Maurice Bailey was a man who tried to take a sailing trip with his wife. The trip went off course, and the two amateurs were stranded in the ocean (on a tiny raft) for many weeks. Bailey came home and published the story of the disaster--and sales went through the roof. Unfortunately, Bailey's *subsequent* voyage went very well--so the subsequent account (a *new* book) did not sell well. No one wants to read about a tediously successful voyage. I thought about Bailey while I made my way through "Notes on Being a Man," perhaps the worst book I've ever read. I planned to stop reading around page 80. But my hatred for the book was so strong, it pushed me forward. I felt an intense pleasure in my loathing for the writer, Scott Galloway. Do you know how, if you follow the political spectrum way, way far left, eventually the radical libertarians actually begin to seem like radical conservatives? My disdain for Galloway became so powerful, it began to resemble enjoyment. Re...
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...