1. First up, a trio of Father’s Day-related pieces. Writing in the Guardian this week, Tom Lamont profiled the much-acclaimed kid’s show Bluey. Those who’ve watched (and/or joined the burgeoning cult) know that the father in the series, Bandit, makes the rest of us look pretty uninspired, play-wise. Lamont goes so far as to deem the show the “bible for modern parenting,” which is telling. That is, it tells just how much “bible of” has become a euphemism for law. At least for those of us who see ourselves primarily as parents rather than children:

Bluey’s dad seems to exist to give parents another reason to lose sleep. Bandit always plays the games right. Bandit invests in his daughters’ dreamed-up scenarios without stinting or sighing or checking the time. Bandit has neat, apt truisms and he’s ready to offer them at a moment’s notice. He’s funny. He’s creative. Bandit is heaven to his own kids and so, in the eyes of many parents I know, he is hell. “He makes DIY look sort of transcendent,” a friend texted, after watching a Bluey episode about flat-packed garden furniture. Other acquaintances admitted they dreaded the new series, aware that however toxic their fascination, they would have to keep watching Bandit’s exploits for the same reason they tuned in to watch Serena Williams or the latest Succession — to pay homage to the best of the best.

Brumm set up a small animation studio and started to toy with the idea of making an Australian Peppa Pig. There would be sensibility tweaks, Brumm decided, better to match his own deadpan humour. Instead of pigs, he wanted dogs. Lastly, something would have to be done about the dad.

Peppa Pig’s dad is hopeless. He belongs in the lineage of Fred Flintstone and Homer Simpson… If we ever see the Fred/Homer figure hunkered down to play with his kids on the carpet, it tends to come at a moment of episode-ending resolution. Perhaps he’s grown a bit into his domestic role because of some other adventure. In Bluey, Brumm decided, the hunkering down and the playing would be the adventure.

For me, the creep of inadequacy began as soon I saw episode one. I have played well with my own children, I thought, but never this well. […]

Bluey’s creator is not unaware of his Bandit dilemma, this problem of an adult viewership feeling slightly inadequate whenever they tune in. At early meetings with his collaborators, Brumm pointed out that kids developed better through play when their carers took a step back and let them steer their own games. Should Bandit become more of a background figure, then? The team thought it over. They decided they would lose too many laughs. Bandit being the king of carpet-time was just funnier. Brumm once told the Sydney Morning Herald that he didn’t know what to do about Bandit’s superiority problem, “other than go on some speaking tour and say: ‘You don’t have to play with your kids that much.’”

That said, those looking for the gospel in Bluey might look no further than Sam Bush’s article today. After all, the portrait of a good father it paints is not a strict authoritarian or benign yet distant caretaker, but a thoroughly gracious (and creative) guiding hand. But I take Lamont’s point: it’s hard to compete with perfection, even/especially when it comes to love. And yet, as is often the case, what comes across as law to one group (parents) comes off as Gospel to another (children): I mean, who among us doesn’t yearn for our own personal Bandit, i.e. a thoroughly loving and thoroughly incarnational father?

2. Along these lines, writer Ada Calhoun finds solace in having a perfectly average father. Somehow his less than Bandit-level track record conveyed a certain grace, which allowed her to love in return (without expectation of perfection). In an article titled, “My Father Makes Me So Angry. I Take Care of Him Anyway” she writes:

My father wasn’t abusive, but he never did any of the things that might qualify him as a “good father.”

As I was making enchiladas, yet another dinner that I anticipated my father not quite appreciating, I called my friend Tara and asked how I could keep taking care of someone who made me so angry.

“By doing the right thing,” she said.

“Which is?” I replied.

“Making enchiladas.”

In dealing with an imperfect parent, I’ve found comfort in doing what is right — putting a plate of food down in front of my dad even if he doesn’t particularly notice.

