Category: Other Writing

Comedy is the Best Horror🎃

A lot of my favorite horror films are SNL digital shorts. I’ve been mulling this over for years now (in fact, I just spent the last hour writing about this from a craft perspective, a screed that I mercifully deleted rather than sending).

I think it all comes down to this: horror in film basically relies on four tools:

Jump scares are easiest, mounting dread takes the most time, and squick is often the best way to cash in or make a name for yourself. But it’s always the uncanniness I’m after in horror, that experience Freud described as abruptly seeing the “familiar and old-established” as strange and alien, thus giving the sense of revealing a deeper truth “which ought to have remained hidden but has come to light.”

It’s the horrific uncanniness I love in these comedy skits. In part, this arises from what’s implied about the universe that the characters live in, all the stuff that’s outside the frame (e.g., Jason’s refrigerator, the pizza beast, the old woman across the street, that high school). 

But I think the key element—the thing that pushes this beyond “the familiar and old-established made strange and alien” and into the territory of “that which ought to have remained hidden being dragged up into the light” is the fact that the world we actually really live in—where I’m sitting and typing and you’re sitting and reading and we’re both watching these little 3-minute-gems—is also outside the frame.

The awful thing the characters in the movie are about to experience? It’s already happening here. Hell, it’s us. And we’re laughing.

For your viewing pleasure:

Looking for some spooºOºoky Hallow-Reads?🎃📖👻

I’m callously taking advantage of the Reason for the Season to plug some of my free-to-read/hear horror stories:

This Place Is Best Shunned

“This Place Is Best Shunned“—Allie and Rooster are heading down to Asheville for Rooster’s new gig, a cushy stint as artist-in-residence at UNC. Rooster is more of a con artist than maker of art, but Allie doesn’t mind, because he’s good-looking, charming, and values what she is: a girl with a keen eye for abandoned places and a knack for getting into them. But when they stumble upon an old backcountry church—the perfect backdrop for Rooster’s latest project—they discover that some “abandoned” places have a knack for keeping themselves occupied.…

Whatever Comes After Calcutta

“Whatever Comes After Calcutta”—It was late in the day when Lyle Morimoto saw the hanged woman and almost crashed his Prius somewhere between Calcutta, Ohio, and whatever the hell came after Calcutta. For hours he’d been sipping warm Gatorade and cruising the crumbling two-lane blacktop that sliced up the scrubby farmland of southern Ohio. He understood that he was not thinking clearly, but that seemed OK, since it also meant not thinking about his ear, or his wife, or Detective Jason Good, or the gun in the pocket of his suit jacket.…

The Slender Men

There Was a Crooked Man, He Flipped a Crooked House

If you simply must purchase something, you might just as well purchase this (especially if you liked any of the above, because it’s all that and moooooore):

There Was a Crooked Man, He Flipped a Crooked House—”Downtrodden architect Glenn Washington and his none-too-bright sidekick Lennie help a crooked real estate baron flip houses in downtrodden Detroit. A house comes up that is too good to gut for parts. Too good to be true. Waaaay too good. Thing is, nothing leads where it should — go through the front door, step out the door on the back porch. Best library ever. And why are the cops nosing around? Non-Euclidian architectural petty-crime adventure, and all that implies.”—Adrian Simmons, Black Gate magazine

Antisemitism in Ann Arbor, MI (July 7, 2024)

I’m mostly posting this for archival/documentary purposes. But I’m also posting this because I think that the “Is anti-Zionism antisemitic?” argument is stupid; you can go to these protests and demonstrations yourself, or look at comprehensive coverage, and decide for yourself if what you see is primarily motivated by a love of the Palestinian people or a loathing of Jews.

