Are you a Centaur or a Reverse Centaur? Critically Examining AI in The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI

 The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence- Before It's Too Late by Cory Doctorow

The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI  book cover

Author and Centaur Cory Doctorow

Many thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Cory Doctorow’s timely and important new book The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence- Before It’s Too Late. I was excited to find this book, especially less than a year after Doctorow’s excellent book Enshittification was published that details the various ways that tech companies and especially digital platforms offer less or worse service for higher premiums and fees over time. The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI also takes a critical look at the ways in which AI threatens to enshittify different areas of our lives if we buy into the hype and wild claims about it’s disruptive capabilities. If anything, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide… is truly a guide for how to manage expectations and reject both the overhyped proclamations of AI companies and the doomsayers’ nihilism and fears about a robopocalypse. Even more importantly, Doctorow highlights the impact of AI on different sectors of life, focusing especially on how AI consumes massive amounts of energy, water and other resources, for little in return. It’s an important book since AI is a major topic in so many fields, but it’s even more important to have this kind of critical perspective that examines how AI fits into other technological innovations and updates that have threatened to disrupt and change the ways we work, read, communicate, and experience entertainment.

Doctorow uses the idea of a centaur to explain how we can either use technology in our lives, or how technology can use us. For Doctorow, we should all be centaurs in our technology use. Centaurs are mythological creatures that have the torse and head of men but have the legs of a horse. When we use technology to our benefit or when we are assisted by technology, we are centaurs. He uses the example of driving a car or wearing hearing aids and using a calculator. We are in control of our use of technology to assist us in tasks. However, a reverse centaur is someone who is forced to assist a machine to manage its tasks or who are surveilled by machines to meet certain quotas for efficiency. Doctorow uses the famous I Love Lucy Episode where Lucy and Ethel work on the chocolate assembly line and struggle to keep up as the pace increases. He likens this to other major corporations that monitor driving and warehouse work that often limit bathroom breaks, surveilling and managing time and efforts to where humans are used up by machines. Thus, it’s clear that Doctorow is no luddite, and that he believes in technology and recognizes the various ways it enhances our lives. He’s also not against AI, as he notes a particularly useful application from an open source program that was able to transcribe massive amounts of audio data to find a quote from a podcast he was looking for. However, what Doctorow does oppose is the use of technology, and especially AI, to exploit workers, whether it is through the threats to their jobs, surveillance pricing and wagering, and its exploitation in the creative arts (visual arts, music, and even writing). Doctorow presents these ideas by examining the AI bubble before it arrived, where we currently are in the bubble, and looking at other bubbles that have burst, and considering how we can avoid the consequences of other similar bursts to jobs and the economy. I appreciated this perspective, especially since we tend to think of AI as a new technology that has only recently appeared, but he provides some instances of automation that people have promoted, and many times, there have been ulterior motives for the idea of automation. AI is no different where Doctorow examines the ways that promises and predictions are often presented as truths and capabilities. This kind of hype for the exaggerated possibilities and potentials leads investors to speculate on futures, driving up the stock value of companies. It’s that kind of speculation that enables prompts other companies to wade out into these new technologies. He cites notable failures like Google +, a failed social media venture from Google, and the Facebook’s failed attempt to pivot to video. In these instances, Doctorow examines how the companies latched on to new trends in technology, but manipulated the metrics or even the access to present a much more optimistic view of these technologies to attract more investors, where they can redistribute their money within their original company. It allows the company’s reputation to grow on promises, but not on actual delivery or outcomes. Doctorow notes similar practices with AI companies that allow them to promote possibilities and potential but not actually deliver.

The Bubble section explores these some of these possibilities, and more importantly to recognize the threats and implications and consequences that arise from the ways that AI is being pitched to major corporations. Most notably, Doctorow explores how AI’s promise to replace workers is something that corporate overlords salivate after. While this does seem to be a constant threat and something that we’re reminded of repeatedly with AI speculation, Doctorow provides several examples of AI that have never panned out. Whether it involves Wendy’s or Delta Airlines attempting to implement surveillance and/or surge pricing only to backtrack or instances of self-driving cars being flummoxed by cones placed on their hood or dragging pedestrians for considerable distances before stopping, there are many of the examples of implementations that failed to meet the hype or caused considerable backlash from local communities. And yet, due to the Byzantine Premium, when investors place extra value on an asset they don’t understand, the hype continues to outweigh the failures and investors continue to pour money into AI start-ups. Doctorow also reminds us of Stein’s Law, that reminds us that everything that cannot go on forever will eventually stop, and Doctorow provides suggestions that the hype and promises that have failed to materialize for AI indicate that there can only be so much innovation, leading to the eventual bubble bursting, which he argues “this will not be a good day. Remember: seven giant AI companies account for 35 percent of the U.S. stock market.”

There are a lot of other important predecessors that AI has followed a kind of blueprint for to amaze potential investors, from the Mechanical Turk, an 18^th century automaton that was touted to play chess when it was really controlled by someone inside the machine, to more recent examples from 2021’s dancing Tesla Bot that was revealed to be a human in a robot suit to a robot bartender that was revealed to have a tele-operator. Amazingly, Doctorow also elicits some empathy for call center workers, who have been some of the first to experience job loss from AI chatbots, only to be frequently rehired. One of the most frightening areas that Doctorow documents AI’s creeping influence is in healthcare, where AI agents surveil contract nurses and offer jobs at lower rates to nurse’s with lower credit scores (with higher debt). As a field that requires continuing education and rewards advanced degrees while also requiring passing rigorous certification exams, it makes sense that nurses would probably have more loan debt than some other fields, but the idea that health care companies are partnering with AI technology firms to cut costs on care and staffing is wrong on many different levels. Doctorow also finds examples of radiologists and other specialists whose skills and training have been supplanted by AI reviews of scans and other reports. The findings indicate that serving as a reverse centaur to the AI review, that is reviewing the AI findings, has diminished the accuracy of these health care specialists to a large extent in the same way that other areas like TSA workers have shown diminished results, or an accountability sink, in spotting positive results when AI misses them.

