Well hello there. This is Brady Gerber, and welcome to the OPE! newsletter. It’s Monday, March 20th, 2023.
This week on OPE!
…
This week, I … got sick. Oy. I feel better now but was knocked out for a bit during the time I usually set aside for my posts. No blog this week. We still have links and music, of course. Apologies for the light load.
Links
How Everything Everywhere All at Once won the Oscar for Best Picture
This makes a compelling argument for Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Oscar dominance last weekend. I liked but didn’t love Everything Everywhere All at Once (at least not as much as my friends and colleagues; I will say that I first watched this movie on a small airplane screen with broken headphones, and my second viewing, this time in a theatre, was much better) but I love reading nerdy, insider baseball deep dives like this. I agree with the Hollywood veteran here: original movie ideas that are not based on IPs being commercial and critical successes are a win.
“Like its heroine, the film was adept at transforming; it could be anything to any voter. A new Academy member could see a portrait of Asian American immigrants, a valuable spotlight on a community recently threatened by racist violence. A more traditional voter might look past the sex toys and see a heartwarming family drama where the universe is saved by a hug. A Hollywood veteran concerned about the industry’s financial future could see a big theatrical hit based on an original idea. Someone in therapy could get a lesson on intergenerational trauma. What united all of these readings was the idea that, while individual scenes in the movie may have been borrowed, together they all added up to something entirely new.”
Negativity drives online news consumption
Something I think we’re all aware of (“anger sells” is a truism that existed way before the Internet), though I like this more matter-of-fact research explanation. If you want to be a writer, you must write; if you want to be famous, you must talk shit on Twitter.
“The newsroom phrase ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ was coined to reflect the intuition among journalists that stories about crime, bloodshed and tragedy sell more newspapers than stories about good news1. However, a large portion of news readership now occurs online—the motivation to sell papers transformed into a motivation to keep readers clicking on new articles. In the United States, 89% of adults get at least some of their news online, and reliance on the Internet as a news source is increasing2. Even so, most users spend less than 5 minutes per month on all of the top 25 news sites put together3. Hence, online media is forced to compete for the extremely limited resource of reader attention.”
Silicon Valley had a bank … HAD
Going back to school for software engineering, I’ve learned to appreciate Fireship, which does a good job breaking down the top tech and coding news from a software engineer’s perspective. Fireship’s March 12th video on all the recent SVB drama is hilariously bleak. I’m sure one of you with a background in economics and finance can poke holes into the video, yet this to me nails the overall sense of how this all feels.
Fireship’s videos on GPT-4 and Midjourney 5 also are worth the watch.
Apply for the 2023-24 New York Times Disability Fellowship (deadline is March 24th)
“Disabilities in media” is an idea very dear to me - I wrote about it for Vulture a few years ago - and the NYT’s Disability Fellowship has evolved from a one-time class to a yearly fellowship for young disabled journalists starting out in their careers. This is one of the few disability media fellowships I’m aware of, and if you or someone you know is interested, apply and see what happens. You never know.
“The Times is looking for candidates who are strong writers and creative thinkers, and are eager to throw themselves into a yearlong, intensive journalistic experience. This fellow will work on our National desk, focusing on reporting that illuminates and explains issues facing people living with disabilities. This fellow also will take some general assignment breaking news shifts.”
Music
Cafuné - “Perspective”
Scrubs-core but with better drums. (Scrubs-core is not a diss.)
Maps - “Lack of Sleep" (Pye Corner Audio Remix)”
Off to dreamland with these humming synths and drums.
Lilah Larson - “i”
I’m so excited about this album. As soon as I tell myself that avant-guitars have run out of ideas, something like “i” comes along and shuts me up.
Asher Gamedze - “Wynter Time”
If Tenet was more spider-jazz and more satisfying.
Mahlathini Nezintombi Zomgqashiyo and the Makgona Tsohle Band - "Ngicabange Ngaqeda (I Have Made Up My Mind)”
Robert Christgau’s Substack is always a fun read. This recent edition reminds me how much I love The Indestructible Beat of Soweto.
Keaton Henson - “The Meeting Place”
More Scrubs-core.
Jim Croce - “Walkin’ back to Georgia”
It’s not fair to say that Croce is underrated. It’s more like every time one of his songs comes on my iTunes shuffle, I think: Why do I not listen to more Jim Croce? A case of an amazing songwriter who 1) died too young (only 30) and 2) never released one great album (You Don’t Mess Around With Jim is probably the closest to “great”). One of pop folk’s greatest “greatest hits” artists.
Radiohead - “Fake Plastic Trees”
Still perfect.
Blur - The Universal
Blur’s posher take on “Fake Plastic Trees,” even though the songs came out around the same time and likely wouldn’t have known of each other’s existence. (As if songs can be aware of other songs.) There was a time in my early ‘20s when I was convinced that The Great Escape was Blur’s best album and secretly the best album of the Britpop era. I’ve since cooled on that thought — my favorite Blur album is a three-way tie between Parklife, Blur, and 13, Pulp’s Different Class and “Common People” are too perfect of metaphors for Britpop, and we all know Oasis is my favorite band — but The Great Escape and specifically “The Universal” still capture the horrors of ‘90s plastic wealth better than most albums and songs. Blur can be annoying, but I don’t think you can accuse them of not being self-aware. I would give my left arm to write melodies as well as Damon Albarn and play guitar as well as Graham Coxon. Like most of my favorite songs, “The Universal” makes me feel like I’m a 100-feet tall.
Radiohead - “Let Down”
Also still perfect.
And that’s it! Hopefully, I’ll have more time this coming week. Until next Monday.
With love and all the other good things,
-b
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