📈 first Derivative [109]
📈 first Derivative [109]
💰 MrBeast's new show—🛬 Boeing blues—🏡 realtor fees—🇭🇹 the gangs of Haiti
🏯 Just watched Episode 5 of Shōgun last night and the series is still going strong at the halfway mark. If you’re watching the show, or curious, check out the podcast episode I did with my friend Gabriel Frieberg on Schmearcast.
I read a short piece in the WSJ about the lessons the world of Shōgun has for the modern world…
In some ways, this production of “Shogun” comes at the wrong time for Western viewers. It depicts the final, all-out battle to end the chaos that had enveloped Japan for 150 years and to create a new and durable political system. Our worry today, by contrast, is the advent of chaos, with many fearing the possible collapse of the post-World War II international order…
…and a longer piece in the NYT published in 1981 when the miniseries adaptation had come out. Some very interesting time capsules in here and Clavell comes off like a real character:
''Shogun'' readers have commonly reported becoming so engrossed in the novel that their jobs and marriages pale by comparison. At work, they hide it in desks and sneak peeks when no one is looking. On vacations, they tear the paperback into sections and pass it around so that two or three can read it simultaneously. Henry Kissinger, the publisher proudly reports, began issuing orders to his wife and addressing her as ''Woman!'' while under ''Shogun's'' spell.
Clavell’s experience during WW2:
Before the end of World War II, James Clavell was shot in the face, and wandered lost in the jungle for days. A Malay village eventually took the British Army officer in as one of its own, but he was later captured by the Japanese, and he is convinced to this day that, if it had not been for the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war, he would have died in a Singapore prison camp called Changi. Food amounted to a quarter-pound of rice per day, one egg per week and occasional vegetables. Flies, heat, disease and unimaginably harsh living conditions killed off 14 out of every 15 prisoners.
Responding to critics about the believability of his characters:
''Have you ever been in a war? Have you ever been shot at?'' he asks, his voice rising. He said that, after he was hit in the face with a machine-gun bullet during World War II, he was ''in a village in Malaya, and in a six-month period I learned Malayan perfectly. It's very difficult for someone sitting in Harvard or Yale as a professor of history to really know what it's like when somebody stuffs a bayonet in your face and pricks your skin. You can't imagine it if you are sitting outside on a sunny day sipping an ice-cold beer. Obviously, they've never been put in a position of danger. You learn very quickly. I've always felt you can only learn about life at the edge of death.''
🪱 Like the WSJ article does with Shōgun, Ross Douthat does for Dune: Part Two1 in the NYT, exploring the more latent backdrops to the Dune universe that relate to our contemporary world:
What’s getting less attention, and what I want to highlight, is the larger civilizational dynamic that the book sets up, and how it speaks to our own moment. In particular, it speaks to the ways that the developed world today feels stuck in a loop of decadence and disappointment and sterile repetition, from which (some) people look upward and outward in search of hope — seeking it in the promise of artificial intelligence, in genetic engineering and the dream of “transhumanism,” or in a new age of spaceflight or a revival of religion.
I wrote a bit last issue about Shōgun, Dune, Glory, and the historical requirement that leaders earn their authority by taking risks and exposing themselves to danger, especially in war. After I pressed send, I remembered this about Joe Medicine Crow, the last Plains Indian war chief, who fulfilled the traditional Crow requirements during World War II:
According to Crow tradition, a man must fulfill certain requirements to become chief of the tribe: command a war party successfully, enter an enemy camp at night and steal a horse, wrestle a weapon away from his enemy and touch the first enemy fallen, without killing him.
Joe Medicine Crow was the last person to meet that code, though far from the windswept plains where his ancestors conceived it. During World War II, when he was a scout for the 103rd Infantry in Europe, he strode into battle wearing war paint beneath his uniform and a yellow eagle feather inside his helmet. So armed, he led a mission through German lines to procure ammunition. He helped capture a German-held village and disarmed — but didn’t kill — an enemy soldier. And, in the minutes before a planned attack, he set off a stampede of 50 horses from a Nazi stable, singing a traditional Crow honor song as he rode away.
Good reading,
—TK
P.S. I wrote in my final post of 2023 that I’d be transitioning to a paid tier. I’m experimenting with paywalling some content for each issue or just sending each issue a week early to paid subscribers. If you have any thoughts or feedback, let me know.
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Based on his already successful YouTube show, Beast Games is touted “to become the biggest reality competition series ever with 1000 contestants competing for a $5 million dollar cash prize,” per the release. MrBeast will serve as host and executive producer. Beast Games will premiere exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.
In November 2022, MrBeast became the most subscribed YouTube creator worldwide and now has over 244 million subscribers. His social media career began when he first posted on the platform at 13, though he rose to fame in 2017 when a video of MrBeast counting to 100,000 went viral.
I wrote a bit about MrBeast’s monetization problem last September. And by problem, I mean his platform was too valuable to monetize the traditional ways.
I’ve thought for a while it’d be cool to see MrBeast go down the Chip & Joanna Gaines/Magnolia Network path and start his own channel of unscripted and scripted programming. Very cool to see him taking the first steps and I’m curious what the terms of the deal were.
🛬 Boeing continues its terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.
I wrote in my 2023 review that I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a fatal commercial airline crash in the US this year. That hasn’t happened yet (and I hope it doesn’t) but it’s starting to feel a bit too Final Destination. Thanks to all of you who text me now every time something bad happens on a plane.
Just in the last two weeks I was prepping this issue we’ve had:
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