The Friday High Five

Well-dressed dudes, all the books all the time, and going back to Arrakis

Suits. USA Network

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

Suits

This one has been in our Netflix watchlist for a while. We threw it on after my colonoscopy and then binged for much of the day. New favorite show.

Suits is about high powered NY lawyers in $5000 suits. But it’s also a mini-procedural, as every week involves a new investigation. And there’s an overarching story, and love triangles, and also Gina Torres.

If I had any idea Zoe Washburne (i.e. Torres) was in Suits, I would’ve prioritized it.

Here’s how I’d describe co-lead Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht): Tony Stark as a lawyer, played by George Clooney. Charming, talented, very cocky, little douchey, still likable. Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) plays the other lead, a rookie with a Beautiful Mind that cosplays as a lawyer. Their dynamic is very Batman and Robin.

The show is so well written. The dialogue is fun and often surprising. Did I mention Zoe is in this?

Someone somewhere is currently shouting at their screen, “How are you not talking about Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex?” It’s true, she’s in Suits. And she’s pretty good. But I honestly don’t care about the royals, so she gets no special treatment.¹

Other Things I Enjoyed

Dumb Money

I went into this not knowing what to expect, which is often my favorite way of seeing a movie. I am both a fan of hype for its own sake and also cognizant of how often hype derails what might otherwise have been a solid movie.

I didn’t really know anything about Dumb Money other than that it was based on the Gamestop stock run from a few years ago, and that it was well regarded. I had no idea it was actually going to be funny. But maybe that’s the only way to make these sort of movies (See also: The Big Short). When you’re dealing with billions of dollars and the duplicitous sorts of people who amass great fortunes while contributing nothing at all to the greater good—who are, quite literally, leeches—you’re basically left with two choices: laugh or cry.

I would rather make fun of them.

Books

I finished Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow in about 5 days. My review:

Tomorrow x3 evokes the same sort of nostalgia I got reading Ready Player One or watching Stranger Things. That's part of the fun. But the star of the show is the story itself, an unconventional love story, but a love story all the same. It's the sort of book that seeps inside and sticks with you.

The only thing keeping this off my Mount Rushmore of novels is the ending. It's understated and beautiful, but a bit unsatisfying. But that's life, and is part of why this book feels so real.

It’s rare for a single book to hold my attention. I am a devout monogamist but a promiscuous reader.

I tend to read multiple books at once, which in practice means jumping between 3 or 4 books at any one time. There are 61 books on my ‘Currently Reading’ list. Most of those I just sorta stopped reading. I tell myself I’ll go back, someday, but for all practical purposes, they were abandoned. And forgotten! Sometimes I look at the books I’m supposedly reading and don’t even remember starting them.²

What am I currently reading, for real:

Philip Roth: Novels and Other Narratives

I know of Roth, but have never read him before. The first novel in this collection—The Counterlife—is a weird but fascinating experiment in perspective, as you aren’t exactly sure when the events take place in relation to other events in the book. That’s kind of the point, I think, to arrive at a dawning, Memento-style realization. It’s already happened to some extent.

The book is a little hard to get into, but after 15 pages or so, I found my footing. Roth is prone to page-long paragraphs, and long sentences involving complicated topics and challenging word choices. This is not an ‘easy’ read, but I’m enjoying it.

Goodreads describes it: The Counterlife is about people enacting their dreams of renewal and escape, some of them going so far as to risk their lives to alter seemingly irreversible destinies.

Eric describes it (after reading 1/3 of the novel): The Counterlife is about sex and Jews.

Playing For Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made

I still plan on writing a piece about my ongoing fascination with Michael Jordan. This book by Pulitzer-winning reporter David Halberstam is part of my research, which also may or may not involve watching The Last Dance again.³

I’ve only just started this book, but it already pales in comparison to When Nothing Else Matters.

Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons

I started reading this one for obvious reasons.⁴ I’m not a big fan of the faux narrative style.

The first chapter has Gary wandering around after being fired from TSR (the original publisher of D&D). He literally stops outside all these places that were noteworthy in the formation of TSR and thinks about what the place means. It’s a super clumsy narrative device, especially since the writer isn’t privy to what Gary was thinking. If this even happened at all. Kids: Don’t try this at home.

I’ll stick with it for a few more chapters to see if things improve.

This Trailer for Horizon

I included Horizon on my list of must-watch films in 2024 without much more information than the film’s name and that Costner was attached. After seeing the first trailer, I feel vindicated in that selection.

I am a sucker for a good Western, so this is very much in my wheelhouse. Also a Costner fan, though I can’t shake the feeling he’s probably a jerk in real life.

Quite simply, Horizon looks epic.

Dune: Part One

The plan is to watch Dune: Part Two this weekend. However, one doesn’t really make plans when you have teenagers. It’s more like ‘loose ideas of what maybe possibly could happen.’ It’s thoughts and prayers.

My son is currently on spring break, which increases the odds this will actually happen. My daughter—the ever-busy one—doesn’t really care about seeing Part Two. She’s a fan of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, but that’s as far as it goes.

We rewatched Part One to prime the pump for the sci-fi goodness to come. What a gorgeous movie.

Rewatching it, I was struck by how many story elements George R.R. Martin possibly borrowed for A Song of Ice and Fire. The likenesses are too many to ignore.

The Atreides are basically the Starks—noble and doomed because of that nobility. The Harkonnens are the Lannisters, minus all the grotesqueries. If you squint, the Bene Gesserit are similar to Maesters. Sand worms become dragons (including special people who can ride them), and related, crysknives become Valyrian blades. Both stories have prophesies that can be totally misinterpreted, a hero that was promised, witches with strange powers, noble houses, a wall that guards against the dangers beyond… the only thing I can’t neatly map are the Fremen.

Anyway, I’m now itching to write some fantasy of my own. Good stories do that.

1. A partial list of things I care about more than the royals: my neighbor’s leaf blower, the stale cereal I threw away, people who think Greedo shot first.

2. A handful of random selections from my “currently reading but not really” list: The Count of Monte Cristo (didn’t immediately grab me), On the Shortness of Life (like to get back to this one when I have time, which is funny in a meta sense), Perdido Street Station (my first China Miéville novel; dude is weird… which is fine, but he’s also super verbose and it makes for a bizarre stew), Joss Whedon: The Biography (put aside after I realized he was a creep; this has been on my ‘currently reading’ list almost 10 years), The Gathering Storm (the first book in Churchill’s World War II series; they are very long books, y’all).

3. I believe I’ve watched The Last Dance 4 times. It’s getting kinda unhealthy. The first step is acknowledging the problem. I think it’s interesting that Jordan maintains a hold over me even now. My wife jokingly suggested we watch The Last Dance when I was recovering from my colonoscopy and I seriously considered it.

4. Those obvious reasons: I am a huge nerd for all things D&D.