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finefoxyladiesEarly in the week for this, right? But I've got quite the back end to my week, including an elementary school concert in the wilds of Shell Lake, Wisconsin, Shane Torres at Acme, and then a day with Duse and Stephanie so gotta give my book movie report and then talk about this other thing, which I will talk about first...
I visited my dad on Saturday to have lunch, catch up, and, unbeknownst to me, get roped into unpaid IT labor (Gen X with parents: does this happen to you?). In addition to a gift of a gallon-sized Coke-branded thermal drink bucket (yes, I used my 4 c Pyrex to measure its capacity) and some other assorted nonsense, my dad also gave me a sheaf of greeting cards: some were sympathy cards written to me in the aftermath of my mom's suicide; some were Mother's Day cards I wrote to her. In one instance, it was a Mother's Day card she gave to me on behalf of Miss Plum Marie, may she rest in peace wherever she is, beating the shit out of other cat angels, because she was a nightmare, God rest her calico soul.
Anyway, seeing the Mother's Day cards I'd given my mom in a stack there, all from my college and beyond years, gave me a real mix of feelings: sorrow and grief, sure, but also another moment of connection with her. I like squirreling away cards too. I like giving them, I like receiving them. And I learned that from her. Her and her sister Shirley used to go to the grocery store together, ostensibly to get, y'know, groceries, but also to get cigarettes from the customer service desk and to walk through the greeting card aisle and read each other cards and cackle loudly to one another. It was a surprise to me, seeing this thing I value so much and getting a new light on its origins.
Mother's Day was the hardest holiday for me for a while after my mom's death. I wasn't as connected to the anniversary date of her death, because technically I found out the day after it had happened; her birthday, October 19th, sits firmly in the wake of her death and so for a while I was already dealing with malaise and moodiness during that start to the fall anyway. But Mother's Day bummed me the fuck out. No more reason to pick out cards. No one sending cards to me from my cats (well, my dad did it one year, probably in response to me sharing with him that Mother's Day bummed me the fuck out). For a few years I sent cards to my sisters-in-law... uh, but then there was turnover in the ranks there, and I just sort of decided that wouldn't be part of my procedures with the new crop.
And it was nice to see those cards mattered to her. As she prepared for suicide, she did a lot of cleaning out and donating. Her purse was immaculate. But she kept those cards. Even the one where I was pretty racist and made a pretend Chinese symbol to represent Chen Lee's signature (TBH, she probably enjoyed that as much as I figured she would, and I don't regret it, even if years from now it derails my presidential candidacy).
Saw The Piano at Trylon on Sunday night. I mentioned this on my IG post for the one of you who likely saw that and are getting repeated content but: my mom took me to The Piano, along with a few HS friends for my 17th birthday. I don't recall my feelings at the time, other than ones I was probably coached into by the various movie reviewers I read. I was a late bloomer, truth be told: not about knowing I liked boys... man, did I ALWAYS like boys, from a very early age, and one might say I had a predilection for MEN, like Bruce Willis and Kevin Kline and my middle school social studies teacher Mr. Kramer, who had a sexy scar on his upper lip like Harrison Ford. But I don't think all my hormonal pistons were firing until my early 20s. So I might have generally picked up that The Piano was Sexy--it had nudity, after all, and simulated sex--and that Harvey Keitel was magnetic. But middle-aged Jessie really... really picked up what Harvey Keitel was putting down as George Baines on Sunday's viewing. George Baines is striving to be an active listener of a mute woman in the 1880s, which was Jane Campion's not-so-subtle way, I imagine, of some multilayered feminist critique and thematic whatnot. You watch as Ada's piano is brought to the beach by a crew of mostly faceless but very loud and brusque men, complaining right in Ada's earshot about a thing they agreed to do, clunking it down with no care; then her husband, Alistdair (spelling? I refuse to look it up again, but let me tell you, I was shocked it was such a goofy-ass name), played by New Zealand vineyard and multi-pet owner Sam Neill makes her abandon it, THEN lets George Baines have it as a part of a land deal. But George Baines wants Ada to play the piano. George wants Ada to have the piano. And sure, he wants Ada too. But gotta say in the timeline I live in now, I can't believe there was a time when some framed George as a rapist. Kids today would say after that first surprise neck kiss, George very thoughtfully entered into a dialogue of consent with Ada. And sex work is work, right? We all support Ada in getting her piano back through her own negotiated terms! It'd only be better if she were part of a union! (Sometimes, in my heart, I'm a bad progressive and feminist, aren't I, with all my sarcasm and my centrism.)
