Robot Jazz

  "Don’t feel bad. Your tutor was Noah Hawley.” “Everyone’s a critic!” So goes the complaint of creatives the world over. And in a world awash in social media, where monetized outrage can turn a hate channel into a revenue stream, it’s easy to see why. While I can be critical of entertainment, I like to think I’m forgiving with most creative efforts. Case in point: I recently watched a much-lauded Korean neo-noir that struck me as disappointingly cornball, with action sequences so outlandish they’d make Michael Bay blush. I didn’t care for it—but I could see why others might. Hence, no takedown from me. But every now and then, you encounter something so poorly made, so narratively botched, that silence would be a disservice to fandom at large. Like a pool of acid, it demands barriers, warning tape, and a hazmat suit. That spill is Noah Hawley’s Alien Earth . And this post is your warning to avoid it like the wreck of an otherworldly spaceship on LV-426.  👽👽👽👽👽 To be clear...

Readers of this blog—again, to all eight of you, a hearty “Thanks!”—are used to me beginning with a running tally of how many days President Trump has worked to cover up the Epstein files. Which is to say: every day of his second term. Today, I offer no such blurb. This dispatch is all about the day’s news: congressional Republicans and the Trump White House are actively conspiring to scuttle a House floor vote that would force the full release of the FBI’s Epstein files. Headline: Top GOP and White House allies working behind the scenes to prevent Epstein vote on House floor Top congressional Republicans and White House allies are working behind the scenes to prevent a politically charged floor vote to release the government’s Jeffrey Epstein case files next month, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions. The intensifying effort to halt that floor vote comes as Reps. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, declared on Wednesday t...

💋💋💋  This is your friendly reminder that we are 246 days into Trump's cover-up of the Epstein Files.   💋💋💋 ⏬⏬⏬⏬⏬ Because I am that type of insufferable, I enjoy watching British television. A few years back, I came across a British stand-up comedian who was telling jokes about global stereotypes. As a provincial American, many of them were lost on me. 😀 However, what was not  lost on me was the stereotypical jab directed at America. When it came time to skewer my country, the comedian asked the audience what the stereotypical American was. The audience shouted, "Fat and stupid!"  At the time, I bristled—humor or not, it felt cheap. But after the 2024 election, where 49.5% of voters chose a convicted felon, a self-professed groper, and a man whose intellect is best described as “pre-literate,” I can’t help but concede: the caricature has teeth. This thought occurred to me as I watched Trump give a cringeworthy address at the United Nations today. As would be ex...

  It is now mid-September. In my neck of the woods, September is a type of seasonal purgatory, a period that isn't quite summer but also isn't quite fall.  As such, it is a month where it is easy to fall into a type of somnolence. After suffering through a summer of heat and humidity, who could blame anyone?   Sadly, this sleepiness hasn't carried over to America as the news has been nothing but bad, with the worst actors on the move. 💀💀💀💀💀 The most recent bit of evil is the murder of far-right polemicist Charlie Kirk. This is not surprising, seeing the country's ever-deepening divide.  I mentioned that one of my inspirations for chronicling these dark days was Mary Chesnut Boykin's A Diary from Dixie. As I wrote then, I found her chronicle of the slave-holding South's descent into madness and war to be reminiscent of the contemporary mood in America, a time when the nation is dividing along ideological lines. However, unlike then, where the very real...

  Well, this was unexpected.  I never thought I would be writing two  posts about a game I only dabble in, which is to say No Man's Sky.  Back on July 28, I wrote a piece about how NMS  was getting me to appreciate the less loathsome aspects of summer, the worst season of all. Now, as I sit on the precipice of Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer in America, I am once again compelled to write a piece, but this time about  Hello Games' recent update,  Voyagers  — a content drop that is blowing up the internet as I write this.  🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Voyagers  is not the largest update Hello Games  has ever released, but it might be the most consequential since base building was added to the game oh so long ago.  Voyagers  arrived with what is often considered the mic-drop of space games: incorporating spaceship interiors into the game for a maximum of immersion.  In a game that long had spaceships only interactable from the fa...