The Friday Article Roundup
Positivity and cynicism battle it out in today's roundup of interesting pop culture writing from around the web.
Will optimism win the day at the FAR? Let’s measure:
Thanks to contributions by Dave Shutton and Cori Domschot to make our cup overfloweth. Send articles throughout the next week to ploughmanplods [at] gmail, post articles from the past week below for discussion, and Have a Happy Friday!
For Reverse Shot, Dan Schindel looks at the growth in video essays over the past 25 years and what they can reveal:
Video essays can also dissect the relationship that media builds between people and familiar spaces … One of the archetypal examples of how formal playfulness can translate to online virality, LJ Frezza’s Nothing (2014) is a supercut of shots from Seinfeld, famously “about nothing,” which contain no human beings. In the absence of the actors whose scheming and collisions animate the sitcom, the essay draws out the sets that usually recede from the viewer’s attention, encouraging them to notice the subliminal details of production design that flesh out this world. It takes a lot of effort to make a long-running series about nothing.
At Letterboxd, Robert Daniels interviews RaMell Ross about developing his voice and the visual style of Nickel Boys:
RD: That image making, of course, creates opportunities to flip the perceived meaning of images, too. I’m thinking about the lunchroom scene where we begin half of it from Elwood’s perspective, and then you replay the scene from Turner’s perspective. That moment of inversion isn’t in the book. Why that instance to turn the audience on their head, so to speak?
RR: There are a couple of reasons. We know that shooting a film from one point of view comes with some baggage. Not being able to see the character does affect the way you experience a narrative. That’s good—we need to keep exploring other modes of connecting with narrative and characters. But at the same time, we didn’t want to deprive the audience of seeing him. It’s also such a beautiful idea. When Joslyn [Barnes] and I were talking through what point of view would mean, to have only Turner see him, well, being able to see someone is almost a philosophical and spiritual feat. But in that moment in time in the narrative, you’re almost a little like: ‘I know what the film’s gonna be.’
At Public Books, Austin McCoy delves into the history of rap battles and concludes the only real winners are labels and suits often at the expense of art and audiences:
Yet, amid the flood of discourse about the meaning of Drake and Lamar’s beef, precious few commentators have interrogated the rap beef as a form of capitalist accumulation, one that enriches artists—and, most of all, the corporate suits that run their record labels—even as it drags their reputations through the mud. Artists engage in cutthroat competition, in other words, not only to garner support from fans or square up over long-festering rivalries, but also to increase market share.
Liz Pelly previews her upcoming book about Spotify in Harper’s with a look at how the company created “Perfect Fit Content,” commissioned Muzak designed to replace royalty-requiring songs:
Eventually, it became clear internally that many of the playlist editors—whom Spotify had touted in the press as music lovers with encyclopedic knowledge—were uninterested in participating in the scheme. The company started to bring on editors who seemed less bothered by the PFC model. These new editors looked after mood and activity playlists, and worked on playlists and programs that other editors didn’t want to take part in anymore. (Spotify denies that staffers were encouraged to add PFC to playlists, and that playlist editors were discontented with the program.) By 2023, several hundred playlists were being monitored by the team responsible for PFC. Over 150 of these, including “Ambient Relaxation,” “Deep Focus,” “100% Lounge,” “Bossa Nova Dinner,” “Cocktail Jazz,” “Deep Sleep,” “Morning Stretch,” and “Detox,” were nearly entirely made up of PFC.
The Guardian‘s Huw Green reviews a new book by Sumit Paul that studies optimism without getting weird about it:
The risk of a book called The Bright Side is that it evokes the farcical good cheer of Eric Idle’s character at the close of The Life of Brian, leading a trivial little sing song among a group of people who have been crucified. This is always a problem when seeking to promote optimism in the face of significant geopolitical and ethical challenges. It can seem perverse, amid ongoing suffering and uncertainty, to maintain that things will go well. Paul-Choudhury is a science journalist and a man who has borne the premature loss of his wife to ovarian cancer. He is serious about optimism, but he is never glib or Pollyannaish. His book is as much a careful examination of the misuses of optimism as its uses. Here ideas are picked up, explored, and critiqued. Different perspectives are presented, and what unfolds is a convincing case that, while we might frequently feel we have grounds for pessimism, a particular form of optimism is the only morally serious choice.
And last but not least, as is his annual tradition Indiewire critic David Ehrlich has made a video countdown of his 25 favorite films of the year and ties it to a fundraiser suggested by a director of one of those films. Click here to go to his GoFundMe page where you can see his video and donate to the Red Crescent Society.
