Hello, it's Summer

It’s been a very busy (and stressful, honestly) last six weeks or so. Between uncertainty (yes, still) with the state of the college where I teach and thus my employment in about two months, and also ending the semester, and finishing the first rough draft of my next book, and traveling for work in Europe for a couple of weeks, and of course seasonal allergies (!!) — it’s just been a lot.

But I returned home last week to discover a gentle summer has descended upon my beloved borough of Brooklyn, and I am determined to make the most of whatever is coming. I got accepted, somewhat unexpectedly (it’s very selective), to the fully-remote, very part-time MS in Computer Science at Georgia Tech, which I think may go a long way toward helping me write more thoughtfully about the intersection of the arts and tech, especially in this age when tech is trying to swallow the arts, digest it all, and spit out “content” on the other end. I’m passionate about not living in a world where we just let that happen. But my tech skills are about 20 years out of date, I am also a big proponent of knowing what I’m talking about — and while I need a third master’s degree like a hole in the head, it is sort of fun contemplating having an MS to put on the shelf alongside the MA and the MFA (and the BS). I haven’t been in school in ten years, but, you know, why not.

And I also have been working, mostly but not entirely from Cannes. So here’s a brief rundown of what I’ve done in the last month and change, from the writers strike to some good movies you can watch now and in the future.

• Slipping into the Gray Area guest host chair once again, I talked to the brilliant writer Dorothy Fortenberry (Extrapolations, The Handmaid’s Tale) about faith communities, TV, and why environmental crisis is a religious crisis. If you want to listen to the full episode (it’s quite wonderful), you can!

• Wrote about Ari Aster’s confoundingly wonderful Beau Is Afraid and also talked to Ari, who is lovely.

• This one is really important to me: why the writers strike is about AI (in large part) and why that should matter to you, specifically.

• Wrote a big explainer for normal people on the writers strike, which is still ongoing. (In the wake of this I spent an entire week doing TV and radio at ungodly hours to talk about it, but those you’ll have to hunt down on your own time.)

• Interviewed Laurel Parmet, writer and director of one of the best movies I’ve seen this year, The Starling Girl, about a teen girl in a fundamentalist Christian community (a very familiar one) who has a real coming-of-age experience. I really cannot believe how good this movie is.

• Wrote a big feature for The Highlight about whether we ever have new ideas, Disney’s quest to gaslight us into believing that our old memories aren’t good enough, and the long, long history of mermaids.

• From Cannes, I wrote about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and how it directly addresses Hollywod in its current IP-driven era. (Movie is out soon.)

• Also from Cannes, I wrote about The Zone of Interest, a truly staggering film about . . . well, just read it.

• Explored Cannes and the banality of evil, as you do. (Really proud of this one.)

• Rounded up what I saw at Cannes that’s worth knowing about.

• And finally, wrote about Reality, a movie that’s now streaming on (HBO)Max, a true stunner starring Sydney Sweeney as whistleblower Reality Winner in a film that takes the verbatim transcript of Winner’s interrogation as its script. Before it was a movie, it was a play that I saw twice; all iterations stunning.

I am trying to re-enter life, but you can always follow me on Instagram and Twitter.

Enjoyed this? If you’re feeling it, I won’t object if you buy me a cup of coffee. Writers need fuel.