Category: media

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The Things I’ve Seen (August 2024 Edition)

As I’ve done previously, I thought I’d post a list of things I’ve seen in the last while. All of these can be found on major streaming services.

Plan B

Produced for CBC, (streaming locally on Gem) Plan B is a well-made drama with a sci-fi twist. The premise in each season (note: the seasons’ storylines aren’t linked so you don’t need to watch them in order) is the discovery of a phone-in service called Plan B, which — after you submit your payment information — can take you back to an earlier sequence of your life, allowing you to re-live (and re-adjust) your timeline.

The show does a lot without a big budget. It helps that the writing is solid and the premise, rather than being dreamy, often ends up only creating more domestic ethical and moral conundrums for its characters than it solves. This is gritty, grown-up speculative drama (see: Black Mirror, Twilight Zone) that will invite a lot of questions from the viewer about the ways “control” can be addictive to those who are insecure, or indulge our need for justice in ways that goes beyond the grasp of our intent. I found the just-released second season more compelling, but I would recommend the series as a whole.

Time Bandits

I was not particularly interested in watching this, despite multiple critics giving it praises. I’m skeptical of producers taking my childhood memories and rehashing them for the next generation. Discovering that Taika Waititi was behind the series budged the needle a bit. Then there was finding out from my partner, just as I was sitting down to watch it, the controversy over one actor’s on-set experiences during the production of the show. So yes, mixed feelings going in.

While the first episode contains a lot of promise and is definitely the comedically sharpest of what I watched, it’s a case of diminishing returns afterwards. There are some genuine moments of whimsy and satire, and Easter eggs for Python fetishists, but it ends up overly plot-driven with surprisingly little-to-no interest in character development or relationship building. Less surprisingly, Waititi himself is cast but feels inserted just to fill the running time by chewing the scenery. I’ll note that this was made to include a younger viewership, so it’s possible some jokes I thought were basic might land better with children. We stopped after four episodes.

The Lady in the Lake

Based on a novel by Laura Lippman, The Lady in the Lake features Natalie Portman in her first major TV role. The series revolves around two murders in Baltimore in the 60s, the first being a young girl found by the river. This draws-in two narratives from two very different parts of the city. The first is through Portman’s character, a smothered Jewish housewife who is frustrated by the oppressiveness of her social circle and coming to terms with the sacrifices she’s made. The second is by Moses Ingram (who you may recognize from The Queen’s Gambit), a Black single mother who works as a window display model when she’s not making money on the side at the local gambling house.

The lives of the two leads intertwine (albeit in different timelines) as Porter leaves her husband and resentful son, and moves into an apartment in a Black inner-city neighbourhood as she begins a journalistic pursuit of the girl’s murderer. Ingram’s thread is certainly the more propulsive of the two, as she tries to balance municipal political disappointments with supporting her stand-up comedian husband, with everything centred on a nightclub run by a powerful racketeer. There’s a writerly attempt here to draw a parallel between the shared experience of two women oppressed by their circumstances, both of whom must ultimately rely on their persistence and resourcefulness. However, this shared experience can sometimes feel a little like wishful thinking given the fact that there are significant socioeconomic differences between both characters, despite both in their own way paddling up-river in a male-dominated society. Ingram’s stakes are also much higher: she may be the Lady of the title.

There’s a lot going on in this show and certainly maintains a novel-y feel to it. I don’t know what it is about jazz clubs and films / shows that want to be a lot more than they are, because while The Lady in the Lake captures the politics and culture of its era and sports a good cast, the overall telling of the story can feel uneven, despite being a twisty and intimate glimpse of a different time.

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Notes on a Film

I suppose this is a gratitude post, but my friend Marcos, whom I went to film school with, recently received a Canada Council grant to make an independent film, which is super-exciting. Not only because of his getting the grant but because he was able to make an hour-long project that he’s been sitting on for quite a while, which (at least I think) spoke to both his interests speaking from the perspective of someone who for a several years worked as a journalist in Peru in the volatile 80s and 90s, as well as someone who regularly can be seen around the neighbourhood we share, setting up a tripod with a Bolex, shooting whatever shorts he manages to make on his own time. In other words, it’s nice to see people who “put in the work” be rewarded.

The reason I write about this is that he recently sent me a cut of the film in question, looking for feedback. And it wasn’t until I watched it and began to think critically about it that I was transported back to my time at Rhombus Media (2002-2007). While I was there I would regularly be handed VHS tapes (and subsequently DVDs) of whatever documentaries, TV shows and feature films were being worked on at the time. I may not have been paid particularly well (we won’t go there) but I was exposed to so much and — importantly, I think — treated as someone whose opinion people there respected. This combination can in some circumstances be exploitative, but — at least about the feedback notes — I had no doubt they appreciated the perspective.

