Last month, I wrote about how much I enjoyed watching Department Q. As I noted in that post, Netflix describes that show as a Tartan Noir. This description marked the coining of a new genre, an offshoot of the novels and television shows of Nordic Noir (only in English). Even Department Q is based on novels set not in Edinburgh but in Copenhagen.

After watching Department Q, I’ve gone further down the rabbit hole and taken on the burden of reading some subtitles (I prefer reading subtitles to watching dubbed audio but I understand many people don’t want to read while watching television) to take in more of a genre categorized by troubled protagonists, unadorned narratives and dialogue, and the bleakness of winter in the far north. Thus far in my limited but ongoing exploration, The Åre Murders gets my highest recommendation.

I don’t like reviews that offer spoilers so I won’t here, but I will offer a teaser of the introduction so that you’ll be able to get your bearings quicker should you watch the show. The plot starts with a suspended Stockholm detective escaping the city for a while by going to her sister’s vacation home in a little ski town in the north of Sweden. Then she meets the local police force and becomes involved in their investigation of two murders when they accept her help.

Perhaps it is seeing the stark wintry landscape shots in the midst of a hot and humid summer here, my growing up in a small town that saw a few incidents of hidden secrets leading to violence, or how the main character is unable to outrun some of her internal demons even after fleeing the city for the picturesque town in which the story unfolds. It’s probably a combination that kept me glued to the television. It’s only five episodes long, which I watched in about a week taking in no more than one per day.

There are multiple transitions coming for the Barlow & Williams team in August. Nothing will be changing with the firm itself. We’re still going to provide great service and fight for clients to complete business sales and acquisitions, but things will be changing in our personal lives. Mine is the smaller transition but I only describe things happening in my life in this column so that’s all you get. I signed a lease on a house this week, which means I’ll maintain the rhythm of moving every two years that I’ve kept for what will now be four occasions. Each move has been shorter: DC to Charlotte; Charlotte to Raleigh; Raleigh to Durham; now Durham to a different part of Durham. Each of those (until now) also saw me move from one apartment to another so this will at least be some change.

This move feels less consequential in many ways. It doesn’t accompany professional change. It doesn’t come with a need to start from zero in my persistent attempts to find/build community. I won’t change many of my regular destinations or weekly routines. Yet in other ways it marks a more pronounced departure. It will be the first time I’ve lived in a suburb. I’ve only ever lived in a small town or an urban environment. Being tired of my current milieu is part of the impetus for this move, but not that long ago I was adamantly against living on a cul-de-sac. I’m not really sure what has changed for me, perhaps just the passage of time. 

I booked movers yesterday to assist me. I abhor the moving process, something I assume is a near universal sentiment. This time I do have the benefit of a two week period where I’ll have possession both of my new space and my current one, which in combination with the shorter distance of this move will allow me to make a few trips myself with the more fragile items. I’ll leave the heavier furniture to the professionals with their box truck. I just have to pack things between now and then.

I like to watch at least one Cubs game per season. Given where I live that is tougher than it was during certain other times in my life, but I still try to do it. That is especially true when the Cubs are good, and at the time of writing they are sitting in first place in the division.

When I checked this season’s schedule, the Cardinals were slated to visit Wrigley Field for the Fourth of July weekend. As my sister-in-law is a Cardinals fan, I pitched the idea of a family trip to Chicago. While that meant that I also got to organize the trip, everyone approved. I flew in on Thursday and everyone else drove in.

We went to the baseball game on Friday afternoon. Wrigley is always magical, the best baseball stadium there is. I booked our accommodation so we could walk to the stadium. We walked around the stadium soaking in the building atmosphere as people queued in line for the bleachers and others milled about in the bars and restaurants around the ballpark. We went into the stadium early to let things build and to go to the concession stand and bathroom before the first pitch. There was a pregame flyover in celebration of the Fourth of July during the national anthem. Our seats were on the first base side in the lower bowl tucked under the upper deck bleachers. This made tracking fly balls a little challenging but I don’t have any real complaints. This was especially the case as the game unfolded. The Cubs hit a franchise record 8 home runs. Headed into the top of the ninth, with the score 11-1, the Cubs even trotted out a reserve infielder to pitch the final inning. The Cardinals scored two runs against the slow batting practice pitching but could muster no more and the game ended 11-3. Fly the W.

Saturday was a different sort of day. In the morning most of us walked to a commercial area set in the midst of the three or four story residential buildings that make up Lakeview/Wrigleyville. Then we regrouped and headed into the heart of the city. Temperatures reached the low 90s so we spent the afternoon ducking in and out of stores along the Magnificent Mile. We stopped for a few obligatory pictures at Millennium Park then doubled back to our dinner spot along the Chicago River. For the evening, all five of us went to the sketch revue show at The Second City, a legendary comedy venue where I wanted to see a performance. Over the course of ~90 minutes the cast ran through at least two dozen sketches, some interwoven with callbacks, some taking minutes to unfold, and others taking thirty seconds or less. It was a very punchy show. There were a few references that I missed, which was bound to happen given how little I watch cable television or listen to pop music. Overall, though, it was a really good show that offered a lot of laughs. Live comedy, much like live sport, brings you into the present in ways that aren’t possible when an experience is intermediated through a screen.

