The Friday Article Roundup
Some wicked good writing about pop culture around the Internet.
A super-sized bunch of articles to rage against the dying of the online intellectual light! Receive enlightenment on:
Thanks to Bridgett, scb0212, Casper and Dave for contributing this week! Send articles throughout the next week to ploughmanplods [at] gmail, post articles from the past week below for discussion, and Have a Happy Friday!
Alisha Mughal criticizes girlboss feminism via Disney villain reclamation at RogerEbert.com:
Insofar as they are alive, the villainesses that Wicked and Maleficent present are no villainesses at all; rather, they are boring, saccharine and sickly sweet in their goodness. [Margaret] Hamilton’s Wicked Witch [in the 1939 Wizard of Oz] has been so pivotal and crucial to our modern cultural understanding of what an evil witch looks like, laughs like, how dangerous she can be. Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty is nightmare fodder, a stunning creature who moves like a vicious bird, hypnotizes like a cobra with her lurid yellow eyes, and turns into a dragon so inimitably destructive. Hamilton’s Wicked Witch and Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent are women evil for the sake of evil, they laugh because they enjoy their madness, maybe even the sound of their cackle, and they act with a freedom not informed by their pasts, for they haven’t any, and therefore it is a freedom that seems endlessly dangerous, endlessly insane. They’re so evil they have scared us into goodness.
Lyta Gold writes at her Substack about the kerfuffle over posters unaware of The Odyssey before Christopher Nolan announced he’s adapting it into a movie:
Discourse bubbles like this one tend to pop pretty quickly, leaving behind a sour aftertaste and a lingering feeling of threat, usually directed at the kids these days. And many of the more notable ignoramouses here do appear to be young adult Gen-Zers, mostly meathead influencers with no time or incentive to know anything anyway. But their popularity as influencers and a whole lot of other data points have worked together to freak me out: we seem to be rapidly tipping toward a much dumber culture, a culture that both rewards ignorance and has no idea of its ignorance. When Nolan announced Oppenheimer just a few years ago, I doubt everybody knew who J. Robert Oppenheimer was off the top of their heads; yet, I don’t recall a similar wave of posts commending Nolan for digging up such an obscure historical figure or insisting “actually it’s okay to not know everything about history.” What’s new in these weird giggling void-days after Trump’s second victory is the absolute happy ignorance, and the ignorance of ignorance. I don’t think shame is an ideal motivator, especially when it comes to education: but it’s weird that there’s no shame here.2 In fact, the shame is getting directed the other way: aren’t you the asshole for bringing it up? Aren’t you just making normal (a.k.a. stupid but it’s rude to say it) people feel bad?
For Metrograph, Sasha Frere-Jones interviews Jem Cohen about music, film and music films:
SFJ: You understand rhythm and silence in a way that someone who’s not musically inclined wouldn’t get.
JC: But filmmaking is rhythm. I’m ignorant about the actualities of notes and chords and such, but maybe what I share with some musicians is wanting to reinvent what those things could be, rather than just knowing what they are. You want to break things down, recombine, collage. Editing is making music with pictures.
At Wargamer, Timothy Linward discovers why the new documentary about Warhammer 40,000 stars Jon Heder (best known as Napoleon Dynamite):
“Jon was just perfect”, [doc director Daniel] Lowman says. “He has the charisma, but he also is so curious”. He really was a total newcomer to the world of grimdark, Taylor says: “he didn’t know a thing about any of this, at least at the outset, didn’t even know what the word grimdark meant”. Lowman adds: “his curiosity carries the audience down that pathway”. Heder proved to be game for the challenge. “He has a childlike wonder”, [Trademark Films creative director] Robertson says. He was also great at teasing answers out of the creatives being interviewed for the documentary. “Artists and creatives [can be] protective and unsure, to the outside world… he could come in and just break the walls down and make them feel immediately comfortable”.
