You have a future, lad. We need four episodes by next week...

I think most artists, even the very mediocre (not you), wrestle with this at some level. If you aren't that person, you never face it.

Yes, yes, yes.

My point is that the final work is what ultimately matters. You get too far into the weeds, and sometimes all you find is dirt and bugs. I know that's coming from someone with a thrift store Trivial Pursuit for a brain, but...

I just saw a video of Leonard Bernstein talking about Beethoven. You take the pieces of his work, and each of them, individually, is mediocre. He struggled, where Mozart seemed effortless. And yet, you take those pieces and put them together, he's Beethoven.

It helps those of us who study. But the average person can enjoy a painting or a play or a novel with what they bring to it, even if they know nothing about the artists. You can find a film you've never seen and it can touch you, even if you've never heard of anyone who made it.

The nice thing about art is that you really don't need to know much about who the artist is, from the greatest playwright to the cheapest pulp novelist, because art is a moment in that person's life and makes no pretense to truth. And yet you can find so much in it.

I find most philosophy impenetrable and dishonest because you really have to get into the biography of the philosopher to unpack. For example, you may find good things in the work of that German philosopher; how do you feel about those ideas once you know his political affiliations in the 1930s?

Rewatching W.C. Fields, I think it's clear how much Meredith borrowed (stole) from the great comedian for the villain. I think you see that in most of his roles, really. Any great actor is a pickpocket of mannerisms and voices.

Meredith liked doing TV, as it suited his skills as both a theater and film actor. I think he starred in 4, same as Jack Klugman. He was really suited to TZ. As for the Penguin, like his Mickey in the Rocky films, he was clearly someone who reveled in success.

The thing that's great about the Whale Frankenstein films is that he scoops out all of Mary's psychosexual stuff and, much like a jack o'lantern, lights it up with his own.

If Clinton himself uses emails, it's within a circle so drum-tight, you could sail it to another continent.

I think it would be a really amusing psyop to get jam band fans heavily into George Eliot.

Every once in a while, certain communities co-opt a work and do annoying things. The Alice books (or, more accurately the Disney films) have been with the feral adults who follow bands for too long. Hookahs and giant top hats and all that. I shake my fist at them and advise them to get jobs.

I think calling what Moore creates "content" might be a good way to earn yourself a deep and unbreakable curse.

You could write it in your sleep. I wouldn't mind a crack. But any writer who can't figure this out should turn in their typewriter.

I would also like to point out that many have suggested that Connery's role in THE ROCK and Brosnan's in Soderburgh's BLACK BAG were both retired OO7s. Brosnan plays his as embittered and wicked.