A Voting Dilemma

 Being a poll worker feels weird if I’m being honest. Some of that is intended, you’re not exactly a necessary part of the process so much as making it easier for other people requires being as invisible as possible. I can get used to that, though, that’s normal in other jobs. But it’s weird in other ways as well, such as this weird thanks that comes with it. Now, I want to make this clear, it’s not like I don’t understand why people thank other people for doing their civic duty or whatever they say. And certainly this year of all years I can understand thanking people for doing essential jobs. But to me, it still feels kind of hollow.

Like, what am I supposed to respond with? “Thanks for your support” feels weird because I don’t exactly feel morally supported by it. “You’re welcome” almost feels sassy in its presentation. Part of me thinks that this is because of that initial thought, that as a poll worker you want to leave as little an impact as possible on people, but also maybe this is just an “I can’t take compliments well at all” sort of deal, where it’s just another form of positive attention that I find difficult to accept.

The latter would put it into the sphere of “we as a culture need to normalize neutral compliments” but that’s something, like, if I’m not ready to do that for myself, I’m not entirely sure what I can do on a cultural level besides I guess just doing it more? Or at least accepting that people are going to do it.

-F

Part Two

 A firefighter said that someone accidentally setting a pizza box on fire happened all the time. They’d even done it themselves. For those wondering, this is the thing that happened last week, and, like, four firetrucks just showed up. Some of this I attribute to being pretty close to a fire station, but also it’s pretty surreal seeing four. You expect a pretty big fire for something like that. I have this image in my head -- probably because of the media -- of this raging full-scale house-fire where the objective isn’t to fight the fire, it’s more to contain it and get survivors out. Which this wasn’t.

But I also keep thinking about that “happens all the time” comment. The last step, the “forgetting to take the box out when you turn the oven on” bit, that I can understand. I might even do the same. But, like, the idea of having pizza boxes in an oven is so foreign to me. It’s not something I really understand at all.

Everyone was fine, though, fortunately. I mean, the oven was on fire and then doused in water so it’s probably not fine but if we’re anthropomorphizing kitchen appliances maybe we’re deeper in quarantine than we even thought possible. 

-F

Part One of Two?

Had some unexpected excitement tonight, got to be away from updating the blog. I'll try to tell the story next week.

-F

Raindrops on Roses (Part Twenty-Six): The Lighthouse

(trailer)

If you remember, this is something I wanted to do a year ago, alternating between comparing both the old and new Suspiria movies and comparing Robert Eggers’ previous work, The Witch (or The VVitch) with his then-upcoming film The Lighthouse. I managed those first three, but my schedule didn’t line up for the last, most recent movie and I defaulted to another horror film. But it’s been a year now, and I’ve seen the light… house and now is the time to talk about it.

What a strange movie.

I don’t mean like “strange” in a bad way, of course. If I did, I’d have attached it to a different blog series. Plus, most of the choices it makes are conventional. It’s filmed in black-and-white and with a 1.19:1 aspect ratio, which is outdated but not unheard of in modern times. It has a minimalist cast of three but one can easily conceive of that working. What I find most interesting, though, is how it deals with building up and releasing tension.

If you’ve seen The VVitch (or most any horror movie; I’m using this one to compare the same director) this might be something you already understand on an intuitive level. This movie works towards increasing the audience’s awareness that something scary might happen before giving them the catharsis of actually being scary, whether that’s a brief moment of action a la a jump scare or delivering on narrative payoffs. One can find a similar structure in comedy movies, which is why horror-comedies like Shaun of the Dead can exist and be popular.

This is not true of all movies in either of these genres. For example, It Comes At Night barely releases any tension for most of the movie, which is probably why it is so divisive. And the reason I want to talk about The Lighthouse is because it does the same thing horror-comedies do, building up scary tension to a comedic release. But I wouldn’t call it a horror-comedy. Now, to be fair, the line is blurry, but also the comedic aspects of The Lighthouse are more used to draw even more tension for the scarier moments.

A lot of this is in the framing. The movie is about two lighthouse keepers who, isolated from the rest of the world for months on end, go insane, and it’s this insanity that leads to the funny moments. But that means that each comedy beat in the movie only serves to amplify further tense moments. Sure, the moment was dissolved now, but what does that mean about the next moment? Or the next after that?

Is it better than The VVitch? That’s a difficult question. They’re so different from each other, only really connected by having a small cast, an isolated situation, and a folk tale atmosphere. It isn’t like the two Suspiria movies where, you know, one’s technically a remake of the other (and even then I think I declined to answer). I will say, though, I am excited to see whatever movie comes next.

