July 23 2023 — Existential Autotrip

July 23, 2023
# 1616

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Cover Story
Meet Elana Lane, because she’s a people person and enjoys talking to customers. That’s why she chose the food service industry. A student at Northeastern U, she gets considerable help from her mom to pay her way through. Despite that help, she, like so many others of us, has to work, at least part-time, to make ends meet.
Elana found her recent spate of job applications particularly edifying, getting call backs from a high percentage of the places to which she applied. She chose George Howell café because of their reasonable pay scale enhanced by tips, and because she sensed a pleasant esprit among the staff. In the event, she was accurate in her assessments
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A fourth-term student at Northeastern, (there are five terms in her program,) Elana sees herself as a graphics designer. Her favorite course to date has been the History of Graphic Design.

Most striking about Elana is her calm and collected presence and her confidence of self. Her sharp mind, her upbringing, her formal education, and insightful perspectives make talking with her a pleasure. If Elana is typical of what we can expect of our Gen Z generation, America is in great shape.

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Commentary
There lies Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a man lying to whoever will listen.
Pathetic Democratic nominee for President.
Destroyer of the Kennedy cachet.
Hopefully a good father and husband.
Enough said.
Too much, actually.

Karl Lagerfeld

I visited the Met on three separate occasions before I finally got into the wildly popular Karl Lagerfeld exhibit. I waited an hour, but this time I had a book and the whole day to wait. Needless to say, it was worth it.

Most of the Met’s annual fashion exhibits — or most of the fashion exhibits I’ve seen in general — feature one era or house (of Dior, Chanel, etc.). This had the magnitude of any of the best exhibits I’ve seen — but was created all by one man.

That’s the miraculous part. Yes, he’s a snob and needed a bit of training in HR, but Lagerfeld is an artistic genius and deserves all the credit he gets. He single-handedly created one of the most thrilling and diverse catalogs I’ve ever seen.

So happy I went by myself so I could linger over the pieces I loved most without pressure. It’s the mood I’m in.

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Brayden’s Gen Z Corner
Theme Park Entertainment
From the perspective of a kid who grew up next to Disneyland

I grew up in Orange County, California, in a city called Yorba Linda— which is basically only known for one thing: It was the birthplace of President Richard Nixon, and it now is the site of Richard Nixon’s Presidential Library and Museum— which I coincidentally lived right across the street from. Literally, I could walk outside my house and see the glorious fountains and museum entrance.

Most of our field trips through elementary school were walking a couple of blocks over to the Richard Nixon Library and touring through his childhood home, presidential helicopter, and a room replicating the Oval Office — which was featured in an episode of BoJack Horseman where they need to film an episode of Secretariat set in the Oval Office, but can’t use the real one, so they sneak into the replica in Yorba Linda. It’s a weird feeling sitting in my bedroom, binge-watching BoJack with the Richard Nixon Library outside my window, and then having the meta-jump scare of an animated version of my very view pop up on my TV screen.

Despite Yorba Linda being not that cool, with not much to do besides checking out the crib of the only president to resign from office— Orange County was host to many other attractions, particularly The Disneyland Resort.

Only a 25-minute drive away from my home was The Happiest Place On Earth. Growing up, my family would take us on a Disney trip once a year. I remember journeying through the solar system on the thrilling Space Mountain, collecting autographs from every Disney character in my autograph book, and dining at Goofy’s Kitchen eating peanut butter and jelly pizza and waving my napkin around when the characters parade through the restaurant. These trips growing up were really special. It was fun for the whole family and allowed my imagination to run free.

Me (center) and my friends Parker (left) and Leo (right) at Disneyland during Christmastime of our 6th-grade year.

Then I got to high school— I went to a school in Orange that was less than 15 minutes away from Disneyland. I got involved in theater there and eventually made some friends… all of whom I discovered had Disneyland Annual Passes. This meant that, aside from select blackout dates, they could go to Disneyland whenever they wanted. And boy did they go often. All throughout High School, Disneyland became my key to freedom. A place I could go with my friends that was safe, walkable, with no shortage of things to do. I would sometimes even go by myself after school to do homework sitting on the Paradise Pier.

