Phillip Maciak

@pjmaciak

TV Critic @ The New Republic // DAD: A POP HISTORY (Plume 2027) // teaching @ Wash U in STL // pjmaciak.substack.com 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, sixers

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Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· 27d

Survey says...

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jul 9

It's obviously more complicated than this, every kid has different obstacles and predilections, but it is also true that fewer families than you'd think do or prioritize any of this stuff.

a tweet from la diabless that reads: "I love to read because my mother read to me, and encouraged me to read myself as I got older. she took us to the library every weekend, and books were the only thing she never refused to buy. she gave us books she loved as a kid. it's not hard." quote-tweeting a tweet that says: "It's time to accept the fact that trying to raise children who read recreationally is about to be like trying to raise opera fans."

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jul 7

Imagine thinking The Age of Innocence is bad.

tweet that says: Can you name a director who has only made great movies??? (Remember: Spielberg made 1941, Coppola made Jack, Scorsese made Age of Innocence, Tarantino made Death Proof, Nolan made Following and the Coens made The Ladykillers." And don't be cheeky by saying Charles Laughton.)

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jul 6

The five-season transition of the Fak brothers on THE BEAR from lovable goofballs to Adult Babies is one of the strangest TV arcs I can think of.

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jun 29

No shit, in 1986, a Mr. Mom sitcom about a guy who has to become full-time caregiver to his kids because his wife is at work and who outsources his parenting decisions to an series of wacky robots he controls would have run for five seasons.

tweet from Justin Murphy that says, "Our full-time nanny is taking a month off for the summer, and my oldest son's summer camp is off for a week, and my wife recently chose to take a job for the first time in a while... This means starting tomorrow I'll be spending multiple hours a day with my two sons (1 and 4), every day this week. I'm choosing to do this. I want to reset my attitude toward family and work.

To achieve my goal, I need serious advice from fathers. Specifically, my goal is to use AI agents from my phone as much as possible during these hours, and insulate myself as much as possible from their noise (crying, whining, unreasonably excessive entreaties to play, etc.) while staying responsible, present, and loving in between.

So please, what are your most advanced tactics, workflows, apps, hardware—anything—that help you get quality work done while you're watching and moving through the world with kids?"

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jun 22

I got mogged by Kurt Vonnegut at the Waxahatchee show in Bloomington. So it goes.

a giant puppet of Kurt Vonnegut looming over me, in a sixers hat giving a thumbs up

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jun 11

Danielle Haim is the Donte DiVincenzo of Haim tonight.

taylor swift with alana and este haim courtside at the knicks game

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jun 10

Adventures in early 20th century parenting manuals!

Should the Mother never kiss the Baby?

There is a sensible way of treating children.
Treat them as though they were young
adults. Dress them, bathe them with care
and circumspection. Let your behaviour always
be objective and kindly firm. Never hug and
kiss them, never let them sit in your lap.
If you must, kiss them once on the forehead
when they say good night. Shake hands with
them in the morning. Give them a pat on the
head if they have made an extraordinarily
good job of a difficult task. Try it out.

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jun 8

The Sixers keep using this picture, and then Gansey shows up to the intro press conference looking like the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

mike gansey with a sharp beard and long slicked back hair in front of a microphone at a sixers press conference

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jun 6

This is a pretty wild disclaimer to read at the top of a document called "Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and the Humanistic Social Sciences." In other words, if this would not pass peer-review, why has it been released?

But with occasional exceptions, our conclusions about the overall state of humanistic scholarship, and in particular about the extent of the problems we have identified, are not yet supported by the kind of quantitative evidence that would be expected in a peer-reviewed study of these matters. In this connection we must stress that the examples cited below are meant to illustrate the phenomena we have identified, not to establish their prevalence.

In part for this reason we must urge caution on the part of administrators who might wish to act on the basis of our report.

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jun 5

Catching up on the Graham Platner discourse.

tim robinson looking puzzled and disturbed with the subtitle, "I'm worried that the baby thinks people can't change"

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jun 4

People offended by the phrase "toxic masculinity" who defend Platner's actions as "relatable" youthful indiscretions ultimately have a much grimmer view of masculinity than the caricature they might paint of misandrist feminists out to cancel everybody for the crime of having been a lil' boy once.

a free press article called "Why the Attacks on Graham Platner Don't Work" with the subhed "The evidence of past affairs is the latest of many scandals. Yet none have stuck because his troubles strike many as relatable."

