It's Only September

The division is clinched. Homefield advantage is within striking distance. If ever there was a Cubs team that was made to win, Maddon & Co. are it. We, as Cubs fans, should be enjoying this ride because this year has been fun as hell. Even the pre-Break slump helped provide a baseline of sorts--a lengthy reminder that, yes, we're still watching the Cubs--and that just made what came after all the more exhilarating. And on both ends of that slide, they've been frighteningly good. Their bats are so solid that even when one or two guys go cold (Heyward and Zobrist, as I write this), they still have three or four other guys who can fill those holes (Soler, Russell, and Contreras, as I write this). Bryant, meanwhile, is putting together a convincing MVP campaign that's sometimes been obscured by the funhouse that Rizzo's been building. Their rotation includes Arrieta, Lester, and Lackey, but its their number three starter (Hendricks) who's boasting a baseball-leading 2.03 ERA, with Lester just behind him. They went 22-6 in August. 22-6.

This summer has been way too hot and the wider world has been unrelentingly awful and I almost don't care about any of that because the Cubs have been so, so, so good. My point here is that one day we're going to look back on 2016 and realize that it was a lot more fun than some of us are currently appreciating.

But to tell myself that I need to relax and enjoy the spectacle means I that have to ignore my own struggles with anxiety. Academically, of course, I can do that: I can lay out all the reasons why I should strap in and devote myself to the journey, not the destination. You can analyze any situation rationally and verify everything, making sure that the logic is 100% sound, and know in your higher brain functions that every little thing is gonna be alright. But anxiety doesn't work that way.

Just because I can run through the numbers doesn't mean that I don't get flashbacks to the 2008 squad that dominated the league from April to September only to shit the bed in a three-game slow motion nightmare in October. And with the phrase "slow motion nightmare in October," I'm now getting flashbacks to 2003. If we care to dig through some more numbers, 538 calculates that the Cubs have a 22% chance of winning the World Series. And that's actually really high; the Red Sox, with the second-highest odds, sit at 15%. But that still leaves a 78% chance that the Cubs don't get it done this year. And Fangraphs puts the Cubs' odds at 17.2%, (with the Sox at 15.5% and the Dodgers at 14.8%), leaving a failure to convert chance of 82.8%. Winning the Series is just that dependent on dumb luck and fleeting hot streaks. So we shouldn't even be looking at numbers like that, but part of anxiety's power comes from its ability to make you look for and provide its own fuel.

So, again, I know that, rationally-speaking, I have every reason to stop putting so much stock in a World Series title. I've had panic attacks over genuine anxieties that, if they came to pass, would've been far more devastating to me than whether the Cubs go another year without a title; I owe anxiety some credit in forcing me to have some perspective. But those experiences have also left me with some blindspots when it comes to less crucial subjects. My anxiety and my Cubs fandom likely have very little to do with one another; the former is so skilled by now that it would find something to latch onto, regardless what club I cheer for. Although, I do suspect that the pressure to see my team win (can you feel pressure in an entirely passive situation?) has not paired well with my anxiety. But because I live with both, I end up spending a lot of time trying to keep that anxiety from poisoning my fandom. Luckily, I've had some practice.

When considering the benefits of trying to enjoy this season while it lasts (mindfulness, as some professionals call it) the anxious mind can become divided against itself. If one can focus on smaller scale hurdles, anxiety's instinct to mull over all the nightmare scenarios becomes distracted by the little steps along the way. Clinching the division, and then securing homefield, and then each series in turn once October begins. It's the long stretches of nothingness that allow anxiety to stretch its legs; it's the same reason that your brain suddenly summons everything it thinks you should be worrying about just as you're trying to fall asleep. Because your brain hates you. But the good news is that anxiety doesn't have be conquered en masse (it's really not advisable to do it that way). Just day to day, game to game, series to series. I am not a trained therapist.

This year has been more fun than we ever could've imagined. And after last year's finish, we imagined quite a lot. And, since Spring Training, they've been setting us up for one hell of a finish. But that's for next month. For now, it's only September.

An Uncomfortable Question

In Andy Warhol Was A Hoarder, author Claudia Kalb examines the lives of various historical figures and consults with psychologists and mental health experts to search for an understanding of how those figures were fueled by ailments that medical science did not yet fully understand (and, in some cases, still doesn't). From Warhol's hoarding, to Marilyn Monroe's borderline personality disorder, to Howard Hughes' OCD, Kalb provides compelling cases for what they might be diagnosed with according to the DSM-5. The book probably falls short of perfect analysis, but it's also a lot higher than typical pop psychology, treating its subjects with sensitivity and sympathy.

