A brief update
We haven’t posted in some time. Truly committed readers may be interested to know that Aren was eventually able to purchase toilet paper. We must confess that the Glyph Slack has been engulfed by an all-consuming argument, one which (unlike most arguments) is not easy to resolve using contour plots. All parties agree that featherbowling is incredible, and that this article is the apotheosis of long-form sports journalism or very nearly so. Where we disagree is on who will play Steve Gosskie in the movie adaptation. I’ll probably put up an incomprehensible Twitter poll at some point so we can get some feedback, but I’ll attempt to lay out the positions.
Jesse leans toward Daniel Day Lewis, and it is a strong choice. Gravitas is absolutely on-point for the second half of the movie. You trust him to do well with the most difficult part of the material, which is that the story itself has to feel slightly unfinished, mirroring its protagonist. His preparation is legendary, so you feel like he’s going to provide good characterization in Act 1. I think that stories about his preparation are part of why I have trouble with him in the role. In the quiet actor-craft scenes, I cannot shake the hype of what he did so that he could be this guy so much right now. This is, I realize, completely unfair.
I (Aren) lean more toward Jack Black. Despite the shared source material, we’re probably casting slightly different movies here. His natural schlubby intensity is going to work well in Act 1, and it’s going to make it more tragic when he brings it out as a shadow near the end, a guy who loves his little patch of America so much, that he never fully believes he won’t get to remake it in his own image. The obvious difficulty is that it’s not not certain whether the tragedy will land. As one of the small number of people who loved The Big Year, I have faith in his dramatic chops, but this is a part of his range we haven’t really seen.
Jesse has been working on a massive rap project. I was writing in preparation for the baseball season, when that…didn’t happen. Randy had a bunch of cool shit happen, but it’s after midnight, I’m not totally sure that it’s my story to tell, and my “publish” finger is ITCHY. We got busy for a bit there, should be more soon.