming on Hulu. It's funny, but only in the sense of the most cringeworthy Office-style embarrassment comedy. Weiner emerges as a passionate politician paralyzed by his own self-destructive behavior. We watch his marriage to Abedin begin to disintegrate in a series of tense conversations and withering looks.

One of the most telling parts of the Weiner story was that he never met his correspondents. Usually they would reach out via Twitter or Facebook, Weiner would take things to DM or Messenger, and everything unfolded consensually — and digitally — from there. On election night, he literally runs away to avoid meeting one of his correspondents, 23-year-old Sydney Leathers, who had been egged on to confront Weiner by Howard Stern. 

Here was the worst of our social media age in a nutshell: the sad sexting with anyone who would indulge him; the tragic, grainy pictures shared in chat windows by an older man who should have known better; a viral media frenzy sparked again and again by sheer titillation, exposing our baser instincts. 

And then came the third act, where no one was laughing anymore. Weiner was caught in the summer of 2016 sexting with a 15-year-old, an act for which he was later jailed. Because he had sent some messages on a laptop he'd shared with Abedin, the FBI decided it couldn't ignore Abedin's emails on the same device. That led to the infamous Comey letters, re-opening and re-closing the Clinton email investigation a week before the 2016 presidential election.

Since the margin of Trump's electoral college victory was so slim — roughly 77,000 votes total in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — we've been having heated arguments ever since about why it happened. Russian propaganda on Facebook was a factor. So was Clinton's lack of campaigning in Wisconsin. So was GOP voter suppression. 

But the reopening of the email investigation is the only event where we see a clear drop for Clinton in the polls. In a post-election study, FiveThirtyEight found the net effect was a four-point swing to Trump — enough to put those three key states in the GOP column by less than a point. (The polls were, in fact, more accurate than we remember.)

There are so many if onlys here. If only we'd known what Cambridge Analytica and Wikileaks were really doing behind the scenes. If only Comey had told us that Trump's campaign was also under FBI investigation. If only Abedin had dumped Weiner after the first scandal broke. However, the ultimate "if only" is tied to Weiner himself: If only he hadn't been so tragically compelled to send dick pics, and/or been more open with his wife, the world would be a very different place.

It's a compulsion that, we now know, the world's richest man shares. But Bezos, thus far, seems smarter than Weiner. He didn't deny the story; in fact, he got so far ahead of it that his Medium post may well be taught in PR classes someday. He stood up to a bully with humor, grace, and full disclosure. All of which generated what seems otherwise impossible in 2019: sympathy for a billionaire.

And while Weiner's weiner brought us Trump, Pecker's pecker-related threats may help to bury him. We know that the National Enquirer was Trump's enabler in helping him to bury the threat of adult-film star Stormy Daniels' story of their affair before the election; we know that Pecker and Trump have both been unusually tight with the Saudi regime. 

Bezos claims Pecker was trying to get him to disavow any connection along those lines. Bezos' security expert Gavin de Becker reportedly believes that Bezos' texts were intercepted via a government agency, but he hasn't said which one. He could mean the Saudis, the Russians, one of Trump's own agencies, or something else entirely. 

It's early days yet, but we may be looking at the first ever geopolitical weaponization of a sext. 

If the battle of Bezos’ pants turns out to be the Watergate of the 2010s, I’m officially quitting news https://t.co/vetUlqO1NN

— Chris Taylor (@FutureBoy) February 8, 2019

And there may be worse to come before the decade is out. According to the ongoing lawsuit filed to extricate her from a nondisclosure agreement with Trump, Stormy Daniels has "certain still images and/or text messages" sent by Trump. If she were to be released from the NDA, she could in theory release them to the highest bidder.

We don't know what that means exactly, but speculation has centered on the most horrific option: that Daniels has Trump's dick pics. Which would certainly explain why he was so keen to keep her quiet. As the sex writer Dan Savage noted with horror last year, Trump could break yet another norm by effectively providing the first presidential dick pic. 