I also appreciated Doctorow’s notes about AI and creativity, noting how AI art lacks a soul and does not deserve copyrighting. He gets a little in the weeds about the history of copyright law and how it applies to artists, while also examining how studios, record labels, and other large corporations have exploited copyright laws to benefit themselves over artists, but Doctorow seems clear in his argument against AI art. He also offers hope and a sense of community to push back against all of the hype and false promises of AI. He uses the Writer’s Guild strike from 2023. As he notes, the Writer’s Guild banded together to fight against AI replacing writers. They didn’t push against AI in totality but rather to replace writers and being able to use AI as needed. It’s this sense of strength in numbers, aligned with pushing back against dehumanizing and fear mongering that AI companies are stressing to hype up their products. While I’ll need to go back and re-read some of the chapters, this is an important and timely book; one that will provide a deeper dive into a wildly misunderstood technology and topic. It’s also important to check out the facts and details now,  since there’s probably a good segment of the population using AI somewhat mindlessly and without much intention beyond entertainment or completing tasks quickly. I was amazed at the depth and breadth of this book, while also being relatively brief. Doctorow covers a lot of history and uses many different familiar (and often humorous) examples to make the complicated elements of AI technology and its business models more familiar and comprehensible. Highly recommended!

Confronting Harsh Realities in Joyce Carol Oates' The Frenzy: Stories

 The Frenzy: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates

The Frenzy book cover

Author Joyce Carol Oates

A frenzy is a state of heightened, wild, and uncontrollable emotion, often marked by a loss of reason. It’s a feeling of emotional angst and instability that often manifests in violent, chaotic behavior that usually leaves some kind of destruction, whether it is emotional wreckage, reputational harm, or even physical injuries. Joyce Carol Oates’ latest collection of stories not only uses The Frenzy as a title, but many of the characters experience a kind of frenzied state as a result of their relationships and interactions. I am grateful to Random House and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of this harrowing and haunting collection of stories. I’ve only read a few of the well-known, anthologized stories from Oates, so I wasn’t completely prepared for how unsettling some of these stories were; however, while this is a dark collection of stories, it is rewarding for those readers who enjoy being knocked or rocked off of our sense of security by both sudden events or the slow and gradual release of more information that eventually leads to a kind of peripeteia where characters experience a reverse of fortune due their prior acts, whether these are acts of omission, ignorance, or relational violence. Although these stories have that tragic structure in place, there’s almost no catharsis in these stories since many of the characters are unlikeable. Rather they sometimes experience a sense of cosmic irony, where the character seems to get what they deserve (“The Frenzy” and “The Bicycle Accident”). Other stories feature characters who struggle with changes and accepting their fates (“The Redwoods”, “Refuge”, and “Night Fishing at Antibes”). Yet, all of these characters either experience their own sense of frenzy or are forced to navigate a kind of frenzy from a loved one that eventually brings about a revelation to their relationships. The Frenzy is a collection of domestic horror stories—stories that are not supernatural, but feature horrific and monstrous people who engage in troubling and destructive behavior. I wasn’t expecting this kind of reaction to this book, but Joyce Carol Oates clearly struck a nerve in me with these stories.

The stories are generally longer short stories, which allows for some development of characters and in some cases considerable time to pass. I loved this aspect of the book, as the extended character development allows for a deeper sense of irony when these characters experience their peripeteia, or reversal of fortune. “The Frenzy”, which is the first story in the collection, starts the collection off strong and features a husband and father who absconds to Cape May, NJ with his much younger “mistress”, who was a few years older than his daughter. Although the shore town is somewhat deserted during the winter, Cassidy keeps thinking about an experience he had on a boat in Rhode Island, watching a feeding frenzy, where plankton attract smaller fish, which attract larger fish, and eventually apex predators. It’s a scene that’s revisited later in the story and serves as an effective metaphor and foreshadowing event for Cassidy’s relationship with the younger Brianna. I was shocked by the ending, and this story engaged me for the rest of the book.

“The Fear” is another interesting story that spends time charting the relationship between two cousins, Juliet and Janette, who are close in age and grow up together and celebrate birthdays and holidays together until Juliet is mysteriously absent from Janette’s sixth birthday. Oates effectively captures the uncertainty and ignorance of childhood as the adults shield Janette from Juliet’s cancer diagnosis, which wreaks havoc on Juliet’s social life in school and her appearance, due to reconstructive surgeries. This was one of the more harrowing stories, not only because it deals with childhood illness, but also because of how Janette struggles with her own feelings and needs for attention and emotional assurance. As Juliet’s illness, surgeries, and recovery demands more caregiving from her family, Janette experiences a kind of withdrawal of emotions and struggles with her own feelings. As someone who has served as a loved one’s caregiver during cancer, I can appreciate the conflicted feelings Janette experienced as she navigates the dissonance between her concern and care for Juliet and her own feelings of resentment and the desire for attention that all kids experience.

“The Bicycle Accident” was another harrowing read focusing on how a bicycle accident during a family reception completely changes the trajectory a family’s life. However, the bicycle accident is more of a response to Evie’s parents’ (Arlette and Kevin’s) hamartia, their fatal flaws in judgement and awareness of a family friend, that leads Evie to gradually disconnect from their family. While most of the events take place before and after Evie’s accident, tracing her recovery and her pushing the boundaries of adolescent independence, the story skips ahead into Evie’s adulthood and Arlette’s eventual move into an assisted living home. This story also has a reversal of fortunes and roles where caregiving and receiving are ironically transposed.

