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Time Traveling Through Consumerism

A year in quarantine, trying to limit a civilization halting pandemic has been unsurprisingly brutal. For me, the part that has been the most trying has been the flattening of time. Not just within quar, where days blend together into an amorphous slush, but also everything that came before. If all of the years of my past used to at least exist on some form of a horizon like curve, 2020 rendered them into a vast plateau. One wide open for reflection, reminiscing and regret. And with a future that looks increasingly unknown and ecologically grim, those feelings are mixing together with thirtysomething malaise and the to create a hell of an unsavory existential cocktail. I’m an optimistic dude my nature though, so I’ve been seeking out low stress ways to unwind and refocus. I know a lot of people are in the same boat, so I figured I’d share what I think is a pretty good one.  

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past year playing video games from my adolescence and binging turn of the millenium movies, television and most extensively, commercials. I’ve spent a nearly equal amount of time wondering why that’s the case. Especially since I’m not typically very prone to nostalgia indulgences. The closest I’ve come to a working theory is this. Amidst feelings of immense loss of time, people and an entire way of life, the sheer ephemerality of existence has been thrown into startling relief. And these little bits of shared cultural memory allow me to access some small concrete sliver of my past experiences. 

 I've found the commercials to be particularly potent time machines. In this era of streaming services and franchise reboots, the culture that we loved as kids never really leaves us. Dexter's Lab and Rugrats are available at the touch of a button. Aladdin and Ariel are on t-shirts at Target. Full House and Boy Meets World exist in their original form at the touch of a button right next to their modern sequel series'. Advertising is more fleeting. While some brands certainly capitalize on their iconography, you don't exactly see Crazy Craving, the 2000's mascot for Honey Combs cereal, popping up on merch at BoxLunch. Likewise, there's never been a bidding war over the streaming rights for classic Air Heads ads. Commercials are ubiquitous in their time, especially in the days when tv was still king. You were likely to see a random Duracell spot  as many times in a 3 month span, as you would your favorite movie over the course of years. We didn't seek them out, they came to us, but after their initial lifespan they'd vanish. This lack of prolonged visibility is precisely why they hit so hard as nostalgia bombs. When you press play on one of these YouTube compilations, you find yourself encountering things that not only have you not seen in years or decades, but that you haven't even thought of in almost as long. It's comforting but also haunting. Nostalgia in the truest, most bittersweet sense of the word. But it's tangible. And extensive. A near limitless supply of memory loot boxes that if you're lucky enough to (safely) open with people you've met more recently in life, provide an intoxicating opportunity to tap into the shared universality of the days of the monoculture. The days before content was served up a la carte and on demand.The days before the word “day’ seemed to stop meaning anything.  Our little quarantine pod has been cracking these open once every few weeks over the past few months and it’s been a hell of a communal experience, and I’m gonna throw a few links here at the bottom in case you want to try doing the same.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VUXipOiX2U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEWnN04lwZo&t=430s

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Quarantine Movie Mixtape Volume 1

Here are 10 movies you can stream right now to make your day a little better. Most of them you’ve probably heard of, a couple you probably haven’t. But they’re all easy to watch, with enough substance to feel like a solid use of a couple hours. Stay inside. Take care of yourself. Enjoy. 

Support The Girls (Hulu)

Regina Hall plays the general manager of a Texas breastaurant in this breezy day-in-the-life comedy. The setting would seem to call for leering raunchy hijinks but instead, we get a grounded and three-dimensional look at female friendship as well as a sharp examination of the modern American wage economy. Feeling a bit like a pilot for a workplace sitcom you’d happily spend 5 seasons with, its laid back pacing and pitch perfect performances make it endlessly re-watchable.

The Straight Story (Disney+) A road trip movie at 5 miles per hour; David Lynch throws a career curve ball with the story of 73-year-old Alvin Straight who hops on a lawnmower and travels from Iowa to Wisconsin to reunite with his estranged ailing brother. Warm and family-friendly, but also deeply melancholic, this true story was shot sequentially along Alvin’s real life route. Filled with the type of oddball characters and complicated Americana one would expect from the creator of Twin Peaks, albeit in a much more narratively traditional package.

Springsteen on Broadway (Netflix) The Boss recounts tales from his life while performing solo in this dazzling mix of memoir and concert film. The stripped down format displays Springsteen’s generation defining storytelling prowess and recontextualizes some of his greatest work. A soothing balm for those of us pining for the return of live music, it’s the kind of film you wanna grab a drink with.  Just make sure to keep some tissues handy.  This one will knock you on your ass more than once.  