One day, my friend and I left campus during lunch and rushed over to Disneyland just to get corndogs, and made it back with just enough time to be a little late to 6th period. We scanned our passes at the gate to get into the park, went straight to The Little Red Wagon Corn Dog Cart and bought ourselves a pair of dogs, and then walked out of the park past security with the fresh dogs, still in the Disney branded food baskets, and they didn’t stop us!

This was a place where I could connect with people. What better way to chat with friends or get to know someone than while waiting in line for rides? Disneyland even became my go-to first date spot. So long as we both had annual passes, we could get into the park at 5pm for free, grab a fun romantic dinner at one of the countless themed restaurants, and then share stories while waiting in lines for romantic dark rides like Pirates of the Caribbean or Haunted Mansion. The ice was already broken… I mean there’s so much to talk about when you’re in Disneyland!

For many of us, the nostalgia of Disney dates back to our earliest childhood memories. Most everyone has a favorite character, a favorite movie, a favorite song, a favorite ride, a favorite show. For many of us, there’s something about Disney that makes us light up when we talk about it.

Me as a high schooler posing with Goofy!

When it came time to apply for colleges, I only applied for schools in Orange County California, because I knew I wanted to work at Disneyland throughout college. Being a performer with Disneyland Entertainment was every theater kid’s dream in O.C., and some of my older friends had already scored jobs there as soon as they turned 18. The summer after I graduated, I went to an audition to be a Character Performer at Disneyland, and I got hired. Throughout that summer and my first year of college at Chapman University, I got to perform countless entertainment roles at Disney— bringing to life masked characters like Goofy, Tigger, Captain Hook, The Queen of Hearts… performing in the Halloween parades as characters like Ichabod Crane, The Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghosts, and Iconic Disney Villains… but best of all, during the Halloween and Christmas months, I was the Master of Fright, Mr. Unlucky, The Pumpkin King…

Jack Skellington.

Jack was one of my favorite characters for as long as I could remember, and I was given the responsibility of bringing this character to life and immersing others into his story with my physicality, voice, and improvisational storytelling. It was then that I got to create magic for kids just like me— giving autographs in those classic autograph books… taking photos that will be printed and put in tacky picture frames… and creating that experience of meeting, talking to, and asking questions to your favorite Disney character. Not only that, but I also got to meet people who were like me in high school… First dates, groups of friends looking for an escape, theater kids… You name it. It was a fun job!

But eventually, the magic started to wear off, and I couldn’t enjoy going to Disneyland like I could in high school. There’s a whimsy that’s lost when it’s your workplace. Although, it didn’t really bother me the way that it bothered many other Cast Members I knew who experienced that phenomenon and warned against it. I’ve always liked knowing how the magic works and what goes on behind the scenes. I’ve always been the guy who looks up how magic tricks and illusions are done. I got to experience Disneyland as a bright-eyed kid, as a young-and-in-love teen, an employee on a great day at work, an employee on a bad day at work, and a laid-off undervalued employee in a pandemic. I love experiencing the excitement of that magic for the first time— but then I like to figure out how that experience was created— because I myself am a creator of experiences.

I think about Walt Disney— in 1911 his family moved to Kansas City, where he and his sister became regular visitors to Electric Park, one of the world’s very first amusement parks. It actually started as an amusement park where the whole amusement was electricity. Before electricity was a household thing, people would go to places like Electric Park where a building decked with thousands of lights was an attraction to behold. By the time Walt Disney was a visitor, the park had rides, an alligator farm, boat tours, gardens, a railway, and more. This place was magic to his little kid brain, and it was one of the main inspirations for his ideas that would eventually turn into Disneyland. He experienced the magic and wanted to recreate that for others with his own spin on it, his own tweaks that ended up revolutionizing theme parks as we know them. Getting this project off the ground was probably a major headache for Walt. Opening day was a disaster. But it was an investment to create an environment for people to experience what feels like real magic, and it has lasted over 67 years going strong.

