Ambiguous Egotism

  • New TV of 2024, briefly

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    mchan

    It’s about that time of year to reflect on the TV shows of the past 12 months and figure out what was good, what was bad, and what was…whatever it was. It’s too late to meaningfully digest any more TV before the end of the year (I’ll spend it probably burning off Christmas films and rewatching 90s Star Trek episodes or whatever…shudders "old" TV from the 90s and 2000s will be comforting and non-anxiety inducing). But in the meanwhile, here’s a list of new TV that I thought was halfway decent, along with some mention of TV shows that I guess I should have already watched, but which go into the watchlist until I get around to it.

    Criteria

    I watch television in two ways: "appointment TV," which is usually premium TV I need to give full attention to, and "ambient TV," where I’m doing something else while I watch and go in and out as required. I’m not separating the two categories here, but the influence of both probably reflects in my interests in procedurals, often with quirky detective-types, superheroes and science fiction. I tend to prefer drama over comedy, and scripted over reality. I am aware of various problematic issues surrounding certain shows and their creators, but am trying to not let them influence whether shows make "the list" or not. This isn’t exhaustive (though I am exhausted putting it together), and I’m looking for TV shows that are doing something interesting, however I would define it. I certainly haven’t watched everything, and even missed some big ticket shows, which I note at the end.

    General Observations

    It feels to me like 2024 has been the year of a mini renaissance in network TV. There are far fewer hours for the networks to have to program now due to conceding viewers, ad money and most of the industry to streamers. It also feels like the actors and writers strikes may have had a quantifiable effect. But overall, it feels like after losing ground to streamers over the last few years, producers at the main networks are making a reasonable case for longer season lower budget four quadrant television as a place for some experimentation with the genres and tropes that network TV itself popularized.
    On the streamer side, it feels like Netflix continues to churn mediocre television, with the occasional flash of something interesting. Hulu (in some cases FX on Hulu) seems to be making consistently decent television, even if, like AppleTV+, it is critically successful television that may not necessariily find an audience. Disney+ is the only other prominent streamer that seems to have had a good year in my books, mainly in franchise fare. The remaining streamers each seem to have interesting things going on, but no consistent signs of quality, to me at least. My attention has been spread all around.

    The List

    3 Body Problem (Netflix)

    I understand the appeal of the source material to Benioff and Weiss, and this first season certainly started off strong with interestng sci-fi concepts mixed with sociopolitical issues. The question is whether or not the show can continue to be interesting without being plagued by Benioff and Weiss’s own foibles when they try to fill in source material with their own original work.

    The Acolyte (Disney+)

    I’m never into Star Wars the way I feel like I should be. But this show seemed to play with some interesting concepts, fleshed out the dark side a bit, and had a notably diverse cast that made the show worth at least one watch. I don’t need another season, but it’s a shame that the show isn’t getting one.

    Agatha All Along (Disney+)

    Much like The Acolyte, this is here more to represent the best that Marvel can do at this moment. It makes sense to do a follow-up to Wandavision as one of the more succcesful Marvel shows and this is pretty much the only way to make that happen. Fun and whimsical, with bouts of seriousness and, of course, Patti Lupone. I hope this one gets renewed somehow, but I also can’t pretend that, despite some solid episodes, this show needed to exist or has anything to say about itself or whatever is going on with Marvel right now.

    Batman: Caped Crusader (Amazon Prime)

    I am happy this got to see the light of day. Making essentially an extended visual homage to the animated series with a new Gotham made for a nostalgic series that is a much-needed balm to the diminishing quality of the DC Animated Universe. It’s a shame reception seems to have died down for this one.

    Brilliant Minds (NBC)

    It means something to have Zachary Quinto play a gay doctor and have a relationship with another man that doesn’t call attention to the non-heteronormative nature of that relationship, and to have it play subtly in the background of multiple episodes.

    The Day of the Jackal (Peacock)

    Anything with Eddie Redmayne is a joy to watch, primarily because the man’s default state seems to be visibly in pain. While the show makes me question whether the Jackal knows what he’s doing at all, where the show demonstrates its smooth operations, it is truly a pleasure to watch.

