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-- The New York Times Book Review
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-- New York Newsday
"A surprisingly touching memoir"
-- Entertainment Weekly
"Hugely funny"
-- Mental Floss
"Like Jeopardy! itself, it covers a lot of ground and in snappy and informative fashion"
-- Associated Press
"Down to earth and entertaining, even for non-Jeopardy! fans"
-- The New York Daily News
"A very funny writer... the book works like gangbusters."
-- Ken Jennings, 74-time Jeopardy! winner, holder of numerous other Jeopardy! records
"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."
-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."
-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life
"Eccentric, energetic, and engaging"
-- Publishers Weekly
"The perfect gift for any Jeopardy! fan... I was thoroughly entertained"
-- USA Today, "Pop Candy"
"Surprisingly compelling... a funny and in-depth look at what it takes to win"
-- Long Island Press
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-- Jeff Greenstein, writer/producer, Desperate Housewives, Will & Grace, Friends
"Cleverly executed... solid entertainment"
-- Kirkus Reviews
"Answer: A hilarious, engaging and highly entertaining book. Question: What is Prisoner of Trebekistan? (All right... that was sort of a lame Jeopardy! joke. But what can I say? It's a great book.)"
-- Paul Feig, creator of Freaks and Geeks, author of Superstud and Kick Me
"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."
-- Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game
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-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All
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— Boston Globe
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— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs
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— New York Observer
“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”
— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Btw, while we're on it: the Pakistan government cut a deal last September granting autonomy to North Waziristan, a remote section along the imaginary Afghan border. (I say "imaginary" here, despite rivers and whatnot, because the British drew it for their own purposes through the heart of Pashtun land -- a bit like, I dunno, Germany drawing a big diagonal line through France from the Loire to the Rhone, then declaring the two sides separate countries. The locals weren't exactly on board, so historically, it makes the US/Mexico border look like a thick brick wall. It's really not useful to think of Afghanistan and Pakistan as all that separate.)
What that deal seems to have meant, in simple terms: the Taliban (who are Pashtun; Al-Qaeda, such as it is, is a bunch of foreigners, Arab and Uzbek and whatnot), who were supported by the Pakistani government for years in the first place, got control of the Pakistan side of the border, in exchange for promising, basically, to make sure everyone there plays nice. This is reportedly working out about as well as you'd guess.
The deal may soon collapse in any case, but here's the even worse news: it basically reflected existing reality anyway; the central government has very little authority in the border regions. And Pakistan's government looks out, curiously enough, for its own interests and stability, so there's a limited amount they'll eagerly take on to change the situation.
Meanwhile, the US and NATO are downstairs on the other side of the line, with little choice but to play off the back foot. Since the Taliban got its butt kicked after 9-11, most Americans I talk to seem to think that the deal is mostly closed. Nothing like it.
My next book is all about this sort of stuff, btw. More about that here soon.
Omigod, The Sopranos wasn't the only show with a mysterious ending this week:
Let's see... I see orange... and yellow, and gold, and blue! What could that ringing bell possibly mean? And the flashing number? And a mysterious eye in the corner! ACK!!!
What can it all mean? What does this post mean? Is it possible that none of thi
...House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) delivered a sweeping indictment of the White House's political tactics in a speech at the Brookings Institution. "Instead of promoting solutions to our nation's broad challenges, the Bush Administration used all the levers of power to promote their party and its narrow interests," Emanuel explained. He added that the Bush gang lives by a "guiding principle... insinuating partisan politics into every aspect of government."
REALLY FINAL UPDATE: AS I KEEP INSISTING, THIS ENTIRE POST MAY BE RUBBISH
This Canadian wire story, which has now also been picked up by the AP, implies that the upcoming deluxe edition of The Sopranos: The Complete Book includes an interview with David Chase in which he may disavow some, much, or all of the below. The writer implies more disavowal than seems to be contained in Chase's actual quotes, so it's hard to tell. We'll have to see when the book is released.
In any case, I wouldn't be surprised -- in fact, I'd be delighted.