One of the sections I found most striking was the chapter on architect Frank Lloyd Wright, about whom I knew nothing going in. But reading Kalb's analysis of the man, an examination of narcissistic personality disorder, I found myself drawing comparisons that I had no business drawing, not least because those comparisons immediately seemed too... facile? Too obvious? One of those, probably. Kalb writes: "Impertinent, pioneering, and dramatic, Wright embraced his ego throughout his life, used it to get ahead and promoted it to the world without an ounce of modesty."

A bit further on, discussing Wright's less-than-reliable autobiography, she says: "Rewriting one's past is characteristic of narcissistic people, who become adept at embellishing life stories to enhance their self-image. What matters is that Wright's account is the truth that he fashioned and wished others to believe."

Later, she lays out the checklist for NPD: "a grandiose sense of self-importance; a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love... ; a need for excessive admiration; a sense of entitlement; exploitative behavior in relationships; a lack of empathy..." To name just a few.

Where could I possibly be going with this?

The comparison between Wright and Donald Trump, a thatch-roofed bologna loaf, is not a perfect one-to-one. Kalb cites Wright's son, John, in noting that "money didn't have value, other than getting [Wright] what he wanted." For Trump, however, money is everything--both the means and the end to anything a person might pursue. Also, Wright could be cold, even cruel, toward his children; John reported that, while working for his father, Wright Senior would deduct from John's salary everything that his son had cost him throughout his life, "including obstetrics." Trump, on the other hand, adores his children. Although that adoration does sometimes express itself in inappropriate and horrifying ways.

And yet. Both Wright and Trump are builders. They both revel in self-promotion. They've even both set up, ahem, schools to spread their wisdom to future generations. At Wright's Taliesin, "apprentices took part in running the day-to-day operations of the 200-acre estate... They hoed the fields, tended the manure pit, cooked meals, did laundry, hauled stones, cut trees, and built their own lodging. There was no formal instruction; instead, apprentices were awarded the opportunity to work alongside Wright in his studio. The annual price tag for this privilege was steep. Initially set at $650--more than Ivy League tuition--it quickly grew to $1,100." At Trump University... well, maybe I should reserve judgment until the lawsuit is finished.

Now, the Goldwater Rule exists for a reason. And I am not a trained psychologist. And I have not spoken with professional mental health experts, as Kalb did. And truth be told, I can only spell "psychiatry" with the help of spellcheck. So for me to try to analyze a man I have never met is not so much 'irresponsible and unethical' as it is 'dumb and pointless.' But as someone who thinks about these subjects far more than is healthy, I can say that I've reached a very uncomfortable conundrum.

In his delightful book, How To Fight Presidents, Dan O'Brien puts forward that "Only a person with an unfathomably huge ego and an off-the-charts level of blind self-confidence and an insatiable hunger for control could look at America, in all of her enormity, with all of her complexity, with all of her beauty and flaws and strength and power, and say, 'Yeah. I should be put in charge of that.'" And in my review of that book, I wrote, "Presidents are insane. We need them to be or we'd have no one else willing to do the job." I bought O'Brien's assertion. I still kinda do. So where does that leave me vis-a-vis Trump, who so energetically embodies that assertion?

Feeling a sudden need to take a very long shower, it seems to me that the best way to analyze Trump by O'Brien's standard would be to call him overqualified for the presidency. I know, I know: gross. But it's a pill that might be worth swallowing. Because that's a diagnosis that I feel comfortable applying. And if we believe that all he really wants is the attention, maybe in this case we should give the baby his bottle.

Suicide Squad

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW

Somewhere there's an alternate universe where alternate me didn't previously know about Suicide Squad's last minute re-shoots. Or that, for a time, there were two competing cuts of the film that stemmed from WB's anxiety over the critical response to BvS. One cut was of director David Ayer's grimmer original vision, the other was a lighter and more colorful ode to the well-received (and outstanding) trailers from earlier this year. But once I knew about them, it was hard not to see it. A victim of the struggle between the grimdark that WB had initially embraced for the DCCU and the lighter fun that moviegoers turned out to actually want, Suicide Squad is a confused and conflicted offering whose back-and-forth tonal disparities hurt an otherwise engaging flick.

