Pride & Prejudice, Part 2, Napoleon at Pemberley: A Secret History and More

Jane Austen is in the news these days, given the opening last week of Georgia Oakley's movie adaptation of Sense and Sensibility.  Tina and I took a different road tonight, and went to see Ken Ludwig's new play, Pride & Prejudice, Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, which had its world premier at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut.  We and the packed house loved it.

Wait, Jane Austen didn't write a sequel to her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice that has been read around the world by school kids for at least a century, right?  Right, this Part 2 is a comedy-drama that continues Jane Austen's story of Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy after they get married, and get a defeated Napoleon on his way to Elba as a house guest.

As such, this play qualifies as a secret history, a close cousin of alternate history, but in which real history is not changed, and we're treated to an account of something that happened in real history that we didn't know about.  As is the case in alternate history, you need to keep everything that has not changed as accurate as possible.  The at turn brilliant, petulant, vain, and always forceful Napoleon is known to us and well written in this play, and memorably acted by Reg Rogers.

But melded into this secret history is a genuine sequel to Austen's masterpiece, and Ludwig gets this right, as well.  Elizabeth and Darcy (well played by Delphi Borich and Tony Roach) and are instantly recognizable from the novel, and continue to grow in this sequel.  And the supporting characters, both from the novel and newly invented, are fine and sparkling, too.   Emily Mann did an excellent job directing this play, i.e., putting it all together, the comedy and the drama, the history and the secret history and the fiction, on the stage.

Mark Shanahan, the Playhouse's Artistic Director, was wise indeed to bring this world debut to Westport.  Jane Austen's novel, like Shakespeare's plays and the Beatles's music, is well on its way to being with humankind as long as we survive.  Once word gets out about Ludwig's play, who that has read Pride and Prejudice will not want to see the play?

Dark Matter 2.9: Good News for Actors

So it occurred to me, after watching episode 2.9 of Dark Matter on Apple TV last night, that this series is very good for everyone who is acting in it.

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

The episode ends with a Chicago struck by a fearsome attack -- right after Jason whatever or a closely related Jason lures a Mitchel MacNamara (Chris Diamantopoulos) with a beard onto a sunny beach with happy people just as the attack is about to happen. So Mitchel who is hardboiled is about to get hardboiled in a different way, and I felt a little bad for the character, because I liked him, at least sometimes or in some realities.

But then I realized, in a universe in which there are infinite universes, we'll likely see Mitchel again. A series like Dark Matter is, among its many attractions, good news for actors.  In the meta-universe which contains all the universes, all characters are immortal.  Even if you kill a character a hundred different times, there will be many more of them potentially on hand.

And this is good news for viewers, too.  As I said in my review of Dark Matter 2.2, I liked Mitchel's Sam Spadish vibe.   And in Dark Matter, killing off one of them means it's more than likely I'll see him again.

The immortality of characters also plays well into another thread of this fine episode, when Charlie finds a universe with his twin-brother Max alive and thriving.  This reunion made for a tender, winning part of the narrative, and Oakes Fegley did a fine job as the two Charlies (our Charlie and the Charlie in the universe in which Max is alive) and Max.

Next week is the season finale, and I miss this show already.

See also See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action ... 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time? ... 2.4: "There's No Entrance to the Diner" ... 2.5: Canterbury Realities and Proust ... 2.6: The Harptones in the Multiverse ... 2.7: "Through this door ..." ... 2.8: Amanda's Smile and Laurel's Singularness

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

My Story "Aaron Judge on the Cape" in 100th Anniversary Issue of Amazing Stories

 

My brand new time-travel story, "Aaron Judge on the Cape", in the just-published 100th Anniversary issue of Amazing Stories.   Get the magazine here.

See Ian's Ions and Eons for three previous stories featuring this time-travel agency in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

Dark Matter 2.8: Amanda's Smile and Laurel's Singularness

I loved Dark Matter 2.8, because of its tenderness, because we get more of Laurel's story, and because of Jason and Amanda.

I said in a review of an earlier episode this season that I like Amanda (Alice Braga) much more than Daniela.  I felt that way in Season 1, and even more so in Season 2.   She's a better match for Jason than is Daniela.  Jason and Daniela rarely if ever seem as happy as Jason and Amanda.  And as I also said earlier, Amanda's smile radiates a feeling that no other character on Dark Matter has.

But let me also say here that I'm not sure which version of Jason we see in episode 2.8.  We know that Jason 1 has a tattoo, which we didn't see in this episode.  I know it takes place near the beginning of this season -- I think it was in the second episode -- when Jason 1 gets the tattoo, which means not seeing the tattoo on Jason in 2.8 does not absolutely disprove that's he's Jason 1.  But if he is Jason 1, that means, what?  After what we see in this episode, he goes back to Daniela?  And this Charlie in this second season is which version of Charlie?