I wrote most of the post below one night during a family health crisis, trying to keep my mind off my worries by taking a look at the puzzling Sopranos finale and writing about it for a few hours. I thought I saw something brilliant, so I said so. That's all this was and all it was intended to be.
I also emphasized repeatedly that I wasn't presenting any of this as "the" answer, but just a playful take trying to see what might be there, just for general amusement and nothing else. (Scroll down and count the disclaimers yourself.) I assumed that like almost everything else I post here, it would roll off the bottom of the page unnoticed in a week, and that would be that.
But nature abhors a vacuum, and David Chase seems to have left a big one regarding what happened to Tony. So within just a few hours, the Internet overmind took this tossed-off post and ran with it. Before long, it was linked to by over 300 other blogs and received over 400,000 hits. Most things I write get maybe a few thousand page-views, tops.
Jeebus, I don't even particularly care about the Sopranos, honest to god, and I said so. But I could also tell from the emails that people were already taking this waaaaay more seriously than I intended.
So I then spent a few hours that weekend patching and correcting obvious mistakes and adding even more disclaimers begging people not to take this as representative of anything but a lark. (btw, if you doubt that thousands of words can really be tossed off like this in a couple of sittings: I'm a writer -- it's what I do, all day, almost every day. Any chef can chop vegetables really fast. It doesn't make them a good cook, but speed is part of the gig, good or bad, if you want to make a living. Same deal.)
This was a freaky experience.
Suppose you scribbled down a lengthy, rambling essay about why, I dunno, the Dodgers need better pitching, and all of a sudden you've got traffic coming from TV networks, major newspapers, and national magazines, with many of them under the false impression that you consider yourself some sort of expert, and judging you accordingly? Man, that was weird.
In all honesty, I've been both amused and a little horrified ever since by the thousands of people who seem to have completely ignored clear caveats and decided that (a) this was the answer, and (b) that I truly intended it as such. (Are people really that uncomfortable with open-ended questions, playful hypotheses, and simply appreciating the sense of wonder at an unresolved mystery? Apparently so.) The deluge of email that followed eventually became depressing, even though most of it was always extremely friendly and positive.
Here's the thing: every new note increased the growing realization of my own role in all this energy being wasted on a fictional character, as I alluded to in the follow-up post (which now follows this one, before the original post begins).
Hey, uh, guys? The US is in the middle of two wars and considering a third, the dollar is dropping faster than senatorial trousers at a Cub Scout camp, and a year before elections, our broken political system has already winnowed the presidential field down mostly to candidates half of us can't even stand.
So you can see how the massive surge of traffic, nice as it was, was also an unpleasant reminder of how much more millions of people seem to care about a fictional murderer than about real criminals dishonoring this country with illegal surveillance, waterboarding, rendition, and so on... depressing, really.
So if the article is accurate, and David Chase really says, "there WAS a war going on that week, and attempted terror attacks in London... but these people were talking about onion rings," hell, yes. I agree utterly. Which is why I turned down numerous interview requests (it wouldn't have been appropriate anyway, obviously) and never wrote about the subject again.
Or, if it's truly more important to you, you can read this lengthy post goofing around with why I thought Tony Soprano was killed, including several layers of repeated sincere disclaimers.
When you're done, scroll back up and check out the other two links, though. And maybe a thousand other more important things. Thanks.
A FEW DAYS LATER -- READ THIS FIRST; IT MAY SAVE YOU SOME TIME, HONEST:
In less than 48 hours, this post has already been viewed by over 80,000 people. [Another 48: 160,000.] So this has been a bit like expecting a few friends to pop over and suddenly Yankee Stadium shows up. (Then Shea. And Wrigley.) Neat, but also overwhelming.
Um... hi.
Hold on. Let me put on some better pants... OK.
I am flooded with emails, nearly all extremely kind. One of you even forwarded helpful screengrabs originally posted by A Lesson A Day; my thanks to all. I'll never catch up with it all now, unfortunately. I appreciate every letter -- sincerely -- but I've barely time to even read them all, and there's a point of diminishing returns. I mean, of course we won't all agree with every little thing here. As I keep saying, I'm not even sure I do. That's just how art is sometimes. I was thinking out loud here, nothing more.
