Twins Days 2025: Double Vision

It's almost time to get back to school, which means it's almost time to field a lot of questions about how I spent my summer. Last year, these were easy questions to answer. I took my family to Iceland, where we hiked, bathed in natural hot springs, admired waterfalls, watched whales, and, in my case, sampled fermented shark meat. A trip to Iceland requires no explanation: its appeal is obvious.

This summer, to follow up that adventure, we took a vacation to Ohio. Already, that sounds like a punchline. In fact, several people I've told have assumed I was trying to make a weird joke. I've always had a soft spot for Ohio, my adopted home for four year, but I'm also aware that "Vacation" and "Ohio" are not supposed to belong in the same sentence. So I realize that when I tell people we vacationed there, I'm basically begging for a follow-up question -- probably, "Why?" There's nothing to do but lean into the answer to that question, which is inescapably ridiculous. We went to Twinsburg, Ohio (where else?) to attend the Twins Days Festival, "the largest annual gathering of twins and multiples in the world!" (Source: the official Twins Days Festival website.)

In response to this information, some people smile and nod politely, as they internally judge me as a big nerd. Some can't help asking, "Are you serious?" Others seem sort of amused at the eccentricity of our plans. One friend suggested that the festival would be an excellent topic for a Christopher Guest mockumentary, which, come to think of it, is absolutely true. Other friends instructed me to write a reflective piece in the spirit of David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster," which I don't think I can do, but said I'd take a stab at.

I learned about Twins Days l from a book I once received as a gift: 1000 Things to See in the USA & Canada Before You Die. Unlike most people, who I suspect flip through the pages of a book like this without giving it too much thought, I've always taken its suggestions seriously as a sort of Guide to Life. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I really do think I'll eventually check off each of 1000 things, even though I know rationally that it's probably impossible. The one thousand things in question are a good combination of obvious landmarks (the St. Louis Arch), beautiful regions (the Napa Valley), hotels I can't afford, and obscure local festivals. Years ago, the book guided me to the Maine Lobster Festival (subsequently immortalized in Wallace's great essay) -- certainly a memorable experience. One of its other items was Twins Days, which I read about and filed away for a rainy day. Later, when Maya and I learned we were going to have twins, I was obviously excited. Mainly because I had always wanted to be a dad. But about 5 to 10% because I had feared I might die before checking Twins Days off my list, having previously had no reason to go there.

For years, I hinted to Maya that we should consider Twins Days as a summer destination and for years, she rolled her eyes -- which was a reasonable response. The kids were too young to really be able to appreciate it, she said, and besides, it was a long drive to go to a goofy festival. That was fair. But the more I suggested it, the more I wore her down. We could make a nice trip of it, I said. We could get a nice AirBnB, do some hiking at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, maybe check out a baseball game in Cleveland. It would be fun. And anyway, we couldn't do big trips like Iceland every summer. In the end, she made me the happiest man in the world by assenting to the vacation I'd long dreamed of.

The madness of Twins Days was immediate: as soon as we pulled into the parking lot of its headquarters, Twinsburg High School, on Friday afternoon, we caught a glimpse of two women in their mid-twenties, wearing matching magenta t-shirts, black-rimmed glasses, and high ponytails. It was starting. The school's cafeteria, which was being used to register twins, had transformed into Wonderland, with twins of all ages, shapes, and sizes roaming around, some of them greeting each other and catching up like old friends. Registration was a serious matter. Twins Days was attempting to set an official Guinness World Record for the largest ever gathering of twins, and in order to make it official, participants needed to produce proof of twindom in form of birth certificates. We came prepared, and after presenting our paperwork and paying the $15-per-twin entrance fee, we were part of the official count.

The main events took place on Saturday, chief among them a charmingly ragtag parade featuring local businesses, the Mayor of Twinsburg, a marching band, and, of course, a whole lot of costumed twins. (Every other marcher, so it seemed, threw a handful of Tootsie Rolls at my kids, much to their delight.) Some of the more memorable pairs included:

• Brothers who vaguely resembled Michael B. Jordan, dressed as Smoke and Stack from Sinners. (Easily the twins-themed costumes of the year, and there aren't many who can pull it off.)
• Sisters holding hands and skipping in Harlequin-style body suits.
• Middle-aged Middle Eastern brothers in matching turbans.
• Old guy hippy kings
• Cowboys with matching Twins Days sashes
• Obligatory Mario and Luigi
• Obligatory Luke and Leia
• Two bros with huge matching trucks that said Thing One and Thing Two (like the characters from The Cat in the Hat).
• Men wearing crowns and coordinating shirts, one that said "It's Good KI," and the other, "To Be NG." They would have been indecipherable out of context, but when the men stood next to each other, the message read "It's Good To Be KING." I assume they were standing next to each other all day. At least they were when I saw them in the parade.
• A few sets of triplets and one (that I saw) of quadruplets.
• A pair of identical twins, married to another pair of identical twins. One of the couples had children who were identical twins.