Anyway, The Piano was a cool cinematic experience to have 30 years later when I could more thoughtfully appreciate the themes of patriarchal shittiness and oppression, sort of make fun of my fellow feminists who often speak about sex work acceptance from a place of privilege or performance that makes me annoyed, enjoy that Jane Campion is a skilled director who could also maybe lay off the ponderous shots of water and mucky underbrush, we get it, it's New Zealand, and, most importantly, really really be into the way Harvey Keitel's eyes spark when Ada slaps him as a response to him kicking her out after giving her the piano back AFTER a whole speech where he lays bare his emotional and sexual vulnerability.
Oh, and Holly Hunter is just all-time the greatest. I miss you, Arpy.
In keeping with the theme, I saw Misery for the first time in, oh, maybe 25 years, last night as a part of a short Stephen King series at The Parkway. Next up are Carrie and The Shining. What, no IT/IT 2 double-header?Wow, did Rob Reiner and William Goldman make a meal out of Misery. All my memory could conjure up was the hobbling scene--and Je-sus, still upsetting af, that scene; kudos to the practical effects that make it so grotesque and visceral, and to James Caan for making you feel that pain in every howl--so it was a treat to see the Kathy Bates performance again. She's a master class as Annie Wilkes: not afraid for a moment to be off-putting, whether it's in manic moments like the introduction of Misery the Pig (the oinking!) or "I'm going to put on my Liberace records" to the chilling moments where her face is so so still and she says "I love you, Paul" or "No one is coming for you" with the same kind of flat affect that tells you violence is going to be the only outcome. When she finally has her moment of I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Pauls, and screams "You cocksucker!" in Paul's face, you get the true chaos that broke both Paul's ankles and shot that nice old sheriff in the chest.
But more credit should go to James Caan, whose small and muted nonverbals are both marvelously funny and really draw a person into Paul's steep drop into fear he knows he has to mask.
And Rob Reiner, I see you with your staircase shots a la Psycho. And I saw that all by mineself, not with any film critic pointing it out to me! Richard Farnsworth's scruffy sheriff was a Stephen King avatar of small-town goofiness but was also definitely our Arbogast. RIP, Buster. I wish we'd get a Buster prequel. King has so many things in production, what's one more?
As a fan, and probably a passionate one that has never fully journeyed over to the "I'm your #1" territory, Misery as a study of the obsessive fan is pretty spot-on, all truth be told. Maybe folks aren't actively homicidal, but they are frequently in a love/hate relationship that teeters on a high wire, torn between emotional investment, resentment of that lack of locus of control on the narrative, the deep pulsing desire to be seen and valued for their celebration of the catalog or the author or the tv series, and the black fury that grows out of any perceived or actual slight. Similarly I think King, then Goldman understood that writers who put their art out consistently in a commercial space are not blameless and sometimes aren't all that different. After all, Paul burns that Misery sequel bringing Misery back to life under Annie's command with relish, saying " I learned it from you..." but we all know he killed Misery in the first place out of his artistic resentment, so it's not like he expressly needed Annie or the torture and trauma to get on the same page as her (LOL pun). Paul's agent, played by the glorious Lauren Bacall, points out to him, "Misery put braces on your daughter and is now putting her through college." And Paul can't deny the truth of it... but he can still sulk about it and be disgruntled about it. And when he sees Annie heading towards him in the restaurant at the end, placidly recounting that Annie paved the way for him to fulfill his latest artistic achievement all while seeing Anne heading towards him, and is then face to face with yet another "#1 fan," I think you see acceptance (through unspeakable horrors and trauma) of the symbiotic nature of the artist and the fan.*
*Apparently this is also about the nature of addiction, since Stephen King was on the nose candy around this time. But let's tackle the one metaphor for now.