And similarly to how Walt’s childhood park in Kansas City, Electric Park, inspired him in his later work creating Disneyland— Disneyland has inspired me in the work that I do and hope to do in the future, creating and revolutionizing immersive entertainment.

-Brayden Martino

Commentary
We welcome poet Dylan Capossela to our Gen Z corner.

My First Appearance

I love writing poetry.

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Tucker’s Corner
Some films demand to be seen in a theater. As time goes by the gap between theater and home viewing is shrinking thanks to gorgeous TV’s and high quality (and inexpensive) sound options but even with the best home setup you simply can’t recreate the full experience of the theater. The giant screen. The booming sound. The popcorn. I’ve reached a point in my filmgoing where I reserve certain theaters for certain types of movies. I go to Coolidge for more art house style films that match the theater’s lovely environment. But for films like the one I’m writing about this week a special experience is needed. And it’s at a furniture store. Jordan’s Furniture in Natick (and Reading) have some of the best quality IMAX theaters in the world (yes, the world) so when the time has come to watch the newest entry in one of my favorite action film franchises I simply can’t go anywhere else. The whole experience was perfect. This is Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Other than maybe Owen Davian, the arms dealer played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the third film, the villains of the Mission Impossible franchise aren’t all that memorable. I believe there is a reason for that and that is that they were never supposed to be the true antagonists. Time, altitude, gravity, chance: These forces are the actual threats facing Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) in the series’ now seven (soon to be eight) entries.

With Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Hunt might finally face a villain as intangible as the laws of nature he regularly defies. Dubbed The Entity, the film’s antagonist is a sentient AI that can hack into every database on the planet and reshape the world by rewriting what we know to be true. It’s a timely foe for a world that seems to be more and more affected by dis/misinformation and AI anxiety. How can Hunt, a man-made legend by his ability to defy his own destiny hope to stop the hyper modern idea of going to war with algorithmic human behavior?

Adding continuity between entries is writer-director Christopher McQuarrie whose two previous MI films Rogue Nation and Fallout were breakout successes even for this storied franchise. McQuarrie knows how to structure a edge of your seat experience and he doesn’t have to blow up everything in sight to accomplish that. For example, an early sequence at the Abu Dhabi airport where Hunt and his returning teammates played by Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames are simply trying to surveil the sale of a mysterious key. Very quickly the situation balloons as more and more players enter the picture and the key keeps changing hands. A bomb appears as well as a dead body. The bomb’s timer steadily ticks away while Hunt is pursued by three separate groups. The scene is a masterclass in stacking complications while not only not losing the audience but keeping them completely riveted.

You could crash Wikipedia if you bothered to write out all the exposition in Dead Reckoning but where McQuarrie succeeds is that he knows most of those details don’t actually matter. In fact, he directs most of the film with the knowledge that most of the details will fall by the wayside and instead keeps what you need to know front and center through his direction of physical spaces and bodies. Nearly every scene has a character chasing (or being chased) by another character and it boils down to all you need to know at any moment about anyone’s motivations. He also keeps things exciting by bringing in new faces who quickly prove their worth. Hayley Atwell plays a pickpocket of uncertain allegiance whose skills become instrumental to a plot that’s at least half dedicated to “who has the key”. Shea Whigham plays a keystone cop type character who is constantly on Hunt’s tail and always arriving to witness the pileup of cars or bodies. Pom Klementieff spends most of her near silent role grinning maniacally. Officially she’s a French assassin but she’s also a mirror for us, the audience, wearing constant joy on her face as all hell breaks loose onscreen. If you look down the theater row, you’ll see the same face looking back at the screen during those moments.