For his newsletter, Kaleb Horton pays tribute to X as the great American rock band as they prepare to retire:
First time I saw them, somewhere in Hollywood, they seemed like the biggest rock stars who ever existed. There they were, John and Exene, locking in on those harmonies that felt like blood-soaked incantations and also specifically the opposite of whatever Fleetwood Mac was. D.J. murdering the drums. Billy playing his Gretsch with that silver jacket and his legs spread impossibly wide, unbreakably smiling and bugging his eyes out at random women, acting like Eddie Cochran if he was from Mars. The visceral, bone-deep reaction, whatever that thing is you feel in your gut, they created was unbelievable. The audience was moving as one life form. People were losing their minds to this band I listened to in the dark in another town. Something about this, something in here, is what I do now.
Dania Ceragoli reports at La Voce di New York about Robert DeNiro’s new soundstage facility that brings new meaning to “vertical integration”:
With a film industry valued at $82 billion, New York City has long struggled with a lack of suitable facilities, often relying on repurposed warehouses. Competing with the state-of-the-art studios in Los Angeles and London, this new structure marks a significant step forward. With a $1 billion investment and over 765,000 square feet of space, the property not only boasts 11 cutting-edge soundstages but also introduces a revolutionary concept: the stages are stacked vertically across two levels, connected by elevators large enough to transport elephants. This innovative design allows trucks to unload equipment directly onto each floor, a crucial advantage in a city where space is always at a premium.
And in the Guardian, Hamilton Nolan looks at why you should and should not write a book:
You should write a book because you have something to say. You should write a book because – long after all of your essays and blogposts and op-eds have been lost to time – that ragged, dusty hardcover book will still be sitting on the shelf of a library somewhere. And someone that you have never met, in a place that you have never been, can pick it up and look at it. And when you’re dead and buried and forgotten, that book, that tangible thing, will be read by a person, and the thing that you wanted to say will live on. That is enough.
About the writer
C. D. Ploughman
The weary Ploughman is a writer and filmmaker, focusing these days on documentary and educational projects. He obsesses over movies with his very patient wife and children.
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The life and career of a man who found the extraordinary in the ordinary.
The Friday Article Roundup
An assembly line of this week's pop culture writing from around the Internet.
Lunch Links
State of the art special effects, little attention paid to plot - what's changed over the past 120 years?
And It is a material presenter of this week's pop culture writing from around the Internet.
The Friday Article Roundup
A catty roundup of great pop culture writing from the past week.
Department of
Conversation
What Did We Watch?
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent – Was I laughing because this is genuinely funny, or just because it’s so utterly ridiculous? No matter, I was laughing. Everything clicks until, as the film itself foresaw, the comedy turns into an action film, and while the action is reasonably well done, it’s not what we’re interested in. (In line with just about every other “action comedy” of our era, alas.) Cage, playing a funhouse mirror version of himself (Nick Cage, not Nic Cage aka Nicolas Coppola), is having a lot of fun, though I think it’s fair to say this is not commentary about Cage as a person. But Pedro Pascal (well on his way to being almost as ubiquitous as Cage) nearly steals the movie, and Tiffany Haddish would have stolen some of it too if her character were treated better. Fun fact: despite feeling like I have seen a fair number of Cage movies, I have only seen 10 percent of them.
Kojak, “Mojo” – The title is street slang for morphine. Someone steals a supply of unprocessed drug, not to tun into heroin but to sell back to the pharmaceutical firm. Only the thief and the big pharma boss are cooking up something else. Interesting ideas here, but outside of Kojak pretending to be a chemist to test the stolen drug to make sure it’s the real thing, a pretty bland episode.
10 percent of Nic Cage movies is still like 500 movies.
The Traitors – aha, the one reality TV game show thing that I will actually tolerate returns! The nominated traitors have a very different vibe to last year’s picks – one of them is being very pushy and brash which feels like a bad strategy but hasn’t backfired yet. Another one is grappling with an early mistake that might lead to early dismissal. And there was an early twist that I feel will return somehow later in the game. Still compelling stuff, and they seem to be wisely making enough changes each year to keep things fresh.
