Pynchon on the Brain

Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon's newest book, is due for release in less than a month. Like Bleeding Edge before it, I'll be heading across town on the release date to get a copy in my hands. 

I was planning on starting a rereading of Vineland on the eve of the release of "One Battle After Another," the PTA movie based loosely on said book.

I'm planning on seeing it either by my onesie or with Corrie, who read most of, if not all, of Vineland back in 2012-ish.

I'm getting a presentation ready to send off for submittal for the International Pynchon Week 2026, which will be held in Dortmund:

Also, since I'm here with these thoughts on the brain, I should mention a few Pynchon-tangential items. First, two books (maybe I'll send Stone Junction along with Norm this Decemberween):

Pynchon wrote the intro to Stone Junction, and Matthiessen was one of Pynchon's favorite authors. I loved both of these books. Stone Junction is a roller coaster of Pynchonian batshittery, while Shadow Country is an unmitigated masterpiece about the nature of America and the ability of literature.

And one last thing, the movie "Under the Silver Lake:"

This was the most-Pynchon-movie that wasn't a Pynchon story that I can remember. Check out the trailer here to make your own determination. I'd like to watch it again and discuss it (didn't I already do that?). In any case, along with PTA's "Inherent Vice," "Under the Silver Lake" exists as a Pynchonian-curio, both happy under the same umbrella.

Pythagoras Day

I guess calling today "Pythagoras Day" is as good as anything, since it's a mathematically beautiful day. The date, either in the US (9/16/25) or everywhere else in the world (16/9/25), has the common rendition of the year as the sum of the day and the month: 9+16=25. 

I mention Pythagoras because he was a Greek intellectual and school-founder who's name has been attached to an ancient theorem about the sums of the squares of the two smaller sides of a right triangle being the same as the square of the longest side. Remember: a² + b² = c² ?

So, eh, today is like, 3²/ 4²/ 5², which us math heads find enjoyable.

From the "Whoa' Files

Um...at the Aquarium of the Pacific...

My boy looks like such a little, er, man. When did this happen?

We all went a bike ride the day before the car accident with Camille, and apparently it was cloudy that afternoon. I remember her looking pretty big for her bike that day, but that bike has since been dumpsterized. And she rides and rides...
 

Thoughts on Disney's "Wish"

I started this a few days back, and in my rare spare moments returned to the open laptop tab to keep my thoughts going (not unlike my mother's letters, I suppose). I didn't particularly like this movie, but I also don't have the hate-on for this movie. And, I didn't mean for this to turn into a treatise...but here we are.

I finally sat and watched Disney's most recent original story Wish from start to finish. And, since the kids put on Moana 2 while I did kitchen work, we finally caught up to the current time with the Disney animated feature cannon.

It seems to be popular to rip Wish online, and probably in person, too, but I don't spend time talking about these Disney movies to people unrelated to me. Some people like the songs; some people hate the songs...

Wish was written by the Boss-lady of Animation as a celebration of the Disney cannon, and as possibly a wish-upon-a-star origin story...and if that sounds preposterous, it's because it kinda is. 

When I first saw the trailer, I thought the animation of the Alan Tudyk-voiced baby goat (snort)(that's a plus for me) looking 2D while everything else looked 3D...or a mix...?...anyway, I thought it was interesting. I wasn't immediately turned off. If they're trying to celebrate the centennial legacy, a mix of 2D and 3D animation wasn't a terrible idea.

Okay...Rosas is the name of the Mediterranean island kingdom in the movie, and Asha, the heroine, is of Afro-Iberian heritage, marking a first for the studio. She has fair skin, freckles, hazel eyes, and long braids. She's 17 years old and has an interview set up to apprentice with the magical king, Magnifico. This king is voiced by Chris Pine because they needed someone charming and personable, because he's certainly a little off, but it needs to be believable that he could be put in power.

So...so far so good?

Now it starts to go sideways. The magical conceit/magical currency are wishes, core pieces/spiritual fire/manifestations of dreams/whatever you want to call it---your spark, your inner fire, your wish---and once you turn 18 you can hand it over to Magnifico for safe keeping. He'll pull it out of you, where it gets encased in glass, and floats up to join the other wishes he cares for and watches over in the upper levels of the castle. In exchange for handing over your wish, you get to forget what it was, and forget the possible disappointment of never achieving it. Every once in a while, he'll grant a wish, give someone the chance to have their wish granted, and this wish-granting ceremony is what keeps the people excited about this arrangement...I guess...

While handing over your wish doesn't seem mandatory, it seems like everyone in Rosas, once of age, does it. 

And because Magnifico is...not infallible, he decides which wishes are best for Rosas, and the granting of which wishes becomes an issue, because some wishes are deemed too dangerous for Rosas as a whole. Instead of "redistribution of wishes," think more "wants to play guitar for friends." This is where Magnifico's slip shows. The issue is both deep and creepy.

It's this central conflict that I think people complain about when they set up shop of "Eff-Wish Island." It's...weird. 