As I sat down to write my reflections and recommendations on my friend’s film, I began thinking about sound design, colour correction, and picture editing in ways — functional, aesthetic, creative — I honestly haven’t tapped into that deeply for the better part of seventeen years. It was a great exercise for me (not to mention helpful for Marcos, I hope). I say this because it’s one thing to sit and watch a random movie and Have Thoughts about it, but another altogether to have to put into words, clearly and constructively, how someone might go about making improvements: things that slow the pacing too much, cutaways that don’t necessary make visual sense, establishing shots that seem orphaned from what it is they’re attempting to establish. It’s a skill that, with surprisingly little effort, I was able to tap into, and I felt very gratified to have been offered the opportunity to do so, and to be reminded that the twenty odd years I spent in the industry, starting at the bottom of the ladder in TV commercials as an assistant editor/gofer and walking away after working on the SAW series as a post supervisor, wasn’t for nothing (or at least only collecting stories to tell at parties).

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Interview: The First Thirty, courtesy of Junction Reads

This is super last-minute, and I apologize for the late notice, however tomorrow (!) I’m going to be interviewed live (!) on Instagram. Junction Reads is an established (since 2014) Toronto reading series that brings attention to so many great authors. I’m going to take part in Junction Reads’ cool offshoot, The First Thirty, which is designed around speaking with authors about — you guessed it — how the first thirty pages of their published work came about.

From their website:

Writers know, and readers too, the first pages are the most important in any novel, memoir or story. And I want to talk about it.

The First Thirty is an Instagram Live series where I will meet authors for a quick chat (30 minutes) to talk about writing, and how they shape those first pages to be a warm welcome to the reader; to include the hook that makes a reader want to keep reading, and to give us the characters we either want to love or really hate.

You can hear me talk about my latest novel, Radioland, tomorrow (Monday, May 27th) night @ 7pm EST on Instagram by tuning-in to @junctionreads!

UPDATE: You can watch the interview here. I’m really impressed with the depth of Alison’s questions and if this is the last bit of promotion I do for Radioland then I’m happy to have it be this.

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Goodbye April

I haven’t had the opportunity to post here, however I hadn’t realized that it was over a month since posting something substantial. I wouldn’t say that there’s anything different going on in my life, so much as that, upon reflection, perhaps I’m spending a bit more time seeking comfort where I need it.

I got back into a martial art that I started before the pandemic, called baguazhang, or simply bagua (pron. bahg-wah). It’s a little idiosyncratic compared to more mainstream forms like karate, taekwondo or BJJ. I’d say it’s somewhere between what we in the West call “kung fu” (external) and tai chi (internal). Let’s just say there’s a lot of walking in circles. That said, I needed something that allowed me to move/train my body in a way that was different than going to the gym or distance running, which can feel static. Bagua is anything but static. Also, crucially, the very place that teaches it is literally across the street from my office in Chinatown. It centres me and its choreography is demanding enough without the more wild kung fu-style kicks etc. It’s also nice to do this with other people — something I was also sorely needing (ie a form of socializing that wasn’t chatting with someone at a pub)

I also started Book Four (I know, I know), which is coming along. I can’t really say much about it because it’s very early, however I’m liking its shape. What’s funny is that my previous long-form entry here was about not wanting to be stuck with Author/Psychotherapist in publicity material…and yet the protagonist of Book Four is exactly that. It’s also nice working on a book where the protagonist is a woman. Radioland had two protagonists — male and female — and The Society of Experience had an intermittent female narrative in the form of Seneca’s diaries, however I’m looking forward to keeping things female this time around. Book Three is in revision-mode now, for the last round I think.

I’m trying to keep myself informed of what’s going on in the world, but the world is too big and there’s too much. I think the curse of social media is that there are so many perspectives on so many things that it can be paralyzing to even log-in some days, so currently I’m not. I’m very thankful that I re-subscribed to the London Review of Books this past summer because their coverage of what’s happening in Gaza is extensive and authoritative, without the self-censorship or bad faith arguments that have poisoned coverage of this conflict in much of the mainstream media. I’m not a prolific magazine subscriber, however I can’t help but think of how lucky I felt when I happened to subscribe to Harper’s just prior to the towers falling on 9/11, the drums beating towards a disastrous war. Reading informed, well-written arguments isn’t going to stop the worst of humanity from manifesting, but at least I can form my opinion from a source that isn’t compromised by a fear of spooking advertisers or an editor casting a dark shadow over someone’s shoulder.