I feel lucky not to have a father so wonderful that I feel I could never live up to his example or so terrible that he haunts me. Maybe it’s easier to become yourself in reaction to someone who’s neither evil nor saintly. Might the middling fathers be, in a practical sense, the best ones?

3. The Definitive Pixar Universe Dad Rankings? Lots of fun with this one. The Dad from Onward falls a bit too low on this list for my taste, but it’s hard to argue with the take on Mr. Incredible:

Mr. Incredible is the worst Pixar dad. He’s trash. Sorry. Sorry to his family, I mean. To review: Mr. Incredible gets fired. He mopes incessantly. He sneaks out at night to break the anti-superhero law. He gets himself captured, and puts his wife and kids in danger as they attempt to save him. He (briefly) chokes a lady with whom his wife (briefly) suspects he’s having an affair, both quite rare Dad Actions in Pixar movies. He whines about laws and math in Incredibles 2, which to its credit otherwise wisely sidelines him in favor of Elastigirl. (The fact that Mr. Incredible’s wife is much cooler is the most relatable thing about him.)

Of course, Mr. Incredible being not-so-incredible is the whole point of the first film, especially when you consider the unflagging and, yes, redeeming love he is shown by those who have suffered his not-so-incredibleness most, i.e., his family. Oh and Luca’s Dad is #1?! Now I really regret not seeing that movie. (Is now a good time to mention that Todd and I once wrote a teaching series called The Gospel According to Pixar?!)Take it away, Bo:

4. Also in humor, McSweeney’s weighed in with their list of “How To Give Directions Like My Dad” (e.g. “Tell them about Donny from your high school who wrapped his Corvair around a huge oak over by the American Legion.”). Beaverton gave us “Every garage sale in neighbourhood full of lightly used podcasting equipment.” Heh. But the one that made me laugh hardest was the Hard Times‘ “Hawkins Teen Opts to Die in the Upside Down Rather than Admit Favorite Song is Wang Chung’s ‘Everybody Have Fun Tonight’.” And one of the New Yorker’s “Disappointing Near-Death Experiences” is worth reprinting:

I was passing through a long tunnel of light. At the end of it, I saw all my deceased relatives dressed in white, waiting for me and beckoning lovingly — with the exception of Aunt Sonia, who said, “Whoa, someone’s put on a few pounds.” I said, “Excuse me?” And she said, “I’ll try, but I’m surprised you could make it through the light tunnel with those hips.” When the lifeguard resuscitated me, I just felt annoyed.

5. In the brilliant, latest installment of her advice column on Wired, Meghan O’Gieblyn hit some relevant notes of low anthropology, observing that, “Prediction Engines Are Like Karma: You Get What You Stream.”

At a basic level, prediction engines are like karma, invisible mechanisms that register each of your actions and return to you something of equal value. If you watch a lot of true-crime docs, you will eventually find yourself in a catalog dominated by gruesome titles. If you tend to stream sitcoms from the early 2000s, your recommendations will turn into an all-you-can-eat buffet of millennial nostalgia. The notion that one reaps what one sows, that every action begets an equal reaction, is not merely spiritual pablum, but a law encoded in the underlying architecture of our digital universe. Few users really know how these predictive technologies work… Still, we like to believe that there are certain cosmic principles at play, that each of our actions is being faithfully logged, that we are, in each moment, shaping our future entertainment by what we choose to linger on, engage with, and purchase.

It’s common to think of one’s preferences as sui generis, but our proclivities have been shaped by all sorts of external factors, including where we live, how we were raised, our ages, and other relevant data. These variables fall into discernible trends that hold true across populations. Demographic profiling has proved how easy it is to discover patterns in large samples. Given a big enough data set, political views can be predicted based on fashion preferences (L.L. Bean buyers tilt conservative; Kenzo appeals to liberals), and personality traits can be deduced by what kind of music a user likes (fans of Nicki Minaj tend to be extroverted). Nobody knows what causes these correlations, but their consistency suggests that none of us is exactly the master of our own fate, or the creator of a bespoke persona. […] Prediction engines couldn’t work if this wasn’t the case. It’s nice to think that the recommendations on your private profile are as unique as your thumbprint.

