The First (Hopefully Not Only) Weekly Update

Pretentious Working Title: Hebdomadal Edifications?

Hello all—ladies, gentlemen, brothers, sisters, comrades, friends. I am here with an experiment. It is something I intend to try more than once. And that is—*deep breath*—a weekly newsletter. Namely, something to send your guys’ way every Friday. I struggled with how to format something like this. For about four nanoseconds I considered doing something that focused on the news stories of the week that got the most attention but imagining myself mustering the energy to care about the news that consistently almost put me to sleep. I then thought that maybe I could try and put out long-form essays on a weekly basis, but as any writer knows (or at least any honest one), you can only write something of even middling quality if you’re inspired. And I don’t want my long-form pieces to be made in the context of a content factory.

But please don’t mistake me: a content factory is not what I think this will be. Rather, I think it will be what newsletters from individual people tend to be: updates. Specifically, updates on what I’m doing. Not necessarily anything related to my personal life, but more what kinds of things I’ve been consuming. Because, as any (again, honest) writer knows, you can’t produce if you don’t also consume. Like a lot of people, my inspirations come from all over the place; books, movies, TV shows, video games. Sometimes even simply music. It’ll never be consistent; it just depends on the week. But it will also hopefully give some insight into how the podcast is shaping up, at least on some level.

So with that said, I think the format will speak for itself. I hope I’m able to do this every week (and that you’ll all enjoy it enough to keep coming back to read it). I will try my best to keep this consistent for all of you fine people, while also putting out the long-form essays this Substack has become known for. Let’s get to it!

What I’m Reading

During the past week, most of my reading has been confined to one book and one that is very much tied to the podcast. That is, German political scientist and historian Klaus Gensicke’s The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis: The Berlin Years. Long time listeners will know exactly why I’m reading this book, but for those of you just joining, this is a source covering who has essentially become History Impossible’s biggest recurring character, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem from the 1920s until his death in 1974. More to the point, he was the man who placed early Palestinian nationalism on the collision course with anti-Jewish rhetoric that it still struggles with to this day. This is in no small part thanks to al-Husseini’s most infamous associations—that is, figures deep within the Third Reich (up to an including Heinrich Himmler; his relationship with Adolf Hitler was limited to one meeting and a handful of correspondences). The main thrust of this book, while of course providing some introductory chapters on al-Husseini’s life, essentially picks up where the Muslim Nazis series left off—on the eve of 1942, shortly after al-Husseini’s overrated-but-nonetheless-significant meeting with the Fuhrer in November of 1941. Gensicke’s treatment of the material is masterful and it’s actually very clearly written for an academic text, and its citations are some of the best I’ve ever come across, with a lot of them coming from files in the German archives uncovered by Gensicke during his research. Believe me, I will be citing this book a lot throughout the second season of the show.

Thanks to the Los Angeles Public Library system’s pretty astounding collection, I’ve also been listening to the audiobook version of American journalist James Kirchick’s masterful 2022 tome, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, which not only has highlighted the true shame of 1950s America’s politics for me—that is, the 1950s’ Lavender Scare, as opposed to the overrated concurrent Red Scare—but has also highlighted just how much sexuality has always been tied up in politics. And in a way, given Kirchick’s excellent prose evoking the paranoia of the eras he covers—namely the 1930s to the 1990s—it shows just how powerful gossip can be in politics. Really, if you want to be reductionist/defamiliarist about it, it kind of demonstrates that politics simply is a form of gossip (and remember: there are some evolutionary psychologists who believe human society became a thing because of our capacity to gossip; it tracks, if you ask me). Anyway. I have yet to finish the thing (it’s long—though I consider that a good thing), but I’m thoroughly enjoying it and it may provoke a review or analysis of sorts when I’m done. We’ll see.

What I’m Watching

There are two things found on streaming services that have been making an impression on me this whole week.