The Grey (2011) – Dudes rock. I pretty much guessed how it was going to go from the first flashback, but the journey there was thrilling with great character work by the actors. The central group doesn’t get a ton of depth from the writing, but the actors are all great in their parts. Liam Neeson’s accent is all over the place, and I think some of that might be deliberate. But overall this was a solid “survive the wilderness” movie that didn’t chicken out on its ending, despite not showing us the actual resolution. We all know what happens after the cut to black.
I’ve been meaning to check this out forever, I know the ending but Neeson in survival mode is can’t-miss and tis the season for frozen vibes.
Neeson gets a short monologue about being scared that’s truly phenomenal and cuts against so many tropes of the survival film. If the goal is survival, you don’t need to worry about macho posturing.
Trap — impressively committed to the vantage point of a not-that-great-seat at a concert. The discipline of sticking to Josh Hartnett’s point of view mostly highlights how janky this show looks, a real half-good/half-crap vibe the movie runs with throughout, and unfortunately really jams most of the crap at the end. Hartnett acquires superpowers when the fun is putting the guy in tough spots and watching him figure his way out (and then doing the same with Saleka Night, dumping her is a big whiff). Very frustrating! Especially when Hartnett is so great throughout, that creepy smile and guileless conniving is countered by honest love for his daughter (best shown at the big song setpiece, when the stage is finally visible up close but from Hartnett’s side perspective) and this points to some really uncomfortable Dad stuff that Shyamalan engages with but backs away from. Get creepy with it, M. Night! But despite the disappointment this is grimly relatable in its depiction of a 40s dude undone by social media.
There’s a lot to like about latter-day Dad Shyamalan, the dynamic between Hartnett and his daughter is great and the movie suffers when it drifts away from that. But the worst thing about him operating outside the studio system is the “first draft” quality to everything. He’s good enough off the top of the dome that it makes you frustrated that a little more time wasn’t spent making it better.
I think you’re on to something — all the stuff with Pill feels like an idea that could’ve have worked if the first two-thirds of the movie had been significantly rewritten. Except that part is the good part, so the Pill angle should’ve been junked. In either case, it really does feel like a better movie is within reach with a little more work and some tough love.
The Blood Oranges – Apparently Tubi assumes I have a thing for oranges after The Burnt Orange Heresy, or maybe my platforms are talking to each other. Because this is another lost sex drama featuring Sheryl Lee – fans of my comments will remember a few months ago I discovered a drama on Netflix featuring Lee called Bliss – and while that one started out strange and became sweet and poignant, this one just becomes stranger. Lee and Charles Dance play a couple that lounges on a remote beach and is waaay into swinging. When another couple and their children arrives via bus crash, Lee and Dance pounce. After a lot of back-and-forth but not that kind of back-and-forth the wife is miserable enough to go through with it while the husband seems more focused on his nude photography of the non-English speaking residents. This movie acts as portentous about relationships as Bliss, but there’s a barely-diagnosed layer of ickiness that makes the endless voiceover ruminations start to sound sex-positive in the vein of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” – yeah, at face value things are okay, but there’s a not-quite-right feeling that isn’t really being addressed. Also knowing the kids are off on their own for large portions of time is concerning. Finally after a breakthrough and a special connection, the movie ends with the weirdest possible choice, as they discover
(SPOILER)(SPOILER)(SPOILER) (SPOILER)(SPOILER)(SPOILER)(SPOILER)(SPOILER)the husband has died from an auto-erotic asphyxiation accident (SPOILER)(SPOILER)(SPOILER)(SPOILER) (SPOILER)(SPOILER)(SPOILER)(SPOILER)
which Dance refuses to kink-shame, but it kinda ends the vacation on a bummer note. And what did we learn? Damned if I know. Something about proper knot-tying, maybe. I need to take some different avenues if I’m going to be a Tubi spelunker.
Hahahaha, Tubi will also create categories in the same way Netflix did (does?) based on viewing habits, I have Noir and Action and Urban Serial Killers right now. Mrs. Miller was annoyed about the latter until I pointed out it was half British TV, which is where a lot of her categories come from.
