2008: It's Finally Over!

What will I remember about this year? Obama won the Iowa caucuses, Heath Ledger died, Diablo III was finally announced, The Dark Knight came out, and Obama got elected. Then a few other things happened in between. Personally I graduated film school and was released out into the unsuspecting Los Angeles public.

I was going to do a list of my favorite movies or songs or TV shows or books or video games of the year, but there are so many of those out there that mine might feel a little redundant. Obviously I fell madly in love with The Dark Knight, but who didn’t? I recently got to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I thought was one of the most atmospheric films I’d seen in years. But here I am talking about my favorites. Ultimately it’s hard for me to judge things like that—I’ve loved movies since I could comprehend them, and except in cases of exceptionally horrible movies (I’m looking your direction, The Happening) I’m happy just to be in a movie theater in the first place.

That's something to keep in mind when things get rough trying to get anywhere in Hollywood. As anyone who’s ever made any effort at succeeding in the film industry knows, it’s difficult out here, and I think this year has been especially so. Luckily there are a lot of film school friends out here with me in the same boat, and we struggle along together.

When I was driving home from a set at around 4am earlier this month, I stopped at a light on Hollywood and Vine. I had never seen any part of LA so free of traffic before, but at that moment I was the only other car, the only other human being, in sight. It was raining (also rare in LA) and I could just make out the rain clouds drifting over the mountains. There was a neon-light Christmas tree on top of the Capitol Records building: something you would never have noticed inching through the intersection in the usual line of cars. For just a small moment, it felt like I had Hollywood all to myself. It’s easy to beat up on Los Angeles (and fun!) but there are tiny moments when it becomes quite beautiful. For most of us out here, there’s simply nothing else in the world we’d rather be doing than working on movies and TV shows. It’s important to hold on to the small little moments that help us to remember that.

Here’s hoping for a better 2009!

(I can’t help it. More great movies: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Wall-E, Iron Man. Still very much want to see Let the Right One In. And about a dozen others—it seems like I never get to see half the movies I want to in a year. There are always new ones coming out to get hyped up for!)

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone's had a great holiday. I've always loved this Casper David Friedrich painting, the imaginatively titled "Winter Landscape with Church." It's very Romantic, very tranquil, and just a shade spooky. Perhaps it's not the most Christmasy picture in the world, but I can easily imagine myself trudging through the snow to the far distant church, stopping to notice the neglected crucifix amid the trees. Paintings can easily convey emotions and feelings that are difficult or impossible to express in words, so I'll just let the picture do the rest of the talking for me today.

Great Games: Vampire: The Masquerade--Bloodlines

If only real Los Angeles were more like the city in which Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines is set: Dark, depressing, dangerous, with supernatural evil lurking around every corner. Well, perhaps real L.A. is a bit like that, but the world of Bloodlines is so memorable that in a lot of ways it seems more real, and sticks with you more, than the real thing. I’m writing about it now because, even four years after it came out it is still one of the most atmospheric and well designed RPGs out there. It’s a shame so many people missed out on playing it.

Jeanette Voreman, the game's unofficial mascot. She owns the Asylum club and is absolutely insane.

Bloodlines is based on the popular PnP role playing game Vampire: The Masquerade, which I have never personally played. I have been assured by people in the know that it is infinitely superior to the similar but lamer Vampire: The Requiem, which has replaced it. I think there has been a trend towards overly romanticizing vampires recently (starting with Anne Rice and right on down the line to Twilight) but the world of VTMB does a good job of representing all vampire types, from the super-emo Toreador to the bestial Brujah to the hideous Nosferatu. And here’s a quaint idea—the game is actually different depending on what kind of vampire you pick. Unlike a lot of modern RPGs (*cough* Oblivion *cough*) there are different dialogue options, abilities, and sometimes even quests available to you depending on your vampire clan. The aristocratic Ventrue, for example, can talk or influence their way out of most sticky situations, while the deformed Nosferatu must lurk in the shadows and are attacked on sight if they encounter humans. Granted, the game becomes a dull combat slog-fest towards the end (more on that later) but the first two-thirds are phenomenal in giving the player multiple character-driven ways to solve problems.

A mansion in the Hollywood Hills. I wouldn't mind living in a place like this someday. With or without the vampires.

