Chad Comello

  • Norman Doors & More: Notes on ALA 2017

    I went to the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago two weeks ago. Got to meet up with old colleagues, collect some sweet pens, and hear some interesting speakers, including the godfather of Hamilton, Ron Chernow. But most enriching were the sessions I attended. Here are some notes from the ones that enlightened me the most.

    The Intentional Library: Creating A Better User Experience With Service Design And Design Thinking

    Presenters: Joe Marquez, Annie Downey, Julka Almquist, Juliana Culbert

    This session got me thinking about how to look at our library space as if I were a tourist seeing it for the first time. Would our service design make sense to them? If we aren’t intentionally seeking feedback from patrons and staff about how we can meet people’s needs and eliminate patrons’ “pain points”, then we’re not serving our patrons well.

    Another key takeaway was that from a patron’s perspective, everyone who works in the library is a librarian; they don’t understand the professional distinctions. So regardless of job title, all staff should understand the library as a whole and be ready to serve the patron with good customer service skills.

    Notes:

    • “If the point of contact between the product and people becomes a point of friction, the designer has failed.” -Henry Dreyfuss
    • If seeking to implement new design, follow the process: empathize → define → ideate → prototype → test → implement
    • need fresh eyes on space and processes, like a tourist
    • there are differences between what people say, do, think, and feel
    • discover people’s needs and pain-points, and create solutions to those so users can get what they want
    • educate colleagues on user experience (UX) and what it looks like to put into practice
    • questions to consider:
      • what is the audience?
      • what is the goal, call to action for users?
      • what is the timeline?
    • mindset to have:
      • everyone is a designer
      • embrace failure
      • people are at the center
    • prototyping builds confidence and saves money
    • Inherited ecology: older things and systems that haven’t changed but should, need new eyes
    • libraries are “tightly coupled” system, so changes affect everyone
    • from patron’s perspective, everyone is a librarian; all staff should know library as a whole
    • understand needs and expectations of patrons: these are often unexpressed
    • everything is a service
    • establish reasonable duration and tempo for patron services
    • accessibility: a range of behaviors are available to patrons
    • ask patrons: what problems do libraries solve? why are we important?

    Resources:

    What Do You Need to Know? Learning and Knowing and Libraries in the Age of the Internet

    Daniel Russell is Google’s Über Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness and he studies “how groups of people think about, understand, and use the technology of information.” He expanded on the concept of informacy, or the literacy of information, which requires a deep knowledge of information as a domain and knowing how to work well within it. Three things he said librarians ought to know were: 1) what’s possible to find online, 2) what search capabilities allow you to find them, and 3) what do you need to know to be able to do this? Pairing these skills with curiosity and a skeptical eye will help librarians make the shift in mindset from things that used to be impossible to find to what’s now expected to be provided instantaneously.

    Notes:

    • Russell is a software engineer, research scientist, and a self-described “cyber-tribal-techno-cognitive-anthropologist” who studies “how groups of people think about, understand, and use the technology of information”
    • literacy: the ability to read and write in a symbol system and assumed, associated body of knowledge; defined with regard to a cultural group
    • “Pear Republic” hoax on Snopes is an example of the “false authority” fallacy
    • Need to perceive knowledge gap
      • skills of how to look things up
      • attitude of curiosity
    • Things librarians ought to know:
      • What’s possible to find online
      • What search capabilities allow you to find them
      • What do you need to know to be able to do this?
    • example of finding location of a photo using EXIF metadata (EXIF Metadata Viewer) and Google Maps
    • intuition/understanding of what and how often you do something is unreliable
    • informacy (like numeracy): the literacy of information
      • deeply knowledgeable about information as a domain, and knowing how to use and interact with it
    • Ctrl-F not used by 90% computer users: why?
    • Examples of untrustworthy sources on the internet:
      • fake author “Lambert Surhone” on Amazon
      • Clonezone
      • Italian Wikipedia article for Leonardo da Vinci much longer than English one: which one is better?
    • need to shift thinking from impossible to instantaneous
    • how to convert attitude from complaining to seeking out answers?
    • Social metacognition strategy of using “contact list intelligence”: know people who know things you don’t
    • “When in doubt, search it out”
    • “knowledge exists outside of yourself”
    • Three keys:
      • learn how to ask questions
      • know who can answer questions
      • know what tools are out there

    Better Service than Amazon and Nordstrom: Secrets to How It’s Done

    Presenters: Jane Martel, Linda Speas, Caroline Heinselman

    This was presented by staff from the Arapahoe Library in Colorado, which gets very high marks in customer service rankings, even compared to popular companies like Amazon and Apple. I gathered there were 3 aspects of their customer service success. One was creating “exceptional experiences” for patrons that “surprise and delight” them and turn what would otherwise have been a good but standard library experience into great ones that they might tell their non-library-using friends about. Another was finding ways to “say yes” and avoid saying no in customer service situations, and documenting the times you have to “say no” so that you can pinpoint problems and get to yes. Another was rigorously training and supporting staff, not only in how to provide great customer service but also by allowing staff to feel fulfilled in their jobs by gathering positive stories of staff successes.