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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State of the art special effects, little attention paid to plot - what's changed over the past 120 years?
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The Friday Article Roundup
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Babylon 5, Season One, Episode Fifteen, “TKO”
A thoroughly dull episode, definitely the worst so far. On the one hand, an old friend of Garibaldi’s we’ve never met shows up and fights in a martial arts tournament. On the other, Ivanova’s rabbi comes to visit to help her mourn her father. Nobody really makes an actual choice all episode; the closest (and the most moving) is Ivanova deciding to accept Sinclair’s help and opening up to him a little.
Ivanova is interesting because out of the entire cast, she’s the one where the fun appears to be watching her change. She’s the one most visibly wearing a mask under a deeper surface, which is partly because Claudia Christian is one of the best actors on the show and deliberately hinting at suppressed emotion and partly because the show actively prods at her.
I was thinking about how this show has a very interesting mixture of tones – mysticism, blue collar humour, and soap opera; this manages to hit both of the latter, between the boxing and the grief.
Nosferatu (2024)
A good time at the movies. Robert Eggers amps up the psychosexual element of the story, turning Orlok explicitly into a pedophile abuser. I enjoy how he leans in on making vampires horrific; this may be my favourite vampire design, with Orlok looking genuinely ancient (I also appreciate the Vlad-The-Impaler moustache).
Live music — Hidden Fountain had good bleepy bloopy Tangerine Dreamy sounds and Dyr Faser played moody midgaze, they’re the kind of band that needs more layers and a powerful sound system to really envelop the listener instead of the PA at a local brewery. But we were there for Thalia Zedek and her band, playing new stuff off her forthcoming album and bringing the dark but obstinate rock. Really appreciated her longtime bassist Winston Braman in particular, he’s the unobtrusive bedrock of the songs, Boston’s version of Duck Dunn even when his strap broke and he had to play the last two songs squatting with the bass on his knee. Persistence in the face of setbacks — “You’re so certain / that it’s curtains / but I’m not so sure,” Zedek sang in the great opener, that’s the energy to take into 2025 from the first show of the year.
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One — “I’m used up,” groaned by a barely-having-sex Kevin Costner, is not the energy to take into 2025! And he apparently has three more of these three-hour glurges anyway. This Western to end all Westerns seems to take cues from the past, Costner is playing Gary Cooper (and not being bad at it if not having the verve of his non-heroic work) and Charles Halford is on some Lee Marvin/Eli Wallach shit, a great voice in a mean black hat. But this movie is in fact a TV show, a bad one — there are so many bits and pieces thrown together with zero sense of pacing or structure, it’s just a bunch of shit that happens and the news that Costner intends the whole thing to be a miniseries at its end is not a surprise. This feels like those Futurama “movies” that were clearly written in 22-minute episode chunks to be broadcast on Comedy Central but those at least had complete stories. This ends with an increasingly hilarious montage of 5? 10? minutes that shows clip after clip of what’s coming in Chapter Two, a “Scenes From The Next Episode Of Horizon” conceit dragged out to absurd lengths. Costner thinks he’s dreaming big and he’s put his money where his mouth is but Waterworld was better-constructed than this limited vision.
That montage at the end goes on for sooooo long, it becomes funny. Costner still has the goods in the micro – the tension between his taciturn cowboy and a gunslinger with bad intentions is exquisite – but he has no sense of proportion, like if he rewatched his 90s oeuvre and was like, what about those parts that drift around aimlessly? Could that be several hours longer?
Mrs. Miller had walked in for the last hour or so and was absolutely savaging the movie and that montage in particular. It is bonkers! After a while I thought maybe it was a DVD-only ending added after Chapter 2 was nixed from theatrical distribution — maybe Costner is compromising and throwing a ton of clips in at the end of Chapter 1 so people see what happens next? But no, this was the plan! There’s a shot of Glynn Turman, who has not appeared at all in Chapter 1, giving Costner a very heavy side-eye that just murdered us, you are speaking for everyone here Mr. Turman.
And yeah, the proportions are fucking terrible here. There are scenes of walking around doing bullshit combined with incomprehensible stuff — I had no idea until reading Wikipedia that the wagon train daughters (including Isabelle Fuhrman!) were related to the mother/daughter survivors, and Costner’s sex worker pal books it out of camp because … why? That scene with an abusive guy beforehand feels like it had a previous scene where we learn things like “who he is” and “what is his deal” cut, so his hold on her is baffling.