I think maybe the only character with just one version (so far) is Laurel (Margo Martindale).  It was great to see her again, and learn about her past and her world, and since she's not going through a box (as yet, as far as we know), we can reliably believe we're seeing the exact same person, not a different version of her.

In a meta-universe in which there are alternate universes bumping into one another with the drop of a hat/ampule, this reliability becomes a rare and beautiful thing.  You could well say that about this whole season, which is why I'm always looking forward to another episode.

See also See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action ... 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time? ... 2.4: "There's No Entrance to the Diner" ... 2.5: Canterbury Realities and Proust ... 2.6: The Harptones in the Multiverse ... 2.7: "Through this door ..."

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

The Diplomat Season 4: How to Deal with Trump

How to continue a streaming Netflix series like The Diplomat in its 4th season of edge-of-your-seat American, British, and therefore world political intrigue and turmoil when the real world we see on our news screens is beset by an American President, Donald Trump, who creates crises home and abroad, with our allies and friends and enemies almost every time he opens his mouth?

You tell a story of an American President who embarks on a course of action even more dangerous than Trump's.

[And there will be some spoilers ahead ...]

Grace Penn (Allison Janney) became US President when the elected President died in office, and Penn as per our Constitution assumed the office.  At the end of season 3, she appointed Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) Vice President, and his wife Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) continued as our ambassador to the United Kingdom.   This season, President Penn is shot during a visit to London.  It turns out out that she wasn't very badly wounded -- physically -- and is back up and working as President in lightning-fast time.

Not badly wounded physically.  But we soon learn that her close brush with death did something to her mind, soul, brain, or whatever you want to call it.  And she makes a series of decisions that amazingly pit the United States not only against Russia, but the UK, NATO, and some crucial members of her cabinet.

Kate and Hal and a variety of people -- including Grace's husband Todd (Bradley Whitford, who plays a welcome larger role this season) -- increasingly try, in their disparate ways, to bring the President to her senses.  I won't spoil this season any further by telling you how that worked out, but I will say that wouldn't it be wonderful if people in the current Trump administration tried to do some of that with Trump and his policies of getting us into economic conflicts with our friends in Canada, setting ICE on murderous rampages in the US, starting an ill-conceived war with Iran, and the rest of his depredations.

I guess that's the difference between riveting fiction like The Diplomat and the harrowing reality of Trump.   But, optimist that I am, who knows, maybe watching this season of The Diplomat on Netflix will give some people in his administration a little more courage.

See also The Diplomat 1: West Wing Meets Bond ... The Diplomat 2: West Wing Meets Bond Part 2 ... The Diplomat 3: Thriller in More Ways Than One

My 2021 in-depth interview with Rufus Sewell about The Man in the High Castle

Dark Matter 2.7: "Through this door ..."

The excellent episode 2.7 of  Dark Matter is entitled "The Pyramid," a good title, but I think "Through this door," which Leighton says repeatedly in his rousing speech in support of what the plethora of alternate worlds with wonderful things that Velocity's use of Jason's invention is opening up, is even better.  And I say this even though we see plenty of horrors through this or that door in this episode, and Leighton is looking at this through rose-colored glasses.

There were lots of important and intriguing stories in this episode.  Here are some of my favorites (and they'll be some spoilers ahead):

• Mitchel MacNamara (played by Chris Diamantopoulos), the Humphrey Bogart / Sam Spade-ish character I said I was happy to see in my review of episode 2.2, gets his just deserts.  I hope he'll survive, though.  I still like his character.
• Margot Martindale's new character Laurel is also a pleasure to encounter.  She has a sign in her home that welcomes inter-reality visitors, in this case, Charlie.  Speaking of which, I assume it's Max he sees at the end, but with a show like Dark Matter and its unexpected turns, I certainly wouldn't bet on it.
• I'm as tired of stories about plagues as I assume you are, but I thought the Black Iris Plague was a logically very possible development to explore in a series about a myriad of alternate realities, and I thought it was handled very well.
• Daniela and her alternate-reality father were beautifully rendered, and their story made a crucially important point in this narrative:  although the fire in MacNamara's scene, the plague I just mentioned above, etc., are necessary to portray in this anti-fairytale of a series, there are nonetheless some fairytale-like wonderful elements to it too, and they're heartening to see.
• Finally, the appearance of Jason 2 at Jason 1's home at the end was a perfect teaser for next week's episode.