    Notes:

    • poor customer service acts as a barrier to access
    • library being essential vs. “nice to have”
    • what can we offer to bring in more non-users? Nothing to convince them to come.
    • who are we at our best?
    • get users to “tell a friend” via word of mouth; create exceptional experiences they will want to tell about — ”surprise & delight”
    • specifically ask people to tell their friends/family about good library experiences
    • find ways to say yes and avoid saying no
    • hire for people skills over library skills: harder to teach
    • train and support staff: CS training for all
    • Process: greet warmly and smile, introduce yourself, have good small talk, offer assistance in “let’s find out” attitude, say thank you, make known they aren’t interrupting
    • have someone intentionally look at birds-eye view of CS
    • have staff submit positive stories: recognition/morale, training examples, board (Desk Tracker or Google Form?)
    • new hires: welcome bag, lunch, etc.
    • October 3 Customer Experience Day cxday.org
    • Tips for improving CS:
      • No log or Sorry/Thanks log to chart when have to say no and spot pain points
      • annual CS survey for patrons: look for things that either can be solved or are repeated
      • online anonymous comment form
    • staff see much more than patrons do

    Desegregating Public Libraries: The Tougaloo Nine

    Presenters: Michael Crowell, Geraldine Edwards Hollis, Susan Brown

    This session was less about modern library practices and more about how past ones have failed patrons. Geraldine Edwards Hollis was one of the Tougaloo Nine, a group of students in Mississippi who did a “study-in” at their local segregated library and were arrested. Hollis told the story of the experience, which I’d never heard about until then. The session was a good opportunity to consider potential blind spots we have in current library services and honor those who risked their livelihoods to challenge them in the past.

    Notes:

    • Hollis: a voracious reader
    • During this session was the first time Hollis had seen footage of the study-in and her arrest since it happened
    • Hollis: they didn’t want to just do lunch counter sit-ins or something mediocre: they did a library because libraries and reading mattered
    • Group started with 50 students interested, but once possibility of beatings, jailing, or even death was made clear, only 16 remained interested
      • many had parents who worked for state and schools, so those who remained had the least at stake
      • 16 total involved: 9 in the library, the rest on lookout
    • parents didn’t know until a few hours before
    • Hollis made her own clothes, was very meticulous; “I made sure I was well padded” for jail with lots of layers
    • Hollis: we were told all their lives we didn’t belong, but what what we were showing was “we belong where we want to be”
    • Read more: Wayne Wiegand’s Desegregating Libraries in the American South and the new journal Libraries: Culture, History & Society

    Asking for a Friend: Tough Questions (and Honest Answers) about Organizational Culture

    Presenters: Susan Brown, Richard Kong, Megan Egbert, Christopher Warren

    This panel was comprised of one middle manager and three library directors, all of whom had taken over from long-serving directors and embarked on an overhaul of their organizational structure and culture. It was largely Q&A, with librarians voicing a variety of frustrations with their management, office politics, and other challenges that can pop up in the library environment. Key takeaways include: managers need to remember that some people view change as loss, and creating change means accountability combined with compassion.

    Notes:

    • organizational culture is something you can hope will change, or be intentional about it
    • moving people to different offices was “worst thing ever” (Kong)
    • can’t reshape OC alone: need evangelists
    • OC defined by worst behavior that manager allows
    • counter toxic culture with emphasis on serving patrons
    • accountability + compassion to create change
    • communicate a lot, but also hold people accountable to consuming it and responding; if there are complaints of communication lack, look for what’s underneath
    • find ways to help people contribute to positive culture
    • trust: say you’ll do something, then do it — performance tied to trust
    • directors/managers should give time to allow feedback, but once decision is made staff should follow it; everyone gets a voice, but not a vote
    • re: siloing, Kong resists designating one authority figure or chain: wants people and departments to talk to each other
    • mixed departments on project teams and interviews
    • “what’s broken, what’s the rumor” at meetings
    • Junior Librarian program to mentor high schoolers and get non-traditional people in LIS
    • technical change vs. adaptive change (mindset)
    • some view change as loss

  • Folks, I’m Telling You

    I don’t remember where I got the idea, but recently I’ve started memorizing poems and posting recordings of me reciting them on Instagram. They’ve been mostly short thus far, 10 to 15 lines. But I aim to take on longer ones as I get more under my belt and feel more adventurous.

    Part of this is a memory exercise. I haven’t been obligated to memorize something of value since college (sup, Gray’s “Elegy”), and I know it’s good for the brain to do so. But it’s also because quoting poetry or Shakespeare at opportune moments is a cliche from the movies I think we could use more of in real life. And until now the only poem I could recite was “Advice” by Langston Hughes—a whopping 19 words long.

    So far I’ve done “Nothing Is Too Small Not to Be Wondered About” by Mary Oliver, “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry, and “Carrying On Like A Crow” by Charles Simic. I found them more or less at random by opening those authors’ poetry collections and paging through until something jumps out. I recommend doing that the next time you’re at the library.

    Which reminds me: I gotta find my next poem.

  • The Vanishing American Adult

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    I can’t believe it. I think I may have just found a Republican U.S. senator I’d actually vote for.

    I’m as surprised as anyone that I read, let alone greatly enjoyed, Ben Sasse’s The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis—and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance by Ben Sasse, Republican (but, phew, #NeverTrump) senator from Nebraska. I really think the only reason I picked it up was because Sasse’s face isn’t on the cover. If it were, it would look like every other politician’s memoir and therefore a waste of time.