After the parade, the festival part of the festival began in earnest. The main gate was guarded by twin wacky-waving-inflatable-arm-flailing tube men, but in many ways, the preceedings looked like any small town gathering. Inside were many kiosks, some of them selling overpriced twin-related gear (matching t-shirts, mugs with slogans) and some selling overpriced other things (a plastic trumpet, which I regrettably bought for my son in a moment of weakness). To help people part with their money, some standard carnival games were there too. Included among them was the Rubber Duck Game, which my kids and I have also seen at the Maryland County Fair. The Rubber Duck Game really isn't much of a game at all. Essentially, you pay seven dollars to have your child pick a rubber duck out of a pond. On the bottom of each duck is written a letter that corresponds to a category of prize, ranging from dinky to extremely dinky. Each prize would cost significantly less than seven dollars if you were to buy it at a store, but if you did that, you'd be depriving your children of feeling like they won a carnival game. My daughter won an inflatable dolphin and for the rest of the weekend, every time I looked at it, I thought about the seven dollars I would rather have had. I hope that was my children's last ever time playing the Rubber Duck Game. We'll see.

Of greater interest and importance was a Twins Talent Show that lasted basically all day. It was essentially an open-house, with audience members strolling in and out of the performance tent at their whim. As far as I could tell, no one had vetted the acts, which somehow made the show more fun. Acts ranged from endearingly amateurish (old ladies with puppets) to relatively polished (ten-year-old girls in sequined costumes, performing a tumbling routine).

The day (or at least our participation in it) ended with a group photo, taken by a man atop a cherry picker. As it turned out, the Guinness record wasn't broken that day, but it's some consolation to know that our twins were in the official fiftieth anniversary picture. I'm not sure the two of them had ever previously given much thought to their "twin-ness" before. They have nothing to compare it to, and very little life experience, so I get it. Plus, they don't look alike in a way that would obviously brand them as twins. But on that Saturday, they were the ones who couldn't get enough of that talent show. My daughter in particular wanted to stick around long after I had grown restless. After you've seen pair after pair of identical, and identically dressed, people, just geeking out over their identicality and the special bond that accompanies it, you start not only to see twinhood as a special bond, but the Twin Community as a secret, exclusive club.

During the parade, two identical women in their eighties waved to the crowd from the back of a slowly moving car. They wore crowns and tiaras that said, "Celebrating our 50th Twins Day Festival!" On the side of the car was a picture of the sisters as much younger women at Festival #1. These were some diehard twins. And while I think Twins Days was probably a one-tie thing for my family, I'm happy to know that people like these have found their people.

American Psycho: What did I just read? And why did I read it?

I almost never say I hate any book - especially one this popular - because I can almost find the redeeming quality that endears it to people in the first place. But I need to make an exception for American Psycho, a novel I truly did hate.

It wasn't just the unspeakably depraved violence, although I'll admit that's part of it. The movie, which I liked well enough but didn't love, was violent and depraved in its own right so I figured I more or less knew what to expect going in. If you know what American Psycho is and then you complain about the violence, it's kind of your own fault, right? Except that the book is far worse. It cranks the violence and the sex (which is always disturbing and never sexy) up to eleven. The murder scenes, especially those involving women, are more horrific than I could have imagined, richly detailed, and much, much longer than they need to be. I almost "rage quit" every time I got to one, then willed myself through it, then decided I was in too deep and had to finish reading. It wasn't easy.

As much as a problem as the gratuitous violence though is the novel's length and its repetitiveness. After one hundred pages of its four-hundred-page length, it had emptied its bag of tricks. Everything I needed to know about Patrick Bateman, a vessel for Brett Easton Ellis's commentary about eighties materialism, was already behind me. The final three quarters of the book were just variations on a frequently unpleasant theme.

If reading were conducive to such a thing, I would propose an American Psycho drinking game. Drink every time Patrick Bateman exhaustively lists clothing designers. Drink every time he launches into a catalog of luxury items. Every time he uses the word "hardbodies," to refer to attractive women. Every time he praises Art of the Deal-era Donald Trump. Drink every time tells us what was on the Patty Winters show. Drink every time Patrick mentions Les Miserables. Drink every time he describes some bizarre or obscure modern dish at one of the fancy restaurants he frequents.

There is virtually no plot here and almost no characters to speak of. Misidentification is a running motif: the people of this world are so lacking in distinguishing features or personalities, they are virtually interchangeable. Which I get as social commentary, but which makes for some really uninteresting scenes any time we're in a restaurant or a club or a party (which is like more than three quarters of the book).

Virtually everyone who didn't like the movie probably had to endure one of its fans telling them they just "didn't get it." I know I did. I'm sure the same is true for people who didn't like the book. So let me clarify that I do in fact get it: I get that American Psycho is obviously satire and its ideas are more important than its characters or its plot. I'd further argue that the weird deification of Patrick Bateman by a certain sector of bro culture proves that the movie's fans are the ones who miss the point.

I can get it and still not like it. Both things can be true. Even as social commentary, it fails.

Here's the gist of the social commentary:

Yuppie culture of the 1980's is shallow, superficial, nihilistic. Its disciples, typically Wall Street finance bros, who proliferated during the decade, are vain and materialistic, misogynistic, racist, classist, and xenophobic. The ethos of the decade fosters and may actually reward these antisocial impulses, which are adjacent to the impulse to rape and murder. So even if Bateman didn't do all the things he claimed to have done (and honestly I don't care to engage in the tedious question of whether he did or not), he still feels the impulse to do them.

It's not that the idea is uninteresting. It's that it's established within the first chapter and the rest is either disgusting or just boring. And anyway, when you're reading the grossest possible descriptions of body mutiliation, the social commentary sort of feels beside the point. 

Anyway, I'm glad it's over. I'm now reading a novel by Nick Hornby, who is one of my favorites. It's kind of like drinking cool filtered water to wash down a vat of sewage.