The second group of stories, “The Call”, “The Return”, and “The Redwoods” all have to do with death and relationships. “The Call” is one of the shorter stories in this collection, and S., the main character who is a daughter, wife and mother, is informed that her father has died in a hospital, yet she is sure that her father has been dead for years.  S. tries to make sense of this call and the events of her life, including caring for her elderly parents. “The Return” is about a writer who visits her friend, a recent widow for the second time, after the pandemic restrictions have eased. As she visits the house, she realizes how the house has fallen into disrepair since the death of her friend’s husband, Thad, a well-known professor and writer. This issue of disrepair and an inability to keep up physical property is another theme throughout the book, as characters seem to lack the ability to maintain their surroundings and in some cases themselves after experiencing loss or tragedy. Like the character of Janette in “The Fear”, this narrator is also struggling to come to terms with her friend’s loss; however, while Janette is young, the narrator and her friend are both older, facing the same kind of existential questions that Thad experienced before he died, and this leads the narrator to some revelations as she notices some unsettling evidence around the home. “The Redwoods” stands out as a kind of ghost story, but it’s also about a man (Jake) who is haunted by a chance encounter during a hike in his early 20s. Jake seems to be unable to let go of the regret in not talking more to a woman he encountered with a partner on a hike, and this chance encounter has seemingly haunted him until his early death in his 50s. He is able to return to his family, but is unable to communicate with them, just as he was largely unable to communicate with them while he was alive, always regretting his inaction on the trail. Again, we see a character whose hamartia both haunts and punishes him not only for his lifetime, but his afterlife as well. We also see how this fatal flaw of Jake’s punishes his family as well.

 

The third and final section of stories all see to deal with marriages, but these themes of illness, regret, and frenzied reactions to stress and traumatic events carry across all of the stories. “Small Veins” is another brief story that details a woman receiving a blood test after her husband has died. She seems to anticipate a disease or illness, but it might just be her own mental malaise that causes her distress and angst. “Refuge” was another disturbing story about a woman whose husband has disappeared for nearly two months, until she receives a frantic call from him that leaves some clues to his whereabouts. Prior to the call, we learn more about their marriage and the kinds of accommodations she makes to feel love for her husband, while he fails to reciprocate. Her quest to find him, mirrored by her questions surrounding the puppy that they adopted who also has gone missing, also allow us to learn more about the tensions and inequities in their relationship. While Marcus, the husband, has sought refuge in a Buddhist monastery, he doesn’t seem to have found the kind of zen enlightenment we most associate with Buddhism. The book ends with “Night Fishing at Antibes”, which deals with a widow’s adaptation to life without her husband. Zahira struggles to find a sense of rhythm and purpose without her husband, Herman, who was a scientist at an institute for advanced study. Another recent widow, Meghan, attempts to pull Zahira out of her drudgery, but Zahira misses her marriage and struggles to adapt to this new kind of relationship. Zahira is surrounded by either widows who struggle to maintain their homes or seemingly happy families and marriages, where spouses care for one another. Zahira thinks back to a fleeting encounter she had with one of her husband’s colleagues, Illya, who showed interest in her despite Zahira not reciprocating. While Illya is a renowned scientist, he is much older than Zahira. Eventually Zahira and her new friend, Meghan, visit Illya and his wife, Hester, for lunch as Illya is recovering from several surgeries. Zahira attends the luncheon after years prior rejecting Illya’s lunch date, with the hope that Illya may still show some affection for Zahira. However, the lunch devolves into a manic and frantic episode for both Hester and Illya, possibly showing Zahira that maybe she’s better off without a husband, or at least a husband like Illya.

These stories are disturbing and unsettling, but the are also incredible and instructive. I could see using some of these stories in an intro to lit class, although many of the stories are dark and unsettling. Maybe there’s another kind of modern gothic or domestic horror lit class that these stories would fit. As I was reading them, I can see how Oates’ work resonates with writers like Stephen King, who has moved from supernatural horrors to the kinds of horrors that represent the banality of evil, that we may experience in our everyday lives. Furthermore, Oates’ stories all touch on topics that we can never escape: health, relationships, aging and time. In fact, the last story uses Picasso’s painting “Night Fishing at Antibes” as a kind of metaphor for staving off the ravages of time and maintaining a sense of integrity while aging. Illya, the aging scientist near death, reminds his visitors of Einstein’s contradictions when he says “Einstein certainly knew that in fact there is only time: the hourglass that runs in one direction only.” It’s a reminder to recognize that change and adaptation are natural parts of life. I also loved that many of the stories in this book take place in Central Jersey, Bucks County, PA and other areas around the Delaware River, areas I am familiar with. I highly recommend this collection, but it is a collection of stories that will challenge readers’ thinking and comfort, confronting us with some of the monstrous and horrid eventualities of life, rather than running towards the warm embrace of delusions and ignorance.  Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for sharing this advanced copy. 

A Screaming Life: by Kim Thayil

  A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond by Kim Thayil with Adem Tepedelen

 A Screaming Life book cover

Founding Soundgarden guitarist and author Kim Thayil 

Big thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of A Screaming Life: Into the Superunknown with Soundgarden and Beyond by Kim Thayil with Adem Tepedelen. Thayil was a founding member of Soundgarden, one of the bands of the late 80s and 1990s that helped to reshape punk, psychedelic, and hard rock. Although Soundgarden is often lumped into grunge music since they were formed in Seattle along with bands like Alice in Chains, Mudhoney, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, Soundgarden had been making music for several years prior to the year punk broke (1991) and had their own distinct sound that drew from 1970s hard rock, punk, and psychedelic influences. As the lead guitarist, Kim Thayil was one of the primary architects of Soundgarden’s sound. However, as someone who enjoyed the 1990’s output of the band, I didn’t know a lot about Thayil. While Chris Cornell is often seen as the face and voice of the band, Thayil’s distinct use of wah-wah peddles for solos in songs like “Black Hole Sun”, the chugging, rumbling riffs for songs like “Outshined” , and the screaming, feedback drenched guitars of songs like “Rusty Cage” and “Jesus Christ Pose” helped to establish Soundgarden as not just a unique voice in the Seattle scene, but a really heavy band that crafted great songs. Thayil’s memoir of his time in Soundgarden is a fun read, especially for someone who likes music memoirs, but also as someone who followed the band in the 1990s. Just as Thayil’s distinct guitar sound contributed to Soundgarden’s unique sound, his recollections and reflections on his time building the band, creating music collaboratively with his band members, and touring are also distinct. Like his music, Thayil doesn’t delve into the specifics for each song, discussing the meanings or technical aspects. Rather, his memoir is more about tone and feel, examining not just the events that led to work on Soundgarden’s albums and eventually chart success, but also his own experiences navigating the evolving dynamics of the band and his ambivalent feelings about success, recognition, and fame. While the book isn’t overly descriptive or literary, it does provide an amazing look into one of the prominent bands of the Seattle sound of the 1990s, often going behind the scenes to learn more about the challenges Thayil and his bandmates experienced as Soundgarden became more well known.

