“Now let us take our ease here for a little!” said Aragorn. “We will sit on the edge of ruin and talk, as Gandalf says, while he is busy elsewhere. I feel a weariness such as I have seldom felt before.” He wrapped his grey cloak about him, hiding his mail-shirt, and stretched out his long legs. Then he lay back and sent from his lips a thin stream of smoke.
“Look!” said Pippin. “Strider the Ranger has come back!”
“He has never been away,” said Aragorn. “I am Strider and Dúnadan too, and I belong both to Gondor and the North.”
–The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, “Flotsam and Jetsam”

Is real life actually happening all the time? And can you be the same person through all of it?

I wondered these things, weaving in and out of the noise and lights of a Bengaluru night, sitting very close in a tuk-tuk with people I met just days earlier. We were various levels of buzzed and tipsy, having drank and ate and danced at a Shakespeare-themed brew pub for several hours before heading back to the fancy hotel where we’d get some sleep before enjoying our one real day off on a hectic work trip.

One of my new friends held a phone out the side of the carriage and snapped a selfie.

“Hey, you guys,” said another new friend, one of the Indian members of our cohort, “I am having a FOMO.”

He turned from his perch on the small front seat next to the driver. “Because I want in on this selfie too!” He whipped out his own phone and snapped a selfie of all four of us, our smiles much wider than the spaces our driver slid through between buses and Suzukis and Pulsars.

Bengaluru was about the midway point of my time in India doing recruitment and network-building as part of my job in university admissions: 3 weeks, 7 cities, 30 schools, 4,000 students. A blur of hotels, phenomenal food, introductions, goodbyes, insane traffic, and so, so many people. So much newness and so much learning.

From the time I said “sure, yeah, I’ll go” back in September, the trip was a pretty major source of, or at least nexus for, my anxieties, and I thought of it as being three weeks where I would basically put my life on hold. Of course, as usual, and thank God, the anticipation ended up being the worst part, and it was a great trip. But still I asked myself as I flitted from school to school and city to city if it was all real life and if the person living it was really…well, me.

It’s important to note: while my characteristic use of big words and references to this and that might make it seem like I’m being didactic, this is really me humbly grappling with my own messed up way of processing human thought and emotions. I’m not pretending I’m onto something new, and I don’t know if I have any wisdom to impart. But at the very least, writing this will help me sort out my own soul, and maybe in doing so something, even one thing, will resonate with you. And on a very practical level I’ll get to tell you more about my trip and also foist my artistic sensibilities on you hehe.

So what do I do in “real life”? Well, I work a job in admissions where I process applications and evaluate transcripts and send a lot of emails. I do this job so I can provide myself and my best friend who is a cat with food and shelter and a couple streaming services. I work out just about every day. I hang out with my friends, being extra with costume parties and themed dinners and big chilling with video games and movies and…mood enhancers. I’m in the revision stage of my next novel (coming this year) and have actually started writing a sequel to [redacted] coming maybe 2026? I go to church less than I should and small group as much as I can. I play DND. Oh yeah and I invest in things that cause me pain like Everton Football Club, Christianity, the DNC, and dating apps.

That’s me. That’s what I “do,” that’s my life. And for the first time, I could see myself doing more or less the same things five and ten years down the line (of course it won’t go that way but we’re pretending it will).

You can see why three weeks on the other side of the world with absolutely no one I know doing things I’ve never done before would feel removed from my “real” life. This dissociation was compounded by two things: while most/all of the other counselors make trips like this regularly and work mostly/exclusively with international students (or were Indian themselves), international admissions is only part of my job and international travel is a small and new part of my role; and my experience of India was such a limited, privileged exploration of the country.

The first point: This is not what I do for work. It’s very possible it will become a bigger, more regular part of my job, but for now it felt more like an international admissions ride-along. Everyone else on the tour had so much more international experience than me, and they all know they will have more experiences like this in the future. Many of them have cultivated world traveling as part of their identity, and while I have been to three different countries in the last 9 months, and intend to do more world traveling, I haven’t yet gotten to the point where I have made this a part of me.

The second: Yes, I experienced and learned so much. I went so many places, met so many people, tried so many foods…but I also stayed in four and five star hotels, had professional drivers and valets, stayed mostly in metropolitan areas, and visited top schools. I experienced India, but only a small and convenient piece of it. Very few people ever get to do what I did, and I myself might only get to do something similar a few more times in my life – if at all.

So I wondered, as I flew literally and figuratively around Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, and Hyderabad, if this was my actual life or a just a very long, very stimulating side quest, a spinoff just barely related to the original.

And, I wondered, is this really me doing all this? When I finally made it home through an absurdist odyssey with a shambolic airline, did I leave some piece of me there in South Asia? Did the intimacies I shared or the impressions I made with new friends and acquaintances count if I never see those people again? If all I said and did over there only comes out here in response to “How was India?”, is that the box it forever sits in?

Obviously this is real life and you’re the one living it, you might say – and so might I. But, for me at least, knowing this is different from really believing this. About a year and a half ago I wrote about something similar in the wake of my grandfather’s death, and I expect a year and half hence I’ll write about this again. India was the latest opportunity for me to explore these ideas and hopefully come closer to mastering them.

As you may know already or could have guessed reading my description of my life, I don’t see myself as a serious man who commands respect. It’s my personality, too. I don’t really know how to receive compliments and I downplay my accomplishments (you will NEVER find “M.A.” in my email signature). I constantly have to correct people that I’m a self-published author and that is not such a special accomplishment.

So it was wild in India to suddenly be seen as a valued guest, a distinguished gentleman, a powerful associate. The service industry in India runs mandalas around that in America, and you can’t take a step in a hotel – especially the more luxurious ones – without someone begging to carry your bag or open your door or get you a masala chai (praise be). This is disorienting for someone who can barely afford to stay in any hotel, let alone a Marriott or ITC. “Oh no, you have mistaken me for the CEO wunderkind of some tech startup. I’m just here because my boss asked me to be.”

Similarly, the schools we visited were all so welcoming and hospitable, giving us food and more (awesome) tea and (passable) coffee, often giving us gifts. Before I presented at a school in Vizag, when I was on the solo leg of my trip, I was introduced by a student who read my accomplishments (lol) and even read my quippy bio on my LinkedIn as if it was a line from the Mahatma. I was flustered. “No, see, I’m just here to tell you about my university and will be presenting approximately none of my own original insights.”

Everyone at the agency I toured with continued to treat me with such respect and generosity. I sat with the man himself on a Radisson balcony overlooking the Bay of Bengal late in the evening, drinking whisky and eating prawns, and had an out of body experience like “what is going on this is some Don Draper shit am I an actual grown man oh no I have no wish to be a grown man.”

I am also, it should not surprise you, exceedingly deferential and polite. Unfortunately, you cannot physically move through the nation of India without being assertive and at times exhibiting behavior that in America would get you called a nasty name. Indian people aren’t jerks; it’s just a necessity in a country of billions of people where everyone is go-go-go that you might have to tell someone to get out of your way.

One way to look at these moments of strained identity is as growth opportunities. And that’s true! Maybe if people treat you well you should tell yourself you deserve it. Maybe you have the right to be a little more assertive and advance your interests, even in something so trivial as getting boarded on an airplane or crossing the street.

But there is also the possibility in situations like this of fracturing our identity, of becoming too externally responsive and motivated. Seeing yourself as others see you can cloud your own understanding of yourself, and make you believe you are either much “better” or much worse than you really are. BIPOC Americans have been contending with this for hundreds of years (see DuBois on double consciousness, for starters), and my rather benign experiences of it make that much more evident to me the effects of this discursive violence.

Situations like this, if not well-managed, can also lead to undue code switching. We all code switch, and thank goodness, but constant and extreme code switching is exhausting at best and self-destructive at worst, especially if the codes we adhere to are in direct opposition to our inner being. Again, this is an everyday challenge for minority populations that people like me are often blind to.

There are plenty of times outside of India that I feel these tensions, but the trip was an intense, compressed experience of it. If what happens in India stays in India, then I could just write it off and move on. But as we’ve established, those weeks in India are my real life, and I am the one who lived it. So what does someone like me need to bear in mind when presented with these situations – how can I learn and grow from these situations, so that in the future – whether in a fever dream of newness or in the mundanity of daily life – I can not just keep my head above water but cut through the swells?

I’d point to a few different sources for guidance and inspiration. I’ll start with Takuan Sōhō’s The Unfettered Mind. Sōhō was a Japanese Zen Buddhist philosopher, living and writing in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The Unfettered Mind is his treatise applying Zen Buddhism to martial arts. One of the key teachings – and the one that has been most helpful to me in dealing with anxiety and OCD – is to flow through the places where the mind stops, what Sōhō calls the “abiding place.” It “signifies stopping, and stopping means the mind is being detained by some matter, which may be any matter at all.” When in combat (most often he is using the way of the sword for his examples), it is essential to act freely and unencumbered by thoughts, reacting and acting in fluid motions. Constant stopping for thought is a good way to be killed. So too in our minds; constantly stopping to think about everything can be our undoing (trust me).

The idea of this flow state can be found in many philosophies. It reminds me of my rudimentary understanding of chakras. If our chakras – pools of energy – are blocked up with the gunk of life – fear, self-doubt, guilt, grief, etc. – our energy cannot flow, and we become spiritually constipated.

That said, those pools are in need of some examination, which is only possible when the water is clean and calm. Consider my favorite of the Proverbs in the Bible, 20.5: “The purpose of a man’s heart is like pools of deep water, but the man of understanding will draw it out.”

These illustrations from Buddhism, Hinduism/Buddhism, and Judaism/Christianity suggest that we must let our energy, our thoughts, our lives flow, and that when these things flow we become better equipped to do the necessary work of deep self-examination and contemplation. We cannot step into every new setting and be consumed with thoughts of “how am I to act?” and “what are people thinking of me?” and “what does this mean for my life?”

Instead of scrutinizing every single situation, we can let our fluid way of being guide us, just as a samurai must react fluidly to their opponent’s strike instead of stopping in the abiding place. As a Christian, this calls to mind passages like Micah 6.8: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” We walk figuratively every day, and there is a posture to take when doing so that will prepare us for whatever might come.

But what about when we extrapolate this to a bigger picture of life? Is walking well as simple as one well-measured step after the other on and on until we die? Depending on how you use that metaphor, sure, maybe it is. But I also think sometimes we need to look up and take stock of where we are. At the risk of too many metaphors, in life’s storms we need to have firm anchors of the soul and maintain a steady course, but I think we also need to be able to see those storms as key moments in our lives that invite us to reconsider some things and possibly make some tough choices and – as a result – changes.