Can confirm, the ridiculous “Next Time On” montage was in the theater, where I saw this movie, the day it was announced there would be no release for Part 2. Probably the strangest thing I saw in the theater this year? The Substance was downright pedestrian in comparison.
Woooo live music on brewery speakers!!
Most of Out of Sight on a flight. Should be able to pick up from where I left off on the flight back.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – Overall thoughts are not that different from the first entry, still too many ponderous interruptions by whatever Gandalf is doing when he sods off and leaves the dwarves to get captured. There’s still too many indiscernible, indestructible dwarves, crowding into shots and falling off of things with no consequences (also giving up on their quest of a lifetime within thirty seconds of not being able to unlock a door). This movie fares a little better for having more prolonged setpieces. The escape in the barrels has been beefed up to resemble an archery fight at a waterpark. This is what the movie should strive for more often, silly adventure, rather than people in gray structures making serious statements.
Years ago I remember reading a blog post by Greg Ferrara that I can only find references to now where he excoriated the fussed-over digital look of Scorsese’s then-new Hugo saying “Thomas Kinkade has won and we, all of us, have lost.” I think about that line whenever I see a perfect sunset sky inserted into a movie, and I think about it a lot, including multiple times through these films. Anything in one’s imagination is possible to create now and we keep getting the same orange and pink colored sky.
Digital: The Desolation of Thomas Kinkade. That’s a cinematic horror we definitely need a fellowship to defeat.
Been in the office for the past few days so let’s try to summarize:
Saturday – CODA (2021)
The more distance I get from it, the less I like it. It would have been a mediocre Sundance movie in any universe, but now it sits as a Best Picture winner in a world where I prefer the other 5 nominees over it. Blah.
Sunday – The Velvet Underground (2021)
A film that places a monumental band in its greater context. The use of art, film and music to underline just what the New York scene was seeing at the time is so essential to our understanding of the band. Todd Haynes plays with the frame in ways that would make Wes Anderson jealous. Formally daring and conceptually brilliant.
Wednesday – Nickel Boys (2024)
In awe of the style here. RaMell Ross takes what could easily be a gimmick and manages to use the conceit to underline his themes and characters. Elwood’s point of view in the early film is often looking up or on its side. When we see things from his perspective, we don’t see the world the way we normally do. It’s a brilliant choice that emphasizes his unique way of seeing the world. By giving a first person point of view, the film also puts emphasis on skin color. The camera looks down and sees a black arm. The color difference between Elwood and Turner is pronounced, something that stands out in the first scene where they meet. Really great.
Thursday – The Last Showgirl (2024)
Truly caught me off guard with how good this is. How great this is. I’m a sucker for small, well-observed dramas, and this is that in spades. Everyone here gives a great performance, from Pamela Anderson to Kiernan Shipka to Jamie Lee Curtis to Dave Bautista. The film refuses to give anyone an easy out, and it’s clear over the course of the film that Shipka’s character will survive in the same way Anderson’s character has all this time. She’s sexy, and she’s talented enough to get by, but not talented enough to do much more than that. The way the film delivered these wonderful little character moments was brilliant. I doubt anyone else is going to be in love with this film the way I am, but damn did it work for me.
“Elwood’s point of view in the early film is often looking up or on its side. When we see things from his perspective, we don’t see the world the way we normally do. It’s a brilliant choice that emphasizes his unique way of seeing the world. ”
Great observation, I think I subconsciously picked up on this but seeing it written out brings it home — and it carries into that last shot, which is so beautiful and rich with meaning and identity.
I know 2021 was still a weird year where movies were dealing with covid but CODA‘s win is still unconscionable. Like if you showed it to someone with no context and told them it was a Hallmark Channel original I imagine they’d be like “wow, the language is cruder than I expected but that’s pretty good!” Then tell them no, it was actually crowned the highest achievement in American cinema for that year and they’d panic, assuming civilization, or at least the movie-making part of it, had collapsed completely. Worst win since Crash and it only barely ekes by that one for being successfully charming at times rather than unsuccessfully thoughtful.
Luckily the movies didn’t collapse and now we have Nickel Boys.
With the caveat that I haven’t seen Green Book, I assume that CODA is better than Green Book. Let’s not let the Academy get away with some really rancid choices.
