FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN: 10/14/22.

The missus found a French internet stationthat plays odd jazz and pop vocal tracks.
This one tickles me, and I think it shows how strong the song's underpinnings are.

•  I'm releasing unto the world today's Roy Edroso Breaks It Down issue, which is more cultural than political -- it's about how the arts and entertainment press talks a lot more about movie box office standings than they used to. This is an observable phenomenon for interested people over a certain age, but I seldom see it brought up. 

Commenters are drawing parallels with other areas of life and media coverage thereof -- for example, the "horserace" approach to politics that predominates among our prestige press outlets. I think it also distorts audience expectations of what movies are about. I don't think it's just nostalgia to lament the vanished film culture where people went into movies not much knowing or caring about the business end of them. Now so much film news is basically business news that I think it must have an effect on audiences -- and they approach movies more as social phenomena, that is, things with which to identify, rather than to just enjoy. 

You can also see its effect in the way movies are used as political props. I’ve written about the weird hate-on rightwingers had for the Toy Story spin-off Lightyear, owing to a miniscule amount of gay-friendly content in it, and how they tried to convince readers the film was a flop because it finished second rather than first in opening grosses. Insane politics aside, the whole idea of a film being a flop because it was only the second most popular release in the country seems to be, among other things, a product of the weird, zero-sum, hypercompetitive way we're encouraged to look at -- well, everything. 

•  Oh, also freed from the mothership: An Alex Jones intervention. The whole billion-dollar thing is pleasing to some people, but more bemusing to me, because first, like a lot of other rich assholes under fire, Jones seems not only unconcerned with but OxyContin-numb to the judgement  -- since it happened he's continued to rave as if he's a big winner. And who knows whether they'll ever be able to extract enough of his money to make any difference in the way he lives? 

As is always the case with the law, I want to see the guilty punished, not for the joy of retribution, but so that those who would do likewise may be discouraged -- and as it stands I'm sure Jones' millions of followers think his is a positive example because he has, even at this moment, gotten away with it. Which guarantees that we'll get more of it. This lesson can be applied to other areas of pubic life as well.