Now, in my past three reviews, I focused a lot on the cultural trimmings in this season of Dark Matter.  I did see something I thought I liked in 2.7, but I can't say more about it, because all I got was a brief blurry glimpse of it -- the LP cover in Jason's home.  It was reminiscent of Meet the Beatles, but the unclear letters didn't look like those words.  Anyone know what they are?

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action ... 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time? ... 2.4: "There's No Entrance to the Diner" ... 2.5: Canterbury Realities and Proust ... 2.6: The Harptones in the Multiverse

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

Dark Matter 2.6: The Harptones in the Multiverse

The Harptones, 1956

It was so good to hear The Harptones' "My Memories of You" in Dark Matter 2.6.  I love doo-wop.  I sang it with my group The Transits (I'm doing first tenure falsetto in this rough demo we did of The Passions' "I Only Want You").  I've written science fiction stories about doo-wop (check out "The Harmony" in my anthology Peter Brown Called). I even got my family to do a little of the Five Satins' "In the Still of the Night" in the early Covid days.

Now the Harptones song The Transits always sang was "Sunday Kind of Love" -- to this day, one of my favorite songs -- but "My Memories of You" certainly fits better in this episode of Dark Matter, and in Dark Matter overall.

Every time Jason-1 in his travels in interreality runs into someone that he knew in his original world (I suppose our world, yours and mine, too), he wonders if that person knows him, and if so, how much and what that person knows of him.  Jason wants to know the nature of their memories of him, or, from their perspective looking at Jason, my memories of you.

It's comforting to think that the same music exists, at least to some extent, across multiple realities.  But now that I'm thinking about it, where does that music really exist?  If we hear it on a jukebox in a bar in an alternate reality, it exists in that reality.  But lots of the music, including "My Memories of You", are part of the background soundtrack.  When the Harptones play in the background of a scene with Daniela, with her father, and then thinking of her father, are we to assume that she's hearing that song in her head?Maybe ... but unless it's playing in the car she's driving, or she tells someone she loves that song, we can't be sure.  Maybe that song is just something Blake Crouch or Jen Malone (music supervisor) or one of the other people in the 15-person music department put into those scenes to sharpen and enhance our understanding of what's going on.

Whoever chose it -- it was a great choice.  The other thing I especially liked in this episode is this alternate version of Amanda (Alice Braga) and her incandescent smile.  (I don't recall her ever smiling so vividly in the earlier realities she was in.)  And the hooded person who turned out to be Charlie taking a turn towards another reality, after Jason tells him that his lost twin Max is alive in one of them somewhere, promises a new story of some kind for him and us straight ahead.

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action ... 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time? ... 2.4: "There's No Entrance to the Diner" ... 2.5: Canterbury Realities and Proust

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

  

Dark Matter 2.5: Canterbury Realities and Proust

What an exquisite, beautiful episode, heart rending and heart warming at the same time.  Dark Matter 2.5 was in effect a standalone story, with a Jason of whatever number in a world by himself, using his last capsule to go to his childhood house in an alternate reality to see his mother and staying there.  As I said in my review about the end of episode 1.9 -- an end which we see again at the beginning of 2.5 -- this plethora of Jasons opens the gates to a Canterbury Tales, in which each traveler is an alternate Jason.  Call this Canterbury Realities or Canterbury Jasons.

This concerto of a tale was a lot like "The Inner Light" in Star Trek: The Next Generation, where Picard finds himself in a world with no Enterprise, and lives his life as a blacksmith and then a scientist.  But Picard on this planet is the Picard who knows he was Captain of the Enterprise.  The hero of Dark Matter 2.5 is not our Jason -- not Jason 1 -- whom we last saw in episode 2.4 left alone, as Charlie moves into a dorm and Daniela moves away somewhere to get away from it all.   The Jason in 2.5 is for whatever reason also alone (actually, we later see a note from him that he's lost his wife and son, so that makes him similar to Jason 1, though we don't know how and why this happened), and understandably uses his last capsule to move into an alternate reality.   So although 2.5 is (at this point) a standalone episode, its immediately following 2.4, where Jason 1 is left alone, creates a powerful synchrony between these two episodes.

[And there are spoilers ahead ... ]

The beginning of 2.5 with the ending of 1.9 with Jason 1 and Daniela and Charlie looking down at the crowd of Jasons including the Jason of 2.5 -- alright, let's call him Jason 1b -- also has the big benefit of giving Jason 1b a specific motive for using his last capsule.  He sees Jason 1 with the family that Jason 1b doesn't have.  It also adds punch to the ending of 2.5, where Jason 1b runs into the Daniela of that world, but I'll get to that in a minute.   (All of this complexity, by the way, makes for a wonderful episode, and, indeed, 2.5 may be the best episode in the series so far.  I know, I keep saying that, because it's true).

