Easter/Post-Easter Ramblings
So, I haven't been writing down my dreams because I've been dreaming a lot and they're all fevered dream adventures of the epic sort. It's hard to keep up when you jolt awake at night in intervals trying to chase down the feeling they leave you. I dreamt of surviving school shootings and of superhuman strippers condemned to be buried alive. On second thought, I'm not sure I feel like exploring them further. But it's still important to note them down, if to remember these days by - if not by milestones, then by the spirit of my dreams and nightmares.
Easter was strangely loopy. Many things laid asunder, but a few wonderful things I'd been caring for for the past months finally bore fruit. The week began with me getting hooked on C. Tangana's El Madrileño and, particularly, Ateo (feat. Nathy Peluso), which I hope to get into more detail sometime this week.
Anyway, there's a scene in the music video where they're dancing alone in one of the radiating chapels and the camera pans out to gaze at the friezes of holy images as Nathy and C. Tangana sing about the transformative miracle of love.
Which, in the context of everything in my life at the moment, feels poignant. Return to form, to passion, to the 'core of us' (as Joy would say). It's the underlying thing of the past few weeks, certainly the past few months as I struggle to find some ground in my life right now.
One of the highlights of the past week was Joy confiding about where she stands emotionally with regards to her ex. I've had court side tickets to her going through it since August - going from daily drunken ramblings at 3 am to hitting the gym and taking out her angst by paying it forward and helping her trainer get over her ex.
It has been an extraordinary journey watching her move closer to a median where she finds herself wishing him well more often than she does resenting him or herself for longing for him. It takes work to stay in that place mentally and emotionally. And I think she's doing well.
I met up with Mara and Beija, which is, as always, a hoot. We had Chinese at Eat Fresh and talked about the stars, their engagement, and all the love we have for each other. Which is - you know, nearly 20 years into our friendship, it's really nice to have people on your side for life. And it's always heartwarming to check in and marinate in that love.
Some of the stuff that lay asunder: the longer the days pass that we don't talk, the harder it is for me to imagine ever getting back in Laica's good graces. Which is depressing. Losing friends is never a good thing. But, at the same time, we're not really in each other's lives anymore. Not even periodically. It's miserable, but I feel like I've come into a point where I can unblinkingly accept the fact that "shit happens."
There are worse things - things I cannot repeat here - that cut deeper and are more wretched. Things I wish were just the stuff of fevered dreams. For posterity: a text in Uniqlo that made my heart stop. The frightening thought that it was a recent thing. There is no relief either way.
Art Thoughts Dump
Los Huesos by Cristobal León and Joaquín Cociña - Released in 2021, the short film is a fiction about an excavation within an excavation: the tale of unearthing the first ever stop-motion film about a girl who unearths and reanimates the bones of two of Chile's State Secretaries, Diego Portales and Jaime Guzmán. If that doesn't sound creepy enough, the film was produced by Ari Aster. The details and themes of the film transport you to an earlier, much darker time where filmmaking is not the only form of wizardry around. I love how the movie blends freaky and tender - like, watching the beady-eyed doll of a girl clap as body parts and bones rearrange themselves onstage should be flat out disturbing, but mostly it's kind of cute.
The Batman by Matt Reeves - I got this one on HBO last night. I've already gone through with B and Jerrold what I think about it - it's the movie version of:
My biggest gripe is that, like Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the film brings up themes that it cannot - by the nature of its main character - fully commit to. It's not as blatantly assimilative as say Kingsman, but it's no Damnation either. It co-opts the struggles for justice by making caricature villains out of the impact of societal ills, and limits the task of coming up with a solution to individual angst. A billionaire's angst at that, in the Riddler's disgusted words.
I know, what the fuck did I expect. This is Batman. He pals around with the Police Commissioner for a hobby. He is always going to come in defense of institutions like the police and the local government, even when the film itself dedicates a lot of energy into explaining why those entities make up the true villain of the story.
To be honest, going in I expected a lot of punchy punchy and Batman roleplaying Claris Starling in a cape. And the movie served as much but like, I think the film collapses under its own weight trying to grapple with issues that is clearly beyond its brand. It could have been better if it just ... didn't try to give Batman a conscience and just made him, Idk, a gadget-packed version of the Mentalist.
It's super hard to not be taken out by those themes. Once you lift that veil, it's hard to put it back on and just follow along, no matter how beautifully made the film is. The only CBM films I've seen that have shown any commitment to the themes of revolutions they espouse are Captain America and the Winter Soldier, where Steve fights the world in the name of love, and Thor: Ragnarok, where Thor destroys his father's colonial legacy. Which sucks because neither the Russo Brothers nor Taika Watiti have the eye for blockbuster cinema that Matt Reeves clearly does and I'm deeply annoyed to be robbed of what the Batman could have truly been.
