Extra Evil - The Country for Old Men
Extra Evil - The Country for Old Men
Today’s Fortune: Don't go out without a vest.
Newsreel
You get to worry about the Homeland Security Committee now.
Zero-COVID ended with even less COVID. Move along.
Wars last longer than news cycles.
Egg prices may spark history's swolest riot.
That uncle is still mad about Greta Thunberg.
The furthest signal ever received set the tone for this year's sci-fi.
Today's Mood
War Journal
Do you have a media consumption quirk? Mine drives other anime dorks insane. If that includes you, I hope you can still forgive/respect/feed me after learning the truth.
Since decent anime adaptations tend to hew closely to the manga, I almost never watch anything I've read. There's an inescapable feeling of retreading. I suck at time management, so I'm pretty sensitive to it.
The local model of "not caring even a little about the original" doesn't produce better work. I’d even say it’s much more likely to be unwatchable. But I squeeze a little dramatic tension out of our instability. Will this incinerate something I enjoy, or just make something new and unrelated? Nobody knows! That speaks to my inner gambler.
This attitude may extend to other areas of my life.
I've been thinking about propaganda, mostly because of this article. We accept a passive level of it in entertainment, especially in action movies. And I love action movies. A little more than I like people. Which makes the more violent ones go down smooth.
Looking directly at the issue makes me feel lazy. Because it's not hard to imagine the genre without it. Plenty of action movies are low propaganda, or have it comfortably siloed in the exposition. But I'm also addicted to my Donnie Yen and Sylvester Stallone vehicles.
This isn't about political purity—I'm much more vulnerable to reinforcement for my own stupid beliefs. I just wish there was more punching for the simple love of punching. Fist fights in Eden.
It's a bit of a miracle that this is coming together in time. I spent half the week in a disease coma. Not COVID this time, one of the other two or three diseases reenacting the Deus Ex intro. I hope you're enjoying it.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Come to this reading on the 24th. Thank you.
The Present
I’m a guest on Secretly Incredibly Fascinating! The show rules, and I don’t ruin it.
This month's column is about Autocracy Rap. It is a modern miracle.
Do my self-esteem a favor, and read this high-effort near future short of mine.
Help keep Pinkertons away from Orwell's heirs.
Think of how many times you could have read Everything Abridged by now.
The Past
I didn’t show any more restraint during lockdown.
The Future
All New Yorkers or lovers of hell traffic are invited to my reading at Greenlight Books on the 24th.
Waiting on some external calls. Fingers crossed.
Bonus article Monday. Because you’re worth it.
I haven’t forgotten my pod or Photoshop promises. I just have a few backlogged boulders to push uphill.
One Sentence Reviews
Into the Breach: Help me stop please oh god oh no oh god (Aggggh/5)
Nirvana - Bleach: Looks like that Kurt Cobain had something. (Good Times/5)
Velma: I'll wait for the neofascist pile-on to wrap up before throwing in. (You can guess/5)
Open Question
Signing off
Thanks for reading Extra Evil, the newsletter bigger than Jesus. Share it to excommunicate it.
-DD
“Fist fights in Eden.”
A perfect line.
"Wars last longer than news cycles."
This. It's surreal how little we humans can place sustained attention on the truly catastrophic things happening around us. Two things I can't shake:
1. In a Masha Gessen piece in the New Yorker a few years ago, they wrote (paraphrasing): People living in totalitarian dictatorships have brunch on the weekends too.
2. Walking around our neighborhood a few months ago, my daughter asked, "Is the battle between Russia and Ukraine still going on?" and I said, "Unfortunately, it is." and she said, "Oh, I thought it might have ended since everyone took their blue and yellow flags down."