The final cut is a mix of the two that were screened for test audiences, plus bits from the re-shoots, and that shows in choices that might not have been so odd if not for their placement together. In one moment, Enchantress is darkly conjuring her doomsday weapon while ominous music swells, in another she's shimmying her shoulders while monologuing for Amanda Waller. Meanwhile, El Diablo, a metahuman with pyrokinesis, states at various points that his powers came "from the Devil," but it's still jarring when he turns into an enormous literal fire demon in the climax. And a few members of the Squad get two different introductions, one loving and indulgent with lots of neon highlights, the other grimmer and stingier on time.

I don't know which cut deserves credit for the soundtrack. We should probably just thank Guardians of the Galaxy.

Despite the tonal problems, Squad soars with some excellent character work. Ayer and the actors push through limited screen time to outline some decent motivations and the film allows just enough space to showcase some strong personalities (it's almost like they're out of a comic book). Please excuse the bullet points.

• Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn was a worry for me going in because Harley is one of my favorite characters in comics and I recommend Amanda Conner's run on her book to anyone who will listen, but Robbie brings all of Harley's charm to the screen without making us sick of her. Actually, Squad could've used more of her. I had also worried, based on the marketing (and Hollywood's preoccupations) that Harley's ass would be at least as prominent a character as the rest of her. Her ass is certainly present, but not as much as I had anticipated. Still, it could take a backseat (I see what I did there) in her solo movie... or her team-up movie with Poison Ivy.
• I have personal problems with Jared Leto. I might explain those problems in writing one day. Until then, I will remember that he had the fearlessness to follow Ledger. And that the Joker's aesthetic probably wasn't entirely up to him (I don't see Joker sitting still long enough to get tattoos, do you?). And though he seemed to try too hard to put his own spin on the character, somewhere around the Ace Chemicals flashback, he had me buying in. The Joker-Harley relationship is horrifying and tragic. The romanticization of it is creepy and a bad-read and diminishes Harley. The spirit of that weirdly engrossing relationship is here, poking up through the rushed backstory. It's a highlight of the film. But then I recall Leto's moronic pranks during filming and I'm back to rolling my eyes. People will like you more if you stop trying so hard, Jared Leto. 
• Will Smith is impressive as Deadshot. 
• I didn't know much about Jay Hernandez or El Diablo going in, but his emotional trauma provided a nice touchstone, while also grounding a character that would've been crazy overpowered for this team. 
• Joel Kinnaman had a tough act following Tom Hardy's departure, but he holds up well in a role that could've been little more than hard-ass military dude trying to boss around a bunch of comic book villains. However, I wonder if either cut of the film had June Moone stay dead following Rick Flag's killing of Enchantress, adding meaning to that sacrifice. Still, I'll look on the bright side: Moone wasn't fridged. 
• Finally, holy shit Viola Davis. A movie that's not trying would depict Amanda Waller as a stoic government agent with access to a lot of important secrets. But Waller requires presence. She requires unspoken authority. She requires awe-inspiring dread and a Machiavellian will to play anyone and everyone like a fiddle until she doesn't need them to play anymore. Batman should be a little afraid of Waller. So I shouldn't need to tell you how gratifying it is to see that Davis nails the Wall. I know that Bruce Wayne/Batman is supposed to be the connective tissue for the DCCU, but that role could just as easily fall to Waller. And I kind of want it to.

Not all characters get the lingering lamp shade treatment. It's a very large cast. And I'd like to spend more time with each of them. The ones who are still alive, anyway.

I liked this movie. But I wanted to really, really, really like this movie. And that, I believe, is the DCCU's primary hurdle right now. The bulk of the audience for these movies was given grandiose adventures by the DCAU of the 90's and early 00's. Add in what Marvel's done with their properties in recent years and it's easy to see how an underwhelming movie becomes OMG TEH WORST MOVIE EVAR!!!1!!

If this sounds a lot like my thoughts following BvS, it's because I feel the same now as I did then: this is going to be a process and I'm willing to stomach some growing pains if the larger universe can grow in the right direction. There are some great elements here. In addition to Batman and Wonder Woman, we now have Harley, Waller, Deadshot, and the Flash. Meanwhile, Squad largely ditches BvS's cynicism. And while the tonal problems keep the movie from achieving more, the fact that WB is shifting its direction so openly, if also awkwardly, is a good sign.

Grade: B-

Infomocracy

"You would think, with all the access to Information, that people would pay more attention to what their governments do in other centenals, but you know what they say: you can give a voter Information, but you can't make him think."
--Malka Older, Infomocracy

In a semi-distant future, a social mega-network named Information provides the infrastructure for people to do seemingly everything, from business to play to politics. Using one of the global micro-democracy's decennial elections as a stage, author Malka Older follows a handful of political operatives and social network bureaucrats to examine the intersections of information and democracy and what humanity does at those intersections.