    But this isn’t that, not by a long shot. Sasse, a Ph.D in history and former college president, was troubled by the lack of certain skills and self-sufficiency in his college’s incoming freshman classes. He doesn’t use the term, but it’s those darn Millennials he’s talking about. Though the book does give off the slightest aroma of Kids These Days and Back In My Day, I’m inclined to endure it because Sasse is largely right.

    Part I examines education, which Sasse sees as the root of the current coming-of-age crisis. He’s not a fan of John Dewey, who crusaded to make schooling the central influence on children, rather than make it something that was supplemental to the education children should receive at home. (No surprise that the Sasses homeschool their kids.) But he’s right about the self-perpetuating nature of bureaucracy and how it runs counter to good education:

    Unfortunately, centralized education and bureaucrats tend to see every failure as a product of still not enough centralized bureaucracy. Most of these experts are blind to the possibility that perhaps we are still trying to spoon-feed young adults who we should instead nudge to travel and to read, to work and to become the kind of students to ask questions before being handed a three-point formulaic answer.

    One man’s boilerplate Republican talking point is another’s sensible conservative approach to an evident problem.

    Beyond the school walls, Sasse sees a conglomeration of factors that have led to the current coming of age crisis: too much medication, screen time, video games, and porn; living with parents too long and getting married later; too much helicopter parenting and intellectual sheltering and not enough religion. One can debate each of these to death, but taken together it’s a potent cocktail for Peter Panism.

    Part II gets into the practicalities of cultivating self-discipline and good character and how they can foster a healthy transition to adulthood: avoid age segregation, work hard, consume less, travel, and read a lot. Basic stuff, right? Sasse dives into each of them. As a librarian I was especially tickled by the chapter on reading: Sasse has developed his own “essential reading” library that is impressive in its scope and depth, and even inspired me to pick up The Iliad in my ongoing quest to fill in the gaps of my public education.

    I don’t foresee any more books by politicians on my reading horizon, so I’m glad I lucked out with this one.

    Some Quotes

    Production > consumption:

    Consumption is not the key to happiness; production is. Meaningful work—that actually serves and benefits a neighbor, thereby making a real difference in the world—contributes to long-term happiness and well-being. Consumption just consumes.

    Self-sufficiency > permanent dependency:

    Allowing our culture to devolve from one that encourages self-sufficiency into one that indulges permanent dependency is to tolerate a disengagement of the soul akin to permanent training wheels. Letting the next generation believe someone else will solve their problems imperils not only them but our whole society.

    Aging > perpetual adolescence:

    We latch onto evidence hinting that aging can be put off, perhaps indefinitely. It’s no surprise then that our young today inherit a fear of growing up and growing old, and a near allergy to confronting honestly the only certainty in life besides taxes. …

    Denying meaningful rites of passage and obscuring the distinction between childhood and adulthood cheats the generation coming of age of something vital. Lowering expectations, cushioning all blows, and tolerating aimlessness not only hurts them, it also deprives their neighbors, who desperately need their engagement.

    See my full notes from the book.

  • So?

    Remember in 2008 when Dick Cheney, when confronted with polls showing two-thirds of Americans opposed the Iraq War quagmire, responded with So?

    I thought about that when I read this part of the Washington Post‘s story on Obama’s struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault:

    In early September, Johnson, Comey, and Monaco arrived on Capitol Hill in a caravan of black SUVs for a meeting with 12 key members of Congress, including the leadership of both parties.

    The meeting devolved into a partisan squabble.

    “The Dems were, ‘Hey, we have to tell the public,’ ” recalled one participant. But Republicans resisted, arguing that to warn the public that the election was under attack would further Russia’s aim of sapping confidence in the system.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went further, officials said, voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence truly supported the White House’s claims. Through a spokeswoman, McConnell declined to comment, citing the secrecy of that meeting.

    Key Democrats were stunned by the GOP response and exasperated that the White House seemed willing to let Republican opposition block any pre-election move.

    So? went McConnell. With apologies to “Make America Great Again”, the most important slogan of the 2016 election was “When they go low, we go high”. It’s a beautiful sentiment that is also a recipe for failure when your opponents are the Dick Cheneys and Mitch McConnells of the world, who go low like their lives depend on it.

    If the investigation into Russia’s election interference and the Trump administration’s collusion proves substantive, I predict the only thing we’ll hear from McConnell, Ryan & Co is one big fat So?

    The American Health Care Act will throw 23 million people out of health coverage and gut Medicaid in order to give the rich a massive tax cut they don’t need. So?

    Trump has mishandled classified info, failed to disclose financial conflicts of interest, threatened the FBI director, and so much more they’d be pissed about if he were a Democrat. So?

    And so on.

    God help us all.

  • Wonder Woman

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    I recently began reading The Iliad for the first time. Having that in mind when I saw Wonder Woman was helpful in my appreciation of both works. The way Ares interacts with humanity in Patty Jenkins’s excellent film—first subtly, then catastrophically—mirrors that of the gods of The Iliad, who bounce in and out of the affairs of men, sometimes at whim and sometimes with purpose.

