Song of the Unsung Mushroom by Sarah Clarke Stuart

 

Coming January 2026 -- a new novel from Connected Editions! Song of the Unsung Mushroom by Sarah Clarke Stuart!

*Note added January 25, 2026: Song of the Unpublished Mushroom was published January 15, 2026. You can get the Kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions here, and listen to the audiobook here. After a hurricane strikes a small Florida town, young Claire is never the same. Years later, her brother, Gunther, is still haunted by the suspicion that she was taken and replaced by something not quite human. Set in the wild landscapes of northern Florida and Western Appalachia, this eco-fiction (cli-fi) story is a lyrical, genre-blurring novel about loss, identity, and the hidden intelligence that pulses beneath our feet. Nature and technology dissolve into one, reshaping what it means to be human. About Sarah: Sarah Clarke Stuart is a Professor of Communication at Florida State College at Jacksonville where she teaches literature, film, composition, and emerging technologies. Author of Literary Lost: Viewing Television Through the Lens of Literature (Bloomsbury) and Into the Looking Glass: Exploring the Worlds of Fringe (ECW Press), her nonfiction work explores the intersection of narrative, culture, and media. Song of the Unsung Mushroom is her debut novel; her previous fiction includes short stories such as “Immaculate,” which received Editor's Choice Award in the literary journal Fiction Fix. She contributed for many years to First Coast Magazine and Flamingo Magazine with articles grounded in a curious appreciation for the natural landscapes and stories of the region. Both Sarah’s fiction and current research are rooted in ecological interests and a deep sense of place and physical embodiment. Sarah is the creator and host of two podcasts: Lifeyness, which examines embodied mental health through storytelling, and AI Goes to College, a series about artificial intelligence and the evolving nature of education. "I See Trees Differently" by ‪ Dahlia Dumont (aka The Blue Dalia) from La tradition americaine, 2018. Pre-sale on Amazon of Song of the Unsung Mushroom by Sarah Clarke Stuart coming soon!

Podcast: Paul Levinson interviews Mike Grynbaum about Empire of the Elite

Welcome to Light On Light Through episode 413, in which I interview Mike Grynbaum about his book Empire of the Elite: Inside Condé Nast, the Media Dynasty That Reshaped America, which was just published today. Condé Nast is the publisher of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ, Wired, and other iconic magazines, so we had a lot to talk about.

• order Empire of the Elite
• Maureen Dowd interviews Mike Grynbaum at the 92nd Street Y tonight!
• Mike Grynbaum's "Mangia Mafia! Food, Punishment, and Cultural Identity in The Sopranos" in The Essential Sopranos Reader, eds. David Lavery, Douglas Howard, and Paul Levinson; University Press of Kentucky, 2011
• Excerpt from Empire of the Elite in The Hollywood Reporter

Check out this episode!

Dexter: Resurrection 1.1-1.2: The Imposter

Dexter: Resurrection debuted on Paramount Plus Premium/Showtime yesterday with two outstanding episodes which scored on many levels:

[Spoilers ahead ...]

• My favorite was the introduction a Dexter imposter: a serial killer in New York City who calls hims the "dark passenger" because he preys on taxi-drivers.  Dexter (Michael C. Hall is still perfect in the role he defined), in town to help/save his son Harrison, is a "multi-tasker" -- as he tells his father Harry, whom Dexter once again carries around inside his brain -- and he can't help wanting to get his namesake on the table, a guy who's really not at all like Dexter, who only goes after killers, preferably serial, not hard-working cabbies.
• As a point that deserves its own bullet, the imposter wears a hoodie that prevents people taking his photograph.  First I hadn't heard of that, but it's real, and it shows a TV series about serial killers can have all kinds of educational benefits.
• It was great to see Batista, now a captain, back in action, and now one of Dexter's worst enemies.  And David Zayas looks better than ever!
• Harrison kills his first badguy, a rapist.  Dexter takes pride in how good his son is in their father-and-son trade.
• Uma Thurman has some kind of nefarious role in this story, and it's always good to see her on the screen.
• The music was excellent.  Ok, my favorite song in these two episodes was "Stayin' Alive", and the Bee Gees never sounded better.
• The song was played by Claudette Wallace, a police detective investigating the killing of the rapist killed by Harrison, and my favorite new character.  She's played by Kadia Safia, who looks familiar because she was also in The Better Sister and Law & Order: SVU.
• And in addition to Harry, it was also great to see The Trinity Killer, Miguel Prado, and Doakes -- or at least their ghosts -- come to see Dexter in his hospital room.  Just like Batista, they all were looking good.

See you next week with my review of the next episode.