For me, if you combine “vampires” and “RPG” you’ve already got a deal (I also enjoyed the earlier VTM PC game, 2000’s Redemption, even if it was a little rough around the edges and light on the RPG elements) but this game creates an atmosphere that makes it unforgettable. The combat and game control are actually slightly clunky, but that’s easy to overlook when you’re walking around a fully realized version of Los Angeles, meeting some of the most interesting and well written characters in computer game history, and playing through some of the creepiest and disturbing environments. The haunted Ocean House Hotel in Santa Monica or the flesh-covered mansion in the Hollywood Hills have to rank among the most frightening things I’ve experienced in any media, including books and movies.

Outside the Ocean House Hotel, one of the creepiest experiences in gaming history.

Then there’s the unforgettable moment near the end of the game where the player gets trapped in Griffith Park Observatory with a very hungry werewolf while a wildfire rages through the hills. All the while the lights of downtown L.A. are visible far below—it is the sum of moments like this that make VTMB one of the greatest games of the past several years. It has probably even earned a place in my all time top ten. With anything that really sticks with you over the years, be it a book or a movie or a game, you don’t really remember the act of reading the book or watching the movie or playing the game, you remember the experience of being there.

Inside the Ocean House. It gets worse from here.

There are only a handful of games that have ever totally succeeded in transporting the player to another world, but games like Vampire Bloodlines prove that it is certainly possible.There’s still a lot of stigma in mainstream thought with calling a computer game a “work of art”, but with a select few so much care, thought, and passion goes into their creation, and the end product is so successful, that it is difficult to call them anything else. Unfortunately the game’s development house, Troika, closed forever after the publication of this game in November of 2004, and the gaming industry has suffered for it.

Just like real Hollywood. Without the cars.

When I was younger, computer games had a certain mystique about them that regular console games just didn’t possess. They were often more complex and adult oriented, and some of my favorite games ever are PC games from around 1994-2004—hopefully I’ll get the chance to write about some of those in the future. Computer games used to come with giant boxes filled with good stuff related to the game: A giant instruction book with lots of story and lore content perhaps, or a map of the game world, or a piece of game art or some combination of the above. Ultima Online, for example, came with a beautiful cloth map of the world. By the time VTMB came out, this was mostly a thing of the past, and the game was just a small box with a case of game DVDs inside. But the content of the game easily recalled those earlier titles, when games were made in small, dingy offices by a handful of developers who cared deeply about the game’s world and characters. It’s not that games aren’t still made with this attitude (see, recently, The Witcher) but they are few and far between.

A portrait of Jeanette and Therese, owners of The Asylum, with their daddy. There was some stuff that went on.

It’s almost as if VTMB knew it was the end of the era, since the “3^rd act” of the game is unpleasantly modern in its reliance on twitch combat and action. Instead of role-playing options, the last few sections of the game are filled with room after room of repetitive combat. Storytelling and character development take a back seat. It’s disappointing, for sure, but I’ll cut the developers a bit of slack—endings are notoriously difficult to pull off, even more so when the first bits are so good. Games are a lot like books in that they take several sittings to get through. If they are good, I often spend the time I’m not reading or playing thinking about the characters, about what might happen and where the story will go next. Rarely can any conclusion live up to the expectations I set for it, but it’s enough that something can get the imagination going.

True as all that is, the game’s ending is still weak.

VV needs a script stolen. Is there something wrong with me that even beautiful computerized women can boss me around? There's probably something wrong with me.

Other than that, the game had just about everything going for it. Great graphics (even now, the character models, especially the faces, are quite attractive—just check out Jeanette and VV), memorable quests, an engaging storyline, fantastic characters, and an appropriately creepy and atmospheric soundtrack. Unlike the ever present WoW, which came out at the same time, Bloodlines is pretty hard to find anymore, but if you can get your hands on it it’s absolutely worth it. If you’re a fan of vampires, RPGs, or just great games, it’s hard to do better.

You'll be visiting the Asylum club a lot during the first part of the game. They play good music, and it's owned by a pair of hot sisters--dangerously insane hot sisters, but hot nonetheless.

In fact I just might play it again now. I can think of few better ways to pass your time than drinking blood, getting involved in Vampire politics, blasting zombies with a shotgun, sneaking through a haunted hotel, and digging through the graves of Hollywood celebrities. Seriously. Play this game.

Places I'd Love to Visit: Sighisoara, Romania

In Los Angeles, everything has a sort of depressed sameness. Unlike even east coast cities, everything is relatively new and sprawls out in every direction without any semblance of a plan. I’ve always wanted to travel more (so far I’ve only been out of the country once) and when sitting on the 405 in hour two of a twenty mile trip it’s easy to start fantasizing about better places to be.