One of the most damaging decisions I’ve made in my life was to hold out hope for a certain relationship to develop over the course of many years (and that is as specific as I will ever be about that). But I don’t believe what I did in the macro was wrong. The mistake I made was letting that dream cloud my perception of so many other things, ranging from my own self-worth to my investment in the actual relationships I had. I do not think I was wrong to sacrifice parts of myself and my life for this thing, but I know the way I did it was – ultimately – destructive for me and for others.

There’s a larger discussion to be had about codependency, but this is not the time. Simply put, I believe with all my heart that we are built with the ability – the gift – to sacrifice ourselves, to give ourselves to causes, to dreams, and, yes, to people.

Maybe it’s silly, but at times in the situation I’m referring to, I thought of myself as Aragorn who spent decades of his life facing many (often lonely) trials in the hopes one day he and Arwen would have Elrond’s blessing to wed. But, even though Aragorn is also an INFJ, I was not being like Aragorn, who at all times and in all places was the same man, applying himself in the same way to the task at hand, and those tasks were various and sundry to say the least! Yes, he did have in mind through it all that one day he would press his claim to the throne of Gondor and marry Arwen, but that didn’t cloud his understanding of who he was wherever in Middle-Earth his errantry took him.

Despite my poor imitation of Aragorn, I can see other examples in Tolkien of characters exhibiting this ability to commit to an overarching goal while remaining present and in a flow state day by day, so much so that it’s worth noting as one of the many themes the legendarium explores. Consider Olórin, whose overall purpose incarnated as Gandalf is to defeat Sauron (only the biggest bad left in Middle-Earth), but yet he still takes the time to learn all he can about the seemingly inconsequential hobbits. He has a different name everywhere he goes, and each people group has their idea of who he is and what he’s supposed to do, but no matter how he might adjust his behavior he stays true to who he is and his purpose (the only of the Istari to do so).

One more text to examine: I’ve seen the one season of Blue Eye Samurai four times now, and I will probably watch it another handful of times before the second season comes out (hopefully that’s not too long!). It’s one of my most favorite things I’ve ever watched, and I spend a lot of time thinking about it, always finding something new to ponder. I’ve also tried to figure out why it is that the show connects so personally with me. Yes, I love it because it is beautiful and really really kicks ass, but I also connect with it on a level that makes it not just entertaining but meaningful.

Mizu is, from beginning to end, focused on her mission: find and destroy the four wicked white men she has sworn to kill, taking vengeance on them for the act that brought Mizu into the world as a monster in the eyes of the Japanese with “pure” blood. She learns along the way that she has become too consumed with the fire of revenge to be effective in her quest. But the problem is not that she has committed her life to the sword and to revenge, it’s that in doing so she has closed herself off to anything but the pure fire of hate and violence, the onryo, the demon. In her conversation with her adoptive father, the swordsmith Eiji (possibly the best scene of the season), Eiji does not tell her that her chosen craft (violence) and mission (revenge) are wrong. Instead, he tells her the way she is pursuing them is wrong. She is not pursuing them like an artist, which is what he taught her to be. “An artist gives all they have to their art – the whole. Your strengths and deficiencies, your loves and your shame. Perhaps the people you collected. Maybe there is a demon in you, but there is also more. If you do not invite the whole, the demon takes two chairs, and your art will suffer” (ugh i love this scene and this show so much).

Though he objects initially to Mizu’s quest, by this point he no longer condemns it, and is even ready to help her forge a new sword. Mizu’s big picture decision to dedicate her life to this seemingly impossible task is her decision to make, and neither Eiji nor Ringo will condemn her for it despite what it demands of her. Her error was in allowing the demon to consume her art. She and her new sword will be reborn in fire, a mix of pure and impure steel as all the best blades are. Her life won’t be all about the end goal of vengeance; it will also be about the people and places that quest takes her to along the way.

Living mindfully while also able to make the complicated, introspective choices is really hard, even with examples both real and fictional, practical and philosophical to learn from. It is an exercise in many spiritual disciplines, one of the most elusive being constancy. It’s here again I turn to Christianity (though examples of constancy can be found elsewhere shoutout Taoism). A central belief is that God is eternal and constant in all three persons of the Trinity. Different Christians will interpret this differently and find their own ways to reconcile the apparent inconsistencies and mysteries regarding the character of God. But the point is that we almost all agree that – in stark contrast to the Greek/Roman gods and many other belief systems – the Christian God is not temperamental and inconsistent. God is who God says God is. God does what God says God will do. What a rock that is to stand on. As we’re battered about by the waves, as we struggle to be who we say or think we are or do what we say we’ll do, there is a God who is constant through everything.

Of course, the character and nature of God can be a little abstract, a little out there. So let me return to India for one final concrete example.

My favorite cultural experience of the trip was a visit to a Sikh temple in Bengaluru. One of our valets was a Sikh, and on the bus ride there he told us about his religion, about which I knew very little. It’s a fascinating religion with a fascinating history, but the main point according to our valet was that Sikhs live to help other people and serve their community – that is their primary act of worship. Our valet has made a career out of helping people, keeping them safe and comfortable as they travel in India and other countries, working tirelessly to keep everyone’s ducks in a row.

One of the ways Sikh community service plays is out is in the physical spaces of the temples. Sikh temples provide shelter, food, and comfort for anyone who comes through their doors.

There were a few rules about the temple: head coverings must be worn; shoes must be removed; no photography inside. All three gave the space a feeling of sacredness, though I wish I could have more pictures to share of the beautiful white building and the understated elegance of the shrine.

After a brief stop in the shrine (think church sanctuary), where we sat with a few dozen Sikhs in prayer and meditation in the presence of their holy text and traditional music, we went to the serving hall, where an entirely volunteer team prepared and served a large delicious meal to scores of visitors (I did not partake. It would have been rude not to clean the plate, and given my GI sensitivity I didn’t want to literally bite off more than I could chew).

It was so moving to be in a sacred space where people pursued not just their own spiritual betterment but the material, physical wellbeing of their neighbors. It was convicting for me as a Christian, because I wish more – no, all – Christian churches were like that. And it put into a whole new horrifying perspective the atrocity committed at the temple in Oak Creek (a 20 minute drive south of Milwaukee) in 2012. I hope to visit there soon.

Sikhs are a minority wherever they go – just 1% of the population of India, where they are most concentrated. They take all kinds of different jobs living all different kinds of places. But they carry with them everywhere the mission to help their neighbor and serve the community. Hundreds of years ago, that meant going to war with the invading Mughals.

Today, it might mean helping a nervous American get his luggage from one city to the next as he has an existential crisis of sorts thousands of miles from home.

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

-Peter

Some thoughts on the creations and creators of 2023.

Being an artist is scary.

Yeah, I’m an artist. I’m only just getting comfortable calling myself that and it’s been beautiful to embrace it. You might disagree, but probably not if you’re reading this.

There is much in the artistic process that is scary, no matter which of the myriad mediums you favor, and no matter how much of the art you’re creating versus recreating (a songwriter versus the instrumentalist). But one of the scariest parts is asking people to care.

The vast majority of artists ply their craft as a hobby, often paying rather than being paid to produce it, and many will not ever share their art with a wide audience. We make art because we love it, because it demands to come out, because holding it in would be a tragedy.

But almost all artists will, at some point, try sharing their work. We work for hours and hours on something, finally satisfied (mostly) with what we’ve come up with, and then we have the audacity to be such a great bother and ask other people to take the time, energy, and (maybe) money to experience it.

Imagine giving a final presentation to a class – one of the more nerve-wracking things almost everyone goes through. Only what you’re presenting on is something immensely important to you (you dork). And actually it was not even required – you spent your time and energy on it just because you were interested in it (you try-hard). And your classmates? They weren’t required to show up. You asked them to come in on a Saturday (you presumptuous jerk). And, actually, there are literally thousands of other people already presenting on a similar topic, but you thought you were smart enough to try your hand anyway (you pretentious asshole).

That’s what asking people to care about your art feels like.

Oh, and just like a letter grade in school, you might actually have a very, very concrete idea of how your art is received. Views, streams, purchases. So, yeah, every kind word makes you feel over the moon, but at the end of the day you can still pull up your Amazon reports and see you’ve sold 40 copies of your book. As a former instructor I can tell you feedback is more important than grades, but a C+ is still really hard to take when you tried for an A.

This is – of course – intensely personal to me, but this anxiety is one of the key themes of 2023, not just for me in my own artistic journey but for all of us in contemporary culture. It’s what the best film of the year is about and it makes its way into some of the best television and literature, too.

You’ve seen, The Office, right? Of course you have. S3:E17, “Business School,” is one of my favorite episodes, and probably one of the most memorable. Yes, it’s the one where there is a bat in the office, which Dwight captures, all while being “pranked” by Jim that Jim has *checks notes* turned into a literal vampire. But that’s not what the episode is about. It’s about the convergence of the other two storylines: Michael’s insecurity as a boss who is focused on people and is both unskilled and uninterested when it comes to spreadsheets, market projections, and business analytics; and Pam’s insecurity as an artist asking her friends and coworkers to come see her work in a small art show. If you haven’t seen the episode, the show is an unmitigated disappointment for Pam until Michael appears at the last minute.

It’s a beautiful scene, really showcasing the heart of the writer’s room and the immense talents of Carrell and Fischer. I love it so much I even based a scene off it in that novel that only sold 40 copies.

Because Michael is the central character of the show and Carrell is one of the most endearing actors to ever walk the Earth, this scene might be remembered primarily for what Michael does. In fact, the title of the video above puts the focus on just that: “Michael Brings Pam to Tears at Her Art Show.”

But his kind gesture and kind words in this scene do not tell the full story. It’s really just the emotional payoff of what the episode had set up to that point. Pam has spent the episode asking people to come to her show and has gotten so many disappointing responses, and then at the show she has waited and waited and been disappointed again. Almost none of her coworkers and friends show up (including Jim! Super bad look, Jim!) and those who do are there for the wrong reasons. I’m sure Pam’s storyline moves anyone who watches, but if you are an artist this hits especially close to home.

Meanwhile, Michael has had his world flipped upside down by Ryan, who has set him up to be embarrassed in front of a class at business school. The crux of Michael’s embarrassment is that he is uninterested and unschooled in most aspects of business. He’s a genius salesperson who got promoted to the point of incompetence, but what made him a great salesperson is also what makes him a – in his own way – successful boss. He cares about people. He loves people. “A good manager doesn’t fire people. He hires people and inspires people. People, Ryan. And people will never go out of business.”

Sometimes, the different storylines in a given episode of The Office fit together to support a common theme, and this is one of those times (minus the bat storyline). Because, more and more, people are going out of business. The world is becoming more automated, more artificial, more fleeting. And as everything becomes streamlined and optimized to maximize profits and justify existence in late-stage capitalist systems, there seems to be very little room for art, whether it is Pam’s water color paints or Michael’s personalized human touch.