See also Dexter: Original Sin 1.1: Activation of the Code ... 1.2-1.3: "The Finger Is Missing" ... 1.4: The Role of Luck in Dexter's Profession and Life ... 1.5: Revelations and Relations ... 1.6: On the Strong, Non-Serial-Killer Parts of the Show ... 1.7: First Big Shocker ... 1.8: Dexter's Discovery ... 1.9: Brian's Story ... Season 1 Finale: Satisfying

And see also Dexter: New Blood 1.1: Back with a Vengeance ... Dexter: New Blood 1.2: Dark Tendencies ... Dexter: New Blood 1.3: Fathers and Sons ... Dexter: New Blood 1.4: Harrison and Kurt ... Dexter New Blood: 1.5: No Satisfaction for Serial Killers ... Dexter: New Blood 1.6: Breaks and Arm Breaks ... Dexter: New Blood: 1.7: Dexter vs. Kurt ...Dexter: New Blood 1.8: The Hug in the Car ... Dexter: New Blood 1.9 One Down, One To Go ... Dexter: New Blood Finale: Superb, and I Didn't Like It All

And see also Dexter Season 8 Premiere: Mercury in Retrograde, Dexter Incandescent ... Dexter 8.2: The Gift ... Dexter 8.3: The Question and the Confession ... Dexter 8.4: The "Lab Rat" and Harry's Daughter ... Dexter 8.5: Just Like Family ... Dexter 8.6: The Protege ... Dexter 8.7: Two Different Codes? ... Dexter 8.8: "A Great Future" ... Dexter 8.9: The Psycho Son ... Dexter 8.10: Watch Out, Buenos Aires ... Dexter 8.11: "Not the Old Dexter" ... Dexter Series Finale: Solitude, Style, and a Modicum of Hope

And see also Dexter Season 7.1-3: Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 7.4: The Lesson in Speltzer's Smoke ... Dexter 7.5: Terminator Isaac ... Dexter 7.6: "Breaking and Entering" ... Dexter 7.7: Shakespearean Serial Killer Story ... Dexter 7.8: Love and Its Demands ... Dexter 7.9: Two Memorable Scenes and the Ascension of Isaac ... Dexter 7.11: The "Accident" ... Dexter Season 7 Finale: The Surviving Triangle

And see also Dexter Season 6 Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 6.4: Two Numbers and Two Killers Equals? ... Dexter 6.5 and 6.6: Decisive Sam ... Dexter 6.7: The State of Nebraska ... Dexter 6.8: Is Gellar Really Real? .... Dexter 6.9: And Geller Is ... ... Dexter's Take on Videogames in 6.10 ...Dexter and Debra:  Dexter 6.11 ... Dexter Season 6 Finale: Through the Eyes of a Different Love

And see also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ...Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers  ... Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain

And see also Dexter Season 4: Sneak Preview Review ... The Family Man on Dexter 4.5 ...Dexter on the Couch in 4.6 ... Dexter 4.7: 'He Can't Kill Bambi' ... Dexter 4.8: Great Mistakes ...4.9: Trinity's Surprising Daughter ... 4.10: More than Trinity ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

And see also reviews of Season 3: Season's Happy Endings? ... Double Surprise ... Psychotic Law vs. Sociopath Science ... The Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Dexter ... The True Nature of Miguel ...Si Se Puede on Dexter ... and Dexter 3: Sneak Preview Review

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter 

Foundation 3.1: Now We're Talkin'!

At last, in Foundation 3.1, up on Apple TV+ today, an episode worthy of the greatest science fiction trilogy ever written -- the one by Isaac Asimov.  To be sure, the story on the screen continues to be very different than the one of the page, but this beginning of third season of Foundation on streaming TV has recognizable characters and pieces doing what they're supposed to do, none more so than The Mule.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

First, it was also very satisfying to hear Demerzel tell us she is a positronic robot, and recite the Three Laws of Robotics, plus the Zeroth Law, so clearly.  Given all the current concern about AI being so dangerous for humanity, it's good to hear that first law cited at the outset of this promising season.

It was also good to see another crucial trilogy character up on the screen.  Ebling Mis not only has a great name, but has always been one of my favorite characters in the series.  He does look a lot younger than Mis in the original trilogy, but that's ok.  It was also good to see Pritcher in evidence, given his importance in the ascension of The Mule.

Whose takeover of Kalgan on the screen was done just perfectly, bringing into play all the sadistic sway of The Mule. Indeed, though this Mule looks much better than the mutant described by Asimov, he has all the frightening flash and power of Asimov's pivotal character, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this all plays out in the TV series.

And speaking of what characters look like, it was refreshing to see how the latest versions of the Empire's ruling triumvirate look.   Unlike the trilogy, which did not have the clonal trio, there now are four players on the screen, vying for control of the galaxy:  the First and the Second Foundations, the Mule, and Empire. I'll see you back here next week with my take on how this develops in the next episode.