I’m sure I first heard about Sighisoara in reading about Vlad the Impaler years ago, but I’ve only recently come across some photos. You can almost picture the dirty medieval streets filled with assorted craftspeople ambling about in the shadow of the clock tower, or a horseman riding through the dark Transylvanian forest at night towards the imposing citadel. Being the birthplace of Dracula sure doesn’t hurt the coolness factor, either.
Most of the town is essentially unchanged since the 15^th century, and like any good medieval town Sighisoara has its origins in a Roman fort that originally stood on the site. There’s a lot of great medieval German and Eastern European architecture here, which gives it a slight feeling of otherness that even similar Western European towns lack. So few sites in America have anywhere near the history of your average European town (especially on the west coast), and there are probably at least twenty I hope I can get to sometime in my life. There are countless other Dracula-related or otherwise interesting sights just in Romania alone.
The Middle Ages is an easy era to romanticize (in reality, things were probably pretty gross), but looking at some of these photos it’s not hard to imagine that life without endless traffic and a Starbucks every block might be a nice change of pace.

Chinese Democracy

As I’m sure everyone has heard by now, “Guns n’ Roses” finally released Chinese Democracy last week. After bouncing around in the dark and mysterious recesses of Axl Rose’s mind for something like fifteen years, the album is finally on shelves at a Best Buy near you. I won’t get into a discussion of the merits of the album. Reviews have been pretty good, and personally I quite like the album (including but not limited to the sensitive power ballad "This I Love.") I know it’s cliché to rag on the current music scene, and a little too easy, but for me a decent album from 1/5 of the original Guns n’ Roses is better than 95% of the music currently out there, at least as good as the two albums that beat it to #1 on the US charts. If Chinese Democracy had managed to come out in the late 90s, it might have been heralded as the end of an era. In late 2008, unfortunately, it’s just a sad reminder of how great the band was in their heyday, and how long ago that heyday really was.

When I was a kid, Guns n’ Roses was the coolest band on the planet, period. If you asked a kid in the late 80s to think of the quintessential rock band, odds are they would have pictured G n’ R (after asking you what “quintessential” meant.) I was just a child at the time, and I could hardly run out and buy Appetite for Destruction or even the Use Your Illusion double (priced) album. But I was never far from teenagers who could. A group of teenagers used to hang out under the basketball hoop on a driveway four or five houses up from mine. They would stand there night after night in the summer smoking cigarettes and talking in voices that carried all the way down the street. I was always too nervous to get close, but I would lay out in my back yard listening to the insects chirp in the trees and the voices, unintelligible, but distinctly older and dripping with what I thought was sophistication. Teenagers have a strange aura when you’re a kid. You’re well aware that they’re not quite adults, but they seem so impossibly old and different. They’re adults that still get to have fun—that drive around in cars and go to the movies and the mall whenever they want.

And they got to sit around at night and play their music. All the 80s hair bands were represented, of course, but I’ll never forget the night I first heard the opening notes of “Welcome to the Jungle” ripping out across suburbia, Axl’s unforgettable wail drowning out even the crickets. What I heard coming from the boom box that night was fierce and violent and free, and it belonged to those kids down the street. It’s an unwritten law of the universe that, while we all might love music, you can never quite have a relationship with a song like you can when you’re sixteen. That night I sat on my porch and dreamed of the day when I could be like those teenagers down the street, and this music would belong to me.

I never really grew into one of those teenagers. By the time I was in high school grunge and alternative were already on their way out and N*Sync and Britney Spears were on their way in. So maybe people from my age group can never quite call Guns n’ Roses their own. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t represent everything that made that last generation of adrenaline fueled guitar rock so exciting: The girls, the crazy life style, the long hair, the “I don’t care” attitude. I think a lot of our idea of what’s “cool” comes from the teenagers we know as children, and so for the children I grew up with there was nothing cooler than Guns n Roses.