    The other lens through which I tried to watch Wonder Woman was as through the eyes of women. In this way several images from the movie stuck with me. Steve, the drowning dude in distress, seeing Diana standing atop his wrecked plane before she rescues him. Diana’s glasses, thrust upon her in a winking attempt to de-glamorize her in Edwardian London, quickly and symbolically crushed during a back alley brawl. Steve’s commanding officer, despite being handed the intelligence coup of Dr. Poison’s stolen notebook, caring much more about—God forbid—a woman in the war room.

    Not to mention the now iconic No Man’s Land sequence, which I later learned brought many women to tears. What I found powerful about it, beyond the single-minded drive and badassery Diana shows in battle, was how it was the culmination of a day’s worth of her being told No over and over again, and choosing to ignore it each time. No, you can’t dress like that. No, you can’t go to the front. No, you can’t brandish your sword. No, you can’t enter this men’s-only room, or that other men’s-only room. No, you can’t stop to help people on the way to the front. No, you can’t go into No Man’s Land.

    And most of this was from her ally Steve! Nevertheless, she persisted. When she finally deployed her powers in full force, all that naysaying seemed silly in retrospect. Of course she was the right person for the job. She was no man, and the better for it.

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    On top of her combat prowess, she later on develops keen insights about humanity, in spite of (or maybe because of) her outsider status. Her battle with Ares triggers a revelation that speaks to the depth of her inner character: that men are capable of great evil does not disqualify them from her protection; in fact, it seems to make her more resolved to provide it. “It’s not about deserve,” she tells Ares. “It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.” It’s an extraordinary thing for a superhero to say, especially within the bleak Zach Synder DC Universe.

    (Her compassionate spirit, her dedication to doing the right thing, and compulsion to tackle challenges head-on reminded me of Chris Evans’ Captain America. Both are alienated from their times—one due to cryogenic preservation and the other by her magical hidden island—and also are the rare superheroes to cry on film. It’s a shame we won’t see those two characters fight together anytime soon, but I’d be all for it.)

    That it was a female superhero who brought love into the superhero’s creedal calculus will no doubt rankle those who wish for Diana to upend the sexist assumptions of what a female should believe. (She still upends plenty.) But I didn’t see it as the hokey platitude it is on the surface. I see it as an acknowledgement of love’s deep meaning and the impact it makes upon us. However short her time was with Steve, it made an indelible impression on her and subsequently her worldview as a superhero. Pairing this experience with her incessant drive to do something when faced with injustice makes her a potent force for good in man’s fallen world, and in the larger world of superhero movies.

  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

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    Josh Larsen posted my response to his middling-to-negative review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in his Why I’m Wrong feature. I wanted to post it here as well, along with follow-up thoughts about how the movie reminded me of his great new book Movies Are Prayers.

    My defense of GOTG2

    What I won’t defend: the glorified carnage, yet another “blow up the glowing thing in order to save the universe” superhero movie ending, or the strange casting of Sylvester Stallone.

    What I will defend: Chris Pratt’s ongoing ability to surprise with his acting; how they maintained a healthy mix of irreverent humor, action, and obligatory MCU service; and how these maladjusted Guardian misfits learn to love each other and themselves in a surprisingly uncheesy way. The subplots of Nebula, Yondu, and Mantis hardly drag the focus away from the Guardians. On the contrary, they enhance each of them by calling attention to the compelling parts (or defects) in the Guardians’ personalities, and propelling them toward the reconciliation and peace (however temporary) they crave. The Yondu and Nebula storylines were especially affecting, both on their own and how they affected Quill and Gamora respectively.

    How can the antagonism between Quill and Rocket be “forced” given their very believable insecurities and irrepressible need to be the wittiest, most tough-guy fighter of the group? And did you fall asleep during the scenes between Rocket and Baby Groot? They contained the same delightful rapport from the first film, altered for the new, infantilized version of Groot. You must have missed those and the other “grace notes” that peppered the entire film, including the best Zune joke of all time.

    No doubt the plot goes a little haywire once Kurt Russell enters the picture. (What was up with his castle and all those porcelain dioramas? Demigod hobby I guess.) It pretty quickly didn’t smell right, so I spent most of the second act waiting for The Turn. But since I’ve lowered my expectations considerably for Marvel villains, my larger concern was enjoying the laughs and unexpected poignant moments along the way.

    You insist it’s a small movie trying on big-boy blockbuster pants, but I saw it as putting on one of those clear, gelled spacesuits that Quill wears at one point: the spectacle fits snugly around the human core. I’ll put up with an explosion or 17 for that.

    Further thoughts on reconciliation

    I wanted to follow-up about how it acts as a prayer of reconciliation. Starting in Vol. 1, each of the Guardians (sans Groot) had crippling insecurities and self-esteem issues that they masked with sarcasm (Quill), steeliness (Gamora), pugnacity (Rocket), or a vengeful spirit (Drax). Insecurities make for great cinema: they compel characters to act for or against things. And when they are paired with comedy and great cast chemistry, you get movies like this, which are fun to watch because the characters aren’t as noble and upright as the Avengers.

    But insecurity also signals a hole wanting to be filled, which is where reconciliation comes in. It became clear in Vol. 1 that Quill ached for the love of a real family. He thought he had it in Vol. 2 when Ego came along, but then realized it was counterfeit and downright deadly, causing him to see his relationship with Yondu in a different and profound way. (How beautiful was that line “He may have been your father, boy, but he wasn’t your daddy”?) Yondu was able to redeem himself in the end, sacrificing his life for his son and bringing people together for his funeral. (Yes, it was saccharine; no, I don’t care.)

