Quibblers & Scribblers

10/14/2024

Q&S CAST is our new video podcast, the third pillar supporting the Quibblers & Scribblers platform alongside Q&S POST (the Substack newsletter) and Q&S SHOP (the concept store). The pilot episode, "INDIA MODERN," is a visually rich conversation between host James Killough and designer Tarun Tahiliani, a.k.a "godfather of Indian fashion."

Friends for over three decades, they'll revisit the first true Indian fashion show at Tarun's Mumbai boutique in 1988, which James attended, and the culture-changing explosion of fashion across India that followed; swap personal anecdotes about uber-muse Isabella Blow and her American eccentric-aristocrat counterpart, designer Mary McFadden; and explore the broader context of "India Modern," how that might reframe the excesses of the Ambani wedding.

Premiering next Tuesday, October 22, on Spotify, YouTube and Substack.

Check out the promo and let us know what you think.
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07/16/2024

TRANS-FORMANCE

I'd never seen the cosmic female-male yin-yang relationship performed by two men in Bharatanatyam before this video posted a few months ago. The thillana rhythmic portion at the climax of a performance is one of the many Indian things I find moving and awe-inspiring.

It reminds me of when I was staying at Darpana Dance Academy in Ahmedabad visiting Malika Sarabhai in the early 90s. Malika was the only Indian performer in Peter Brooks' astounding 13-hour stage performance of "Mahabhatara," a huge influence on my decision to let go and embrace India.

There was a pavilion in the middle of the compound's courtyard with a polished cement floor, a tabla player and a singer-instructor sat cross-legged on the side tapping time on a wood block, "Tum tak tak tei tik tik tatta tei..."

Maybe 2 dozen girls and one teen boy were divided into four age groups, barefoot with ankle bracelets of bells.

The 4-to-7 group began, hands on hips, lightly stomping, simple tentative steps. The next group rotated in, and the next, increasing in age, proficiency and confidence, feet pounding harder, ankle bells calling down the gods with more emphasis.

The singer-instructor picked up pace with the tabla and five teens — those who'd stuck it out through the years it takes to learn Bharatanatyam, whittled down from a larger pool of children — leaped in, boy in the middle, and threw every hormone of their adolescent energy into dancing as the gods.

It was all I could do not to yell "Olé!" at the end — flamenco eat your gypsy heart out.

Few men perform any variant of Indian classical dance, except for a martial arts version called Chhau, so clunky and macho by comparison it makes me embarrassed to be a man.

It's mildly interesting that the man in the female role in this video is playing Shakti/Durga/et al., Shiva's full-time consort, rather than Mohini, the avatar of Lord Vishnu transformed into the ultimate vamp who seduces Shiva and gives birth to a child, Lord Ayyappa, whose vehicle is a tiger.

— James

||ARDHAGAURISHVARA||On the occasion of Mahashivratri 🔱"Embracing the cosmic rhythm, our dance becomes a sacred offering to the eternal union of Shiva and Sh...

07/03/2024

So fu**ed. So fu***ng fu**ed.
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06/26/2024

Paris 2024 is already the best Olympics of my lifetime. And a couture logo I can get behind. Very rare.
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06/22/2024

Only one of these movies, 'Bikeriders,' was marketed properly to someone the algorithms know is an old-fashioned movie-theater goer; i.e., I see it at least 7 times across various sites. The rest I'd never heard of until I happened on this listicle tucked way at the bottom of the NY Times homepage.

This is so basic. These films have no chance if all the marketing they get is festivals, reviews in elite outlets with paywalls, and barely read critics' listicles. Yet they are likely the future of theatrical.

Surrender, Dorothy.
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06/14/2024

Part 2 of James Killough's series about the Indian caste system is stomping the views and engagement stats of every other piece he's written for the Q&S Substack since its launch in February 2023. This bodes well for interest in the forthcoming Q&S video podcast, focusing on Killough's experience of modern India from the unusual perspective of an Anglo-American New Yorker who has been deeply embedded in the culture and social framework for the past 35 years.

Link in comments.
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06/10/2024

Just as I was about to give up and embrace self-help listicles, today's Q&S post about the caste system stomped the previous two posts in under 10 hours, surpassing what they've done over months.
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06/08/2024

Because Brits are more creative; more articulate and provocative conversationalists; far less conformist for such a class-obsessed culture; "scrappy" af, as this article points out; and have no problem stepping on someone else's toes — they're so polite about it, Americans think they're being given a boost.

