The Great Binge

Late November of 2021, I started a great binge of television. I only read one book in December because I was too busy watching TV. And I liked it!

I started with Homeland, the acclaimed Showtime series about CIA officer Carrie Mathison (actress Claire Danes) and her hunt for terrorists. I was instantly hooked. At the height of my TV watching, I would get through three or even four episodes in a single weekend day. On a weeknight, if I started early enough, I could power through three episodes. Many nights I wanted to gobble up the episodes as the show was so good. I won't spoil it (even though it was released in 2011) but suffice to say I gobbled the first four seasons and was craving more.

In an attempt to hold off consuming the remaining four seasons of Homeland, I switched to House of Cards, the political thriller/drama featuring Frank Underwood (actor Kevin Spacey) on Netflix. Though I didn't watch it at the same feverish pace as Homeland, I certainly devoured it, getting through three seasons by mid-January. I would leaven the darkness of House of Cards by mixing in episodes from the first season of The Mandalorian (Disney+). I would sometimes watch The Madalorian first to warm-up for my evening TV or I would watch it second to cleanse my mind from the lurid action from Cards.

Unable to stop my rampage of television, I moved over to Ozark (Netflix), the crime drama featuring money launderer Marty Byrde (actor Jason Bateman). I had watched the first season back in 2017, the year it debuted. This time around I had to watch some recaps to reacquaint myself with all the characters, but it was not difficult to get back into the flow of the series. I really liked the overall arc and direction of Season 2 and I came close to answering "Yes" when Netflix asked if I wanted to watch the next season but I didn't.

Instead, I started Homeland Season 5. This kept me occupied until late January. A Reddit post has commenters giving this season low marks in terms of quality but I enjoyed all the plot twists. By this point I realized that I was watching way too much TV so I searched for a spy novel to ease me out of TV mode and into reading mode. (This search lead me to "The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden" by Mark Bowden and "Damascus Station" by David McCloskey.)

The last series I binged was Season 3 of "The Wire" from HBO. It's a testament to the density of this show that it's very difficult to watch multiple episodes in one evening. I had to read the HBO synopses and during my watching I would often rewind to remind myself who was who, and to read what was said by turning on the captions. The climax of Season 3 devastated me, but like all great endings, there was an inevitability to it that made perfect sense.

It was fun experiencing the modern way people consume television, but I'm done for now. People reading this: recommend me a TV series to watch. I may add it to my future binge list!

TV Time

My 2021 Books and Movies

In 2021, I watched 60 movies (Letterboxd) and 43 books (Goodreads).

My favorite book from last year was The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, by Ken Liu. This book is a collection of short stories, including "The Paper Menagerie" which won both the Hugo Award (2012), and the Nebula Award (2011) for best short story. The stories featured mind bending ideas and intense flights of fantasy that were dazzling to hold in my imagination. Honorary mentions: "Sapiens" (Yuval Noah Harari), "Klara and the Sun" (Kazuo Ishiguro), "(Re)born in the USA" (Roger Bennett).

When I look at all the movies I rated as perfect last year, six were movies I had seen before. Of the remaining five, I most enjoyed Netflix's "Don't Look Up". I liked subdued and meek Leo DiCaprio, and over-the-top Jonah Hill.

(detail of Paper Menagerie book cover; design by Michael McCartney)

 

Deep Dives Not Taken

"Everything interests me," says the main character at the end of the movie "The Insider". I really like this line. I feel the same way at times. When I read something new, or listen to someone talk about something that interests them, I usually get swayed to find out more.

Mostly it's enough to read a Wikipedia article, watch a YouTube video, or visit a few web pages. However, there are subjects that provide such a draw that I want to go deeper. It's like a compulsion. This is when I go down the rabbit hole. This is what I call "taking a deep dive."

Here's a recent example. In 2017, having already finished the book and the movie "The Big Short", I wanted to learn more about the financial collapse of 2008. I wanted details! I found a government report, but it was more than 600 pages. After reading a little bit, I decided it was enough to just watch the movie again.

On the other hand sometimes I can go down the rabbit hole. I became much more interested in football when I started playing fantasy football. I spent a weekend memorizing the names of all the NFL teams as if there was a quiz the next week. After many seasons, I've become more conversant in football.

I have gone deeper though. My years becoming a baseball fan included not only reading several books, but attending many games. I even developed a ritual of wearing my Red Sox hat only when they had won the previous game. I loved the process of becoming a baseball fan.

I also went down the rabbit hole of video production. I had joined community access cable and produced a cooking show featuring a local chef. "Here's a camera," they told me. "Go shoot it!" I loved editing footage and I bought software to do it at home. I gave serious thought about quitting my job to pursue a television production career.

I look back at these and other deep dives with contentment. I explored and learned a lot. My curiosity was more than satisfied. Eventually these periods of intense pursuit yielded to other interests and the cycle would start again.

All of these deep dives have one key requirement: time. I'm old enough to know that time is something I have less of. I know I can't undertake these deep dives with the same fervor. In the past that thought would have made me morose, but today I'm ready to let it be.

Here are some of those interests that I've always set aside "until there was more time". I'm sure I'm leaving some out!

1. Opera

2. Poetry

3. Sailing

4. NASCAR

5. Japanese

6. Spanish

It would be nice to study these subjects, and perhaps I'll find a way, but for now these remain deep dives not taken. 

Down the Rabbit Hole!

(by Nullify)

 

Loving French

When it came time to pick a language for my high school's foreign language requirement, I chose French. I liked the sound of French, so fancy, so melodic. Around the same time, I was interested in the Tour de France, and that greatly contributed to my Francophile desires. It was the language that I wanted to master, that I dreamed to be fluent in.