    Elsbeth (Paramount+)

    The character has been softened to be able to function as a lead rather than a quirky recurring. But Carrie Preston is in fine form here, sustaining both The Good Wife and its "high value viewer" appeal and the quirky fish-out-of-water detective type that sustained USA (the network) for so long. Like a higher budget Monk, as Elsbeth subtly (but genially) takes the piss of NYC society. Still love this.

    English Teacher (FX)

    Everything I feel about parts of myself in education, rolled up into one. An acerbic alternative to Abbott Elementary, much gayer, much more skeptical, but ultimately thoughtful and cautiously optimistic.

    Fallout (Amazon Prime)

    Video game adaptations are so hit or miss, but this one feels like quite a hit. At once both a reasonable representation of the video game franchise itself but also with its own take on the absurdity of the apocalypse.

    High Potential (CBS), Matlock (CBS)

    Two strong network procedurals, both entertaining if also requiring some stretching of credulity to overlook their flaws. Each is taking a different path towards balancing the plot of the episode with the plot of the season (or series): where High Potential has sidelined much of its big mystery, Matlock infuses every episode with it. I lean towards High Potential for better plot writing, but then towards Matlock for Kathy Bates and its complex, if often predictable, character dynamics.

    The Sticky (Amazon Prime)

    A late entry into the list. Margo Martindale is always worth a watch. As a recurring or guest actor she elevates everything she is in, and as the lead in this, she brings the things that make her such a great character actor and shapes them into a quirky and compelling lead.

    Sunny (AppleTV+)

    This was interesting at least on a personal level. The plot is interesting, the show is able to sidestep caricaturing Japan by, well, caricaturing Japan. It was also populated by a healthy segment of Japanese TV regulars and used those characters in ways that challenged the actors playing them beyond the characters they often play on Japanese TV. Robots, Japan, YOU, Judy Ongg…I’d prefer this quirky approach over Tokyo Vice any day of the week.

    X-Men ’97 (Disney+)

    Nostalgia, but also reflecting the times in which we live, entwining the X-Men experience more closely with the gay experience and politics. Particularly in the second half of 2024, it’s hard not to want to live vicariously through Magneto and his rejection of human appeasement.

    Gone Too Soon

    • Star Trek: Lower Decks (Paramount+)
    • Evil (Paramount+)
    • Star Trek: Prodigy (Netflix)
    • So Help Me Todd (CBS)

    Continuing TV Seasons of Note

    Shrinking season 2 (AppleTV+)

    Harrison Ford continues to turn in some of the best work of his career.

    Abbott Elementary season 4 (ABC)

    Wild Wild West line dance.

    Last Week Tonight with John Oliver season 11 (Max)

    Millenial-targeted snark, the last of a dying breed of show.

    All Creatures Great and Small season 5 (BBC)

    Comfort.

    Heartstopper season 3 (Netflix)

    Painful, in a good way.

    Emily in Paris season 4 (Netflix)

    Guilty pleasure.

    My Adventures with Superman season 2 (Max)

    I don’t see how James Gunn can beat this.

    The Bear season 3 (Hulu)

    Imperfect but still good. Lisa Colon-Zayas is the not-so-unsung hero of this season once again.

    Interview with the Vampire season 2 (Netflix)

    Guiltily fucked up.

    Will Trent season 2 (ABC)

    Reliable viewing.

    Doctor Who (2023) season 1 (BBC/Disney+)

    Wobbly return for Russell T. Davies but fun to watch that Disney money at work.

    Still on the Watchlist from 2024

    • Baby Reindeer (Netflix)
    • Black Doves (Netflix)
    • The Brothers Sun (Netflix)
    • Constellation (AppleTV+)
    • Grotesquerie (FX)
    • Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance (Netflix)
    • Interior Chinatown (Hulu)
    • Kaos (Netflix)
    • Landman (Paramount+)
    • Like Water for Chocolate (Max)
    • Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Amazon Prime)
    • One Hundred Years of Solitude (Netflix)
    • The Penguin (Max)
    • Ripley (Netflix)
    • Say Nothing (Hulu)
    • Shogun (Hulu)
    • The Sympathizer (Max)
    • Under the Bridge (Hulu)
    • Palm Royale (AppleTV+)

  • Barnes & Noble Sets Itself Free

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    mchan

    The B. Dalton in Orlando is a nice touch.