I don't like him. Not even ironically.

Oscars 2025

Why is it so difficult to watch the best movies of the year? I have not yet seen two of the ten films nominated for Best Picture - The Substance and I'm Still Here - and that bums me out.

But it was certainly no easy feat to see the other eight - plus many other good ones that weren't nominated. It took a little illegal bootlegging (shhh) and some convincing my wife to let me sneak out to the movies once in a while. All I'm saying is that I wish these films were a little more accessible. The Oscars are probably less relevant than they've ever been. There are many reasons for the loss of popularity, but the fact that it's so hard to watch the nominated films certainly doesn't help.

Anyway. Of the eight nominated Best Picture films I saw, here are my rankings:

8 - Nickel Boys

On paper, I should have loved Nickel Boys. It's an important gripping story about two black boys trying to navigate a brutal Jim Crow-era reformatory in Florida. But I found the storytelling kept me at a distance. The director, Ramell Ross, uses first-person shooting technique, which, while certainly innovative, also served to alienate me from the characters and action of the story. File this one under: films I wish I enjoyed more than I actually did. (I did like this piece of African jazz that played over an important montage near the end.)

7 - Emilia Perez

Describe the premise of Emilia Perez to anyone who hasn't seen it and you will sound insane: A lawyer helps a Mexican drug lord seek a sex change. And then later the two of them start an NGO to help victims of cartel violence. And it's a musical.

Not all of it lands. The hospital song and dance number is ridiculous out of context - and for that matter, in context. The ending really goes off the rails in particular. But you have to admire the chutzpah. 

6 - A Complete Unknown

I'm kind of over musical biopics. There's a new one every year and they all have basically the same story beats. (Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox really hammered home this point to me.) I'm not even sure A Complete Unknown gave me much insight into who Dylan was and what drove him. But Chalamet is great. And it's a thrill to feel like you're witnessing an important moment in music history. Months later, I'm still smiling as I think about that performance of "The Times They are A-Changin'."

5 - Dune - Part 2

I'm generally not a sci-fi guy, but there was something about the Dune movies that just grabbed me. Maybe the downcast vibe and the desert setting. Maybe the relative simplicity of the story. After I watched the two movies, I briefly entertained the idea of picking up Frank Herbert's novel, before ultimately deciding there are many things I'd rather read instead. But still, the fact that I even considered reading the book is a testament to the movie.

The sandworm sequence is one of my favorite movie moments of the year. Lisan al Ghaib! 

4 - The Brutalist

Hardcore cinephiles loved The Brutalist. To me, it was half a great movie. I was really invested in the first half: following WWII, talented architect Laszlo Toth immigrates to America from his native Hungary, finds his now-assimilated brother and his brother's new wife, builds a weird chair, gets a commission from the son of a rich man to build a library, builds the library, is yelled at by the rich man, gets addicted to heroin, falls out with his brother, is effectively adopted by the angry rich man. All of that was great.

And then things start to meander. Laszlo's wife joins him, Laszlo goes to Italy so the movie can show us cool shots of a marble quarry, there's a horrifying sexual assault, and later there's a weird epilogue set in 1980 back in Italy. 

I found myself checking my watch during the second half. A few times. But hey, that first half was great.

3 - Wicked

It's a huge, overblown spectacle. It's really long. The music is good, sometimes great. This is not the kind of movie I usually like. (And I like musicals, so that's not why.)

Whatever. I watched it with my family and we all loved it. And that last half hour, Elphaba and Glinda arrive in Oz, flying monkeys, escape, "Defying Gravity." Damn. I had goosebumps, I had tears in my eyes, I was clutching one of my kids. I could be cynical, but really how many movies make you feel that way?

2 - Conclave

The process of picking a new pope is kind of fascinating (and, as it turns out, maybe more timely than the filmmakers expected). But what makes Conclave great is that it could have been about pretty much any kind of election. The important part is the jockeying for votes, the backroom dealings, and the secret alliances behind the decision.

Conclave has been categorized as a drama/thriller, which seems odd when you consider that it's a movie about old men talking in rooms. (The youngest principal actor, Carlos Diehz, is fifty-three years old. I just looked it up.) But I was invested from beginning to end. And by the way, I did not see that ending coming.

1 - Anora 

When I need to quickly recommend Anora, I describe it as Pretty Woman, if it were directed by a really gritty Indie director. I'm not sure this does it justice. Like few other movies I've seen, it covers such a range of human emotions. It's thrilling, and romantic, and hilarious, and sometimes achingly sad. More than any other movie on this list, it also looks like the real world. The sequence where Annie and the three goons drive through obscure Russian neighborhoods in search of Ivan feels like a private tour of Hidden Brooklyn.

Sean Baker is fast becoming my favorite director in Hollywood. (I loved Tangerine and The Florida Project too, though I haven't seen Red Rocket yet.) Plus, he's from Summit, NJ, right next to where I grew up. So that's cool.

If Anora wins the big prize - and I'm starting to think it will - it will be the first time since the 2020 (Parasite) that the Best Picture winner was also my favorite of the nominees.