See also Foundation 2.1: Once Again, A Tale of Two Stories ... 2.2: Major Players ... 2.3: Bel Riose and Hari ... 2.5: The Original Cleon and the Robot ... 2.6: Hari and Evita ... 2.7: Is Demerzel Telling the Truth? ... 2.8: Major Revelations ... 2.9: Exceptional Alterations ... Season 2 Finale: Pros and Cons

And see also Foundation 1.1-2: Mathematician, Man of the People, and Cleon's Clones ... Foundation 1.3: Clonal Science Fiction, Hari Seldon as V. I. Lenin ... Foundation 1.4: Slow Hand, Long Half-Life, Flipped Coin ... Foundation 1.5: What We Learned in that Final Scene ... Foundation 1.6: Folded Variations ... Foundation 1.7: Alternate History/Future ... Foundation 1.8: Divergences and Convergences ... Foundation 1.9: Vindication and Questions ... Foundation Season 1 Finale: Right Up There

After Recording Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time, at Old Bear Records, October 2018

Tina Vozick & Paul Levinson at Old Bear Records, October 2018

My Mom Jayne: Mariska Hargitay's Heroic Struggle to Find Herself and Her Mother Jayne Mansfield

Mariska Hargitay was already an excellent rarity in television -- indeed, unique, in that her character Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has been on TV some 26 years and counting, longer than any other character in a TV drama.  That's no surprise, given that Hargitay plays Benson with sensitivity and power in episode after episode.  It's therefore also no surprise that My Mom Jayne, Hargitay's documentary about her mother Jayne Mansfield, is also unique, sensitive and powerful and unlike any documentary I've ever seen.  My wife and I saw it last night on HBO Max, and were glued to the screen, often with tears in our eyes.

I grew up in the 1950s and early 60s, and my friends and I in the Bronx would often debate whom we'd like to spend the night with -- Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, or Mamie Van Doren.  Of course, they all were highly attractive.  But, believe it or not, we also discussed whom we'd like to talk to.  We knew that Marilyn was married, then had been married, to playwright Arthur Miller, so we figured she had to be pretty smart.  We knew almost nothing more about Jayne and Mamie than what they looked like.

My Mom Jayne makes the convincing case that Jayne Mansfield was no dummy either.  She not only was contemplative and intelligent, she played the violin and piano.  And after she'd established herself as a hot dumb blonde bombshell, she worked very hard and not very successfully to demonstrate that she had a brain, endeavoring to explain that the dumb blonde was an act. The popular culture is very resistant to that kind of change.  It's hard to negate what made you famous, and get your devoted admirers to accept that all of that was just a stepping stone to something else.  (One of the things that made The Beatles so transcendent is that they were able to move so smoothly from "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" to "A Day in the Life" and the Abbey Road medley.)

Jayne Mansfield's struggle to get the world to know who she really was, cut short only by her untimely tragic death in an auto accident in 1967, is one of the two central themes of My Mom Jayne, and epitomized in an interview we see of Jayne by Jack Paar.  That host of The Tonight Show for just five years (1957-1962) -- who, by the way. introduced The Beatles to America -- was the intellectual's intellectual, more so than Carson, Letterman, and even Dick Cavett.  So Jayne must have figured she had a chance of convincing Jack about her fine mind and talent.  But the interview ends with a smirking Jack saying he'd like Jayne to kiss him.  (Speaking of Jack, he also sounds in that interview a lot like Johnny, which shows that Johnny adopted more than created his inimitable way of talking to his guests.)

The other central theme of My Mom Jayne is Mariska Hargitay's lifelong struggle to find out who she really is.  Mariska was just three when her mother died, so she has no memories of her mother.  Mariska's quest to find out who her mother was and therefore who Mariska is and how she got here turns out to be such a riveting, complex story, with so many twists and turns, it could almost have been a two-part episode of Law & Order: SVU.  Indeed, there are so many surprises packed into the end, I won't say anything more, except that if you've been a fan of Mariska or Jayne, or a devotee of our popular culture, or just like a compelling true story, you'll want to see My Mom Jayne.

                  science fiction/fantasy novelette

Shocker at the End of Smoke's 2nd Episode

Talk about warnings for spoilers: here's one for what follows in my review of the first two episodes of Smoke, which have been up for a few days on Apple TV+.  Indeed, the reveal at the end of the second episode of this new series is one of the biggest I ever remember seeing on any kind of TV series -- broadcast, cable, or streaming -- especially notable because it comes so early in the story.

***

Here it is:  Gudsen, one of the two investigators looking into the two arsonists who are plaguing their city, is himself one of those two arsonists.  We certainly see him setting a fire in a supermarket -- one of the two arsonists' modus operandi -- and smiling afterwards (Taron Egerton, who plays Gudsen, has a uniquely recognizable smile).