Media folks? Thanks, but heavens no, thank you. I was just sharing with the class. I'm glad lots of people liked it. But I wouldn't presume to push my ideas on the meaning of someone else's creation beyond this one article, which will remain quietly here for anyone to consider when they want to. It's a respect thing. It's not remotely my place. I hope you'll understand.
I only wrote this because I thought the way The Sopranos ended was cool and layered and wonderfully bold. I thought I'd have my little say, like everyone else, and then get back to politics, travel, and the other stuff that draws my usual massive 1000 visitors a day. Then, well, the deluge, but them's the Intertubes. In the initial torrent, I allowed my thoughts to evolve in public for a couple of days, just out of respect for all involved. The thing got longer, but you can see where I tried to admit my own mistakes and add new information as best as possible. I think you guys are smart enough to decide which bits are worthwhile, one by one.
Within what follows, the original post remains intact, with errors simply pointed out. I know we're almost trained in this culture to expect people to burn embarrassing documents or bull-headedly insist on being right about everything. Strangely, we may value this in our leaders and opinion-makers most of all. But everybody makes mistakes. Best to admit them with grace, enjoy a moment of feeling silly, and move on.
Jake Tapper, ABC News's Senior National Correspondent, did a nice, clear job of summarizing a few salient bits of all this. And thank goodness. :) If you only have five minutes, go read that, with my full blessing. You may still want to come back here later; there's a lot more, and the visuals below will help with some of the ideas. One quibble: I never meant to imply anyone should be "embarrassed" for feeling confused. Goodness, no. I still am about some of this. And where the hell are my keys...?
Like anyone's, my original take had merits and weaknesses. About a quarter of what I originally thought was pretty much crap, as I've eagerly pointed out myself. But the rest seems worth considering, and readers have brought up much additional stuff -- Tony's shirt, the song pointing to Bobby on the jukebox, online pics of the real Holsten's back wall, etc. -- which flesh out many of my original thoughts in interesting ways. Ultimately, I hope you'll have fun here. But that's all this is. Fun. Nothing more.
Finally, a few folks have titled their links here as "this guy solved it!" and similar. I want to be clear: I disavow any such claim in the strongest terms. I'm glad people enjoyed this, but when I wrote the words "this could be a coincidence" and such, I meant them. Every time. This is what I saw when I approached it with playful curiosity, that's all. Final answers are fun, but this is just an opinion even I'm not particularly attached to, a bit of fluff, cocktail conversation among friends, meant to entertain as much as anything. About twelve million people have opinions on this. This is one. That's it. The creative process itself is often so intuitive that I doubt there even is a "right" answer for some of this stuff. And if David Chase himself someday declared all of these ideas complete rubbish, I would be perfectly happy.
Meanwhile, there are other topics I'm much more interested in, honest to God. You know the litany of important stuff in the world -- Iraq and Afghanistan are both off the rails, there's talk about bombing Iran, etc. (If I start quoting Yeets -- er, Yeats -- just roll your eyes.) I hope you'll be at least as interested in those complex puzzles as you are in what happened to one fictional guy.
If you find the post below engaging, you might like the rest of the site, too. Or the book on your upper left, or the one I have coming out in the fall. Which I have to get back to. Meanwhile, have fun with this for what it is, nothing more, OK? I hope maybe you'll even bookmark the main page and then remember to come back again some time, when there aren't 80,000 160,000 visitors fighting over my only bag of chips.
Moving on now. Existing post, interruptions and all, begins here.
• • •
OK, here's 3000 words about five minutes of TV. I must have no life whatsoever. But I had a day off, and I do like a good puzzle.
[Inserted later: I didn't put the words "SPOILER ALERT" here because, well, what the hell do I know? That would seem presumptuous, as if I'm about to give away some final secret nobody could disagree with. Hardly. I'm not an official source, I'm not remotely connected to the show, and every word below might be nothing more than seeing figures in clouds. If so, hey, cool clouds, huh?