Other good movies I saw this year:

Good One

A Real Pain

Juror #2

Sing Sing

The Wild Robot

Gladiator 2

Thelma

Kneecap

Trevor Bauer is the Worst and I'm Glad No One Has Signed Him

 Last month, I made the mistake of getting sucked into an argument about Trevor Bauer with some of my students. I'm generally really good about avoiding controversial subjects in the classroom: with very few exceptions, I bit my tongue for almost the entire Trump administration. But for some reason, the whole Trevor Bauer saga is catnip to me. When someone brings him up, I can't help but throw in my two cents. On this particular occasion, it was me versus a sizable group of juniors - whom I love by the way. None of them were on my side of the argument and the whole experience left me feeling bummed out.

Who is Trevor Bauer? He has been living in my head for so long, I sometimes forget that lots of people don't know his whole story. Here's the short version: Trevor Bauer is a talented pitcher who most recently played for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He probably did his best work during the COVID-shortened 2020 season, in which he won the Cy Young Award for the Cincinnati Reds. He has always been a controversial player, for reasons I'll touch on in second, but over the past two years or so he has been more controversial than ever. In the summer of 2021, Bauer was accused of seriously injuring a woman after a night of consensual rough sex. He was placed on administrative leave by the Dodgers, and ultimately suspended by Major League Baseball for two years (later reduced). The Dodgers cut him from the team roughly two years after signing him to a three-year, $102-million contract. He wound up playing for them for only about half a season.

The controversy didn't reach a fever pitch until Bauer's accuser, Lindsey Hill, was revealed to have lied about the incident, in an apparent effort to defraud Bauer. By the time the facts of the story came to light it was October 2023, and Bauer hadn't pitched in the majors for almost a year and a half. He had now served the length of his suspension, yet no major league team offered him a new contract. They still haven't. Bauer is currently pitching in Mexico (quite well, too). He sometimes tweets about the unfairness of his situation, and most recently, he threatened to sue Major League Baseball for colluding against him.

Lately, to merely mention the name Trevor Bauer is to invite controversy. I'm in a baseball group on Facebook, "Effectively Wild," that forbids all users from posting or commenting about Bauer. To the people in this group, he is basically baseball's own Voldemort. In my lifetime, there may have well been players as divisive as Bauer. (Bonds, Clemens, and the rest of the steroid guys, Pete Rose, and John Rocker come to mind.) But I don't think there have been any who have personally bothered me quite so much.

There are lots of good reasons to dislike Bauer. (This video outlines many of the reasons why.)Here are a few of mine:

1 - He engages in immature, attention-seeking antics on the field. During spring training, he pitched with one eye closed, just to prove he could, which did little to endear him to his opponents. After being removed from a start in Cleveland, he chucked a ball from the pitcher's mound over the center field fence. It turned out to be his list start in Cleveland: they traded him almost immediately afterward.

2 - He perpetuates stupid and harmful conspiracy theories - everything from racist Obama birther bullshit, to Bush did 9/11. (During one start at Wrigley, he used his cleat to write "BD 911" into the pitcher's mound dirt.)

3 - He is a dick on social media. He routinely engages in petty squabbles with media, fans, and other players, which should be beneath him as an adult, let alone as a public figure and a pitcher of his caliber. He has legions of supporters on social media, most of them bros, whom he likes to sic on his enemines, many of whom have been women. His online footprint shows him to be childish, petty, and downright mean.

4 - He has been accused of sexual assault by at least three women. Of course, innocent until proven guilty. But also... where there's smoke there's fire? Bauer Bros will claim that these women are all liars, and that any man in a position of power is subject to inevitable claims of sexual misconduct. I'm skeptical. Where are Mike Trout's accusers? And Bryce Harper's? And Ronald Acuna's? And Shohei Ohtani's? Etc. For some reason, those lying women must just love picking on Trevor Bauer, the unluckiest man in the world.

So yeah, this guy seems like a terrible person. Even his charitable venture, the childishly titled "69 Days of Giving," manages to sound gross. But to hear the legions of (mostly) dudes defending him - including some of my students - he's a poor innocent soul who was unfairly screwed over by a corrupt system. Look at any social media thread even tangentially related to baseball, and you're bound to find a comment along the lines of "Free Trevor!"

Why are so many people defending this jerk? My answer is that it's not really about Bauer himself as much as it's about fear of the Cancel Culture Bogeyman. So many guys have a paralyzing fear that they'll be just standing there, minding their own business when suddenly a random woman will cry rape and ruin their life. The research tells us that this isn't something that happens with great frequency. About 2-10% of rape allegiations are proven to be fake, according to this article. But like unfounded fear of voter fraud, fear of spurious rape allegations have taken on a life of their own. Certainly, every accusation should be investigated, as should allegations of any crime. False accusations do happen once in a while, and they can do great damage - as in the high-profile case of the Duke lacrosse players. But actual rape happens much more often than false allegations, and I don't see it producing quite as much outrage from the "Free Trevor" crowd.

For all of the random bros willing to die on the "Trevor is Innocent" hill, his former teammates have been largely silent on the matter. True, Mookie Betts did call him an "awesome guy," in one interview. But other teammates' silence speaks volumes. An expose by an LA sportswriter called him a "pariah in the clubhouse." Is it possible that Bauer's obnoxious personality is the real culprit behind his lack of a contract? Is it possible that on one has signed him because no one likes him? Bauer and his supporters say that he is talented enough to pitch effectively in the major leagues. I don't doubt it. He's only three years off his Cy Young season, and he was pitching pretty well in 2021 when it all went down. But no one is automatically entitled to a Major League Baseball contract, not even recent Cy Young winners. In order to receive one, it helps not to be a jerk - or at least, not so big a jerk that it overshadows your performance on the field. 