I liked the crazy rules of French: nouns having gender, choosing the correct articles, negating verbs, conjugating verbs. I liked reading in French. A whole world of books open up when you learn another language. I thought that being a translator would be a fine career, and advertisements for the Middlebury Language Schools would always catch my eye. The idea of immersing myself in the language sounded very appealing.

Of course, it's difficult to achieve any kind of fluency unless you're practicing the language with other native speakers. I was able to mimic the accent, but that's all I was able to do: imitate. Forget understanding, or speaking off the cuff. I was good at passing French tests, but that doesn't make one a French speaker.

As I got older, I began to acquire French experiences: going to a French store near Rockefeller Center in NYC (I remember buying a copy of L'Equipe, the sports newspaper), visiting Quebec on a family trip (I ordered 3 small sodas which turned into 3 large sodas), then being roommates with a Frenchman in college (though we spoke mostly English together).

I finally got to live out some of my French dreams when my wife and I took a trip to Paris for our 5th anniversary. By then I was many years out of school and very out of practice. I bought CDs to brush up on the language and a pocket French/English dictionary. We were only there for a week, but as the days progressed I felt my fluency improving. How could it not? Everyone around us was speaking the language of my dreams!

I remember the last French conversation I had there. I asked the hotel shuttle operator if this was the bus to the airport, and if so, when would we be leaving. Simple questions, with simple answers. I was able to understand the shuttle driver, and he was able to understand me, and for a quick moment I let myself believe I was this different person. Incroyable!

Photo by Jason Taellious

COVID-19: Returning to The Office

Since July 1, I have been working at my desk in my company's office building, just like before my company's work-from-home mandate (back in March 2020). I work at a high-tech company doing software, and as I've described before, I can just as easily do my job from a beach resort or a coffee shop. I only need a laptop and the Internet (and maybe some headphones).

However, when the company announced that vaccinated workers could return to the office voluntarily starting in July, I welcomed it. I was eager and ready to return to my nicely appointed work environment, my office amenities, and the work and social chatter that marks a busy office. Primarily, I welcomed the normal separation between work space and home space.

There weren't a lot of people who shared my enthusiasm to return to the office. I'm sure commuting distance is a large factor in deciding to come in. Roughly 50-100 people make it into the office with any regularity. (I go in three days a week.) Since not everyone comes in, I still wear headphones and participate in Zoom meetings daily, talking to co-workers wherever they are.

There are moments when I walk to the coffee machine, and I am dazed at how empty the floor is compared to "the before times." There are mornings when I walk into my cubicle area, and the motion-detector ceiling lights turn on, signalling that I'm the first person to arrive. I sit on an office floor that is nearly a half-acre in total size, and many times I won't see a single person.

The company has instituted a Wednesday catered lunch, which helps draw people in. The parking lot seems more full on Wednesdays. Certain groups have made this the "work from the office" day, and I seek them out in the cafeteria at lunch. It has become the social highlight of the week for me. One time a co-worker yelled out to me "Greetings human!" and I laughed.

It's a strange work world, and I'm sure the company's leadership is trying to figure out how to navigate a future in which such a large office space isn't a requirement to get work done. Lots of high-tech companies are thinking about this. For now I have the best of both worlds: I come and go as I please, I can get a parking spot near the front door, and there's never a line at the coffee machine.

9/11: Twenty Years Later

For the years immediately following September 11, 2001, I'd spend part of its anniversary day reminiscing about that morning. I somehow found a copy of Howard Stern's 9/11 broadcast, and I would listen to it during work, reliving the events through the changes in his voice, his bombast turning into alarm, then into resignation. "No one's listening to me anyway," he said.

In the evening, I'd put on the movie "United 93". United 93 takes place in one of the hijacked airplanes, and its kinetic imagery is breathtaking. In later years, I bought "Tuesday Morning in September". This 'home movie' puts you in Jersey City, NJ, watching the horror unfold across the Hudson River. I'd spend the movie in a reverie, ruminating on the day, and its aftermath.

I never thought that another building could go up in Lower Manhattan so quickly, but in 2015, One World Trade Center was opened. I look online and learn that the Twin Towers were designed and built in roughly the same amount of time (11 years). I have not stepped foot in that area of New York City since 2000, though I hope to visit to the 9/11 Memorial someday.

I imagined many trips back to the World Trade Center. It was one of my favorite places to visit. After 2001, those thoughts vanished. I took a good number of people to its observation deck when I was growing up, all through college. I took my wife, back before we were married. She said she felt a little sway in the building as we stood atop its 110 stories.

I took it for granted that I could go back. If time heals all wounds, then I suppose time will have to keep doing its work. 

 

Naptime

I used to avoid taking naps. Not anymore. I now have a short nap every weekend day (or non-work day, who am I kidding?).

I wonder how much this is related to having a kid? Maybe fifteen years ago, I was showing someone a home movie I had made of my daughter at the playground. On the screen, we saw the camera slowly turn towards the ground. The person watching with me laughed and said "You were falling asleep!" Without a doubt.

I wonder why I don't nap during the workday, especially since I'm working from home. Maybe my brain is engaged, powering through the afternoon doldrums, while making the computer do things. When I traveled for work, I remember sometimes taking a walk outside and I seeing some people fast asleep in their cars after lunch.

I try not to take too long a nap. 30-40 minutes is my usual duration. I lie down in bed, and read my book, letting my natural tiredness dictate when naptime starts ("reading with my eyes closed"). When I get up (thanks to an alarm), I sometimes wonder how long have I been asleep. 30 minutes seems too short for the grogginess that I feel, or the long, complicated dream I had.

I know some countries have instituted the afternoon nap, called a siesta, as a way to stay cool during the hot weather months. The United States is not one of these countries (though some companies are open to corporate naptime). Productivity at all costs, even if you have to nap in your car! At least I can nap guilt-free on the weekends.