Sunday This and That #2

Pol Pot, Fame in the 20th Century, heading to LA to report

By noon yesterday - I am writing this at 8:30am Sunday - I had received two messages saying that the situation unfolding in Los Angeles “could be another Portland.” I reported extensively on the mayhem and destruction in Portland 2020-2021, and will head tomorrow to Los Angeles - where I lived for 18 years - to cover what’s going on. It’s not good; last night a news photographer friend who’s on the ground wrote, “If this keeps up, I predict some deaths and martial law by Friday.” You can help me report by becoming a paid subscriber. (CashApp and Venmo good too.) If you have a tip about what’s going on, someone who’s story should be told or a facet the media is overlooking, make contact here or, faster, via WhatsApp. Thank you so much readers, and yes, I will stay safe.

Onto the Sunday offerings. I had “a virus of unknown origin” plus strep (!) the past two weeks and needed a podcast to sink into, preferably history, preferably something I knew the contours but not the details of. In the Shadows of Utopia: The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Nightmare fits the bill, with host and creator Lachlan Peters going deep deep deep into the story, starting in something like 800AD and showing how the kingdom was built and conquered, how Catholicism and the French Revolution shaped what happened, the tug of war then-Siam (now Thailand) and Vietnam made of Cambodia… and I haven’t even gotten to the 20th century! It’s an incredible work of scholarship. Highly recommended.

Bonus: Peters links to Virtual Angkor, a virtual model of what the temple project looked like and functioned as when it was built. Pretty cool.

Anyone paying attention for the past several weeks has been besieged with coverage of the Jake Tapper/Alex Thompson book Original Sin, which pries the lid off the rotten kettle of fish that were the people working very hard to keep President Biden’s mental and physical decline from the American people, who could see with their own eyes what was happening, and which some of us in media were writing about in real time. Yes, many should have spoken up sooner, and yes, there is more to write and will be likely for decades. I listened to the audiobook - Tapper narrates - and liked it very much. I also listened to the duo on several podcasts, including on Andrew Sullivan. I recommend the episode, and since it caused me to (finally) become a paid subscriber to Sullivan’s Dishcast, I was given three free month-long subscriptions. If you’re a paid subscriber here, hit me up and I’ll get you one.

Tapper & Thompson On The Biden Cover-up

My better half Sarah Hepola and my boy Michael Moynihan have long pressed anyone with eyeballs to watch Clive James’ “FAME in the 20th Century.” They were right! Really marvelous, and there is no one as dry and brilliant and funny as James.

A little bit of personal news, or personal-ish: my daughter Tafv Sampson and her work as a set decorator were profiled this week in Huffington Post…

The writer, Kate Nelson, gets right to it in the second graf:

If you have watched the Emmy-nominated TV show “Reservation Dogs” and the Lily Gladstone–led film “Fancy Dance,” you’re already familiar with Tafv Sampson’s work. The Muscogee set designer is known for creating authentic, lived-in scenery that feels like home for the Indigenous actors on set and welcomes viewers into the featured tribal communities. The characters she develops tend to become one with their surroundings, and that’s by design…

Mom gets to brag, come on! Also, to show my sweet girl winning the Art Directors Guild Award 2024. Oh this child…

Thanks for reading. See you from LA xx