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Jun 4

I've taught PERSEPOLIS (book & movie) more times than I can count. Two epic masterpieces, but, more than that, two texts that find their way to young people. I've never had a class that didn't *get* PERSEPOLIS, and that's a miracle of its own. Satrapi's voice and imagination are so alive. RIP.

little Marjane in bed talking to a giant bearded god in the clouds

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· May 30

I was trying to look up the wording of Chris Fleming's "LASIK for your third eye" joke in Widow's Bay, and this popped up as the AI preview on Google. So, just so you know, it can't happen. Also: watch WIDOW'S BAY for goodness sake!

$Traditional LASIK corrects refractive vision errors by using lasers to reshape the physical cornea. However, the concept of a "third eye" relates to the pineal gland or chakra system rather than a physical optical lens, and it cannot be altered or "opened" through refractive eye surgery$

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· May 29

We started watching AMAZING RACE — which I've never seen — with the girls, and the aughts period specificity is off the charts. There's an elderly couple who are referred to, every episode, as "Internet Dating Couple," and this is their image in the opening credits.

bob and joyce an elderly couple framing a CHONKY desktop computer

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· May 28

Jordan Peterson book research day! I'm watching a video of his called "The Essence of Being a Good Father." It has a long caption about his theory of fatherhood with detailed timestamps, but the video's not about fatherhood at all. It's just a random edit of lectures superimposed with desert b-roll.

jordan peterson lecturing with the caption "for example that female doctors work far fewer hours" superimposed with a desert scene

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· May 23

working on DAD: A POP HISTORY every day

distracted boyfriend meme that pictures me looking at "tim walz" while the girlfriend is labeled "my editor and agent both wisely telling me not to write so much about tim walz"

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· May 22

I was unsure about LEGENDS on Netflix until this exact moment.

a guy in the show LEGENDS saying "if you've asked a question, then please leave the room"

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· May 20

Philly loves raab.

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· May 8

a'ja wilson wearing an "of course i have a shoe dot com" hoodie

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· May 8

Jacobin's culture section has really seen a turnaround since this guy took over.

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Apr 30

I'm going to be at Bingo Night for the girls' school during the Sixers game tonight, so, no matter what happens, I want to say in advance: Joel Embiid did nothing wrong, has never done anything wrong in his whole life. If he wants somebody to ghostwrite his autobiography, I'll do it for free.

b&w silhouette of joel embiid — who is innocent — shooting the basketball

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Apr 27

I've lived in STL for 13 years without picking up a single regional fandom. Don't like the sports teams, hate the pizza. But I would run through a brick wall for KMOV Chief Meteorologist Steve Templeton

Steve Templeton standing in front of a doppler radar

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Apr 24

My review of WIDOW'S BAY is still in proofs for the magazine, so it won't be out for several weeks. However, as the embargo has lifted, I just want to be on record: WIDOW'S BAY is the best new show of the year so far. You should make plans to watch it and fall in love.

Indeed, the most impressive part about Widow's Bay — to my mind, the sole contender for best new show of the year at this point — is how in control it is.

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Apr 17

Look, I don't have a firm opinion on the new season of BEEF yet, but there is absolutely no way to avoid the fact that it features a wiener dog wearing a series of incredible little puffer vests that look like they were made by Vera Bradley.

brown wiener dog that looks like it's wearing a vest made by Vera Bradley

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Apr 13

LOVERS ROCK!

image of a woman dancing in blue, backlit by an orange light

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Apr 12

Vance mucked this up so bad, we're gonna have to send this lil' guy over there to sort everything out.

Dean Withers on an episode of Surrounded

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Apr 10

Working on a new initiative for dealing with the Crisis of Masculinity:

image of cher from the movie moonstruck saying "snap out of it"

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Apr 10

Gang, we all see that these are not equivalent or even comparable problems, right?

For women, she says, that discrimination might be preventing them from getting the promotion that they deserve, contributing to the widening gender pay gap. For men, it may mean sitting on the sidelines because they don't think there's a role for them in the economy.

Phillip Maciak@pjmaciak· Apr 8

Ben Lerner had crazy chemistry with everybody on THE BEAR.