Not every show can make the ad the story and still be so profoundly meaningful.

Emily Nussbaum is one of the best people writing about television, and in a recent New Yorker piece on the relationship between shows and advertisers, she examines the faustian deal between creators and the brands that want into their shows.

There’s a common notion that there’s good and bad integration. The “bad” stuff is bumptious—unfunny and in your face. “Good” integration is either invisible or ironic, and it’s done by people we trust, like Stephen Colbert or Tina Fey. But it brings out my inner George Trow. To my mind, the cleverer the integration, the more harmful it is. It’s a sedative designed to make viewers feel that there’s nothing to be angry about, to admire the ad inside the story, to train us to shrug off every compromise as necessary and normal.

She acknowledges the need to pay for art somehow (“Perhaps this makes me sound like a drunken twenty-two-year-old waving a battered copy of Naomi Klein’s “No Logo.””), but on a deeper level, asks if we’ve given up too much of the art’s integrity in the process.

Do you perceive product placement as it happens? Does you perceive it as a violation? A distraction? Or an easily ignorable part of watching television?

Understanding that the creation of entertainment, and TV in particular, has to be paid for somehow, is this an acceptable trade-off?

If so, what do you think the effects are on you as a viewer?

If not, what other arrangement would you prefer between you as a viewer and the makers of television (and potentially, willing sponsors) to finance the production of the shows you enjoy?

May the odds… oh wait, wrong movie.

Recently I revisited the classic (and influential; looking at you, Hunger Games) film Battle Royale, about a near-future Japan where every year a class of students is shipped off to an island to battle to the death. Though it doesn’t delve into some of the class issues that makes the later Hunger Games so provocative and interesting, it’s still a must-see film. In fact, I love how Royale deals with dissatisfaction on both sides in a very Japanese way. The adults see ungrateful, unruly teens and feel like they need to be taught a lesson (which one could say about today’s entitled youth), but how can you not also sympathize with teens growing up into a world lacking in opportunity? It’s a fascinating exaggeration of reality where kids are forced into a cutthroat system against their will, and how they deal with that by trying to find rebellious ways out, whether suicide, bucking the system, or just finding their own way together despite the ‘rules’ that they’re supposed to play by.

But at the end of the day how can we not focus on the amazing hypothetical scenario the film (and its successor) proposes:

If you were in a Battle Royale/Hunger Games scenario, what do you do when you’re forced to kill or be killed? Make allies? Go fully aggressive homicidal? Play nice to get close, then betray those who trust you? Or opt out and kill yourself before they can do it to you, in some final act of defiance?

We’re not even talking full hive-mind assimilation or anything.

Rick and Morty practically deserves its own section on this site; every episode raises a deep existential question or moral dilemma then skewers it mercilessly through insane sci-fi comedy.

A recent episode in particular dealt with a hive-mind called “Unity”, which assimilated all the individuals on a planet, where they lived peacefully and prosperously. The kids, thinking they were liberators, freed some of the assimilated… who then went on to spark a race war. Tricky stuff.

In light of the current racial violence plaguing the country, it’s tough not to wonder if a little reprogramming would be helpful enough to make it worth the obvious violation. So:

Scientists discover a foolproof way to brainwash/reprogram the minds of every American to eliminate racism. It’s painless and has no other side effects. To make all our lives easier, they want to make this mandatory, as long as it passes as a ballot measure in the next election.

Would you vote for this measure?

Would you feel like you were giving up some meaningful freedom by doing so?

If for, how would you convince those resistant? If against, how do you defend your side?

What could be better than smoking and chatting in a diner with a brilliant author?

Reading David Foster Wallace tends to be a transformative experience, the way a lot of his fans describe it. Myself included. As if someone more deeply thoughtful than yourself is reaching into your brain and rewiring it as you read, reconfiguring your thought process in order for you to be able keep up with his. You feel smarter while reading him, like you’re experiencing what it’s like to engage that intensely with big ideas. It’s a gift he has, not just writing cleverly or stylishly or densely (which he does), but doing all that in a way that is both incisive and powerful but generous to the reader. And it’s hard for anyone who’s ever written or tried to communicate their own big ideas not to be be jealous of that kind of talent and intellect.

The End of the Tour, the film that depicts journalist/writer David Lipsky’s days shadowing the man who could be this generation’s brightest new writer, tackles a lot of ‘big idea’-type subjects. Both directly, in the conversations the two characters have over their travels (and this film is almost exclusively two guys talking; about celebrity, ambition, authenticity, art, addiction, depression, junk food, etc), and indirectly, through the dynamic between them.

He’s a semi-established, aspiring-to-greatness talent still reaching for acclaim. Wallace has been crowned a genius in his own time, and is now left to deal with the weight of that. Wallace warns him that all that admiration “isn’t real”, admits that he isn’t capable of fully enjoying it. Being praised to such an extent doesn’t mean he’s arrived anywhere, or given him any sense of completion or satisfaction. Meanwhile Lipsky still feels awed in his presence, compelled to get inside his mind, to crack the code on what makes him such a singular talent. He wants to be near that brilliance. He can’t help but envy it.

After all the digressive conversations and empty calories, both are left seemingly unsatisfied. There’s a tangible sense of melancholy to the film, of no one having the answers, of a search without a solution. It’s beautiful, it’s energizing, but not without its harsh truths to face up to.

If achieving fame means being equally or possibly more miserable than you are now, is it worth the suffering to make your mark on the world, to be known and admired?

Is being happy and unknown the better goal, focusing on personal fulfillment instead of achieving greatness and renown?

If everyone chose happiness over greatness, what would we be giving up? Are tortured geniuses necessary for progress?

If your legacy is the people whose lives you reach, LOOK AT THAT LEGACY.

Jon Stewart took over The Daily Show in 1999, the year I graduated high school. (I was a fan even before, of the sillier Craig Kilborn version). Since then, I think I’ve barely missed an episode. In college, he was our nightly news, a break from studying. Since then — and my acquisition of a DVR — he became a dinnertime companion, watching his take on the previous day’s news over a meal, catching up even on the days we missed because his service was so invaluable.

His show made current events engaging, and more importantly made our problems palatable.Through the difficult Bush years, he offered catharsis. Through the bizarre upheavals of the Obama years, he offered a voice of reason. And always intelligence, always laughter.

Thinking about his departure, I don’t know if there’s a single other person in entertainment I’ve spent as much time with as Jon Stewart. (Maybe The Simpsons, but that isn’t quite the same.) Leading up to his final show, I felt a strange clenching in my chest. It wasn’t sadness, like you’re preparing for a loss. At least not only that. The closest comparison I can make is saying goodbye to someone you loved in high school. They’re always going to be a part of your life. In many ways they helped make you who you are. But now it’s time to move on, and you both know it. You may see each other again some day, but it’ll be different. But that’s okay. The time you had was unforgettable. Invaluable. And you leave with a little bit of dread, but also gratitude. Grief, but also joy.

Which celebrity have you spent the most time enjoying? Why them? How did they affect your life?

If any current celebrity suddenly went away, which one would be the biggest loss, the biggest blow to your life, would leave the biggest hole?

For me it’s Jon Stewart, and there might never be another one bigger.

Thanks Jon.