Thayil recounts his childhood, growing up as the son of Indian immigrants, and how forming a band was an unlikely path for someone like him. In fact, it’s interesting to learn that Soundgarden was started by two Asian Americans, and was probably one of the only bands in the 1980s to feature two Asian Americans. I really enjoyed learning about his early musical influences and how he had to beg his parents for a record player to begin listening to music. It’s an important reminder of how much radio and major record companies influenced what kids and others listened to. Thayil also talks about his adolescence and how growing up in the Chicago area of Forest Park enabled him to form bands and learn more about punk and hard rock. After graduating high school, Thayil was eventually kicked out of his house and kind of adrift for a bit. He stayed with friends, one of whom was the Pavitts whose son, Bruce, eventually formed Sub-Pop records. After trying a few colleges, Thayil and his band member Hiro Yamamoto eventually moved out to Washington State, visiting Evergreen State College in Olympia, where Pavitt attended and was a DJ. Evergreen was also the school where Kathleen Hanna and Carrie Brownstein attended later and formed bands Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney. From reading their memoirs, Calvin Weston and Beat Happenings were also influential around Olympia, encouraging a DIY approach to making and releasing music. Nevertheless, Thayil and Yamamoto eventually ended up in Seattle, meeting Chris Cornell, their eventual band member. Reading about Thayil and Soundgarden’s formation and early days was exciting and interesting. Furthermore, I enjoyed seeing how diverse and different the musical influences were for the different band members.

In addition to reflecting on the band’s formation, Thayil examines the creative process of the band, discussing how songs often came about as a result of extended jamming and practice sessions. It was cool to learn more about this creative process and how it functioned more as a collective than an one individual taking creative control. Throughout the book, Thayil remains democratic in his approach to the band whether it involves finding new members, song writing, or even developing things like logos and fonts for the band. Although the band practiced a shared decision making, everyone in the band wasn’t always accepting or appreciative of the outcome. Thayil explores some of the challenges they experienced with founding member Yamamoto, who eventually left the band during their first European tour, as the band became more popular and were signed to a major label. Throughout period leading up to Yamamoto’s departure, Thayil notes that Hiro was becoming increasingly more difficult during tours and seemed disconnected from the creative process. Another interesting element of the band that Thayil noticed was how challenging Soundgarden’s sound was for record companies. While independent labels like SST had no issues incorporating a progressive and unique band like Soundgarden into their roster, major labels look for comparisons or genres, and Soundgarden didn’t easily fit into any of the categories, especially the popular hair and glam metal categories that dominated MTV and radios in the late 80s and early 90s. Thayil repeatedly returns to this point about how Soundgarden’s sound was so confounding for record companies. Nevertheless, record companies often tried to pair them with metal producers who may have also contributed to reshaping their sound.

Regardless, Soundgarden would eventually become one of the biggest grunge/alternative bands of the 1990s with their mid-90s releases Superunknown (1994) and Down on the Upside (1996). It’s weird to think of these albums as “classic rock” now, but they are more than 30 years old now, and as Thayil notes, many classic rock radio stations continue to play these songs. Although the band experienced both critical and commercial success, making these albums was a challenge since the band had to adapt to more imposed control from the record labels and their producers, as well as the challenges of frequent touring and other requirements for band promotion. I appreciated how Thayil took us into the control room to learn more about the process of working with a producer, and how that can impact a band’s sound, for better or worse. Thayil and his bandmates seemed to be committed to their founding ethos and were strongly rooted in punk, so even though the producer challenged their creative approach to making music, they had enough integrity and awareness to fight for their own sound to come through the albums. As Thayil notes, this didn’t always come naturally and it was a repeated challenge to battle with producers and record labels about their sound. However, Thayil details how his more philosophical approach allowed him to be more critical and thoughtful rather than being reactive like other band members. That was something else that came across in this memoir- how Thayil, who has a degree in philosophy, is always willing to learn more about a situation or consider the various sides before drawing a conclusion about events or situations. His thoughtful and considerate approach to music and his career is somewhat different from more traditional rockers’ lives and careers. One of the more relatable aspects of this book is how Thayil experiences common issues like struggling to communicate his feelings after a break-up of a 10-year relationship or eventually buying a house and learning more about caretaking (like with HVAC filters). While I loved learning about the experiences of recording and touring with his band, these other revealing moments from his life had me empathizing with him.

