"El Traidor" by Anabel Hernández (2020)

Monopoly restricts output. The government outputs violence. Competing governments output even more violence. Cartel competition (with each other or with other forms of government) produces excessive violence.

EXPO Chicago

 (15 April 2023, The Navy Pier)

Like so very much does in this urban agglomeration, this exhibition, too, had the air of a money-laundering operation. One usually comes to an art fair to see, be seen, and to transcend the quotidian through communion with beauty. EXPO Chicago had the ambience of a car show, but without the cars. Some pretty pictures showed. But who was listening?

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.