something about Denis Johnson's short story collection, "Jesus' Son"

The episodes in Jesus' Son hang on degenerates, but the narrator's simple, intimate diction conveys a sense of peace rather than anxiety about or perverse fascination with the damaged scenery and people at issue. This collection of short stories by American author Denis Johnson is quite good. I learned of Jesus' Son by reading the essay, "Does Recovery Kill Great Writing?," published in The New York Times Magazine in March 2018. The essay includes this quote from Johnson's collection: “The sky was torn away and the angels were descending out of a brilliant blue summer, their huge faces streaked with light and full of pity.” I was intrigued. Then the essay's author reveals, "While I was studying at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I spent my nights at the writers’ bars on Market Street, and I spent my days reading the other writers who had gotten drunk in that town before I’d gotten drunk there: John Berryman, Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson." Having read this, when I picked up Jesus' Son, I expected Johnson's stories to boil up in America's less populated stretches of shadow and pain. Not so.
 
My favorite stories include "Dundun," "Emergency," and "Dirty Wedding." In a scene in "Dirty Wedding," the narrator, having accompanied his girlfriend to the abortion clinic, is asked to wait outside the building among pro-life protestors. Johnson writes: "It was raining outdoors and most of the Catholics were squashed up under an awning next door with their signs held overhead against the weather. They splashed holy water on my cheek and on the back of my neck, and I didn't feel a thing. Not for many years."

Note: Jesus' Son was published in 1992

a thing about the movie "Flight" (with spoilers)

Flight follows William "Whip" Whitaker, a crackerjack airline pilot struggling to admit to his alcohol and drug addictions in the aftermath of a plane crash. Part of the immediate dilemma for the audience and for Whitaker is that (1) the crash resulted from hardware failures, not pilot error, and (2) no other pilot could have negotiated the crash landing with as much skill, and saved as many passengers' lives as he did, sober or otherwise.

The film is about one man's struggle for redemption, but what we see from our theater seat is a struggle for control of truth. In Whitaker's mind, his functionality, his brilliance excuses the behavior that so many rush to judge irresponsible. That is his truth. But under threat of litigation and penalty for the lives lost, the airline and Whitaker's other adversaries use the discourse of medical knowledge, appealing to that discipline's knowledge-making authority, which justifies policies that were violated, and deems Whitaker unfit. The co-pilot, who chooses not to reveal Whitaker's drunkenness on record, appeals to the Word of God; God reveals the Truth, and Whitaker must face that truth.

Finally, after a slew of verbal confrontations, Whitaker is faced with the most intimidating of rhetorical situations--a hearing by the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent Federal agency "charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident in the United States". Here, Whitaker surrenders control of the truth. He cannot speak another lie, he says. Whitaker's truth goes from belief in himself with a confident rejection of medico-juridical labels to, ultimately, the discourse of confession. He adopts the narratives spun about him by others, and finds himself now a craven denier of truth, and no longer a hero airline pilot.

Notes

• This was a fantastic movie. Every performance is spot on; Whitaker is played to perfection by Denzel Washington, and even John Goodman's over-the-top dealer works well, providing relief from the main character's ongoing struggles and tension. And Wikipedia notes, "Flight is (Robert) Zemeckis' first live-action film since 2000's Cast Away and What Lies Beneath, and his first R-rated film since Used Cars in 1980."

• Above, quoting the NTSB's Web site regarding the agency's purpose.