The later chapters focus on Soundgarden’s eventual break-up due to Chris Cornell’s interest in pursuing a solo career (and eventually joining corporate-created supergroup Audioslave) and their eventual reunion 15 years later. Thayil details his attempts to continue to make music and work with other artists, but he also appears adrift at these points. Nevertheless, he has some interesting stories about working with Krist Novoselic and even Jello Biafria for a project that was meant to challenge the WTO meeting in Seattle that eventually led to riots in 1999. Thayil also explores the challenges of maintaining Soundgarden’s legacy at a time when digital media wasn’t really existent and there was no real support from the record label. As he documents, it became like an uphill battle as the record label was focused on Chris Cornell’s solo career, so Soundgarden gradually drifted from record shelves and merch stores. After Audioslave broke up, Soundgarden got back together, recorded a new album and toured for a few years. As Thayil describes it, Chris Cornell was changed. Thayil implies that it could have been various factors, but ultimately it seemed like not having his Soundgarden family to take care of Cornell led others to be a negative influence on him. It is interesting that some other Seattle bands had drug issues and lost members due to addiction, but Soundgarden wasn’t known for drug use or excessive partying. They were really into the music. These later chapters lead up to Cornell’s tragic death in 2017 while the band was on tour. While the reunion was bittersweet, it allowed Thayil to continue to work on compilations and rarities releases since there was renewed interest and support for Soundgarden. Thayil ends the book detailing the band’s battle with Cornell’s estate for vocal tracks, which the band eventually won and used to finalize their last album.

Screaming Life is a fun read, especially for 90s music fans. I loved hearing from one of the distinct bands from my youth, and especially from one of the quieter band members. Thayil not only takes fans behind the scenes to learn more about the creative process that helped to birth some of the greatest rock albums from the 90s, but also his shares some of his formative experiences and philosophies, which make him out to be even cooler than I imagined. The one thing I missed about this book, though, was that Thayil didn’t discuss his involvement with one of my favorite albums from the 2000s- Boris and Sunn O)))’s Altar, which I was really surprised to see that Thayil was involved with and also wrote the liner notes for. While there are some other Pacific Northwesterners who contribute to the album, Thayil remains probably the most well-established musician on the record. At the time when the album was released, I was perplexed and captivated by this drone and doom-soaked dark album that rumbles and quakes with Sunn O)))’s low frequencies. After reading Thayil’s book, I can see how he would be drawn to bands like Sunn O))) and Boris who are willing to experiment not just with sounds but use sounds to shape the tones and emotions of their albums. That was one aspect of Thayil’s approach to music that comes across throughout the book. However, he doesn’t talk about this collaboration at all. Maybe it’s because the liner notes share details about the project, but I was really hoping to learn more about their collaboration, how it came about and whether he keeps in touch with anyone from the album. Regardless, this was a fun and engaging book to read. Highly recommended! 

 Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America by Greg Tate

Flyboy in the Buttermilk cover

Author and Critic Greg Tate

Big props to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for allowing me to preview an advanced copy of Greg Tate’s powerful collection of essays from the 80s and 90s Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America. I’ve heard of Greg Tate, but I can’t believe I’ve never read anything by him up until now. Reading the three introductions by Questlove, Henry Louis Gates Jr, and Hanif Abdurraqib provided some great context for understanding not only Greg Tate’s interests and subjects for his writing, but also his vast influence on music, popular culture, and writing in general. While the introductions are awesome, they don’t entirely capture the breadth of Tate’s interests captured by the essays in this book. Whether it’s funk, pop music, hip hop, reggae, art, literature, sci-fi, or movies, Tate’s writing clearly and enthusiastically shows his passion for these arts and more importantly, his emphasis on promoting artists uplifts many Black voices that were often silenced or relegated to the underground at the expense of more mainstream pop acts and artists. Tate’s collection is the kind of book that requires some notetaking to follow up on the many different references, albums, songs, and titles he champions, and I’m so appreciative for it.

One of my favorite elements of this book is Tate’s unique voice in his writing. I absolutely loved his writing, especially about music. The only music writers/critics I could liken him to are Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus, who are both passionate and emphatic champions and critics of music they like and dislike; however, Tate also has his own unique register, adding elements of funk and hip-hop to his writing that emphasize his own distinct voice in criticism. I noticed that this approach changes somewhat when he writes about literature and politics in the latter sections of the book. However, the first section that focuses primarily on his writings about music is so much fun to read; I can only imagine Tate reading these essays out loud. Furthermore, I was amazed to read phrases and lingo Tate uses in his early 80s essays that are still in use today. I think this speaks to not only Tate’s influence, but also his close ear and understanding of culture.

Although this book was originally published in 1992, it’s still completely relevant today. In fact, I was surprised to see how much Tate’s writing about African American literature and history was relevant to my undergraduate studies, which again made me wonder why Tate wasn’t included in any of the anthologies or required reading lists from my professors. Whether it’s discussing the battles between Black leadership in the early 1900s in the quest for either assimilation or equality or the burdens of Black writers and artists to represent culture or to capitalize on the larger market for white audiences, Tate’s writing remains relevant and trenchant, focusing on important considerations for Black culture, artists, writers, and America in general. I double checked my Norton Anthology of African American Literature edited by Gates Jr. just to see if Tate was included in my 1997 edition, but he was not. I hope that Gates Jr. has eventually included Tate in either subsequent editions or other anthologies since I feel like Tate’s approach to many of the canonical texts and arguments from African American literature and history is such a unique, relevant, and engaging voice that challenges readers to question and rethink their understandings of these texts, figures, and events.

The book is divided into three sections. Part One focuses on music criticism, Part Two focuses mostly on literary and art criticism, and Part Three focuses on current events and politics, mostly from the late 1980s and early 1990s in New York. My favorite section was the music criticism section, which was also the longest section in the book. This section is where we see not just the breadth of Tate’s interests (Funk, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Hip-Hop, House), but also the depths of these interests that Tate is willing to pursue to further untangle and share with his audience. I loved how much he writes about Miles Davis, especially reevaluating the electric and later stages of Miles’ career, looking at Miles’ role as not just a Black artist, but an American force of culture who reshaped art and popular music by pursuing his own passions and interests. Tate also explores areas in Jazz that fragmented in the 1960s and 70s, examining the kind of schisms that created paths for standard bearers like the Marsalis family and the paths that diverged to other space ways and areas carved out by avant-garde and free jazz artists. It’s an issue about Black art that re-appears throughout Tate’s book in different forms including fine art vs. graffiti, R & B vs. Pop Music (Prince and Michael Jackson), and literature (Amiri Baraka). Tate seems to update DuBois’s notion of the veil but situates it in the context of American popular culture and the cultural marketplace of the latter 20^th century, where an artist’s existence is sometimes dependent on an audience. One of Tate’s targets is Michael Jackson, whose most popular albums Thriller and Bad, Tate criticizes for their emptiness and pursuit of mass audiences at the expense of the kind of soulfulness or artistic integrity that are apparent in other Black contemporary artists of Michael’s time. My favorite pieces, though, were focused on Public Enemy, whose music from the late 80s and 90s is such an integral part of my life. Tate’s writing about Public Enemy is so accurate and fun, and he captures the energy and power of the band’s sound and vision and how it helped to shape and redirect the hip-hop scene into something more conceptual rather than commercial.

