The Daily Parker

Oh, yummy ribs. Yesterday, Parker and I hiked up to Lincoln and Damen as planned, and tried out a different set of bone samplers than in years past.

• Mrs. Murphy's Irish Bistro (pictured above) started the ribanalia, and led the pack—for a moment. Once again, they had fall-off-the-bone, lightly smoked meat with a tangy, spicy sauce. 3½ stars.
• Second was a newcomer, Wrigley BBQ, which actually surpassed Mrs. Murphy. They had flavorful, smoked meat, with a spicy dry rub, just a hint of a sweet Memphis sauce, and just the right tug off the bone. 4 stars.
• Corner 41 was good. Not great, but good. They have a smoky, fall-off-the-bone meat, with good spice and flavor, but they get a half-point off for presenting the smallest sampler I've ever encountered at Gibfest. 2½ stars.
• Uncle Bub's had the longest line at the festival, possibly because they had the largest stall. They had smoky, tug-off-the-bone ribs with a really great crispiness. They also provided branded moist towlettes which, when you think about it, every vendor should hand out. 3 stars.
• Sadly, last was least: Real Urban BBQ from Highland Park. Their tug-off-the-bone meat tasted almost processed (though I know it wasn't), too chewy and salty, on which they put an indifferent sort of sauce. I'll have to skip them next time. 2 stars.

Over the next few months, I'm going to have proper rib dinners at my five-year favorites: Mrs. Murphy's, Wrigley BBQ, and Smoke Daddy, plus my cousin Matt's favorite Fat Willy's.

Parker, as usual, had less fun at the festival than I did:

Maybe I should have tried this? No; there's no way Parker would stay on the wagon:

As for our traditional stop on the way home, SoPo: it no longer exists; it's boarded up now. Before we discovered that, however, we came upon a new place, A.J. Hudson's. Great beer list, friendly staff, and dogs. New tradition!

I follow few traditions. That said, walking up to Ribfest Chicago on the first weekend of June has become one. In just a little bit, Parker and I will head out into the crystal-clear, 19°C, late-Spring weather, and get us some ribs.

Before we go, a recap. This will be our 5th Ribfest in six years. Before we started our hike I thought it would help me to remember which vendors I've tried in years past:

2012:

• Mrs Murphy's
• Chicago BBQ
• Corner 41
• Smoke Daddy

2011:

• Mrs Murphy's
• The Piggery
• Pitchfork
• Chicago BBQ

2010: We didn't go to Ribfest because of my sister's wedding. A fair trade, I think.

2009:

• Lincoln Restaurant
• Mrs Murphy's
• Chicago BBQ
• Fireplace Inn
• Hickory's BBQ

2008:

• Cy's
• Gale St. Inn
• Fireplace Inn
• Chicago BBQ

The 5.1 km walk should take us a little over an hour. On the way back I'll probably continue the tradition established in 2008 by grabbing a beer on SoPo's dog-friendly patio. This also helps by stretching the return walk out to 6 km, in order to work off more ribs.

I may not eat more than a few lentils for the next two days, though...

You've heard her music, you just don't remember where.

I went last night with a friend who worked as Yamagata's de facto publicist (and Web designer) when she was just starting her solo career ten or so years ago. That means we were close enough to the stage that my little camera phone actually got a result:

Yamagata usually does really long sets; last night's went almost to midnight. She played mostly songs from her last two releases, and only one or two from her debut, Happenstance. On that point she expressed what some of us were thinking: wow, has it really been that long? (The album came out nine years ago today.)

I also have to say how much I like Lincoln Hall as a venue. It's casual, but you can tell the crew and lighting guys know what they're doing. And nothing beats getting front-row seats—or, anyway, front-row real estate to stand on.

Last Sunday's Game of Thrones episode portrayed one of the most gut-wrenching scenes from the books. People who hadn't read the books had understandably strong reactions:

Via Sullivan come two more-considered reactions to the scene, and to the series' portrayal of violence in general. First, from Alyssa Rosenberg:

[T]he attack on Talisa seemed to stand out for some viewers even in this context as uniquely stomach-churning, evidence that the show is participating in some of its characters disgusting enjoyment of violence against women.

Though Talisa’s murder is unspeakably cruel, it didn’t read that way to me. Rather, the decision to kill her by killing her fetus made, within the astonishingly cold-blooded context of the Red Wedding, a great deal of sense. A comprehensive attempt to make the Starks extinct would include an attack on everyone in their family line, born and unborn. And as an attempt to make Robb Stark feel unspeakable emotional pain before his physical death, an attack on his wife and his unborn child that he has to witness while he is physically incapacitated is a twistedly brilliant thing to do. As Talisa died and Robb held her, the focus was on their faces, and their shared pain, just as they’d shared joyful glances during Edmure’s wedding vows, and flirted during the banquet. Our sympathies and focus were on them, rather than on a pornographic contemplation of the violence to which they’d been subjected.

But Talisa is part of a larger tradition of television women who die during childbirth, or are subjected to terrible violence during pregnancy or labor...