-F

 

Costuming

 I can’t remember the last time I actually dressed up for Halloween. Well, that’s not entirely true -- I had a plague doctor costume two years ago that’s hilariously out of taste now, but I didn’t wear it in public. The year after that I just had a Pikachu hat on while passing out candy. And I don’t think I’m wearing anything this year.

It’s weird, like, I still get the urge to, like as a “It would be cool if” but there’s never anything more than that. I don’t know who I would be if I did; it never gets that far. Maybe what I admire then is the artistry, the creativity of it, and I like projecting onto someone else’s. I also -- and I know this is weird -- might have this aversion to being looked at, to being conspicuous at all.

There’s this hoodie I own that’s very flashy, like, in a colorful nebula sort of way. It’s comfy, and I enjoy wearing it, but I also don’t really enjoy wearing it out and about. I know intuitively that nobody cares, but I still feel like I’m drawing eyeballs.

That’s okay. I’m cool living vicariously through others. I mean, I better not this Halloween, and I don’t plan to encourage it, but in other moments.

-F

Spooktober (Introduction)

 October doesn’t feel as spooky as it used to. Some of that is, you know, how obviously scary just going outside at all can be without precaution, but also, I don’t know how to describe it, actually. It feels like the veil has been lifted. I’ve seen multiple people criticise “spooky season”, trying to push all the scares on just the 31st. And maybe that’s a general societal pushback because of that first point, but I never really noticed anything about it until it happened. I’d seen more “Halloween is on a Saturday this year!” which then turned into “Halloween is on a Saturday this year, so don’t screw up quarantining or there’ll be hell to pay.” which has now become “Dang, and Halloween is on a Saturday…” at best.

The past few years, I made a habit of doing some media discussion on spooky things I liked in October, and while there are certainly still some plans for that, there’s some other stuff in the tank for this month. Here’s to hoping at least a little Halloween spirit returns, and may your pumpkin patches be as sincere as they can possibly be.

-F

Raindrops on Roses (Part ?): Journey

(trailer)

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. I wanted my next bit of media criticism to be for Kentucky Route Zero as part of the Nostalgia series. For the record, I haven’t forgotten about it, but that series was always interested in criticisms of American systems versus the promises those systems make and that was easier to make before many of those systems started more visibly struggling. But I do want to keep doing media criticism, just as a distraction from writing about the real world. I don’t have film and book companions to this one or anything, it’s just a nice game I wanted to talk about.

I’ve talked before about how wishing to experience something for the first time always seemed kind of off to me, but if there is one counterexample to that, it might be the first experience playing Journey. thatgamecompany doesn’t make the most technically demanding experiences from a controller standpoint -- Journey uses two joysticks and two buttons, while their previous games, Flow and Flower, used even less -- which means that with responsive enough controls (which these games have), it’s very easy to become associated with your little avatar. The experiences in Journey turn from the little Journeyman’s into the players.

Another reason this is important is that the story is also intentionally basic. The “journey” in Journey is the archetypal Monomyth straight out of Joseph Campbell, with each segment based on a certain step in that process. It’s abstracted, to be sure, but it also creates a sense of familiarity; the player already instinctively knows the story.

So a familiar story well told with easy immersion would already be worth talking about, but these aren’t the only qualities the game has. The game is also cooperative, two players at a time going through the story. Unlike most cooperative games, though, the interaction between the players is inherently limited (again, there are only two buttons). The point here was to strip away potential negative interactions, so only player bonding remains. The minimalism might seem like it removes interaction entirely, but without negativity, emergent positive interactions remain. The classic example is the potential to draw a heart at the ending, but there are examples to be found all throughout.

What inspired this post, though, was the soundtrack. It was nominated for a Grammy, but I only mention that to preface its pedigree; that’s not why I wanted to mention it. I got some of the songs stuck in my head out of the blue recently and immediately had something akin to a madeleine moment, immediately thrust back into the moment of running through the sand or riding on one of the fabric creatures. One might even call it synesthetic, where hearing “Apotheosis” or “Road of Trials” becomes unconsciously associated with the moods of the levels by themselves.

So would I want to play Journey again for the first time like I said I might? I’m not sure. My instinct is no, actually, because of how intense those associations are. All I would really need to do is listen to the soundtrack again and experience it again. And if I did want to replay it, it’s right there and I’m ready to relive it.

-F