You're right, of course. The rich own it all, and they know where we are and what we're doing all the time. Surveillance capitalism. All these conspiracy theorists raving about Bill Gates and 5G and brain implants, and then walking around with iPhones...
The cult movie, The President's Analyst (1967), may be dated in many respects, but one aspect central to its plot is eerily familiar -- the idea of eliminating the separate physical phone entirely and supplanting it with a brain implant. If you've never seen this movie, find it. It's still oddly pertinent, despite the Cold War backdrop. And very funny.
One would think that exposing Trump as a mobster WOULD turn a profit, but who am I to know? Meaning: they aim to turn a profit AND protect their whoremasters.
Sunday pages are always enlightening, so thanks Greg for sharing your research with us. Your work has been greatly appreciated by me and many others as proven by the replies here. The podcasts have been excellent of late especially Friday/your wife Stephanie! You both are amazing people and talented to boot. Enjoy this solemn holiday weekend.
First and foremost, being mindful of this most solemn of holidays, I extend my well wishes to the military, retired military, military families, and the cheerleaders of our military who read the Prevail substack.
Starting last night (Saturday) and into the wee hours of Sunday morning, I binge-watched all the many venues that aired this week where you, Greg Olear, were either a host or guest. I loved them all, but sadly they now run together in the aftermath of a deliciously heavy Sunday breakfast. Oh, well.
As to this, your last refrain - "Ripley made me feel like there’s nothing wrong with just being where we are" - we who live in the horse world are constantly reminded we must be in the moment as our horses are if we are to attain their willing partnership with us.
But hopefully this totally-unrelated-to-anything 30-second Twitter feed will leave you laughing,
because everybody knows that laughter is the best medicine!
I've never been into the Ripley series, either reading or watching the older versions. But I'll give this production a try, or at least stick it on my watchlist.
Looking forward to reading your book. At this point in my finances I've had to borrow it, but I often end up buying books I like after reading them in borrowed form, so keep the faith.
Thanks for another fascinating Sunday piece. I wonder why 1606? A random pick or chosen for a specific reason. The bard authored Macbeth in 1606. The murder of Tsar Dimitry I. The union of England and Scotland. When travels end you have given me two things to do, read your book and watch Ripley. BTW, cell phones are both good and evil, depends on the fingers pushing the buttons and the mindset driving them.
Thanks, Old Man. Yes, all technology is neutral in terms of good and evil. People in my ultra-liberal town used to have bumper stickers that said KILL YOUR TELEVISION, which is the same sentiment as BURN YOUR LIBRARY.
Unless I remembered it wrong -- it may have been 1608 -- the date occurs on the show. That's why I picked it.
I look forward to Sunday Pages because it almost always exposes me to some poem or book or movie or some other aspect of the culture I’m less familiar with. But not today. In 1955 I was a HS freshman (up until June) and sophomore (by September), walking to school and watching Dragnet on our black-and-white TV. Been there. Done that. But closer to 1606 than 2024? Come on! I’m perfectly capable of understanding the 1955-2024 differences, because I’ve experienced all of them. But in 1955 we had airplanes! My 45 record player could let me hear Elvis over and over exactly the same every time! My friend’s dad’s Cadillac had power windows! Much like 1606? Come on!
My friend Owen is giving me shit about this, too, via email. And with good reason! My point is that technology has advanced so far since 1955 that I don't think we -- which is to say, me -- I don't think I've quite appreciated just how far. The real year is just before Edison and Tesla and electric lights and germ theory and Pasteur. Mid 19th century. Still not that long ago. And so much accomplished since then. Astonishing.
Caravaggio's Cadillac also had power windows, though, no? ; )
Greg wrote "Modern technology is about speed—about not wasting time."
Its purveyors SAY that, but in actuality the exact opposite is true.
Lately I have been thinking about my dad in the late 1950s / early 1960s, very much in the time of Ripley's world. The old man seemed to have vast amounts of time to engage in his interests (camping, fishing, woodworking, lapidary) even while working a full-time job.
I am now fully retired and I have no such time, not even close.
But my dad's world, unlike mine, was not filled with hundreds of user IDs and passwords, with two-factor authentication (which I am sure we will soon have to use to get a sheet of toilet paper dispensed in an airport restroom), with a gazillion apps, all of which work a little differently from one another, with a new patient portal (with attendant user ID and password) for every doctor (my collection of patient portals now stands at 12), and so on and on and on.