Mike Schur, one of the last sensible human beings on Earth, is one of the creators of The Office, and was also one of the chief leaders in the recent WGA/SAGAFTRA strike. It’s easy to see the connection here (though Schur is not the primary writer of “Business School”). Perhaps the most important point in that strike was protecting writers against artificial intelligence. In short, the writers wanted protection against computer systems taking their jobs. We may still be a hundred years from ChatGPT being able to write a good television series, but when Love Island and The Bachelor are two of the most popular franchises in the world, I think we know people will settle for shows that are less than good (I get the appeal, guys, but you all know it’s a great big fucking waste of time).

It’s a horrifying existential crisis for artists. What if our creativity can be replaced by a computer who will do the work faster and for free? And, in some ways, the computer might do the job “better” – that’s why we have computers do all kinds of things, like call balls and strikes (oh, wait lol). If in 20 years ChatGPT can write an emotionally-gripping novel about sad men and resilient women and spiritual crisis, what am I even working towards?

One way for creativity to survive is to embrace the machine and dive headlong into a world of speed and optimization. Technology has given artists the means to become an overnight sensation on platforms like TikTok. Through some combination of compelling presentation and algorithmic compatibility, your song, poem, recipe, dance, or painting is just hours away from becoming a global sensation viewed by millions.

That sounds a lot easier than trying to get an agent to represent you. All you have to do is optimize your art to capture attention in less than three seconds (three seconds is basically the point where viewers continue to watch or continue to scroll. Three. Seconds). And it really better stand out, because if the average time spent on TikTok per day is about 90 minutes (I’m not making that up), that’s enough time to watch 1,800 videos 3 seconds at a time.

There are three disturbing trends here. The first is the reworking of our brains to consume things 3 seconds at a time. We’re supposed to use that kind of quick-thinking part of our brain to do things like keep us safe from harm (that car is changing lanes! my child is about to touch the stove!) or move efficiently through mundane tasks. It’s not meant to be used for anything related to pleasure and gratification. How does three seconds of sex sound? Three seconds of you favorite meal? Three seconds of good conversation? We don’t consume anything like we consume social media. We are creatures who are built to be able to engage for lengths of time with sensory experiences.

The second is that the creation no longer has to be any good. It just has to be momentarily stimulating. I saw a Reel yesterday (which I assume was a TikTok first) of a guy crushing a golf ball with his driver, and his buddy just feet in front of him catching it in his hand. Impressive. Watch a little closer and clearly – clearly – you can see the golf ball whizz past him and a second golf ball in the buddy’s hand. They barely tried. Doesn’t matter – 20 million views. And I’m sure we’ve all found that if you’re hot and create a video of you doing just about anything – no matter how lame the dance is or unfunny the joke is – you’ll get a few hundred thousand likes. We’re tolerating bad creativity because we’re consuming literally thousands of things per day. Oh well if some of it’s bad – you just move on!

And the third is that, in a sick inversion of Michael’s belief that “people will never go out of business,” the product is not the art at all. The product is us.

The thing being mass-produced and sold on social media is not the creativity, not the art. Those are just ploys to keep us around and surveys to find out what we’re into. We are the product. What resource could there be more inexhaustible than human attention? Not human focus, not human retention, just attention. Just minutes spent staring. The music and the jokes and the hotties and the genuinely beautiful and interesting things that all make up our feeds serve one purpose, and that is to make other people wealthier and more powerful. The machine may seem benevolent, sorting through millions of pieces of content to find the ones you are most likely to enjoy, but this is all part of you telling the machine how you are best sold to, how you are most easily captivated.

Creators who shape their art and its presentation to succeed on social media might just make it big. But they may also be working to appease a machine that does. not. give. a. fuck.

I should disclaim that I am not above all this. I still spend time scrolling through Reels. I’m on Facebook because I don’t know how else to share my writing. I’m not judging you if you spend time on TikTok everyday. But I really think our lives would be better if TikTok would go away.

So what’s an artist to do when the economy of attention (not to mention just, like, the actual economy) plays so heavily into the creation, distribution, and consumption of art? It’s a tough question, and one that is explored in such compelling fashion by Gabrielle Zevin in her novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. It was actually released in 2022 (and was on many best books lists), but books tend to have a slower burn and longer tail; many people – me included – read it this year.

Zevin explores many topics and themes (too many, imo, one of my few nits to pick) in the novel, and one which it keeps running into is the conflict between art as passion project and art as business entity. It’s a familiar story: artists originally make art out of supposedly pure intentions, and then when the art takes off they adapt to be able to maximize sales, and then they reckon with how this changes the art and changes them as people. But, among Zevin’s updates is the medium of art – video games. The video game is one of our newest art forms, and one that is especially influenced by capitalist demands. There will be a new Grand Theft Auto game in the next couple years. Why? Because it’s going to make a gazillion dollars. In some ways, GTA is the poster child for the lowest form of modern gaming. A violent, morally bankrupt game, coming out with new versions every few years to capitalize on pre-existing interest, rather than expanding any sort of storytelling (the more prolific example would be Call of Duty).

However, most of the individuals working on a game like GTA are doing so because they love the art, and if I had to guess, most would rather be working on something more obviously artistic like The Last of Us franchise if they could.

It’s not a zero sum game; artists are not asked to choose passion or profits. But it is a balance that every artist will at some point have to make if they are ever so fortunate enough to turn their art into a source of income.

I’ve risked losing the thread in the above paragraphs – which I understand are very gloom-and-doom and Marxist – because it is not possible to understand art and artists in 2023 without reckoning with the conditions of the earth we till. This is the world we live in, the world we create in. The platinum-certified artist and the soprano in school choir are both affected by these circumstances.

So let’s zoom in again to the artist and that very scary act of asking people to care.

This was a good year in film. For a few months this summer, it felt for the first time in several years that film really mattered, thanks to the Barbenheimer phenomenon (although that portmanteau is insulting to Barbie, which drew a significantly larger audience and had a much greater cultural impact than Oppenheimer). But then a Scorsese masterpiece bombed at the box office and and it feels like we’re back to square one.

But the best film of the year is not Barbie, or Oppenheimer, or Killers of the Flower Moon. It’s Showing Up, the latest film from Kelly Reichardt, one of the greatest living American filmmakers.

Showing Up, starring a superb Michelle Williams (and featuring a number of other great performances), is about a sculptor preparing for an art show exhibiting her most recent collection. As usual with Reichardt, it’s not particularly plot-driven, but that isn’t to say there’s not a story, because Lizzy’s experience is the story of putting your heart, your time, your energy into something and then stepping back to see how it does out in the world.

This might seem like self-righteous insularity from Reichardt and from me. A film about art? Oh, really? That’s the best movie of the year? You might recall I picked Tár as my culturally-relevant film of 2022 and Mank as my culturally-relevant film of 2020. Here I go again, right?

But Showing Up is not so myopic. It’s actually very self-aware, jabbing at the arts/artists at several points through the film. But it is sincere, and it is sincerely about much more than visual arts. It’s about creation, cultivation, and care, no matter what it is we’re working with.

It’s such a brilliant move from Reichardt to make Lizzy’s medium clay sculptures. Clay takes a long time to work with. It requires a strong but steady hand. And then, when you’re ready, it gets a literal trial by fire, sometimes to devastating effect, as Lizzy finds when one of her sculptures is ruined in the kiln. It’s a long process and inexact science, especially when we could 3D print the same thing in a matter of hours. The result for Lizzy’s show is a number of sculptures of women in either joyful or agonized postures. The sculptures are not eye-catching, in the sense that if you walked past them in a shop window, you might not even notice them. They’re small, and, at first glance, somewhat crude. It can take time to study them, an open mind to be receptive of them. They are nuanced and subtle.

They’re the type of art that would make it so, so hard to ask people to come see your show. The kind of art that wouldn’t last three seconds on TikTok.

But again, it’s not really all about the sculptures. It’s about the wounded bird Lizzy begrudgingly takes care of, her friendship/rivalry with her landlord and fellow artist, Jo, her relationship with her parents and with her socially anxious brother.

Isn’t life an art, really? Aren’t we all, in some way, artists? This is why “Business School” resonates with everyone – not just self-described artists, and it’s why Showing Up is for everyone, not just fans of A24 who are artists themselves. Of course, the film is also just brilliant. Performances, writing, cinematography, editing. Reichardt really is one of the greats, and I sincerely hope this film finally gets her an Oscar nomination, which she should have had for First Cow if not for one of her older films.

But there’s another sticking point here for artists and anyone else pursuing their purpose: what am I supposed to do next? And what if they don’t like it?

We find a response to this question in two other pieces of art from 2023.

One of the films I feel to be in contention for the film of the year is Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City. There is, near the end of the film, one of the best scenes Anderson has ever put together.

“Do I just keep doing it?”

“Yes.”

“Without knowing anything?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of an answer out there about the meaning of life?”

“Maybe there is one.”

“Right, well that’s my question. I still don’t understand the play.”

“Doesn’t matter. Just keep telling the story.”

This brought me to tears in the theater. But the scene isn’t done. Following this conversation, Augie has a conversation with another actor across the balconies behind their respective theaters. In the background, one of the other theaters advertises for The Death of a Narcissist. It’s not very subtle from Anderson, but it is poignant. In recent years, one of the popular opinions to have is that Wes Anderson movies are just parodies of other Wes Anderson movies, and that he’s lost his fastball. I agree to some extent – Isle of Dogs and The French Dispatch are two of his worst films. But here, Anderson bites back, telling us he’s not a narcissist, that he’s not just in love with his own genius, that he’s not just making films to win awards or sell tickets. “All my pictures turn out,” says Augie, and it may as well be Wes. He believes in the art. He’s doing the art he wants. So get off my back, he says, because do you have any idea how hard it is to make movies your way for three decades and continuously hope people will like it even as expectations grow for each subsequent project?

It is possible for an artist to get in and get out when they’re able to gain a certain amount of fame. One big contract, one big album, one big tour – it is possible to strike a hot iron and come away financially set for life. And, for some creators in some fields, the artistic life expectancy really isn’t very long. You just have to go viral a few times, gain some sort of following and then…well, you do something else. If you adapt to what the audience wants, maybe you can hold on a little longer, but if you stop appeasing them, you may go on in obscurity or stop altogether.

But for most artists, art is something they have to keep doing. They must always have the next song, the next sculpture, the next film, the next book. And in pursuing that next work of art, they will find over and over that they aren’t quite sure what to do next. They will doubt themselves, doubt their worth and capability. But they go on creating, and, scary as it is, they must continue to ask people to show up.