But back to the story, Jason 1b discovers that in this reality, he died when he was 16!  His mother, Elle, is deaf, and superbly played by Linda Bove, who is deaf.  Ellie accepts and loves Jason 1b, as a miracle that is bestowed upon her.  Jason 1b thrives.   He becomes a chair-maker (analogous to Picard's blacksmith), and rescues an alternate-version derelict of himself.  The three have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, and are joined by yet another Jason at Christmastime.  And Jason 1b, apparently an avid reader (there doesn't seem to be TV or streaming in this reality), devours volume one of Proust's In Search of Lost Time.  This is not only a good choice (volume one is entitled Swann's Way, note the double "n") for a protagonist -- or an alternate protagonist -- in a saga like Dark Matter (as I indicated in my review of 2.4 last week, Dark Matter is enriched by its inventory of 20th century popular culture),  it also brings Jason 1b to Maria's Bookstore in search of the final volume of Proust's trilogy, where he meets Maria, and we're treated to a touching falling-in-love story with all the trimmings.  That in itself is a worthy story, well acted by Angela Sarafyan and Joel Edgerton, who is especially outstanding in this episode.

Which also has just the right closer.  Jason 1b encounters the Daniela of this reality as he's shopping for food and flowers for the dinner Maria is preparing.   Daniela (of course) tells Jason 1b he's picking the wrong kind of flowers and should get roses.  Jason 1b recognizes her from the opening scene where he saw Jason 1 and Daniela 1 (and Charlie 1), and realizes he probably could have a relationship with Daniela is this new reality ... but he smiles and goes home to Maria.  A perfect ending to a perfect episode.

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action ... 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time? ... 2.4: "There's No Entrance to the Diner"

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

Dark Matter 2.4: "There's no entrance to the diner"

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper, 1942

So I'll tell you my favorite scene in Dark Matter 2.4: Charlie and Daniela looking at Edward Hopper's 1942 painting "Nighthawks", hanging in an art gallery in Chicago (it hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago in our reality).   Charlie tells her we're not supposed to connect to the people in the diner, because "there's no entrance to the diner".

Science fiction is supposed to be about science, not art.  But Ray Bradbury's celebrated The Illustrated Man, an anthology in which each story tells the tale of a different one of the 18 different tattoos on William the Illustrated Man's arm, is a notable exception, and there are others.  So the first thing that grabbed me and stayed with me about this scene is: good for Blake Crouch for including it in this episode of Dark Matter.

But disconnection, the difficulty of people to connect and relate, is a hallmark of this series, and the transcendent watermark of this episode.  Everyone is cut off from people they care about -- not because they're far away physically, but far away emotionally, separated in some cases by the chasms of alternate realities.

The Dessens are the most affected and afflicted.  Daniela still can't get over shooting the version of Jason she shot to death, and who can blame her.  I mean, the guy looked and sounded like Jason, because he was a Jason, and in shooting him Daniela inevitably killed something of the man she loved -- who, as far as we know, also loved her.

So the people in Hopper's painting capture the predominant disconnection of the people in Dark Matter.  But maybe that painting holds a ray of hope for the people in this streaming series.  The viewers of the painting, anyone outside of the diner in the painting -- we don't see any in the painting --can't connect to the people in the diner.  But ... the people sitting in the diner, the couple, the man sitting alone, the counter man behind the counter -- there's no reason they can't connect, right?  And if that's possible, maybe the same is true for the characters in Dark Matter, especially the characters who come from the same reality.

I wish there was some way to get this message to Daniela.  But, as far as I know, there is no way to directly communicate with characters on the other side of the streaming screen.  Though, come to think of it, in a way, maybe there is ...

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action ... 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time?

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

Paul Levinson interviews Paul Kaplan about The Thingy That's Stringy

Welcome to Light On Light Through episode 422, in which I interview Paul Kaplan about his book of poetry for people of all ages, The Thingy That's Stringy. 

Relevant links:

• get The Thingy That's Stringy here
• my review of The Thingy That's Stringy here or here

Check out this episode!

Fauda 5: Powerful, Necessary, Unforgettable

I binged the fifth season of Fauda on Netflix the past two nights.  As is well-known, the script for this season was substantially re-written after the savage Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.  The result was the story of an increasingly desperate attempt to stop a new terrorist attack -- an attempt by three members of the original Fauda team, Doron, Eli, and Steve -- each of them with a direct involvement in the Israeli attempt to stem the Hamas slaughter of unarmed Israelis in 2023.