The Trevor Bros won't hear of it, though. To them, the fact that he hasn't been signed is just more evidence of Cancel Culture run amok, proof that conniving women routinely ruin men's lives. To me, if he never pitches in the majors again it will be too soon. In the world at large, and in sports in general, there are so many worthwhile people to root for. How about Anthony Rizzo, a cancer survivor who has raised millions for cancer research, and who routinely goes out of his way to meet kids suffering from cancer? (He's a Yankee, for God's sake, and I still think he's cool.) How about Justin Turner, who has raised massive amounts of money for homeless veterans and sick kids, and who seems like a good dude and a good teammate? How about Andrew McCutchen, who has been the epitome of cool for more than a decade now? None of these has ever been accused of sexual misconduct, by the way. Not even once.

You have the option not to root for one of the biggest assholes in baseball, you know. Because whether or not Trevor Bauer is a rapist, he certainly does seem like an asshole. And there are greater injustices in the world than one asshole being out of a job.

 "America[n] media still wants you to believe my teammates hate me and think my sword celebration is racist." - Noted douchebag Trevor Bauer

Oscars 2024

 What a great rebound year for movies. Barbenheimer has a cultural phenomenon. A bunch of our greatest living directors (Scorcese, Nolan, Gerwig, Payne, Fincher, to name a few) put out new movies, and all of them were good. And once again, I succeeded in seeing all ten Best Picture nominees before the Oscars. And unlike last year (looking at you, Triangle of Sadness and Women Talking), there wasn't a single one I disliked. Here's my ranking in order of how much I enjoyed them. 

10 - Maestro - I didn't dislike Maestro, but what was it really about? A good biopic, like any story, needs a central conflict that defines a person's life, and for Leonard Bernstein, I'm not totally sure what that conflict was. If you put his wife at the center of the film, the conflict - her ambivalence about a man whom she loves but who constantly embarrasses her with his homosexual affairs - becomes clearer. Maybe she should have been the protagonist? The performances was incredible. We haven't properly celebrated Bradley Cooper - and we definitely haven't given due credit to Carey Mulligan, who matches him every step of the way with that transatlantic accent.

9 - Zone of Interest - There is nothing conventionally entertaining about Zone of Interest, which is of course the point. It's a film about the banality of evil, told through the lens of the Hoss family, who lived next door to Auschwitz during the years of WWII. Rudolf Hoss, the family's patriarch, was the commandant of Auschwitz. Everything about this movie is off-putting, from the noisy, atmospheric music, to the natural lighting, to the filming style, which stays away from close-ups, to the random fade to red at a certain point in the film. But its best choice is the radical decision not to show any of the actual suffering of concentration camp victims. The viewer sees smoke in the distance - presumably from the crematorium - and hears distant shouts and gunfire, but that's it. It's strange, upsetting, and ultimately very effective - and I never want to see it again. (Also, I just learned that its director Jonathan Glazer did the "Rabbit in Your Headlights" video, which is one of my all-time favorites. So that's cool.)

8 - Anatomy of a Fall - And the award for most memorable needle drop of the year goes to... an instrumental version of "P.I.M.P" from a French film about the investigation of a mysterious death in the Alps. I'll admit I did not see that coming. (The YouTube comments on the video are hilarious, by the way, especially if you've seen the movie.) I love a good cerebral murder mystery (accidental death mystery?), and this one had a lot going for it. It had the best explosive argument between spouses (just beating out that scene from Maestro). It had a fantastic performance by a child, and another by a dog. It had an interesting glimpse inside the French court system, which I'm not sure I've seen portrayed on film before - plus an excellent performance by the prosecuting attorney, in what was basically a thankless role. (The actor is Antoine Reinartz, and his character doesn't even get a name!) Hell of a year for Sandra Huller, between this and Zone of Interest. The similarities to The Staircase, a great multi-part documentary, later adapted into a very good show on HBO, are striking.

7 - American Fiction - I liked American Fiction, but I wanted to like it even more than I did. It's basically a mash-up of two movies: a biting satire about racial dynamics in literature and a sincere family drama. The family drama scenes were sweet and sometimes poignant, but it was hard for me not to feel a little impatient, hoping the movie would get back to the satire. What I'll ultimately remember about this one is Monk Ellison, aka Stagg R. Lee (played by the great Jeffrey Wright), and his Great American Novel, My Pafology - later changed to something even better. The scene when he and his agent are on the phone with the publishing company is priceless. Ditto for the We's Lives in the Ghetto book-reading scene. The rest was, for me, just all right.

6 - Oppenheimer - Here was a Big Movie about Great Men and Big Ideas. Oppenheimer is overwhelming in every way, but it's also a really important story and a fascinating history lesson. In its entire three-hour run time, I think the scene that sticks with me the most is Oppenheimer's meeting with President Truman, played by a heavily made-up Gary Oldman, who tells the scientist in no uncertain terms that his creation (the Bomb) is no longer his. Speaking of Oldman, what a flex by Christopher Nolan to cast three recent Oscar winners for Best Actor (Oldman, Rami Malek, Casey Affleck) and give them a combined five minutes of screen time. Again, it's a lot. Did there really need to be this many characters? But I can't help but admire the scope.