Although Section Three deals with events from NYC in the late 80s and early 90s, I was surprised to see how relevant Tate’s analyses and criticisms are for today. Furthermore, since I was younger and not living in the NYC area at the time, I wasn’t as familiar with the murders of Michael Griffith in Howard Beach or Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst, except from the references from PE. Tate critically examines these incidents and contextualizes them along with the Central Park Five injustice to criticize the press, the police, and leadership at all levels for allowing racial violence and intolerance to continue to fester in the city. Even though Tate’s book was originally published nearly 35 years ago, his critiques and observations are still relevant and on point. While I have many annotations throughout the book, the last essay “Love and the Enemy” has a particular quote at its end that surprised me with its relevance and prescience. The essay is powerful in its message of love for and in the African American community, in which Tate calls out white supremacy for fomenting hate among African Americans. He cites both Malcolm X and Bob Marley as calling for love for self rather than the love and desire for the oppressor. For Tate, these power structures enable people to ignore systemic inequalities because they are more concerned individual status. “When reactive rage is the dominant form of our politics, when it takes police or mob violence to galvanize us into reaction, it means that there is an acceptable level of suffering and misery.” I’m not saying this is still true, but I think it’s a powerful quote that should move all people to recognize that the fight and struggle continues today as politics and culture remain reactive rather than accepting or accommodating. This is an incredible and important collection of essays, and I’m so glad that it is being republished. I can only hope that Greg Tate’s voice reaches more eyes and ears as a result of this new edition, and people can learn to appreciate the critical eye and humor in his work. Even though the essays are between 35-45 years old, they are still relevant, prescient, observant, critical, and engaging. Highly recommended! 

Exploring Unexplained Phenomena in High Strangeness

 High Strangeness by Daniel Noah, Christopher Condon, Zac Thompson, Christopher Cantwell, Cecil Castellucci, and Christian Ward with various artists. 

High Strangeness Deluxe Edition cover

Many thanks to Oni Press and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of High Strangeness Deluxe Edition. I was intrigued by the cover and title, which featured a kind of mysterious element with a little bit of sinister mixed in- and this edition does not disappoint. This unique collection features several stories bound by the mysteries of the unexplained. Furthermore, each story contains both a comic depiction and an essay that provides some background, history, and personal connections with the unexplained phenomenon. I read the comics first, but I really appreciated the essays that follow since they provide a unique insight into how the writers experienced these phenomena, as well as some history about the phenomena. The comics and essays/articles work well together, but it’s also important to note how the comics share connective threads not only through the theme of unexplained phenomena, but it was really cool to see the artists incorporate some shared visual themes and motifs throughout the comics that are eventually explained in the essays.

I really appreciated the unique approach that this collection takes in exploring the unexplained phenomena across different eras. The first one explores UFOs from 1967, and follows an investigative journalist, Jack Kean, who is based on John Keel, the journalist who wrote the Mothman Prophecies and investigated UFOs. In terms of both story and art, this was probably my favorite comic in the collection. It uses a fake UFO sighting and the disappearance of the person who faked the sighting to create questions and skepticism around what is known and what is hidden with UFOs. The story has a great twist and reminds me of X-Files, as Kean becomes haunted by the possibility of UFOs.

 

Book 2 takes place in 1975 and investigates Sasquatch/Bigfoot. I also really enjoyed this one. The story is interesting, and the artwork is also compelling, especially around sightings of Sasquatch. Furthermore, reading the essay helped me understand the artwork and various evidence that some believers cite as evidence for the existence of Sasquatch. The story takes a surprising turn and calls into question whether Sasquatch is a monster type cryptid or something else that many may not have considered. It tells the story of an inmate named Ellwood who ended up escaping from a prison transfer during a snowstorm with help from a sasquatch. He ends up in a nearby town, squatting in a cabin and building a new life for himself. However, he remains haunted by the encounter with the sasquatch, and as the birth of his first child nears, he heeds the call of the sasquatch (a wood knock, glowing eyes, and a stick structure in the woods. Elwood leaves the confines of his cabin during a storm to investigate these mysterious signs and see if the Sasquatch is lurking for him. This is also the story where some of the visual themes and repeated symbols appear (hello mantis). I really loved the essay as well that provided more background information about wild men and sasquatch myths around the world. In particular, it was exciting to learn about the author’s personal experience in the woods of Pennsylvania. I wasn’t even aware that PA had any kind of sasquatch legends. I really appreciated how both the essay and comic provide background information into these signs of sasquatch and possibly present sasquatch as a beneficial caretaker of the wild.

Book 3 takes place in 1983 and deals with synchronicity. It’s an interesting story about the chance encounters that occur in a father and daughter’s relationship and lives. The artwork for the story is great, and the author of the related essay presents some interesting and meaningful incidents of synchronicity in her own life. The comic story explores how meaningful events can occur on similar dates, and how these events can sometimes influence future events. It’s a touching story, but not as mysterious or phenomenal as the others. Reading the essay gave me a deeper appreciation of the story, but it also demonstrates something the author mentioned about meaning being inherently personal, which is harder to explain to readers. The essay does a good job noting how specific coincidences are connected and add meaning, helping to shape the author’s future decisions about love, work, and life. The comic presents some of this as well, but there are some other events occurring that make the story a little harder to follow than some of the others in this collection.