When people pop in a new CD (or nowadays, download a song) by a favorite band from the past, they’re not looking to find a new favorite song. Nothing, and I mean nothing, connects us to our emotions and memories the way music does. Consciously or not, when people buy a new CD with the Guns n’ Roses name on it, they’re looking to feel the way they felt on those summer nights two decades ago, when the music was brand new and they were a whole lot longer. But the days of boom-boxes blasting out music over dark suburban streets are long gone. Today, Axl Rose is the only original member of G n’ R left, and he’s pushing fifty. For a lot of people, it will be difficult to get past the fact that Appetite for Destruction will never come back. I’m sure there are still people who run out to buy every Paul McCartney album hoping to hear “She Loves You” again for the first time. But if you can get past all that and judge it for what it is, Chinese Democracy is a solid rock album and definitely worth a listen.

Oh, and Axl? If you can’t resurrect the past, can you at least get me my Dr. Pepper? Thanks.

Ten Great Simpsons Episodes (Part 2)

Here we go: my top five Simpsons episodes. (On a related note, one of my favorite words, 'meh' has finally made it into the dictionary. Check it out.)

5. Treehouse of Horror V
Originally Aired: October 30, 1994

Written by Greg Daniels, Dan McGrath, David X. Cohen, Bob Kushell
“Acchh!! I’m bad at this!”

In truth, any of the first six or seven Treehouses of Horror would probably rank as one of the show’s best episodes. I might even like IV a little better than V. But V has one thing the others don’t: Groundskeeper Willy. I’m sorry, but seeing the well intentioned Scotsman repeatedly axed in the back by a variety of characters is pure brilliance. Sure, a future world ruled by Ned Flanders is funny—ditto the idea of ‘The Shinning’ or the fact the Grandpa Simpson gave Homer time travelling advice on his wedding day. But c’mon. Nothing beats cold hearted, nonsensical murder for comedy gold.

4. And Maggie Makes Three

Originally Aired: January 22, 1995

Written by Jennifer Crittenden

“Hey wait a minute. What are all these presents? It looks like you’re…showering…Marge with gifts. Hm…with little, tiny, baby-sized gifts. Well, I’ll be in the tub.”

This might not be one of the funniest episodes, but it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for Homer. He finally fulfills his dream of getting a minimum wage job at the bowling alley, only to be forced to give it up to support his new surprise, Maggie. Homer’s touching decision to put his family first and “Do it for her” is in such sharp contrast with the selfish jerk the character has evolved into that it almost makes me wish the show had ended right here.

3. Cape Feare
Originally Aired: October 7, 1993

Written by Jon Vitti
“Yeaaaaagggrrrrrr”

That’s the sound of Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake. Like the Treehouse of Horror episodes, there are plenty of good Sideshow Bob episodes to choose from. This one wins because of the great parody of Cape Fear, Homer’s consistent ineptitude at seeing the severity of Bart’s crisis, and Kelsey Grammer’s delightful singing voice. At the time this episode came out I had a friend who was actually frightened by it, and I must say that the idea of a grown man trying to murder a ten year old boy could potentially be pretty freaky. Thankfully, great writing and a street full of rakes transforms the idea into something hilarious.

2. Lisa's Wedding
Originally Aired: March 19, 1995

Written by Greg Daniels

Homer: I just want you to know I’ve always been proud of you. You’re my greatest accomplishment and you did it all yourself. You’ve helped me understand my own wife better and taught me to be a better person. But you’re also my daughter, and I don’t think anybody could have had a better daughter than…

Lisa: Dad you’re babbling.

Homer: See? You’re still helping me.

Growing up with the show, Lisa was always the character I related to the most. I wasn’t a troublemaker like Bart and thought too much to be like Homer; like me at that age, Lisa was thoughtful, good at school, and something of a loner. Many fans I've spoken with share my affinity for Lisa, and I get the feeling many of the shows writers do as well. This episode has great gags: the propensity of future robots (from the year 2010!) to malfunction and the absolutely incompetent take on history at the Springfield Renaissance Faire; it’s also great to see the future fates of some of our favorite Springfield residents, especially Milhouse. All of the jokes aside, however, it's Lisa's commitment to her family that makes this episode memorable.

Throughout the series, Lisa’s intellectualism has sometimes made it difficult for her to relate to her father. Here, Lisa gives up her fiance for Homer's sake, and despite how ridiculous these characters sometimes act, their humanity shines through during the last five minutes of this show. (This is the exact same sort of sensibility Greg Daniels would later bring to The Office.) I've seen this episode a hundred times, and it’s still hard to keep my eyes dry when I watch eight year old Lisa’s face light up with excitement at learning just how much she loves her dad.