5 - Poor Things - On its surface, Poor Things is insane, but underneath it all, it's kind of a traditional fable about a woman (albeit, a mutant baby-woman) gaining independence from a society that wants to limit her options. I generally have pretty conventional tastes, and I don't always like weird for weird's sake, so I wasn't sure I'd like this one. Plus, I have mixed feelings about the other Lanthimos films I've seen: I liked the first half of The Lobster, and The Favourite sort of left me cold. This one was good wacky fun, though. Emma Stone is an unbelievable talent. Mark Ruffalo, whom I already liked, played his pathetic loser character to perfection. Also, this was the best Unethical Brain Transplant movie since Get Out.

4 - Barbie - No film on this list was as creative, original, clever, and crazy as Barbie, save for maybe Poor Things, with which the movie actually has a lot in common thematically. Who would have thought? The first twenty minutes especially - the whole introduction to Barbie World - is fantastic, but really the whole movie is good. There was a whole conservative talking point last summer that the movie was anti-men. I don't know about that, but I do know that the supposed anti-men scenes in the second half made me laugh the most. The one Ken who explains The Godfather to the Barbies? Fantastic. And the scene on the beach, when all the Kens are singing Matchbox Twenty might have been my favorite scene of the year. As someone who used to use my guitar to get attention from the opposite sex, I felt seen.

3 - Past Lives - Such a sweet, sad film. It unfolds like a short story. Films are getting increasingly long and increasingly big: my top two picks both log in at three hours or more, and are populated by a cast of thousands. I love that a small film like Past Lives, with its simple plot and its cast of essentially three characters, can make such an impact. It speaks to anyone who has a "one who got away" - or even anyone who wonders what might have happened if they ended up with so and so... That long take at the end, just the two would-be lovers looking at each other for a full minute, is every bit as affecting as the Trinity Test.

2 - The Holdovers - Like Past Lives, The Holdovers is a drama on a human scale. No car crashes, no explosions: just great actors portraying complex characters. Paul Giammati was great as the curmudgeon professor that reminded me a little of Ignatius J. Reilly from Confederacy of Dunces: a brilliant misanthrope who's repressing some deep regrets and insecurities. And Dominic Sessa, a complete unknown, goes toe-to-toe with him in every scene. And Da'Vine Joy Randolph is like the movie's beating heart. That scene at the end, when Hunham confronts the kid's parents, is my favorite. "I don't give a shit." I have yet to dislike an Alexander Payne movie.

1 - Killers of the Flower Moon - Speaking of important stories, here's a dark chapter from American history that, prior to David Grann's book, almost no one knew. The story of the Osage massacre is brutal, and it presents white people in the most unflattering possible light, and that's what makes it important. Yes, it's long - like really long. Whatever. This is a great film - and besides, people routinely binge-watch multiple episodes of Netflix shows that amount to a much longer length of time than the run time of Killers. Lily Gladstone has gotten a ton of press for this movie, and she may well win the Oscar. No complaints here - she's great. But what I think has been lost is that this is one of Leo's best ever performances, which is truly saying something. He plays a greedy moron with few redeeming qualities. Credit to him for willing to go so unglamorous. De Niro is great too - and has a better Oklahoma drawl than I would have given him credit for.

Other Notable Movies I Saw This Year:

May December - Loved this one. The subject - a woman's affair with a boy twenty-three years her junior - is just so lurid. Charles Melton, whom I didn't know before, really carries the second half.

Saltburn - A goddamn mess. Goes in hard for shock value, and ultimately doesn't have much to say. But still kind of fun as a guilty pleasure. That tub scene. Holy shit.

Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse - The animation is dazzling. The plot is just so convoluted. My son was thoroughly confused. Even I was hanging on for dear life. But it has some cool ideas, and it's just such a spectacle.

Nyad - Pretty basic Hollywood movie about a really difficult woman who did some really unbelievable things. Annette Bening and Jodi Foster are both outstanding as usual - especially Foster.

Rustin - Kind of a pedantic history lesson about the Civil Rights Movement. But with an amazing performance by Coleman Domingo.

The Killer - Stylish story of a highly meticulous hitman, played by Michael Fassbender. I usually like David Fincher, and Fassbender too for that matter, but this movie had a weirdly detached quality that left me cold.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar - All this time, I thought I didn't like Wes Anderson. Turns out maybe I just didn't like his feature films. This adaptation of an obscure Roald Dahl story is a lot of fun - and, at forty minutes, just the right dose of Wes Anderson.

"The After" - I can't believe this exploitative, manipulative short film was nominated for an Oscar. Avoid it. David Oyelomo is a great actor, though.

Some Thoughts on the War between Israel and Hamas

On 9/11, 2001, I had just started my sophomore year of college. It was a Tuesday morning and I didn’t have class until 11 AM. I woke up in my dorm in the heart of rural Ohio, I checked my email, and I saw someone had sent something about a plane flying into a building. But I was tired and I needed to grab a cup of coffee before my class started, so I didn’t read the e-mail.

It wasn’t until a little later - when I obliviously crossed through the common room and saw dozens of kids huddled around the tv, watching the latest coverage - that I began to realize the full magnitude of what had happened that day.

In some ways, my experience on Saturday, October 7th reminded me of my morning on 9/11. I picked up my phone to check the weather forecast. (I had tickets to the Orioles play-off game at 1, so I was crossing my fingers that the rain would hold off.) Someone had posted a map of Israel on Instagram along with some text, but I hadn’t had my coffee yet, and I was in a rush to get up and make breakfast for my kids, so I didn’t give the post much of a look.