But does that 100% mean Gudsen is one of those two arsonists that he and his partner Calderone (very well played by Jurnee Smollett) are investigating?  The TV series is an adaptation of the podcast, Firebug, which tells the story of a real-life firefighter who becomes an arsonist.  But that doesn't mean that Smoke has to follow every part of the true-life story.  Before that final reveal, we see Gudsen very frustrated.   The literary agent he is seeking for the novel he is writing has turned him down.  He doesn't get along well with his adopted son.  Could he have set the fire to vent his emotions, setting it in the way one of the arsonists he and Calderone are investigating sets fires?

If yes, that would mean that Trolley Town is now being set on fire by three arsonists.  But my guess it's more likely that Gudsen is indeed one of the original two arsonists, which is still a wild -- and true -- story indeed.

Countdown: A Touch of 24 and More

My wife and I saw the first three episodes of Countdown on Amazon Prime last night -- the debut of the 13-episode series, which will proceed one-by-one until it concludes in September -- and we liked it a lot.

It reminded me in some ways of 24 -- a very good thing, because we were devoted fans, and I put the best of 24 in the Top 10 of all-time best television series.  I mean, there's no Jack Bauer, and no ticking clock, and each hour-long episode is not an hour of the same day unfolding in the story, but it is called Countdown, it does say "every second counts" in the above poster, and the good guys are struggling to prevent a terrorist attack in Los Angeles that would take as many lives as September 11th did in New York City.

[And there are some slight spoilers ahead...]

And what Countdown also has in common with 24 is some of the good guys, a task-force taken from several Federal agencies, get killed in the ongoing narrative.

And Countdown has something which I don't recall seeing in 24:  Mark Meacham (well-played by Jensen Ackles) has a glioblastoma tumor in his brain which will drastically shorten his life.  His doctor advises him to head off to some tropical isle to enjoy what's left of his life, but Meachum would rather spend his remaining time bringing down these bad guys.  This makes him a unique agent, who can be fearless to the max in fighting human monsters because he has literally almost nothing to lose.  (Incurable optimist that I am, I'm nonetheless hoping that he gets some new immunotherapy, and lives on beyond the end of this season -- or, if renewed, which I hope does happen, beyond the end of the series.)

I also have to say that it does my heart and soul good to see Federal agents doing what we need and want them to do -- fighting terrorists and true enemies in this country and keeping us safe -- rather than pulling good and decent people off the street because they weren't born in this country, or attacking a US Senator because he dared to pose a question to the Secretary of Homeland Security while she was talking in Los Angeles.  In other words, I'm glad to see a narrative like Countdown because I'm sad, to say the least, about what's really happening in our country.

See also Countdown Season One Finale

Senator Alex Padilla vs. the American Gestapo

  

The above is the complete extant video of what happened to US Senator Alex Padilla the other day in California, the state he represents.  We don't see what happened before this, but the video begins with Sen. Padilla being pushed by some kind of Federal agent.  Padilla tells his assaulter who he is -- "Senator Padilla" -- and his assaulter's response, joined by other assasulters, is to wrestle the Senator to the ground.

I use the word "assaulter" because assault is defined as any offensive or unwanted touching of the body.  Assault is a crime, and it doesn't matter whether the assault is done by whatever kind of Federal agent.  The job of any kind of police is to apprehend criminals, and stop crimes from happening if the crime has not already occurred.   Their job is manifestly not to assault a US Senator, or any other person exercising their Constitutional rights --  in Senator Padilla's case, the right to free speech guaranteed in the First Amendment.

And assault, unfortunately, is not the worst crime that can be committed.  In 1970, four unarmed protestors at Kent State University were shot dead by National Guardsmen sent there by the governor of Ohio.  None of those murderers were ever brought to justice.

I call them, and their current incarnations, Gestapo, because that's what this flagrant disregard of rights, and appliance of violence to crush those rights, ultimately leads to.  Whether it's a US Senator pushed to the floor and handcuffed, or Marines facing down peaceful protestors in Los Angeles today, these assaults on our democracy need to stop.  And their perpetrators, and the people who put them in that place, need to be brought before a court of law.

Law enforcement needs to stay focused on the prevention and solving of real crimes, like the assassination of Democratic State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark in Minnesota early today.

***

And here's another video of Sen. Padilla at Secretary Noem's event*. That video shows that Padilla was a little rude, for asking a question (in a conversational tone of voice -- certainly not shouting) while Noem was talking. Certainly not grounds for being forcibly removed from the event. Had I been in Secretary Noem's place, I would have answered the question and invited the Senator up to join me on the stage.

*Thanks Frank Tomasulo for sending me this URL for the two videos in this post.