This is opinion about a fine piece of art, presented for fun. If you don't want to know anything, don't scroll. If you're worried you've just been finally and irrevocably told the ending... nope. Not unless (a) you read the rest, and then (b) decide that some or all of what follows is what you choose to believe.
So, as Michael Corleone was once told: Try the veal. It's the best in the city.
And the onion rings? They're the best in the state.]
• • •
I finally got around to watching the much-debated Sopranos finale last night. I haven’t seen the show much in years; it’s brilliant and all, but I gave up around season four. Just had things to do, and the show got a little, I dunno, slow for a while. You know. But after all the hullaballoo, I decided to take a look again for myself.
After looking closely at the final episode, I’m reminded of people who left the film American Beauty wondering who had actually shot Kevin Spacey, just because face of the killer was offscreen when the trigger was pulled, despite the fact that his identity couldn’t have been clearer. This is a lot like that.
I should add, incidentally, that I was a TV writer myself for a while. Not a particularly accomplished one. Mostly small stuff nobody ever saw. I worked for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation for most of the third season; that was the one credit you might recognize. Anyway, my point: not any claim to expertise -- which is minimal at most, I promise, and for you to judge, in any case -- but during the year of my life that I helped in modest ways to hang dwarfs, make parasailers go Icarus, and poison poker players with lead-filled candies, I saw first-hand just how meticulously little details could be fussed over – and that was on a show with a breakneck production schedule and no particular auteur nursing his vision through every single shot.
So.
Keeping in mind that Sopranos creator David Chase wrote and directed this episode himself after months of planning –
Meanwhile, remember that 21-month hiatus between Seasons Five and Six? That was Chase thinking up the ending. HBO chairman Chris Albrecht came to him after Season Five and suggested thinking up a conclusion to the series; Chase agreed, on the condition that he get "a long break" to decide on an ending.
so we might be in for a ride.]
-- and that he has already told interviewers that “it’s all there,” let’s take him at his word.
So, starting with the two most blatant clues and working outward until we stumble into what may be Tony’s own weirdly implied funeral rites:
The sensation of imminent death – “you probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?” – was now-famously discussed in an episode called “Soprano Home Movies.”
This same episode was reportedly repeated, out of sequence, re-airing “you probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?” the week before the finale.
And the same exact scene – this same discussion of how death would be experienced – “you probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?” – was also apparently excerpted in flashback in the second-to-last episode.
This is called hitting the audience in the face with a two-by-four, hoping they'll notice. We have been instructed as to what to expect from first-person death, as clearly as any self-respecting dramatist would likely allow.
[Update: The song titles given close-ups on the jukebox also point directly to "Soprano Home Movies." See the end of the post.]
[Update: And now I am informed that for the next episode, they're repeating "Soprano Home Movies," out of sequence, yet again. You are now being hit in the head with a truckload of lumber.]
(Incidentally, you probably would hear the shot from a pistol even at short range, but that hardly matters; this is fiction, and the only thing that matters is its own reality.)
Also, Tony got shot once before – in an episode called “Members Only.” And sure enough, a guy in a Members Only jacket – an unlikely fashion choice, unless David Chase is showing us the ending in enormous letters – walks in, looks repeatedly in Tony’s direction, and moves to a spot that would give him an unimpeded line of fire. [Added for clarity: moments before the end, he is entering a bathroom near Tony.]
A few seconds later -- and much as described in advance -- things suddenly, silently end.
Members Only Guy, incidentally, is listed in the credits not as “Furtive Man Drinking Coffee” or “Guy Who Gets Up To Pee” or “Weak-Bladdered Fellow With Strange Fashion Sense.”
He's "Man in Members Only Jacket." The chosen wording of the credit itself is a big freakin’ arrow.
Another strikingly obvious bit of information: shortly before his death, David Chase very briefly frames Tony in a shot that visually quotes the Last Supper (one-point perspective; special holy light from above (more obvious in the footage than the grab); a long horizontal base supporting triangular composition, human forms on both sides of the subject; etc.).