In fact, the most effective two episodes in this 11-part season -- episodes 7 and 8 -- tell the harrowing stories of Doron, Eli, and Steve on that October day, an emotionally explosive account that made a highly effective, two-part movie in itself.  With all the anti-semitism rising around the world, it's more important than ever for the terrible story of October 7 to get out to the world.

This explicit connection to and depiction of such a vile real life event makes this fifth season of Fauda in significant part a docu-drama, an evocative, unforgettable depiction of fictitious characters in an all-too-real situation.  That reason alone makes this fifth season uniquely important and memorable.

But the fiction was significant, too.  Mélanie Laurent's Anne, the wife of someone who may be a Hamas operative in Marseilles, is an excellent addition to the story and cast, and plays a crucial part in the narrative.  Lior Raz as Doron (co-creator of the series with Avi Issacharoff), Yaakov Zada-Daniel as Eli, Doron Ben-David as Steve, and Itzik Cohen as Gabi are always welcome on the screen -- Gabi frequently has the best lines, like "I'm getting too old for this" -- and as always, the Yiddishkeit is good to hear and see.

Indeed, last night was the final night of Rosh Hashanah, so seeing Fauda over the past two nights felt especially right.  But its story, especially the story this season, is especially appropriate, any time, and any year.

Wars always have unforeseen wretched consequences.  World War I spawned fighting from the sky, World War II gave us nuclear weapons, the October 7 Hamas attack led to the decimation of Gaza.  Fauda 5 doesn't tell us that story, but it vividly reminds us why it happened.  It will be an essential marker of an unspeakably inhuman part of history.

See also Fauda: Beyond Homeland ... Fauda 2: Another Unforgettable Visit ... Fauda 3: Blood, Tears, Humanity ... Fauda 4: Very Much Alive and Wounded ... 

Dark Matter 2.3: Can Two Couples Be in Two Different Places at the Same Time?

That question -- can two couples be in two places at the same time -- is posted fairly early in the latest episode of Dark Matter, 2.3.  Let's look at that question more carefully.

The obvious answer is of course not, unless you're a world in which alternate realities exist.  But, actually ...

We've been in such a world ever since mass media were invented.  I mean, a photograph printed in a newspaper can be in as many realities or worlds simultaneously as the number of newspapers printed. If people are careful with their newspapers, or were talking about books, photos of people can also travel forward in time without aging too much.

But wait, a photograph of a person isn't really a person, right?  People can move and talk.  Ok, well, what about a person talking on the radio, or talking on television, or talking on a streaming service like Apple TV?   Edmund Carpenter, someone who worked with Marshall McLuhan, said when people are on television, they're like angels, which in some interpretations can be omnipresent, much like a deity.

So we can add angels to alternate realities as places where people or humanlike entities can be in more than one place, indeed an infinite number of places, at the same time.  But there's an important difference between angels and the characters we see in Dark Matter.  Those folks are certainly not angels, and some of them do some very bad things.  After all, Dark Matter is a life-and-death got-you-by-the-throat science fiction drama in just about every scene.

But angels and Dark Matter and alternate realities do have one thing common:  they're all modes of fiction, as far as we know.  See you back here next week, after we find out what happens next to the devils and angels on our screen.

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket ... 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

In-Depth Two-Part Interview about Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan

Here's the two-part interview Andrey Mir recently did with me about Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan.  I was Postman's student, and I wrote two books about McLuhan, as well as organized the one and only conference about the Tetrad.   

Dark Matter 2.2: Sam Spade Back in Action

Dark Matter 2.2 starts off with a nice piece of alternate history, as Jason, Daniela, and Charlie seek "A Perfect World" (title of the episode), actually a world in which they can find some relief from the chaos.  And they find a world with no Internet, smart phones, home computers, or social media -- all because Nixon beat Kennedy, and defunded NASA, and we never got to the Moon -- the race to get there in our reality having sharpened science and invention.

[More slight spoilers ahead .... ]

And the ending had a nice piece of a different kind, as we see Jason and Daniela unknowingly just across the hall of the hotel from Ryan and Amanda, one of the other couples and people making their way through the maze of alternate realities in this so-far not only exciting but conceptually rich second season.

But my favorite part of this episode is private detective (listed in the IMDb credits as "agent", though I thought I saw "Private Investigation" on his door) Mitchel MacNamara, whom Jason goes to for help, but we see at the end investigating the box that is the conduit to alternate realities.  MacNamara (played by Chris Diamantopoulos, an actor with a dossier of many roles) has a Sam Spade played by Humphrey Bogart kind of vibe, which is always welcome, but an especially good addition to this story of alternate realities with omnipresent life-and-death implications and consequences. 

