taking a nap. let me know if Tar Man shows up.
Writer, actor, weirdo Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/zhandlen
6,322 followers 481 following 4,077 posts
view profile on Bluesky
taking a nap. let me know if Tar Man shows up.
Not everything's a strategy! There's such a thing as basic ethics and morality, and the assumption that every election is some high level game of 3d chess is how you get assholes like Clinton.
got to meet the delightful @wifeguy.org and his equally delightful wife Erin last night--took them to the Maine-est dining spot I know, and they were kind enough to pay for my dinner _and_ listen to me ramble. really cool people. sometimes the Internet works!
i hate writing. i hate it so much. i wish i could be satisfied doing anything else but editing this fucking draft that will probably get polite but firm rejections from half a dozen publishers before joining all the other fucking terrible novels i've written. ARGH
i was rewatching Garth Merenghi's Dark Place, and he shows up in the last episode; just instantly recognizable buzzkill.
watching the Enterprise two-parter set in the Mirror Universe and uh the outfits they’ve put the ladies in sure are uh something.
Hey know what Tidal put one of my not-yet-officially-released song on their “Upload Spotlight” playlist. I don’t have any idea how exclusive that is but I choose to take it as a massive compliment and a sign that my musical career is about to skyrocket. Let’s say. tidal.com/browse/track...
i'm still gobsmacked that someone managed to effectively adapt a Pynchon novel.
oh man, INHERENT VICE may have supplanted THERE WILL BE BLOOD as my favorite. (although i very much loved LICORICE PIZZA.)
Mark Whalberg is such profoundly bad casting for Parker that I’m gonna have to spend this whole movie pretending I don’t know the source material.
Whoa, she’s in that one? I watched it at some point but I remember nothing about it.
😭
All three of the original Bourne movies are fun, but they get very silly by the end. I can’t remember the fourth Matt Damon one at all, but it must’ve been getting near Rambo levels.
Pam Landy, every time Jason Bourne says: “You should get some rest. You look tired.”:
Seriously this happens THREE TIMES to Pamela Landry—in fact, the only time she talks to Bourne, it’s when he’s spying on her from a nearby building, and yet she acts surprised every time he reveals it.
I dunno, if I was the CIA, I think I’d make sure I wasn’t next to any abandoned high-rises that people could stand in and spy on me from.
These really are the closest we get to an American Bond—all the camp is gone, everyone is very serious, but the plot is still cartoonish, Bourne is still globe-hopping and doing the impossible, and he’s still a hit with the ladies, even though he only has sex once.
“Listen to me. This isn’t one of your newspaper stories. This is real.” 99.9 percent sure that this isn’t meant to be a joke. But, like… it is tho.
the bit where Bourne has to guide a dude through surveillance and the dude bites it because he panics and fucks up: I am terrified that this is how I’ll die.
The Bourne titles are all wrong. IDENTITY is fine, but SUPREMACY is kicked off by someone breaking Bourne’s ultimatum, and ULTIMATUM is the one where he basically becomes a super hero.
I remember really liking the creature design in that on.
-and- David Strathairn, Jesus Christ, I keep expecting one of them to ask me how my car’s running.
Love the casting of the dudes in the original Bourne trilogy, just this rapid iteration of That Kind of Guy types, Cooper to Cox to Finney to Glenn. Authority fellas. You Can Set Your Watch By gentlemen.
Man, imagine escaping a violent partner and Giuliani is the first person you see.
According to Marlon, he never said this, he won't even say he agrees with the statement:
Baby Michelle Monaghan is in this too, although I don’t think she’s had a line yet.
Heh I forgot this is kind of a girl boss movie—the two guys in the CIA who did Treadstone are evil, but now Joan Allen is here and she’s the kind of CIA person America needs. (this is a joke, I am joking, it is not a flaw in the movie)
goddamn I love well-balanced power fantasies. just give me a character with a miserable life who is just amazing about doing anything other than being a human being, and I’m yours.
Completely get that, I’m honestly surprised that it -didn’t- do that for me. I usually hate that sort of thing, but this time it worked for me. No idea why.
Man, remember when it was possible to believe that a government could be -competently- corrupt? Doing cool shit like making badass murder soldiers, instead of walking into walls and in between pressing buttons that say “HURT PEOPLE”
Karl Urban, no!
I’ve seen it thousands of times on cable, but just never when I’m streaming a show. Before this, worst I’d seen were the the pop ups for “next” that would force you into the next episode if you don’t cancel them. Also awful, but at least you -could- see the credits if you wanted.
Ohhhh. Annoying, but that makes sense. IGNORE PREVIOUS POST I am just a grump.
The Bourne Identity: so good that I had to immediately put on the sequel. Man, I still remember how hard it hit me when died. Like I can remember the theater I was in and how it felt in the moment.
Streaming AMC+ via Prime.
They’re doing this now on streaming now. Why. Why would you need it to run faster.
Holy shit! Walton Goggins is in this! Also baby! (He’s a government guy who puts a lot of oomph into a brief monologue about Franka Potente’s character.
you know what I haven’t watched in years? The Bourne Identity. aw. Matt Damon is baby.
*taps sign*
wow. they even found a way to make ghosts uncool.
ROOM FOR ONE MORE…
I don’t think we need to explain the obvious every time an old person says something silly, no matter how famous that old person is.
I think some of you just didn’t believer hard enough.
His nose looks weird.
Yeah. Sigh.
really, i'm just angry at the cover of On Blue's Waters. i feel embarrassed to be carrying it around.
i love Gene Wolfe, but these are some of the worst covers i've ever seen in my life. An Evil Guest is okay, but the three covers for his Book of the Short Sun trilogy look like self-published Photoshop glop.