Pom Klementieff plays the near silent assassin, Paris

There’s a wonderful element of comedy to many of Dead Reckoning’s action scenes. Tom Cruise’s escalating feats of daredevilry, which he’s still accomplishing deftly in his sixties, make him maybe the last analog movie star in a world of CGI accomplishments. The beauty though is he’s not being forced to do any of these stunts. He’s a willing collaborator and the result adds an exhilarating true to life edge to the MI franchise. He’s really doing what you see on screen. He really does drive a motorcycle off a mountain cliff. He really does run from the Roman police in a tiny yellow Fiat while handcuffed to his passenger. I’m grinning ear to ear while writing this, still enamored by these sequences days later.

In some ways Mission: Impossible remains thankfully out of step with the modern blockbuster. I place that at Cruise and McQuarrie’s feet. They’re both proven cinephiles and Dead Reckoning is clearly inspired by great moments in other famous works. The opening scene would feel right at home stitched into The Hunt For Red October. The closing one recalls, of all movies, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (you’ll see how). Maybe the most impressive nod though is to Brian De Palma’s original entry in this franchise. McQuarrie’s script clearly tries to commune with the spirits of De Palma’s film with the dialogue heavy trickery, a racing train sequence, the surprise return of an old handler and even the use of Cruise’ likeness circa 1996. Seeing nearly 30-year-old photos of Cruise in this film are a wonderful reminder that the man still has it. In fact, he might have more “it” than ever before. It’s a beautiful expression of human vitality and spirit.

L to R: Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Cruise, and Rebecca Ferguson

In the near three decades Cruise has been playing Ethan Hunt he’s fused the character’s determination with his own. Much like his return as Maverick in Top Gun last year the actor has ceased to disappear into these roles. He doesn’t want to. Both Top Gun Maverick and the Mission: Impossible movies are monuments to Cruise’s reckless ambition and star power.

Seven films deep you’d think the luster would wear off, but it doesn’t. Cruise and McQuarrie know exactly what makes this series so much fun: watching Ethan Hunt try to think, climb, drive, sprint, or bluff his way through unforgiving odds is a high worth chasing. You can see through the rage he expresses at Dead Reckoning’s malevolent machine the shadow of how Cruise feels watching Hollywood tip more and more in the direction of shooting entire films in green screen warehouses and relying more and more not on star power or ability but on fan serving cameos and intellectual properly. The entire system, now touting the idea of using AI power to transmute performances into assets that movie studios can use time and time again without paying the actors that were essential to their creation, seems to be built to make movie stars obsolete. Cruise, like Hunt, won’t go down without a fight. “Impossible” isn’t in his vocabulary.

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Writing
The book I am editing and contributing to as a writer is proceeding apace. We hope to get the final draft to the printer by August 1. I’ll give more details in a week or two.

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Restaurant: Picco

Picco is a highly-regarded, reasonably priced South End restaurant. I ate there for the first time on Sunday, 7/17/2023 and had a simple pizza with tomato sauce and cheese.
It’s not extreme to say that Picco’s crust, a cross between Umberto’s thick, Sicilian-style and the Regina’s thin-style round pizza crust, might well be the best pizza crust in a city justifiably proud of its pizza.

I am not, however, a fan of the way they treated the mozzarella cheese. Typically in a pizzeria, the cheese is grated and melts easily becoming part of the sauce. At Picco’s, the mozzarella cheese, a generous portion, is set on the sauce in sizeable, thick rectangles that soften in the oven but don’t melt, don’t integrate with the sauce. For me, this detracted from the overall experience.

Despite that drawback, the pizza was great.

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Chuckles and Thoughts
As a sign above the urinals in a bar in Union Square used to say,
“Please do not leave butts in the urinals: they get soggy and hard to relight.”

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Travel
Re: My one week to Tuscany in September. All of my restaurant reservations are made except for the single Guide Michelin 3-star restaurant in Florence, the Enoteca Pinchiorri, which will open their reservations, for the day that I am planning to have dinner there, early next week. I will be waiting.

*The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily on Wikipedia and ChatGPT to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.

**Community Pictures with Captions are sent in by our followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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Jul 19 July 23 2023