The Better Sister: A Better Who Dunnit

My wife and I binged The Better Sister on Amazon Prime the past few nights, and we really enjoyed it. Here's why:

• Top-notch cast:  I mean, you can't go wrong with Jessica Biel (a sister) and Kim Dickens (a police detective).  And Elizabeth Banks (Love and Mercy!) as the other sister was superb.  (She was also in an hilarious episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm -- actually all its episodes are.) It was great to see Gloria Reuben (playing a lawyer) back on the screen, and Michael Harney (NYPD Blue!) playing Doorman Arty.  Also Corey Stoll and Matthew Modine with less time on the screen, were memorable too.
• The story was pretty strong, too.  I did guess who did the killing pretty early on.  But that's just me, and it was fun to see the story unfold.
• The title itself was good, because it invites you to think about who the better sister is, as the plot unfolds.
• It takes place mostly in New York -- in both the Hamptons and NYC -- always a plus with me.
• It's a summer story, with lots of swimming, that plays all kinds of roles.
• And The Better Sister moves quickly, in a stylish way that avoids swagger. 

All of this based on a 2019 single novel by Alafair Burke, herself the daughter of crime novelist James Lee Burke, and she's also a professor of law at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY (where I used to teach before coming to Fordham) a little over an hour west of the Hamptons.

Will there be a second season?  No current plans for one, but I certainly hope there is one.

Brian Wilson: What He and His Music Mean to Me

I grew up listening to rock 'n' roll, which was half doo-wop, and half Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Elvis.  As the 1960s began to emerge, the Four Seasons in 1962 and the Beach Boys in 1963 carried on with a modernized, popified doo-wop sound.  The Beatles were closer than just around the next corner.  And that was the milieu in which I formed my first group, The Transits, slightly more old-fashioned than the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, but covering their best songs.

The Transits sang at the YMHA on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, a stone's throw from Yankee Stadium in early 1964.   "Dawn" and "Rag Doll" by the Four Seasons and "Surfer Girl" by the Beach Boys were at the top of the list of the songs we covered.  As I walked a girl home whom I'd met at the concert, I told her I was tired of being in a group that sang those kinds of songs -- I wanted to be in a group that sounded more like The Beatles.

The Four Seasons would never progress very far beyond their pop doo-wop origins.  But the Beach Boys under Brian Wilson's leadership sure did.  As is well known, The Beatles' Rubber Soul in 1965 inspired the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds in 1966 which in turn inspired The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967.  While The Beatles were recording and releasing Sgt. Pepper, the Beach Boys were doing the same with their Smiley Smile album featuring "Heroes and Villains" (also released as a single).  So the two groups were not only inspiring one another, they in effect were co-creating across the continents, a musical incarnation of Marshall McLuhan's global village, which he prophetically wrote about in The Gutenberg Galaxy back in 1962.

For a variety of reasons, however, "Heroes and Villains" didn't get the immediate acclaim it so eminently deserved.  It has been one of my all-time favorite recordings since the moment I first heard it, though I can't quite recall where that was.  The harmony in that recording -- like the harmony in the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" adaptation on Pet Sounds -- is in the stratosphere, the ultimate evolution, at least as of now, of multi-dimensional doo-wop.

Brian Wilson did not get the adulation at first hearing that "Heroes and Villains" amply merited.  But I touted it everywhere I could.  My wife Tina and I were thrilled to hear Brian sing it in the Beach Boys reunion tour, at their performance in 2012 in White Plains, NY.  It was a sad night, not only because of course Dennis and Carl Wilson weren't there, but because WFUV disc jockey Pete Fornatale, who had been one of the champions of everything Beach Boys and Beatles on his Mixed Bag shows, had recently unexpectedly passed away.  (Come to think of it, I may have first heard "Heroes and Villains" on Pete's original "Mixed Bag" show on  WFUV back in the 1960s.   Pete, by the way, is the hero of my 2024 novel, It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles.)  But it was wonderful indeed to see and hear Brian in person.

I still think The Beatles are the best rock group to ever have written and recorded myriad forms of rock music.  Over the years, I've switched back and forth between the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones as to which is the second greatest rock group in history.  But I think I'm content now to leave it with both of them tied for second place, and every other great group vast caverns below them.

Thank you Brian Wilson, rest in peace.  Your "Heroes and Villains" will always be playing somewhere, and you are its hero.

MobLand: The Godfather of Streaming Television

Just saw the finale of what will almost certainly be the first season of a tour-de-force series about warring crime families on the other side of the pond, i.e., the UK.  MobLand has everything -- a powerful, unpredictable story bristling with what The Godfather and its sequels did so well in movies.  That would be a potent, explosive blend of violence and family dynamics that can make your head spin.