You have somehow sold me on this through the sheer force of its uneasy weirdness, so I now look forward to blinking at the ending and going, “Huh. Well, I guess that was … about two hours?”
I didn’t even mention how Sheryl Lee calls everyone “Baby” and says it like eighty times as if this were a *Double Indemnity* remake. Lots to be fascinated by!
Flow
First time. A pretty excellent natural fantasy, or rather a fable of sorts, one where the animals don’t talk and exhibit no human features but emote and communicate all the same. The animation here is gorgeous and smartly deployed, giving the animals a lot of charm and naturality while painting a sad, mysterious and dangerous post-human world in the middle of a biblical flood. Seeing the black cat who is the main POV grow and change in a hostile world is a melancholy joy, and all the other animals in this journey (a capybara, a secretarybird, a labrador dog and a lemur) exhibit interesting paralel emotional journeys, all without saying a world. Great bookend shots too, encapsulating a message about empathy and community, and perhaps the developing of a deeper consciousness.
Also, get on this Vomas. This is an all-timer of a cat.
Not even out here until March apparently! Don’t they know I need immediate access to all cat movies!?
Can’t wait to see this though it will naturally be harrowing for me as a black cat owner.
Solaris (1972) – Known to be a diss track aimed at Kubrick’s 2001 which Tarkovsky thought to be “cold and sterile” Solaris deals more directly with human emotions while maintaining the theme of contact with an alien intelligence. I don’t know if this put the grime in SF futurism but the trashed and rundown Solaris research station feels like a turning away from the shiny, clean and sterile 2001 but also most other Hollywood SF from the previous forty years and influencing everything after from Star Wars’ lived in and used worlds, to Alien and Bladerunner. There also isn’t a lot of technobabble. The dialog is much more philosophical and grounded in feeling something.
I think 2001 has a lot of emotion about transcending beyond our petty human differences. But the emotion in Solaris seems much more personal. The presence of Hari raises all the same philosophical questions about identity and consciousness as the cyborgs in Blade Runner. She’s an indestructible machine with superhuman strength. She’s an alien reproduction but she could also be seen as an AI reproduction. She’s brought about by Kelvin’s consciousness like a recalled dream from his memories. He’s having to confront all the baggage but also feels the love between them they once had. That an artificial duplication can raise the same emotions at such a deep level as love is interesting and something that may be seen in the future with AI. She’s everything his wife was but also isn’t. Do we love our soul mates as humans or simply the idea of them?
It’s pretty funny Soderberg remade this into a 90-minute movie and also did a fan edit of *2001* to make it an hour shorter, like he’s coming into the room and saying both of you talk too much.”
Babylon 5, Season One, Episode Fourteen, “Signs and Portents”
As the name indicates, this is a lot of mystery; people who know far more than they’re willing to let on and visions of the future. I love the weird agent guy who keeps asking people “What do you want?”, for obvious reasons. I think the story does pretty well at having the mystery act as an undercurrent but having a satisfying story on top – letting us know things are going to get really fun soon. It helps that it’s building on things we’ve already done; my favourite mystery so far is Sinclair’s mysterious past (which obviously means I’m annoyed he’ll disappear in season two).
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Both G’kar and Londo are driven by it in very different ways; G’kar, hoping for revenge on the Centauri before returning to his old ways, Londo hoping for the return of glory to his people rather than a sad, musty empire. There’s a sense of the two squabbling over dust while humanity rises next to them. I must admit, I get caught up in their emotion; there is something attractive about the idea of glory days being returned to.
Sugar Bowl
I knew Notre Dame was very good, and Georgia was missing their starting QB, but this was still a little surprising. Mostly just in that Notre Dame turned the entire game in less than a minute’s time total before and after halftime.
So in round one, the bottom four seeds all lost. In round two, the top four seeds all lost. Weird year– or, maybe, weird playoff-format decisions led to this result.