Easter was strangely loopy. Many things laid asunder, but a few wonderful things I'd been caring for for the past months finally bore fruit. The week began with me getting hooked on C. Tangana's El Madrileño and, particularly, Ateo (feat. Nathy Peluso), which I hope to get into more detail sometime this week.
Anyway, there's a scene in the music video where they're dancing alone in one of the radiating chapels and the camera pans out to gaze at the friezes of holy images as Nathy and C. Tangana sing about the transformative miracle of love.
Click to viewWhich, in the context of everything in my life at the moment, feels poignant. Return to form, to passion, to the 'core of us' (as Joy would say). It's the underlying thing of the past few weeks, certainly the past few months as I struggle to find some ground in my life right now.
One of the highlights of the past week was Joy confiding about where she stands emotionally with regards to her ex. I've had court side tickets to her going through it since August - going from daily drunken ramblings at 3 am to hitting the gym and taking out her angst by paying it forward and helping her trainer get over her ex.
It has been an extraordinary journey watching her move closer to a median where she finds herself wishing him well more often than she does resenting him or herself for longing for him. It takes work to stay in that place mentally and emotionally. And I think she's doing well.
I met up with Mara and Beija, which is, as always, a hoot. We had Chinese at Eat Fresh and talked about the stars, their engagement, and all the love we have for each other. Which is - you know, nearly 20 years into our friendship, it's really nice to have people on your side for life. And it's always heartwarming to check in and marinate in that love.
Some of the stuff that lay asunder: the longer the days pass that we don't talk, the harder it is for me to imagine ever getting back in Laica's good graces. Which is depressing. Losing friends is never a good thing. But, at the same time, we're not really in each other's lives anymore. Not even periodically. It's miserable, but I feel like I've come into a point where I can unblinkingly accept the fact that "shit happens."
There are worse things - things I cannot repeat here - that cut deeper and are more wretched. Things I wish were just the stuff of fevered dreams. For posterity: a text in Uniqlo that made my heart stop. The frightening thought that it was a recent thing. There is no relief either way.
Art Thoughts Dump
Los Huesos by Cristobal León and Joaquín Cociña - Released in 2021, the short film is a fiction about an excavation within an excavation: the tale of unearthing the first ever stop-motion film about a girl who unearths and reanimates the bones of two of Chile's State Secretaries, Diego Portales and Jaime Guzmán. If that doesn't sound creepy enough, the film was produced by Ari Aster. The details and themes of the film transport you to an earlier, much darker time where filmmaking is not the only form of wizardry around. I love how the movie blends freaky and tender - like, watching the beady-eyed doll of a girl clap as body parts and bones rearrange themselves onstage should be flat out disturbing, but mostly it's kind of cute.
The Batman by Matt Reeves - I got this one on HBO last night. I've already gone through with B and Jerrold what I think about it - it's the movie version of:
My biggest gripe is that, like Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the film brings up themes that it cannot - by the nature of its main character - fully commit to. It's not as blatantly assimilative as say Kingsman, but it's no Damnation either. It co-opts the struggles for justice by making caricature villains out of the impact of societal ills, and limits the task of coming up with a solution to individual angst. A billionaire's angst at that, in the Riddler's disgusted words.
I know, what the fuck did I expect. This is Batman. He pals around with the Police Commissioner for a hobby. He is always going to come in defense of institutions like the police and the local government, even when the film itself dedicates a lot of energy into explaining why those entities make up the true villain of the story.
To be honest, going in I expected a lot of punchy punchy and Batman roleplaying Claris Starling in a cape. And the movie served as much but like, I think the film collapses under its own weight trying to grapple with issues that is clearly beyond its brand. It could have been better if it just ... didn't try to give Batman a conscience and just made him, Idk, a gadget-packed version of the Mentalist.
It's super hard to not be taken out by those themes. Once you lift that veil, it's hard to put it back on and just follow along, no matter how beautifully made the film is. The only CBM films I've seen that have shown any commitment to the themes of revolutions they espouse are Captain America and the Winter Soldier, where Steve fights the world in the name of love, and Thor: Ragnarok, where Thor destroys his father's colonial legacy. Which sucks because neither the Russo Brothers nor Taika Watiti have the eye for blockbuster cinema that Matt Reeves clearly does and I'm deeply annoyed to be robbed of what the Batman could have truly been.