And as a fan of the book, I do wish we'd gotten that fight spilling out into the farmyard. But also it's been 30+ years and that's literally one of two things I officially remember from the book (the other: Annie Wilkes had chicken gravy on her breath when she gave Paul Sheldon CPR).
I visited my dad on Saturday to have lunch, catch up, and, unbeknownst to me, get roped into unpaid IT labor (Gen X with parents: does this happen to you?). In addition to a gift of a gallon-sized Coke-branded thermal drink bucket (yes, I used my 4 c Pyrex to measure its capacity) and some other assorted nonsense, my dad also gave me a sheaf of greeting cards: some were sympathy cards written to me in the aftermath of my mom's suicide; some were Mother's Day cards I wrote to her. In one instance, it was a Mother's Day card she gave to me on behalf of Miss Plum Marie, may she rest in peace wherever she is, beating the shit out of other cat angels, because she was a nightmare, God rest her calico soul.
Anyway, seeing the Mother's Day cards I'd given my mom in a stack there, all from my college and beyond years, gave me a real mix of feelings: sorrow and grief, sure, but also another moment of connection with her. I like squirreling away cards too. I like giving them, I like receiving them. And I learned that from her. Her and her sister Shirley used to go to the grocery store together, ostensibly to get, y'know, groceries, but also to get cigarettes from the customer service desk and to walk through the greeting card aisle and read each other cards and cackle loudly to one another. It was a surprise to me, seeing this thing I value so much and getting a new light on its origins.
Mother's Day was the hardest holiday for me for a while after my mom's death. I wasn't as connected to the anniversary date of her death, because technically I found out the day after it had happened; her birthday, October 19th, sits firmly in the wake of her death and so for a while I was already dealing with malaise and moodiness during that start to the fall anyway. But Mother's Day bummed me the fuck out. No more reason to pick out cards. No one sending cards to me from my cats (well, my dad did it one year, probably in response to me sharing with him that Mother's Day bummed me the fuck out). For a few years I sent cards to my sisters-in-law... uh, but then there was turnover in the ranks there, and I just sort of decided that wouldn't be part of my procedures with the new crop.
And it was nice to see those cards mattered to her. As she prepared for suicide, she did a lot of cleaning out and donating. Her purse was immaculate. But she kept those cards. Even the one where I was pretty racist and made a pretend Chinese symbol to represent Chen Lee's signature (TBH, she probably enjoyed that as much as I figured she would, and I don't regret it, even if years from now it derails my presidential candidacy).
Saw The Piano at Trylon on Sunday night. I mentioned this on my IG post for the one of you who likely saw that and are getting repeated content but: my mom took me to The Piano, along with a few HS friends for my 17th birthday. I don't recall my feelings at the time, other than ones I was probably coached into by the various movie reviewers I read. I was a late bloomer, truth be told: not about knowing I liked boys... man, did I ALWAYS like boys, from a very early age, and one might say I had a predilection for MEN, like Bruce Willis and Kevin Kline and my middle school social studies teacher Mr. Kramer, who had a sexy scar on his upper lip like Harrison Ford. But I don't think all my hormonal pistons were firing until my early 20s. So I might have generally picked up that The Piano was Sexy--it had nudity, after all, and simulated sex--and that Harvey Keitel was magnetic. But middle-aged Jessie really... really picked up what Harvey Keitel was putting down as George Baines on Sunday's viewing. George Baines is striving to be an active listener of a mute woman in the 1880s, which was Jane Campion's not-so-subtle way, I imagine, of some multilayered feminist critique and thematic whatnot. You watch as Ada's piano is brought to the beach by a crew of mostly faceless but very loud and brusque men, complaining right in Ada's earshot about a thing they agreed to do, clunking it down with no care; then her husband, Alistdair (spelling? I refuse to look it up again, but let me tell you, I was shocked it was such a goofy-ass name), played by New Zealand vineyard and multi-pet owner Sam Neill makes her abandon it, THEN lets George Baines have it as a part of a land deal. But George Baines wants Ada to play the piano. George wants Ada to have the piano. And sure, he wants Ada too. But gotta say in the timeline I live in now, I can't believe there was a time when some framed George as a rapist. Kids today would say after that first surprise neck kiss, George very thoughtfully entered into a dialogue of consent with Ada. And sex work is work, right? We all support Ada in getting her piano back through her own negotiated terms! It'd only be better if she were part of a union! (Sometimes, in my heart, I'm a bad progressive and feminist, aren't I, with all my sarcasm and my centrism.)