Of course, if that were to be released, it would be without the man's consent. Which would at least be a neat reversal of the usual patriarchal power play that unsolicited dick pics represent. But it would also mark a new low in public discourse — one that made the Black Mirror episode "The National Anthem" look like a cheery story about farm animals. One from which the intersection of technology and politics may never recover. 

One thing's for sure — we're a world away from what the makers of those early camera phones would have ever expected. If they had, perhaps they would have paraphrased what Robert Oppenheimer said when he first saw his atom bomb in action: Now I am become dick pic, destroyer of worlds. 

WATCH: Facebook leaks private photos of nearly 7 million accounts

[americanahighways]

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I distinctly remember the first time that I realized I really loved Jason Isbell’s music. I was in Nashville for Americanafest in 2017 and was watching the awards show at The Family Wash. He was joined on stage by Amanda Shires to perform “If We Were Vampires”. I can distinctly recall getting goosebumps watching their performance and from there on out I was a fan. To be fair, I wasn’t always. When his album The Nashville Sound came out, both “Cumberland Gap” and “Molotov” were played so often on satellite radio that I quickly grew tired of them both and would promptly change the channel, but that awards show performance canceled out those two overplayed songs and I knew I had to see Jason and The 400 Unit live.

It took almost two years, but I was able to make that happen.  On the last Saturday night in June, at the BOK Center, which is the big concert and sports arena in Tulsa, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit were there for a show, co-headlining with Father John Misty, with Erin Rae as the opener on the bill.  As far as choices, this particular Saturday night was a tough night for music lovers around town.   With two other Americana favorites in town, John Moreland at The Mercury Lounge and Charley Crockett at Cain’s Ballroom for his headliner debut,  it was tough for folks to decide which stellar show they wanted to attend. Because of this, attendance was lower than one would anticipate for two major artists like Isbell and Father John Misty.

Once Josh Tillman, better known as Father John Misty, took the stage, I had no idea of what to expect. Although I have friends that are big fans, I hadn’t ever heard one song or attended a show. What I got was a set that started out with a sunglass wearing, bearded man, all in white, awash in dramatic pink and purple lighting and the dance moves that one would expect from a middle-aged white man.  I mean that in a good way, as I thought the entire set from the first song “Hangout At The Gallows” to the encore song, “Date Night.”  At one point, I thought I might get hit with a wayward mic stand as FJM slung it around on stage, using it as a prop as much as he used it to sing into.  Later during the set, the mic flinging didn’t go as planned and Tillman quipped that “this trick only works about 50% of the time.”  With his dry humor, Father John Misty introduced the song “Pure Comedy” as, “this one’s got some polarizing lyrics” and for a venue in the middle of the Bible Belt, he’s not wrong. However, it seemed as the Tulsa crowd thought Father John Misty could do no wrong, as each song was met with enthusiastic reactions. Although Amanda Shires accompanied FJM on two songs, “Well, You Can Do It Without Me” and “Chateau Lobby #4,”  it was the third song that they sang that was the best part of this set. I’m told that the song, “The Night Josh Tillman Came to Our Apt” was not played any other night of the tour except for this night. Tillman on acoustic guitar, with the talented Amanda Shires harmonizing, was truly magic and I’m glad I got to witness it.  There were other great parts of the set, the dynamic lighting, the quiet moments with one spotlight on FJM as he sang, but nothing beats the duet with Amanda.