Here I'll talk about two ingredients that brought this kick-in-the-solar-plexus across: the music and the acting,

First, MobLand has one of the best theme songs I've heard in years:  "Starburster" by Fontaines D.C.  I mean, I'm no expert in hip hop, but I know "Starburster" has powerful elements of it, and the recording suits the story to be told in every episode to a tee, as well as being instantly unforgettable mind candy. 

And that's just for literally starters.  In the finale alone, we get major songs by Johnny Cash (sung twice) and The Rolling Stones.  Like in The Godfather trilogy, Goodfellas, and all immediately classic crime family dramas, the music of MobLand is at once avant garde and classic.  

Now let's get to the acting.  Pierce Brosnan gave an astonishing performance as Conrad Harrington, the anti-hero crime boss whose gang is at the center of the action.  This man played two characters who were suave to the max -- Remington Steele and James Bond -- and in MobLand he trashes those icons and goes vehemently in the opposite direction, cursing and screaming and giving loud and withering vent to his anger and his other moods with the best of 'em.   Meanwhile,  Helen Mirren, a world-class actress, is every bit as vicious and violent in her role as Maeve Harrington, Conrad's wife..  Neither of them are youngsters, but I wouldn't want to meet either of them in a dark alley.  Or a lit one, either, for that matter.

And alongside these veritable criminal forces of nature -- Emmy-worthy spectacular -- we have Tom Hardy's portrayal of Harry, the Harringtons fixer (a lot of "Har"s in that sentence).  He's calm, contemplative but deadly when he needs to be.  Like Brosnan and Mirren, Hardy is a world-class actor, great in just about everything he does, but yet to establish himself in a role as luminary as James Bond, Vito Corleone, or Michael Corleone.  But his performance in MobLand could move Hardy into Al Pacino territory.

The lesser-known actors in MobLand were excellent, too.  Paddy Considine (House of the Dragon) as one of Conrad and Maeve's sons, gives a heart-rending performance, as does Joanne Froggatt (Downton Abbey), for different reasons, as Harry's wife.   The truth is, there's not a weak performance in this powerhouse of a series.

Hey, I managed to review MobLand without even a hint of a spoiler.  I'm going to listen to some more Fontaines DC music now.

Dept. Q: Nordic Noir in Scotland

I've always been a big fan of Nordic Noir.  That might seem a bit unusual for a bigger lifelong fan of science fiction, as well as an author of science fiction novels and stories.   But the two genres are close cousins -- if detective mysteries are whodunnits, science fiction can be aptly read and seen as whatdunnits -- and some authors combined the two genres, as Isaac Asimov astutely did with his robot detective novels (I took a crack at that genre blend as well, with my Phil D'Amato stories and novels).

But Nordic Noir -- which can be geographically identified as stories that take place in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland -- has a special zing, a platter of gruesome crimes, investigated by slightly cracked but brilliant detectives who also manage to have a wicked sense of humor.  Dept Q., which takes place in Scotland, has all of these characteristics in gleaming pitch black spades.

The TV series, which debuted on Netflix at the end of May, is based on a series of novels by the Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen.  My wife and I binged the nine episodes over several evenings concluding last night.  (Is watching nine episodes over several nights rather than in one sitting aptly termed "binging"?  You tell me. I will say thanks Netflix for putting all episodes up at once, which permits binging, whatever exactly that means.)

The transplantation to Scotland works great -- it is, after all, in the northern part of the British Isles, and many of the characters have Nordic names.  The cold case team that investigates the disappearance of Prosecutor Merritt Lingard is, as per Nordic Noir protocols, a group not of three misfits, but of deeply wounded, highly talented people.  DCI Carl Morck was nearly killed in a previous case that left one of his partners (James Hardy) unable to walk, and killed another. Akram Salim is a Syrian immigrant with a calm Sherlockian logic and demeanor and a harrowing past (one of my favorite characters now in any series).  And DC Rose Dickson is on desk duty at the beginning of the series, traumatized because she accidentally killed an elderly couple with her car.  See what I mean about deeply wounded?

And to make matters worse for our characters, but better for the series, they're actually embroiled in one way or another in at least three horrendous cases:  the disappearance of the prosecutor, the shooting that hit Morck (he's physically healed but psychologically struggling), and the case that Lingard tried and lost before she disappeared (in which a man who probably killed his wife was found not guilty).  And indeed there are all kinds of other murders that come to light as the story proceeds, propelled by gunfire, tempestuous family relationships, various kinds of romance, dreams, and a hyperbaric chamber.

The great story is served by memorable acting, with Matthew Goode as Morck, Alexej Manvelov as Salim, Leah Byrne as Dickson, Jamie Sives as Hardy, and Chloe Pirrie as Lingard.  And hats off to Scott Frank and Elisa Amoruso for inspired directing.  I give Dept. Q my highest recommendation and can't wait to see more.