Only when my parents called and asked me if I had heard the news about Israel that it began to dawn on me that something truly terrible was happening.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a series of coordinated attacks from the Gaza Strip into bordering territories in Israel. In a single day, more than 1200 Israelis were murdered. The attack was deliberately carried out on a day of two Jewish holidays: Shabbat, the Day of Rest, and Simchat Torah, an ordinarily joyous celebration of Jewish holy scripture. Many, including President Joe Biden, observed that October 7th was the bloodiest day in Israel’s history and the deadliest for Jews since the Holocaust.

If you aren’t Jewish, or if you don’t have any type of relationship with the State of Israel, I understand that Saturday, October 7th may have been the same as any other day. You may not have given the situation a second thought. I get that. After all, terrible things happen every day, in every country in the world.

But for most observant Jews, like myself, the news was absolutely devastating. As I learned the details of what had happened, I began to feel something like what I felt twenty-two years ago on September 11th. Let me try to explain why:

When I was about six or seven years old, I started attending Hebrew School, and I would continue to do so for the next decade, until well after my Bar Mitzvah. In Hebrew School, my classmates and I learned how to read Hebrew, we learned bible stories, we learned prayers, and customs. And we learned about the land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael, a tiny nation in the Middle East, roughly the size of my home state of New Jersey, that was the Jewish homeland. Constantly, our teachers “hyped up” Israel to us. We learned about its beautiful scenery and its historic cities. We sang its national anthem, “Hatikvah,” every day. 

And as I grew older, I was increasingly exhilarated by the idea of a country governed and populated by Jews. I grew up in a suburban town that was overwhelmingly white and Christian (both Catholic and Protestant). At school, I was always one of just a handful of Jewish kids in my grade. Even though I liked many of my peers, I always felt vaguely like an outsider. Not many of my peers knew anything about the customs or the culture that made me who I was. But somewhere, half a world away, there was a wonderful country full of people just like me. And it was just waiting for me to visit some day.

When I was six years old, our Hebrew school teachers took us on a mock trip to Israel. Over many days, we prepared for the trip, crafting passports out of construction paper and cameras out of cardboard. The teachers transformed each school room into a different destination in Israel: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Dead Sea. On the day of our trip, they arranged chairs into two straight lines so we could pretend we were sitting on an airplane. I still remember how excited I was just to pretend to travel to Israel: to me, it might as well have been the Land of Oz.

When I was eighteen years old, I was lucky enough to travel to Israel for real - via the BirthRight Program, which for years has been offering free trips to Israel to young Americans. With a contingent of other college students, I toured many of the country’s major sights, from the Golan Heights in the north down to the Dead Sea, the world’s lowest lying point, which makes up part of Israel’s eastern border with Jordan. Instantly, I felt a sort of bond with everyone I met in Israel. Everyone was Jewish - from the guy at the pita and falafel place to the bus drivers to the soldiers to the beggar who approached me to ask for spare change so he could buy a challah for Shabbat. This was the special place I had heard about since I was a child.

I’ll admit that I still have a hard time looking at Israel objectively. When I hear it criticized, it’s hard for me not to react emotionally. It has taken me time to see Israel not as some sort of magical utopia but as a country, like any other country, subject to questionable leadership and objectionable policies. It has taken me time to realize that one can be critical of a nation’s leadership and policies, and still feel deep love for that nation. After all, that’s how I feel about the USA: over the years, I’ve often questioned the choices we have made as a nation, and sometimes I’ve despaired for our future. And yet, despite my misgivings, I always come back to a deep and abiding feeling of patriotism.

I don’t agree with all of its decisions and I don’t support all of its leaders, but I love the USA and I want to see it thrive. I feel the same way about Israel.

Love for a country, just like love for another person, doesn’t mean blind acceptance of its every flaw: it means steadfast support through difficult times, and the undying hope that it can someday become the best version of itself.

In order to feel heartbroken on 9/11, I didn’t have to agree with America’s every policy. Nor do I have to endorse Israel’s every move to feel devastated by the events of October 7th.

But right now, I’m just not in the mood to debate, or to talk about anything as abstract as political policy. Right now, I’m too busy grieving for the thousands of Israeli men, women, and children - as well as thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians - who have lost their lives over the last few weeks.

Every day for the past three weeks, friends and relatives of mine have posted the pictures of Israelis who recently lost their lives. They look so normal, so happy, and full of energy. Some of them remind me of the Israeli counselors who worked at the Jewish summer camp I used to attend. Every time I see one of their pictures, it stops me in my tracks and I think all over again about the senseless loss of human life.

Since October 7th, several of my non-Jewish friends have reached out to extend their sympathies and ask how I’m feeling. I appreciate their thoughts. And every time I hear from one of them, I am reminded of the connection I feel to Israel.

One of the lines from Hatikvah, the Jewish National Anthem, is “od lo avda tikvateinu,” which translates to “our hope is not yet lost.” In spite of years of conflict, my hope is not yet lost that the land I love can one day be a Land of Peace.

Don't Go to Louisiana in Late June. Don't Go to Bourbon Street at All. Otherwise, New Orleans is Great!

             I know people who are obsessed with New Orleans. A guy I used to work with would go there roughly once a year with his wife. “There’s no place in the world like it,” he would tell me. Last week, my wife and I paid a visit for a few nights to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. It was my second time in New Orleans, although the first time was Mardi Gras 2002, just before I turned twenty-one. Since I spent most of my time then trying to navigate an obscenely packed French Quarter, the first trip feels like it barely counts. My wife’s first trip doesn’t count in a different way: she was born in nearby Mandeville and lived there until she was six. Sometimes, she and her family would venture into New Orleans, but most of her memories of the city are a little fuzzy. So really this was both of our first visits in our adult lives.

