Die With Your Own Teeth

A Sunday rundown.

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Our Sunday posts are usually paywalled, but if you’re in the shit and need a lift, email me here and I’ll hook you up: ajd@thesmallbow.com.

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Happy Holidays to The Small Bow community. If you’re looking for more of my writing, it’s mostly here. —Ben Gaffaney

Last Friday, my son and I watched Zootopia 2, this fall’s entry in the “kid movie with some grown-up jokes” genre. It’s a buddy-cop film in a world of animals and animal puns, and somehow, after 107 minutes about an overeager bunny cop and a laconic fox cop, we’re in an existential plot about The True Origins of Utopia and Who Gets To Define History. Late in the film I found a piece of paper and wrote “The worst advice any screenwriter ever got was ‘raise the stakes.’”

In life and in art, I’m a resolutely small-stakes guy. I think recovery is part of that mindset. I’ve seen and heard the ways one person’s inability to simply not do a thing (like drink) can wreck others, and, of course, I’ve done some wrecking myself. I’ve heard hearts break over the phone and seen the light of connection go out of someone’s eyes while refusing to change my addictive behavior. Sometimes when I’m mentally judging a public figure based on some social media rage-bait, I’ll remember that I may still haunt others, that I’m a ghost, separate from time. It doesn’t lead me to forgive people I don’t know, but it helps with humility and gets me off of Instagram.