Meanwhile, Rowan Kaiser thinks GoT indicts patriarchies in general:

In the world of Westeros, Robb's innate goodness was at odds with his job title. As heir to Winterfell, and then as King IN The North, he had obligations that had to be fulfilled, which included marrying for strategic gain—obligations that he didn’t keep. Marrying Talisa Maegyr instead of Roslyn Frey wasn’t his only shirked responsibility. His inability to maintain relations among his vassals led directly to his death as well, in large part because he was unable to punish his mother after she worked against him. So Robb didn't just die because he'd married for love; he also died because he'd been kind to his mother. Both of those actions seem like they should be no-brainers, but because of the world he was in, they combined to ruin the hero.

The chief weapon of the patriarchy in maintaining and destroying its men is the drive for honor. The most surprising development of the second season was the elevation of Theon Greyjoy, the Stark family ward, into a major character and villain. Theon was the only son of a rebellious father, who journeyed to visit that father as another rebellion was brewing. Theon was forced to choose between his actual life with friends and lovers among the Starks, and his imagined life with honor and pride as a Greyjoy. Theon chooses honor, which takes him down a path of betrayal and child-murder.

I'm interested to hear whether Anita Sarkeesian agrees. (More on Sarkessian in a later post.)

Then there's this blather:

The appeal of the series seems bound up in the senseless violence and amoral machinations — not to mention the free-wheeling sex — that the writers use to dramatize this brutish world of shifting alliances and dalliances.

That, in turn, has prompted intense debates about whether Christians should watch "Games of Thrones" at all, or whether the show's only possible virtue is depicting how the world would look if Christ had never been born — or what it could look like if Christianity disappeared tomorrow.

Right. Christianity would have made Westeros a peaceful place, just like it made Europe an Eden in the middle ages.

Quick links:

• Do Democrats and Republicans even have partisan baby names?
• Watch color video of New York in 1939.
• Exelon, our local electric company, will be liable for outages in future.
• Visiting Chicago? Here's a list of things to see, with art.
• Alcohol is even worse for teens than we previously thought.

More as events warrant.

On Sunday the Spectralia Theater Company had me shoot their publicity stills for this summer's Comedy of Errors production. The play goes up this summer at several Chicago Park District parks as part of the Bard in the Parks program.

Doctor Pinch (Don Johnson) and Antipholous of Ephesus (Peter Ash):

The Courtezan of Ephesus (Mary-Kate Arnold):

The play opens June 29th at Ravenswood Manor Park in Chicago.

On the heels of the BBC's announcement that Matt Smith will leave Doctor Who after this year's Christmas Special, some outlets have reported that Helen Mirren may play the 12th (13th?) Doctor. The rumors are almost certainly false, but it's fun to imagine.

Others have imagined female Doctors, including two blokes back in February who wondered, what if they were all women?

10th Doctor-Sue Perkins

Fans still reeling from the 9th Doctor’s surprise exit were more than a little surprised to see Sue Perkins step into the role. In stark contrast to Suranne Jones’ mercurial, often grim take on the role, Perkins brought a lightness of touch and cheerful eccentricity that hadn’t been seen since the Grenfell years. Complete with brainyspecs, a new found joy in her work and remarkable chemistry with Rose, the 10th Doctor was a massive hit. The burgeoning romance between Rose and the Doctor, heartbreakingly cut short in ‘Doomsday’ and revived in ‘Journey’s End’, was praised by fans and critics alike, as Perkins became the first openly gay Doctor in the show’s history. Her final episodes, featuring the return of Sheridan Smith as the demented Mistress (Having regenerated from an award-winning cameo by Dame Judi Dench as Professor Yana), remain two of the highest rated episodes in the show’s history.

The 50th Anniversary Special will air November 23rd; the Christmas Special, December 25th.

Yesterday I had a fun but abbreviated time at Jarvis Beach doing publicity stills for Spectralia Theater's Comedy of Errors. The play goes up this summer at several Chicago Park District parks as part of the Bard in the Parks program.

I've just finished the first batch of shots, so I haven't got clearance from the production to publish any yet. I can, however, post a shot of the least helpful photo assistant on the planet, here lying down next to Spectralia member Don Johnson:

BBC America launched the Canadian sci-fi series Orphan Black in March, and I got immediately hooked. Last night both the show and the Beeb gave me mild disappointments, neither one entirely unexpected.

First, the big disappointment: Doctor Who star Matt Smith announced he's leaving the series after this year's Christmas Special. Four years as the 11th (12th?) Doctor is a lot when you're a talented 27-year-old actor. His departure was inevitable, of course, but he'll be missed.

Now Orphan Black. The first nine episodes built up Sarah Manning's world as she discovered she was one of at least eight clones (all of them played by brilliant Canadian Tatiana Maslany), possibly more, somehow connected to the mysterious Dr. Aldous Leekie (Matt Frewer).