My old friend was right: there’s no place like this city. We like to talk about the weirdness of Baltimore – and it is weird, in comparison to DC, its closest big neighbor. But if I’m being honest, Baltimore’s general vibe isn’t all that different from that of Philadelphia, or Boston, or Richmond. They’re all in the same ballpark at least. New Orleans, meanwhile, is just a different breed from Houston or Atlanta. Its weirdness is off the charts. The only city that, to me, feels anything like New Orleans – maybe its little cousin? – is Savannah, which has a similar swampy creepiness to it. (I say that having spent only a couple hours there, a few years back, so I may not be the authority on this: I’m going off my own subjective impression.)

For better or worse, it’s a unique place. It has its own regional cuisine that’s largely confined to the city. Its inhabitants have their own regional accent that’s clearly distinct from the southern accent at large. (They don't say "ya'll," I'm told.) Its French quarter boasts a style of French-inspired architecture I’ve never seen anywhere else.  Walk into one of the endless knickknack stores in the French Quarter and you can buy a t-shirt or some other tchotchke emblazoned with a quote from Tennessee Williams: “America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” There’s probably some truth to that, even though there are plenty other American cities I like just fine – including Cleveland. I think the point though is not that every other city in the country sucks: it’s that most cities are homogenous. Chicago is cool, sure, but it’s kind of just Dallas with a different climate. Columbus and Indianapolis are basically the same city in consecutive states. Phoenix is alright, but it’s about as generic as they come. New Orleans, though, is hard to confuse with anywhere else.

By no means does that mean that New Orleans is paradise. My wife and I had a wonderful time, and I say this with all due respect: parts of New Orleans suck. Specifically, Bourbon Street, one of the most famous thoroughfares in the world, is very close to my vision of what hell must look like. It’s dirty, it’s smelly, it’s dumb, and holy shit is it loud. Every block on Bourbon Street features one of those hurricane places, where sugary mixed drinks are dispensed from machines into tall, colorful plastic cups shaped like grenades or palm trees. Into the streets, these joints blast air conditioning (which, to be fair, is appealing), and deafening music (which is not). On our obligatory walk through Bourbon Street on Saturday night, we saw: a woman peeing in the street, another woman more than sixty years old lifting her top in exchange for plastic beads, and, most depressingly, a third woman taking a selfie with a homeless man who had passed out on the street. The last of these took place just outside Galatoire’s, the venerable old French-Cajun restaurant that still requires men to wear blazers in the main dining room. The contrast was striking.

The problem with Bourbon Street, I think, is that it has become a victim of its own popularity. It’s exactly the same phenomenon that transformed Manhattan’s Times Square from the Crossroads of the World to An Insufferable Shitshow to be Avoided at All Costs. With each wild Mardi Gras, the legend of Bourbon Street grew and grew, until it achieved a practically mythical reputation. I haven’t formally researched this, but I believe half the frat boys in the country have a metal “Bourbon Street” sign somewhere in their dorm room. More and more idiots keep flocking there in search of the biggest party they’ve ever seen, and local vendors are glad to oblige. Now what’s left is straight up insanity – a brand of insanity I hope I never experience again in my life. One of my memories from Mardi Gras 2002 is that at the end of three nights on Bourbon Street, a friend of mine summed up the experience: “I was really excited for this,” he said, “But this place is evil and I hate it.” It took me about ten minutes to reach the same conclusion this time.

Let’s be clear, though: I don’t hate parties. I used to be a frat boy myself, after all. On Sunday evening, we wised up and walked over to Frenchmen Street in Marigny, which abuts the French Quarter. Now that was a party. A big brass band played on a corner (outside a used book store, incidentally), causing the audience, a diverse array or black, white, locals and tourists, to spill into the street. We watched for a bit and then paid a cover to enter The Spotted Cat, a jazz club, where we watched an effortlessly brilliant combo. Those dumb hurricane dispensaries were nowhere to be seen – but I did have an excellent local microbrew.

On Monday, we returned to Bourbon Street and found a relatively quite bar that offered cool atmosphere and free popcorn. “Maybe this place is different on Monday night,” I said. We walked two more blocks. Nah, it was still terrible.

I’m not trying to dump on the city of New Orleans, which is so cool – not because of, but in spite of, the heart of the French Quarter. A short list of what I appreciated in three and a half days includes:

o   The Hotel Monteleone, which is straight old-world class. The carousel bar is pricey, but absolutely one-of-a-kind.

o   Streetcars

o   Beignets

o   Café Au-Lait

o   Incredible Brass Bands composed of people who frankly look like they live on the streets

o   Domilise’sPo-Boys (Roadfood steered me in the right direction yet again.)

o   Frenchmen Street

o   Lovely residential neighborhoods

o   Basically all cajun food, but especially my Shrimp Etoufee from Galatoire’s

o   Random lizard sightings

I’ll return some day – not in late June, though. I’ll never do that again. It’s a cool city and like most cool cities, some of its best features are tucked away off the beaten track. On my next trip, I’ll be savvy enough to avoid the city’s most famous and least appealing parts.

My Wife took this awesome picture of one of the brass band dudes in front of a chicken place.