My dad could also just sit down and turn on the TV, and it worked. Sure he had only five channels to choose from, but he did not have to sink time into learning how to operate two or three remotes, find his way among 547 streaming platforms, or figure out which show is on which platform and whether access has been paid for or not. The only outages he had to worry about were if I was horsing around in the living room and knocked the rabbit ears off the top of the set.
Once a month he paid the utility bills, the mortgage, and balanced his checkbook, and that was about it as far as having to spend time futzing around with financial stuff.
He also had no personal computer and so, unlike his son, never had a newish MacBook Pro inexplicably melt down, mystifying even six different Apple tech guys, and have to reinstall the OS and all the third-party apps and their data.
This sort of thing becomes a time-suck of absolutely the highest magnitude.
And my dad spent no time on home security systems and apps, password management apps (his son also having been recently treated to a LastPass meltdown), ID-theft protection schemes, and the like.
And so, the old man, unlike his son, had TIME.
Lots of it.
When the purveyors of digital "convenience" tell you that, it is a lie and it is bullshit. The world we've created for ourselves is in fact all about inconvenience and wasting time. Inconvenience and wasting others' time can be relentlessly monetized.
Claims about convenience and saving time are digital snake oil.
(Sorry, Greg, about the screed. "Ripley" and Andrew Scott in the title role were terrific. I had the same thought at one point that you did -- that you could take almost any still out of the series and frame and hang it. The acting is compelling, and the cinematography is stunning.)
There's a line, about saving time. Dishwashers save time, and washer/dryers, and power lawnmowers. But what of the time it creates?
Something that has absolutely been lost in the last two generations is the capability to sit still, or be alone without distraction: to embrace boredom. Ripley spends a lot of time waiting around, walking around, kind of bored. A guy walks into a bar, and instead of reaching for his pack of smokes, reaches for his phone to scroll. I do this, too.
Another thing, to your point: all the shit we have to pay for now. Cable/internet, streamers, cellphones, laptops, and for kids, video game consoles and etc. Insurance costs a ton more, as does mortgage/rent as a percentage of income. It bodes not well...
(The subscriptions for written work people then DID pay for...so, no change there!)
Your words about AI... I curse at self-checkouts and phone bots while using Photoshop's AI and owning tiny pieces of the Great Enablers, Nvidia and TSM. Not sure there's ever been so much potential for good and evil since the invention of the human mind. Probably not even then. But I once designed a show with a certain Paltrow, her mom, and Judge Reinhold. Your Paltrovian girlfriend reference reminds me that some things have never been what they seem. But as we grapple now with an orange monster of fakery, I plan to ask Alexa how we survive, and I hope you take a job feeding content and thought process into AI. I believe I saw minimum-wage adverts under "editing" on Indeed.com.
The self checkouts make me furious! I went the other day, I had three things, it was closer. I put my little bag on the machine, because god forbid they give me a fucking bag, and it yelled at me that it didn't know what was on the scanner, and it's like, LET ME USE MY BAG. I never don't want to smash those things with the heaviest hammer I can find.
Very sorry to hear about your dog, cal. I lost mine in November and it was rough going. Now, at 66, I've made what I think is the HUGE mistake of adopting a Jack Russell Terrier. I don't really think these dogs were meant for older people unless you have the constitution of a 20-year-old. But, I've lost 10 pounds in two months just walking him, so I can't complain. Good thoughts your way.
LOVED Ripley, and I'll keep the spoilers to a minimum, but overall, I thought the casting skewed a little too old. I may be expecting a 20-something Matt Damon in the role, and around the same for Purple Noon -- which, truth be told, I didn't care for very much. My only other little quibble was the casting of Freddy Miles, and I'll just leave that there. Other than that, a brilliant, beautiful show.
AI. I was watching a YouTube video on the life and death of Karen Carpenter, and it was going along pretty well. I liked the narration. It was crisp, and really, really sounded like a human voice. Then came a piece of narration that came out, "...in the one-thousand nine-hundred and seventy S..." I almost spit up! A PROPERLY trained AI would have recognized "1970s" and read it correctly. It pulled me right out of the video and all I kept listening for was another AI mistake -- probably not the intention. I am NOT a fan of AI narration for anything, but it seems to be creeping up on YouTube A LOT. Soon the videos themselves will be AI-generated. I still try to live by the old adage, "Just because you CAN, doesn't mean you should."
All those YouTube videos have that weird AI narration. The kids listen to that crap all the time. So weird and offputting.