And, again, this is for more than just conventional artists. Consider one of the best scenes from one of the best shows of the year, Blue Eye Samurai. Master Eiji, the swordsmith and adoptive father of Mizu, shares his wisdom on artistry, whether that art be making swords like him or using swords like Mizu (or helping people like Ringo): “An artist gives all they have to the art, the whole. Your strengths and deficiencies, your loves and your shames… Perhaps there is a demon in you, but there is more. If you do not invite the whole, the demon takes two chairs, and your art will suffer.”

“Then what do I do?” asks Mizu.

“I only know how to make swords. Each morning, I start a fire and begin again.”

Blue Eye Samurai is fantastic for many reasons, and one of them is this attitude towards art. Watching it, you can feel just how much the art means to the artists who created it, how much care and attention went into it. It is authentic and sincere and full of pain and joy. Mizu is an artist of violence and death. It is what her life has been dedicated to, and she is better at it than just about anyone. But her art was imbalanced. It was so full of anger and hate, of lust for revenge, of singular-minded purpose. She had lost sight of what her art could and should be used for in a world where a skilled sword can shape the paths of nations. She needed to give of all herself – not just the demon of revenge – to unlock her full potential.

This is what artists and non-artists alike must do. We must continue to give all of ourselves to the things that matter to us. As the misattributed quote goes, “Whatever you are, be a good one.” In our culture, perhaps it has never been easier to be anything, but never more difficult to be the right thing.

Whether people show up or not, we have to start a fire and begin. Again and again.

So! With the New Year comes Christmas, and in this New Year I hope to release another novel. I’m very, very excited (and scared) to share it with you. It is not about Christmas, but it begins around Christmas, and so I’m taking this opportunity to share a short excerpt from the second chapter that takes place following a Christmas Eve service. Happy Holidays, and thank you for showing up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Silas wakes up on the Axe and Doritos couch. He checks his phone and sees he’s only been asleep for a few minutes. He’ll go home soon, after he’s had just a few more minutes to sit and let his thoughts run themselves out. Punch themselves out.

As he replays the service over in his mind, his thoughts continue to dwell on one particular space in time, about midway through the service, when they sang “Oh Holy Night.” Such a difficult song to sing – he considered removing it from the service. But sometimes when church folk take on too much they prove their best. 

That particular hymn, or song, or carol, depending on who sings it, builds and builds in waves of melody and harmony and lyrical earnestness. The chorus – a refrain at the end of each verse with slightly different words each time – rises and swells in a way that is euphoric – orgasmic, even – in the way religious experience can sometimes be. And with each verse, the congregation grows in confidence as the melody reaches higher and higher and the harmony becomes deeper and richer.

Christ is the Lord!

O praise His name forever!

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

His power and glory evermore proclaim.

The congregants sang this as a true choir of the faithful masses. The piano rumbled in its accompaniment. Many sounds and one sound at once. And the voices of two, maybe three, women soared above the rest like stalwart ladies of our divine savior, their tones twinkling in the snow outside, glittering in the window dressings.

The Lord says the Lord is where two or three are gathered in their name. The Lord was certainly in those moments, in that room, in some mysterious and ancient way.

It was the first time since he started preaching that Silas felt something so pure, so untainted by anything else, any of the other things that come with churches and pastors and the act of gathering for worship.

He’s glad he left it in the service. And as he falls asleep on the couch, he replays that blissful moment over and over, wondering if there was someone else in that room who felt it too, someone who could also say they had heard the very voice of God.

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

Peter

I went with my dad to see Everton. It was a spiritual experience.

September 23, 2023. Milwaukee, WI

“I’m sorry, I’m probably boring you, aren’t I?” said the old man.

“No, not at all. Go on,” I said.

We were finishing our beers and reveling in a rare victory for Everton Football Club, who had just beaten Brentford 3-1.

He wore a Leighton Baines shirt, and I wore Seamus Coleman, the famous fullback duo of not so long ago. A handful of other Everton fans in the pub discussed their plans for the rest of Saturday.

“It’s quite the complicated story of how I came to support this club, I know,” he continued. “But I have always found it to be true: Evertonians are born, not manufactured. We do not choose; we are chosen. Those who understand need no explanation; those who don’t, don’t matter.”

I knew these words. All Evertonians have heard them at some point. They provided the narrative for the stirring season ticket promotion before the 2015-2016 campaign.

That season and its expectations seemed so very long ago. Times were very different for Everton back then.

Two seasons prior, the Toffees had surprised everyone by finishing fifth in the English Premier League, accruing a point total that most seasons would be enough to secure a coveted place in the Champions League. It was the first season in charge for the charming, ambitious Spanish manager Roberto Martinez, who had parlayed his stunning FA Cup win with relegated Wigan into management of one of the most famous clubs in England.

Roberto’s second year in charge was a disappointment that found Everton floundering in the middle of the table, but a respectable showing in the Europa League and a bevvy of young talent gave reason for optimism heading into year three. The club was gearing up to make another run at breaking into the English “Big Six” and maybe even earning a spot in the Champions League. Watching that season ticket promo and hearing those inspiring words would have any Evertonian believing anything was possible.

March 5, 2016. Sturgeon Bay, WI

I left noontime pickup basketball at the Y and found I had a voicemail.

“Hi, Peter. It’s Ray Malewitz at Oregon State’s School of Writing, Literature, and Film. Could you give me a call back? I’d like to talk to you about your application.”

After graduating the December prior, I had been accepted into a fully-funded Master’s program for English Literature and Culture. A couple months later, I would be given the English award for graduating seniors at my college. I felt, for the first time in my life, that I was going where I wanted to go and doing what I wanted to do. I felt capable and confident.

June 11, 2010. Johannesburg, South Africa

Siphiwe Tshabalala blasted the ball into the top corner of the net after a lightning counter attack for World Cup host nation South Africa versus Mexico. Several teammates joined him on the touchline for a short celebration dance that was pure joy to the tune of delirious fans whose voices (mercifully) drowned out the vuvuzelas. Half a world away, I realized I’m a soccer fan.

August 20, 2012. Liverpool, England

Marouane Fellaini’s massive head of hair rose above the Manchester United defense to nod home the winner. I realized I’m an Everton fan. A few days later, I moved into my freshman dorm room.

I started watching Everton Football Club and began my journey into adulthood at about the same time. Those two things dovetailed in 2015-2016 as Everton and I both looked to be headed into big, exciting new chapters.

Sitting next to the old man in the Leighton Baines shirt in a pub in 2023, I had just watched Everton – seven managers removed from Roberto Martinez – earn their first win of the season, a season that promises to be a desperate battle over the moon door of relegation for a third successive campaign. And I…well, I’m not who I thought I’d be when I officially accepted the assistantship at Oregon State.

Just last week, two things happened: I traveled with my father, also an Evertonian, to Liverpool for the first time to see Everton play at their famous old ground, Goodison Park, and I turned 30.

The one happened because of the other; I took this trip because I’ve reached an age that feels significant because our brains like neat numbers like 10. But, for me, 30 really does feel important, a clear end and beginning, an Ebenezer and a point of origin. A commencement.

What is it that ended? My 20s, which sucked. Thank you to everyone who helped them not suck a lot worse, but there’s no getting around it. On balance, I didn’t have a great time this decade. Over the last few months, I have found myself mourning these years, filled with regret, and feeling some anxiety about what comes next, a decade I desperately hope goes better than the last one, but finding little reason to believe it will work out.

My response to life’s challenges has sometimes been to flee, either in the form of a short, spontaneous trip, or packing up my things and moving to what I hope are greener and safer pastures. Earlier this Fall, I first got the idea to make a short trip to the UK when Going.com sent me some great deals on flights. This evolved into making a trip to Liverpool to see Everton play for my birthday. Traveling alone to a rainy city in Europe to be surrounded by strangers while I drink pints of beer and watch football seemed the thing to do to break out of one of the worst depressive periods in my life. Because that’s what I do: I’m a sad boy who sometimes wishes he could disappear or start over and often thinks he’s a character in a Sally Rooney novel. Maybe I could stare out a window into a stormy afternoon long enough to have some kind of breakthrough, or hear some faint echo of the still small voice.

It also seemed fitting to involve Everton in this since the club’s last decade has paralleled my own in many ways. Great expectations, false dawns, crushing disappointments, near-disasters, actual disasters, abject failure, betrayal, fear, self-loathing.

However…

Through Providence, Personal Growth, and Relentless Love (not that those three things are separate), my perspective on this trip changed in the weeks leading up to it. It was not to be a lonely gift to myself to feel some things and numb some others, not an escape from the regrets of my 20s and the anxieties of my 30s. I thought when I initially planned this trip that what I wanted was to be alone with something that gives me some escape from everything. What I realized was that I actually wanted to be with other people who love this thing so much it changes who we are and how we see the world. This trip was not an escape. Not a funeral, not a restart. It was an awakening.

There have really only been three things that have been with me every step of the way from my first year of college to now: my family, God, and Everton. Even the friendships that have lasted all this time have waxed and waned in their connectivity. My trip to Liverpool involved all three of these things (not because there happens to be a church literally connected to Goodison Park but because I believe God is with me wherever I go), and my experience last week helped me to reframe so much of where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m going.

There is another saying amongst Evertonians that comes from the great Alan Ball: “Once Everton has touched you, nothing will be the same.” This has been true for me, and it is also true for me with the addendum, “except for Everton.” Virtually nothing the last 10+ years has been the same for me…except for Everton.

If you don’t want more football talk, more uncomfortably personal revelations and ornate sentences, now’s a good time to fast-forward to the end. But I hope you’ll stick with me. I haven’t posted since March, you know. Buckle in. I know where we’re going but I’m not sure yet how we’re getting there.

January 15, 2006. Sturgeon Bay, WI

The “idiot kicker” Mike Vanderjagt had just missed a chip shot field goal, and the Indianapolis Colts were eliminated from the NFL Playoffs. I went into the other room and sobbed for like an hour.

March 21, 2013. De Pere, WI

Vander Blue made a layup as the buzzer sounded and Marquette avoided an upset in the first round of March Madness. I started yelling insensibly as I ran around the hall of my college dorm.

Sports were my favorite thing growing up, and I lived and died with the results of my teams. I went to college wanting to be a sports journalist, and some of you may recall this used to be a sports blog. But over the years, sports started to play a different role in my life, one a little more casual, more reasonable. For the most part.

May 19, 2022. La Crosse, WI

I was about to move to Milwaukee the next day, so I’d already returned my wifi equipment. I needed somewhere to watch the Everton match, so I headed downtown to an Irish pub. I had to ask for them to put the match on. They were hosting Crystal Palace, and if they won they would be safe from relegation. Anything less, and they were almost sure to be relegated. They were down 2-0 at half, and there was a pit in my stomach (and a couple pints of Smithwick’s). As per our usual, my dad and I were texting about the match, and we were not confident.