Anyway, The Piano was a cool cinematic experience to have 30 years later when I could more thoughtfully appreciate the themes of patriarchal shittiness and oppression, sort of make fun of my fellow feminists who often speak about sex work acceptance from a place of privilege or performance that makes me annoyed, enjoy that Jane Campion is a skilled director who could also maybe lay off the ponderous shots of water and mucky underbrush, we get it, it's New Zealand, and, most importantly, really really be into the way Harvey Keitel's eyes spark when Ada slaps him as a response to him kicking her out after giving her the piano back AFTER a whole speech where he lays bare his emotional and sexual vulnerability.
Oh, and Holly Hunter is just all-time the greatest. I miss you, Arpy.
In keeping with the theme, I saw Misery for the first time in, oh, maybe 25 years, last night as a part of a short Stephen King series at The Parkway. Next up are Carrie and The Shining. What, no IT/IT 2 double-header?Wow, did Rob Reiner and William Goldman make a meal out of Misery. All my memory could conjure up was the hobbling scene--and Je-sus, still upsetting af, that scene; kudos to the practical effects that make it so grotesque and visceral, and to James Caan for making you feel that pain in every howl--so it was a treat to see the Kathy Bates performance again. She's a master class as Annie Wilkes: not afraid for a moment to be off-putting, whether it's in manic moments like the introduction of Misery the Pig (the oinking!) or "I'm going to put on my Liberace records" to the chilling moments where her face is so so still and she says "I love you, Paul" or "No one is coming for you" with the same kind of flat affect that tells you violence is going to be the only outcome. When she finally has her moment of I Am Become Death, Destroyer of Pauls, and screams "You cocksucker!" in Paul's face, you get the true chaos that broke both Paul's ankles and shot that nice old sheriff in the chest.
But more credit should go to James Caan, whose small and muted nonverbals are both marvelously funny and really draw a person into Paul's steep drop into fear he knows he has to mask.
And Rob Reiner, I see you with your staircase shots a la Psycho. And I saw that all by mineself, not with any film critic pointing it out to me! Richard Farnsworth's scruffy sheriff was a Stephen King avatar of small-town goofiness but was also definitely our Arbogast. RIP, Buster. I wish we'd get a Buster prequel. King has so many things in production, what's one more?
As a fan, and probably a passionate one that has never fully journeyed over to the "I'm your #1" territory, Misery as a study of the obsessive fan is pretty spot-on, all truth be told. Maybe folks aren't actively homicidal, but they are frequently in a love/hate relationship that teeters on a high wire, torn between emotional investment, resentment of that lack of locus of control on the narrative, the deep pulsing desire to be seen and valued for their celebration of the catalog or the author or the tv series, and the black fury that grows out of any perceived or actual slight. Similarly I think King, then Goldman understood that writers who put their art out consistently in a commercial space are not blameless and sometimes aren't all that different. After all, Paul burns that Misery sequel bringing Misery back to life under Annie's command with relish, saying " I learned it from you..." but we all know he killed Misery in the first place out of his artistic resentment, so it's not like he expressly needed Annie or the torture and trauma to get on the same page as her (LOL pun). Paul's agent, played by the glorious Lauren Bacall, points out to him, "Misery put braces on your daughter and is now putting her through college." And Paul can't deny the truth of it... but he can still sulk about it and be disgruntled about it. And when he sees Annie heading towards him in the restaurant at the end, placidly recounting that Annie paved the way for him to fulfill his latest artistic achievement all while seeing Anne heading towards him, and is then face to face with yet another "#1 fan," I think you see acceptance (through unspeakable horrors and trauma) of the symbiotic nature of the artist and the fan.*
*Apparently this is also about the nature of addiction, since Stephen King was on the nose candy around this time. But let's tackle the one metaphor for now.
And as a fan of the book, I do wish we'd gotten that fight spilling out into the farmyard. But also it's been 30+ years and that's literally one of two things I officially remember from the book (the other: Annie Wilkes had chicken gravy on her breath when she gave Paul Sheldon CPR).