I was puzzled at the casting choice when Freddie initially appears, but he is so good in the crucial scene, I was won over. Also: I have never seen an actor, ever, play dead better, and longer, and under such unpleasant circumstances. So: I like it! (He is Sting's son, who has thankfully inherited his mom's acting chops and not his dad's...)
The acting was very good, but they were so quiet and reserved. Eliot used to be labeled as Sting's daughter, but now goes by gender-neutral pronouns, and this role is still said to be a male character. It's all hard to keep up with, but we just go with the flow.
Wonderful show, yes, Greg. And the grayscales are luminous (literally).
But remember, it's not the technology, it's WHO OWNS THE TECHNOLOGY.
The super-rich and corporations are NOT your friends.
(btw, the Elephant with the Obelisk is by Bernini 1667 ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_and_Obelisk
You're right, of course. The rich own it all, and they know where we are and what we're doing all the time. Surveillance capitalism. All these conspiracy theorists raving about Bill Gates and 5G and brain implants, and then walking around with iPhones...
The ACTUAL PURPOSE OF AI
is to protect the wealth and power of the super-rich as the climate catastrophe destabilises civilisation
How else are they going to keep their fortresses against climate change in the mountains of New Zealand up to snuff?
Totally.
The cult movie, The President's Analyst (1967), may be dated in many respects, but one aspect central to its plot is eerily familiar -- the idea of eliminating the separate physical phone entirely and supplanting it with a brain implant. If you've never seen this movie, find it. It's still oddly pertinent, despite the Cold War backdrop. And very funny.
Interesting. I started writing a sci-fi novel in 2000 with a similar concept. I'll check it out!
Once again homework. I’ll try to watch Ripley soon teacher. Actually, looking forward to it. Thanks.
Billserle.com
Oh, it's terrific, Bill. Enjoy it. I tried not to give any spoilers.
To be fair to Google's AI feature, it has gotten hard to distinguish between the New York Times and The Onion.
Ha! Good point.
When the RFk brain worm story came out, I assumed it was a fake Onion story, even after I saw the NYT headline...
Remember: ...
The purpose of The #Media is to MAKE MONEY.
And close political races make by far the most.
So the media MAKE THEM CLOSE ARTIFICIALLY, e.g. 2016, protecting scumbag Trump and relentlessly attacking Hillary.
Truth rarely makes a profit.
And the Media are destroying the planet just as surely as Big Oil, just for money
One would think that exposing Trump as a mobster WOULD turn a profit, but who am I to know? Meaning: they aim to turn a profit AND protect their whoremasters.
Just like WaPo, I suspect they sadly expect to get paying MAGA and Republican readers ( and advertisers ) if they pander to insanity
Sunday pages are always enlightening, so thanks Greg for sharing your research with us. Your work has been greatly appreciated by me and many others as proven by the replies here. The podcasts have been excellent of late especially Friday/your wife Stephanie! You both are amazing people and talented to boot. Enjoy this solemn holiday weekend.
Thanks, Christine. I'm glad you liked the recent pods, and I'll let Stephanie know!
Add me as an up and coming admirer of Stephanie. She's so smooth!
Now I have to sign up for Netflix.😊
Me, too, Mary. Is resistance futile?
I'm sure you can sign up as a promo for a free spell w/o paying...usually the streamers have deals like that.
With that review we’ll get back to the current Ripley, which we dropped from the lineup because it was too methodical and slow! It’s us not you! Lol
I could have watched him walking around 1961 NYC without any dialogue or anything happening at all. It's a nice antidote, I found.
Typically, "just being where we are" may result in an even greater amount of "kicking and screaming"...
Good point. I'm too optimistic sometimes...
"...every frame is beautiful, worthy of hanging on a wall in one of the museums Ripley visits..."
Amen, brother.
I had trouble picking out which still to use here, there were so many.
First and foremost, being mindful of this most solemn of holidays, I extend my well wishes to the military, retired military, military families, and the cheerleaders of our military who read the Prevail substack.
Starting last night (Saturday) and into the wee hours of Sunday morning, I binge-watched all the many venues that aired this week where you, Greg Olear, were either a host or guest. I loved them all, but sadly they now run together in the aftermath of a deliciously heavy Sunday breakfast. Oh, well.
As to this, your last refrain - "Ripley made me feel like there’s nothing wrong with just being where we are" - we who live in the horse world are constantly reminded we must be in the moment as our horses are if we are to attain their willing partnership with us.
But hopefully this totally-unrelated-to-anything 30-second Twitter feed will leave you laughing,
because everybody knows that laughter is the best medicine!
https://x.com/weirddalle/status/1791617948370538648
Loved the X-bird clip. It did make me smile after all.
