"Pulphead: Essays" by John Jeremiah Sullivan (2011)

John Sullivan is a photographer. He makes photography look easy, just as Truman Capote did. 

Sullivan has little interest in a narrative. His is impressionistic, photographic writing driven by an open, curious mind. He is especially good at writing about people, for people supply their own narrative by virtue of living. In the “Career of an Eccentric Naturalist,” his writing is akin to a stack of B&W street photographs. The narrative the protagonist's life supplies culminates in exposing secular humanism as self-evident. 

Sullivan's non-biographical writing lacks a narrative, which makes it hard to deduce the subject matter. Was “American Grotesque” about Obamacare? Was it about the American right? It is unclear.

Is Sullivan's writing particularly Southern? Adam Gopnik wrote that science was competitive storytelling. Sullivan does not compete. He is nonjudgemental and kind. Is Southern excellence achieved by means other than competition?

Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen (2026)

The movie is expertly edited by Dev Singh. The cinematography is good outdoors but is way too dark indoors. Camila Morrone is a formidable lead.

One of the questions the movie raises is whether the property of being soulmates is symmetric. The apparent answer is that it is not.

No decision is worse than indecision.

Shrinking: Seasons 1–3 (2023–2026)

Paul in Shrinking is Harrison Ford's best role ever. He is consistently superb throughout the series. So is Jason Segel. Indeed, every character is perfectly written and cast—except for Derek #2, who is so impossibly dull that one could not help but to anticipate a plot twist whereby he would turn out to be a villain in disguise.

The motion picture is perfectly written, perfectly directed, perfectly photographed (one does not notice the cinematography), and perfectly edited. It is intelligent, optimistic, and witty (which is another way to say that it is optimistic). This coherent project has been conceived and executed by a pride of producers, a wisdom of writers, and a murder of directors. Only in Hollywood may an ecosystem like this exist and resist (and perhaps occasionally profit from) the recent onset of climate change.

The motion picture leans into the idea that people need (and, in some corners, can still afford) people.

The Drama (2026)

Zendaya and her character are good. The male protagonist is a fashionable weakling. The movie's dilemma is whether three people who did wrong ought to ostracise a self-confessed one-time thought criminal who did not. The moral of the story is that everyone deserves to be forgiven, weaklings and thought criminals alike.

"Churchill: Walking with Destiny" by Andrew Roberts (2018)

Throughout his life, Churchill held remarkably modern, enlightened views. Many prominent figures throughout history—including the Founding Fathers—did. Enlightened views possess universality, by definition of Enlightenment.

Churchill remained consistent in his views throughout his life. This consistency is typical of great men. They perfect their views all while betting that their time will come instead of scheming how to best take advantage of prevailing political fashions.

Churchill respected tradition but challenged norms. This quality would have helped him in American politics, had he been born there.

Churchill's privileged upbringing prepared him well to thrive on adversity. Perhaps the same upbringing has also taught him what kind of adversity the British people were willing to endure and what kind they would have had none of. Only a great man can live with the enormous responsibility of choosing action over inaction: of sending his people to fight in a world war instead of surrendering. A defining feature of greatness is the willingness to accept responsibility.

Pluribus (2025)

The AI is well aligned beyond anyone's wildest expectations. And yet, in spite of its best efforts, it somehow fails to please two out of a dozen remaining humans. The two do not want communism. They even reject the interim feudalism that is lavished upon them while their joining the AI race is pending. Why refuse favours if the end is inevitable? Why not be the last glorious individual on earth? Why waste energy on resisting change instead of embracing and perfecting it?

The hive mind that is the AI race in the series can be viewed literally, as a sudden arrival in the near future, or metaphorically, as the population drawn to the LLMs that are already here.

The series is a two-part affair: the first two episodes followed by the remaining seven. Cinematography by Marshall Adams and Paul Donachie is superb. Rhea Seehorn is superb as the rather mediocre Carol Sturka. On paper, Carol's lines are dull, as is her character. Onscreen, Seehorn's character is alive and interesting, an intense one-man aggregation of the personalities that have not (yet) made it into the AI hive mind. Carol is a remarkable achievement by Seehorn and the series' directors.

Also remarkable is Karolina Wydra, who portrays Zosia, a retconned Pole (why? because her English is so pure?). The series is ultimately about them two, Carol and Zosia. It is hard to imagine a sequel adding much to the story. 

Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World

(The National Portrait Gallery, 21 December 2025)

Beaton's failing as a fashion photographer lies in succeeding as a fashion photographer. People like to connect with other people, and fashion can serve as a catalyst. The subject of the photograph is always the connection, never the fashion itself. There is precious little of human connection in Beaton's photography. Beaton was an aesthete, not a humanist.

Fashion photography as a genre is generally rather good not (only) because its subject matter is beautiful but also because it is answerable to the objective metric of market success.