I have not seen CODA or Green Book but I assume Green Book is superior if only because it gave us the Viggo housing a pizza gif:
https://i.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExcHRvaGt3bnhqNWUyYjYzbWE2Mnh6MTdseno4dDZuYTN1NzdyanY1eCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/YpF2JWfgA9IQWSBEns/giphy.gif
I guess I haven’t seen Green Book either, so it’s possible that’s worse. The new voting format has really resulted in some high highs and low lows for BP winners.
Nosferatu – first cinema trip of the year, let’s go. I’ve been a little mixed on Eggers so far, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from this. I had fears that it would be relentlessly dour and self-serious but I think it does a good job of blending some nice pitch-black humour and a few performances that flirt with just enough camp to make it fun without removing any of the building dread. I like that the three Nosferatu movies all go hard on the pestilence and decay that surrounds Orlok, it sets them aside from the many Dracula movies which only tend to have that as a minor theme (usually revolving around Renfield) if at all. Really good performances across the board, and also obviously I was delighted that this has THREE cats, one of whom is a strong supporting character. Still not entirely sure Eggers is ever going to be one of My Guys but I thought he did a pretty great job here.
“Wicked: part one of two”
It’s a CGI mess and the songs kinda suck, but dammit it’s a decently good time. The main actors do all the heavy lifting and do it well. I’m guessing John Chu is a particularly good actors director cos that’s where this movie shines.
Agreed, he’s really good at finding little bits of humanity among all the business (strong recommend for In the Heights, especially if the Wicked-ness of it all was your biggest problem with the film, though I seem to have a higher Lin Manuel-Miranda tolerance than the average around some of these parts).
And good to see you!
We actually had plans with friends, so I didn’t get to watch much of the football game. Just enough to see it come down to the wire at the end, at least.
Abbott Elementary, “Volunteers”
Haha, yes, it’s the It’s Always Sunny crossover! That actually ended up being a lot of fun, as the Sunny characters doing their thing fits surprisingly well into the Abbott world, even reining in the depravity to network-appropriate levels. (This may be aided by Dennis doing his best to not appear on camera the whole time.)
My one disappointment is that we didn’t get Charlie and Mr. Johnson discussing the janitorial arts. The Charlie story we did get was pretty great, though.
Going Dutch, “Pilot”
I thought I heard this was pretty good, and I’m not sure if I heard right, but we decided to check it out anyway. Anyway, it stars Denis Leary as a hard-ass colonel whose profane rant about the higher-ups gets him buried– in this case reassigned to a post commanding a base in the Netherlands, “the least important army base in the world,” with no real strategic value and that basically seems to be the Army’s Club Med. Alongside is Danny Pudi, his XO, and the temporary commander of the base, Taylor Misiak… who is also the colonel’s daughter. Anyway, the pilot showed some potential– of course, my first thought for a point of comparison is Enlisted, though these troops seem to have it a lot nicer, and Denis Leary and Geoff Stults are rather different. Still, there’s some potential, as well as some stuff that’s a little too generic or easy this early on. But enough potential that something could grow here.
American Dad!, “Killer Mimosa”
Hayley interns at Morning Mimosa, while the rest of the family has food poisoning from their squid ink paella. Hayley’s there for her community college journalism class, and she wants to get Suze and Trish to do real journalism instead of drunken fluff and dangerous mania. This leads her to investigate the death of some nationally beloved animal guy’s (I guess like Steve Irwin without the hunting, and also with training monkeys to write) first wife. That ends up being a pretty funny story. The rest of the family are… not even a B-plot, really, more like a C-plot. With a few good gags (they’ve left the TV on Morning Mimosa while they convalesce, and after the episode takes a turn into the wife-death grilling, Stan observes “sounds like Hayley”), and a resolution that shows they learned absolutely nothing from the experience.
The Shield, “Inferno,” “Breakpoint,” “Dominoes Falling,” “Playing Tight”
And so we say farewell to a few of the characters I won’t miss… and get an introduction to one of the greatest. Also, of course, what can I say about the season 2 finale and the final shot that hasn’t been said already?
Going Dutch, “Pilot” – Aha! He’s doing a Shield riff I totally get it… oh, wait this is a real show.
What did we listen to?
The Big Black and the Blue, First Aid Kit
Some good folk-pop with a touch of country. The melodies feel a touch over-varnished at times, and for once I found it a bit too unsophisticated in technique. I enjoyed how deeply it explored emotional issues though.
