I once knew a "child of suicide." This young man had not yet finished high school; however, his father had opted to jump ship. When we talk about suicide, we're not supposed to choose verbs that imply a sense of agency. Not "commit" suicide. Instead: "die by suicide." The idea is that you're in a burning room at the top of a skyscraper--and the options are sealing themselves off--and so, at a certain point, it would seem insane *not* to plunge to your death. In "Whalefall," Josh Brolin is troubled. One critic says the Brolin character suffers from "toxic masculinity," but there is nothing notably masculine about the Brolin character. It might be better to say that he is just toxic. Austin Abrams, Brolin's son, tries not to upset the sleeping dragon. But battles are inevitable. In one scene I like, Brolin has issued a sloppy half-invitation, and Abrams has replied with a sloppy half-deferral. The problem of non-communication...
My world is Kelly Clarkson. Everything is Kelly Clarkson. To re-cap, Clarkson went into a store in Brooklyn and understood the vendor's tone to be snotty. She then posted on social media about the rudeness. But--being a celebrity--she unwittingly activated a mob of millions of people who subsequently attacked the Brooklyn store. And now the Brooklyn store is attempting to play the role of victim (and not the other way around). I love this story. We're not supposed to make assumptions--but I'm going to make assumptions. The Brooklyn vendor was, in fact, rude (and we can't tell in the video because the sound is off, obviously so much in life is about tone, intonation). Clarkson was also having an iffy day--and, having grown up in Fort Worth, she was feeling particularly impatient with the default semi-rudeness that you are likely to find at *more than one* tiny Brooklyn shop counter. Having grown up in Buffalo, I personally feel something like rage whenever a New York C...