Thanks Lynell, for consuming all of that. I hope it wasn't too repetitive.
Here is my Memorial Day piece:
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/sunday-pages-general-order-no-11?utm_source=publication-search
And OMG that clip is amazing!
Not to worry, Greg. You always bring a fresh approach no matter the repetitive nature of the topic. I am also reading your new book, so there!
And Amen to the comment you made last year:
"For me, it is an enormous privilege not to know firsthand the hell of war."
I've never been into the Ripley series, either reading or watching the older versions. But I'll give this production a try, or at least stick it on my watchlist.
Looking forward to reading your book. At this point in my finances I've had to borrow it, but I often end up buying books I like after reading them in borrowed form, so keep the faith.
Thanks, Susan. Let me know what you think of Ripley, if you indeed watch it.
Greg
Thanks for another fascinating Sunday piece. I wonder why 1606? A random pick or chosen for a specific reason. The bard authored Macbeth in 1606. The murder of Tsar Dimitry I. The union of England and Scotland. When travels end you have given me two things to do, read your book and watch Ripley. BTW, cell phones are both good and evil, depends on the fingers pushing the buttons and the mindset driving them.
Thanks, Old Man. Yes, all technology is neutral in terms of good and evil. People in my ultra-liberal town used to have bumper stickers that said KILL YOUR TELEVISION, which is the same sentiment as BURN YOUR LIBRARY.
Unless I remembered it wrong -- it may have been 1608 -- the date occurs on the show. That's why I picked it.
I look forward to Sunday Pages because it almost always exposes me to some poem or book or movie or some other aspect of the culture I’m less familiar with. But not today. In 1955 I was a HS freshman (up until June) and sophomore (by September), walking to school and watching Dragnet on our black-and-white TV. Been there. Done that. But closer to 1606 than 2024? Come on! I’m perfectly capable of understanding the 1955-2024 differences, because I’ve experienced all of them. But in 1955 we had airplanes! My 45 record player could let me hear Elvis over and over exactly the same every time! My friend’s dad’s Cadillac had power windows! Much like 1606? Come on!
Agree, Earl.
But we were promised ROCKET BELTS.
You’re right! I still don’t have my rocket belt!
We were also promised a paperless office! HA!!
U.S. doctors' offices alone slay a large forest every year.
My friend Owen is giving me shit about this, too, via email. And with good reason! My point is that technology has advanced so far since 1955 that I don't think we -- which is to say, me -- I don't think I've quite appreciated just how far. The real year is just before Edison and Tesla and electric lights and germ theory and Pasteur. Mid 19th century. Still not that long ago. And so much accomplished since then. Astonishing.
Caravaggio's Cadillac also had power windows, though, no? ; )
Greg wrote "Modern technology is about speed—about not wasting time."
Its purveyors SAY that, but in actuality the exact opposite is true.
Lately I have been thinking about my dad in the late 1950s / early 1960s, very much in the time of Ripley's world. The old man seemed to have vast amounts of time to engage in his interests (camping, fishing, woodworking, lapidary) even while working a full-time job.
I am now fully retired and I have no such time, not even close.
But my dad's world, unlike mine, was not filled with hundreds of user IDs and passwords, with two-factor authentication (which I am sure we will soon have to use to get a sheet of toilet paper dispensed in an airport restroom), with a gazillion apps, all of which work a little differently from one another, with a new patient portal (with attendant user ID and password) for every doctor (my collection of patient portals now stands at 12), and so on and on and on.
My dad could also just sit down and turn on the TV, and it worked. Sure he had only five channels to choose from, but he did not have to sink time into learning how to operate two or three remotes, find his way among 547 streaming platforms, or figure out which show is on which platform and whether access has been paid for or not. The only outages he had to worry about were if I was horsing around in the living room and knocked the rabbit ears off the top of the set.
Once a month he paid the utility bills, the mortgage, and balanced his checkbook, and that was about it as far as having to spend time futzing around with financial stuff.
He also had no personal computer and so, unlike his son, never had a newish MacBook Pro inexplicably melt down, mystifying even six different Apple tech guys, and have to reinstall the OS and all the third-party apps and their data.
This sort of thing becomes a time-suck of absolutely the highest magnitude.
And my dad spent no time on home security systems and apps, password management apps (his son also having been recently treated to a LastPass meltdown), ID-theft protection schemes, and the like.
And so, the old man, unlike his son, had TIME.
Lots of it.
