Eric Magnuson
Writer, Master Griller, Silence Filler
After letting "Breaking Bad" stack up on my DVR last summer, I let is stew for months. The formula for greatness was well understood - this show has it all. Yet I couldn't get into the depressing slog for oh so long. Then I got inspired by the amazing introduction of HBO's "Luck" - welcome back, David Milch, all of us "Deadwood" fans have missed your darkened style and delightful syntax. Whether or not that seems related, I've dug into "Breaking Bad". The only problem now is that I'll soon be up to date on Vince Gillian's glorious seediness. If you've not dipped a toe into any of those series, you've now got your next few lost weekends lined up. Don't blame the messenger - I'm just trying to help the like-minded out.
I've never had a movie going experience quite like that of seeing "A Dangerous Method" on a recent Thursday night in Seattle. I love David Cronenberg and he's entirely back in this movie. Or so I assume. Because an hour and ten minutes into an hour and 40 minute movie, the "projector" crapped out and we - the obsessive, movie-loving audience - waited a shade over ten minutes for the movie to restart. When it did, all the missed minutes that encompassed the heart of what goes awry between Jung and Freud had passed unseen. I've never seen an audience's collective head explode quite as I did that evening. We stuck it out, got a weak excuse and free pass on our way out, and almost everyone left debating what had been missed. I'll eventually watch it - all of it, this time. But the unintended social experiment was one I suspect any psychoanalyst would love to dig down into during a heated session.
The shifting focus of the GOP battle for the Presidential Nomination now fully shifts to Super Tuesday (March 6th). Along the way, no one has crunched and continues to crunch the numbers better than Nate Silver (published by the NYTimes under the moniker "FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver's Political Calculus"). I'm increasingly falling in heavy like with statisticians - the Nat'l Ag Stats Survey or NASS folks at the USDA are a particular interest for my current work. What Nate did for baseball with his "PECOTA" system for evaluating players, he now is doing for political number crunching. For junkies of the political persuasion...ooh, that's the stuff, man.
Adam Johnson's novel about North Korea - The Orphan Master's Son - is clearly atop my metaphorical and literal bedside table. I had the distinct pleasure of chatting with Adam after a January reading in the bowels of Seattle's Elliott Bay Book Company. His ease with the telling anecdote in response to broad questions from the lucky attendees was only matched by the fascination offered by what he encountered by actually traveling to North Korea for research. Those lucky enough to study with him at Stanford surely realize they're watching a tiger commandingly pace inside the cage. And, man, can that tiger write.