I've already given my breakdown of why British actors are so in demand that it wouldn't surprise me if the major agencies station recruiters outside the chapel at Eton on Leavers. Basically, Americans are so fixated on developing themselves as a sacred lead character that they've no room left for others.
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Link in comments.

06/07/2024

Oof! *chin wobble, teary eyes*
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At the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Melvin Hurwitz, an American World War II veteran, embraced President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and called him “the savior of the people.”

06/01/2024

Damn. I wish I'd written 'Atlas.'

Yes, that's the robot stroking a flower during an AI/formerly skeptical-human bonding moment.

Something like this should no longer be considered for development, much less made. How did it get past coverage? What snarky, cavalier Wesleyan grad jammed this through?

Stop making this. Try harder; you're killing us. True, I've been the working dead for years now — no point kicking a bucket that's done been kicked.

I woke up one morning a few years ago to discover I was that urban legend I'd heard about when I was in my early 20s and being assured by everyone that I was the second coming of Orson Welles: a screenwriter who makes a living without getting anything produced. Why? Because $100 million-plus was spent making 'Atlas,' among many other senseless reasons — yup, deliberate oxymoron there.
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INT. CONFERENCE ROOM. CULVER CITY — DAY

The WRITER-DIRECTOR is old as f**k but still edgy. Sitting across from him, the EXEC is a humanoid bag of unctuous smiles and dodgy health regimens.

"Coverage is fantastic! Wow! Haven't read something like this in forever. Love your vision for it in the treatment. But you know the deal: two names or no presales."

"Who are you thinking?"

"For something like this, I dunno, Brad Pitt or Downey? And for the female lead, forgot her name, definitely Kidman or... what about Anya Taylor-Joy? LOVER her! Those lips... oops, can't say that, anymore. You didn't hear that."

"Will you sign offers?"

"What? Pfft. No."

"Then how do I get Brad Pitt and Anya Taylor-Joy?"

"You know the drill, man."

"If you submit an offer, they have to read."

"We're not signing offers."

"So after making me wait 4 months while someone else read the script for you and hammered out this nearly illegible coverage —"

"She's one of our best analysts. And she gave you a Recommend. Rarely does that. Be kind."

"She didn't even reread what she wrote, much less switched on Grammarly."

"She's slammed. Do you know how many scripts we get?"

"But you attached yourself to this one, convinced me to do it on spec by manipulating my devotion to my vocation."

"Because I believe in you."

"Money for nothing and your scripts for free.'"

"What?"

"Dire Straights song, never mind. Even with an offer, we'd have to wait an average of 3 to 4 months for agency coverage on their end, and then for the actor to read while dangling in front of a green screen in New Zealand before they inevitably pass because they haven't read it; what "reading" really means is the agent convinces them to do it if the agent wants them to, but she needs to meet her own company quotas by not recommending roles that pay scale plus ten."

"Dude, we have to cap the budget at —"

"Because the lead is gay."

"You said 'bi.'"

"...."

"It's not because of that. Look, no matter how good it is, it's a limited release. You know the deal: if it catches on, buzz-buzz-buzz, platform, platform, wins awards, Sundance, Cannes, maybe picks up a few Oscars — I can definitely see you nominated for this, just brilliant writing."

"Thanks, but that's utterly meaningless. Here's what: pay the actors something not as insulting as scale-plus-ten and release it with greater screen saturation boosted by a healthier P&A like you would for, I dunno, a Jennifer Lopez AI sci-fi vehicle."

"Can't."

"Why?"

"You know why."

"It's an indie drama."

"Hey! Don't shoot me. It's the way things are everywhere, you know that. Audiences are tough on dramas, very difficult to even break even on 'em."

"How can audiences support dramas if they don't know about them, when they're not even playing at their local theater with nothing but theater one-sheets for marketing?"

"If you start now, you can build a robust organic social media presence by the time it's made."

"Why would an agent, who's looking over her shoulder at her 'All About Eve' assistant and pulling out clumps of hair every morning from stress about being fired and having to go back to management, recommend a project she's making 10% of scale-plus-ten when she can put her client on some paranoid Transformers meets Lost In Space that gives her 10% of upper seven figures with a performance bump?"

"She won't."