1. Marge vs. The Monorail
Originally Aired: January 14, 1993

Written by Conan O'Brien

Marge: Homer, there's a man here who thinks he can help you.

Homer: Batman??

Marge: No, he's a scientist.

Homer: Batman's a scientist.

Marge: It's not Batman!

This was an easy call. There’s not much to say about this one that hasn’t already been said. If you haven't seen it, all I can feel for you is pity. From the moment Homer crashes through his car window until the last person falls to their death off the Escalator to Nowhere, there’s not a second in this episode that isn’t hilarious. Every single line is quotable. Almost sixteen years later, this is still the funniest thing I have ever seen on TV. No joke.

Ten Great Simpsons Episodes

I realized I was focusing on the show's dismal later years in my last post, so I went ahead and put together a list of ten Simpsons episodes that I think are some of the best that have ever aired. Naturally the list is totally subjective, and keep in mind I’m pretty prejudiced against anything that aired after the 7th season.

It was incredibly difficult to narrow it down to ten, and there are probably another 30 episodes just as deserving. I would love to have included “Lisa on Ice”, “Kamp Krusty”, “Bart on the Road”, or “Who Shot Mr. Burns”, just to name a few. Anyway, on to the list.

10. 22 Short Films About Springfield
Originally Aired: April 14, 1996

Written by Richard Appel, David X. Cohen, Jonathan Collier, Jennifer Crittenden, Greg Daniels, Brent Forrester, Rachel Pulido, Steve Tompkins, Josh Weinstein, Bill Oakley, and Matt Groening

“Professor Frink, Professor Frink, he’ll make you laugh, he’ll make you think…”

This episode came out towards the end of the show’s golden age, a time when the expansive cast of ancillary characters was just starting to come into their own. One of the great touches was that many of the sketches came with their own theme song. Yes, I suppose you could go through life without knowing all the words to the “Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel” theme song. But who would want to?

9. Homer Badman
Originally Aired: Novermber 27, 1994

Written by Greg Daniels

Marge: Homer, that’s your solution to everything, to move under the sea. It’s not gonna happen!!

Homer: Not with that attitude!

An incident with a gummy Venus de Milo turns the whole world against Homer. In the mid 90s, round the clock news coverage of every minor scandal was a relatively new thing, but TV’s obsession with the minute details of our lives would only get worse from here. This episode features a great appearance from Groundskeeper Willy and the classic poorly edited video of Homer on “Rock Bottom.” What makes "Homer Badman" stand out is the way it insists on Homer’s inherent goodness: he loves candy and TV with such an innocent, childlike passion that something as serious as sexual harassment is simply beyond his capabilities. I miss that Homer.

8. Lisa's First Word
Originally Aired: December 3, 1992

Written by Jeff Martin

"Can't sleep...clown'll eat me...."

There’s a lot to love here—seeing Bart grow up as a child of the 80s, Krusty’s catastrophic Olympic Sweepstakes, Bart’s terrifying clown bed, and Homer’s first meeting with Flanders. What really sells this episode, though, are the emotions: Bart’s jealousy of newborn Lisa, Lisa’s admiration for her big brother, and the start of Homer’s special relationship with Maggie.

And let’s not forget the way the whole family shares a joyous laugh when they recall shipping Grandpa away to the old folk’s home. Laughing at the sad fate of the elderly will never go out of style.

7. Radioactive Man
Originally Aired: September 24, 1995

Written by John Swartzwelder

“My eyes! The goggles do nothing!”

I loved this episode growing up, but it did not become one of my favorites until I moved to Los Angeles. The portrayal of the film industry is spot on, from Krusty’s complaints to the producer about the quality of the coffee on set to the utter destruction of the Simpson’s house by a careless film crew.

Then of course there’s Bart and Milhouse’s star struck reaction to the arrival of Mickey Rooney, “modern editing techniques” used to “fix” the Radioactive Man movie after the departure of Milhouse, and Rainier Wolfcastle’s dismal failure to deliver Radioactive Man’s signature line. A classic from start to finish.

6. Lemon of Troy
Originally Aired: May 13, 1995

Written by Brent Forrester

“So this is what it feels like…when doves cry.”

I’m a sucker for Milhouse. Perhaps he reminds me a bit too much of myself as a child. I may have even fantasized about using a camouflaged outfit to hide from my enemies. This is a rare episode that focuses almost entirely on the kids, and in a way that is (somewhat) realistic. I remember going on adventures like this as a kid, and while they never quite reached this level of ridiculousness, there’s something oddly real about two groups of kids fighting over a lemon tree.