I took part in a group discussion Monday evening. The starting point was a utopian blog post about the future of AI. That blog post is titled “The Gentle Singularity.” It paints a rosy picture of a future like what was once portrayed on The Jetsons, only better. It is a picture that OpenAI needs to keep before the public for its own interest, a picture that I cannot see. Read for yourself if you want to read the AI maximalist perspective. There have been rejoinders from others working to build AI technologies that I find more compelling. But even more, I thought about the older, deeper insight expressed by Dostoyevsky in Notes from the Underground

Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, give him economic prosperity such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of the species, and even then, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most destructive nonsense, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to have the right to his own fantastic desires!

That is a much easier thing to imagine. As I sometimes say, with the grammar deliberately incorrect, people is people. I don’t see that changing any time soon.

As for the conversation itself, there was a wide dispersion in the room as to how much people interact with AI tools. I’m hardly a wizard and haven’t tried to vibe code anything yet, but I do keep multiple windows open to converse with large language models and we’ve built simple agents to streamline repetitive workflows. That put me around the bottom of the top quartile in terms of use. I like to hear how people use the tools. I might not be able to use them in the same manner, but hearing ideas from people in other fields is often the source of the greatest insights. I didn’t come away with any breakthroughs, but the conversation did get my mind turning on a few ideas.

I took part in a group discussion Monday evening. The starting point was a utopian blog post about the future of AI. That blog post is titled “The Gentle Singularity.” It paints a rosy picture of a future like what was once portrayed on The Jetsons, only better. It is a picture that OpenAI needs to keep before the public for its own interest, a picture that I cannot see. Read for yourself if you want to read the AI maximalist perspective. There have been rejoinders from others working to build AI technologies that I find more compelling. But even more, I thought about the older, deeper insight expressed by Dostoyevsky in Notes from the Underground—

“Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, give him economic prosperity such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of the species, and even then, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most destructive nonsense, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to have the right to his own fantastic desires!”

That is a much easier thing to imagine. As I sometimes say, with the grammar deliberately incorrect, people is people. I don’t see that changing any time soon.

As for the conversation itself, there was a wide dispersion in the room as to how much people interact with AI tools. I’m hardly a wizard and haven’t tried to vibe code anything yet, but I do keep multiple windows open to converse with large language models and we’ve built simple agents to streamline repetitive workflows. That put me around the bottom of the top quartile in terms of use. I like to hear how people use the tools. I might not be able to use them in the same manner, but hearing ideas from people in other fields is often the source of the greatest insights. I didn’t come away with any breakthroughs, but the conversation did get my mind turning on a few ideas.

Last night, I watched the final episode of the first season of Department Q. Netflix suggested it to me when it was released and I was looking for a new show so I gave the first episode a try. Besides, I was curious what might set the subgenre Tartan Noir (the actual description Netflix provides) apart. Then I proceeded to watch all nine episodes in the space of about two weeks.

As might be guessed, the show is set in Scotland and features some dark and violent themes. The novels on which the show is based are set in Denmark I’ve since discovered but Netflix decided to place the show in Scotland—similar climate but less need for subtitles. From the outset there is violence as the show begins with the main character, a detective, returning to work after being shot in the line of duty complete with flashbacks. Skirting rules in order to get him back to work, the detective’s superiors place him in charge of his own new department to work on cold cases. Mind you the department occupies the basement of the police building and the main character is not thrilled by this development, but it suits his own inner turmoil and outward abrasiveness. The department starts as only Detective Morck, but he is shortly joined by others battling their own inner struggles and they form quite a team of misfits.

They choose to investigate the disappearance of a prosecutor from several years prior, a young woman who vanished from a ferry shortly after a murder suspect she was trying was acquitted. I won’t offer a plot synopsis because I don’t like reading those. What I will say is that the characters have real depth, and with the length of a TV series there is enough time for the plot to breathe so that the characters are able to evolve and develop. The violence is never gratuitous but the show doesn’t shy away from the darkness either. There are moments of levity interspersed throughout, too, but what starts as a slow burn doesn’t end that way. There are also a number of subplots that arise as the investigation unfolds, each with its own set of characters and motivations and none of which distract from the overall experience.

In advance of today’s self-funded search event, the organizer hosted a dinner for all of the speakers and sponsors. Since the event is in the financial district and he is a foodie, he picked a Peking duck restaurant in Chinatown. It was one of those restaurants with such a literal, on-the-nose name that you know it is the real deal, complete with a large flag overhanging the sidewalk with a duck on it, and it did not disappoint.

The first time I experienced Peking duck I was in Peking, or Beijing as we now call it. It was a trip during a January term in college. There, they kept bringing out more duck and more beer and more duck and more beer. Before the meal ended one of the chaperones fell out of his chair, and it wasn’t from eating too much. That incident and how much I enjoyed the duck were the two standout memories of that evening though I have many other fond and not-so-fond memories of that crazy trip.

In comparison, this was a much tamer affair. No one had more than a drink or two, people discussed business topics and swapped industry war stories rather than what a group of college students might discuss, and there were other dishes on the family-style table for those who didn’t like the idea of eating the roasted duck. The duck itself was very good, though in fairness none of the times I’ve had Peking duck has ever lived up to my memory of the first time I ate it.

I capped off my evening with a cup of strawberry lychee ice cream. It isn’t a normal combination as lychees are native to Asia, but as I was in Chinatown in NYC it was available. Both flavors were mildly sweet and the ice cream was more an amalgam than an even mixture of the flavors. It wasn’t as layered as some ice cream I had on a Marrakech rooftop at the start of the year (that one also had a citrus bite that I like on the odd occasion when I don’t stick to vanilla), but it made the walk back to my hotel more pleasant.