Arena shows inevitably mean a long changeover between sets and for two headlining acts, this was no exception. After a 30 minute intermission, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit took the stage to applause. Addressing the elephant in the room, Jason mentioned that attendance looked light, but only because “his haters like to buy up all the seats to make it look empty”.  If Jason was disappointed by the smaller turnout, his playing didn’t reflect that, he jumped right into “Anxiety,”  followed by “Hope The High Road” and “24 Frames”.  Some gems from the set included a cover of the Fleetwood Mac song, “Oh Well”, Jason’s newest song, “Overseas” and the song he wrote for A Star is Born, “Maybe It’s Time”.  Although Jason and his songs are the stars of the show, you realize how much the musicians that make up The 400 Unit contribute to making good songs into great songs.  With Sadler Vaden on guitar, Jimbo Hart on bass, Derry deBorja on keys, Amanda Shires on fiddle, and Chad Gamble on drums, you know you’re going to be watching not only a group of musicians with immense talent, but also a group of people that have great chemistry and make watching them interact fun. With the spotlights on Jason and Amanda, one of my two favorite songs, “Cover Me Up” was played, as well as the last song of the set, “If We Were Vampires.” I have to admit, I was so excited to see that Amanda would be playing some of the last shows with Jason and the rest of The 400 Unit. The chemistry between Shires and Isbell is mesmerizing to watch in person. From the coy glances while they sing, to the coming together to play fiddle and guitar, to walking off stage arm in arm, it’s simply beautiful to behold.  After the band left the stage, the crew set up three mics in a row and the crowd was enthusiastic when they realized that Father John Misty would be joining Jason and Amanda on stage for the encore song, “Wrecking Ball,” which Jason mentioned was one of his favorite songs.  This was the second time during the show that Tulsa got to experience something special, as this was the only show that Father John Misty joined Jason for an encore song.

Although the co-headlining tour is over, you can still catch Jason and The 400 Unit, as well as Father John Misty out on tour.

Jason Isbell: http://www.jasonisbell.com

Father John Misty: http://fatherjohnmisty.com/#tour

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Show Review: Jason Isbell and Father John Misty in Tulsa's BOK Center @jasonisbell @amandashires @canflub #fatherjohnmisty @sadlervaden @BOKcenter @tin_pony #jasonisbell #americanamusic I distinctly remember the first time that I realized I really loved Jason Isbell’s music. I was in Nashville for Americanafest in 2017 and was watching the awards show at The Family Wash.

[trashartandmovies]

Damsel (or, the 68th Berlin International Film Festival Pt. 3; or, Let's Give Some Love to the Farce)

You don't see many farces these days. At least, as far as movies are concerned. On the world stage, you could argue that the farce is doing better than ever, but very few movies are made in this all-but-abandoned genre. The only current purveyors that come to mind are the Coen Brothers, and when they work in this mode, à la Burn After Reading, they tend to get their lowest levels of appreciation. (For the record, I love Burn After Reading -- as well as The Hudsucker Proxy, for that matter.)  I believe it is this decline in familiarity that is behind the luke warm reception that has so far greeted the Zellner Brother's fine little movie, Damsel.

Current cinema favors realism. There are very few musicals or whimsical fantasies, and even the en vogue superhero movies tend to shoot for "gritty." It feels like the only way a movie can be deemed relevant is if it is also realistic, which greatly underestimates the capabilities of film and storytelling in general. Much of this goes back to the 60s and 70s, when the heightened styles and theatrics of previous generations were abandoned in favor of method acting and the devices of cinema vérité. Since then, there's only the odd movie like Hail, Caesar! or the hat tip in the second half of Mistress America that displeased a good deal of critics. The last zany farce to win the hearts and minds of both critics and audiences may have been Bogdanovich's 1972 classic, What's Up Doc? Since then it's been mostly cinema non grata.

The Zellner Brother's Damsel may have more than one preemptive strike against it by being a farcical western, thereby combining two classic genres that are currently out of favor. Or, perhaps just as troubling is the idea of putting comedy into a genre that's been more or less strictly serious business since Blazing Saddles (no, we don't count The Ridiculous 6). Nevertheless, this combination still works perfectly well, especially as the means to tell a twisted tale of unrequited love and longing to be part of something unattainable.

