Ryan > Recent Status Updates

I got to read a bit today as I went for some medical testing. I have now reached the "Selected Essays" section.

Read these pages on 3/8/24 while at the laundromat but forgot to update Goodreads since then.

Read on my break at work on Wednesday January 31, 2024.

His short anecdote about tossing out a backstory to Martin Freeman on Fargo season one is great and if it happened to me would have emotionally killed me, and made me question "what I am doing here" even more than Odenkirk with his imposter syndrome on a Spielberg film (one that I frankly wasn't that fond of as much as I would have liked).

Pages read at work yesterday (1/12/24).

Pages read yesterday on 1/9/24.

I had no idea Odenkirk did so much directing. I have seen on streamers those two broad comedies he mentions in a negative light here but wouldn't have guessed he was behind the director chair for them. It is interesting to read him detailing how he came about trying to direct them for a variety of reasons, creative and otherwise, and how they got away from him in execution.

I am surprised that Odenkirk ended the one chapter teasing that he started doing cocaine at a low point and then in the 10 pages of the next chapter there is no follow-up on that. He goes into the projects he did after the low point as he was in development hell, and in recapping those I can again see how some people wouldn't be as interested in those unseen shows, but I found it a little compelling to hear them.

Pages read at work on Wednesday 1/3/24.

I can see why a section of this memoir about the various sketches of Mr. Show and details behind how they worked at them might not appeal to all readers, but I do find it a little insightful about how they were created and worked at fairly tirelessly, changed, and adapted to work better for an audience that was barely watching.

Read at work on New Year's Eve. Wish I could have finished the book before the New year.

Update for pages read on 12/29 and 12/30/23. Took me a few minutes to figure out how I could update the page I'm on because it's disappeared from the home page of the site for me.

TIL Odenkirk worked on the Ben Stiller Show and that they used a crane for a shot in their incredible Die Hard parody.

Read yesterday on Christmas during a break from work.

Odenkirk's assessment of the Chris Farley Chippendales sketch on SNL fits what I recall hearing about Farley's feelings for that sketch in the past. Certainly the way Bob frames the thing makes it hard to watch that sketch the same way again.

Update for pages read on 12/17/23 during a break at work.

Pages read for 12/1/23.

Read a page on Thanksgiving (11/23/23).

Readings for 11/18/23 while on break at work. There are so many references to comedy icons for Odenkirk that I don't recognize. I am going to have to YouTube a bunch of names to see their comedy. The way he talks about them has me intrigued.

One of the interesting things referenced is dual studies of bombing in WWII and Vietnam that found bombings from the air force seemed to have no effectiveness in battle into ending the wars even as that was the strategic idea of the air strikes. The idea that the air force wasn't welcoming of such a conclusion because it could take them out of the equation so they just ignored this study and accelerated bombing.

I brought this to read as I visited someone at a hospital but didn't get too far. I had to stop when I began to feel anxious (probably not due to what I was reading). Not the most relaxing material though. Like the last time I picked up this book it was hard not to relate, maybe erroneously, some events about WWII/Vietnam (in this case bombing meant to demoralize instead hardening morale) and think of recent events.

I intellectually get Scott Pilgrim being able to "understand" Gideon, though I can't adequately explain why those one panel flashbacks of the end of his previous relationships with Envy, Kim, Knives, and Ramona awakens this realization in Scott. I wonder if my readings were too broken up during this climax to put it all together. It's a nice ending to the series, but I recall when I started volume one loving it more.

Maybe it is wrong, but there were a couple passages (one from this hearing about the increasing conflict/war in Vietnam with Senators that moved against it, yet also voted to continue its funding) where I couldn't help but see (even if only superficially) a relation to US' irrational, ironic (in terms of caring about liberty) response to foreign conflict in the 60s that is painted here w/ that of events the last week