Then Everton scored. Michael Keane, an at-times bumbling centerback, hit the ball with the outside of his boot and curled it into the net. And then they scored again. That magical Brazilian, that flare-throwing, bike-kicking revolutionary, Richarlison, in a moment of improvisational genius, found a way to equalize. And then, in the 85′, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, perhaps the handsomest lad in England, threw himself at a curling free kick. The diving header put Everton in front for good. They were safe from relegation and Goodison Park became a 40-thousand-person party. I teared up and had to explain to the bartender what just happened. My dad and I got choked up again talking about it when I visited home months later.

Everton! You never shined so brightly.
Everton! The spirit of the Blues.

A year later, Everton would again need a win to be safe. This time, when Abdoulaye “Duke” Doucoure smote the ball from the top of the box to score what would be the winner over Bournemouth, my dad and I would be sitting in the same room, able to breathe together that fresh air that comes with knowing your team has survived to fight another day. Hail the man from Mali.

There are plenty of other examples of me celebrating in public or injuring myself or just making a lot of noise in reaction to something happening in an Everton match. I once began a first date by responding to a simple “How are you?” with “Well, my soccer team lost.” This is certainly unhinged behavior, right? Like, I’m a lunatic, aren’t I?

In one sense yes, of course I am. A rational cynic could tell me that a football club across the Atlantic Ocean doesn’t actually have anything to do with me, that I’ve made all this up, that it doesn’t need to ruin my Saturdays (and they lose a lot, so it’s a lot of ruined Saturdays). That cynic would be right, but only in the way someone would be right to say novels and movies and TV shows don’t matter, that they’re made up and you don’t need to be invested personally in them. So, if that’s the way they’re right, then they’re wrong. “Those who understand need no explanation; those who don’t, don’t matter.”

And maybe they could also say that it was just random chance I came to be an Everton fan. I knew they had an American goalkeeper and were in the middle of the table and had a striker who had dazzled for Croatia at the 2012 Euros, but that was just about it. Truly, if Luis Suarez, that cheating cannibal, hadn’t been on Liverpool at the time, it’s entirely possible I’d be a Kopite gobshite now. The horror.

So, yes, okay, maybe I could be here 11 years later a diehard fan of any other number of teams who happened to be in the mid table in 2012. But I’m not, because Everton chose me, and Everton chose my dad. It has always, from the first time I watched them play, felt right to support this historic club, a club know for its roots and involvement in the local community (they own the title of The People’s Club!) and professionalism on and of the pitch, a club known for tenacity and collective endeavour. Maybe living/growing up in Green Bay Packers territory instilled those values in us?

And, as I alluded to above, there are many parallels between my life and recent Everton history.

May 12, 2017. Corvallis, OR

I spent a lot of time in graduate school roaming the student union looking for day-old bakery and an open spot to do schoolwork. On this day, I had taken a break from researching 16th century travelogues to watch Everton’s final match of the season. It had been a good season overall, now under the care of Ronald Koeman, though it didn’t quite hit the heights we hoped for. My first year at grad school had gone – overall – pretty well, but the seams were showing. A lot was about to start going wrong.

Everton won the match versus Watford 1-0. The goal came from Ross Barkley, a local boy who had so much potential but never reached it. Everyone knew it was his last game at Goodison, and it was bittersweet celebrating in that moment but knowing we were watching a premature end to what should have been a storied career on Merseyside.

February 2, 2019. Vadnais Heights, MN

“Who’s playing?” asked the young man standing in my living room.

“Everton and Wolves. Everton is my club. They’re terrible,” I said.

The young man was one of several of my younger brother’s friends who had stopped by as they car-pooled to some Saturday activity.

The stream was cutting in and out. The Premier League had moved onto Peacock (at that time called NBC Sports Gold) and I didn’t have a subscription because I was broke, so I was using the now-defunct and not-at-all-sketchy SoccerStreams subreddit to watch. Usually I cast them from my phone to my brother’s Apple TV+.

Wolves scored.

“Ah, fuck,” I said, louder than I meant to in front of my brother’s friends. “Have fun, see you later.”

Everton played very badly and lost 3-1. The most exciting part of the match was when a black cat invaded the pitch and went marauding on a run more inspiring than any effort an Everton player had put in. Roger Bennett tweeted something after the game that amounted to “Watching Everton used to be a reminder of joy and the strength of the human spirit. Now it is a grim reminder that we are all going to die.”

That’s about how I felt in the beginning of 2019. I had moved back to the Midwest to live with my brother as he finished college, and that was truly a special thing we were able to do. But I was not my best self (he’d tell you the same thing). Everton were joyless with no clear plan, and I was the same.

October 3, 2020. La Crosse, WI

“Well who’s going to be able to stop this Everton juggernaut at the moment?”

Those were actual words said about an actual Everton team in the midst of thrashing Brighton and Hove Albion.

The return of pro sports during COVID was a boon to millions. “The least important most important thing,” as Jurgen Klopp called it, gave us so much when everything was so bleak.

Everton weren’t just back; they were better than I’d ever seen them. Midway through the previous season, Everton had replaced Marco Silva with Carlo Ancelotti, one of the greatest managers of all time. The Italian brought hope in the form of his tactical genius and charisma, but also in the form of several new players. Namely, Allan, his attack dog from their time together at Napoli, the above-mentioned Doucoure, and James Rodriguez, only one of the most talented midfielders of his generation.

Carlo Ancelotti, he is the fucking man
They said there was no chance, Moshiri had a plan
He wears the blue and white, like all the Toffee men
And when we’re back in Europe, we’ll sing this song again, ohhhhh….

By Boxing Day of 2020, Everton were in second – SECOND – and the COVID vaccine was on the way. Things were looking up.

Of course, they promptly went to shit again. January 6, anti-vaxxers, etc. And Carlo Ancelotti got bored and Everton finished 10th and he left the club to return to Real Madrid. I’m not a pessimist with fear of abandonment for no reason, guys.

April 22, 2021. La Crosse, WI

I’ve cried plenty of times in therapy, but this occasion was the only time it had something to do with football.

“Yeah, I just talked to my Dad for a few minutes about the soccer game, and it just felt…” *tears* “It just felt so good to talk to him about that, and…sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying right now.”

“You may be lonelier than you thought.”

She was right. As an introverted homebody, COVID was not a huge adjustment for me in some ways. But I hadn’t realized until then how much human connection I was really missing. I wanted to share things with people – things like Everton. I tried dating apps for the first time that summer and slowly made my way out of my shell.

December 12, 2021. Vancouver, WA

I woke up on an unfamiliar couch to a text. “Are you alive?”

“Yeah, I’m up. Hey, what’s the wifi?”

My favorite American soccer team is the Portland Timbers, and I had traveled on a whim through a blizzard to the PNW to be with other Timbers supporters as they took on NYCFC in the MLS Cup Final. We couldn’t get tickets, but we could still go join the party if they won. They didn’t. They lost in penalty kicks.

I was staying the night with a grad school friend I had a very “It’s Complicated” sort of thing with while we were in school. She rented from and lived with a middle-aged woman in nearby Vancouver. She texted me the wifi info and I started to watch Everton vs. Crystal Palace. Connor Gallagher ran roughshod over us and we lost 3-1. It was a strange time in my life, and I had found myself in an unexpected place with unexpected people, and yet Everton were there on my little phone, losing again.

The losses would pile up, and that Spring as relegation looked almost certain I went ahead and really messed things up with my girlfriend. Like, really bad. Sometimes it’s not my fault. Sometimes it’s not Everton’s fault. And sometimes it is. More than sometimes, actually. Everton and I have both made some truly terrible decisions these last few years.

But it’s not always our fault…

August 2, 2022. Washington, DC

Roger Bennett, host of the Men in Blazers show and the most famous Evertonian in America, interviewed several members of the team as they completed a tour of the US before returning to England to begin the new season. Frank Lampard, the Chelsea legend who steered us to safety the year before, talked about what would be different this year to avoid going through another relegation scrap. Among the players Rog interviewed was the young Antony Gordon, a boyhood Blue who was one of the standouts from the prior season. With him leading the way, we were sure to leave the foot of the table behind.

I listened to this podcast in my apartment in Milwaukee where everything was going right for me (well, except for having to get rabies shots, but never mind that).

My life, again, went to shit over the next few months, and Everton were just as bad. Frank Lampard was out of answers and was sacked. Antony Gordon made a shocking heel turn and requested/forced a transfer to Newcastle in January. Piss off, Ant.

At about my lowest point, my brother came to see me simply because I asked him. We had lunch and I told him about how I wished I could bet money on Everton being relegated so that if/when it happened, I’d have some consolation.

Everton survived, thanks to the above-described Doucoure goal, and my life did get better. And then we messed it up again, naturally. I ruined another relationship and Everton found themselves entering a new season picked by many to get relegated and facing a potential points deduction for one count of infringing financial fair play rules (Manchester City has over 100 counts and has no such penalty forthcoming, for some perspective). They were/are also trying and failing to secure new ownership, and the leading candidate right now is skeeeeeeeetch.

Perhaps you see now how I have come to identify so strongly with this club and why I would see a solo trip to see them play as an appropriate and alluring course of action. And maybe, with these anecdotes and explanations, you’ll understand some of why last week was so meaningful.

So…what happened last week?

November 2, 2023. Liverpool, England

My dad and I arrived around midday in gray and rainy Liverpool on the banks of the River Mersey. It’s a large, blue collar, left-leaning city with major universities and a somewhat turbulent history. So, yeah, it felt familiar.

That first day confirmed many of the things we had heard or assumed about the city and its sports teams. It gave a real, lived-in place for the team I’ve just known as people on TV for my adult life.

Goodison park just kind of comes out of nowhere. You drive from the countryside to the suburban area and then you’re in rows and rows of flats and there’s an ancient concrete and steel cathedral rising up from the earth.

We’ve heard commentators say before about how Everton and their arch-rival Liverpool are just across Stanley Park from one another, but distances don’t really compute until you measure them with your own eyes. They are shockingly close; you can stand at street level and see them both. This is a physical representation of the 100+ year history of this bitter rivalry. In 1878, there was just one football team in Liverpool, a church-sponsored team named St. Domingo’s, which later took on the name Everton (named for the area of the city where the church was located). A dispute between the committee and owner led to Everton relocating to one of the few places where they could build a purpose-built stadium. Goodison. The owner founded a new team close to the original ground. Anfield.

