Mitch Wagner

I use Grammarly for all my online writing, to check grammar, spelling, usage, punctuation and to find typos. I got a notification that my Grammarly annual plan expires in a month, and I started thinking about whether to renew it, and whether to ask my manager if I can expense it.

Then I reviewed the free plan, which I think turns out to have everything I use and turns off the annoying bits.

I value Grammarly’s suggestions to tighten up language, but I’m told that the free plan offers that too. And if that doesn’t work, I bet ChatGPT will do the job.

Another thing I rely on Grammarly for: Commas. I have only a vague idea of how to use commas.

Cory Doctorow:

The answer is contained in the concept of “centaurs” and “reverse centaurs,” found in automation theory:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/27/rancid-vibe-coding/#class-war

A “centaur” is a human being who is assisted by a machine (a human head on a strong and tireless body). A reverse centaur is a machine that uses a human being as its assistant (a frail and vulnerable person being puppeteered by an uncaring, relentless machine).

Also: AI is a bubble. When it bursts it will leave behind a wealth of useful tools and skilled workers, but at terrible cost.

“Three Days of the Condor” is a 1975 thriller starring Robert Redford as a bookish CIA analyst who stumbles on a lethal conspiracy and has to run for his life while unraveling the mystery as he goes. I admired the movie and enjoyed watching it, but I was not engaged.

Redford is cool and handsome. I loved the clothes and cars. The CIA gadgetry is delightfully retro high-tech (transistorpunk). Faye Dunaway is beautiful and warm as Redford’s love interest; she effortlessly steals a scene at a New York deli. Max Von Sydow is delicious as a weirdly friendly assassin. The movie also features Cliff Robertson and John Houseman.

The plot is complicated and confusing. Redford does thriller-movie shtick, using Dunaway as a go-between to deliver a menacing message, getting into brawls and gunfights, racing across town and hacking a phone switching office. He is infinitely resourceful and confounds experienced field agents, explaining that he learned everything from books. In the end, of course, Redford figures everything out, but I don’t know how, and I’m not 100% sure what he figured out.

Although I enjoyed the movie, it didn’t pull me in, partly because it’s been overtaken by headlines. The movie premise is that a hypercompetent conspiracy of government agents drives U.S. affairs. In reality today, the government is run by clowns. I wish “Three Days of the Condor” were an accurate depiction; instead, we’re living in “Idiocracy.”

Redford’s character’s relationship with Dunaway’s character is disturbing. She is a stranger whom he kidnaps at random so he can use her as cover to get out of Manhattan and hide out in her apartment. He holds her at gunpoint and ties her up in her own bathroom for hours while he goes out and does spy things. Nonetheless, she decides he’s a nice guy and has sex with him. Sometimes I’m shocked by how rapey pop culture was in the 20th Century.

It’s a good example of a 1970s New York movie, like “The French Connection” and “Annie Hall,” showing off the grittiness of the city.

The movie takes place just before Christmas, but it’s not a Christmas movie. It’s like “Die Hard” that way. There’s no snow on the ground. There’s almost no discussion of Christmas. You hear some Christmas carols in ambient music and see some Christmas decorations in stores, and that’s it for the Christmas angle.

Sloppy Internet research:

• Redford wears an excellent, preppy wardrobe. He wears a herringbone tweed jacket or a pea-jacket at different times in the movie, over a navy crew-neck sweater, chambray shirt and tie (the crew-neck sweater and tie are not, to be honest, a good look), flared jeans, and hiking boots. Men’s fashionistas have struggled for decades to find that exact tweed jacket.. The look is iconic, like Steve McQueen’s tweed jacket and roll-neck sweater in “Bullitt,” which set off a fashion trend for men when that movie was released.
• The film has been interpreted as a political statement or propaganda, but director Sidney Pollack says it’s just a thriller — nothing more. It was released at about the same time as a scandal broke in the news about illegal CIA activities; Pollack says the movie was already well underway when the scandal hit, and he is frustrated by people who think he was sending a message.
• At the beginning of the movie, Redford’s character orders lunch for his office from a luncheonette, the Lexington Candy Shop. It was founded in 1925, is still in business, and still looks the same.
• Faye Dunaway is still alive and seems to be still working. I’m happy to see it.

Cheap shots from Letterboxd:

• “crying that the book was called six days of the condor–sydney pollack snorted a line and was like don’t worry girls i can do it in three”
• “A movie about sinister forces at work in the CIA with big scenes set at the World Trade Center and in a Ford Bronco? It’s like the nexus of all conspiracy theories!"
• “Men get so hot when their lives fall apart and they stop shaving”