I captured all of these video at the weekly protest held outside Beth Israel Congregation each Saturday, during morning Shabbat services. This protest has been held mostly weekly for the last couple decades, and has been mostly the same throughout that period. The pictures show all of the signs that were on display that day. Some have been the same for years (I’ve lived less than one mile from this site for 20+ years), others are relatively new. I think only “Jews Bomb Hospitals” and possibly “Jews Bomb Churches” are new since the pogrom of October 7 and intensified bombings of Gaza. The entire video of my stroll past the demonstration is included at the bottom, for those curious.

a sign reading "DUAL LOYALTY?" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a man holding a sign reading "No More Wars for Israel" outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Jews Bomb Churches" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Jewish Power vs. 1st Amendment: Who Will Win?" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
An overlay of a Palestinian flag covering an Israeli flag that has the Star of David covered by a DON'T symbol displayed outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Gas chambers? REALLY?!" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "RESIST Jewish Power" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Israeli Citizens in Our Congress??" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Death Camps? Really?!" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Liberate Palestine. End 'Israel.' Boycott Israel" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Are Jews above criticism" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Let's Go Brandon" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "No Jewish State" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
an Israeli flag with the Jewish Star covered in a DON'T sign flown over a star-spangled sign reading "U.S.A." displayed outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign showing former President Donald Trump waving an Israeli flag in one hand anda Hanukah menorah in the other while wearing a kippah--a traditional Jewish headcovering worn during prayer. Text reads "Hey, Donald: We thought you said AMERICA FIRST" Sign is posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "I will no longer be complicit in genocide—Aaron Bushnell (RIP 2/25/24)" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Jonathan Pollard: Jewish Traitor" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "No More Wars for Israel" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Boycott Apartheid Israel" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "No More Holocaust Movies!" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Jews Oppressing Palestinians is REAL anti-Semitism" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "$XX million/Day to Israel for what?" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Free Palestine" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "The United States of Israel?!" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
A white bearded man in a hat and kefiah scarf holding four signs outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI. These signs read "Jews Bomb Hospitals", "End the Palestinian Holocaust," "Six million? Really?!", and "Israel Attacked USS Liberty 6/8/1967"
a sign reading "America: the New Gaza Strip?!" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "Israel Attacked America 9/11/2011" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI
a sign reading "America First Not Israel" posted outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI

I never spoke a word to these men, nor was I wearing anything inflammatory. I had on a plain black shirt and this hat, which I wear basically everywhere:

A fairly beat-down green brimmed baseball cap with four buttons on it. The buttons show: 1) a "love" hand in rainbow colors, 2) the text "BLACK LIVES MATTER", 3) a peace symbol, and 4) a stylized Jewish star and the text "Secret Jewish Space Lasers Corps: Mazel Tough"

I wouldn’t rule out that these two protestors knew I was a Jew: the “Jewish Space Lasers” button on my hat is pretty legible (folks have complimented me on it) and, besides, I’m active in Jewish communal life here, and it’s just not that big of a community.

I mention this because near the beginning of the video you can hear the mustachioed protestor begin by talking about dead Palestinians (reasonable, at a nominally pro-Palestine demo) and then abruptly switching gears to talk about the “fact” that gas chambers never existed. I don’t know why he jumped topics like that, although I’d been warned that these two men (who both wear GoPros) would try to goad me into a fight. A portion of their signs are clearly intended to offend, and especially to offend Jews–like the families with small children who were arriving to attend religious services as I arrived.

Gerrymandering Solved Just Like Mom Used to Make!

Remember when you were a kid and would fight over who got the bigger slice of cake, and so your mom made one of you cut and the other choose, in order to ensure fairness and decrease the amount of kvetching and whining she’d have to deal with, so she could just get on with her life?

