The Friday High Five
Lake vibes, taking the plunge, and a new, new hope
Every Friday I share 5 things I enjoyed this week. Also, high fives are inherently cool, and I think we can all agree Friday is the bestest day. Hence the Friday High Five. 🙏🏻
My Favorite Thing
Vacation
It has become an annual tradition at our house to GTFO as soon as school is out for summer. We book an airbnb on a lake, some place with kayaks and ideally a beach, and just get away. Fortunately, there are tons of lakes in Michigan, so every year we go someplace new.
There is no agenda other than to not have an agenda. We kayak and otherwise spend a lot of time loafing. I don’t know if this is how the 1% live, but I can’t imagine life getting much better.
We’re back home, but at least 30% of me is still on the lake.
One day, the waves were really hopping. It had stormed the previous night—our first night—and in the morning the water was all frothy agitation. I spent a couple of hours on the water and felt like I was still on the water the rest of the day. That’s sorta how I feel now, like there’s a psychic residue of lake living clinging to my shoulder.
Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. If you can’t be on the lake, the next-best thing is to pretend you are.
Other Things I Enjoyed
The Edge of Seventeen
What a movie.
I remember seeing the previews for The Edge of Seventeen—way back in 2016, apparently—and thought it looked quirky and fun, sorta like Juno. From the trailer, I thought it was about a teenage girl’s unorthodox relationship with her teacher. It is a teeny bit that, but mostly it’s about teenage girl angst.
It’s essentially an R-rated version of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, which I also enjoyed. Apparently I have a sweet tooth for teenage girl coming of age stories. Who knew? Though as a father of a 17-year-old girl, it was mildly disturbing seeing the things teenage girls talk about. Though not surprising—I was once 17, too, and much of the convo at the time also revolved around sex.
There are exactly 3 boys in this film, and all slot neatly into traditional teenage archetypes:
The bro-dude jock
The bad boy
The dorky nice guy
It’s interesting watching a movie like this solidly in my 40s and identifying with a teenager. I’d make you guess which one I saw myself in, but I think we all know the answer to that.
The Edge of Seventeen only made $19 million at the box office (against a $9 million budget). It released during a month crowded with blockbusters and I can only assume it was lost in the shuffle. The November 2016 release window included:
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ($816 million at the box office)
Doctor Strange (~ $678 million)
Arrival ($203 million)
Hacksaw Ridge ($180 million)
This doesn’t include kiddie films like Trolls and Moana. I excluded those because the audience doesn’t overlap. And also because The Edge of Seventeen doesn’t need to take any more flying elbows.
I was belatedly dismayed to discover there were plans in 2018 to create a YouTube spin-off, akin to Cobra Kai, but it never materialized. I absolutely wanted to follow these characters to college, and beyond.
Currently streaming on Netflix.
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Pitbull Shaver
There are three things I’ve gradually realized about losing your hair:
It doesn’t happen all at once.
It doesn’t happen to everyone the same way.
At some point, you’re better off shaving what’s left.
My hair odyssey started in my late 20s. I spotted a bit of thinning on the crown one morning while primping before work. Yes—primping. I used to put a lot of time into getting my ‘do just right.
Naturally, my hair was the first part of my youth to go.
I fought the good fight—which is to say, I lived in denial—for a long time. I was fortunate that my hair was naturally thick, and thus, I had hair through much of my 30s. But since I hit my 40s, it’s been a war of attrition, with Ls on all fronts.
I briefly tried Rogaine in my 30s, but you had to apply it twice a day, and I am deeply lazy and casually apathetic. Not even for my precious hair would I devote such care, apparently. Also, it smelled super noxious. I used to think Jack Nicholson fell into a vat of toxic waste in Batman (1989), but now I’m 99% sure it was Rogaine.
For the last 5 years I’ve been steadily getting my hair trimmed shorter and shorter. And then I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. Literally.
I started spending time on the /bald subreddit, which is basically a support group for people going through all the phases of grief simultaneously; 75% of the posts are of dudes uploading pictures of their super-sparse hairline with the caption “is it time?” Yes, my dude. I’ve seen balloons with more hair.
The number one device recommended by /bald for my “situation” is the Pitbull Gold, which looks like it was designed by a focus group of bikers and weightlifters. But apart from the vague performative masculinity, the shaver is rock solid. It leaves just the faintest bit of stubble, which is good because I’m not trying to rock a Lex Luthor look. The stubble sometimes grabs my shirt when I’m putting it on, which is a new inconvenience.
When she was little, my daughter used to tell me she wouldn’t love me when I was “bulb.” I’m happy to report her affections as a 17-year-old are undiminished now that my head is basically naked.
The Angel's Game
The smart, minimalist thing would be to bring my Kindle on vacation.
I thought about it. I even picked it up and weighed it in my hand, like Indiana Jones deciding if he has the proper amount of sand to disable the trap. But I decided to go analog, offline, and as screen-less as possible.
I ended up bringing two physical books:
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
I’ve had The Creative Act since this past Christmas. Upon receiving it, I immediately read the first 10 pages and was sorta undone by how profound they were.
It’s a book that invites sipping more than guzzling. Quite unintentionally, I put it down for 6 months. I thought vacation might be just the time to pick it up again. But then I started reading The Angel’s Game and that was all I read (and am still reading).
The Angel’s Game is the second book in Zafon’s The Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. Book one—The Shadow of the Wind—is one of the most beautiful, spell-binding books I’ve ever read. If you are a writer or lover of books, it doesn’t get any better.
I’ve had the series since last Christmas (2022) and have been sitting on them since. Sometimes I put off the thing I most want to do, for reasons that aren’t always clear to me.
Here’s the first paragraph of The Angel’s Game.
A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price.
Star Wars: The Acolyte
Full disclosure: I’ve only watched the first episode. It’s entirely possible the second (or third or…) tips the scale. But right now, I’m feeling pretty optimistic about The Acolyte. Which is a far cry from where I stood a few months ago.
The cast is wonderfully diverse and manage the balance between “Jedi stoic pacifism” and “emotionless droid,” a trick the Prequels never mastered. (Is this what the prophecy about balance meant?) I was especially delighted to see Dafne Keen, of Logan and His Dark Materials fame, partly obscured by gray makeup but no less recognizable as a snarky Padawan.
It’s yet too early to draw any conclusions about the cast, but Amandla Stenberg in particular is great. She’s the closest thing to the show’s main character and radiates a kind of youthful positivity. She’s a scrappy loner and reminds me a lot of Rey in The Force Awakens.
I’m also digging Lee Jung-jae as Jedi Master Sol. Carrie-Anne Moss predictably kills it as Jedi Master Indara.
I have a lot I want to say, but in the interest of spoilers, I’ll hold off, and probably do it someplace else.
My favorite thing about The Acolyte—by far—is that it is the first Star Wars show to branch out from the established timeline and the familiar characters, and attempt something new. I don’t know where this show is going and that’s possibly the most exciting thing of all.
Exclusively streaming at Disney+.
Glad you got to The Angel's Game!