chewy reading

[calimac]

1. Suddenly I'm finding a whole lot of articles and reviews about Tár, a new movie about a star conductor of the imperious old school, played by Cate Blanchett, who's accused of emotional abuse. Sounds fascinating, and the reason the articles are appearing now is because the movie is supposed to be released today. But according to Moviefone (where I couldn't find it directly, probably because of the accent in the title; I had to look it up under Blanchett), it's not appearing for another three weeks. I expect I'll have to go see this one.

2. B. has been watching the Korean series Extraordinary Attorney Woo on Netflix. I learned, I think from a comment on one of the articles on Tár, that it was preceded by a one-season show starring the same lead actor, about students at a classical music conservatory, titled Do You Like Brahms? That is not on Netflix, but I found a video of musical excerpts from it.

3. Michael Tilson Thomas, facing his mortality. I thought this particularly wise: “Even in a situation where the time is short, whether in rehearsal or in life, you can accept and forgive yourself,” he said. “You can say, ‘I had this much time and this is what I could accomplish.’ And that’s fine. I am at peace with it.”

4. Laura Miller is one of the best literary commentators out there, and this analysis of Maggie Haberman's book on DT is more substantial than the book seems to be. I was especially struck by her observation that "Trump expected his political career to operate the same way his New York and New Jersey real estate development enterprises did" and her demonstration of how that worked in the next paragraph, and by her note that "what’s fascinating about Trump and his presidency is not him, but the people around him." About the people who tried to tether him to reality but only wound up enabling him, she reaches the rare example of a Tolkien comparison that works: "Like Saruman and Gollum, their compromises and torments are more interesting than the dark lord they served."

5. This is old but I saved it. It's sf author Connie Willis's reaction to the repeal of Roe.

6. Columbus Day v. Indigenous Peoples Day. I'm staying out of this dispute altogether.

7. I'm not sure what to make of this. It says it's a Historical Database of Sundown Towns, that is, towns where Black people (or other minorities) were told they had to be out of town by sundown, i.e. they couldn't live there. But its information seems awfully sketchy and, when looking up towns I know in California, I find it includes towns whose evidence is that it once had a pogrom of the Chinese in the 1880s, or one report of a Black or Hispanic person feeling harassed and unable to buy a house. Which are bad but not the same thing. We need a finer distinction and less sweeping generalization.

8. Angry rant in an angry Scots accent about The Rings of Power. This is 20 minutes I found a lot more satisfying than an hour plus of the original, which was all I could stand.

Comments

[cmcmck]

That is a very wise statement indeed.

[wild_patience]

Re Do You Like Brahms?, it's sort of available on Amazon Prime. You have to sign up for a trial for another service. Presumably you could just cancel at the end of the trial period.

I googled and found Extraordinary Attorney Woo has been renewed for a second season. It is to film in 2023 and will be available on Netflix in 2024.

My understanding of sundown towns was that it also meant that you could not stop there overnight if you were on a trip.

[bibliofile]

7. Didn't you read the accompanying text? THat database represents the life's work of James W. Loewen, author of Lies my teacher told me : everything your American history textbook got wrong (1996 originally; revised in the 2010s) as well as Sundown towns : a hidden dimension of American racism (2018). This database is meant to be a living thing, with members of the public invited to send in updates and additions.

On the definition:

A sundown town is not just a place where something racist happened. It is an entire community (or even county) that for decades was “all white” on purpose. “All white” is in quotes because some towns allowed one black family to remain when they drove out the rest. Also, institutionalized persons (in prisons, hospitals, colleges, etc.), live-in servants (in white households), and black or interracial children (in white households) do not violate the taboo.

The database includes all the information acquired and thus is not necessarily a complete list:

Not all towns are thoroughly confirmed. Look over the information provided and come to your own conclusion. Some towns are not and never were sundown towns but are listed for other reasons. And of course, a town may have been sundown once, but now is not. Ferguson, MO, was a sundown town between 1940 and 1960. By 2014, when racial conflict famously erupted there, it was 67% black, so it was certainly no longer a sundown town. However, like some other “recovering” sundown towns, it still displayed “second generation sundown town problems”, in this case an overwhelmingly white police force that still engaged in “DWB policing.”

[calimac]

And some of them don't fit that definition. Bayshore City (I'm not even sure where that is: I'm guessing it's the Bayshore neighborhood of Daly City, since that was once a separate entity): Black man owned a house, and was threatened. Place where something racist happened, not a sundown town. East Palo Alto: Black man sued realtor for refusing to sell him a house. Place where something racist happened, not (on the evidence given here) a sundown town. Doesn't say the date, but that's significant since during the 1960s the city transformed from mostly white to almost entirely black; by 2008, the date of the note saying so, that was already obsolete since the town was rapidly converting to mostly Hispanic which it is today. Antioch, San Jose: had pogroms expelling Chinese residents in the 1870s/80s. Anti-Chinese prejudice was very widespread in California then. Place where something racist happened; no evidence given of continuing existence of a sundown town. Then there's Burlingame. Now this looks like a sundown town: “We knew blacks weren’t allowed to stay overnight in the town and that wasn’t changed until sometime in the late 60s or 70s.” That fits the definition. But what's the evidence? One anonymous blog post.
This is more than "Not all towns are thoroughly confirmed." This isn't a historical database of sundown towns, it's a database of rumors of racist incidents, sundown or not.

[bibliofile]

I was trying to point out something that you missed, not saying that you were wrong in your conclusion. Um, I guess you still missed it? As mentioned in the second block quote, "Some towns are not and never were sundown towns but are listed for other reasons."

[calimac]

And what you missed, because it's not stated in the same place but on top of the individual state lists, is that those towns "listed for other reasons" have asterisks on them. None of the towns I cited have asterisks.

October 7?

[lsanderson]

IMDB sez Tar release was October 7, but it must be a limited LA & New York kinda release. It sure isn't showing anywhere near me. The NYTimes gave it Critic's Pick from their main reviewer, A.O. Scott. It sounds good.

[andrewducker]

I've seen a few trailers for Tar and it looks rather marvellous from them. But doesn't make it at all clear what it's about, so now I'm even more intrigued!