There Is So Much Basketball Everybody Scream

How fitting that today should be Halloween when I finished reading Stephen Graham Jones‘s novel The Only Good Indians.  I learned about the existence of this book on the horrorlit subreddit.  It has been praised for its atmospheric dread and criticized for its basketball content.  For a book that is not self-identified as sports horror, there’s a lot of sports.  Even more than the promise of scary bits and foreboding tone, I wanted to see for myself just how much basketball is in this book.

Sweet fancy Moses — there is a lot of basketball.  How much exactly?  I may have missed a few random utterances, but to the best of my annotations, here are the pages that include references to the sport and gameplay:

~ 25-26
~ 44-45, 47-49
~ 114-115, 118
~ 140-143
~ 153, 159, 163-166, 170-177, 186, 195
~ 201, 223, 238, 239, 241, 242, 250
~ 260-270, 283, 289-291, 294, 295

The story proper begins on page 1 and ends on 303.  I don’t think it’s a stretch to posit that there’s more basketball in this book than not.  Why this sport instead of another?  Why a sport at all rather than any other activity to function as a means to leave the reservation, to represent one’s tribe with accolades?  Ne sais pas.  I didn’t mind reading all those passages of blocking and whipping around to reach for a ball in the last section of the book, so I’m not as invested in why it’s there.  I’m also a little sleep-deprived as a I write these words and listen to Florence and the Machine‘s new album Everybody Scream, so I’d prefer not to think too much about it.  I shall leave you with my assessment that The Only Good Indians passes the page 99 test (If you’ve read it, you’ll likely agree how this page evokes the unsettling mood and even foreshadows an aspect of the ending) and some screengrabs from Florence’s new music videos.  

I started listening to Florence Welch’s music in 2020 and have loved the majority of her songs.  Her new album is melodically everything that resonates with me even when I like certain songs more than others, I don’t dislike any of the tracks.  It is a great album for the season here in the northern hemisphere.

Pic creds: Amazon, YouTube screengrabs, yours truly.

Surrogate Screamer

If I had limbs enough,
I would buck and punch
and force you to listen to me.

But I don’t
even have legs,
or so it seems,
to kick you in the chest
in the shoulders;
I can’t shake you,
to fill you
with enough nutrients
for self-sustenance.

So I yell into a cushion,
speak too loud in line
at the store
and overall treat people
like hardware tools
as I drink too much
wine and see patients
while sleep-deprived.

Do you know who’s real,
what’s real, or what could
be only illusions?

Is it too late when
we finally see your face
after all that’s taken place?

— yiqi 26 October 2025 7:30 pm

This poem came to me while I was listening to Wheel’s song “The Change” and thinking about Mary Bronstein‘s film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025).  Bronstein also wrote the screenplay to this nerve-wracking trek into the headspace of a woman who really just wants someone to tell her what to do as much as she might not actually want to do any of it.  If Linda (a stellar Rose Byrne) could just sit on a bench in a park, in the middle of a forest, or in the gardens of a villa with no other humans within shouting distance, she would probably do so in a heartbeat (with a bottle of wine and a pizza in tow).

Instead, she has to chauffeur her young daughter (whose presence is primarily portrayed through voice and a glimpse of the odd limb) daily to an eating disorders program in a hospital and put up with an it’s-the-rules parking attendant; field phone calls with her offscreen husband; check up on the state of the hole in their apartment ceiling; try not to be that rude to the hotel employee who’s just doing his job and trying to be helpful (A$AP Rocky); see patients in a mental health practice and attempt to solicit guidance from a fellow therapist (Conan O’Brien), and somehow internalize that her daughter’s medical condition is not her fault.  

I shan’t say more about the themes or story because you should watch it.  You will be asking and guessing more or less through the entire film the following questions:
~ Is she having a mental breakdown?
~ Are certain characters actually a figment of her imagination or manifestation of her fragile psyche?
~ Is she really supposed to be unsympathetic or pitiful?
~ How much unreliable narrator territory are we in?

You don’t have to superficially relate to Linda’s struggles to appreciate the way her character is a surrogate screamer for anyone who just wants someone to listen to them… and maybe not be the one with the answers for once.  

The trailer does not give away any of the really cinematically satisfying parts but does set the tone well.  Rose Byrne loses her Australian accent so successfully that I forget what her default accent sounds like.  Here’s a Q&A with the cast and filmmaker.  