Yes, and reading. Lots of reading. Let’s see…Labyrinths (a collection of Jorge Luis Borges stories and essays), Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World (which is fabulous), The Rigor of Angels by William Egginton and Audit Culture: How Indicators and Rankings are Reshaping the World by Cris Shore and Susan Wright.

I hope this finds you well.

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What You Do vs What You Write

I had the occasion to be asked to do an interview with a Canadian podcaster recently, which I agreed to without hesitation. Firstly, their independently-produced program seemed perfectly legit, and secondly (more pragmatically) there are so many authors chasing interviews and fewer and fewer venues to provide exposure that — all combined — the decision was a no-brainer. That said, the week leading up to the interview my partner asked what I was going to be interviewed about. I had just assumed I’d been chosen based on my being a published author of two novels (etc), however she raised a good question: was it going to centre on my day job?

A backgrounder…

When I was preparing for the publication of Radioland in 2022 I felt more comfortable, perhaps because the book’s characters expressed behaviours of those who are traumatized, making mention of my day job in the lead-up promotional material. My day job, for those who don’t know, is as a Registered Psychotherapist in private practice. It didn’t seem to hurt to make mention of this, insofar as, personally and professionally, I was writing from a place of understanding. So, when the interview requests began to roll in — and believe me, as an author with an indie publisher, I’m grateful for every opportunity I get — I began to notice that, within the interest of Radioland and myself as its author, there was inevitably a tie-in question about my being a psychotherapist.

Some of the interest in my day job was matter-of-fact; there are few writers out there (who are not independently wealthy) who can get by doing this full-time. I had no issues with the professional curiosity. But, overall, a feeling began to grow that — in the way the questions were phrased — my existence as an author and the responsibilities of my day job seemed to be artificially stitched together. A particularly egregious suggestion — one I’ve had to field privately before, even from other writers in casual conversation — was whether I was ever tempted to use my clients’ material for my fiction. I’ve been able to handle this respectfully before, but I find this question offensive. First off, would they ask a lawyer or doctor this question? Well…some people still would, actually. However, most discouragingly, was the idea that I would wholesale take confidential client material and use it for my own creative purposes. Needless to say, this would be not only unethical but illegal.

“I’ve been able to handle this respectfully before […] but I find this question offensive. First off, would they ask a lawyer or doctor this question? Well…some people still would, actually. However, most discouragingly, was the idea that I would wholesale take confidential client material and use it for my own creative purposes.“

But there’s a more pernicious concern that developed in the way in which my day job was mentioned in the same breath as my work as an author. In the back of my head was this fear that my book was being portrayed as Good For You (because it’s written by a psychotherapist, right?), that it would thus contain Life Lessons based on Wellness Knowledge. In other words, that it was didactic and prescriptive. Radioland, in both form and intent, couldn’t be further from this, and the steady conflation I experienced between what I did for a living and what I wrote bothered the hell out of me as a result. I also didn’t want to be ghettoized, as some can be, where their non-medically-oriented books are quickly forgotten about.

I realize I bear some naive responsibility for providing this information initially, and yet I feel like it can’t be overstated: I am not my job. I am not my fiction. Of course there’s going to be a whole lot of Venn shared by my interests, my work and my writing output — I would probably be an anomaly if that wasn’t the case. But here’s the important part: what I write is not the product of a psychotherapist so much as that my choice to change careers 12+ years ago was the product of the same person who’s been writing since he was a kid. What I won’t allow myself to be is pigeon-holed, and so, coming back to the podcast interview I had scheduled, I prepared a brief statement which I planned to make if I felt that the same conflation was about to occur. To my relief, the interviewer focused almost solely on my writing with only a brief acknowledgement of my day job, with no attempt to draw the two together (note: I haven’t listened to the final, edited interview yet, which won’t be available for a few weeks). There is always hope.

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The Things I’ve Seen

alley view, south of Queen West

There’s a lot going on in the world, which accumulatively makes it difficult to address in a way that doesn’t sound glib or vague, so I’m going to keep this about the things I’ve been watching on streaming services lately.