Your Friends & Neighbors: Definitely Worth Getting to Know

Just saw the finale -- the 9th episode -- of the first season of Your Friends & Neighbors on Apple TV+.  I'm saying first season because Apple renewed it for a second season before the first season begun.  A smart move because Your Friends & Neighbors, billed as a comedy-drama, but more a drama with some comical touches about some of the ethical profundities of life -- at least life in the New York City area -- is a tour-de-force of a series in a multiplicity of ways.

Here are some of those (in general non-spoiler) ways:

1. It's easily Jon Hamm's best role and performance since Mad Men.  Indeed, Hamm is so natural and energized in the lead role -- Andrew Cooper aka Coop -- that it could be Coop could equal or even exceed Don Draper.  Time will tell.

2. The rest of the acting is top-notch.  Amanda Peet as Coop's former wife, Olivia Munn as his sometimes lover, even Corbin Bernsen as, well, Coop's despicable boss, a minor role, are all memorable. So are Isabel Gravitt and Donovan Colan as Coop's kids.

3. The essence of the plot:  Coop is fired from his high-stakes financially wheeling-and-dealing job.  He takes up stealing -- literally stealing -- from his neighbors to stay afloat.  As a result of which, he ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, looking guilty for a murder he didn't commit.  Along the way, we meet bevy of compelling characters including his fence; an unlikely but effective partner-in-crime; and a sister with a pretty good voice and some impressive songs (Lena Hall plays Coop's sister, and actually wrote and sings an original song as well as singing the covers -- a nice touch).

I have no idea if the depiction of this upper crust in Your Friends & Neighbors is accurate (I live in the greater New York area, but as a professor I'm not really privy to what goes on in boardrooms and the like).  But that doesn't really matter.   Your Friends & Neighbors is not a documentary, not even a docu-drama.  It's a work of fiction, in which it splendidly succeeds.

Paul Levinson interviews Tom Cooper 1 May 2025 about Wisdom Weavers

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 412, in which I interview Tom Cooper about his new book Wisdom Weavers: The Lives and Thought of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan published on May 1, 2025 by Connected Editions.

A group of 51 scholars from the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and Poland gathered on May 1 via Zoom -- a mini global village -- to see this interview with Tom Cooper. The interview and subsequent Q&A is presented here in audio its entirety. We started off with some casual conversation ...

• Transcript of the complete Zoom Chat that took place after the interview
• Get the book in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover here
• Other audio interviews about Wisdom Weavers:  Captain Phil interviews Paul Levinson about Wisdom Weavers on WUSB Radio ... Frank LoBuono interviews Paul Levinson and Tom Cooper about Wisdom Weavers on the Being Frank podcast
• Watch the entire interview on video

 

Check out this episode!

Black Bag: Pick It Up

Just saw Black Bag, which popped up on Peacock on May 2, after debuting in theaters here in the U. S. on March 14.  It has a lot to commend itself,  including a top-notch cast, with Michael Fassbender (whom I just saw in The Agency, the CIA in London series which I reviewed the first three episodes of here), Cate Blanchett (who starred in lots of great movies and series, including recently Disclaimer, a brilliant literary psychological drama which I reviewed here), and Pierce Brosnan (formerly Remington Steele and James Bond, of course, currently starring in Mobland (giving a tour-de-force performance as a gang boss; I'll be reviewing it after its finale next week, but I can tell you now that it has one of the best theme songs I've heard in many a year).

Black Bag actually has some music running through it, too.  It has some action, but most of the time it's more a chess-piece cosy that Agatha Christie would have appreciated.  It also, like The Agency, flaunts the very best of current and possibly imagined AI and digital media in the spy-craft it details.  But its best feature is Fassbender's George and Blanchette's Kathryn as a loving couple who are likely good guys, and the rest of George's team, evenly matched between men and women who are also romantically involved in one way or another.

If I had a complaint, it probably would be that the narrative resolved itself a little too quickly, and may have played better as a limited series of three or four episodes.  Also, the villain was not as ingenuously concealed as in Agatha Christie's work, and maybe more time for that story to spool out would have been helpful too.

But the mix of espionage and romance worked well, and one advantage of a movie over a TV series is that you're not investing as much time in watching a movie as you would a series, so the movie's lack of perfection is less objectionable.

Criminal Minds: Evolution 18.3: Flowers from Hotch, Derek, and Spencer

It's been a while since I've seen an episode in any television series as emotionally effective -- as emotionally right -- as episode 18.3 of Criminal Minds: Evolution (actually, the third season of Criminal Minds: Evolution, which got the appendage Evolution in its title when Criminal Minds resumed on Paramount Plus in November 2022 after 16 powerful seasons on CBS, which concluded in February 2020).