The first is the should-be-classic sleeper hit from 2002, Road to Perdition, starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman and directed by Sam Mendes of Skyfall and American Beauty fame. This is a film I saw more than once in theaters when it released and, weirdly, I seem to recall not loving it as much as I expected (or wanted) to. I was in high school at the time, so I perhaps just wasn’t in the mature headspace possibly required to enjoy it, or perhaps it’s a type of movie—a part drama-part action period drama—that doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s also from a trend I don’t think I’ve seen anyone mention from that era—that is, high brow adaptations of supposedly high brow graphic novels. The 1998 Road to Perdition graphic novel by Max Allan Collins is in the vein of, say, Alan Moore’s incredible From Hell (something I’ll likely talk about here when I get back to reading it), but the film adaptation came along in the same couple of years as another graphic novel adaptation—that is, David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, whose own source material came out in the late 90s. I’ve never been much of a comic guy, but both of these seem like stories I’d like to read. Maybe one day, if I have time. But re-watching Road to Perdition has managed to bring me back to a time that I miss in cinema—when the setting mattered as much as the spectacle (and the spectacle was kept at a minimum). It’s probably become my favorite film of its year in retrospect (overtaking Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which is always been the weakest of the trilogy, if you ask me).

The other thing into which I’ve been sinking my time is the Paramount Plus miniseries, The Offer, which is a fictionalized chronicle of the making of the classic 1972 masterpiece of cinema, The Godfather. I was aware of its infamously fraught development thanks to the always insanely charming and entertaining account given by the equally infamous mega-producer Robert Evans, and his super entertaining memoir, The Kid Stays in the Picture, and its equally entertaining documentary adaptation. However, this version of the story is from the perspective of the film’s other producer: whiz kid from RAND Corp and co-creator of Hogan’s Heroes, Al Ruddy. This isn’t based on any self-serving memoir (and I say that with love; Evans’ relentlessly egomaniacal self-promotion is partly why he’s such a compelling figure in Hollywood history) but rather on recollections by those involved. All of course must be taken with a grain of salt, but reality is not why this show is so fun. It’s rooted mostly in the performances, with the always good Miles Teller in the leading role as Ruddy, backed by the charming Dan Fogler as Francis Ford Coppola, and the scene-stealing and insanely pitch-perfect Matthew Goode as Evans. Where this miniseries goes—as a series, not as a reality; we know what happened with The Godfather—is an open question, but I’m betting I’ll continue to be loving it. It definitely provided fodder in my mind for a future Hollywood-based story of impossible history…

What I’m Playing

There are some who might still be surprised to hear this, but I’m a pretty avid gamer. While I didn’t really get around to playing many games this week—at least not as much as I’d like—I did start to play one particular game more seriously, having recently finished the masterful God of War: Ragnarok. That game is the Black Death France-set adventure A Plague Tale: Requiem. This game is a sequel to an excellent 2019 game called A Plague Tale: Innocence that takes a horror/supernatural angle on that calamity to end all calamities and it ups the ante on everything—scale, graphical presentation, horror, and…well, I’m not sure yet. I haven’t gotten very far into the story. But having recently come off doing an episode of History Impossible about the Black Death and its affects, it’s no mystery why this game’s historical setting appeals to me. It also seems to be dealing with themes of taking responsibility for yourself and your loved ones’ well-being by eschewing the machinations of institutional control—a very profound (and perhaps accidental) comment on the pandemic reality we just escaped. However, this is just speculation on my part. As I go through this game, I might revisit these themes in a future post, especially if they seem to persist throughout the narrative. Regardless, this is a very The Last of Us-esque adventure, with the ages lowered and the genders swapped (the main character Amicia is a teenage girl, and her charge is her small brother Hugo is about five or six years old). I could honestly see this becoming a TV series on its own.

And apart from some casual rounds of Battlefield V with friends and beginning to stream Civilization IV over on Twitch, that’s about it for me on the video game front this week. Make sure to check out my streams, which I think will be happening weekly (at least for now) on Saturday nights at around 7pm or 8pm PST. Keep an eye on my Twitter for updates on that.

And that’s all she wrote…

That’s it for this week. Again, let’s see if I can make this a regular thing. At the very least, it’ll give some insight into the method of my madness. And if you don’t care for it and just want the sporadic long-form essays, I will take no offense. Just make sure to let me know in the comments. You should especially comment if you’ve read, watched, played, or listened to any of the things I’ve talked about here. I’m always interested in hearing other folks’ opinions on these things.

Happy weekend, all!