The Pigeon Tunnel

Errol Morris (Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War) directs a documentary about author John le Carré? What’s not to like? Well, as someone who is an unabashed fan of both, I found the result to be perplexingly unsatisfying. It’s a near continuous interview with Le Carré (whose real name is David Cornwell), interspersed with research clippings, biographical re-enactments, and clips from (mostly BBC) adaptations of Le Carré’s work over the past 50+ years. Unlike their individual works, it simply never rises above what is a rather pedestrian affair. Plodding, lifeless, and visually uninteresting. It felt as if Morris went into this under the impression that, like Robert McNamara in The Fog of War, he would be able to peel away Le Carré’s defences and force him to confront the betrayals and complicities of a former low-level spy whose father was a serial con-man. It doesn’t happen, and it’s somewhat telegraphed right at the beginning when Le Carré addresses the art of interrogation. Morris, it seems, is simply unable to extract anything amounting to a confession or unguarded moment — I had to ask myself whether he’s ever interviewed an Englishman before. It’s also not lost on me that, given the author’s sons and estate weigh heavily in the production credits, there might have been some political interference also. Strictly for fans only.

The Fall of the House of Usher

I like what Mike Flanagan has done with mainstream TV horror. Starting with The Haunting of Hill House, he’s been able to assemble a troupe of performers in order to tell, in ways both chilling and accessible, stories that rise above their reference material (Shirley Jackson, Henry James and in the current case, Edgar Allan Poe) in order to address human connection, family bonds, and spiritual faith. Even efforts that are so-so (The Haunting of Bly Manor) have their moments of sharp observation, and his cast is typically strong. The Fall of the House of Usher follows suit and is undeniably stronger than Bly and more relevant (via its unmistakable reference to the fentanyl crisis sparked by the Sackler family and Purdue Pharmaceuticals) and engaging than Hill House. I still think the vampire drama Midnight Mass is his best work, but Usher has a lot going for it (for one, it doesn’t have MM‘s monologues). There’s an unfortunate tendency throughout the series which seems to correlate sexuality with corruption of character, but at the same time — unlike Hill House‘s very American family-first romanticism — it takes no prisoners. Nice to see Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood as the patriarch of a fate-ridden family.

Infinity Pool

I finally got around to seeing this (note: this is the director’s cut) and I was blown away by it. It’s my first time watching the work of Brandon Cronenberg, and while it’s hard not to remark on the body horror that it shares in common with his father’s oeuvre, it very much stands on its own. Its story about an aimless author riding the coattails of his wealthy wife, who falls into increasingly bizarre and existentially terrifying events involving a group of mysterious tourists he meets at an exclusive resort is as hypnotic as it is nightmarish. There is some excellent world-building here (the resort is in a fictional country with its own customs and language, which adds to the tension), and Alexander Skarsgård is solid as the self-involved protagonist who catches on too late to what is happening as he’s enmeshed in a series of violent incidents that are punctuated by hallucinogenic orgies. The standout here, however, is Mia Goth, who plays one of the fellow tourists who draws Skarsgård into a web of deception. She is at turns alluring and terrifying. Not everything makes sense here, but it stops (thankfully) at being too clever for its own good. Note: the director’s cut is much more explicit, fyi.

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Too Much Freedom

I’ve been piecing together something recently, or rather I’ve been doing it very passively for the last few years.

There’s something I took from a controversy from years ago. It was during the conversation that was happening about the voice of Apu (first started through the documentaryThe Problem With Apu, then followed by a rather wilting Simpsons episode in response). I don’t want this particular controversy to necessarily be a centrepiece of what I’m trying to get out, and yet it might be so that’s why I don’t want to jettison it entirely.

The thing I took was from a response by Matt Groening to the suggestion that Apu’s depiction was outdated and/or even racist. “[…] I think it’s a time in our culture where people love to pretend they’re offended.” (link to larger USA Today interview).

I’m not sure what Matt Groening’s technical role description is today, but in the beginning he was counter-culture. All you need to do is look at some of his Life In Hell strips to get that picture. He knew how to tweak the nose of authority with a deeply humanistic empathy for the severe consequences that come with authoritarianism and fascism. The Simpsons gave him a larger canvas, first as an experiment/time-filler on The Tracey Ullman Show, then when it had its own TV slot, which it proceeded to…well, it’s such a ubiquitous cultural product that any summary seems trite, doesn’t it?

I was deeply disappointed by Groening’s dismissal at the time, and something about it has been eating at me. It was a mark (if not a casual philosophy) of a type of individual who was speaking from a place of disproportionate comfort: money, power, influence, achievement, cultural impact. And what he was suggesting was that we were the ones with too much: accommodation, choices, ideas. And that by virtue of this we were the thin-skinned ones. He might as well have said — and I swear that Groening did say this, but I must’ve inserted it into my memory because it’s not part of any response of his at the time — that this was a case of “too much freedom”.

