Links for December 12th
The Godfather, The Crown, Joe Biden's phone, sad stories and stressful emails
Hope you’ve had a good week. A vaccine is approved! Taylor dropped another surprise album! Washington beat Pittsburgh! I am little short on photos now that it’s dark and cold all the time!
So, FYI, next week, I’m going to do my annual links thread on Twitter with the grand flourish in this newsletter, so apologies for all the future links. Additionally, if this interests you, I wrote about Taylor Swift’s surprise albums (and a little about the National and 2020, conceptually).
Links
This is an excellent interview with Francis Ford Coppola about The Godfather, editing, casting, his relationship with his daughter, and a bunch else (e.g., herein, he is like I’ve told George Lucas he should make more personal films so much that I’ve reached the limit on being able to tell him that).
The fact/fiction debate around The Crown is sort of facile, but this piece really examines that question (and the show) in a sharp way, about how narrative and meaning get applied to history through fiction.
This dive into all the stuff going on at Hillsong is less than ideal. Well, the stuff is, not the piece. As Jane Coaston put it, “This is… a pastor?”
New York mag blew out their December issue with all the places that closed in the city during the pandemic, but this piece on a diner closing, and a friend’s death years ago, is really great (if sad).
Always find this kind of thing interesting: How does Joe Biden use his phone? Among other things: He has the news push alerts turned on, he plays chess and solitaire.
If you like logistics, check out this Times piece about the holiday shipping crisis, and how retailers are working on that. (And by the same reporter, Sapna Maheshwari, her piece on how retailers and direct-to-consumer stores are navigating the accelerated end of office wear is really good, too.)
Belatedly caught Never Have I Ever on Netflix, and hadn’t quite realized (given the way it was marketed and the overarching plot) that though it’s a a teen rom com / sex comedy, it’s actually about someone totally losing it after a sudden death. (Or I am old now, because that’s what it seemed like to me.) Anyway, this Vulture piece really touched on the deeper parts of that show.
The other day someone was like what’s the most anxiety-inducing email subject to get (it’s some form of “do you have a second”), but if you’ve never seen this, it’s extremely funny: A few years ago, Paul Ford and Virginia Heffernan traded fake emails where they tried to stress each other out. (Personal fav is when it gets to the lightning round of “Subject: olive branch” and “Subject: forgiveness.”)
Light book commentary
Extremely light.
A note on all this
Thanks for subscribing. Hope you enjoy. The goal here is just to offer up some links you may have missed, and maybe the occasional commentary on something in politics or a book I may have read that you, the reader, might enjoy. If you have thoughts on any of this, hit me up at katherinemillernyc@gmail.com or just tweet at me.