[Fwiw, the Last Supper was a common subject for numerous masters, and in Italy it took on a recognizable, almost iconic general composition, before and after da Vinci. This Washington Post writer suggests that Chase was actually quoting the del Castagno. I don't; I think the general layout is plenty.]
We’ll get back to this imagery [and discover that the entire back wall was created just for this scene] shortly.
Hardly surprising, though, that Tony’s last conversation with Carm mentions his own personal Judas. And we all know what happened after the Last Supper.
Clear enough yet? We’re just getting started. [Added for clarity: we'll now go very closely through the scene, with particular attention to the direction.]
Remember, the show is largely (albeit not completely) told from Tony’s POV. Long stretches of Tony's dreams, fantasies, and passing perceptions have been presented as the show’s reality. Now look again at the sequence. Members Only Guy enters, holding his left arm with an odd stiffness; there’s even a small, visible bulge in the bottom of his left jacket pocket. (Out of frame in the grab below, unfortunately. On the tape, this looks more to me like a roll of quarters than the barrel of, say, a Glock 36, but hey, it’s there. Make of it what you wish.) But all this is only visible for about a second before Tony’s son A.J. emerges from behind him, and Tony’s (and our) focus shifts to Tony’s son.
The restaurant, incidentally, is manifestly not filled with people gunning for Tony, despite the online rumor. There's literally nothing in the sequence that indicates such a thing. Instead, the restaurant is simply filled with a strangely color-desaturated vision (more on that shortly) of ordinary middle-class Americana: Cub Scouts, kids on dates, etc.
David Chase shows us Members Only Guy almost continuously from the time he enters, although this may not be immediately obvious – he’s often not in focus, but he’s in the background behind A.J., at center frame in the over-the-shoulder shot used conventionally to show Tony’s POV in a conversation.
Members Only Guy is thus directly in Tony’s eyeline throughout.
We have this put directly in our face, front and center. More than half a dozen times, in fact. But Tony's focus is on his son.
David Chase, who has complete control of the seating and camera angles, seems to be directly showing us that Tony’s not paying attention to Members Only Guy. Whether that’s wise of Tony is another issue.
We could ignore Members Only Guy ourselves, but Chase also shows him in repeated clear-focus medium shots, with his left side remaining away from the camera – which is to say, from Tony’s POV. And Chase shows us that Members Only Guy is doing nothing in the entire scene but turning and looking directly at Tony – and no one else in the restaurant – over and over, in a highly suspicious way.
It’s true that there are plenty of other people in the restaurant. None of them are staring at Tony this way. And it’s true that Members Only Guy is a character no one has ever seen before. But certainly some of the show’s victims never recognized their attackers, either.
Eventually, Members Only Guy, named for the episode in which Tony gets shot, gets up, sidles near, is discounted by Tony as a threat…
And the series ends within seconds, in precisely the sudden full-stop manner repeatedly (and in repeats) described in advance.
[Update: I didn't know this when I wrote the original entry, but the Sollozzo murder, where Michael Corleone shoots Sollozzo just after emerging from the bathroom, has been established as Tony's very favorite scene in TheGodfather. So this would be a damned appropriate way for Tony to go.]
[Update: the New York Times now reports that David Chase wanted the blackness to last a full 30 seconds, which certainly is an even stronger implication of death.]
[Incidentally, there are five separate shots involved in showing us the Members Only Guy going to the bathroom. It goes by so fast it barely registers, although nobody had to be reminded of having seen him, either: (1) Members Only stands up; (2) Tony reacts; (3) Members Only approaches, from Tony's POV; (4) Tony discounts the threat; (5) the camera dollies to stay on Members Only, revealing the bathroom, while Tony glances back and discounts him yet a second time. All of this just to get some poor random guy to the can? Man, either he's absolutely essential to the scene, or he must have really, really had to pee.