    Gamora wasn’t looking for reconciliation, but it nevertheless came for her in a fury. Nebula’s rage, we found out, was yet another cloak to hide deep childhood trauma and pain of not having a sister to love and confide in. When we find this out after their Sister Fight to End All Sister Fights, Gamora is shocked. But later, humbled, she initiates the process of reconciliation, however uneasy, in another small but beautiful moment toward restoration.

    Yondu has another great moment with Rocket, telling him who Rocket is and therefore who Yondu is by extension. Deep down, Rocket wants to be seen and accepted for who he is beneath his hardened yet furry exterior. This bit of reconciliation isn’t between Rocket and Yonda, though, but within Rocket, who struggles with the notion that you have to believe you deserve love if you’re ever going to be able to love someone else. You mentioned the chemistry between Rocket and Groot was lacking. It was certainly different, but remember: Groot technically died in the first movie. Rocket lost his best friend and guardian. Thus I assume his character in Vol. 2 is simply grieving.

    For Drax, companionship has been a key desire after losing his family. He achieved some peace about it at the end of Vol. 1, but now his budding relationship with Mantis taps into that lost aspect of his life. A man who doesn’t understand emotions paired with someone who only understands them? That’s the basis of a sitcom. Drax & Mantis, coming to Netflix tomorrow.

    And Groot just wants to dance, man.

    It seems kinda silly to devote this much attention to a movie that would probably just laugh at any suggestion of deep thought. And you’re right that the grace the Guardians extend to each other did not extend to the hordes of henchmen killed without a second’s thought, an unfortunately typical feature of many American action movies. But I’m a sucker for moments like these in any kind of movie, let alone in one you wouldn’t expect.

  • Movies Are Prayers

    Tangerine as an opportunity for reconciliation. Top Hat as a jump for joy. 12 Years A Slave as a song of lament. In his new book Movies Are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings, Josh Larsen performs what he calls “cultural refraction,” revealing how the many colors of prayer match quite comfortably with movies of all kinds. I got an early copy of the book to review, but as is the case with many of the books I review as a librarian, this was one I’d be reading no matter what.

    As with movies, there are many genres of prayer, and Larsen dwells on nine of them: praise, yearning, lament, anger, confession, reconciliation, obedience, meditation, and joy. Each of these chapters could be books in themselves, given how many movies are out there and how rich and layered the concept of prayer is. But Larsen, taking a specifically Christian tack, focuses on how those types of prayer and their analogous movies speak to the creation-fall-redemption-restoration trajectory of the Bible and the Christian faith it inspires. Through this prism, the central miracle in Children of Men provokes an awe-inducing response to incarnation. The violent anger of Fight Club is a primal scream against a fallen world. And the “holy nonsense” of The Muppets shows that sometimes joy manifests itself in silly and inexplicable ways.

    “I can offer lament to God, and often do,” Larsen writes. “But sometimes the movies do it for me.” How true this is, and not only for laments. When I find myself unable to articulate a feeling or grasp at a deep truth, I often reach for a movie (or album or book) to act as a kind of semiconductor, allowing that electric feeling I get from something meaningful to flow freely and charge me up.

    But not only do films, like prayer, “voice our deepest longings”, they both also demand thoughtful response, Larsen writes, whether in a sanctuary or theater:

    In both instances, we’ve set aside our time and our space to gather in community and join our concentration. Often the intention is simply to escape the world (and don’t forget, church serves this function too), but frequently we gather to apply our intellectual, emotional, and artistic prowess toward considering the world and our purpose within it.

    I first encountered Larsen in his role as editor of Think Christian, where I’ve written a few articles over the years. From there I learned that he co-hosts Filmspotting, a weekly film podcast that now automatically goes to the top of my queue. Having been a regular Filmspotting listener for several years now, it was especially rewarding to read about films that I encountered along with him and Adam through the podcast, like the Apu trilogy and Tangerine.

    Larsen puts forward one film that he believes encompasses each of the prayer modes and embodies the entire journey from creation to fall to redemption and restoration. (Read the book to find out which one.) It got me thinking about which other movies could qualify. There are probably many that fit this mold in some way, but I think Toy Story is a good one. Larsen mentions it in the chapter on prayers of confession, but I think it fits in the creation-restoration arc nicely. Not only does the film begin within Andy’s imaginative creation story, but there follows a literal fall (with style) and banishment from the toys’ Eden. (Woody/Buzz gets very Jacob/Esau for a while there.) Woody goes through a process of yearning, lament, and anger as he deals with Buzz’s incursion into his previously idyllic existence, just as Buzz endures his “not a flying toy” existential crisis. Both humbled after moments of confession, they reconcile and work together to return to their rightful place in Andy’s life.

    Too often when “Christian” and “movies” come together, a didactic censoriousness and disordered view of art follow. Larsen takes the opposite approach. You’ll see no mention of Left Behind or God’s Not Dead, but you will see George Bailey struggling to be obedient in It’s a Wonderful Life and Alvin’s motorized meditations in The Straight Story and hushed yearning in In the Mood for Love. As his true in his reviews, he brings a generous, exploratory spirit to cinema, seeing the form’s good and beautiful and attempting to understand the bad and ugly. This generosity comes out in the book’s benediction:

    As we watch films, then, let’s enter the theater as we would a sanctuary where a prayer is about to be offered. Let’s listen to the prayer carefully and graciously before we add our own words. Let’s be a congregation, not a censor board. Let’s be open to the possibility that as movie watchers, we’re privileged eavesdroppers on a dialogue between God and the creative beings he made.