And there the two giants have sat ever since. The Merseyside Derby, the Friendly Derby, blue vs red. The city has been divided in this way for well over 100 years. One can’t help but think what would have happened if the two never split and the whole of this proud city rallied around one football club.

We stayed in a guest house above a pub just a few blocks from Goodison. My dad had let them know it was my birthday ahead of time, so they had streamers and a balloon and a card in the room for me. Maybe once upon a time this would have annoyed or embarrassed me, but one of the great gifts aging has given me is an appreciation – or at least a tolerance – for many of the little things my parents do. The innkeeper chatted with us about the room and where to get breakfast and mentioned casually that her friend is married to Everton legend Duncan Ferguson.

After visiting the Beatles Story and hearing their “new”/”last” song a day early (!), we trudged through the rain to find one of the main Everton murals. There is a huge mural of Giannis Antetokounmpo downtown Milwaukee that I drive by often, and I never get tired of seeing it. It is majestic and grand, a statement of the great fortune we have here to employ the best (okay, mayyyyybe second-best) basketball player on Earth. This Everton mural is different. It is off the main drag in the middle of an industrial park where there is a lot of street art and graffiti. You’d have to be looking for it to find it. And when you find it…it’s glorious. Five Everton legends with that famous saying: “Once Everton has touched you, nothing will be the same.”

I won’t say one mural is better than the other, but they are very different. The Giannis mural is a celebration of a young man we have here for now, who will one day retire or move on (the national media will continue to incorrectly assume it’s the latter). It’s something overlaying Milwaukee, something additive. The Everton mural is like something that grew out of the very bones of the city. A testament to history, to culture, to a creed. Soaked as I was, I was moved.

We finished the day back at the pub with a couple pints. They wouldn’t let us pay for any of it – first round from the manager and the second from the bartender’s daughter after she found out we had traveled to see Everton for my birthday. She showed us pictures of her niece meeting club captain Seamus Coleman and manager Sean Dyche and mentioned her brother worked for the team’s education system. My dad said later she was flirting with me; I insisted she wasn’t.

November 3, 2023. Liverpool, England.

After a proper English muffin and probably a little too much coffee, we headed to Goodison Park for a tour.

One of Everton’s songs goes like this:

It’s a grand old team to play for,
It’s a grand old team to support,
(and then everyone shouts) AND IF YOU KNOW YOUR HISTORY, IT’S ENOUGH TO MAKE YOUR HEART GO WHOOOOOAAAAAHHHH

Maybe it’s a bit strange for “history” to be given so much hype when it comes to sports teams. If anything, I believe American sports culture has moved towards general indifference and even disdain for sports back in the day. Those histories are also sometimes fractured, with teams moving cities with some frequency, or just rather brief. Consider that the NBA and ABA didn’t merge until 1976. We’re still coming out with new teams.

But, touring Goodison Park, the Grand Old Lady, the first and oldest purpose-built stadium in England, history is exactly the thing that comes to the fore. The move to a new stadium at Bramley-Moore dock coming next year is well-overdue, but it will come at the cost of a ground that is a testament to the history of a club, a city, even of a sport. It is outdated and sacred.

It was a fantastic tour, and it ended with us having the opportunity to walk out the tunnel to the theme song from Z Cars just as the players do. I was almost overwhelmed.

After the tour, we took in another mural, this one of Duncan Ferguson with his quote, “When you play for Everton, you forget about the Rest. The rest mean nothing!” We also viewed the statues of Dixie Dean, who still holds the record for most goals in a league campaign, and of the “Holy Trinity” of Colin Harvey, Alan Ball, and Howard Kendall. We saw the Everton giants on the side of the stadium, with the likes of Dave Hickson, who said: “I’d break every bone in my body for any team I played for. But I’d die for Everton.”

Then, after dropping off our merch from the team store, we took a scenic walk through Everton park to find Prince Rupert’s Tower. The tower has adorned the club crest for most of its history. The truth is, it’s not much of a tower. It’s a decommissioned lock-up/gaol/jail that is hundreds of years old and maybe 25 feet tall. We walked right past it in comic fashion that cannot be overstated. And yet, I loved seeing it in person. It was a reminder, again, of the importance of history, of shared experience, of culture, of the place itself. The team is named Everton because that’s the neighborhood they started in. They picked a lock-up for the crest because it’s an old building that sits atop a hill overlooking the neighborhood. They’re nicknamed the Toffees because there used to be a famous local “Everton Toffee” shop.

Again, maybe we appreciated this more because we came from a place where the professional football team is named after the local company that sponsored it over a hundred years ago.

We ended the day with some proper fish and chips.

November 4, 2023. Liverpool, England. Matchday. Everton vs Brighton and Hove Albion.

A little before noon, we set out again from our room for the 3 p.m. kick-off. We started at one of several nearby Everton pubs that was just starting to see some Blues come by for a pint. We drank Carling, watched Cricket *comma* and cheered on a horse called Oxford Comma.

Our next stop would be St. Luke’s Church, the church that is literally connected to Goodison Park. On the way, we ran into one of our tour guides from the day before. A proper, proper, lifelong Evertonian. We spoke for 15-20 minutes and learned so much about the club and what it means to someone like him and what he hopes will become of the Goodison grounds. We hope the new owners of the club will listen to people like Mr. Cross and maintain the reputation of The People’s Club.

St. Luke’s is still an operational church, but on matchdays the fellowship hall is open and serving coffee, tea, and pies, and upstairs there is a treasure trove of memorabilia. Yeah, we’re Chrizzos so this is probably especially interesting to us, but it’s another testament to the shape a club takes when it grows out of a community.

Next, we headed to another pub. We were getting closer to turnstiles opening, so the place we went to right next to the park was packed.

We stood close with pints of Guinness, and looking around at all the other blue-clad people, I suddenly realized something, something obvious that I had only just put together then.

I’d never been in a room full of Evertonians. Only just a few at a pub in Milwaukee. But everyone there – everyone there – was there for the same reason we were. They love this club. I felt such community, such a bond with these people, and it would last for the next few hours. Because our next stop was Gwladys Street.

There are six different sections in Goodison Park. There are the two levels of the Bullens road stand, the terrace between the two exhibiting the steel framing of Archibald Leitch that was, at the time, an architectural innovation. The lower part of this area closest to the pitch – and the stands at Goodison go right up to the edge of the pitch – is the Paddock. Opposite of the Bullens is the Main Stand and the Family Enclosure surrounding some of the luxury boxes and the dugouts. The upper level here gives an excellent overview of the formations and tactics on the pitch. One end of the stadium is the Park End, which is designed to give every seat an unobstructed view of the pitch.

And then there is the Gwladys Street End (pronounced like Gladys Knight. Gwladys is a Welsh saint (Liverpool is basically on the border with Wales). No one is quite so reckless with “W” as the Welsh). Ten thousand of the most ardent, most faithful, most demanding, most noisy fans in all of England. Maybe all of the world. This is where I managed to get us tickets – the very back row of the lower level, one of thousands of seats in this area classified as having “severely obstructed views.” They’re not kidding. But we didn’t come all this way to see every kick of the match when we can do that every weekend courtesy of our friends at NBC. We came here for the Goodison Gang.

We went right down to the edge of the pitch to watch warm-ups after the friendly attendants/stewards/coppers let us know we could. Then, close to kick-off, we returned to our seats. And then we finally watched in person what we had seen on TV so many times, what we got to simulate the day before on tour: the siren sounded and the players emerged from the tunnel to the Z Cars theme. It gave me chills.

After a short ceremony for Remembrance Day (Veteran’s Day in the US), the match kicked off.

Everyone in the Gwladys Street End stands the entire match, making our view of the pitch that much more obstructed. Trying to see anything on the far end, the end Everton always begin the match attacking, is an exercise in ducking and weaving like a boxer or sitting on top of your seat or standing just behind.

The fans were in good voice from the first moments, singing and chanting in acts of murmuration. I joined in enthusiastically though somewhat shakily, not being a confident singer or shouter or rememberer of words.

And then, in just the seventh minute, Everton scored. The young Ukrainian, Vitalii Mykolenko, was rebuffed by the keeper on his first attempt, but his follow up found the back of the net. The stadium exploded in the loudest sound I have ever heard.

And then an army of Evertonians raised their voices as one to sing his song (to the tune of Pilot’s “It’s Magic”):

He’s magic, you know!
Vitalii Mykolenko!

Over and over as the young man from a war-torn country jogged back to his place in defense. I sang along like a proper blue Scouser. And in that moment, I was simultaneously perfectly myself, and so, so much more than myself. I found myself as I got lost in a sea of blue voices. It was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life.

Brighton controlled the game, commanding 80% of the possession, but Everton created more chances. I would love to relive every interesting moment with you, but this post is already absurdly long.

Late on, Brighton equalized with a cheap goal that was peak hapless and unlucky Everton. Kaoru Mitoma cooked the Everton right flank once again, and his cross took a gnarly deflection over Jordan Pickford and across the goal line.

Everton would have just a few minutes to push for a late winner. As always, they were attacking the Gwladys Street End, right in front of us. They managed to create a few chances and win a few corners, and each time they did we met them with chants of Everton! Everton! Everton! Usually, I would start chanting this as soon as I could tell the chant had started, but after one of them, I started shouting Everton! Everton! Everton! before I had actually heard anyone else say it. But the third or fourth repetition, the entire Gwladys was shouting it. There is no way – no way – that someone with a voice as soft as mine could start that. Rather, I think I was tuned in very precisely to the murmuration. Some telepathic frequency inspired many of us around to start chanting it. It’s a mystical experience.

One of these corner kicks met the head of James Tarkowski, and the ball floated across the goal into a mass of bodies as attackers, defenders, and the keeper all converged.

The legendary Everton player and manager Howard Kendall once told his team going into the second half of a cup final: “Get the ball into the box, and the Gwladys Street will suck the ball into the net.” In that moment, we all looked on and cried out in some mix of elation and terror and anticipation, and I felt it. I felt the will of ten thousand people bent on a colorful sphere, trying to drag it across the line for a late winner.

It didn’t happen. The ball somehow stayed out of the goal, and the match would end 1-1. It felt in the moment like a loss, but as we applauded the players and filed out en masse into the rainy night, we knew it was a result we would take without complaint. Brighton are brilliant – taking anything off them is a worthy prize.

We picked up food from a Chinese takeaway place on the walk home. We ate with a final round of Carling in the kitchen area in the upstairs of the pub. We would have loved to have these drinks at a pub after a victory, but we were content and grateful and exhausted. My voice was shot.

I’m home again after a journey from Liverpool to Manchester to Amsterdam to Detroit to Green Bay to Milwaukee. My dad and I parted ways with an emotional hug and we would later find we both picked up a cold somewhere along the way. Yesterday was my cat’s 3rd birthday and my best mate’s 30th.

