Back in Delaware. I came this way to cover the mayoral election in Philadelphia, and stayed with my parents, whose guest room I helped set up for occasions like this. (Least I could do; it had been unusable because of the boxes of books I’d stored, which we sorted through and mostly gave away.) Stayed only long enough to share lasagna and take my mother out in the Tesla I’d been rented. She’d never been in an electric car, and like many liberals she’d recently, unenthusiastically, had to form opinions about Elon Musk.
Highlight of the week, above a low bar. No one wants to hear about travel, and I don’t especially want to write about it. Brief version: Fiancé’s flight from Mexico got screwed up, my car rental in Philadelphia got screwed up, I raced back to the wedding (late) without her.
Two options for this diary. I could write more embarrassing details about the most cursed day of my year, and how I felt like Cheever’s swimmer pounding on the doors of his empty house. Or: I could post a stupid joke from 2021.
There we go.
I’m still reporting out the mayor story, but it was good to get back out there, bumping into my personal René Belloq — HuffPost reporter Daniel Marans. Most everything else this week was done from my desk. Not a story about Jordan Neely. The take-to-news ration on that story is ungodly, and the only stories I’ve wanted to read are about Neely himself, reconstructions of what happened, and bullshit-clearers on how the city’s actually responded to the post-Trump crime surge.
No take here, either, but this story has expanded the language gap between legacy media and conservatives. The Associated Press stylebook, which most traditional news orgs use, started recommending against the word “homeless” on May 28, 2020. The Minneapolis police department’s 3rd precinct had been abandoned the day before, and it was torched that night. The new advice, interpolating activists’ and social scientists’ language: “people without housing.” This brought the press’s language in line with the experts, but it wasn’t the conversational term, so it sounded odd to people with no opinion and alienating to people who still say “bums.” Now you can read a story about this in legacy media and a story in new right media and maybe half the terms will overlap.
Not really the thing that matters here. That’s why I won’t come lumbering in with my take.
The Best Thing I Read: “The Pornography Wars” by Kelsey Burke, incredibly helpful as history with a few diversions into advocacy. (Didn’t mind them, but they broke up the speedy history of obscenity law that I’d come for.) Nothing else got finished. Halfway into Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw,” got two books deeper into the Bible. I traded size over quantity when I committed to the Bible read this year.
The Best Thing I Saw: The season premiere of “The Other Two,” one of the only new sitcoms I watch. Premise: A teen star with Justin Bieber’s career arc (discovered on YouTube) has a domineering showbiz mother and two siblings who she’d tried and failed to make famous. They’re in their 30s now, striving for a sort of Benjamin Button nepotism where their younger sibling will give them money and meaning. And it works! The show has “30 Rock” logic (the creators wrote for Saturday Night Live); absurd things keep happening and they stick after the episode’s over. One joke that didn’t work for me: Any time the teen star, “ChaseDreams,” mentions that he’s 18, the showbiz hangers-on he’s talking to flash vampire fangs, which retract when an adult says the birthday hasn’t happened yet. Most of the jokes do work.
I did like “Notorious,” which I saw with a friend who celebrated his birthday with this and a companion showing of “Dracula: Dead and Loving It.” Awful, full of wrong choices and flat gags, not worth ironically resurrecting, though that’ll probably happen on a slow news day soon.
The Best Thing I Heard: This podcast, which arrived exactly when I needed to hear two people riff on late-career Tony Scott movies for two hours. Before, I was listening to recordings of Philadelphia mayoral forums; after, I was listening to recordings of Philadelphia mayoral debates.
Again: Not a great week. But writing up the short diary isn’t negotiable — it’s so fun and easy that I’d be humiliated if I bailed. Some weeks are just going to be lighter than others.
I would say there isn't much here except for that it's redundant, and technically I guess I just did. Understable of course considering the travel issues, obviously one downside of a career that allows you to see a ton of the country. Surprised you didn't get to do more of hanging out in philly (the birthplace of ECW and America) though the lasagna sounded nice.
Gonna check out the pornography wars as I'm a sucker for modern history and how much has changed in relatively short time. Hope the Bible reading is going well, a lot of people quit once they get to the instructions on how to build the temple.
The other two sounds like I may enjoy that gotta check if my streaming service carries it. I didn't know Tony Scott had more opportunities after top gun, being a sucker for action films, it's good to know Hollywood game him more chances to flash his chops.
For a week with its challenges you got a bit done. Hope the time in philly reporting goes well for you.