Closing Time, Tom Waits
His first album, and apparently a case of him trying to be ‘normal’. I can hear it; there’s trying slightly too hard to be sentimental, mainly in the production and the slightly sickly sweet Phil Spector-like strings. But Waits’s gift for zigging instead of zagging in both the melody and the chord progression already shows up – he has a way of having a line go longer or shorter than you expect without quite breaking the music. His lyrics are mainly about feeling old and tired, and acknowledging how far we’ve come.
closing time
every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end
Sahra Halgan — got hipped to this vocalist from Somalialand who I believe is now based in Britain and her tight band, she has a hell of a voice over blues guitar and garage rhythm that can slow down into a more contemplative mode too. She has a couple albums on bandcamp and everything is good but “Sharaf,” the lead track off last year’s Hiddo Dhawr, is a stone fucking banger, jump on it folks:
https://sahrahalgan.bandcamp.com/album/hiddo-dhawr
Bugs Forever, Gumshoes
Ben’s review really sold me on this bright, apocalyptic bug-themed album, so it’s been keeping me company since Tuesday. The blend of despair and exuberance really works, the hooks are great, and the lyrics reward closer attention. For obvious reasons, I’ve recently been getting a lot out of science fictional works that take a long enough, and alien enough, perspective to find some sense of continuity and hope for a future even if humanity and the world as we know it are both fucked, and “Bugs Forever” offers that in spades.
I quite enjoyed this too. It took me a while to get over my bias against the vocals, which remind me of some of my least favourite Britpop-era stuff, but the music is bright and inventive and the songs are full of hooks, good stuff.
1001 Albums etc. – made it through most of the 1971 albums on the list this week, the highlight was a Beach Boys album I hadn’t heard for some reason despite being a long-time fan – Surf’s Up. Really fun, playful, weird stuff. I knew the title track as one of their best, but the whole album did it for me. Quite a bit of prog rock this week, “The Yes Album” was easily my favourite on that front but “Tarkus” by ELP is also kinda fun and has an amazing album cover. Found “Imagine” to be my favourite solo Beatle album so far, and was surprised to find that I don’t mind the title track despite years of bad covers etc. making me think I hated it. Serge Gaisbourg’s “Histoire de Melody Nelson” was great too, I’ve enjoyed some of his other stuff but this album was new to me and it has very cool vibes.
Less positive – the Bee Gees return to the list, for some reason the book includes two of their albums and they’re both from this awkward middle period after their early folky stuff (which I like) and the fun disco stuff (which I like). I did not care for “Trafalgar” very much at all. Also the Allman Brothers – they’ve got great chops but I just don’t care when all that skill just goes into endless blues jams.
TARKUS! Great album cover, or greatest album cover?
Not surprised you don’t dig the jammy Allmans, although jam-wise they are at the top of the heap. But in the chops department I will suggest digging into Duane Allman if you enjoy bluesy soul stuff, he did a ton of sideman work outside of his main band that’s collected on a couple of best-ofs and it’s great, in particular he was buddies with King Curtis and their version of “Games People Play” is an all-time favorite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWDg9xyQlIU
I should probably have said that the Allmans album on the list is “At Fillmore East” – I feel like I might be more tolerant of their skills on a more focused studio album over a really jammy live one, but I don’t really care enough to check. I think the only other song I know them for is “Jessica” which has bad UK TV connotations but is otherwise quite fun.
Enjoyed “Games People Play” – much more of a chilled-out vibe.
They can be jammy in the studio too! But not to the extent of live albums, for sure. And Jessica is great, a perfect highway song — what did you do to it on TV?
It’s the theme tune for the long-running, beloved-by-dads TV show “Top Gear”, in which some vaguely unpleasant men talk about cars.
Ah, there’s your problem — you need vaguely sinister French people talking about cars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfSumAxx1SA
I’m one of the biggest anti-jam folks around but “Whipping Post” is good.
From their actual songs, I like “Midnight Rider.”
The Yes Album phuckin rules. It’s also the one that non-proggers seem to flock to the most, and I think it’s because Rick Wakeman isn’t there yet. He’s awesome, and his work with Yes is brilliant right of the bat, but the lack of synths in Tony Kaye’s rig keeps this more garage-y than the albums to follow. Kaye’s forte was meaty Hammond organ playing and he more than delivers that on this album.
Yes exactly – I love the idea of prog, grand songs about ridiculous things with wild arrangements. But I’m also turned off when they go too far into musical nerdery, “how many time signatures can we fit in?” etc. so The Yes Album hits a sweet spot where it’s a lot of fun without disappearing up it’s own ass.