Damsel starts off with a fantastic preamble between co-director/co-writer/co-star, David Zellner, and an old priest, played by an especially grizzled Robert Forster. While the two wait for a carriage that may or may never come, Forster provides something of a monologue about his experiences as a priest, and by the end he's suggested that the pages of the Good Book are more useful as toilet paper, stripped down to his long johns and headed off into the desert. The scene sets the mood rather well for the off-beat nature of what unfolds, which might be best described as a goofy brand of gallows humor. What's also immediately apparent is that it's all going to look superb since Adam Stone in on hand -- perhaps better known as the cinematographer behind every Jeff Nichols movie.

After Forster's self-defrocked priest moseys off into the great beyond (sadly never to be seen from again) we hop ahead in time, where Zellner has taken up Forster's outfit and is now known as Parson Henry, for a lowly congregation of miscreants and drunkards. Henry himself has fallen to drink, and is discovered by the newly arrived Samuel (admirably played by Robert Pattinson) passed out on the beach, covered in crabs. Samuel wants Henry to accompany him on a short journey to where his would-be-fiancée, Penelope (Mia Wasikowska), is staying. Or, as Samuel soon elaborates, the journey is taking them to where Penelope is being held against her will, and Samuel plans to heroically free her and then cap things off by bending-the-knee and proposing. As he explains it, she'll be over the moon. After all, Samuel has written a (hilariously bad) tune on the guitar he's carrying with him. And, if that weren't enough, he's also towing along a miniature horse named Butterscotch, which is supposedly Penelope's favorite animal.

All of this is naturally a bit much for Parson Henry, who hardly qualifies as a legitimate justice of the peace for his tiny town of misfits, never mind a vigilante or man of action. And if you don't want the movie's twists and turns ruined, you may want to stop here. But a seasoned viewer will quickly start to sense that Samuel isn't exactly being honest with Henry. For starters, why would he choose this parson, from such a backwater hellhole, for this particular task?

The title of the movie is, of course, a reference to the standard western trope of the "damsel in distress," and the movie is getting some publicity as being a feminist twist on this archetype. So, there's a good amount of unease in knowing that Penelope is very likely distress-free. Or, that our glad-handing dandy, Samuel, might be the real agent of distress.

Indeed, when we finally reach Penelope, the movie takes quite a gruesome turn. The movie then becomes about Penelope, who we come to find is handy with dynamite, and Henry -- one upset about having her place in the world taken away, and one desperate to find a new place. In an effective bit of comedy, Henry is obsessed with Indians, but in a very different way than most Wild West preachers: he wants to be one. Taken by the concept of the noble savage, Henry would love nothing more than to live in a teepee, hunt buffalo and take part in powwows. The last thing he wants to do is return to a life in that horror show of a town Samuel dragged him out of.

In a scene both touching and absurd, Henry find himself at a makeshift campsite, lying next to a Native American man, and can't help himself. He starts prodding him with questions about the possibility of becoming an Indian, eliciting a furrowed brow and some exasperated eye rolls. Stupid white man, indeed.   

As usual, Mia Wasikowska does a fine job in capturing an furious heartbreak at the varying levels of invasiveness and stupidity of the men around her. Even though she may be somewhat too fond of dynamite, she is truly the most stable and rational person in the movie. She has no use for Henry or any of the other guy who might insist that she need a man to get along. As improbable as some of the movie's events are, her character rings strong and true.

When critics and audiences dismiss a farce, the standard line is that there was problems with the tone -- that the movie will bounce around too much, veer wildly from one scene to the next, that it's too broad or improbable. All of these things are applicable to Damsel, but these elements are all hallmarks of the genre. Robert Pattinson has supposedly called the movie a "slapstick western," but I have a hunch he may have intended something closer to a "western farce." These terms tend to get mixed up because they often coexist. It's common for a farce to contain some slapstick elements as a way of reinforcing the chaotic and unpredictable nature of the genre (or the spirit of the story being told), but Damsel isn't much of a slapstick anything. It's not a Three Stooges western. It is quite silly, clever and violent at times, but at its heart it is a tragedy -- one that is both funny and sad, sometimes within the same scene. And I think that's a big reason why it makes for a very successful farce.