And come to think of it, Sam Spade is a logical inhabitant of the technologically stifled world that Jason finds himself in -- The Maltese Falcon movie adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's 1929-1930 novel in which Bogart's Spade appeared hit theaters in 1941, a world just slightly less advanced than the place that Jason and family are hoping is a refuge.  

I really like that world in movies made at the time, and in streaming series and movies that harken back to that early media world (by our current standards).  But you know what?  I streamed Dark Matter 2.2 on my Mac Airbook last night, and I'm writing this review on that same laptop computer, and posting it on my blogs, and I like that world just fine, thank you. :)

See also Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket

And see also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

Review of Paul Kaplan's The Thingy That's Stringy: Be Careful, You Might Laugh Your Head Off

I rarely review poetry, and I don't think I've ever reviewed a book of poetry intended to be read by kids.  But Paul Kaplan was my student in Fordham University's Masters program in Media back in 2002-2004, just a few years after I got there, and I knew he was brilliant and funny, so ...

It turns out The Thingy That's Stringy is not only very wise and hilarious, it can be equally enjoyed -- immensely, if you ask me -- by adults as well as children. (It also has funny drawings done the author.) Kaplan is a master of taking metaphors literally, and this collection explores someone who wants to borrow a nap someone else is taking, a fish that has an underbite because it lives under water, dogs that walk people, a really lost sole, a kitten that catches colds not mice, hens that sit on eggplants, someone who looks for a giraffe after being told that his calf is behind his shin, someone who wonders why we call it a funny bone when it hurts so much after we hit it, someone who balks when someone asks him to give a hand because he only has two, someone who wonders exactly where the skin of their teeth is, a frustrated hummingbird who yearns to actually sing, a lazy eye that won't do any work, a student who asks the teacher can I go to the bathroom and gets an answer "I don't know -- can you?", and, well, you get the picture.

My copy of The Thingy That's Stringy is now plastered with post-it notes, in case I want to get a poem that will make me chuckle or laugh my head off in a hurry.  "A man's reach must exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for," the poet Robert Browning advised in the middle of the 19th century.   A century later, Marshall McLuhan upped the ante by replacing the word "heaven" with "metaphor".   And poet Paul Kaplan has now done it again with a deconstruction of metaphor that will keep your mind in stitches (ouch)  :)

And to be clear, kids will laugh with this book of poetry, too.  My wife sent a copy of the book to our two grandsons, then aged six and ten.   The first loved it, and the second was laughing too.  Whatever your age, I predict that you will be too.

Dark Matter 2.1: Who's Who in the Infinite Bucket?

Dark Matter -- the TV series on Apple TV -- based on Blake Crouch's novel -- which Blake Crouch created -- is back for its second season.  I thought the first season was thought-provoking and excellent, all that an alternate history science fiction TV series should be.  I thought episode 2.1 was even more so.

[And there will be a few spoilers ahead ... ]

The episode starts with a great punchline, as Jason tells the police detective (Keller from the first season) before she's replaced (along with Mason, also from the first season) by some other kind of cop (who says he's not a cop), "What, is it illegal to look like a bunch of dead people?" in response to being questioned about the bevy of dead Jasons who have turned up on the tables.  No, it's probably not, but we'll soon see another dead Jason, killed by Daniela because she's sure he's not her Jason, let's call him, Jason 1. The slain Jason does seem a little more ragged than our hero, and that ring on his finger, some of what he said, but ...

All of which raises an interesting question, at least to me.  Can we be 100% sure that the Daniela who pulled the trigger is Daniela 1, and the Jason she killed is indeed not Jason 1?  I mean, I get that we're supposed to think that the Jason who shows up after Daniela pulls the trigger is her (and our primary) Jason, but how can we know for sure in a series in which doppelgangers show up everywhere, including in the song "The Quiet Life," heard early in the episode (and indeed the name of this episode), which sure sounds like it was written and performed by Leonard Cohen, when in fact it's by Teho Teardo and Blixa Bargeld?

But that's all part of the mental stretching aka deep fun that characterizes alternate realities -- that's why I read them, watch them, and write them -- and season 2 of Dark Matter looks like it will have plenty of doppelgangers in the story, additions to the seemingly infinite number of Jasons, of which the Jasons on the tables at the beginning of 2.1 are just a drop in the infinite bucket.

And I'll be back here every week with a review of every season 2 episode, which looks to be well on its way to becoming classic.