Something else to mention is that the stakes are, frankly, very low. Asha wants to save her grandpa's wish, and her mom's wish. She's not trying to save the world, or stop an evil king---even if it goes in that direction eventually---her motivation is to make her mom and grandpa happier, since giving up your wish has the unintended consequence of you feeling a bit lost.

There are no love interests for Asha---cool, no problems there, since we have Elsa and Vanellope and Moana and Maribel in the same boat---but her friend list is long, as we essentially don't get to know them. There are seven of them---shout out to Snow White---and while there's potential there, the execution of getting to know them falls short.

One spot the online community was divided on was the music. Some people love the main song and sang it to their newborns (per their own reportage). Some people think the songs are garbage because they're too vague because they were written before the script was done. I thought (1) there were too many songs, but I generally don't like musicals so there's a bias (it did feel like there were a lot); and (2) I couldn't make out the words, so I couldn't tell how generic they were, but I generally struggle with making out the words as it is anyway, so, whatever.

I guess that animation deal---the mix of 2D and 3D animation styles---was not a conscious decision as much as a fight between timing and cost and animation department personnel, which sounds like a "production from hell" issue.

One idea I also wanted to state, and that I told Corrie about when we talked about it, was that in my time working with teenagers, the teenagers by and large would have very little grasp on a dream or a wish or an inner fire that stokes your spirit, a wish to be able to give up for safe keeping once the age of 18 is reached. I think that the belief of the movie, or its writers---that the connection of your dreams/wishes to your drive to be successful---is lost on the core audience. 

The teens I know would not be able to identify with this idea, and won't be able to for a few more years at least. A certain level of maturity is needed to to feel deeply the connection between what drives you and how meaningful it is. Who are you? What do you want to do in this world? How can you get there? How can you motivate yourself to keep the sustained effort needed for that? These teenagers would struggle with every aspect of each of those questions.

In the end, Magnifico realizes what kind of power he can harness if he steals and absorbs the wishes, and the third act conflict is set up.

I never got the sense that it wouldn't work out for Asha; I never felt like the stakes were very dire; I thought the whole premise was supremely weird, and I haven't even mentioned the tiny star character that Asha made appear when she literally wished upon a star; I felt the friends were underdeveloped; and while I harbor no opinion of the quality of the songs, I felt like there were too many.

But, really, I felt like the exact same sentence could be written for Moana 2 (save for the star character). And while I do have some critical issues, I still don't hate the movie. I can see how it may have failed to find an audience, or failed to speak to the audience it was designed to cater to. That happens often in the collaborative arts industry.

One thing I just thought of is it seems like the producers made a movie for the kids that they were 30 years back instead of the kids we have today. Thanks social media!

It is pretty to look at, which is often the case with these movies. Is it worth hating?

Seriously? Masked gestapo gangsters are scooping up brown people off the street and sending them away---for misdemeanors!---and a silly imperfect movie with issues gets you all angry?

Labor Day 2025

I was invited (for the dozenth year) and attended for the second time, the Wilmington Labor Day Parade. Wilmington is a community near u sin the southland that was absorbed into LA proper and is built, by and large, by the longshoremen.

They're told that attendance in the parade is mandatory. How true that is...eh, anyway, when you unload a quarter-of-a-trillion dollars worth of goods every year, you get some power. And the pride in being part of the organized, unionized worker group, shines through in their days, as in: it's believable that participation in the parade could be mandatory.

Anyway, the first time I went I took Cassius. It was a good time. This time I brought both kids:

But the sun was out, and the air was thick with moisture. When did we move to the Everglades?

As the walking went along, the kids' dedication began to wane.

Prez Cecily was there, too...

As did mine, since I had Camille on my shoulders, and she was wearing a red gown...because what else should you wear to a Labor Day Parade march?

Somewhere along the walk we decided to peel off and head back, having saved a ton of chores for the off-day Monday, Plus, the heat and humidity was a serious drag.

Also, fun observation: I feel like there were far more people involved in the parade than watching the parade. Like...a lot more...between all the different unions and marching bands, it was pretty wild.

Kid's Magazine Cover

I've mentioned before about how many magazines we get (a lot), and the other day one showed up and my eyebrows raised when I saw the cover:

So...we get both Highlights and High Five---essentially the same magazine but for two age groups---as well as Ranger Rick and Ranger Rick Jr...which is basically the same scenario. So, this Ranger Rick Jr, above, has as a center piece article, a profile of different animals with cool head jazz, if you will.

It looks at moose, and roosters, and various beetles, and...well, that cover bird. When I got the magazine out of our mailbox, with the freaking cassowary on the cover, I said, "Whoa!" A cassowary on the cover of a little kid's magazine? 

Cassowaries are generally seen as the most dangerous bird, responsible for many of the serious injuries incurred by birds. Cassowaries, in the wild, rarely encounter humans, but when they do...look the hell out!

Charm of Yesterday, Convenience of Tomorrow

Ah, yes...

We have a Gallup "spot."