Well, turns out you can fix gerrymandering exactly the same way (more or less): Schneier on Security: A Self-Enforcing Protocol to Solve Gerrymandering

This protocol is self-enforcing (i.e., it requires no outside arbiter or commission or oversight board or judges), mathematically verified, and fair—all of which taken together basically guarantees we’ll never ever ever use it, because (waves hands) will-of-the-people-constitutionalism-orginalist-intent-textualist-consistent-with-traditions-blah-blah-bullshit.🤬🇺🇸🔥

“the only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skill”—Jerry Seinfeld

I do not endorse Seinfeld or Seinfeld (no deeply held conviction or ideological bone to pick there; he just never particularly worked for me, as a comedian or writer), but I do wholeheartedly endorse both the above sentiment, and reading the entire op-ed it came from (here’s a gift link 🎁🔗 ):

“Opinion: The life secret Jerry Seinfeld learned from Esquire“[*]

The takeways summarized in the op-ed are good and worth your time, and the core message is a fundamental truth:

Dedicating yourself to the mastery of a craft—against all odds and despite all distractions and obstacles—is the only path along which there is relief.

Along these same lines—delving into and reflecting on what it means to dedicate yourself to craft—I likewise wholeheartedly endorse this documentary (noting that, over the last decade I’ve revised my opinion on it in at least one important detail: although I still love the documentary, I no longer even mildly like any of these comics).

[*] I also don’t endorse Esquire—again, it never really worked for me is all. I do endorse the Washington Post, though. I read a lot of news reporting from a lot of sources, and there’s is consistently the most even-handed and makes the most honest attempt at being honest and accurate, in my humble.

I can’t shake the feeling that there is something vaguely antisemitic about this situation . . .🪄🐇👿

Holy Moses! The “suave devil look” for magicians (goatee, tuxedo, etc.) was invented by a Jewish magician named “Herrmann” (which I think is German for “Mr. Man”—which just so feels like a name assigned by a census taker who was fed up with weird Yiddish shtetl names he couldn’t spell) who performed for Lincoln!

New York Times: “How a 1933 Book About Jews in Magic Was Rescued From Oblivion” (🎁 gift link)

In fact, Herrmann (shown in the picture at the top, courtesy of his Wikipedia entry) is so synonymous with the look that if you prompt an A.I. with “create a poster for an 1800s stage magician. The magician needs a goatee” it gives you a picture of this otherwise obscure 19th Century French stage magician:

A.I.l generated image from the prompt “create a poster for an 1800s stage magician. The magician needs a goatee.” The result is a stereotypical "suave devil" stage magician--and happens to be a nearly spot-on portrait of 19th C Jewish magician Alexander Herrmann

This is Seriously How I Feel about Every Casino App 🎰💸🤮

I live in Michigan, and we’re deluged in ads for this stuff here. I don’t personally care about gambling—don’t dig it, don’t really object to it, not close to anyone who’s gotten really tangled up in it. But these apps—the aggressiveness of the celebrity shilling, the dopamine-flood design of their ads, the trite offers of “help” to those struggling with a gambling problem—just feels gross as fuck to me. It may be a stretch to say you are profiting from your neighbors’ misery when you use these apps, but it is no stretch at all to point out that Jamie Foxx and Jason Alexander and all the rest of these celebrity shills sure as shit are. Why in the world are these folks, who are already multi-millionaires, taking this work to promote these apps?

“Who’s Coming to Hurt Us?”[UPDATE] ✡︎

An interesting take on some recent research:

“Who Are the Least and Most Antisemitic Americans by Ideology?”

“The upshot is that the least antisemitic Americans are mainstream liberals and conservatives. The most antisemitic are the extreme left, the extreme right, as one of the theories noted above suggests, but also low information voters, who skew survey results by often self-identifying as “moderate.””

In other words, modern Jew-hate in America isn’t a right-wing thing (as most progressives insists), nor a horseshoe (as often seems to be the case on the ground, as a Jew), but instead a “W,” where the Left and Right peaks correspond to strongly ideological folks blaming Jews for this or that social ill (e.g., Jews are both the all-controlling capitalist puppet-masters AND the socialist-communist shadow agents driving the Great Replacement), and the middle peak is composed of average/moderate/centrist folks who mistrust the “mainstream” media, don’t identify as anything, and get their news from increasingly biased and ignorant spheres.

Hence:

Oy. 😕

(For those wondering about the image that leads this post, my schpiel on this shorthand.)