See also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation ... 1.3 Missing Fingers ... 1.4 The Multiverse Unveiled ... 1.5: The Lesson ... 1.6 "A Bunch of Chicagos" ... 1.7: Obama Tower ... 1.8: A Bevy Of Jasons ... 1.9: Science Fiction and Horror

Audio Podcast: Paul Levinson interviews Matt Witten about His Cyberpunk Novel 51%

Welcome to Light On Light Through episode 421, in which I interview Mitt Witten about his new novel 51%.  In all seriousness, I consider this cyberpunk novel in the same league as Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984.

Relevant links:

• my written review of 51%
• get the novel here
• Cass Sunstein about Orwell's 1984 
• Rob Sawyer's novel Flashforward
• my novelette "The Chronology Protection Case"

 

Check out this episode!

Review of Matt Witten's 51%: 100% Excellent, Relevant, Enjoyable, and Important

There couldn't be a better time to read Matt Witten's cyberpunk novel, 51%, in which Ayn Randian corporate power and philosophy controls and permeates all parts of American life, including the NYPD (New York's police), which are named NYPDInc, and in which police need payment from the people to do their work.  Apple's adaptation of William Gibson's Neuromancer will be streaming this coming January.  Even more important, Trump's hijacking of American democracy is claiming more innocent lives via ICE and other Federal police just about every week -- the most recent, Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a 41-year-old migrant from El Salvador, died the day before yesterday at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, NJ -- and that kind of "legal" killing requires vigorous response in all aspects of communication, including science fiction.

Witten's novel, published this past April, takes place 20 years from now.  People who are not rich pay for their medical treatment, education, and other essential needs by selling percentages of themselves to corporations.  If they sell more than 50%, they become corporate property, with where they live and work completely controlled by their owners.  To make sure that the 51%ers don't try to evade this corporate slavery, biochips are implanted in them, and their owners are alerted if anyone tries to remove them.

This is the environment in which NYPDInc Detective Luke (aka Juke) O'Keefe and his partner Halee Navarro (who carries a gun but is actually a “Crime Marketing Consultant”) must work in as they attempt to find the killer of Talia, a young immigrant 51% woman in New York City, and get drawn into a desperate, ingenious plan to break free of the corporate enslavement.  Witten has a keen sense of what the city would look like in such a corporate-glorified country, with streets renamed "Ayn Rand", "Randy Weaver", "Fountainhead", and "John Galt" -- right alongside current names like "Waverly" -- and gun models called "Hestons" and "Ruby Ridges".  Witten also knows his kittens, writing  "She started down the hall -- and tripped on a kitten, which had slipped out of the speck between her legs".  ("Speck", by way, is slang for apartment in this Big Corporate Apple, in which NYPDInc cops are called "Dincs" and the FBI cleverly called "Fincs".)

Given the ascent of AI in our world today, there of course is an AI character in 51% who, in another move that will make you smile, speaks with Margaret Thatcher's voice.  There's also use of fireflies in the story, which I'm also glad to see because they harken at least as far back in science fiction as my 1999 novel The Silk Code and Peter Watt's 2006 Blindsight, and they warrant more widespread use in our world.  And in the last third of the novel, there's almost nonstop action that will keep you glued for at least a few hours or longer, capping the memorable love story throughout.

But those are the science fiction and police fiction wheels of 51%, and the most important raison d'etre for this successor to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984, along with the enjoyment it provides, is the lesson it gives us about the likes of Trump and his allies and the damage they continue to do to our country and our world, and why we must show up at the ballot box this November and begin to get them out of office.

more about The Silk Code here

Detective Hole: Nordic Noir with a Vengeance

It's been a while since I reviewed a Nordic Noir series, and that's because I've been watching science fiction, and also a variety of Britbox and Acorn whodunnits with my wife. We binged Detective Hole on Netflix the past few nights -- pronounced Holeh or Hola -- and whew, it's a combination of well worth waiting for and Nordic Noir to the max, based on the fifth novel of the Jo Nesbø's series, which I haven't read.

Nesbø was also the writer and showrunner of the series, which began streaming on Netflix in March, so he deserves a lot of the credit for the extremities -- the blood and sheer gore -- or blame, if you find them a bit too much.  If you do, I'll say it's at least redeemed by a complex story about serial killing that will keep you guessing until the ninth and concluding episode.

The acting is also top-notch.  Joel Kinnaman, whose breakout role as an American police detective in The Killing was outstanding (and who was great in the first through current season of For All Mankind), projects a very different kind of power in Detective Hole.  Tobias Santelmann plays Harry Hole (first name pronounced Harey, like you pronounce the word "are"), and like Kinnaman's Tom Waaler, Hole is emotionally crippled, though in a very different way. (The two exemplify a genre that I identified decades ago -- the "defective detective":  Barnaby Jones was aged, Columbo was a schlep, etc.)  In contrast to Hole, his domestic partner Rakel (very well played by Pia Tjelta) is usually a cool voice of reason like a ginger ale with ice on a hot summer day, and I like Beate's detective work (well played Ellen Helinder) too.