  • Ted Giola: What Can We Learn from Barnes & Noble’s Surprising Turnaround?

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    mchan

  • Some Reflections on Using Computers in a Non-English Language, in English

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    mchan

    As I’m on the cusp of installing Windows 11 on a new computer–and having to build said computer–I’ve been tasked with hunting down a Japanese version of Windows 11. Microsoft has rarely made this easy, and in recent years border control over software has made other retailers like Amazon Japan, Rakuten, etc. reluctant to ship overseas. I had hoped that purchasing a digital version of Windows 11 and running the Media Creation Tool would allow for easy installation. Unfortunately, not having a current Japanese address or a credit card linked to that address was the obstacle here.

    I can never really tell in this our age of Unicode what differences there might be between a Japanese version of Windows and Windows running a Japanese language pack. Searching the Internet yields some suggestion that it might be possible to install English language Windows, change the region and language, and come out with a feasible equivalent. Possibly altering some settings to force Unicode on legacy Japanese programs would aid in this. Sadly, posts such as the one where I found the tip above seem to suggest that there remain some differences that cannot be accounted for by merely a region change and language pack.

    The population that functions in both English and another language, particularly one that does not rely on the Western alphabet, is not small. But what Microsoft and other tech companies seem to forget is that they exist outside of the mother countries of those languages. Reinforcing region locks and language settings based on country feels outright user hostile at times, particularly as tech workers as a body diversify within the United States, particularly Asian American workers, who are likely to operate in Chinese, Japanese or Korean, among other languages, in addition to English. That isn’t to say that these workers are not served by a language pack and Microsoft’s IME bar, but it’s hard to tell if this actually is sufficient or merely a stopgap measure. It also inconveniences users accustomed to hardware–particularly keyboards–that functions with different layouts and has different language input priorities than the standard US QWERTY keyboard.

    Perhaps the company that, whether consciously or not, has made a point of being equitable from this perspective is Apple. Apple has for a long time sold computers and keyboards on its US website with non-US layouts, and made a point of making macOS function in multiple languages, without the question of whether a different language version would be needed. macOS isn’t macOS English Edition; there aren’t different versions advertised on different region-facing Apple websites. macOS just is what it is, and to complement that, I can purchase an Apple keyboard with whatever keyboard layout I want to go along with it. Even the various iPad keyboards are offered in multiple layouts.

    Nevertheless, Apple itself is not perfect, and perhaps one area where this approach to software and hardware development falters is with Apple Music. Apple Music has truly attempted to get as much music under its umbrella, and surprisingly little of it is actually region restricted. Apple Music’s K-Pop and J-Pop selections are surpringly robust and well-curated.

    That said, Apple Music has a tenuous relationship with song information and language. Frankly, it’s a mess. Using the example of Japanese, most music tracks are romanized and have titles written out phonetically. Occasionally, there will be an album with information written in Japanese script, or an album with song titles in English translation (often soundtracks). It’s never really clear what determines which US equivalents are used when displaying Japanese songs. Popping over onto Japanese Apple Music, everything is displayed properly in Japanese script, so clearly there are some variant titles for different markets built into the Apple Music database.

    This is probably a case of Apple targeting what it believes to be average listeners in this region: those for whom romanized titles would better serve them. For someone who has long curated a large library of local files with titles in Japanese kana, this is a bit of a nuisance. It messes with playing statistics, and confuses Apple Music’s matching function. Apple Music is smart enough to preserve local ID3 data when syncing music to the cloud, thank goodness. But it means that many of the discovery and library features of Apple Music are closed off to users who operate in multiple languages. Creating a playlist of local files and Apple Music files leads to chaos in the song titles. I can’t fault Apple for its choice of priorities, but I do. It feels like the company could at least build in a "display non-Western ID3 information in its language of origin" option into the service.

