2023, Week Two: Sharknado and Banshees, Slim Pickings Edition
Slim pickings this week, friends. Life happens Wow, we’re only in the second week and I already have to make excuses, huh? Well, I got sick with that type of fever where highly medicated sleep is the only respite, so I don’t have much in terms of intellectual or erudite pursuits. I did adopt two kittens, though. Their names are Pasta (as in David Pastrnak, the Bruins player) and Cher (named after the singer, not like the Clueless character)
Obligatory PSA: Given my line of work, my days are thus split: 30% reading, 30% watching, 30% listening to music, 9% writing, 1% publishing. This is not an L posting, but the non-romanticized version of how a yarn is spun. I like to think that all the information I absorbed will come in handy at some point.
The Wholesomeness of Sharknado
I am naturally drawn to all those movies that are too bad to be actually bad (side note: the worst movies are the ones with a 40-60% approval rating. When they dip below that, you’re about to watch a rare gem, friend).
After binging some 90s disaster movies (Dante’s Peak, Volcano!, Twister, Deep Blue Sea) I finally committed one evening to Sharknado. I kept hearing about it the first years I was living here and, honestly, it’s quite endearing and heartwarming the way 90s disaster movies are. Sure, the premises are implausible: how do the sharks survive once they become airborne?? Why are they so hell-bent on just chomping onto everything, wouldn’t they be overwhelmed by their surroundings? At least, in 2006’s Snakes on a Plane, the snakes were made to be aggressive thanks to a lot of artificial pheromones, and in Deep Blue Sea, the Mako sharks had been rendered supersmart during some Alzheimer’s related research. Whatever. There’s a sense of kinship and camaraderie between the characters— I love the barfly George and his stool, I don’t mind the videogame-heroine-like Nova, or Tara Read as the lovestruck ex wife. Their backstories feel very 1990s in that they’re an organic part of the movie’s worldbuilding, much like the interpersonal drama in Twister. Bonus points for the implausible, Nintendo 64-like CGI.
As an aside, I recommend you (re) watch Snakes on a Plane as well.
The Banshees of Inisherin
There’s an Irish pub in Somerville called Tavern at the End of the World that I really love, and the setting of Banshees does feel like some place at the end of the world as well, with its sharp cliffs looking over an endless ocean. Due to the setting, the conflict between the two friends also has a mythical, almost surrealist overtone. Rationally, it’s unclear why folk musician Colm wants to cut ties with his oafish friend Padraig, yet, if you’re somehow tuned into the myths surrounding the making of any art form (be it music, poetry, visual art, and the likes), you’ll see that they hardly follow a straight cause>consequence, or hoc propter hoc pattern. As a former graduate student in Germanic Philology, I thought that a lot of the imagery was, in a way, Eddic. Ms McCormick, one of the village elders, wears a black robe and carries a staff: critics saw her as a personification of Death, but she reminds me of the seeress of the Voluspá, the one who gives Odin a set of prophecies. The character of Colm himself does remind me of Odin: both wear a big hat and flowing robes as they morosely wander around, and Colm has an idea of making art that is more tied to a rapturous, all encompassing frenzy than to sheer discipline. I think this is just my association-prone mind playing games, though.
In addition, I realized I started this log because I feared I was becoming dull, so Colm’s dilemma really resonated with me.
2023, Week One: Wolfgang Petersen, Carrière Frères, Tchaikovsky, Leighton
Given my line of work, my days are thus split: 30% reading, 30% watching, 30% listening to music, 9% writing, 1% publishing. This is not an L posting, but the non-romanticized version of how a yarn is spun. I like to think that all the information I absorbed will come in handy at some point.
Watchlist: Fear and Shattered
During the 2020 pandemic, my now husband and I set out to watch as many movies that fell into the “cheesy and/or erotic” category as we could find. Despite our having watched perhaps 100s of them by now, the list goes as deep as you’d like to dig, and we keep unearthing gems that we had missed out on during our first pass.
This past week, it was Fear and Shattered
Fear became a cult film largely thanks to a love scene set to the song “Wild Horses” featuring a roller coaster ride where Marky Mark pleasures Reese Witherspoon as the cart is about to start its descent. What stuck with me was how he kept slipping into the thickest Boston accent while playing the part of this rough and sexy hypermasc man who is 23 but hangs around 15yos while living with his buddies in what now looks like the ultimate neckbeard’s nest. I also love the scenes where he punches himself in the chest to then blame it on the girl’s male bestie and the one where he engages in a battle of stares with her dad.
By contrast, Wolfgang Petersen’s Shattered sees Tom Berenger play an amnesiac man who had been disfigured in a car accident trying to retrace his steps. Bob Hoskins gives the performance of a lifetime as a pet-store owner who moonlights as a PI. What initially seemed just like a cheesy 90s erotic-lite thriller is actually a homage to Mankiewicz’s Somewhere in the Night.
Home: La Rose Aime Le Poivre
I had been wanting to try Carrière Frères’s home fragrances but I’ve always been wary of blind buys. The sister brand of Trudon, they specialize in single-note or otherwise fairly simple scents (pine+rose; rose+pepper; rose+mint). Their herb or spice-forward scents are particularly interesting, as they immediately make your surroundings smell like a a discreet, understated mediterranean garden or like the pantry of your favorite chef. 8/10 to rose+mint, 10/10 to Rose+Pepper and 11/10 to a fragrance that will officially release in February 2023. I hope I’ll be able to test out the rest of their lineup, as I am now researching how to turn one’s house into a scentscape
Music: The Nutcracker’s Grand Pas de Deux
Unless my spirits are extremely high, I refrain from listening to modern and contemporary music. Classical music and ballet scores do ground me, though. The Nutcracker with its pantomimes and its sweet-specific dances might sound childish and childlike—and let’s not forget the popular Fantasia segment feat. flowers, fairies, and trees. Yet, both acts end in sumptuous pas de deux in adagio. And while the one that closes act I conveys the feeling of the road ahead, the ending of act 2 with its descending scales is nothing short of a sensual, yet melancholic apotheosis that has very little bearing to the upbeat dances that precede it. In the original libretto, ALLEGEDLY, it was supposed to accompany the dance of a swarm of bees: I’d love to see this version portrayed onstage, as I feel like the gravitas and the sensuality of the pas de deux is a little inconsequential unless the version being danced has Masha/Clara become the Sugar Plum Fairy rather than encounter her.
Artwork: Flaming June
A new article in Graydon Carter’s Air Mail discusses the enduring popularity of Sir Frederic Leighton’s Flaming June. This prompted me to try to recreate it with Uni Posca markers, with subpar results but with the same feeling you experience after you complete a good workout, regardless of your actual performance and stats. In addition, Flaming June is an integral part of the Caroline Calloway Lore, and, together with Millais’s Ophelia, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and Klimt’s Kiss, one of the few paintings that are constantly referenced in fashion editorials, ad campaigns, and even cinematography. And to those creatives I say: look into Franz Stuck and Sir Lawrence Alma Tadem
Retraining My Brain: a Statement of Purpose
This year, I am retraining my brain to retain and consume more complex and multilayered forms of entertainment, education, and content. My aim is to return to my 2012-13 levels of brain agility. Thus, I will write weekly short posts simply indicating what I’ve been consuming.
I am torn between doing it on here and on tumblr/substack, but I don’t want to feel the pressure to monetize a self-serving activity.