Believe me: if you're a Jewish person of my generation who does not define themself as a Zionist, you spend a lot of your life contextualising and mininising the threat to your safety felt on your behalf by other Jewish people. I don't know how you can watch this and not feel afraid.
I think what shocked me is the last part. He didn't even seem to be enjoying himself.
You're not idiots. I don't want to lecture you on the provable continuum between hate speech and hate crime, and I don't need to point you to the amount of attacks on synagogues and Jewish communities this last week alone.
At one point, an interview subject, under zero interrogation, volunteers that he films himself shouting "Fuck the Jews" to clickfarm. This doesn't make him antisemitic, he believes. And the thing is, he *totally* believes it.
I'm trying to figure out why because with antisemitism especially there is nothing new under the sun. What shocked me was the nakedness of it as a sellable metric, the roteness, the almost obligatory nature of it - all performed by people allergic to considering the consequences of their words.
I'm Jewish. I have been for over forty years. I've written a lot about this and you can find me online. At this point it takes a lot for me to be shocked by antisemitism, but the antisemitism on show in Louis Theroux's new documentary about the manosphere shocked me.
it just feels so horrible we feel powerless we've tried fighting, we've tried surrendering we've tried ignoring we've tried building israel doesn't let you exist that's it, our choice is fast death or faster death
From a friend in Beirut this morning, who in the last few days has seen several Israel missile strikes within walking distance of their home.
Wait, are there TWO Palantirs?
I strongly feel that it is an existential-level problem to raise a generation of young people incapable of critical thought, but I think we underplay the impact of handing spurious vindication to generations of middle-aged people who never bothered to develop it in the first place.
Hugely enjoyed this. "The sprinkle distribution on the ice lollies was uneven, that's something you've got to deal with sometimes at this level. I understand the lads' frustration but obviously it's something I'll be talking to them in private. At the end of the day everyone hydrated. We go again."
Difficult afternoon. The three-year-old grazed his knee and this was a great affront to the nine-year-old who has grazed his knee, historically.
Ah now that's a whole other category altogether
An example: Jay Kelly is not a good film, but it did, extremely unexpectedly, make me wonder what Noah Baumbach would do with The Unconsoled.
There is good art and bad art, plenty of both. I never tire of good art but I'll always have a special place in my heart for the rare third kind: bad art that is mostly, or even entirely, forgivable.
(Men and women of the jury, I contend, and aim to show beyond the bounds of reasonable doubt, that, given the circumstances, my client had no choice but to stan.)
Where do the Helen of Nowhere stans go to hang out?
Having an editor in your Google doc is as close as you can get to being Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine, running through your memories, trying to outrun the erasers.
I haven't read them since I was thirteen but I consider them some of the most formative and enjoyable reading experiences of my life. RIP to Rob Grant. I'm honestly not sure I'd be a reader without you.
I have the appearance of a double-crown brought on by a childhood bout of trichotillomania; I used to pull my hair out when I was too engrossed in what I was reading. Thankfully, it began, and ended, with the Red Dwarf novels by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor (1/2)
Something no-one tells you until you have kids is that four out of five 8-year-old girls are Olympic level gymnasts.
It's very different parenting a three-year-old when they've got an older sibling.
At Sainsbury's
Me: Shall I beep it or do you want to?
Him (adorably) I'll do it because you're a fucking idiot.
I met Ashley first week of uni. We'd both turned up interested in writing about film for the union paper. Two minutes talking and I knew I was out of my depth: the man knew *everything*. So great to see this getting so much love. He's a brilliant writer.
Lovely detail spotted on a rewatch of Sentimental Value. The booth that they sit in when he first offers her the script has a plaque on the back commemorating Sten Egil Dahl, the fictional novelist the two protagonists are obsessed by in JT's first film, Reprise.
Horrible news for the haters, great news for the fan[base]
Gargling mouthwash on my way out the door to the dentist. Shades of revising for GCSE History by reading the order of Tudor kings off my ruler.
Oh absolutely. And like a dog, I often find it baffling that only other dogs can hear it.
Out August 3rd. Succession tells the story of Everton legend Colin Harvey's time as manager of Everton, following the most successful period in the club's history, at a time of great change in English football. Early pre-sale Waterstones promotion with 25% discount coming next week.
#everton
I've had fascinating discussions of the film with Jewish friends and non-Jewish friends but the one conversation that really took me aback was with the person who told me, apropos Rockwell's antisemitism, that they thought *he* was Jewish. (Sometimes you just gotta say goys will be goys)
Ultimate fantasy? Probably preparing the same unmodified meal for my whole family without immediate recrimination
"You can't buy thanks" is simultaneously the most insightful, revealing and infuriating thing the nine-year-old has ever said.