    I remember the days of Shift JIS and EUC, and what a boon it was when UTF-8 became the majority standard for Japanese language use on the Internet. UTF-8 was supposed to standardize not just Internet use, but also computer input in general. Now, years later, results remain inconclusive.

  • The “Race” to Reinvent the Invasive (“Asian”) Carp

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    mchan

    A recent article in Smithsonian Magazine on the rebranding of the various invasive carp species in the United States (formerly known as the Asian carp and changed for what in hindsight seems like good reason) reminded me of the slow march of this type of environmental change.The prolonged struggle to correct the introduction of these invasive species is a reminder of how even the best of intentions by conscientious people in introducing new species into an area can lead to catastrophic damage to ecosystems.

    As the Smithsonian Magazine article recalls:

    Four species are generally included under the broader invasive carp umbrella, per the U.S. Geological Survey: bighead, black, grass and silver carp. The common carp was introduced in North America in the mid-1800s. But carp began to spread widely when the other four carp species were imported to the United States in the 1960s and ‘70s to eat algae in wastewater treatment plants and aquaculture ponds, as well as to serve as a source of food.
    The fish escaped into the Mississippi River, then continued their spread into other rivers and beyond. Their population grew quickly, and they began to crowd out native fish species, outcompeting them for food (different carp species feed on plants, plankton, on up in size to endangered freshwater snail species). Invasive carp are also thought to lower water quality, which ultimately harms underwater ecosystems and can kill off other native species like freshwater mussels.

    That said, I’ve been thinking about this topic since this Rowan Jacobsen article for Outside magazine way back in 2014, since the subject hits a little closer to home for me location-wise, and it’s been the start of my awareness of what Jacobsen and others term "invasivorism":

    Asian carp, which now fill some Midwestern rivers at the unbelievable density of 13 tons per mile, could feed half of Chicago. The drawback? Their soft flesh and countless bones disgust people. (Bun Lai likens carp anatomy to “a hairbrush smeared with peanut butter.”) An effort to rebrand them as Kentucky tuna somehow failed to take off. Yet, at another Trash Fish Dinner, in Chicago last May, Paul Fehribach of the local Southern-cooking eatery Big Jones got raves for his crispy carp cakes. “Asian carp’s got really sweet meat,” he told me. “It reminds me so much of crab, but without the bottom-feeder funk, so I did it breaded and deep-fried in batter.” Now he’s working on carp fish sticks.

    Invasive carp is a particular interest because it’s always bound up, in the context of its original label of "Asian carp," in a pseudo-jingoistic narrative that Asian cultures, which use chopsticks instead of fork and knife, are uniquely suited to eat these carp species and pick around their intramuscular bones. It’s an uncomfortable area that muddies the lines between Orientalist rhetoric and a legitimate historical technological advantage.

    Jacobsen’s article was initially more interesting because it focused on Bun Lai, the proprietor of MIya’s Sushi in New Haven, and Bun’s attempt to pursue invasivorism also poked at some of diners’ preexisting notions of "tradition" and "culture" in fine dining (I certainly remember that Miya’s had its mix of successes and failures among its food selections). But the discussion of invasive carp stayed with me until I saw Atlas Obscura pick up the topic again in 2018 in its discussion of Philippe Parola, a chef attempting the first rebranding of the fish as the "silverfin" and attempting to market it as a foodstuff:

    So far, it seems to be going well. The carp Parola uses is caught from waterways in Mississippi, Illinois, and Louisiana, and the latter two states have supported his efforts. Two facilities in Louisiana process the fish; then, it’s shipped to Vietnam, where it’s made into crabcake-like patties, sidestepping carp’s bony problem, and shipped back. Including fishermen, Silverfin Group, Inc. currently employs around 100 people, Parola says. They’ve already netted a big customer: SYSCO, America’s largest food distributor. Silverfin cakes will be served at restaurants, and they already debuted at a University of Illinois luncheon.

    Reading back over it, it’s clear from the article (and from Silverfin’s website) that despite the company’s best intentions, its scope is limited. Which makes continued efforts like the new 2022 rebranding effort by Illinois not the final salvo, but one among many future endeavors to try to control invasive carp.