Gator Bowl
Duke’s starting QB transferred out, which made this not much of a match. But I still suspect that Ole Miss was actually one of the three best teams in the SEC this year, particularly since their losses were all close and they didn’t have some abomination like Alabama’s 24-3 loss to Oklahoma.
Cunk on Life
I’m sure it’s too late for anyone to read this now, so I’ll just say this was pretty fun. You can tell they’re trying to stretch the format and concept a bit for new ideas, and sometimes that feels a little off. But there are still good laughs all around.
Tacoma FD, “Whodunnit”
A mystery based on someone blogging about the station antics– already a no-no, and even more so given what they’re saying– that also ties in a lot of good jokes about prestige TV, whether it’s how formulaic it is or that a high concept can be really, really stupid.
What Did We Listen To?
Found on Spotify: a klezmer playlist that needs some variation – how many version of Hava Nagila do I need? – cartoon themes, and Doctor Who soundtracks.
Yesterday I got the vinyl copy of Alisa Amador’s Multitudes that I ordered just before Christmas. And so the family had a dance party to the sweet sounds of Amador struggling to accept the struggles of being a touring musician who hasn’t really broken through. The vinyl mix felt very different from what I hear on Spotify. A lot more low end bass, and the music felt slightly faster than on Spotify. Not that I mind. I bought this record to continue to bond with my 4 year old. We’ve been dancing to “Love Hate Song” every night for over a month now. It brings me joy.
1001 Albums etc. – mixed bag this week. My highest ratings went to two albums that I’d heard before, Nick Drake’s “Bryter Layter” which would be my favourite of his albums if I didn’t kinda hate the song “Poor Boy” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” which is pretty undeniable. “Fun House” by the Stooges was also in this batch, an album I admire more than I love (my favourite Stooges songs are all on the other albums, even if this one feels like the most cohesive statement). Paul and George’s first post-Beatles solo albums too, both pretty good although George’s is overstuffed and Paul’s is stretched too thin. Only album I really didn’t like in this batch was Soft Machine’s “Third” which was far too jazz for my liking. But for the most part it was stuff I just thought was “fine”, hoping for some more unexpected gems soon.
Blank Check – been working my way slowly through the Inland Empire episode which has some interesting discussion. I don’t think they’re going to fully win me over to it but I can see why it’s an object of deeper fascination for certain Lynch fans.
Also I did an album of the year thread over on Bluesky in the unlikely event that it’s of any interest to anyone.
https://bsky.app/profile/vomvorton.co.uk/post/3lemmqhsq4224
Me listening to people talk about Inland Empire: What an endlessly fascinating hall of mirrors that offers an invaluable look at Lunch’s unfiltered artistic vision.
Me watching Inland Empire: There’s how much time left?
Haha yuuuuupppp.
I tapped out on Lynch since I have seen so little by him, but I hear next up is early Spielberg. Is there really anything left to say about Jaws or Raiders?
After rewatching all five Indy movies and playing through the new game over the last month, I’m very much in a “hook it to my veins!” mood on anything Indiana Jones and will take whatever they can offer. Jaws does feel like it’s been discussed to death but if they have a fun guest then I’m sure it won’t matter.
There probably isn’t, but I’m eager to hear stuff on Sugarland Express and 1941.
I saw the former last year so I am ready. (Duel is not streaming, alas) And the latter is a case of “they will watch it so I don’t have to.” I wonder if they will do the first episode of Columbo on Patreon since it is a very well directed episode of a TV show.
The back half of this will be interesting. Griffin already indicated on Letterboxd that HATES Hook. I wonder who their guest will be for The Color Purple, and if they will compare book, movie, musical, and movie of musical. And Schindler’s List…movies this serious, this overwhelming are not a good fit for the podcast. And this will be the last episode of the miniseries.
I don’t think Hook holds up very well but yeesh, half a star. There are not many movies I have THAT much contempt for, should make for a fun episode though.