That must have been a strange day for the actor. I mean, it's your first gig, you're excited, you're in makeup, you've got this spiffy new jacket that looked cool in 1981... and then your entire evening is nothing but getting up to head to the toilet a couple of times... then waiting around for the cameras to be set up again. Then you're getting up to walk toward the toilet a few times again from Tony's POV... then waiting around for the cameras to be set up again. Then you're heading suspiciously toward the toilet from yet a third camera angle...
You gotta go, you gotta go.]
[Update: And several NJ emailers say that the real room is actually the Ladies' room; it was only switched to a Men's room and given a visible sign specifically for this scene. I saw this note so many times that I finally called Holsten's and asked; they confirmed it. So even the set dressing points us to an implied Sollozzo ending.]
Need more? There are dozens of other hints throughout the episode, starting from the very first frame.
The episode actually opens with a harbinger of Tony’s funeral, plain as day. Remember, David Chase personally directed for the first time since the series premiere. And David Chase’s very first shot in eight years is of Tony Soprano lying flat on his back, viewed from above, much as if we are looking down on him in his coffin.
There is a literal moment of silence.
Then, when the clock radio kicks on, the first bars of the song are funereal organ music.
Tony stirs, the music starts to rock, and Tony begins his day. But about five minutes in, Tony’s eating an orange. This is a specific reference both to the Godfather series and to earlier Sopranos episodes: in simplest, familiar form, Orange = Death. [If you need an explanation, read this list of allusions to the Godfather for starters; also see the updates at end of the post. At minimum, remember that both Michael and Don Vito Corleone died with oranges; the former in his hand, the latter in his mouth.] As a reference it's so well-established and on the nose that I was surprised to see it. It’s almost cliché.
Speaking of which, there’s a lot of fuss about the big orange cat (note the color; to a writer as careful as Chase, this probably would not have been arbitrary). There’s really no need to debate its meaning. This is carefully-crafted fiction, so as a rule, things generally mean what the characters anticipate they mean; that’s how harbingers and foreboding often work. Otherwise, we'd have only our own prior cultural references to know what to fear. And Paulie could not be clearer that the creature is a Bad Omen. Of what? Through the episode, the cat is literally focused on a reminder of death – specifically, Tony’s murder of Christopher, who was almost a surrogate son.
Yeah, sure, but the orange cat doesn’t actually show up when Tony supposedly dies, does he? Sure he does – in an almost laughably large way. David Chase chose to shoot the final scene in a dessert shop in Bloomfield, New Jersey, where the actual mascot of the town’s real high school football team is the same as that of nearby Princeton University -- an orange tiger. In the Last Supper shot, guess what David Chase shows us, beyond Tony’s right shoulder?
A bigass orange cat three feet high, that’s what. The framing is actually pushed slightly to that side, favoring the cat.
David Chase could have shot that scene in any restaurant in Jersey. He chose that one for some good reason. And he didn’t have to frame the giant orange cat over Tony’s shoulder. He chose to. (See below.) Does it work as art? Eh. He’s a genius, but it’s not the most brilliant bit of symbolism I’ve ever seen. But it’s there on the tape, coincidence or whatever it is.
[OK, one more update: If you like, compare the TV show's wall to the real back wall of Holsten's (see links below). What the photos show, among many other details: the three-foot cat apparently only exists in Sopranoland. So whatever it does or doesn't mean, it's there intentionally.
I'm not showing the actual photos here because they frankly crash right through the reality that David Chase spent so much time creating, and I respect that too much to just dump them onto the page. Before you click, consider the choice. It might be a bit like whipping open the box and seeing that the girl isn't really being sawn in half (spoiler alert!), and then the wonder is gone, although you can better appreciate the craft of the magician. I hope you'll only click if the latter is what you're after.
In any case, the photos reveal a lot of stuff: it's not just the giant cat; the entire back wall was redressed. Also, the real room has lots of bright yellows, blues, and greens, all of which are pretty much obliterated in the final color scheme (see below). There's also no sign of the all-gray waitress smocks in Sopranoland; the employees apparently wear either white or bright red shirts. Even the color of the table where the Sopranos sit is a bright and more saturated yellow in real life.