I'm not going to say anything about the plot, because I don't want to give anything away, other than I've always thought, watching shows about serial killers (my first review on this blog some 20 years ago was of Dexter), that the serial killing could be for a very different reason...

But I will say that I read recently that crime in Norway, where Detective Hole takes place, is among the lowest recorded the world, and my wife mentioned, as we were enjoying and sometimes cringing at what we were seeing on the screen, that maybe viewers in Norway have a special interest in seeing in their fiction what they happily don't see much of in their news.  But I'd bet that Detective Hole will keep you hostage as a viewer wherever you are.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 4.1: Safeguarding the Future

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds kicked off its fourth season with a cracker-jack episode of my favorite kind of science fiction: time travel.  Now, I entitled this review "Safeguarding the Future", which is always a good thing.  But it becomes a pre-eminently essential thing when travel to the past is involved.  And Captain Pike is the perfect person to be helming this episode, making the crucial decisions, given that he is walking around with knowledge of a future he most certainly doesn't want to safeguard, because ...

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

In case you didn't already know this, Pike gets severely disfigured in "The Menagerie," a two-part episode aired on broadcast TV -- NBC -- in the original Star Trek series back in 1966.  So, he'd love to avoid that future, not protect it, if there was anything he could do, any way he could prevent it from happening.

But the same, of course, is not the case with our human species. Because if that is not safeguarded, then there wouldn't be a Captain Pike or any human being in the first place.  So that is Pike's guide when the Enterprise gets caught up in a cosmic storm (a frequent source of predicament in the Star Trek universe) and finds itself some 65 million years back in the past, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.  And since this is science fiction, a time when sentient Martians, which look a lot like we humans, are in mortal conflict with intelligent space-faring insects that come from a fifth planet in our solar system, between Mars and Jupiter, and are bent on destroying the Martians.

Now, as any Star Trek fan well knows, the Federation would want any starship to do whatever it could to protect a human-like sentient species from marauding insects out to exterminate the humanoids -- short of wiping out these Dol'Drm intelligent insects themselves.   But as Pike to his credit realizes, far more important than Star Fleet policy is making sure that Star Fleet exists in his present, and that includes his crew and him.  His own understanding, his own prime directive, thus leads him to allow the humanoid Martians to destroy the 5th planet (because it doesn't exist in our reality, which is Star Trek's reality).  And, though he likes the humanoid Martians, especially Commander Cassel (pictured above in a scene with Pike), he accepts that the force of her destruction of the fifth planet will encompass her ship and her, with the energy from the blast turning neighboring Mars into a barren planet, and a fragment from the blown-to-bits fifth planet hitting the Earth and wiping out the dinosaurs.

All of that, if not exactly cause for celebration, is certainly a source of satisfaction and happiness. Pike saved the Enterprise and all aboard and everyone he knows from being instantly erased from existence.  He saved our human species on Earth, because had the dinosaurs continued, the little mammals that existed in their time might have been wiped out before they evolved into primates. That's not only good time-travel science fiction, but a cause for everyone watching this episode to be happy as well, that we're here and able to watch and enjoy episode 4.1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, right?

See also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3.1-3.3: Gorn, Spock & Chapel, and The Walking Dead ... 3.4: Lots of Laughs and Serious Business ... 3.5: Endearing Pseudo-Science ... 3.6: Chris and Jim ... 3.7: The Medium and The Message ... 3.8: Pike's Hair and Spock's Smile  ... [Note: I didn’t review 3.9 because, though it had a few good moments, I didn’t have enough worth saying about it.] ... 3.10: Season 3 Finale: The New Story

And see also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2.1: Nurse Chapel ... 2.2: Racism and Sexism in the Courtroom ... 2.3: Time Travel and Alternate Universes ... 2.5: Chapel and Spock ... 2.6: Jimmy Kirk ... 2.7: Pike, Spock, and Boimler ... 2.8: Ethically Wrenching ... 2.9: The Operetta ... 2.10: Young Scotty and Five Other Great Things about This Season 2 Finale

And see also Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.1-1.2: Great Characters, Actors, Stories ... 1.3: "Instead of terraforming planets, we modify ourselves ..." ... 1.4: The Gorn and the Wub ... 1.5 Going to the Chapel ... 1.6: Two Stories ... 1.7: The Kiss ... 1.8: Ends of the Continuum ... 1.9: Momentous! ... 1.10: Everything!

 another kind of time travel story ...