Schindler’s List… hmm, yeah that is a tough one for any podcast to take on, let alone one that leans this comedic. I wonder if that’s why they’ve held off on completing this filmography for so long.
My wife loves loves loves Hook, but she also saw it when she was a kid. I don’t think I will tell her how much Griffin is not a fan. (She was for years following Dante Bosco on the internet. as much for Hook as for ATLA.)
I loved it as a kid but when I rewatched as an adult I couldn’t believe how LONG and messy it was. But it still has plenty of good in it – the score, production design, Smee and yeah, Rufio. I’d take it over Ready Player One or The Lost World any time.
For what it’s worth, Duel is available for rent through Prime Video and AppleTV. The latter is how I’m watching it for the current Movie Gifts.
Those should be pretty interesting! There are a few Early Spielbergs I haven’t seen yet (Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Always) and I’m also looking forward to having a good reason to revisit ET for the first time since childhood.
But mostly I just want to think about Indiana Jones for about nine hours.
Oh, yeah, I need to get around to that Dancer album.
I heard one single from Nilüfer Yanya and it was pretty good, but I didn’t think much about it and didn’t / forgot to mention it in my roundup.
I think I mentioned it in the thread but Nilüfer Yanya was a real grower for me. I went to an album launch show that included the album in the ticket price and since I went for the cheaper CD option I just stuck it in the car and ended up probably listening to it more than anything else all year as a result. It’s a bit moodier than I usually go for but I never got sick of hearing it.
Amused by how John Lennon and I have the same reaction to McCartney’s first solo album – “You made the Beatels beat the shit out of every song, and your album you slack off?” – except he understandably, is a lot more irritated about that.
Haha, it’s a fair reaction! But personally I’ve always loved scrappy home-recorded music so I found it quite endearing, hehe.
Oh yeah, I love that album’s scrappiness.
Soft Machine’s “Third” may be historically important, but it’s terribly weak tea compared to all other prog. There, I said it. I can’t stand this record. The degree that they aimlessly jam on their few ideas just flattens me. Every other prog band with side-long stuff made it much more dense, with proper sections, covering far more ground in the same amount of time. I will compliment the very ahead-of-its-time keyboard work, especially the long ambient intro on the last song. The full band sections are garbage. Get this man some King Crimson, stat!
I’ve enjoyed some of Robert Wyatt’s later solo stuff in the past so I was curious about Soft Machine but yeah, aimless is right. I flat out hated the first two tracks, the one that Wyatt wrote at least has something about it and the final track is a little more interesting but even the better stuff has a weak, flat sound to it in an era when even the albums I’m not that into usually at least have some rich production to fall back on.
SPRINTS, “Heavy” — heard on the radio driving home on New Year’s Day and a good start to an anxious year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1R7hcVwlQE
Really, just anything I needed to listen to again to be able to write this:
https://www.mediamagpies.com/2024-in-music-part-no-2-kasem-style/
And, naturally, as much as I could of the local radio listener poll countdown:
https://www.cpr.org/2025/01/01/the-top-102-3-songs-of-2024/
FYI, definitely check out that X piece, good stuff.
Hey Friends, What’s Up?
Definitely at the point in the long holiday break where I’m ready for routine again. My hours are all messed up sleeping, and any single request from a client feels like a boulder to roll up a hill. Supposed to get an inch of ice under a foot of snow this weekend, so I’ll spend most of my remaining break dealing with that. Having friends over for New Year’s tonight (they were out of town during the week), moved it up to avoid the weather, which means I need to get back to cleaning and cooking and running errands and rolling that boulder.
Have you kidnapped Ryan Seacrest Rupert Pupkin-style so he can host your personal New Year’s Eve?
I recorded his ball-drop special so we can replay it, an hour early in case we get tired, if that counts.
The “Ball-Drop Special” is my wrestling finishing move.