"That was rhetorical. So you're essentially sending me up Everest naked and barefoot, no oxygen, not even a grumpy Nepali sherpa and a flask of rum, without paying me until cashflow, or a few weeks before production."

"That's why you're getting that juicy 5% of producer's net as a backend. And I gave this to you because I respect your prodigious talent. I believe in you."

"How can a film make a backend if nobody's seen it because nobody knows about it and it's not showing anywhere?"

"Was that rhetorical, too?"

"...."

"The way you're arguing reminds me of that weird World War II show that Clooney directed..."

"Catch-22?"

"That's the one! Lunch?"

"Yes, please."

"There's an insanely good taco truck on Little Santa Monica, you'll love it."
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So now I sell tees and hoodies while my creative partner sells insurance. It's the very best use of our talent and experience, suitable reward for years of putting up with the above, 16-hour workdays on set, no pay for years, and so, so, so much more that I'm a fu***ng idiot, another Quixotic addict.

Stop making these movies. You're killing us.
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Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez), a brilliant but misanthropic data analyst with a deep distrust of artificial intelligence, joins a mission to capture a rene...

05/18/2024

CRY ‘BABY REINDEER’

I hear ya about the shock of not knowing in advance, Fiona. The three-hour emotional rupture that began the moment I realized what I was watching onscreen after they called my Oliver's name in an Italian accent, "Aw-lee-ver,” was possibly the most cathartic I’ve ever experienced; until then, I had no measure of the degree of sadness that I’d been suppressing for 35 years.

Like Gadd's genuine surprise at 'Baby Reindeer's success, André Aciman had no way of knowing when he wrote ‘Call Me By Your Name’ that it would go as far as being made into a film, much less shown at an awards screening at the Arclight Hollywood. Until CMBYN, gay-themed films above ~$1 million were almost impossible to finance.

Even if there was a slight breach of duty of care on the part of Gadd and Netflix, it’s no reason for a lawsuit. In that case, every bit of gossip and opinion column “analyzing” real-life events or “lensing” cartoon skunks as “promoting r**e culture” would be liable.

The fact that certain third-act decisions were made for 'Baby Reindeer' to goose her comeuppance isn’t defamation, either. As a dramatist, I would agree they were unavoidable; Martha couldn't just get away with it.

Similarly, Aciman’s third-act decision not to kill off his Oliver as he originally intended because he was “having too much fun with him” — the real Oliver died — doesn’t make his fictionalized retelling of a true story less truthful or a complete fabrication, as she alleges.

At least Gadd changed her name — Aciman didn’t change Oliver’s, but it’s hard to replace as one of the more pathos-inducing names for some undefinable creative reason; to wit, Love Story’ and ‘Oliver Twist.’

Similarly, 'Martha' conjures an emotionally imbalanced trainwreck. Could that be because of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf'?

Ironically, Fiona has finally been tried and convicted for her actions by the show’s success. That makes ‘Baby Reindeer’ even more of a metamodernist masterpiece, together with the victim admitting it was a birds-of-a-feather relationship, that as a lonely social castaway who craves affection, he's not that different.

When I saw Fiona on ‘Piers Morgan,’ the first thing that popped into my head was a British film industry expression, “When there’s a hit, there’s a writ.” She's also demanding $1.25 million from Piers Morgan for his "exploitative interview."

I personally find that repugnant; hopefully, the fact I've let the statute of limitations in my case lapse adds credence to my stated motivation of just wanting my story back, not a share of the bountiful lucre its (likely) adaptation has generated.

Every time I log in to my bank account, I ignore the pop-up stating, "You're a fu***ng idiot."

My bigger concern has been whether I can ever match the transformational impact of ‘Call Me By Your Name.' I’ve accepted the likelihood that I can’t: as with ‘Baby Reindeer,’ its runaway success is one of those unexplainable cultural flukes that depends as much on variables outside the merits of the way it’s told and presented as it does on the story’s allure.
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05/12/2024

All You Ever Wanted to Know About the Entertainment Business* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)
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05/02/2024

L.A., life's departure lounge."
— Gore Vidal

05/01/2024

Last words before I went under the knife: "This is an interesting way of lighting the patient's POV shot, must remem —"

04/29/2024

This illustration by Leo Jung for an essay about Justin Trudeau being done in by his progressivism says more than the text.
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04/29/2024

A great photo overwhelmed by too much significant gloomy vignetting.
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