    So rare it is that ardent believers and dedicated cinephiles can bond over the same book that Movies Are Prayers should be considered a minor miracle.

  • Sgt. Pepper’s Magical Mystery Tour

    This article comparing The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, both released in 1967, got me thinking about what one hypothetical album that combined the best of both albums would look like. So as part of my Better The Beatles project, I’ve determined a track listing for Sgt. Pepper’s Magical Mystery Tour. Thirteen tracks from both albums, shuffled into an ideal song order for your listening pleasure.

    1. Magical Mystery Tour
    2. Hello, Goodbye
    3. With a Little Help from My Friends
    4. Lovely Rita
    5. She’s Leaving Home
    6. Getting Better
    7. Strawberry Fields Forever
    8. Penny Lane
    9. When I’m Sixty-Four
    10. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
    11. Baby You’re a Rich Man
    12. All You Need Is Love
    13. A Day in the Life

    The cuts from Magical were pretty easy: “Flying,” “Blue Jay Way,” “I Am the Walrus,” and “The Fool on the Hill” are either too weird or too instrumental. “Your Mother Should Know” was the toughest goodbye.

    Sgt. Pepper’s was a bit more difficult. I won’t miss “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” and “Good Morning Good Morning”, but ditching “Within You Without You” eliminated the remaining George Harrison song, and “Fixing a Hole” is interesting but not interesting enough.

    I pondered what to do about the two title tracks that bookend the album. Theoretically they provide the framework for both albums, but I figured “Magical Mystery Tour” performs the same upbeat and psychedelic invitation that the first “Sgt. Pepper’s” track does, so that allowed me to ditch both songs and let the album name do the storytelling.

    You’re welcome.

  • Love I’m Oh Know Baby Got Yeah

    In my wiki-browsing I was led to the page on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and saw this fun tidbit:

    Love is the most frequent word used in the songs’ lyrics, with 1057 occurrences, followed by I’m (1000 uses), oh (847 uses), know (779 uses), baby (746 uses), got (702 uses), and yeah (656 uses).

    Yep, that pretty much sums up rock and roll.

  • Make ‘The White Album’ Great Again

    The White Album is too long. Everyone knows this. As a public service I have trimmed down the bloated double album into one cohesive record, leaving the order unchanged but the musical integrity restored:

    1. Back in the U.S.S.R
    2. Dear Prudence
    3. Glass Onion
    4. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
    5. Happiness Is A Warm Gun
    6. Martha My Dear
    7. Blackbird
    8. Piggies
    9. I Will
    10. Birthday
    11. Mother Nature’s Son
    12. Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
    13. Sexy Sadie
    14. Good Night

    This means no “Helter Skelter” or “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (sorry George). No “Julia” or “I’m So Tired” because those should be on a Lennon solo album. I kept “Everybody’s Got Something” over “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road” in the Long Title category because of the former’s exuberance and the latter’s being a mere half-song.

    “Revolution 1” and “Revolution 9” were easy nixes because the B-side version of “Revolution” is the best and #9 isn’t music. The hardest cut was “Rocky Raccoon”, but there are still 3 other animal-themed songs, which is plenty.

    I went for “Good Night” over “Don’t Pass Me By” for the Ringo tune because it’s prettier. And I ditched “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” along with most of the album’s second half because they aren’t good.

    You’re welcome.

  • Win It All

    I watched The Verdict recently. Paul Newman’s lawyer character bluffs his way into a high-stakes case, but repeatedly fails on his way to the climax, when a Deus Ex Machina saves the day.

    I thought about that while watching Joe Swanberg’s latest film Win It All. Getting past the minor thrill of seeing my current city of residence featured on screen so lovingly by Swanberg & Co, has any movie featuring gambling ever ended with the gambler losing? Every one I can think of ends with a dramatic “win it all” moment, no matter how improbable.

    I guess in games of chance it’s always possible. But in a movie like this, where Johnson’s no-luck gambler Eddie is established to be a hapless addict lacking self-control but nevertheless fully aware of all he could lose if the worst happens, his Deus Ex Machina seems like a copout, even if it does give him the ending we all want for him.

    Despite that lingering uneasiness, I liked this movie. Johnson and his supporting cast of Joe Lo Truglio, Aislinn Derbez, and Keegan-Michael Key complete another typical Swanberg joint: raw, loose, endearing, and at times emotionally harrowing. I’d rate it on par with his previous film Digging for Fire and above 2013’s Drinking Buddies.

    Now that I think of it, perhaps Eddie’s sudden conclusion is simply grace.

  • Fakelin Newsevelt

    Learned a lot from Susan Douglas’s Listening In: Radio And The American Imagination about the development of radio technology and culture, and their impact on 20th century America. Also learned, in a tidbit about Franklin Roosevelt’s crusade against newspapers, that he sounded a lot like another ostensibly anti-media president:

    Privately, the president in 1940 ask the new FCC Chairman, Lawrence Fly, “Will you let me know when you propose to have a hearing on newspaper ownership of radio stations?” Publicly, through his press secretary, Steve Early, Roosevelt told broadcasters that “the government is watching” to see if they air any “false news.” Radio, Early warned, “might have to be taught manners if it were a bad child.” Network executives understood “false news” to be news critical of the administrations policies.