Book 4 takes place in 2001 and deals with out of body experiences (OBE). The artwork for the comic is well done and engaging, and the essay does well explaining these phenomena, using some personal experiences. The story for the comic is ok. I initially found the main character Adeline a little annoying at first. She seems to rely on coin flips to make decisions, often abandoning responsibilities because a coin told her to. Yet, the ending of the story is interesting, and it seems like she gains significant insight from her OBEs, learning how to access the astral plane and gain some additional information about events in her life. Like Book 3, I felt like the essay was more helpful I explaining the phenomenon of OBEs, but I really enjoyed the artwork in this section.

Book 5 is titled “Infinity” and takes place in the future. It’s a wild ride that provides some essential information about how these phenomena are connected. The artwork for this section is also incredible, and varies from many of the other comics in this collection. It’s a surreal exploration of meaning and myth to better understand how these unexplained phenomena can impact our lives. I also appreciated the last essay from Daniel Noah that explains how he moved from skeptic to believer based on his experiences in the Stanley Hotel. The essay also explores the connective tissue among the various phenomena and how the visual themes and symbols are related in the various stories. It’s a clever and creative way to synthesize these stories and note how much wonder is in the world when we leave open these doors of explanation, even if it’s just a crack.

Overall this was an interesting collection that was fun to read. I love these books that explore mysterious and unexplained phenomena, so this was fun to read. I typically lean more towards the scary, monster type stories like the first two, but I also found the last two stories that explore synchronicity and out of body experiences to be also interesting and somewhat emotional in a heartfelt way. The artwork for this collection is phenomenal, and the essays that conclude this deluxe edition provide further exploration and background information about these mysterious events and phenomena. Although I read the comics first and the essays last, I wondered how reading the essays first might impact my understanding of the comics and these phenomena. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to approach this- just two different paths that lead to potentially similar outcomes. Nevertheless, this is a fun and very different read than what I was expecting. Highly recommended, especially if you like learning about unexplained phenomena.

 

 New Paramount Merger Brings the Horror of the Trump Administration to Big Screens

While horror is experiencing a resurgence in the box office, some cultural critics note that popular and meaningful horror tales often reflect the growing disillusionment and violence in society. The 70s saw films like The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Last House on the Left take horror, gore and violence to new levels as America was embroiled in a worsening economy and traumatized by the horrors of a war in Vietnam that American propaganda could not spin. In the 80s, films like Robocop and They Live! brought a critical eye to Reaganism and the growing conservatism that wiped out some of the progress and advancement that was made in the 60s. Similarly, films of the early 2000s frequently depicted extreme scenes of violence and gore that some critics thought reflected the growing disenchantment with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first Trump administration in 2016 brought films like Jordan Peele's Get Out, The Purge, and Hereditary, which all reflected some of the anxieties and concerns around issues like race, class, mental health, and family. 

The current Trump administration continues to bring us more and more horrors, whether it is reflected in the gross incompetence, their thirst for blood and vengeance, or their incredible acts of venality. We are living in a horror film on a daily basis where decisions and policy are not based on science or reason, but are based on vibes and feels, especially those vibes and feels of resentment, jealousy, anger, and humiliation. 

In addition to bombarding us daily with unpleasant and disturbing news, Trump Inc. has sought to control the messaging. It makes sense that his election rose the wave of social media, where two owners of social media companies (Trump and Musk) were able to manipulate messages to make people ignore reason, to abandon critical thinking, and operate at the basest of human emotions: fear, loathing, resentment. Trump has pushed further into the media landscape with helping to strongarm the acquisition of Paramount and its subsequent mergers with other media companies and studios. As we've seen from recent moves, the new leaders of these companies are not usually brought in to help grow the company or inject fresh, new ideas that appeal or reach new audiences, but rather they are sent to strangle and choke out existing programs, content, and shows, most notably those that Trump views as a threat to his image. 

Nevertheless, I think that Paramount has a chance to capitalize on the horror trends in movie theaters and use all the horrors of the Trump administration IP to create a new production company that churns out horror films based on the stories from the Trump administration. 

Bobby's Beds

Sometimes tan is deader.

Bobby's Beds a tanning horror film based on recent FDA approvals to allow teens to use tanning beds. We know that this administration loves its tanning beds. Whether it's Trump's orange hue or RFK's charred meat, the members of this administration like to give the impression of spending a long day in the sun, and they frequently appear to be suffering from some kind of sunstroke. Is it any wonder that they want a crew of young, tanned adolescents? Careful though; while the FDA has recently pulled the restrictions for teens, there's got to be something behind it. Bobby's Beds is a movie that questions what's inside the bed, and why are all the tanned teens disappearing. In this film, a scion of a dynastic family is often left to his weird projects and beliefs. A product of privilege and parental permissiveness, Bobby develops strange obsessions with dead animals. His family line often dies young, but Bobby wants to be the sole survivor in a race against aging. Although his tanning habits have weathered his skin into a leathery flesh robe, Bobby sees another source for his pathway to rejuvenation. His new tanning beds, marketed for the young, extract the youthful essence and ferments from the young, which Bobby ingests on a daily basis to fuel his desire for regeneration and youthfulness. However, once the essence and ferments are extracted, the youth become mindless zombie health influencers, who regularly do Bobby's bidding. Will the town fight for its youth, or will it trade its future for a shot at the present? 

Karoline's Baby

What Have You Done To Its Lips?