Numbers 5 through 1 are on the way!

Coranon Silaria Ozoo Mahoke!

A fine mahoke to you all.

I was originally going to write something about politics, hence the image, but in watching my Simpsons DVD for the correct spelling of “mahoke” I was reminded of just how brilliant that show used to be. I’m beating a dead horse here for sure, but for me The Simpsons was such a huge influence that I can’t help but be saddened when I think of what it has become. I remember sitting down as a seven year old child to watch the Christmas special in 1989, the rush of merchandise that came with the show’s rise to popularity in 1990, and watching the show with my dad as a 5^th grader on January 14^th 1993: the original airdate of the “Marge vs. The Monorail” episode and the precise moment when the show attained comic perfection. For the next several years it would only get better.

So what happened? After about the 8^th season, the show started to fly downhill. At first it was difficult to notice—it happened so gradually that I was still rushing to watch the show every Sunday night well into college. But at some point every fan of the show had to admit that the gig was up. The characters and situations had become ridiculous, the stories increasingly nonsensical—the characters even looked a little different. What started as a satirical look at America in the early 90s became by slow degrees a slapdash concoction of random jokes and physical comedy—exactly the kind of nonsense the early show mocked.

I’ll avoid going on a long anti-Simpsons rant (if anyone needs proof of the show’s decline, just compare the second season episode “The Way We Was” with “That 90s Show” from January 2008) but let’s just look at the Republican Party HQ joke from where this post gets its title. The great thing about this joke is not that it portrays Republicans as evil rich guys (and vampires) living in a foreboding castle (though that is great), but that it is also a commentary on the way liberals sometimes perceive and portray Republicans. It was this basic thesis—that all members of society are equally ridiculous, that made the show so wonderful. That snarky attitude is gone now.

What makes me saddest is that the show was only at its height for the 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th seasons (it was getting good during the first three, but the fourth definitely marks the start of the show’s maturity). I’ll be generous and add the 8^th season to that list: that gives us five good seasons. Since the show has been on for 20 seasons now with no end in sight, then at best the good years represent 25% of the show’s run. Will future generations remember the show for its witty social commentary, or for the new “Angry Homer” and his loveable catchphrases like “Help me Jeebus!”?

Let’s hope that the show’s legacy remains the 90s. This is when the show was at its height, and perhaps it is permanently linked to that time period. Homer and Marge will always have met in the 70s; Bart and Lisa will always be members of "The MTV generation." It is probably too much to ask that something remain relevant forever outside of its era of origin. All of the people that made the show great have gone on to bigger things (Greg Daniels, Conan O’Brien and Brad Bird, just to name a few) and us fans have plenty of other comedy shows to obsess over. But there has never been and probably never will be a show, movie, book, or anything that has had as much influence on me as The Simpsons. I owe so much of my attitude, my world view, and most of all my sense of humor to the show; I can honestly say that if not for The Simpsons I would be a different person today, and not a better one.

For those of us who dream of making people laugh for a living, there’s no better benchmark than The Simpsons in the 90s.

Roving Bands of Historians...

Friedrich's 'The Wanderer Above the Mists'--This painting also works great in posts about finding yourself or moving to a new town. Try it.

Now is not the best time to be looking for a job. But things could always be worse. I had a history professor in college who specialized in the Great Depression (actually I believe he specialized in the writings of upper class post Civil War Southerners and their reaction to losing the war) but the point is he knew a lot about the Great Depression.

Among other things, he told us students that during the 30’s, “roving bands of unemployed historians” would travel from town to town in search of work. The thing is, there’s not much employment for wandering historians even in the best of times, so I’m a little confused about what these roving academics were searching for.

The Great Depression is an evocative era on its own, and we’ve all seen the dingy black and white photographs that capture the desperation. But nothing quite sells the idea of “things are terrible” more than a bunch of spectacled experts on Charlemagne or the Ming Dynasty moving in nomadic camps across the country in search of a place to ply their trade. It makes the skin crawl.

So even though things look bad right now, it is best to keep in mind those “roving bands of unemployed historians” and be grateful that these days unemployed historians are generally confined to their parent’s homes. Besides, it helps take the mind off my professor’s other favorite quote about the Great Depression, a line from William Butler Yeats' poem “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.” That’s no fun.