The series has entertained me every week, with consistently solid writing and directing, and even taking Maslany off the league table for a fair comparison, above-average acting. Then last night happened. I still really like the show, don't misunderstand. But series creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett had too much to do in 46 minutes, which, while predictable, was still a little disppointing.

Before I go into details (with spoilers), it's important to point out that stuffing a full season into 10 episodes, and needing to set up the next season, is challenging for any writer. Sometimes writers take shortcuts. Sometimes they have bad days. Manson did his best, but a couple of things didn't work for me at all, and took me out of the story.

Cosima and Delphine discovering the hidden message

Near the end of the episode, Delphine and clone Cosima realize that the DNA watermarks hidden in each of the clones's genomes may contain real information. Now, I understand that most people haven't a clue about DNA, or how it works, requiring some Basil Exposition action; but these two characters have Ph.D.-level biology skills.

Cosima and Delphine would know that DNA has only four possible base pairs the way a software developer would know that 1 and 1 is 1. In a synthetic DNA sequence, that gives you either two or four possible values for each base pair, depending on whether you care about which side of the strand a nucleotide is on. (If you care, you can get 2 bits out of each base pair. Trust me.)

This means you can use DNA to store binary data. This is treated as a revelation. But it's obvious. Not only is it obvious, it's been done.

So what annoyed me? The scene's emphasis. It's not shocking that the clones have watermarks; it's shocking that someone was able to do this to their DNA in 1983.

The clones' reactions to the hidden message

The same scene concludes with Cosima and Delphine discovering that the synthetic DNA sequence encodes a text snippet implying that the clones are patented. From this Cosima concludes that they're property, which motivates Sarah and Paul to bolt from their meeting with Rachel Duncan.

Two things bothered me: first, as a matter of law, people can't be property. The UK abolished slavery in 1833, the U.S. in 1865, and Canada never allowed it as an independent nation. So even if the clones' DNA could be patented, that would not make them "property" in any way.

Also, even if the clones' DNA could be patented, they're all 28 or 29 years old. Patents taken out before 1989 in Canada have 17-year lifespans; in the UK it's 20 years. So the clones' DNA would be in the public domain at this point, regardless.

But human beings can't be patented; only processes based on human DNA can be patented. The question of whether fragments of human DNA can be patented is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court with a decision expected this month.

Notwithstanding everything I've just written, in order to get a patent, you have to file a public patent application. So, it's 1983, and you're about to implant at least eight clone embryos into unsuspecting surrogate mothers, some of whom will go on to believe that the resulting children are their own biological offspring. And you want to file a written patent application with the USPTO?

My conclusion from all this is that the clones were so worked up by this point—Sarah has to be on her last nerve, and well along the road to serious PTSD—that none of them stopped to think, "how the hell does the evil corporation intend to enforce this patent?" The corporation doesn't intend to enforce the patent; they intend to continue their illegal and unethical research, which requires the clones' cooperation. The fewer idiots in this plot, the better the chances that everyone gets what he or she wants.

Which leads me to:

Why did Paul and Sarah bolt the interview?

Again, I have to accept that Sarah is so far out of her depth and so stressed out that she would have trouble counting to 20 in one try, let alone working out the best way to gain tactical advantage over Leekie. Remember, she's just lost her birth mother and killed her "twin" sister. After being attacked by said twin. Probably with a nasty concussion, a cracked rib or two, and other injuries. Still, Paul knows who's in the room they're heading to, because he was just in it. He's armed, and so is Sarah. What does he suppose the two lawyers will do to them once Sarah signs the agreement? (An agreement which, because it's predicated on an illegal premise, is completely unenforceable.)

The last minute of the season, then, became an idiot plot, leaving only one question: who would abduct Sarah's daughter? I wouldn't suspect Leekie, if he's not an idiot. He's going to need Sarah's cooperation if he hopes to derive any useful information from Kira.

Predictions for Season Two

All right, Manson and Fawcett got a little hurried in the last few pages of the script. But now I think it's possible to see the larger pattern. Here are my guesses:

• Sarah and the other clones were created to be super-soldiers. All of them have displayed above-average intelligence, adaptability, and some degree of sociopathy. They're also physically stronger than they look, and seem to heal a lot faster than normal people. Kira, certainly, has some strange characteristics. And with the military already aware of them—where did Paul come from, after all?—there's a clear path through that garden.
• Mrs. S. escaped with Kira when Leekie's people tried to take them.
• Detective Deangelis is working for Leekie. Art, though, is pretty much who he appears to be, and will make good on his promise to protect Sarah.
• It's a long time until next spring. But I'm looking forward to Season 2.

I like Orphan Black. The season finale got me thinking and speculating about what will happen next—a sign of a good story. So, naturally, I've pre-ordered the Blu-Ray, so I can see what I missed during the first pass.

Yeah, one of those days:

• Has the NRA fatally over-reached?
• Niel deGrasse Tyson examines whether Superman can really fly.
• How visionary is Eric Schmidt, really? (Could it be instead survivorship bias?)
• Can we stop worshiping Reagan, please?
• What happens when a rural town dies?

I'll get to these eventually...