We had fun. So, so much fun. And it meant so very much to me.

Life goes on for me and for Everton. And it’s not easy. I guess no one said it would be. I came home to all the shit I left. Everton play Crystal Palace (didn’t expect three mentions for the Eagles in this blog post!) on Saturday and need a good result as their future still remains very uncertain – even grim. I don’t know what kind of turmoil the club might be in when I turn 40, and I certainly don’t know what the fuck I’ll be doing between now and then.

But it’s okay. You kick on anyway.

It’s at the heart of my heritage, and of Tolkien and other great tales, and of my favorite team. It’s at the heart of my family and my faith. “You go on,” says Davos Seaworth, who would undoubtedly have been an Evertonian. “Go fail again.”

I didn’t waste the last decade of my life. I lived it. It made me who I am today. And I am – slowly – learning to love that person as I find out who he is. He is loved by his family and by his friends and by his God. I will go on. I am at all times becoming who I am meant to be. Nothing can change that, just as nothing can really change Everton. Everton will always exist, until some day in the future if sports are no longer a thing. Even if new ownership comes in and makes a mess of things, even if the club gets relegated and goes into financial ruin and the resulting death spiral takes us down through all the levels of English football, even if the club were to dissolve, it wouldn’t be the end. Some people on the banks of the River Mersey would clear a patch of land and paint it with some simple white lines. They’d put up two goals and set up a few bleachers. Local lads and ladies would put on the same-colored shirts and play against a team wearing a different color. And then they’d get sponsorships and investment and bring in players from Ireland and Wales and Senegal and Brazil and climb from one division to the other. And young children and old timers and Americans would gather and cheer. The People’s Club will go on, and so will I.

We are who we are today, and that’s enough.

November 5, 2023. Liverpool, England.

The night before, walking back to the pub with our takeaway, we found that someone had spray-painted “Ban Ingrants” on the side of the pub. Shitty, but not unexpected in today’s UK. “More like ban ignorance,” I said. It disturbed my dad, too.

Early the next morning, I went out to find some bottled water. There was a middle-aged man painting over the graffiti, already nearly done applying a fresh, even layer to erase the hateful words.

“You alright, mate?” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m good.”

He was just finishing up when we came down to meet the car to take us to Manchester.

“Good morning,” said my father.

“Have a good day now,” I said.

“Cheers,” he said. And then he went inside.

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

Up the Toffees

-Peter

A spoiler-free look at general trends, the films and performances of the year, and the film that best represents our cultural moment.

The greatest accomplishment of The Fabelmans, a film I liked that moved me much more than I expected, is the convincing presentation of truisms – clichés, even – about film. It looks us in the eye with a straight face and tells us movies are magic. They’re more real sometimes than the physical world around us. Film, as an artistic medium, can change lives, change cultures. And they can also “just” thrill and enchant, “simply” astound and delight. Spielberg would know, having over decades enchanted millions with awesome spectacle while also reaching through to the heart of what moves us.

This holistic, sincere view of film is pleasantly reflected in this year’s Best Picture nominees at the Academy Awards, as well as in the greater 2022 canon. It’s pointless to say there’s something for everyone because hundreds of films come out every year; of course there is something for everyone. What’s notable instead, for me, is how many films were for anyone. My personal tastes – as you’ll find below – skew towards the arty and subtle, but with only a few exceptions the best and most acclaimed films this year were movies I’d recommend without a second thought. There are films that lean heavily toward wonder and spectacle or nuance and detail, but many, many films manage to gratify all our movie-consuming parts – our head, heart, eyes, ears, even our loins.

I have enough evidence from this year in film not to be worried about the state of movies. Yeah, things are changing and trends are emerging, and not all of them are good from my perspective. But film is always changing, and changing rapidly. It’s one of the world’s newest art forms, and in much the same way flight has advanced incalculably since Kitty Hawk, so too have motion pictures. But film is also stable; the core elements are still necessary for success. And there are still artists – more than ever – committed to telling all kinds of stories, of expressing all kinds of ideas, through that medium. What does give me anxiety is the public’s capacity to sit still for two hours and concentrate on one thing, but that is for another essay.

You’ll find a few different things below: a few general trends I’ve noticed, my top ten films of the year, my favorite performances of the year, and my film of the year (the film that best represents this year). Please read on. If doing so convinces you to watch even one film you wouldn’t have otherwise, I’ll be satisfied.

Are good action movies a thing now?

Action movies are well-represented both on my top ten and the Best Picture nominees. Action films are generally judged according to the conventions of their genre, but this year presented a number of films that transcend the genre. This is encouraging for me as someone who has complicated feelings about violence in film, and as someone who would like to Trojan Horse some great movies into big box office and streaming numbers. If we can continue each year to get a handful of big-budget action movies with great writing and performances built on powerful ideas, that will be for everyone’s good.

Writing matters.

Babylon is nominated for several technical awards but not Best Picture because of bad writing. Women Talking is nominated for Best Picture despite not being nominated for not much else because of good writing. Technologically, the greatest achievement of the year is Avatar: The Way of Water, but it’s not going to win Best Picture because the writing is just fine. In short, the year showed once again that writing is one of the most distinguishing factors in film. Surprising no one, I love this aspect of film, and I love the diversity of writing styles that are receiving attention and acclaim. Writing, like all aspects of film, continues to evolve, but it also remains remarkably stable. It remains one of the few aspects upon which a film’s entire success can ultimately hinge.

We all just want to love and be loved.

It is sometimes possible to identify some sort of thesis emerging from a year of film, and this is what I’m going with for 2022. Maybe that’s too easy, as so much art for so long has focused on different forms of love and longing, but I think this year it was especially striking. Here’s an incomplete list of 2022 films that are, fundamentally, about human connection: The Banshees of Inisherin, Petite Maman, Aftersun, The Whale, Women Talking, Tár, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Bardo, The Worst Person in the World, The Quiet Girl, The Fabelmans. Each of these films is about other things, too, but at their core they are full of love and longing, an intense, usually mournful cry to be seen and understood and to go through life with other people, even just one other person. I don’t think this is a coincidence. It’s part of our reckoning with the pandemic, with our social media addiction, our increasing political polarization, our segregated cities, our climate in crisis, our democracy weakening. Information is more available than ever, but the truth remains elusive. What is the simplest, most basic human response? Hold onto the ones you love, and never let them go. And what, then, is perhaps the most basic, most visceral fear? That we might fail to hold onto them, or that we will never get the chance – to love and lose, or never love at all.

Top Films of 2022 (kinda best + kinda favorite = Top)

OLI: Broker, The Fabelmans, the last 30 minutes of Top Gun: Maverick, Worst Person in the World, The Stranger

10. The Woman King. One of the most surprising films of the year, The Woman King is totally engrossing. As the best sword-and-sandal films do, it operates well at the political and personal level, being as much about the journey of its heroes as it is the stakes of the warring peoples. The characters are three-dimensional and rendered in fantastic performances, the action sequences are harrowing and thrilling, and the world created is entirely convincing. It feels like an authentic period piece, but with a modern sensibility and swagger that props up some of the key moments and themes. Do you like Braveheart? Gladiator? You’ll like The Woman King.

9. The Banshees of Inisherin. The risk run with black comedies / tragicomedies is leaving out any heart and sincerity. So too with satire. But Banshees evades both traps. The premise is as overt as the commentary, being a film about a ridiculous row between two former friends and the violent conflicts that have divided Irish people for hundreds of years. Maybe in less capable hands this becomes a plodding political allegory or a basic far-fetched comedy, but the sincerity of McDonough’s off-beat writing style and the commitment from the actors makes it a cutting (pun not-intend #iykyk) study of the absurdity of conflict, the randomness of human interaction, and the tragedy of a life without love. If you’ve ever lost a close friend for reasons you don’t fully understand, you’ll know how true to the mark this absurd movie actually is. And it’s not much of a step to see how the pettiness of our personal interactions balloons into larger political rivalries. And what’s more ridiculous, really? Hating people we know, or hating people we don’t?

8. RRR. This movie kicks ass. It’s not often a film earns a three hour runtime, but RRR absolutely does, using all that runtime to tell a complex and compelling story, construct iconic characters, and revel in set pieces both musical and violent (and sometimes both). It is cleverly subversive, especially for a movie that turns it up to 11 at every opportunity (except for there being no sex, but there are so many shockingly hot people in this movie that I think it checks that box too). This is kind of what we go to the movies for, isn’t it? To see a thrilling story, to see things we’ve never seen before, to be inspired, to be moved, to see thinly-veiled homoeroticsm swaggering about in sweaty masculinity? So, yeah – it rocks.

7. EO. This movie’s ass kicks. Get it? Because it’s, you know, about a donkey? I’ll show myself out. No, but seriously, this movie also kicks ass, just in a totally different way from RRR. It’s understated and meditative and beautiful, and I kinda wish I had [redacted #iykyk] before watching it for maximum impressionistic vibes. It’s clever to use a donkey – an animal we often use for insulting comparisons, despite the fact they’re really just hard-working ugly cute horses – as a way to show how stupid, stubborn, and animalistic humans can be. EO, the donkey, is so strikingly human, but also so refreshingly not human. He is bothered by cruelty, and seeks love, and desires freedom, but he holds no prejudices, is so unbounded by rules and decorum, eschews culture and norms, has no sense of time or obligation. The takeway for me is double-edged: EO is so much like us. And we are so unlike him. EO also has some of my favorite shots from the year

6. Nope. I’m baffled by this film’s exclusion from the Oscars. Jordan Peele is, in his third feature film, becoming more nuanced in his societal critiques but also more over-the-top in his spectacle. His symbolism continues to operate at multiple levels, and he is already one of our most capable creators of iconic images. Think about how many shots and scenes from Get Out are part of our popular film lexicon – he’s doing that again in Nope, even if it didn’t have the same cultural impact as Get Out. Perhaps it’s not a horror movie, but there are some horrifying moments that are very effective. Also effective are Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer – more on them soon.

5. Petite Maman. Maybe this is me being a little extra, but I legitimately love this film from Céline Sciamma. As in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Sciamma does so much with so little, but whereas that film rested on the performances of two grown women, this one rests on two young girls. The film is so sweet, so aching, so lovely. Portrait feels like there was some small part of Sciamma that said to herself, “I’m going to make a great film.” And she did – it’s one of the best films ever made, easily in my personal Top 10. Petite Maman feels like she said, “I’m going to make a movie I like.” Not every great movie has to set out to be the best thing ever. Sometimes they can just be good on their own terms. When a master filmmaker does that, it’s refreshing and gratifying.

Okay, we’re into the top four, which are on their own level.