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

The occasion was the funeral of Will, J. .J.'s husband, who died of sudden natural causes at the end of last week's episode 18.2.  Penelope and Emily are sitting together.  Penelope says the flowers are stunning.  Emily points to them and says those are from Hotch, those are from Derek, and those are from Spencer.

The mention of three major characters from Criminal Minds -- Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, and Spencer Reed -- for various reasons no longer on the show, but still alive (and that actually confirmed by this mention) -- was itself a classy move by the makers of this rebooted series.  All too often in television, especially broadcast TV where Criminal Minds spent its first 16 seasons, characters who leave the series are all too often out of sight out of mind, and never mentioned again.  So when I heard Hotch, Derek, and Spencer mentioned, I thought good for Criminal Minds: Evolution for growing up and becoming more like real life.   (I will say the Chicago shows and the Law & Order shows, both on NBC -- with the exception of Law & Order: Organized Crime, now on Peacock -- occasionally make references to characters no longer on the show.)

But the best was yet to come, when Spencer arrived at the funeral and joined his beloved colleagues/friends.  I've been wondering since Evolution began three years ago why Spencer was no longer on the BAU team, i.e., on the show.  I even said so in my reviews.  Whether this appearance was a one-time event, or the beginning of a re-integration of one of the best characters from the original series (the best, in the opinion of many) remains to be seen.  But his appearance at this funeral, what he said to J. J. -- "I'm always here for you guys" -- was a memorable moment, indeed.  In fact, I would say that moment, and the entire reappearance of Spencer, was one of the most memorable moments I've ever seen in a fictitious TV drama.

Matthew Gray Gubler played this moment as Spencer (Dr. Spencer Reid) just perfectly.  A. J. Cook as J. J. deserves an Emmy for her performance.  And the truth is all the acting was letter perfect in this remarkable episode.  Kudos to everyone involved, including Jeff Davis and the other writers, and Joe Mantegna who directed (who also plays Rossi, a major character).  This episode, entitled "Time to Say Goodbye," is the way television should be done.  It's definitely not time for Criminal Minds to say goodbye.

See also Criminal Minds: Evolution 17.1-17-.2 The Elusive Profile ... 17.3: "BAU Gate" ... 17.4: Progress ... 17.6: Gideon, Morgan, Hotch ... 17.7: Jill Gideon

And see also Criminal Minds: Evolution 16.1-16.4: Outstanding! ... 16.5: Assessment of What Could Have Happened at the End ... 16.6-16.8: Better Than Ever on Paramount Plus ... 16.9: Elias Voit and David Rossi ... 16.10: Gold Star

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Some reviews of episodes from earlier seasons:

Criminal Minds 8.12: Spencer's Burden

Criminal Minds 7.1: "The Is Calm and It's Doctor" ... Criminal Minds 7.3: Meets House and The Unit

Criminal Minds in Sixth Season Premiere ... Criminal Minds 6.2: The Meaning of J. J. Leaving ... Criminal Minds 6.3: Proust, Twain, Travanti ... Tyra on Criminal Minds 6.13 ...Criminal Minds 6. 17: Prentiss Farewell Part I ... Criminal Minds 6.18: Farewell Emily ... Criminal Minds 6.19: Fight Club Redux Plus ... Criminal Minds 6.20: Emily's Ghost ... Criminal Minds 6.21: The Tweeting Killer ... Criminal Minds 6.22: Psycho and a Half ... Criminal Minds 6.23: The Good Lie ... Criminal Minds Season 6 Finale

Criminal Minds 5.22 and the Dark Side of New New Media

 

Carry-On: Do-See

So I just got around to watching Carry-On, a Die-Hard-like roller-coaster of an airport thriller which has been on Netflix since December.

No Bruce Willis in the movie, but Carry-On does have Justin Bateman as an anti-hero, "Traveler," though just outright, contemptible, highly intelligent, ruthless villain may be a more apt description.  The hero (Ethan Kopek) is played by Taron Egerton (Elton John in Rocketman!), and he puts in a very good performance.

The plot is vaguely familiar, though I don't think I've seen anything exactly like Carry-On before.  How do you get a lethal aerosol weapon on board a plane?  You target the pregnant wife of a young TSA screener and tell him you'll kill his wife (who conveniently also works at the airport) if he doesn't let the deadly package go through and on to the plane the bad guys want to destroy.

The movie has plenty of action, all kinds of would-be heroes and outright heroes, including Danielle Deadwyler (Station Eleven) as a rambunctious LAPD detective. There are some good twists and turns along the way, and the movie also has the you-never-know-who's-going-to-die ingredient that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

I won't tell you anything more about Carry-On because I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that if you're looking for a fast-paced, chic car-chase of a movie (and there actually is a car-chase in the movie), one that takes place on Christmas Eve (hence its kinship to Die Hard, and also Black Doves), you can't go wrong with Carry-On.

See also Black Doves: Snow White Thriller

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