As a voracious consumer of words, sounds, motion pic-tures, and other cultural detritus I always appreciate a good recommendation. In the interest of paying it forward I’m going to periodically list some stuff I enjoyed—stuff that has been jostling around in my figurative backpack.
The brilliant writing in Gamelife: A Memoir by Michael W. Clune
My recent interest in video games as both a matter of leisure and intellectual inquiry led me to search out high quality writing about them…of which there is very little. It’s a bit surprising, because video games are an enormous industry, larger (in terms of $) than Hollywood. There’s no shortage of good writing about other human pastimes, like literary fiction, cinema, sports, or travel. You’d think this giant, novel form of entertainment would have created some kind of meaningful criticism (outside academia), but I haven’t found much that isn’t just “for the fans” (aka publicity). I did, however, come across the memoir Gamelife, written by an English professor whose previous memoir, White Out, is about a very different addiction (heroin). I really, really enjoyed Gamelife, which is about a lonely childhood spent in the Midwest and a lifelong obsession with what was at the time a niche hobby for hardcore nerds. The writing is poetic, philosophical, and often hysterically funny. If you or someone you love has ever felt themselves under the hypnotic pull of pixelated adventure, there is so much good stuff here. It’s also, along with Ben Lerner’s The Topika School, the most accurate depiction of white, middle class suburban boyhood in the late twentieth century that I’ve ever come across.
The storytelling on The Bear
There are many things to recommend about the TV drama The Bear (which lives on Disney+): a rich sense of place, top shelf acting, and a varied, cinematic shooting style that looks better than almost anything else on TV. But my favourite thing about the show is its heightened, almost theatrical writing. Episodes will glide to a stop for an honest-to-god monologue, or a long, delicate two-hander. TV shows don’t usually let scenes breathe this much, and sometimes when they try the result can feel a bit inert or self-consciously serious. Not so The Bear, which even as it explores secondary characters or dips back in time never takes its foot of the narrative gas, always tending to the immediate wants and needs of its characters. The second season is as good or better than the first, full of storytelling gambits that, even when they’re a bit clumsy, are full of generosity for its characters (and by extension its audience). I wish there had been fewer recognizable faces in guest roles, if only because the casting of little-known actors on the show is so superb. That said I thought Olivia Coleman’s cameo was an inspired use of a star’s acting talent and fame. The show takes as its main subject the pursuit of excellence, and the toll that pursuit takes on your mental health and relationships. This isn’t new territory, but I appreciate how this season takes time to show the flip side: that personal growth often comes from being challenged to do better at your job. Yes, it’s Protestant Work Ethic propaganda, but it is to some extent also true, particularly if your job is something you’re genuinely passionate about.
The hallucinogenic beauty of Norway
Let’s get the bad out of the way: Norway is a petrostate, its cuisine isn’t going to thrill you, it rains a lot, and the winter nights are long. Norway is also unimaginably beautiful and probably the finest example of a democratic society anywhere. If I could snap my fingers and transpose my life and social network to Norway, I would not hesitate. Life there is simply better. It has stunning landscapes that are hard to accurately capture in photographs—the fjords, waterfalls, glaciers, and tundra are too majestic for the tiny sensor in my phone. We visited two of its cities: Bergen and Oslo. Both were well-organized, clean, beautiful, and quiet—my God, is Norway quiet! The people are obsessed with hiking (other Scandinavian countries make fun of them for it). While it hasn’t eliminated crime or poverty or social dysfunction we didn’t see many signs of it, which is a stark contrast to any North American city you go to in the year 2023. There is no word for ‘please’ in Norwegian, and why would you need one if you have a robust welfare state and some of the lowest inequality in the world? Norway, in short, takes care of its people, from the cradle to the grave, and my understanding is that in their politics the existence of this support system is not up for debate. On top of it all, the government owns large swaths of its main industries (oil, tourism, fishing), which means the benefits of this economic activity flow directly back to the schools, hospitals, and public infrastructure agencies needed to provide a good quality of life. Union density is high. Vacation time is generous. There is no student debt because almost all education is free (including law school, medical school, or any other graduate program you might choose to pursue). Much of this I knew before visiting, but to see it functioning in action, to walk around their pedestrian-prioritized streets, to use their many trams, buses, and trains, and see the abundance of electric cars (the highest, proportionally, in the world), to talk to the people living there about their lives, was like seeing all my ideological dreams suddenly made real. It simply works, in a way Toronto, for example, often does not. Why every country in the world doesn’t look at Norway and its Nordic neighbours and point their ships of state in a similar direction is completely baffling to me. There is a better way of organizing our lives, and they’re living it right now. And it’s making them happier!1 They didn’t even have to give up capitalism or isolate themselves from the rest of the world in order to do it. I hope more Canadians will take an interest in places like Norway so that our similarly wealthy, northern, underpopulated petrostate can do what needs to be done to provide for its citizens. A better life awaits, with a proven model of how to get there. There’s no reason we can’t have nice things too!
The joyful indie rock of Young Fathers
The Scottish band Young Fathers are criminally underrated in North America. I get the sense they’re more properly rated in the UK, having won the Mercury Prize for their first album and charting respectably on their latest, Heavy Heavy. I wonder if maybe they would be a bigger deal if they’d come on to the scene a decade earlier, when indie rock had a lot more juice than it does now. I could easily imagine them sharing iTunes charts with Vampire Weekend, TV on the Radio, Arcade Fire, etc. Maybe part of the reason I’m so excited about them is because they are carrying on a tradition of raucously inventive rock bands that seems to have mostly disappeared. Their latest album is as good as their others, and not a bad place to start if you’re unfamiliar with them. They have a primally satisfying rhythm section, and melodies that are immediately pleasurable. The above song is as confrontational as they get—others are almost giddy or completely blissed out. They look like they’re fun live, too.
These rankings are always a bit dubious, but in the World Happiness Report half of the top ten happiest countries are always the Nordic ones (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and Finland). Finland always seems to be #1, which proves you can pull off a high functioning welfare state without off-shore oil drilling—and people might be even happier. Canada also ranks fairly high in these reports, largely, I think, because we have some of the benefits Nordic citizens take for granted (healthcare, a good public education system).