To break out of this feedback loop, O’Gieblyn commends the very thing streaming services frown upon: sharing your login information with others.

Most of us have experienced at some point the self-­perpetuating hell of karmic cycles, the way one cigarette leads to an addiction or a single lie begets a string of further deceptions. Automated recommendations can similarly foster narrowly recursive habits, breeding more and more of the same until we’re stuck in a one-dimensional reflection of our past choices. Deliberately opening up your profile to others could be a way to let some air into that dank cave of individual preferences where the past continually reverberates, isolating you from the vast world of possibilities that lies outside.

There’s something ironic, poetic even, at work here. That a transgression might somehow be the key to breaking out of a karmic spiral … Een-ter-esting.

6. … after all, transgression of the divine sort is precisely what transpired on Calvary, is it not? Only, in lieu of the (extremely) small potatoes login-sharing variety of misdoing, Jesus himself was “numbered with the transgressors” and shared their terrible lot. Instead of furthering a karma of interdependence (and action-reaction) which functions essentially as a prison, however, his death and resurrection heralded the advent of something unpredictable and new. Cue a sermon by the recently departed Ron Hodel, published over at 1517, in which God is proclaimed to be anything but fair.

God’s good news gospel is inherently unfair. In fact, it can’t be the gospel if it’s fair. The true gospel of Jesus is about the incredible gift of God’s free generosity, and it has nothing at all to do with fairness. Fairness isn’t interested in generosity. Fairness is about requirements, legalities, obligations. Fairness is about something someone must do whether one wants to or not. God, on the other hand, isn’t much interested in dealing with us fairly. […]

With Jesus, it’s not first come, first served. No. Repentant thieves and hookers enter the kingdom of heaven while unrepentant religious types get excluded. Remorseful believers find themselves at the front of the line while self-righteous lifers find themselves at the end. Those who come before God with pride and self-sufficiency will be last and outside the kingdom, and broken spirits who come to God knowing they’re last, and lost, and least, and lowest, and deserve nothing at all, those who come to him as beggars will find themselves at the front of the line, strangely the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

That’s the way it is with Jesus. He who was and is the greatest made himself to be last of all on the cross of Calvary, as he suffered unfairly in your place and mind on account of our sins. He was treated unfairly so that we would be treated graciously.

7. Finally, I’ll leave you with the story of Detra, featured this week on the Humans of New York instagram. This former preacher’s wife’s “journey” really needs to be read in full, but to my mind it’s a stunning account of answered prayer, of God’s provision in dire circumstances, and a genuine ministry arising out of personal apocalypse. At every step, Detra faced the impossible with prayer; and at every step, God provided. (14 feet!!) I don’t mean to minimize the non-negligible collateral damage, but it’s rare to hear someone tell their story at such length and even rarer to hear it end with a moving testimony to God’s faithfulness, as opposed to, say, some strain of triumphant empowerment. “I Need Thee Every Hour,” indeed! Even the name of the boxing club, er, rings out with providence.

Strays:

• “My Love Is Bigger Than Me” by Tallu Schuyler Quinn on Plough
• Paul Jones’ “Free Me” (above) comes from the latest PZ’s podcast.
• “Inside the making of the brilliant, moving first 10 minutes of Pixar’s ‘Up’.”
• Pretty chuffed about all the Kate Bush hysteria going on at present. Esp since I spent half of last year prepping for an episode of The Well of Sound about her. If you’ve fallen under the KB spell, give it a listen!
• Last week I sat down with Ted Gioia and Mia Chung to discuss “Music in Heaven”:

Music in Heaven: The Secret Chord with with Ted Gioia, Mia Chung, and David Zahl from Bridge Projects on Vimeo.

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