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.

They’re probably reading a story about a personified object like a train or something. How childish.

It’s been a big year for robots. Ultron was deliciously menacing and Spader-y; Terminators came back as they’re so fond of promising; and if you haven’t seen Ex Machina, you missed what is probably the best movie of the year (and which I may have to come back to in another post).

Those movies — and countless others — paint the robots as villains, as killers, as a sign of doom, the violent end of mankind. But what makes AMC’s new show Humans utterly compelling is how it subverts all of that. These robots don’t have a horrible agenda (mostly). They’re just really good at things. They do menial tasks we don’t want to do, efficiently and without complaint. They take care of the sick who need them. They’re hyper aware of their surroundings so they never hurt any humans, even by accident (unless they’re broken, in which case they are promptly repaired or replaced).

More than any other robot story I can remember, Humans brings to life how robots (or as the show calls them, “synths”) might end up being better than us not just at labor, but at the things we see as making us human — and as a result, taking our humanity away from us not by force, but by merit.

If robots can think and act more precisely, they can take over our most skilled professions, like surgeons or scientists — at which point, why bother trying to compete? They’ve stolen our ambition and aspiration. If they’re more patient, better listeners, and always make rational decisions about what’s best for us, could they be better parents than us at our most frazzled and frustrated? It might be better for the child if they take that away from us too. If a synth is totally loyal, physically perfect, and exists only for our happiness, then to an awkward lonely teen or adult in an unhappy marriage, how could they not pose a tempting alternative to the messiness of real relationships?

The show is a nice mix of mystery and crime story, science fiction and human drama, which makes it extremely watchable week to week. But what makes it special, why it deserves the most credit, is for making us consider how artificial intelligence might not take over suddenly and by force, but by a gradual superiority that leaves even us having to admit to ourselves: maybe they deserve it.

What would be the last things that only humans could do as robots get smarter and more capable?

What things that seem so central to your life now would you be happy to concede to a machine?

What would be the final leap they’d have to make before you could feel like you had a relationship with an artificially created life form?

Are some of the final things that make us distinctly human actually not so great after all, where we’d just be better off without them?