Happy October 28!

It is quite a coincidence that this particular letter is going out on this particular date, for reasons I’ll explain a bit later. But man, the universe continues to find ways to astonish, in all its rhyme and pattern and convergence. What a place to be alive.

Speaking of places, I am currently in one: Savannah, Georgia, where old mansions and Spanish moss whisper the secrets of Kevin Spacey when he was here filming Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I can’t imagine there are any worse, or darker, or more dreadfully American secrets to be whispered about in this Southern city largely built before the Civil War. 

I’m here for the Savannah College of Art and Design’s annual film festival, a mid-size but mighty event that draws in an array of filmmaking talent, plus hangers-on like me. Though, actually, I am sort of talent this year? Tomorrow I’ll be on stage for a live episode of the Critical Darlings podcast, talking about about the Oscar season. If you happen to be in town, come say hi. For all others, the episode will be on your podcast feeds in a matter of days. 

The mood here is lively, and people mostly want to talk about You Can See Everything, as has been the case everywhere I’ve been for the last few weeks. The news that one of that film’s subjects, Billy Evans, has finally spoken out about the movie ensured that every conversation I had on my first night here eventually landed on Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s film and its bizarre characters. There’s little arguing at this point that YCSE is the movie of the season, at least in the little bubbles I drift around in. I’m sure there are plenty of people all over this country who have barely even heard of YCSE, but the coastal culturati are officially obsessed. 

So anyway, that’s where I am physically. Mentally, though, I’m in 1880s New York City, because I have just watched the entire fourth season of television’s most lurid circus of human depravity, The Gilded Age. I’m going to talk a bit about the new season below, so if you want to be completely unspoiled about what’s arriving on Sunday, November 1, tarry no further. (But I’m going to be as light on plot details as possible.)