#690 - The Egoyan Identity
Added 2026-02-11 17:56:50 +0000 UTC
Comments
apropos of this is Becca Rothfeld's brief eulogy for the wapost at the New Yorker: "A newspaper is—or ought to be—the opposite of an algorithm, a bastion of enlightened generalism in an era of hyperspecialization and personalized marketing. It assumes that there is a range of subjects an educated reader ought to know about, whether she knows that she ought to know about them or not. Maybe she would prefer to scroll through the day-in-the-life Reels that Instagram offers up to her on the basis of the day-in-the-life Reels that she watched previously, and so much the worse for her. The maximalism and somewhat uncompromising presumption of a newspaper, with its warren of sections and columns and byways, is a quiet reproach to its audience’s most parochial instincts. Its mission is not to indulge existing tastes but to challenge them—to create a certain kind of person and, thereby, a certain kind of public." https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-death-of-book-world
sinesynced
2026-02-15 14:31:27 +0000 UTCI’m glad Luke is taking back minas tirith
Michael Rowland
2026-02-14 01:35:37 +0000 UTCFurther to your point about the obvious evil in LotR, from the man himself in a letter to a fan: “Gandalf as Ring-Lord would have been far worse than Sauron. He would have remained 'righteous', but self-righteous. Thus while Sauron multiplied evil, he left 'good' clearly distinguishable from it. Gandalf would have made good detestable and seem evil." — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Coco C
2026-02-13 04:05:07 +0000 UTCSuch a bummer about the wapost books section--Becca Rothfeld has been doing such commendable work
sinesynced
2026-02-12 22:57:33 +0000 UTCI definitely agree that there needs to be some sort of shared understanding of the world mediated through something like a newspaper. I live in Seattle so when I think of newspapers I think of the Seattle Union Record and how it was a vital tool during the Seattle general strike and how if the left were to be successful in the future we still need something like that, group chats can’t replace that. I guess the answer to what I’m about to say is just that capitalist just have so much more resources to work with, but it’s frustrating that the New York Times is the de facto paper and not something like Jacobin P.S loved the movie talk as well, watching it now. As a non Canadian I have a much less textured relationship with Egoyan but he’s great
Jeremy Hawkins
2026-02-12 15:26:02 +0000 UTCNext Of Kin (1989) is the American version of this film. Please cover it for the sake of comparison. A star studded cast! Patrick Swayze,Liam Neeson,Bill Paxton,Jodie Foster,and Narn Ambassador G'Kar from Babylon 5 aka Andreas Katsulas!
James Browning
2026-02-12 14:58:17 +0000 UTCAh ya beat me to it!
James Browning
2026-02-12 14:56:28 +0000 UTCHey neighbour!
Louis Balmer
2026-02-12 10:15:08 +0000 UTCI guess I’m the only disappointed they didn’t watch the Patrick Swayze / Liam Neeson hillbilly revenge classic Next of Kin.
Patrick Elkins
2026-02-12 03:19:02 +0000 UTCGorton mentioned 😀
Gabriel Flynn
2026-02-12 02:43:46 +0000 UTCHmm… I’m going for subtle evil, so I’d better make sure my main villain’s name is as different as possible from “Satan”. HMmm yes, Sauron, yes yes that will do
Horseloverfat
2026-02-11 23:02:25 +0000 UTCLuke, how did you miss the opportunity to say "one billion Matthew Yglesiases" instead?
David
2026-02-11 20:58:24 +0000 UTCI love how I knew EXACTLY what tweet Will was gonna bring up when I heard "July".
Charli Rogers
2026-02-11 18:08:45 +0000 UTC