*frantically searching for Andrew Dice Clay gifs*
Managed to immediately catch ANOTHER cold as soon as I got back home after Christmas, nothing too bad but enough to cancel plans with friends and kinda mess up my sleep, also I was back at work from the 30th December so don’t feel like I entered the new year with much health / energy / optimism. On the other hand, not a terrible time to be trapped indoors because it’s cold and there isn’t much going on anyway – hopefully a weekend of rest will sort me out, because I want to get out to see Nosferatu next week.
I have a new therapist, and she’s really into being proactive about my struggles and trying to find solutions. Frankly, it’s really refreshing. I’ve had a therapist for about 8 years now, and this is the first time it’s not about changing my outlook, but really taking concrete steps to make my interactions better.
That sounds positive!
Thanks to one thing and another – a mix, I think of a somewhat murky options page on ADP and my wife running on autopilot – our attempt to shift us from my employer’s health coverage to hers left me without any. We are both begging our HR teams to do something to help. Hers is not optimistic, mine was non-commital. At absolute worst, I can sign up for something in the healthcare marketplace but I would not have coverage till February 1, and would have to pay a lot more for a lot less. I am hopeful that because the drop dead deadline is not till Jan 15 that maybe I can get back on my old plan. It’s really frustrating that we can’t just sign up at any time.
Meanwhile, after having to cancel our NYE get together two years running because of COVID – two years ago, we were getting over it, last year we were exposed the day before but didn’t catch it – we finally managed the party for the first time in five years. Small crowd, but a good one. We saw one friend we hadn’t seen in those five years and heard all about his daughters the aspiring artist and the aspiring engineer. Also attended a family Hanukkah party but since we didn’t want to catch anything, we spend the whole time masked and didn’t eat anything. (And to be clear, it was for once not just “don’t want COVID.” If either of us had even a cold, we would have cancelled since we are more careful about such things.)
Ah man that sucks about your health care, I hope they get you on quick. Health care is a stupid nightmare.
Our own Grant/wallflower is in the area this week, so we got to meet up (and should get to do it again over the weekend). Now that’s kicking the new year off right.
Well, I finally thought I was getting better after two weeks of being sick, and these last two days, instead… I haven’t been sick, but I’ve just been absurdly fatigued. Like “sleeping 12 hours and still tired” fatigued. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Might have to check with my doctor again.
We went out to one of our favorite holiday traditions on Monday, the Sippin’ Santa popup. Then on Tuesday we were hoping to meet some friends, but the schedule didn’t work out. And most of our favorite breweries were closing early. So we decided to check out the place that specializes in English-style cask ales, and at 5 PM MST it turns out they were having an “English New Year” celebration. A lot of the regulars brought hors d’oeuvres and snacks. I ate a lot of pickled herring (properly prepared with hardtack, pickled onions, and cornichons, of course). The pickled herring did not agree with my wife. Also cheese and salami. Then we went to the brewery near us to close out the evening, see our friends who work there.
And on the way home I bought us a bottle of champagne to ring in the new year, but my wife fell asleep before the countdown. So I ended up staying up drinking the entire thing by myself and listening to the War on Drugs’ “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” about thirty times in a row. The loneliness has been getting to me lately. And I’m not sure anything really sums up where my relationship with my family is now better than “But you never recognized me, babe, and I don’t live here anymore.” It’s been a hard year.
I’m getting better, even if that process is sometimes painful, and the world is getting worse. Like it has every year this century, more or less. One of the few things I’ve had going for me in the last year is to finally be in a place to, per Maslow, work on esteem and self-actualization, which I’m not sure has ever been in the case in my life before.
My wife has to get her wisdom teeth out later this month so I’m gonna be taking care of her through that. Hopefully that relieves some of the problems she’s had. I’ve been through a lot of those, though, and they’re never fun.
I would like to get back to my regular habits with poker and working out, but between so much other shit to juggle and being so unwell so often lately, it’s been very difficult to.
Bonus … article? This is extremely long but worth it, an essay/fiction/screenplay/delusion by James N. Kienitz Wilkins about unofficially adapting Percival Everett’s novel Telephone into a movie:
https://canopycanopycanopy.com/contents/can-u-digg-it