There’s a great irony to this dismissive sentiment, and it’s something I largely see perniciously emulated in right-of-centre cultural criticism: these people [children, racialized individuals, the systemically disadvantaged, etc] have it easy, and maybe if they worked harder they would shut up and enjoy their life. And I guess this is where I’m doing some mental wrestling because I actually feel there is too much freedom, but, rather instead of it manifesting in some nightmare of political correctness (waiting for that any day now btw), I’m seeing it in the form of the anti-vax movement, the so-called “freedom convoy” movement, the indisputable rise of far-right militarism under our noses, denial of climate catastrophe and people who demonstratively don’t understand what 5G is.

I’m tempted to ask: are these just two sides of the same “too much freedom” coin? If so, what’s on the other side, because it feels like a bullshit piece of bothside-ism to frame it as such. Is the answer truly you can’t have any progress towards a more just society without a carte blanche allowance for the worst of humanity also?

Separately — just sayin’ — supposing we could, how would we go about lessening “freedom”…without that being a flaming giant untenable nightmare-in-the-making [insert ghost of Stalin]?

I’m tempted to ask: are these just two sides of the same “too much freedom” coin? If so, what’s on the other side, because it feels like a bullshit piece of bothside-ism to frame it as such. Is the answer truly you can’t have any progress towards a more just society without a carte blanche allowance for the worst of humanity also?

I’d be happy to live in a society where my neighbour is a conspiracy freak. To each their own. But when the conspiracy freak starts vandalizing public infrastructure and sowing wider social chaos for beliefs that — political ideology aside — are unfounded or delusional, then part of me sometimes wonders whether there is too much freedom. I’m not talking about being inconvenienced by traffic due to a protest. I’m talking about something like Jan 6th. I’m talking about not just freedom to be stupid, but an enabling of stupid, a metastasizing of stupid as freedom gives it more license. I can’t help but want to tie this into what I think a big part of the problem is: where we get our information, and who/where we get it from. The thought being not that there’s a central source of misinformation/distortion that needs to be regulated (or vanquished), but rather — yes, you saw this coming — social media.

Anyways, I need to leave and come back to this … I’ll either tack onto the end or start something later…

[quick insert] But here’s the thing: social media is just a messaging service; McLuhanism aside, within the context of what I’m talking about, the social medium isn’t the message(s). I also want to avoid a reductionist approach that is hyper-focused on seeking a singular villain, and leave room for complexity and randomness, the stuff that keeps us from convincing ourselves that patterns, just because we notice them, have to be something (causal, intentional) outside of themselves.

(to be continued)

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The Big November Update

Holy cow, what a month. I’m sitting here at a sports bar (using their wifi) half-exhausted from everything that’s transpired since my last post here.

me at the launch

The launch for RADIOLAND went great and was well attended!

You can stream my interview with CBC Toronto’s Gill Deacon to assess whether I made any sense (I think I did, though I was very nervous being on live radio).

Speaking of radio interviews, I just completed a wonderful interview with Jamie Tennant for CFMU’s Get Lit. It’s not going to be available until mid-December, but I’ll let y’all know when that happens!

Last but not least…I have a giveaway of sorts. For my launch I decided to do something special and had custom guitar picks made, which I distributed to those who purchased my book. Guess what? I have some left over! So, while quantities last (I’ve never typed that before and it feels weird), if you get in touch and provide a photo of your copy of RADIOLAND (or proof of purchase) I will mail you one of these! Seriously! You can either DM via Twitter (@heymattcahill) or you can email me (matt at mattcahill dot ca).

I’m planning on taking a little time off to regroup (and catch up on my reading!) but I’m planning on getting back into Book Three in December and hopefully deliver the goods in 2023. Take care, and thanks for popping by!

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September Update

Regular visitors have probably been frustrated with the lack of updates here. So have I. The truth is that I’ve been swamped with doing the finishing touches on Radioland…and taking care of an ailing parent. I cannot express how exhausting the last while has been, on so many personal levels.

The good news is that, as of Friday, I signed-off on the last of the changes to the manuscript. It is, for all intents and purposes, out of my hands…which is both satisfying and frightening.

I finally have had time to update my website as well as post an update here (and add Radioland to the sidebar links). My next task is to gird myself for publicity, which I’m both excited for…and intimidated af. If there’s one thing I need to work on it’s getting out of my Writer Head and speaking about the book so that someone who isn’t in my head can understand what it’s actually about, which would be easier if I hadn’t written a fairly complex novel. There are worse problems.

Also…

(CBC Books 2022 fall fiction picks)

I should mention that Radioland was picked as one of CBC Books fall fiction titles!

Anyhoo, I hope to be here more regularly.

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