OSV Field Notes #8
Welcome to OSV Field Notes, a weekly, high‑signal curation of things worth your time.
1. Generation Kill : Warrior Subculture, Seen From the Passenger Seat
Evan Wright, a Rolling Stone reporter, was embedded with the U.S. Marines’ 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He wrote a sharp, vivid book about it, which David Simon and Ed Burns (best known for The Wire) adapted into a 7-part HBO miniseries.
It’s one of the rare war stories that nails the subculture of elite frontline units. When a group of men live on top of each other 24/7 in a combat zone, they grow a dialect, a moral code, their own gallows humor, and a way of moving through the world that’s almost its own species. The show doesn't explain this culture to you. It just drops you into it.
Part of why it works is the obsessive craft. They went to unusual lengths to ensure authenticity. Rudy Reyes, one of the real Marines, plays himself. Other Marine veterans served as consultants/advisers. You can feel the difference. And then there’s something you might not expect from a ‘serious war series’: humor. Physical comedy, hilarious banter, ‘hurry up and wait’ absurdity of military life, bureaucratic insanity, and the disconnect between those making decisions and those executing them.
Most war stories are made to help civilians understand war. This one feels like it was made for the people who lived it, and that's exactly why it hits harder for everyone else. Reportedly, real Marines said the dialogue was toned down for TV because the uncut version sounded too insane to be believable.
I almost never hear Generation Kill mentioned anymore, which is bonkers to me, because it's one of the best miniseries ever made. It figured out something most war stories can't: how to be funny and devastating without choosing between them. [Liberty]
📺 Generation Kill (2008, HBO)
2. The Century of the Self : How Freud's Nephew Weaponized Psychology
In 2002, Adam Curtis released a four-part documentary on Freud’s American nephew. That may sound a little dull or arcane, but it’s one of the most gripping and prescient documentaries I’ve ever seen. The Century of the Self follows Edward Bernays, propagandist-in-chief at the Committee on Public Information (established in 1917 to drum up support for American intervention in World War I), as he uses psychoanalytic theory to wage “psychological warfare” (his words) on democracy itself.
Curtis takes us on a wild ride through wartime propaganda, the co-option of ‘60s counterculture, CIA-funded psychiatric experiments, and focus-group politics, all through the lens of unbelievable archival footage from the BBC. The music is fantastic, Curtis has a voice you could listen to for weeks on end, and the script is so good I’ve read it on its own.
Oh, and it’s free on YouTube. [Dylan]
3. A Simple Plan : How Good People Talk Themselves Into Evil
Sam Raimi has been back in the news recently with the gonzo desert-island thriller Send Help (very fun, go see it in the cinema). Best known for directing the still-influential Evil Dead movies and the equally influential 2000s Spider-Man trilogy, Raimi is beloved among cinephiles for his dark humor and kid-in-a-candy-store directing style, defined by extravagant camera moves, extreme close-ups, and gore. So much gore.
His 1998 thriller A Simple Plan was a blind spot for me, and occupies a curious place in his filmography. A swing for critical prestige in the vein of Fargo (Raimi was an early collaborator of the Coen Brothers), it sees Raimi abandon many of his favorite moves in favor of a sober, tragic account of three blue-collar Midwesterners - two of them brothers - who stumble across a duffel bag stuffed with cash and must decide how far they're willing to go to keep it. It's hardly a spoiler to say things turn bloody.
Great performances all around, particularly from Billy Bob Thornton as Jacob, whose childlike innocence proves ripe for corruption by his seemingly upstanding younger brother (Bill Paxton).
A great thriller on its own merits, and for anyone interested in the art of directing, a compelling example of a filmmaker putting away the toys to achieve something stylistically different. The ease with which ordinary people convince themselves they're still good while doing terrible things can be darker than gore. [Ed]
🎬 A Simple Plan (1998)
4. The Mythmaker and the Mechanic: The Operators Behind the Legends
I was in the library this weekend and came across William C. Rempel’s The Gambler, about the exploits of ‘penniless dropout’ Kirk Kerkorian. He was once MGM’s controlling shareholder, and David Senra did an episode on him back in 2019. Since I’ve become a bit of a media history fanatic, I checked it out.
The Gambler is a fast read, a whirlwind tour through the highs and lows of Kirk’s life. But often it’s not the main player who’s most interesting. In 2004, Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote a short profile on Kerkorian’s right-hand man at MGM Studios: Alex Yemenidjian1. Alex’s story is no less entertaining than Kirk’s. The son of a shoemaker, born in Buenos Aires to an Armenian family, he moved to the U.S. as a teenager, founded an accounting firm, and got introduced to Kerkorian.
Two days after their meeting, Kirk asked Alex to help him sell MGM. What was supposed to be a six-month project turned into a career. Eventually, he became chairman and CEO.
That’s the kind of detail that makes a biography worth reading. There’s a lot of mythmaking around larger-than-life characters. But the person one degree removed, the one who actually made the machinery turn, that’s where the magic is. The Gambler is Kirk’s story, but it keeps gesturing at a whole ecosystem of operators, dealmakers, and immigrants who built modern Hollywood from the side entrance. [Rohan]
📕 The Gambler: How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became the Greatest Deal Maker in Capitalist History by William C. Rempel
5. My Analog Journal : Music Exploration Without the Algorithm
There's a YouTube channel with over a million subscribers where people watch someone play vinyl records in a plant-filled room. No flashy transitions, no club lighting. Just turntables and the desire to have a good time.
The origin story is perfect: Zag Erlat (Istanbul-born, London-based) started uploading mixes in late 2017, after inheriting his grandfather’s record collection and falling down a Turkish psych rabbit hole. It’s old-school vinyl crate-digging serendipity as a guided tour.
One comment became the thesis: “I don’t understand a single word, but I love this music.” In an era when music discovery has been optimized for short attention spans and outsourced to machines, being blindsided by something you had no reason to seek out and that no algorithm would have recommended is deeply satisfying.
Pick an episode in a genre you don’t know and hit play. Your next favorite genre may be out there: Japanese City Pop, Brazilian grooves, Soviet jazz, Thai luk thung, Afrobeat… The best part might be the comments: thousands of people swapping deep-cut recommendations like it’s a global listening party. It feels human in a way most music discovery doesn’t anymore. [Liberty]
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Titled: “You Only Sell Thrice”
I love this email you guys. Wonderful curation! Thank you.