As a guy who loves information and people having access to that information, I find Information (a kind of Facebook-Wikipedia hybrid for everyone and everything) to be bloody fantastic. As a guy who loves privacy and the scrupulous use of information, I find Information to be bloody scary. That dichotomy is something that Older explores in Infomocracy's better touches. In an early scene, one of our lead characters, Ken, a political operative whose principles appear to be flagging, checks the personal Information of a flight attendant who has allowed some of her Information to be public. While he doesn't pick up much beyond what is public, another lead character, Mishima, an agent for Information, frequently uses her considerable skill and access to peruse Information in a way that someone like Ken would never think to. In a smaller, more personal story, where the stakes didn't have to be--literally--worldwide, there would be room for Older to explore this tension between the usefulness and creepiness of near-unlimited Information.

Such a story might also give us more time with Mishima, a fantastically drawn character who, in less-skilled hands, might've become a competence porn figure. Her hyper-competence and workaholic nature are balanced by her mistrust and paranoia, faults that she not only possesses but acknowledges (if only to herself and, later, to Ken) in a refreshing take on an old trope.

Information, like information, is neither good nor bad but can and is used for both. Its indispensability makes it both revered and distrusted, depending on which character Older is working with. It doesn't matter so much what types of information one makes available, it's who's using it. And why. With a tool so big and necessary, the micro-democracy, and therefore the world, is ripe for hi-jacking.

In an election year, you'd think--or at least I had thought--that the micro-democracy and election-hacking would be the most intriguing items. Curiously, this wasn't the case. The idea and execution of the elections were interesting, but the shadowy machinations were a bit too shadowy. It would help to know what the stakes are: who the political parties are (policies, like some characters, are sometimes only briefly outlined) and what the characters behind the conspiracies stand to gain or lose. The techno-thriller that takes up the last act of the book loses momentum because I know that I should be outraged by the scheming (and in theory, I am--election-hacking is bad) but my level of investment was not what it might have been.

Still, Older has constructed a wonderfully flawed and detailed society. And there were clearly a lot of details left on the cutting room floor, such as how the world gave itself over to the micro-democracy and how Information managed to become the conduit for that democracy (the theme of "who's really in charge here" is a nicely subtle one throughout the book). Having had experience rendering too much exposition, I appreciate Older's wisdom in not bothering to explain everything.

Indeed, she seems to want to share a lot more. By giving us a world-spanning, high-stakes, high-concept sci-fi thriller, she leaves us with the broad strokes, sacrificing some of the juicy detail that might be better provided from an on-the-ground viewpoint of someone living in the micro-democracy, under Information. More time with someone like Doumaine, an under-utilized character who is working to undermine the micro-democracy until he mostly disappears for the second half, would give us a new take on Older's society, fleshing it out. If Infomocracy has one flaw, it's that there's too much to show and too little space to do it in. But maybe that's what the sequel will be for.

Grade: A-

Anchor Argonaut Collection: Flying Cloud

Lot of beers lay claim to flight. Fish. Dogs. And I guess that's about it. But now Anchor has unveiled Flying Cloud, the first of its Argonaut Collection that I've had the pleasure of drinking. Now, I love beer, as all good-hearted people do. But if I were going to assign flight to an alcoholic beverage, beer would not be first up. Beer is heavy. Even the light ones are basically alcoholic bread. So "flying" is not what I feel like doing after having a beer or two or seven. And yet so many aspire to flight. I admire the ambition. As to what alcohol would fly? I don't know. Champagne? It's light, it's fluffy. It's an overrated experience that seems to get more expensive every year. The cork achieves liftoff. So, yeah, champagne gets to have flight.

Flying Cloud pours deep black, with a head that's a bit closer to brown. Not sure how these colors make for a "cloud," but... it's named for a boat? Huh.

It comes at you with a very malty nose, but it also includes a syrupy-chocolate smell that's very enticing.

The Cloud is very dry, with just a little coffee coming through. The beer also puts every bit of its 7.4% ABV on the tongue. That's not a complaint.

It's surprisingly light-bodied for a stout, with a hint of carbonation. I was initially worried that I had found this one at the wrong time of year, but the lightness balances the rest in a way I don't usually expect of a stout.

Despite the body, this is still one to hold onto until late fall, when it will be more welcome. Dark and dry with a slightly-above-average ABV, Flying Cloud already feels to me like a solid go-to, at least it would if not for Argonaut's limited nature. Craft beer can be such a tease sometimes.

Grade: B+