Is “Tár” about reading magazine profiles? The way that “Tár” director Todd Field and New Yorker writer Michael Schulman spoke so knowingly about how Lydia Tár could have gotten her EGOT in this inspiring piece felt like they both were riffing on the predictability of profiles of artists rather than the predictability of any artists' actual achievements. One interpretation of “Tár” that I haven't read is that it's about the dual feelings of professional envy (the movie before she falls on the stairs) we feel when reading a profile of someone on the way up and the delicious schadenfreude (the movie post-fall) we feel when reading a thorough account of a once-successful person's abject ruin on their way down. The magazine profile is, in my opinion, the brass ring for our generation, a status reinforced by the now-famous first scene with Adam Gopnik. Will Menaker said in an interview he thinks Lydia Tár is a fantasy projection. Maybe that Gopnik introduction is itself Tár's greatest achievement, the thing that fuels the fantasy of her, like it does in our heads when we read a profile. (TNY) (Menaker)
Sophie Haigney writes that the magic of Lensa AI is that it pays attention more closely and more lovingly to your own face than anyone ever has besides you. This fits well with my position that the main feature of ChatGPT is not that it's AI that writes for us, but that it's AI that reads for us. Someone's got to read all this writing! We're certainly not going to do it. There's way too much. (NYTMag)
I have overheard people at adjacent tables reference the All-In podcast a few times, which means it's basically Howard Stern on morning radio in 1995 adjusting for popularity deflation. It's about time someone did a deep dive on its secret sauce. This does a nice job of not being too dismissive or falling too easily into the typical media-versus-tech stance. (Slate)
Must-read on a guy who did heroin in the bathroom of the Tesla offices before interviewing to Rick and Morty-fy Elon's Twitter account. (Defector)🔒Million-dollar lock of the week must-read🔒 on Bela Bajaria, the Netflix executive who takes shows from one country and turns them into the same show but for another country. It's easy to blame her for how bad Netflix is, especially considering she admits that her taste has nothing to do with which shows she greenlights. But the piece makes clear, as does a great follow-up conversation with writer Rachel Syme on Matt Belloni's pod, that Netflix is decentralized, and Bajaria's role is simply to keep the machinery running smoothly. You can't get caught saying that Chardonnay line, though! Should know better. (TNY) (The Town)
Prince Harry "admiring" Stewie Griffin is psychology. (NYT)
This Edgar Wright McDonald's commercial doesn't feel like it required Edgar Wright to direct it. (YouTube)
What word are we going to use after polycrisis? (Dealbook)
Every cable executive wants their channel to become HGTV during primetime, not in content but in viewership. (Semafor)
The media seems intent on "The Last of Us" being a "Game of Thrones"-sized monocultural focal point. But I haven't watched it yet. (Guardian) (Deadline)