Karoline's Baby is a new installment in the Rosemary's Baby series of films. Like in the original Rosemary's Baby, a group of men and older women command the womb of a younger woman to harvest a future child. These pro-natalists also continually question the woman's appearance, creating a sense of doubt and uncertainty about her femininity. Although Karoline has never doubted her womanhood, the administration's insistence on traditional gender norms requires women to receive gender affirming care, some of which is taken to the extreme to generate excessive facial features. Furthermore, women are expected to not only reproduce, but also to monetize and promote their pregnancies to further emphasize their femininity. For these pro-natalists, women are either vessels or unhappy, unmarried cat ladies. As a result of these binary views, Karoline seeks out gender affirming care, unaware that she has been impregnated after a strange stop the steal style ritual rally in which she drinks diet coke that's been secretly spiked with ibogaine and MDMA. This domestic and political thriller is sure to swell and plump the anxiety and emotions of audiences. 

Catching Vapes

Make America Gasp Again

Catching Vapes is a melting horror movie in the vein of Street Trash. However, it deals with a top secret scientific experiment conducted through the FDA and the CBP. This is based on the FDA's recent  approval of flavored vapes, despite these flavors appealing to teens. Many see this as a gateway to smoking and nicotine addiction. However, the FDA and CBP realize that these flavored vapes can also serve as a method of population control. With the increase in immigration enforcement, the government faces a shortage of places to store all the recently detained immigrants. While there have been some attempts to repatriate immigrants to different countries (often not their country of origin), many countries are closing their borders and refusing flights to repatriate these immigrants. That's when FDA scientists approach CBP for a new plan to reduce the immigrant population with addictive results. 

By sending these flavored vapes to minority and immigrant communities, the FDA and CBP can work to eliminate the populations they deem as un-American. While these vape flavors may be highly desirable and addictive, they also bring a terrible side effect that melts vapers shortly after their first inhales. In fact, word of the addictive properties of these vape flavors spreads so quickly, there's actually a surge in illegal immigration where people are crossing the borders to try a taste of "Liberty Mist", the latest vape creation from these mad FDA scientists. 

D.H.S. (Domestic Homicide Squad)

We Don't Negotiate. We Eliminate. 

Although not a horror movie, this is a movie that hearkens back to the 80s action hero era. In this case, Tom Homan, credited as Rex Bloodstone, takes the commanding lead as the head of a new, elite government crime fighting group: DHS- Domestic Homicide Squad. Created to counter the American carnage that has erupted across the country, DHS fights back with lethal force against the drug dealers, human traffickers, and violent gangs that have invaded the country. 

DHS head Tom Homan shown at a recent press conference. 

While the Oracle acquisition of Paramount and its merger with Warner Brothers seems like it will just dilute entertainment and move movies and television programs to their least common denominator, I think there are also opportunities for exciting new films and stories that reflect the current horrors of this administration. 

When the Horrors are Real: Racism and Medical Experiments Crownsville by Rodney Barnes

 Crownsville by Rodney Barnes; artwork by Elia Bonetti

Crownsville book cover

Author Rodney Barnes

Artist Elia Bonetti

Many thanks to Oni Press and NetGalley for allowing me to preview Rodney Barnes’ latest graphic novel Crownsville. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this graphic novel, but the fact that its setting is a notorious segregated all-Black psychiatric facility that has been abandoned seemed interesting to me. I love haunted facility stories, and I’m particularly interested in these kinds of abandoned buildings. However, I wasn’t prepared for the utter horror and fright that is in this book, but Crownsville takes readers on a wild ride that directly confronts the horrors of racism, segregation, and the kinds of unethical medical experiments conducted on minorities like the infamous Tuskegee Experiments or the experiments conducted on inmates in Philadelphia’s Holmesburg Prison between 1951 and 1974. Sometimes it’s the reality in which the horror is rooted that makes it so terrifying, and Crownsville’s emphasis on these unethical medical experiments and exploitation of vulnerable and marginalized populations helps to capture the horrors of racism and segregation.

The story starts with three main characters- journalist Paul Blair, who just lost his mother before she is able to reveal a confession about her work at Crownsville on her deathbed; detective Mike Simms, who is nearing retirement and jaded from the increase in drug violence that plagues the Annapolis and Baltimore areas; and Todd Hicks, a newly hired security officer, tasked with guarding the abandoned Crownsville facility during his first day on the job. The three men’s lives converge when Todd, after hearing some strange noises as he arrives for his first shift, discovers the body of the guard he is set to relieve in a room in Crownsville. Although it appears to be suicide, investigating officers are skeptical of Todd, who reports seeing a toy by the body. However, we can also see that the investigating officer views Todd’s race as being another factor in questioning him. Blair is assigned to investigate the story, and with his mother’s deathbed revelation about something not being right about Crownsville, Blair reaches out to Detective Simms for some background information about Crownsville. Hicks eventually goes missing as he continues to hear and see the lingering remnants of Crownsville’s fraught and hidden history of human experimentation.  Blair and Simms begin to unravel the mystery of Crownsville’s experiments after some incredibly discoveries are unearthed, leading them to a nearby military base, where they eventually learn the true depravity of these experiments and the human cost in Annapolis’s Black community.

This was a wild and exciting graphic novel that expertly blends mystery, horror, and social commentary in an engaging and exciting way. Although the first part where the characters are established is a little slow at first, the story really picks up in Part 2 and propels readers forward into a crazy and eventful ending. Although this story has supernatural elements to it, the underlying specter of human experimentation on Black populations in the 20^th century makes the story all the more horrifying. As I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think of Tananarive Due’s excellent book The Reformatory, which similarly uses supernatural elements to frame the real-life horrors of racism and segregation to show how these ghosts of the past continue to haunt us. Rodney Barnes’ writing is excellent in this story, presenting realistic and engaging characters who pursue the truth despite the potential horror and dangers that lurk within the abandoned Crownsville facility. Furthermore, Elia Bonetti’s artwork moves from an eerie tone to outright horror with terrifying images of the human experiments that continue to haunt Crownsville. This is an exciting and engaging read. Highly recommended!