Weekend Reads (Jan 7): James Webb Space Telescope, “The Rings of Power,” Netflix Cancellations, Football
Weekend Reads (Jan 7): James Webb Space Telescope, “The Rings of Power,” Netflix Cancellations, Football
Recommended weekend reading material for January 7, 2023.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting and thought-provoking articles to offer you some enjoyable weekend reading material.
A year has passed since the James Webb Space Telescope was launched into space, and in that time, it’s presented us with dazzling views and insights into the universe’s earliest moments.
Though there was some debate among astronomers over the accuracy of some of the first detections of early galaxies — JWST’s instrument hadn’t been fully calibrated, so there was some wiggle room over exactly how old the most distant galaxies were — recent findings have supported the idea that JWST has spotted galaxies from the first 350 million years after the Big Bang.
That makes these the earliest galaxies ever observed, and they had some surprises in store, such as being far brighter than expected. That means there’s more for us to learn about how galaxies form in the early universe.
Related: If you want a little pick-me-up, just watch this video of astrophysicists reacting to the first JWST images back in July.
Also related: The JWST’s 10-year mission has only just begun, but NASA is already working on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will have a field of view 100 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope and is “designed to settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.” Roman will be launched into space in May 2027.
It’s still early in 2023, so 2022 year-end lists and wrap-ups are still rolling in. The fine folks at Screen Anarchy recently shared their top 20 films of 2022.
As always, any ratings and listings like these are dubious at best. It's not a swimming contest and judging art is mostly subjective. I mean, none of us have seen all films this year, and some of us saw several titles in earlier years, while others of us are still waiting to see them arrive in their corner of the world, sometime in 2023. Hell, one title in the "runners-up" list had its world première in 2019 but didn't make it into some reviewers' countries until 2022!
Jeffrey Overstreet has begun posting his favorite music of 2022, beginning with his honorable mentions, which include David Bowie, Shearwater, Pedro the Lion, Jack White, Sharon Van Etten, and Björk.
I listened to each of these “honorable mentions” several times this year — usually in the car on my commute, or on a road trip, or while I was grading papers or cleaning the kitchen. Some of them got me dancing while I organized my office. Some of them imparted wisdom, vision, and hope. Some of them gave me ways to name things I had not found words to describe. Again — I am grateful. If an artist or an album show up here, it’s because I’m saying “Thank you.”
The io9 staff remember the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror luminaries that we lost in 2022, like comic artists Neal Adams and George Pérez, composers Angelo Badalamenti and Vangelis, voice actor Kevin Conroy, special effects artist Douglas Trumbull, and of course, Nichelle Nichols.
Her role as Lt. Uhura on Star Trek was a breakthrough for Black women on television — and she used her popularity as a sci-fi hero to inspire budding scientists and champion diversity at NASA.
As part of the OneD&D update to the classic Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Wizards of the Coast is releasing a new version of the Open Gaming License. The OGL allows independent authors and publishers to create their own content using D&D’s rules, which was instrumental to D&D’s success in recent years. The new OGL, however, appears to be much more restrictive.
One of the biggest changes to the document is that it updates the previously available OGL 1.0 to state it is “no longer an authorized license agreement.” By ending the original OGL, many licensed publishers will have to completely overhaul their products and distribution in order to comply with the updated rules. Large publishers who focus almost exclusively on products based on the original OGL, including Paizo, Kobold Press, and Green Ronin, will be under pressure to update their business model incredibly fast.
Here’s another bit that’s sure to raise some eyebrows: The new OGL grants Wizards a “nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license” to use content created under the new OGL. In other words, they can take OGL content and do whatever they want with it, even re-package and sell it, without owing the original creators anything.
Not surprisingly, indie publishers aren’t too thrilled by this news. DMDave, a popular creator of D&D content, has posted a lengthy response to the new OGL on Patreon, calling it “truly awful.”
Leah Libresco Sargeant reflects on The Rings of Power’s first season and its relevance to her own Catholicism.
As a Catholic in America, I frequently feel frustrated like Durin, longing for bishops to act with urgency and love in addressing abuse. I want to be a good citizen of my nation, but it’s hard when the logic of our laws treat me as merely a citizen, a lone individual without meaningful ties to family, church, or neighborhood.
I don’t have to wait for the arrival of Elves to refresh our relationship. In the sacrifice of every Mass, all times are one, and I can be present with the saints of all ages. Away from church, I can read outside my present time, inhabiting a little more of the hyperobject of tradition, and, even if I can’t grasp its full scale, I can remind myself that my small slice is not the whole.
Related: My review of The Rings of Power’s first season. “Amazon’s Tolkien adaptation is not without issues, but its heart (and sense of ambition) is in the right place.”
Netflix has canceled several series in the last few months, like 1899, First Kill, and Warrior Nun, leaving fans scratching their heads when their beloved series didn’t getting a new season. Paul Tassi tries to discern the method to Netflix’s madness.
Namely, there is one specific metric that keeps coming up over and over again: completion rate. This is what percent of a show’s audience actually finishes the show, and according to third party measurements services who believe they can track that sort of thing, Netflix often directly ties which shows get cancelled and renewed to completion rate.
Via The Spaceshipper. Completion rate makes sense, but as Tassi explains, it’s still a bit more complicated than that.
Confession time: I helped contribute to 1899’s low completion rate. I really liked the creators’ previous series, Dark, but 1899 failed to grab me. And now that it’s been canceled, I feel even less pressure to finish it.
As teenagers, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting performed a nude scene in Franco Zeffirelli’s acclaimed 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. The actors, now in their 70s, are suing Paramount for $500 million, claiming they were sexually exploited.
The suit alleges that Zeffirelli — who died in 2019 — assured both actors that there would be no nudity in the film, and that they would wear flesh-colored undergarments in the bedroom scene. But in the final days of filming, the director allegedly implored them to perform in the nude with body makeup, “or the Picture would fail.”
Hussey was 15 at the time and Whiting was 16. According to the complaint, Zeffirelli showed them where the camera would be positioned, and assured them that no nudity would be photographed or released in the film. The suit alleges that he was being dishonest and that Whiting and Hussey were in fact filmed nude without their knowledge.
Football has always been a violent sport, with injuries and concussions, but Damar Hamlin’s injury during Monday night’s Bills/Bengals game was especially grievous — and it exposes some harsh truths about the NFL.
Most of the time, when the real world intercedes on football in ways the NFL would find uncomfortable, the show finds a way to go on. That doesn’t just mean games, but the entire media-industrial complex around the NFL, the one that sustains the league on days when games aren’t being played. One quarterback can suffer multiple blows to the head in a few days, and all of the hand-wringing about it won’t stop conversations about how quickly he can get back to action or what it means for his team’s playoff hopes. (Then that player can get another concussion.) A different quarterback can face dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct, deny them all, sit through a suspension, and get back on the field. Eventually the discussion returns to how he’ll look under center in Cleveland. The whirring of the machine never really stops, so the actual football never stops, either. This is a machine with only one speed.
From the Blog
In keeping with Opus tradition, I posted my favorite songs from 2022 on New Year’s Day. 2022’s year-end mix includes blackgaze, somber dream-pop, sacred synth-pop, ambient masterworks, italo disco, and a whole lot more.
These are the songs that excited, intrigued, comforted, inspired, and delighted me the most throughout 2022. They stuck with me through thick and thin and I returned to them day after day, week after week, month after month.
Related: Here are all of my year-end mixes, going back to 2007.
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