One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This - Omar El Akkad

This was a challenging read in all the ways the book itself warns it will be. As a formal diatribe saying, essentially, “silence is violence,” I felt uncomfortably complicit throughout the book. I am not educated enough about the war in the Middle East nor have I dedicated the time, which speaks precisely to the book’s thesis. It pulls zero punches about the global tragedy, and particularly the luxury and privilege of the Western world to be disconnected from the events. I had some nitpicks about the writing, where some of the parenthetical phrases felt forced and vindictive, but all of that is ultimately inconsequential. It is an impressive book. The family history connection makes the story personal while the journalist background keeps it professional. Sadly, I feel this same book could be written (and probably has) about any number of global issues, and come to the same realization: human nature tends to lean towards self-interest. A solution was not offered—that’s not this book’s responsibility—and that only made for a more devastatingly bleak conclusion.

Triple H vs. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (WWF, 2/25/2001)

This was a nice take on the two-out-of-three falls format, even if the first two falls were basically indistinguishable from each other, and the cage match came up lacking as a result. Still, the hatred between the two of them was evident. The finish was well-told with both competitors exhausted to the point of passing out, which really sold the intensity of the 35+ minutes of action. Even though the actual resolution may have been corny and unbelievable, it was a protected win for Hunter, overwhelmingly the unpopular choice. But when both are seemingly passed out after the bell, no one actually loses.  

The F1 Movie (2025)

I knew going in, I was predisposed not to like this film. I have an almost active disinterest in auto-racing of any kind, and the triumphant sports movie genre does not generally inspire me. In a bizarre way, I thought this might surprise me, especially since I did actually enjoy Maverick. Instead, it met all of my expectations exactly. The story of aging athlete battling it out with a younger competitor, taking risks, getting beaten back, getting involved in a harmless if ham-fisted love story, fending off a cartoonish business executive. I’m sure it was an expensive movie, but the sponsored payments probably paid off the budget before it left the editing room. There were no less than three ads in every frame. Don’t get me wrong, it looked great on Blu-ray—I have no doubts the IMAX was a looker—and the Hans Zimmer score was as good as usual. But otherwise, it was an empty collection of quotes and tropes, but devoid of risk.

Their Satanic Majesties Request – The Rolling Stones

This has to be one of the most bizarre Stones records I’ve heard. I picked it up as a blind spot, knowing only one track and little else about the background. To be honest, I didn’t even know the Rolling Stones had a psychedelic “phase,” which is probably too wide a term considering it appears to have lasted for just this one album. It is understandable the desire to compete with the Beatles and Sgt. Pepper, but I would say it was not very effective. Obviously, they must have agreed since the follow-up began an unassailable run of albums—at least four, but possibly as many as eight?—all of which went back to the core sound rooted in blues. All of those, in fact, I prefer to this one. This was a fascinating experiment, and one I would actually like to return to at some point despite my misgivings.

Hamnet (2025)

I found the pacing of this film to be odd, and when I looked around online after watching it, I saw others feeling the same way. Anecdotally, though, it seems like people tend to form into one of two opposing opinions about the film’s ending: it either confirms the slow pace and does not resolve well or justifies the slow build and earns the emotional payoff. It was good to see my feelings echoed online, because I was very much in the latter category. It takes twenty-five minutes for the love story to develop, the title character is not even revealed until minute forty or thereabouts. This hardly gives time to develop a meaningful connection before he is abruptly killed, propelling us to the climax. But then, the conclusion is spell-binding. By way the mother and her brother, we go from feeling the playwright’s absent coldness to losing his son, to realizing he has actually expressed his grief in the most public way possible. The mother achieves a sense of catharsis by watching a tragic play as personal elegy intended only for her despite being surrounded by a hundred different people having a hundred different feelings of their own. This film is a perfect example of art as healing—for both creator and consumer.