When the purveyors of digital "convenience" tell you that, it is a lie and it is bullshit. The world we've created for ourselves is in fact all about inconvenience and wasting time. Inconvenience and wasting others' time can be relentlessly monetized.
Claims about convenience and saving time are digital snake oil.
(Sorry, Greg, about the screed. "Ripley" and Andrew Scott in the title role were terrific. I had the same thought at one point that you did -- that you could take almost any still out of the series and frame and hang it. The acting is compelling, and the cinematography is stunning.)
This is a great comment. Thank you.
There's a line, about saving time. Dishwashers save time, and washer/dryers, and power lawnmowers. But what of the time it creates?
Something that has absolutely been lost in the last two generations is the capability to sit still, or be alone without distraction: to embrace boredom. Ripley spends a lot of time waiting around, walking around, kind of bored. A guy walks into a bar, and instead of reaching for his pack of smokes, reaches for his phone to scroll. I do this, too.
Another thing, to your point: all the shit we have to pay for now. Cable/internet, streamers, cellphones, laptops, and for kids, video game consoles and etc. Insurance costs a ton more, as does mortgage/rent as a percentage of income. It bodes not well...
(The subscriptions for written work people then DID pay for...so, no change there!)
Your words about AI... I curse at self-checkouts and phone bots while using Photoshop's AI and owning tiny pieces of the Great Enablers, Nvidia and TSM. Not sure there's ever been so much potential for good and evil since the invention of the human mind. Probably not even then. But I once designed a show with a certain Paltrow, her mom, and Judge Reinhold. Your Paltrovian girlfriend reference reminds me that some things have never been what they seem. But as we grapple now with an orange monster of fakery, I plan to ask Alexa how we survive, and I hope you take a job feeding content and thought process into AI. I believe I saw minimum-wage adverts under "editing" on Indeed.com.
The self checkouts make me furious! I went the other day, I had three things, it was closer. I put my little bag on the machine, because god forbid they give me a fucking bag, and it yelled at me that it didn't know what was on the scanner, and it's like, LET ME USE MY BAG. I never don't want to smash those things with the heaviest hammer I can find.
Patricia Highsmith.
I know the name.
But nothing more.
However with today's "stuff" i can sir in my Motorhome in the vast Sonoran Desert and pull up most anything on my Android Fold phone.
My dog died. But I have memories of Spot and I in simpler times as we traversed the Serengity some 14000 years ago.
Very sorry to hear about your dog, cal. I lost mine in November and it was rough going. Now, at 66, I've made what I think is the HUGE mistake of adopting a Jack Russell Terrier. I don't really think these dogs were meant for older people unless you have the constitution of a 20-year-old. But, I've lost 10 pounds in two months just walking him, so I can't complain. Good thoughts your way.
See, cats don't make you do that sort of thing. Cats make you GAIN weight, from all the laying around...
Condolences on your loss, Cal. I know how much you loved your dog.
I've got a copy of the novel coming to the house...I'll let you know if I like it!
LOVED Ripley, and I'll keep the spoilers to a minimum, but overall, I thought the casting skewed a little too old. I may be expecting a 20-something Matt Damon in the role, and around the same for Purple Noon -- which, truth be told, I didn't care for very much. My only other little quibble was the casting of Freddy Miles, and I'll just leave that there. Other than that, a brilliant, beautiful show.
AI. I was watching a YouTube video on the life and death of Karen Carpenter, and it was going along pretty well. I liked the narration. It was crisp, and really, really sounded like a human voice. Then came a piece of narration that came out, "...in the one-thousand nine-hundred and seventy S..." I almost spit up! A PROPERLY trained AI would have recognized "1970s" and read it correctly. It pulled me right out of the video and all I kept listening for was another AI mistake -- probably not the intention. I am NOT a fan of AI narration for anything, but it seems to be creeping up on YouTube A LOT. Soon the videos themselves will be AI-generated. I still try to live by the old adage, "Just because you CAN, doesn't mean you should."
All those YouTube videos have that weird AI narration. The kids listen to that crap all the time. So weird and offputting.
I was puzzled at the casting choice when Freddie initially appears, but he is so good in the crucial scene, I was won over. Also: I have never seen an actor, ever, play dead better, and longer, and under such unpleasant circumstances. So: I like it! (He is Sting's son, who has thankfully inherited his mom's acting chops and not his dad's...)
The acting was very good, but they were so quiet and reserved. Eliot used to be labeled as Sting's daughter, but now goes by gender-neutral pronouns, and this role is still said to be a male character. It's all hard to keep up with, but we just go with the flow.