the hagiography of Fred Rogers

I. Fred Rogers Is Important to My Daughter
I'll just say it: TV is bad. Our TV habits aren't just bad, the medium has replaced nature walks, conversations, music, boredom, board games, restlessness, and other great gifts of human living.

Okay, but also TV is good! Content does matter sometimes, and habits can be altered through boundaries, accountability, institutional advocacy, meditation, prayer, room design ("Does this bring you joy?"), whatever. All this to say: my daughter loves Fred Rogers. She waves goodbye to him the once or twice a week he visits our screen. She also hugs every page of more than one of her books goodnight, so she's not discriminate. This morning, she tried feeding our fake Christmas tree. That's the entire sentence. She tried feeding a fake tree with fake food, saying, "Nom-nom-nom" all the while.

Fred Rogers, though, is a safe respite for me probably more than for her. I watched more kids shows than most single adults before we had Annabelle because of my nieces and nephews, but not Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood since I was a child. He's great. He's singular - still - within children's media for a sense of focus and legitimate wonder. That's a pretty popular opinion right now, given this last year's release of a much-lauded documentary, and an equally well-received biography. Both praise Rogers to the level of sainthood.

An article written in the New York Review of Books reviews both film and book, and tries to complicate their unified message, but fails. Maybe not "fails," maybe just "succumbs to Rogers' inimitable influence." The article is worth reading, and the show itself - not just the biography and the documentary - worth watching. With children, to be clear. It remains a children's show, so don't just start watching it unless you need some proto-ASMR from his genial introduction. A quote from the article:

[O]ne is struck by the ways in which Rogers’s creation was a reaction to severe restrictions and disconnections in his childhood, the ways that his parents’ philanthropic work (they bought shoes for his classmates, for instance) set him apart from the kids on the playground. Almost in response to his own wealth, Rogers was arming kids with models of self-generated joy and wonderment, rehearsing them for disappointments, and consistently treating love less as a noun than a verb, with which one makes space for neighbors, and acknowledges their stories and feelings.

II. Our Age of Hatchet Jobs
I'm largely a fan of hatchet jobs, from a reader's perspective, and terrified to ever face the blade myself. They're great entertainment, though, and as this article from The Ringer makes clear, they offer critics a chance to be creative in ways otherwise difficult to indulge. I especially related to this comment from Willa Paskin: "Any time you feel strongly—if you love something or you hate something—is a rarity, and so it’s really fun to write about. And when you hate something, you almost get to be freer."

I, too, often worry I'm too middle-bound in my tastes, which is why I keep Grapes of Wrath so close to my heart. A horrible, no-good, very-bad book of patrician condescension that did great things politically and should be forgotten the same as any other pamphlet that once helped the poor, but which would be malpractice to call literature. I didn't even finish the thing.

Anyway, the Ringer piece is worthwhile if only for introducing me to one of the great pan openings I've ever read, found in Pitchfork this last year. If you read nothing else in this newsletter, please read the below.

Greta Van Fleet sound like they did weed exactly once, called the cops, and tried to record a Led Zeppelin album before they arrested themselves. The poor kids from Frankenmuth, Michigan don’t even realize they’re more of an algorithmic fever dream than an actual rock band. While they’re selling out shows all over the world, somewhere in a boardroom, a half-dozen people are figuring out just how, exactly, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are supposed to fit into the SUV with the rest of the Greta Van Fleet boys on “Carpool Karaoke.” 

Just look at this photo: Brothers Jake and Sam Kiszka, on guitar and bass, are both wearing hippie costumes they 3D-printed off the internet. The singer, the wretched and caterwauling third brother, Josh, is in dangly feather earrings and vinyl pants, like he was dressed by a problematic Santa Fe palm-reader with a gift certificate to Chico’s. It’s a costume—Greta Van Fleet is all costume.

III. from "Only We Make Beautiful Things to Destroy Them"
by Vickie Vértiz

The Mexicans and the Russians were always in on it 
This is collaboration in zero gravity democracy 
—blurry violet lights and no clear answer 
This is a nuclear glow in the dark so we can start over 
We board planes to Mars and six engines fire
 
You spin away. It’s candy guts out here—all our voting machines are breaking 
You tumble and can’t stop, but 
Grab a harness—an adult pigtail
 
Six plane engines click on and your homie has to 
Push you so you can swing at the exploding star 
A way of thinking, una estructura doblada

IV. Opinion
Someone on Twitter said they hope personal websites and blogs make a comeback. I think that niche is now being filled by newsletters. I only subscribe to a few, but the most consistent in terms of both delivery and content, is this one from Philip Christman. He's written a few essays I've posted to in the past, including a couple of blockbusters on the Midwest and masculinity. I'd love to hear what other newsletters you're receiving, too.

Or not. No one really needs more email.