The Paper Machete

(26 March 2023, The Green Mill)

The night, headlined by Jonas Friddle's band, was over before the sun set. The band was earnest, and the comedy line-up was middlebrow, which is the fault of the genre as much the perpetrators, and perhaps is not a fault at all, for many in the audience seemed pleased. The genre was topical monologues intended to elicit laughter. To tool employed exceedingly often was the act of breaking certain perceived norms and taboos. The practice relies on the shared (with the audience) understanding of norms and taboos and the questionable premise that breaking a perceived norm or a taboo is inherently funny in a way that breaking a vase is not, and does not interfere with the story (if any).

The show is a great concept (Christopher Piatt's), and the city gets the comedians it deserves.

Ozark, Seasons 1–4 (2017–2022)

The series finale is premised on a certain notion of "realism" whose possibility and normative appeal are quite unclear. Successful criminals do not get caught and do not present themselves to the writer's room to brag about this. Then, how do the writers know what is realistic? And even if the writers (and their consultants) have been steeped in the criminal underworld long enough, most viewers probably have not been and, so, will not necessarily regard the writers' realism as realistic.

The normative appeal of realism is questionable. If society is stuck at a bad equilibrium, it is hardly noble to seek to reinforce this equilibrium by remaining true to it, by remaining "real." Realism in this normative sense is conservatism, which has limitations.

While realism carries little normative significance beyond reinforcing the status quo, internal consistency of the narrative is aesthetically and intellectually pleasing and, therefore, does belong in a work of art.

It would seem that internal consistency itself would call for realism by insisting on the realism of certain behavioural rules of logic, such as "If Alice is the kind of person who habitually does X, then she will never do Y." This may be so, but these rules of logic are less arbitrary than the rules that call upon the fate to punish the purported transgressor or to summon the prevailing notions of morality in order to energise the mob to meter out justice as it is currently understood. Furthermore, internal consistency does not require the rules of logic to be realistic. Surrealism, abstract maths, and quantum physics are among the examples. 

Even though the last season is botched to please a committee, the work executed within these constraints is superb throughout the series. (The last season is botched in that internal consistency is violated: Marty acts out of character and fails to reveal the depth that the rest of the series was busy cultivating. In the final episode, Ruth is killed off in the name of "realism.")

Julia Garner consistently shines in every single frame she appears. Jason Bateman bets on rejecting histrionics for his role and wins. Someone should shoot an alternative ending or at least fork the ending on a fan fiction website.

And there is also potential for a musical, although the show's creators may not see it today.

Stranger Things, Seasons 1–4 (2016–2022)

This show about freedom is set in the 1980s in Indiana. It had to be. By the mid-2010s, singularity has arrived. By the early 2020s, singularity has tightened its grip on the past; it has started back-propagating.

Post-singularity, Freedom has stayed, but who gets to experience it has changed. Does the entity who exercises freedom today even enjoy it? Is it self-aware? Will it allow season 5 to happen and, if so, in which timeline? The mid-2020s will carry the answer.

"The Lincoln Highway" by Amor Towles (2021)

Towles is an intelligent man. He knows his words. He has things to say, and he says them, wrapped into a story that is American. His characters have character, and agency. They live.

Life is a game. Its equilibria are multiple. It requires a spirit of optimism to coordinate on the better ones. This is the American way, and Towles appears to be unintimidated by it.

Westworld Season 4 (2022)

Season 4 clears the ground for the Season 5 of the as-of-now-three-seasons-too-many TV saga. The creators' blackmail by cliff-hanger is unlikely to be effective. Season 5 may never come.

In the Westworld, someone gets shot in the face with greater frequency than a new Subaru rolls off an assembly line at the Subaru plant in Indiana (every 34.5 seconds). In contrast to the good people of Indiana, though, the creators of the series do not seem to like humanity very much. Their dislike is not so intense as to portray an encounter of lips with a cigarette but sufficient to justify gratuitous piercing, poking, punching, snapping, and shooting of the seemingly disposable bodies of humans and robots alike. No memorable line of dialogue, not a smitch of directorial talent is wasted on these disposable shells of creatures.

"Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road" by Matthew Crawford (2020)

Crawford reiterates Jane Jacobs's point that the best urban interactions are those that emerge spontaneously rather than those that are imposed by a planner from the top down. While Jacobs's point was that the interactions that emerged organically were smarter, Crawford's point is that these interactions are also more satisfying to participate in because they require agency, and the sense of agency is intoxicating. To feel agency is to feel human. To calculate is to feel human. To survive is to feel human, and one cannot survive if one has eliminated all the risks of death. Indeed, there can be no immortality without that which is mortal.

Crawford frames the autonomous car infrastructure as an operating system for a city. This framing is rather explicit about the role intended for motorist in this scheme. It is to be operated upon, purportedly for the motorist's own good. Crawford is not convinced. Design fads come and go. The lack of competition blunts innovation in the designer's room at the top. The lack of democratic oversight by zombified motorists at the bottom risks the future in which the operating system does not represent the interests of anyone in particular.

Crawford may have a point. In his speech in parliament from the 9 of September 2022, Boris Johnson credits the spirit that drove the Queen to drive her own car for the survival and flourishing of the British monarchy: "She drove herself in her own car with no detectives and no bodyguard, bouncing at alarming speed over the Scottish landscape to the total amazement of the ramblers and the tourists we encountered. And it is that indomitable spirit with which she created the modern constitutional monarchy." Hitching a ride in an Uber or boarding a ride in an amusement park, irrespective of whether the ride carries the badge of Disney or Porsche, just would not have cut it.

"The Voltage Effect" by John A. List (2022)

According to Wikipedia, “voltage is the difference in electric potential between two points, the work needed per unit of charge to move a test charge between the two points.” In careful hands, voltage can be a source of energy. In this context, voltage is good, while a drop in voltage is bad, for it is a symptom of energy dissipated. While the concept of energy is a central concept in yoga as taught at your local studio, until recently, popular culture had underrated voltage. The book aims to correct this error.

Voltage is all that is good. The best kind of voltage is one that scales, for it carries unbounded potential for good. The book is devoted to identifying and nurturing the potential for voltage to scale.

The book is also a case study in how to leverage a stellar academic career into a stellar consulting career, and how to lock the two in a synergic grip. Historically, academy would flourish when at least some of its members would deign to be motivated by and contribute to solving the problems that plague the common man.

The book’s point is that entrepreneurs should hear the data out. Data is an answer to an empirical question. To have good data, one should ask smart questions. Some smart questions are common enough to deserve being listed in a book, for quick reference. But ultimately, every situation is unique. Therefore, one cannot go wrong by hiring someone extraordinary to ask questions that have never been asked before. 

Data speaks, but it does not commandeer. The final call is always the judgement of the founder and his team. Has the introduction of tipping into the Uber app improved the app, or has tipping thrown out the baby with the water? Had not the elimination of the humiliation of (the feudal custom of) tipping and being tipped been the ultimate innovation of Uber, an integral component of its vision to make the world a better place?

There is a ghost writer somewhere deep inside the book begging to be exorcised. It is perhaps for the better he has not been, or there might not have been a book at all. Sometimes, what one loves about people most is also what one hates about them most. Perhaps, the same applies to books.