Nothing really new. I put on Air, Moon Safari one night this week because I needed some relaxing chill-out music.
Hey Friends, What’s Up?
Another damn snow day. I’m going back to bed.
Okay, a little less sleepy and grumpy now, and recognizing I shouldn’t complain about this weather when elsewhere peoples’ houses are burning. It’s been three days off due to blizzards (and a smaller snowstorm on top of it) coming on the heels of and over two-week holiday break. My kids will have been to school 1.5 days in the last 3.5 weeks. I’m not saying we’re in The Shining status, I’m just saying this is how a The Shining can happen.
Anyway, hoping any west coasters here are doing okay. Stay safe, everybody.
*gets shinned* Don’t worry, Ploughkids! I’m coming to rescue the lot of ye!
“But you’ve always been The Ploughman.”
Unfortunately on a day like this, not The Plowman.
Our schools opened yesterday (albeit two hours late), and I was awfully glad to be shed of the lot of ‘em. More snow coming this weekend, though.
Our district made a big thing about leaning more on delayed starts, then haven’t done one at all this year, despite calling it off on two different days where it wasn’t actively snowing when the school day started.
In ATL for a con. Got in ahead of the snow and ice. (We had to go south for winter weather?) Not leaving the hotel but why should we? We have food, we have friends.
Really pleased to have finally gotten out of the house yesterday (see: What Did You Watch?) as it had been almost two weeks since I’d had a proper face-to-face conversation and I was starting to lose my mind a bit. I’m still not 100% back to health but the mental health side was starting to become more pressing than the physical health so at least I’ve topped up my social batteries a little now.
Had a work meeting Monday to address some recent past and future goings-on. I’ve definitely been struggling the last couple of months and my performance on a couple of projects wasn’t up to par, and in the coming months I’m gonna have to pick up some more responsibilities and step up, since a couple of big projects are coming our way and a couple of important team members are going to be on parental leave. It was a good conversation, though. I haven’t been struggling long enough to be worried about my job, and my struggles were more seasonal– the holiday season, especially after my dad’s death in ’23 (about two weeks before Thanksgiving), really can exacerbate the loneliness. I haven’t been able to travel anywhere to visit family in five years, and after the experiences of 2023, for the most part I don’t really want to see most of them. So it’s holiday times and I’m alone and got no family I can count on when I need a family, and that’s tough.
But, new year, new possibilities, and I’m trying to go in with a fresh mindset and give it my best. The fact that they believe in me to be capable of what they’re going to be asking of me helps a lot. I’m capable of stepping up when called on. (I’m also very capable of doing nothing when not called on.) So, I’m trying to keep a fresh perspective and do my best.
This week I managed to get out of the house a bit more. I mentioned in yesterday’s writeup that we went and saw an old friend and his short film on Wednesday night. Last night we reconnected with those friends I’ve been trying to get in touch with and having trouble doing so. Went over to their house for dinner and to catch up and even play board games for a little bit. This weekend I’ll probably mostly be watching playoff football and trying to finish up my TV article, but hopefully also make it back to the gym tomorrow. I wanted to go earlier this week but I was too tired on Tuesday and needed to focus on getting to bed earlier, and then I had plans the rest of the week. But if I get in tomorrow, I should be in a good place to get back on a regular schedule there going forward.
My wife has the next week off but I don’t think we’re going anywhere. Hopefully she decides to take care of some important shit instead of just drinking and watching TV. She has to get her wisdom teeth removed on the 22nd so I’m probably gonna have to take care of her for a bit after that too… she’s expecting they’ll make her go back to work the next day, but I don’t think they can, should, or could do that. And I think she should fight it, but assuming the worst and taking the path of least resistance is more her MO.
So I’m gonna focus on what I can control. Once the dust settled I might go up to Canada to visit my sister and brother-in-law for a couple of weeks, whether or not my wife comes. I need to be around some family and she’s made the decision to be present as little as possible even when she’s here. So, short of some other ultimatum there, I need to start doing what’s best for myself instead of just constantly sucking it up for the dysfunctions of the people around me just because I’m strong enough to. Maybe I’m not actually that strong. And I’m not gonna be anyone’s sin-eater anymore anyway.
Movie Gift Unwrapping Today!
Watch for the Unwrapping article coming in a little bit and post about your gift!
And here it is! https://www.mediamagpies.com/holiday-2024-2025-our-first-magpies-edition/