  • Barnes & Noble’s strategy bears fruit

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    mchan

    Following up on my earlier post, it looks like changes are starting to take shape:

    How Barnes & Noble Went From Villain to Hero (2022.04/18)

    Despite all this, sales in Barnes & Noble stores were up 3 percent last year over their prepandemic performance in 2019. The growth came the old-fashioned way, said James Daunt, the company’s chief executive: by selling books, which were up 14 percent.

    …

    [Daunt] repeated that approach at Barnes & Noble. While orders for locations around the country used to be placed by a central office in New York, today a diminished central office places just a minimum order for new books, leaving store managers free to choose whether to bring in more copies based on local sales.

    “I get all the glory, but actually what I’m doing is getting out of people’s way and letting them run decent bookstores,” Mr. Daunt said. “All the work goes on on the shop floor.”

    …

    The company’s reorganization has not been painless. The central office staff is half of what it was, Mr. Daunt estimated. Much of that reduction came through layoffs, including many book buyers as their duties shifted to local stores.

    But a smaller central staff has allowed the company to give up expensive New York City office space. The remaining staff works out of two floors in Barnes & Noble’s flagship building on Union Square in Manhattan, which the company was already renting.

  • A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

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    mchan

    Happy 2021. It’s possible that this bet was decided incorrectly.

  • Barnes & Noble’s new revitalization strategy

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    mchan

    Trying to put this site to some active use. Here’s a thread I’ve been following for a bit.

    Barnes & Noble’s New Plan Is to Act Like an Indie Bookseller (2020.03/04)

    Four CEOs have helmed Barnes & Noble in the past five years, two of them with mass-market retail experience—at Staples Inc. and Sears Holdings Corp. They sought to standardize Barnes & Noble’s network of shops into a single, transposable model—a national blueprint for how books should be sold everywhere. [James Daunt] aims to undo that work, spending three weeks per month in New York running Barnes & Noble. He wants to encourage booksellers to arrange their local window displays with titles that will be relevant to the shoppers passing by. “Anybody will know that people don’t read the same way in Birmingham, Alabama, as they do in New York City,” he says.

    ‘Barnes & Noble? It’s a big mess’: Waterstones boss James Daunt on bestsellers and plans in the US (2020.02/06)

    This is going to mean a bit of short-term pain in terms of sales. “We had a pretty awful Christmas over here,” [Daunt] admits. “But that was because there are parts that I’ve abandoned.”
    Ultimately he hopes the plan will work on both sides of the pond, noting that there are only minimal differences between American and British customers. “From what I’ve seen, we all read the same way.”

    Can Britain’s Top Bookseller Save Barnes & Noble? (2019.08/08)

    Barnes & Noble flailed, in part, because it contested Amazon’s turf, investing heavily in e-commerce and losing more than $1 billion on the Nook, a competitor to the Kindle. Waterstones has spruced up its website “on a shoestring,” Mr. Daunt said, and it now accounts for 5 percent of sales.
    But the company has largely persisted by selling the pleasure of bookstores first and books second. Because if a store is charming and addictive enough, goes Mr. Daunt’s theory, buying a book there isn’t just more pleasant. The book itself is better than the same book bought online.

    Balancing the books: how Waterstones came back from the dead (2017.02/03)

    With a mixture of tough love and an unshakeable belief in the power of the physical book, which seemed quixotic in the era of e-readers and online discounting, Daunt began to turn things around. He closed underperforming stores and fired 200 booksellers, at the same time as declaring that his managers would be given back responsibility for their own stock, because what sold in Hampstead might not go down well in the Highlands. One of his boldest moves was to inform publishers that he would no longer do business through sales reps and they could no longer buy window space – which meant turning his back on £27m a year.
    Inevitably, five years of such radical change has left some feeling disgruntled. “There’s been a massive restructuring of staff and the way stores are run so the wage bill has dropped drastically over the years,” said the bookseller. “Most of the managers I know have left, taking redundancy. When I left my old store, there were six full-timers; now there are three.”

  • Hello World

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    mchan