Pic cred: Youtube screengrab

But This One Reads The News

the walls are about to blow

the briefings
the trainings
the meetings
presentation rooms
doomsday scenarios

did any of that prepare you
for the moment when
you’d have to make
a choice
give instructions
ad-hoc guidance
on what happens next

the promises
the agreements
that everyone swore to
seemed more fairy tale than old memory

your wife is across the ocean
on a mission for the elephants
one of your trusted staff
does his job well
as he did for your predecessors
but in the end
you’re all just “chronically late narcissists”
but at least you “read the news”

so what does happen next
when the waste has splattered the heavens?
is there even a right choice
a best choice
a better choice
when anything you’d command
would lead to no good outcome
when your opponent won’t show
their true hand.

– yiqi 19 October 2025 6:55 pm

~!~

This poem came to me while I was thinking about Kathryn Bigelow’s film A House of Dynamite (2025) and listening to The Contortionist’s album Language (Rediscovered edition).

Without spoiling anything, the film consists of three sections: Inclinations Flattening, Hitting A Bullet with A Bullet, and A House Filled with Dynamite.

Rebecca Ferguson is primarily in the first one.  Various characters are introduced in doorways and video calls.  The second section focuses on how the beginning played out from the POV of the military officials.  The third section is mostly from the president’s POV.  Idris Elba plays the American president. His accent is better than Rebecca’s (probably because he’s had more roles to practice).

I liked the way Kathryn Bigelow presents different conversations via different communication methods. Face-to-face vs. phone vs. video. What a character says on a video conference comes across differently when you see them say it for the film camera, such is the case with the Secretary of Defense (a perfectly cast Jared Harris; everyone with a speaking part is perfectly cast).

There’s definitely a sense of there are no right choices or there is no best choice. No matter what happens, something worse will.

And yet, somehow that is more comforting than real life.

Willa Fitzgerald and Brian Tee are briefly in it and play their parts so well. He makes a brief appearance in the beginning and then returns in the last segment. He shares many scenes with Idris Elba. It brings such a smile to my face to see how far he’s come in his acting from the first time I met him at a film festival nearly twenty years ago.

Click here for an interview with the director, writer, some cast and moderated by the Lincoln Film Center.

The bulk of this post was originally published on my tumblr.

Original pic cred: IMDB

The Ballad of Colin Farrell’s Mouth

Colin Farrell is center stage in Edward Berger‘s film adaption of Lawrence Osborne’s novel, Ballad of a Small Player.  Tilda Swinton steals the show effortlessly for me, Jason Tobin and Anthony Wong are fantastic surprises, and Fala Chen demonstrates a maturity in screen presence and performance, but there’s no escaping the main character, his quest to improve his money situation, and his nearly perpetually open mouth.

When I wrote about the Kristen Stewart film Underwater, I remarked that there was a lot of mouth-breathing in the film.  Well, Colin Farrell takes that title with deftly twitchy hands.  It didn’t irritate me, but once I noticed it, I couldn’t stop focusing on it every time he wasn’t talking.  As of 2025, he has just under seventy acting credits (of finished projects) to his name (including voiceover work).  I estimate that I’ve only seen a dozen of his films.  If you have seen at least thirty of his films, does he have a habit of not closing his mouth when he isn’t speaking?

I do not want to spoil anything for anyone who’s planning on watching this movie at the theatre or on Netflix because the way the story and themes present themselves must be enjoyed in the moment.  The trailer doesn’t give much away, so if you’re undecided, check it out.  Ballad of a Small Player is a beautifully filmed and fun cinematic experience.  It makes me want to watch Three Thousand Years of Longing again on account of Tilda Swinton.  

Pic creds: Youtube screengrabs

 

Always Up For

Diane Keaton‘s acting career has spanned five decades and would probably have strolled into a sixth one, but audiences and admirers of her work will never know for a certainty.  RIP, to an actress whose performances have consistently given me the impression that she’d always be up for learning something new, insisting on being right, knowing when to admit fault, sharing a good laugh, and finding ways of relishing contentment.

This collage represents all of the films and one TV episode of hers that I’ve seen in full.

That time on the Night Gallery, they gave her a Room with a View
tethered to the tie of an Annie Hall wondering where 
did she go when The Godfather came around calling
for The Father of the Bride twice before preparing 
for the appearance of The Family Stone,
and she reiterated Because I Said So expecting that
Something’s Gotta Give diligently and effervescently 
in time to the blooming of the Morning Glory.

— yiqi 12 October 2025 8:54 pm