    The past isn’t dead, etc.

  • What I Think Right Now

    1. Trump was allowed to fire Comey.
    2. Comey deserved to be fired.
    3. Trump has clearly obstructed justice, which are grounds for impeachment.
    4. But good luck getting Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan to care.
    5. If President Hillary Clinton had done this Congress would have impeached her quicker than Trump can tweet something asinine, and deservedly so.

    This all continues to be insane. It’s like being in a car with a drunk driver. I don’t care whose idea it was to let him drive; I don’t care about his protests that Relax I’m fine and You’ll thank me later for driving—I just want to get home safely, whatever it takes.

  • Durham Days

    We just got back from a long weekend in Durham, North Carolina, for a friend’s wedding. I had a great time bummin’ around the area while my wife was busy on bridesmaid duty. Had some barbecue, heard some blues, and took a few pictures…

    at Ponysaurus Brewing:

    at Carolina Soul Records, where I found some Sam Cooke, Dionne Warwick, and a Stax Records compilation:

    at Stagville, one of the largest plantations in the antebellum South—this one was in the “Great Barn”:

    I call this one “Freedom”:

    And there was the unintentional irony of a Master lock on one of the preserved slave cabins:

    The wedding reception was in a beautiful building near the Eno River State Park:

    And our last stop before our flight home was Duke University’s “chapel”, which, come on, is actually a cathedral of epic proportions:

  • The Bullies Pulpit

    From Politico:

    More than 100 years ago a Republican president worried that America wasn’t doing enough to protect its most treasured wild and sacred places from over-development, mining and drilling. So Congress passed and President Teddy Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act of 1906, giving presidents the authority to preserve imperiled mountains, forests, cultural treasures and other public lands. Roosevelt condemned the “land grabbers” and “great special interests” who threatened the national lands he protected. “The rights of the public to the [nation’s] natural resources outweigh private rights and must be given its first consideration,” Roosevelt proclaimed. “Our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever.”

    Today another Republican president is indicating he is ready to give in to the pressures of corporations and complicit state officials urging the administration to open these protected public lands to mining, drilling and other commercial exploitation. That would deprive future generations of Americans of irreplaceable treasures, both in the beauty of the landscapes that would be scarred and the birds and other wildlife that depend on those protected places for survival.

    Whether it’s a good idea for Trump to revoke the protected status of lands designated as national moments is up for debate. (I’m against it.) But what interested me about this op-ed was its comparison of Trump to Theodore Roosevelt. It was negative in this case, but in Robert Merry’s forthcoming biography of William McKinley, Roosevelt comes across as much more Trump-like than TR fans like me would care to acknowledge.

    TR is one of my certified History Crushes™. Anyone who reads Edmund Morris’ trilogy on the man’s brief but crowded life can’t help but admire him in some way. But there’s no getting around the fact that Roosevelt was an attention whore. Many others have noted the similarities between the two New Yorkers, but here’s Merry:

    The biggest contributor to McKinley’s standing in history was Theodore Roosevelt, whose leadership style could not have been further removed from that of McKinley. Impetuous, voluble, amusing, grandiose, prone to marking his territory with political defiance, Roosevelt stirred the imagination of the American people as McKinley never had. To [McKinley]’s solidity, safety, and caution, the Rough Rider offered a mind that moved “by flashes or whims or sudden impulses,” as William Allen White described it. He took the American people on a political roller-coaster ride, and to many it was thrilling.

    But the New Yorker was never one to share the credit with others. His theatrical self-importance led even his children to acknowledge that he wanted to be “the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.” It wasn’t surprising that soon he was denigrating the man whose presidency he had extolled through thousands of miles of political campaigning on his way to national power.

    “A mind that moved by flashes or whims or sudden impulses,” “theatrical self-importance,” “prone to marking his territory with political defiance”—a little eerie, right? And the public denigration of his predecessor (and successor—poor Taft) certainly aligns with Trump’s modus operandi.

    The bull moose-sized caveat here is that Roosevelt was far more qualified for the job and did soooo much more—and so much more good—in his 60 years of life than Trump has (including actually wanting to be president). Ditto that other Trumpish president, Andrew Jackson. To put Trump in their league simply because they were all blustery fellows would be an insult to the presidency and even to other blustery fellows who are otherwise good dudes.

    Nevertheless, it’s good to remember that historical analogies are rarely clean, that we can’t disregard unpleasant characteristics of beloved historical figures out of convenience, and that Roosevelt single-handedly chased down and captured three outlaws in Dakota who stole his riverboat and escorted them back overland in a forty-hour marathon with no sleep while finishing a Tolstoy novel.

  • The Family Stone

    The-Family-Stone-Man-Repeller-Feature-copy.jpg

    The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus of The Family Stone says that “This family holiday dramedy features fine performances but awkward shifts of tone.”

    I mean, yeah. That’s why it’s so good.

