It’s Wednesday evening here at BCB After Dark: the coolest club for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come on in and sit with us for a while. There’s no cover charge. The dress code is casual. There are still a few tables available. The hostess will seat you now. Bring your own beverage.
BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
Last night I asked you if the Cubs should try to trade for Astros pitcher Josh Hader. Obviously the answer comes down to how much the Astros want back, but 57 percent of you think the Cubs should at least try.
Here’s the part where we listen to music and talk movies. You can skip ahead if you want. Or enjoy that and skip the baseball stuff. Or you can read all of it. Your call.
Tonight we’re featuring a performance from SFJAZZ from this past May. This is the Leon Russell song “This Masquerade,” which was made famous by George Benson’s 1976 hit single cover version. This is part of a tribute to Benson.
This performance features Isaiah Sharkey on guitar and vocals, Marcus Miller on bass, Richard Bona also on bass, Edward Simon on keyboards and Kendrick Scott on drums.
When documentary filmmaker Gary Hustwit approached legendary musician/producer/artist Brian Eno about making a documentary of his own life, Eno was completely uninterested. But Hustwit was familiar with Eno’s experiments with “generative music” or music that was created by an artist creating an algorithm and letting a computer create a piece of music according to those parameters. Within those parameters, the music would be be different every time. So Hustwit proposed to Eno that they make a “generative documentary” that would use an algorithm to randomly create a different movie every time it was shown. Eno couldn’t resist participating in an artistic endeavor like that, and the result is Eno (2024), an innovative and groundbreaking documentary of one of the most creative and influential artists of the last fifty years.
Eno draws upon decades of archival footage and over 30 hours of interviews with Brian Eno and uses a generative algorithm to create a new film each time without the direct intervention of anyone. To be clear, Hustwit and Eno make clear that none of this is done with artificial intelligence. The way my simple mind envisions it as kind of a pachinko machine—the film randomly picks a spot to start and that leads to a fork in the road with two or more destinations, each of which has several different directions it could go in after that and so on and so on. The estimate is that there are over 52 quintillion possible different versions of Eno.
Eno is currently available on the Criterion Channel and while the limitations of the streaming format prevent it from being different every time you see it, Criterion and programmer Brendan Dawes change the parameters once a month, thus generating a new film for each month. I’ve now seen Eno twice—once in June and once in July. At the most basic level, it’s the same film. It’s a portrait of Brian Eno’s career and a plea for the importance of art and creativity. However, the way the film makes that point is completely different in each version.
For example, anyone familiar with Eno’s career knows that he first entered the public sphere as the synthesizer player for Roxy Music. In the June showing, Eno talked about his time in Roxy Music and how he joined. (The way he put it, they had a synthesizer and while he didn’t know how to play it, he realized it was a brand new instrument and no one else knew how to play it either.) But in the July showing, Roxy Music is only mentioned in passing once. Instead, Eno talks about his musical education as a child listening to American Black music. He goes on and on about the impact The Silhouettes’ doo-wop classic “Get a Job” had on him as a child.
The June showing had scenes with David Byrne talking about creativity and working with Eno whereas Byrne is mostly (but not completely) absent in the July showing. Meanwhile, David Bowie was just glossed over in the June version but much more present in the July version. Laurie Anderson was in both versions, but she’s mostly mute in July.
Both versions show Eno as a producer in the studio, but they couldn’t be more different. In June, we got to see Eno and U2 as they recorded “Pride (In the Name of Love),” which is loud and a huge moment in rock history. In July, we got two very quiet studio scenes with Eno producing a John Cale album and one of his own solo efforts in the nineties.
The July version has Eno hilariously explaining how he was hire to compose the startup tones for Windows 95. I don’t know if I knew he wrote that back in 1995, but if I did, I didn’t know it in 2026.
Some things remain in both films. One is Eno’s use of his “Oblique Strategies” cards, which are notecards with phrases written on them designed to spark the creative process. (Anderson draws and reads one in both films. The July one is “Be quiet for as long as you can,” which explains her being mostly mute in that version.) There is also a scene where Eno gets awarded a Producer of the Year award in the nineties, with Bryan Ferry being the one to hand him the statue. There’s also a scene where Eno looks at beetles in his garden and another one where he visits a park and talks about his theories of creativity. Also dogs.
Eno’s pleas for art and creativity are the heart of the film, no matter which version you watch. Eno believes that music and art predate language and are as intrinsic to our existence as eating and breathing. He argues that imagination is what separates us from the animals. He also argues that creativity is produced when the unexpected happens. There are no mistakes in art. Rather, anything out of place is an opportunity for another road to follow.
The whole “generative film” aspect of Eno is kind of a gimmick to get you to watch the film. More than once, even. To be fair, it’s a pretty damn cool gimmick. But the reason to watch Eno is the fascinating personality of Brian Eno, the art he has made and the career he’s had. In music and visual art, Eno says he always follows the unexpected turn to see where it leads him. He’s also done that over the course of his life. It’s a terrific journey.
Here’s the official trailer for Eno. At least for now. Maybe there will be another one shortly.
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.
I don’t need to tell you that the Cubs need to add pitching. I also probably don’t need to tell you that the Angels are bad and should probably trade some players to rebuild their farm system. So tonight I’m asking whether you’d rather the Cubs trade for José Soriano or Reid Detmers?
I’ve always cautioned that the Angels are difficult to deal with because owner Arte Moreno tends to stick his noise into deals and veto any trades that would start a rebuilding process. But now that former Cardinals GM John Mozeliak is in charge of things in Anaheim, it’s possible to deal with the Halos on a more rational basis.
Soriano and Detmers are the Angels two best trade chips at the moment, assuming they want to hold on to young shortstop Zach Neto. (And Mike Trout, I suppose, who has said he doesn’t want to be traded from the Angels.) The two young pitchers have a lot in common. Both pitchers are 27. Both become free agents after the 2028 season, so neither one is a pure rental.
There are some differences, however. Soriano is a right-hander and Detmers is a southpaw. Soriano is much more of a ground ball pitcher whereas Detmers gives up a lot more fly balls.
Soriano was one of the best pitchers in the majors in April and was an early favorite for the Cy Young Award. Unfortunately, he then started to struggle in May and June, putting up a mediocre 5.34 ERA over those two months. However, he seems to have fixed whatever was wrong in those two months recently. For July, he’s made three starts and posted a 3.50 ERA. The underlying numbers are even better, holding opposing hitters to a .467 OPS in July.
Soriano’s numbers for the year are 8-6 with a 3.43 ERA. He’s struck out 122 and walked a way-too-high 54 in 118 innings. But his ground ball tendencies would play well with the Cubs infield defense.
Detmers has been much less streaky. One the year, he’s made 20 starts and gone 3-6 with a 4.16 ERA. Over 114.2 innings, Detmers has struck out 130 and walked 35.
Both Soriano and Detmers have allowed 12 home runs this season.
So tonight’s question is: Which Halos pitcher would you offer the Angels more for? Or in other words, if the Angels were willing to trade either one to the Cubs, which one would you take?
Thank you for stopping by tonight. We’re always glad to see you. Please get home safely. Don’t forget any personal items. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again next week for more BCB After Dark.