4. Aftersun. Speaking of doing the most with the least. This film is so poignant in its ordinariness. It’s a family drama about divorce, coming-of-age, and the love between father and daughter without anything especially dramatic happening. What could be more ordinary and yet more profound than your daughter holding up a video camera and asking “What did you want to be when you grew up?” To be that father faced with that innocent question, to be that daughter not understanding why he can’t answer. (Also, shout-out to 90’s and 00’s dads who spent all their family outings and vacations with a video camera). Aftersun is as tender as it is mournful, and it is a joy to see a film that finds the beauty and the weight in the everyday.

3. Women Talking. Okay, yes, the film is basically just, well, women talking. And yes, that talking often takes the shape of long speeches. But I was totally absorbed in this film from start to finish. The writing builds the complexity of this debate – to leave, to do nothing, to stay and fight – that the women in this male-dominated religious sect have throughout the film. These are the conversations behind the simplicity of “he said, she said,” the thorny terrain women must navigate simply by being women in a world where men are given inherent power and privilege. The ensemble cast performance is astonishing, and the tone and mood of the visuals are so consistent and beautiful in their austerity. Women Talking is necessary cinema.

2. Tár. More to come on this film in later sections, but for now: this is a masterpiece on every level. Many viewers have categorized it as a tough sit, and while I see where they’re coming from I don’t at all agree. This is the film from the year that you have to watch on a relaxed evening with the lights turned down and a glass of wine. Put your phone away and turn the volume up a little. It’s breathtaking.

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once. Can we all please quit overthinking this? Can we please stop pretending we’re tired of this movie’s inevitability? This is one of the greatest films ever made, and we should celebrate it every chance we get. I really mean that – this is easily the best film of the year, and it is an all-time great film. There are very few films that can ever boast this range of action, heart, humor, and big ideas. Fitting that a film about the multi-verse should hold so many truths all at once. Many of us are tired of multiverse content, but it feels so fresh, so well thought out in this film that it doesn’t bother me. It may end up being a sort of final word on the subject – how could anyone do it better? Yes, it’s chaotic and disorienting and an all-out assault on the senses, but it is all anchored by some of the simplest, most fundamental aspects of drama. This is a story of a mother’s love for her daughter. And then it is so, so much more on top of that. The Daniels were insane to try to put so much into one movie, but their gambit paid off. This is a singular accomplishment.

Performances of the Year (in no particular order)

Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once). It was time for Michelle Yeoh to really have her moment, and it’s a shame this performance comes in the same year as Cate Blanchett in Tár. She is asked to do a lot as she is essentially playing many variations of one character while still maintaining the core of the Evelyn we meet at the beginning of the film. Changed as she is by the end, we know it’s the same person we met two and half hours earlier. Michelle Yeoh been an icon – this just solidifies her legend status.

Cate Blanchett (Tár). In her first scene, a long medium shot of Lydia waiting off stage to begin her public appearance, Cate Blanchett shows us who this person is while hardly saying a word. The performance never relents – everything she does, everything she says, all of it is a perfect embodiment of this character, captivating and intimidating and beautiful. Blanchette is one of the most recognizable actors in the world and start to finish this is Lydia Tár. True genius.

Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer (Nope). The brother and sister at the center of Nope are opposites in a lot of ways, and while Kaluuya is the star, the film – like the characters’ horse-handling business – doesn’t work without Palmer’s exuberance, humor, and overall cool. Kaluuya is doing Kaluuya things. For my money, he took the Best Actor Alive title with Judas and the Black Messiah, and he’s done nothing to lose it here. In Judas, his charisma was at a 10/10, but in Nope, his character is completely and totally lacking in charisma. He’s just a quiet, regular guy, but through his performance Kaluuya channels that subdued temperament into the kind of cool that has marked many great Western characters (and this film essentially turns into a Western as he becomes an Eastwood-like hero).

Everyone in The Woman King (especially Viola Davis Lashana Lynch). Speaking of best actors alive. I had no idea this was a role Viola Davis could play, and oh my goodness does she play it. It’s everything Russell Crowe does in Gladiator, and there’s this one moment where one of her comrades throws her a weapon that I actually think might be a subtle nod to that part in Gladiator where Maximus gets on the horse and Juba throws him a sword…but also it’s just cool when people throw each other weapons. Lashana Lynch is a revelation. The supporting cast is great, but her very physical performance, from the subtle facial expressions to the athletic fight scenes, is special. Lots of epic films with large casts struggle to make us really connect with the supporting characters. One scene with Lashana Lynch and I was 100% team Izogie.

Everyone in Women Talking (but especially Rooney Mara, Sheila McCarthy, and Kate Hallett). The movie just doesn’t stand a chance without great performances, and these three – representing three different generations of the colony’s women – are the best in my eyes.

Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr (RRR). Both men exhibit acting chops, but this is really about the astounding physicality of their performances. It’s like if Keanu Reeves also sang and danced in the John Wick movies. Their chemistry together is also pure joy, and they are both, so, so very hot.

Mark Rylance (The Outfit). This is a pretty neat thriller and I definitely recommend it, but it’s probably B-movie fodder without Mark Rylance being in his bag start to finish. The acting overall in this film is a little suspect – I think partially due to writing and direction – but Rylance carries every scene even without having a lot to work with. I’d like to see this movie recast with A-list performers all around him to see what his performance would look like then, but it might not actually be that different. He hits all the right notes and doesn’t miss a beat.

All the donkeys (EO and Banshees of Inisherin). Every once in a while an animal is so good in a movie you swear they’re really truly acting. Shout out to all the donkeys who brought EO and Jenny to life. And also the donkey in Triangle of Sadness, who really didn’t deserve to die like that. Rich people are the worst.

Colin Farrell (Banshess of Inisherin). All four of the nominated actors (and the donkey (and the dog)) in this film are excellent – really excellent. But Farrell’s performance is my favorite. Some of his lines in this scene are just perfection. Actually this scene is a good showcase for all four actors. Farrell is convincing as a character who is pretty dumb and pathetic, but is also, at his core, nice. Some movie stars play an everyman and it doesn’t quite work – Farrell has mastered it, and he’s doing it again here.

Renate Reinsve (Worst Person in the World). You’ll spend the first ten or fifteen minutes being like “Okay, that’s actually Dakota Johnson, right?” But make no mistake, Reinsve is not just the Norwegian version of an American starlet. She’s one of the best young actresses in the world, someone who owns every single scene, who you just want to watch. I said in 2020 I was buying all the Manon Clavel. I’m doing the same for Renate Reinsve. Please let this be just the first of many high-profile performances. She’s electric.

So, what is the film of 2022?

I enjoy selecting “the film of the year” by considering which of the year’s most excellent films best represents this cultural moment in America (I chose Mank in 2020).

The obvious choice might, again, be Everything Everywhere All at Once, but I think that is both a little too broad and a little too narrow. Broad, because how can a movie about everything be specific to one year, and narrow because in general it seems older audiences don’t respond to the film quite the same way. I think most Millennials think their parents spend too much time on their phones, but even if they are it is not usually the same sort of dizzying engagement with thousands of channels of content that characterizes the way Millennials and Zoomers/Gen Yeet interact with their devices.

Maybe I’m overthinking this, but I’m not picking EEAaO, though there’s a strong case for it.

The film of the year is Tár. Yep, a film about the world’s foremost conductor of classical music is the film that captures the cultural moment of 2022.

Lydia Tár is a regular person. An impossibly beautiful, supremely talented person, but a regular person. When we meet her, she has already ascended to the top of her art and profession. She is in a place where she now – because of her talent and hard work and accomplishments – has power and control. She controls the musicians as they play, her baton giving her control over time itself. She can choose which musicians to hire, which colleagues to fire, and who gets the big solo. She has a dedicated assistant who will do everything for her, including edit her Wikipedia page for the most up-to-date information on her accomplishments. She keeps up her health by ordering salads, going for long runs, and constantly sanitizing her hands. She threatens the child who bullies her daughter, and is clearly the one in control in her relationship.

Power corrupts, of course. Lydia abuses that power, sometimes to devastating consequences. And so her power and control begins to unravel.

Lydia is not so much a cautionary tale as she is a reflection of human nature. But it’s more than that; not only are we like Lydia, we want to be.

Professionally speaking, from good honest blue collar jobs to corporate white collar workplaces to “purely” artistic endeavors, we are all conditioned to gain more power and control. Ours is a society built on the basic idea that you can and should advance yourself through hard work, and the higher you climb you are afforded more power and control and – crucially – less accountability, regardless of increasing responsibility. The film is, then, a critique of capitalist society, but it goes a step further to include pursuits we (and when I say we I especially mean liberal people who read The New Yorker and maybe create art of their own) would like to consider exempt from capitalist impulse. Classical music is one of the most beautiful things humanity has ever created, and even it is not free to operate for its own beautiful sake. It too is a rat race. And time and again, we find those who have risen to the top of any profession – athletes, business people, politicians – are so susceptible to abusing that power.

America in 2022 has intensified our pursuits of power and control. No matter who is in the White House, the basic message of the opposition is that they are taking away our freedom (read: power and control). That’s really it. When someone has a bumper sticker that says “Let’s Go Brandon” or even just “Fuck Joe Biden” (let’s hear it for the party of family values) it seems to have very little to do with specific policies; rather, it’s a general sentiment that we can’t live life the way we want to because this person – these people – are stopping us. And of course sometimes those people are in fact stopping us. No matter who we elect, they aren’t ever actually doing all that we want them to. Because that would be hard, and now that they’re in control they don’t have to do hard things if they don’t want to.

Our collective response to the powers-that-be, then, is to find some other way to find power and control, both professionally and personally.. Start a business or a podcast. Get a tattoo or a piercing. Subscribe to the services you want, watch your shows when you want to watch them. Hover over your child as you send them to school. Wear a gun under your coat. Take that gun into a school. Our lives are increasingly tailored to suit our control in every possible way.

Post-pandemic, aren’t we – like Lydia – all a little more maniacal about our health? Aren’t we all a little more conscious of the way time is ticking away? When a new relationship is just a swipe away, how likely are we – really – to cede any control to our partners?

In this cultural moment when we are increasingly desperate for power and control, maybe we can understand better than ever how we might act if we actually got what we wanted. If you rose to the very height of your profession, might you sleep with whoever you wanted? And if in so doing you crossed some lines, made some mistakes, really deeply hurt some people, might you be a little indignant when people came asking questions?

Again, it’s not just that we are all Lydia Tár – it’s that we want to be.

And yet. I believe Lydia is trying at times to be a good person. I believe she is trying to bring beauty into the world. What a weighty place to be, where what you love to do is beautiful, and in your pursuit of that beauty you do very ugly things. When has that ever been more relatable than now?

The film of 2022 is Tár.

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

-Peter