The unfortunate Madonna/Sean Penn on-screen hook-up ‘Shanghai Surprise’ was released on this day in 1986, and there’s a reason you’ve probably forgotten it:
legit jump scare here.
i've given up on trying to convince people to read more adult fiction. for one thing, you can't do it without sounding like you're scolding strangers; for another, "only reading YA as an adult" is such a baffling, bizarre concept to me that i don't really feel qualified to speak on it.
just. fucking. RETIRE.
Misery or IT.
i hate how much i need money. anyway: I have a Patreon!
good, smart writers like Jamelle Bouie and a few others are hired in no small part to give credibility to empty-headed sock-puppets like Stephens. that's capitalism in a nut-shell, really: good ideas occasionally get through, but it's more a bug than a feature.
listening to the @ifbookspod.bsky.social episode on Bret Bed-Bug Stephens and realizing the obvious: the primary job of punditry isn't to offer wisdom or advice, but to reassure the wealthy that, despite the evidence of their own eyes, reality still agrees with them.
Today: a rough time on the Internet. And uh a bunch of other places.
i wish i knew what happened to my copy, but i definitely bought the former edition from a used bookstore and loved it.
ew. good book, tho.
This week’s episode of Strange New Worlds is causing me actual pain.
anyone who uses tragedy to attempt to take away trans health care is a genocidal maniac who wants to inflict pain on an entire community
i also disliked that one, if it helps. the new season has been real rough.
i got up to the bit where you see Pike's new, uh, look, and i noped out (i still have to watch the rest later today to review it, and i am not excited)
Heads' up that you don't need to pay someone to query literary agents for you, and I'm generally not impressed by the services that do. I just received an email to an address I no longer use, addressed to Carlie Webber. How much did someone pay for this?
what gets me is that you don't need a two hour video explaining what Ms. Rachel is doing. that's the power of what she's doing. it's simple and direct. (although it's great that Ellis is using her to work to bring more money to the cause.)
I'm currently doing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds over at Episodic Medium, and I also have a Patreon, where I've reviewed Voyager in its entirety, am almost done Enterprise, and have a bunch of other writing besides:
we're heading into fall, so: I am a professional writer with hundreds of credits to my name, mostly reviews of TV shows but also books, movies, and video games. My work has appeared in the AV Club, GQ, IGN, and a bunch of other places, and I'm always looking for freelance work. Thanks.
i'm also one of those hyper picky critics who doesn't think "taking a big swing" is automatically a virtue--or, even if it is, it doesn't make up for all other flaws.
thanks, i was going to ask!
my experience hasn't been that kind of intense, but the burnout stuff does make sense to me, and i've been struggling with just being a human being a lot; i'm hyperaware, for sure, and the difficulties i've had socializing is still an issue i'm trying to unpack.
i think Darren Aronofsky is a good director who keeps trying to prove he's a great one, and it brings down every movie of his i've seen. (Except The Wrestler, I think, although it's been a while.)
it's something i've been thinking about a lot this summer, honestly; just unsure about the line between "autism" and "dealing with childhood trauma."
I need a website called “Is This Normal?” so every time I discover something odd about my behavior, I can check it without having to post about to thousands of stranger. (Is it normal that I am constantly aware of my facial expressions when I’m around people?)
Not looking forward to today’s Strange New Worlds.
ZONE OF INTEREST (2024, dir. Jonathan Glazer):
did Dean Koontz scalp a Beatle?
I blame Ryan Murphy, honestly.
i've never read anything by Sally Rooney, but i think i probably should.
man serial killers are so fucking cool and hot and definitely not pathetic weirdos with broken brains. it's awesome and badass to want to make a suit out of your mother's skin and climb into it.
i've got meds for it, but that's a possibility.
job is fine! life is... passable! and sure, i'm scared about the state of the world, but this feels disconnected from everything. like someone in my skull is mucking about with switches and just hit a bad patch of them.
love being alive, because i'll just have this intense wave of unhappiness and despair and feeling like i can't possibly do anything ever again, and it's right in the middle of the work day, and it passes (slowly) and i have no idea if it's unusual or if this is just part of being conscious.
Graham Platner: "Susan Collins has been in the Senate for almost 30 years... People know that she's a self-interested politician who has tried to play this charade for many years about how she tries to be a moderate... Everybody sees this for what it is."
dear god, it’s actually called “Gaylor”? look, I’m trying to post less about politics, but you folks have to give me better material than this.
oh man, love to forget I took an edible and be halfway through a post on the Internet and suddenly think “wait is this brilliant or am I stoned”
is that what i think it is
Very sorry for your loss, Will.
that is extremely good cover art.
You can—and should—purchase my single, “Dirty,” on @bandcamp.com I mean just do it, it won’t kill you or anything. I’m good at marketing! paulfidalgo.bandcamp.com/track/dirty
it is bleakly funny that after decades of blowdried white-shoe lawyers in expensive tailored suits, the Republican Party is now run by its Picture of Dorian Gray
every time i see a picture of him i wonder "is this a still that will get a ken burns effect during the documentary"
A collection of terrifying smiles.
[as my arrogance and solipsism slowly destroys the planet, causing the suffering of untold millions] i wonder if my calculator can cry.
I mean, the answer is clearly no, because if it was “yes,” none of these people would be asking the question.
Oh hey, that episode helped inspire the only piece I’ve ever gotten published in McSweeney’s:
I struggled with some of that book, but yeah, I was very much into the back half. Just so sweet and sad and funny and good.
I’d hope so!
So, wait, the idea is that Orion women control men by pheromones that make them super angry and horny? Cause uh I don’t think that would turn out for the ladies the way this episode seems to think it does.