Cooking

 Cooking new things is fun. You don't really know what things are going to taste like until it's finished. I mean, you can guess, and I'm sure as one gets better as a cook the guessing gets better, but until then it's a mystery. I imagine that's part of the joy of it, the not knowing, I mean.

But at the same time, right now? Right now I'm all about sameness. I like being able to know exactly what something's about, something I can control because the rest of the world surely isn't giving it to me.

-F

Decisions Other People Have To Make

 It's weird watching things close down again. Not that I'm saying they shouldn't -- they absolutely should -- but I am commenting on the speed at which it is happening. I got an email the other day from the local theatre that they'd be shutting down again, and yet other places who updated me before have not. It was these same places that were really big on sending me reopening emails or new policy emails in the first place, that's why it's worth noting.

I imagine the reason there's a lot of feet-dragging here is that the optics of reopening for, like, a month or two and then immediately shutting down again are incredibly bad. So there's a fine line to walk between all these factors, they might say, even if one of them is keeping people safe. What surprises me more, then, is that few people I'm aware of seems to question the systems that encourage these sorts of decision matrices.

That is to say, I wonder why there's a tough decision to be made at all, instead of wondering why it's taking so long to make.

-F

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