    I didn’t come away loving it when I saw it in the theater. Too mercurial, I thought. And that excruciating dinner scene… But upon further viewings, I’ve come to realize it’s one of the great Christmas movies—my #2 overall—precisely because of its mood swings.

    (What is “awkward shifts of tone” if not a definition of family?)

    Not only does the film capture a particular kind of cozy, Hallmark-approved Christmastime—and one that’s distinctly New England—but it also vividly illustrates what it’s like to go through any kind of Christmas with the people you love but who are also most adept at driving you crazy.

    “Your tie’s crooked”

    From the beginning an immediate familiarity sets in as we’re dropped into this year’s Stone family Christmas, which feels like it could be any of the many Christmases they have shared together.

    The family members gradually arrive at the Stone home and start chatting as if continuing an ongoing conversation. There’s hardly any backstory, no “remember last year when…” or other expository filler that can weigh down family dramas. As we meet each Stone, we can deduce at once their role in the family, though not yet what role they will play in the unfolding story.

    Once they settle in, the home-for-the-holidays moments start slowly but steadily piling up. Like the random assemblage of characters going to get pizzas, a reminder to me of how driving to places around the holidays with people you don’t usually drive with feels a bit more special. Or Amy and Sybil pestering Everett about taking his tie off, which shows us that was something Amy and Sybil cared enough about and that Everett was the kind of person to wear a tie at a family get-together.

    “I need you to do me a favor and try not to be so perfect”

    Everyone starts out on a certain trajectory, but writer/director Thomas Bezucha does a great job of steering the key characters into unexpected directions, which are just as varied as the film’s tone.

    Sybil’s terminal breast cancer is alluded to but never exploited, and is the impetus for the brief but powerful moments of reconciliation she experiences with her adult children before the end of the movie. Amy’s prickliness, which bleeds into outright hostility at times, gives way to brief moments of vulnerability.

    And though the partner swap revealed in the one-year-later epilogue is borderline preposterous (Meredith’s totally cool with her sister dating her former fiancé? Really?), the circumstances that led to each character’s moment of clarity were sold well.

    “Isn’t there anybody that loves me?”

    I’ve made peace with my positive opinion of The Family Stone being in the minority. I know there are others out there who see what I see in it, but I also understand it’s not for everyone.

    But, to paraphrase Sybil’s speech to Everett, I’d hate to see you miss out on it because you have this picture in your mind of the perfect Christmas movie. There’s no such thing, just like there’s no such thing as a perfect family or relationship or ring size or breakfast strata.

    Embrace the mess. Let your festive freak flag fly. And say it with me: “I don’t care whether you like it or not!”

  • America in Five Cities

    It dawned on me recently how the names and locations of the top 5 most populous cities in the United States tell the story of the nation:

    New York, in the east, with the English name, representing the history of our relationship with England.

    Los Angeles, in the west, with the Spanish name representing the history of our relationship with Mexico.

    Chicago, in the north, from the Potawatomi for “wild garlic place”, representing the history of Native Americans.

    Houston, in the south, named after Sam Houston, president of the Republic of Texas, representing the history of the Wild West.

    Philadelphia, in the east, Greek for “brotherly love”, representing the ancient origins within the founding of the nation.

    This has a nice round feel to it. That is, until Phoenix comes for that fifth spot…

  • Escanaba in Da Moonlight

    For dose dat don’t know much about the Superior State, dere’s a couple of tings that need to be explained. First ting is, in da U.P., we don’t explain tings. Second ting is, we got some of the best huntin’ and fishin’ in da whole world.

    So says Albert Soady, patriarch of probably the most Yooper family you’ll see on film thanks to Jeff Daniels’ Escanaba in Da Moonlight. I learned about the movie from a book about midwestern accents, and since I’m from Wisconsin and have been deer hunting, I was very intrigued.

    Written and directed by Jeff Daniels, a Michigan native, the movie is based on a play also written by Daniels, which focuses on the peculiarities of hunting culture and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Daniels plays Reuben, a sadsack hunter haunted by never having shot a buck. He meets up with his father and brother at a rural cabin the night before deer hunting season opens desperate to shed his “Buckless Yooper” curse. This year, however, he comes equipped with potions from his Ojibwa wife meant to attract deer to him. They apparently work, because supernatural wackiness ensues.

    The strange rituals, the sing-songy local accent, and the abundant flatulence all felt familiar to me, having for years trekked to a cabin in the Northwoods for “deer camp” (and duck camp and fish camp) for some fresh piney air and a chance at cynegetic glory. The specific delights and idiosyncrasies of this experience are hard to explain to the uninitiated, but this movie does it well. Half the fun (and strangeness) happens when you’re not hunting.

    The movie’s origin as a play is evident. There are stretches of tightly paced dialogue, with characters trading time in the spotlight, and a single setting where most of the action occurs. Yet despite the story taking place mostly within the cabin (which feels appropriately ramshackle and lived-in), Daniels stretches outside when needed to take advantage of the authentic Michigan wilderness around them.

    Joey Albright shines as Reuben’s brother Remnar, whose Kevin James-style physicality contrasts well with Reuben’s browbeaten neuroticism. Add to this Harve Presnall’s stentorian father figure Albert and oddball supporting characters, and you’ve got a pasty-esque mix of flavors in this bizarre yet lovingly crafted indie movie that’s best watched in long underwear with a case of Leinenkugel’s.