Spring Season: Week 3

[merridia]

So, life goes on. I GUESS??? The whole thing still mostly just feels real surreal to me, and I am starting to seriously think that having been through the fire might be an asset, here. I keep reading people's feelings of stress and fear and uncertainty for the future and thinking 'wow, yeah, that's exactly how it felt, yeah' while continuing to feel pretty okay in the here and now? This is crazy shit, but I'm doing what little I can to protect myself and just sitting tight until it gets bad, so idk. Definitely feeling a little bit of quarantine FOMO, like I could be catching up on so much shit if I wasn't still at work, but continuing to get paid through all of this is definitely preferable, so I know that's silly.

The parts department appears to have built an elaborate labyrinth out of boxes of windshield wiper fluid in order to corral customers at appropriate distances.

I think by far the strangest thing about social distancing in customer service is how not a single person has yet commented on it? It's this awkward, uncomfortable back-and-forth dance when most of my job involves handing people things and being handed things in turn, but nobody has yet actually said anything about it aloud, just silent acknowledgments in those conspicuous spaces between us that this is a thing we do now. Wild.

Also, I'm real into All Elite Wrestling now for some reason. Onto the movies!


Cookie (1989): It's got a New Mutants comic cameo, baby Adrian Pasdar and his ridiculously overgroomed eyebrows, and a triumphant funeral/bigamist wedding finale; what's not to like? A lot of fun.

A Song is Born (1948): Danny Kaye is annoying, but I am thankfully not yet so jaded that I was able to dislike a movie where the bad guys are defeated through THE POWER OF JAZZ. Tommy Dorsey: kinda weirdly hot???

Up in Arms (1944): Seriously, though, Danny Kaye fuckin' sucks.

The Piano (1993): Hooray, more uncomfortable Harvey Keitel sex scenes courtesy of Jane Campion, just what I wanted. Still, it's good. I really miss my piano, you guys.

Light Sleeper (1992): Delightfully stylish sleaze.

The Connection (1961): I've been watching a lot of Shirley Clarke shorts this month and they've been... mostly fine? So I really wasn't sure what to expect from a full-length movie from her, but this was great. Jazz and drugs and douchebag pretentious filmmaking and you're never quite sure which angle to approach things from, because so many of them work so well. Claustrophic. Gonna want to revisit this one at some point.

To Sir, with Love (1967): Sidney Poitier vs. horrible British youths. Probably the best iteration of the inspirational 'teacher struggles to reach these troubled kids' trope I've seen yet, even if some of the jarringly awful sexual politics pulled me out of things a few times. Maybe stop calling your female students sluts???

Ornette: Made in America (1985): Not really my thing (see above re: most of Shirley Clarke's stuff), but a really neat approach to the documentary.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949): Total garbled nonsense of a plot, but Sinatra is just SO delightful, I love that he plays these guileless but charming little dorks and then suddenly That Voice comes out of him and it's like hahaha what the fuck is happening right now. Love that it's a movie about baseball and they still somehow found a reason to put Esther Williams in a pool for one scene. Don't love that line about Gene Kelly making out with an eleven-year-old though, what the fuck was that????

The Kid from Brooklyn (1946): Archie Andrews in Raging Bull. Too long, and the completely irrelevant Vera-Ellen numbers were the best part, but kinda fun. Plus it's a Danny Kaye movie that waits, like, an entire hour before something racist gets in! Impressive! Usually it's in the first number!

Seven Days in May (1964): Only Rod Serling could make straight government intrigue like this so damn compelling, this sounded so dry on paper (okay FINE the actors obviously help a lot, too, everyone in this pretty much rocked my face off).

Tongues (1964): Weird shit!

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947): Pretty fun, as long as you cut out those two godawful patter songs. Danny Kaye makes me yearn for Ben Stiller.

Black Panther (2018): I'M SO MAD, I plotted out my big MCU rewatch so I'd finish JUST before Black Widow came out and now EVERYTHING IS RUINED because of a stupid little GLOBAL PANDEMIC. Whatever, I'm not stopping.

I highly recommend everyone play this little Plant Daddy game for a spell. It's very soothing, and you can just keep it open in a tab forever.