Paddington 2 (HBO) Tim King’s exquisite sequel made headlines upon release when it became the highest rated film in Rotten Tomatoes history and it’s a distinction that doesn’t end up feeling hyperbolic. Ben Whishaw turns the title character into one of cinema’s most charming creations and finds a perfect foil in a never-better Hugh Grant. Endlessly inventive, the film effortlessly switches gears between vaudevillian slapstick, Wes Anderson levels of whimsy and dazzling setpieces, and even throwing in a splashy musical number for good measure. It’s “immigrants: we get the job done” message also makes it one of the first great anti-Brexit films. This one’s an absolutely essential viewing, even if you normally bristle at talking animal flicks.

The Love Witch (Amazon) Budding auteur Anna Biler wrote, directed, edited, produced, set decorated, costume designed, and *deep breath* scored this Technicolor mood piece. Gorgeously shot on 35mm film, the dark comedy follows a young witch named Elaine as the love spells she concocts to attract men go awry in increasingly amusing ways. Samantha Robinson gives a wonderful and hyper affected old Hollywood style performance in a story that is packed with thorny intricate themes and feminist imagery.  But after your first viewing, its dazzling production design also makes it a perfect piece of living art to throw on in the background while you work from home.

The Parent Trap (Disney+)

Whatever your memory of this movie is, I assure you it’s better than you remember. The solo directing debut of Nancy Myers, who would go on to be the queen of white wine movies, The Parent Trap displays a level of warmth and craftsmanship that is sorely lacking in future Disney remakes. It’s the rare family film that treats the children and adults with an equal level of respect. It is also highly kinetic, bouncing between summer camp, Napa Valley, and London settings with an infectious energy. The dual starring performances by Lindsay Lohan are truly remarkable, especially when she’s having to play one twin disguised as the other. Be sure to also luxuriate in Myers’ sublime set design.  These are the kinds of interiors that will have your brainstorming your next great redecorating project. 

Happy Death Day (HBO)

Don’t let the title or slasher movie trappings fool you.  This Groundhog Day riff does a better job capturing the vibe of 80′s teen comedies than almost anything else released in the past 10 years. Newcomer Jessica Rothe plays a college student who is murdered on her birthday and must keep reliving the day endlessly until she figures out who’s responsible. It’s all played with laughs with Rothe delivering a manic go-for-broke central performance that’s reminiscent of a young Tom Hanks as she’s put through a series of fantastic sight gags. If this one pleasantly surprises you, be sure you to check out its deeply weird Back to the Future II inspired sequel.

Love & Friendship (Amazon)

Throw any notions you have about stuffy costume dramas out the window for this adaptation of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan. Instead, settle in a smart, stylish, and side-splittingly funny romp with Kate Beckinsale starring as a recent widow turned voracious social climber. Writer-Director Whit Stillman crafts an 18th Century Mean Girls as Beckinsale and co-star Chloe Sevigny wittily and ruthlessly navigate societal norms and clueless men in an effort to stay atop the class heap. A highly quotable future cult classic.

Lady Bird (Amazon)

I won’t even bury the lede here. I think this is the best teen comedy of the 2010’s. Greta Gerwig’s directing debut stars Saorise Ronan as the titular (and self-named) character; a Sacramento high school senior struggling to define herself as she chafes against her lower-middle class upbringing. The attention to detail it pays to the specifics of its 2002 setting is akin to time travel and the intricacies of its central relationship will have you calling your parents, siblings, and high school best friends. But above all else, it’s a comedy for the ages. The razor sharp script unfurls smart honest one-liners at such a rapid clip that you’ll find yourself either immediately re-watching it or frequently pausing to catch up. I recommend both. 

Shirkers (Netflix)

In 1992, 19-year-old Sandi Tan and her friends met a fellow film lover who helped them shoot their own independent film before mysteriously vanishing with all of the footage. When Sandi got a call 20 years later saying that someone was in possession of the film, she decided to make a documentary chronicling the entire ordeal. This is that documentary. It’s also a love letter to cinema and a rousing look at an artist’s quest to reclaim control of her narrative and her work. The documentary as well as the footage shot in 1992 prove that while it took us a while to hear from her, Sandi Tan is a voice that should be with us for a long time to come.

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                          The Spirituality and Empathy of Solo Cinema

Rolling into a movie theater with some friends on a Friday night for the latest blockbuster film has been an indelible cultural experience for the last hundred years. It’s also one of my personal favorites, a treasured staple of my life, especially in the summer.  But over the past couple of years I have discovered a soul nurturing supplement to my traditional theater going. The simple act of seeing an artistically challenging film solo, transforming the movie theater into a meditative space that allows for an immersion into empathy and thoughtfulness. Artists use the medium of film to examine a wide variety of human stories. Asghar Farhadi tells terse, vibrant relationship dramas that bridge the universality of romantic hardship with the specificity of the modern Iranian experience. Debra Granick stretches family bonds like rubber bands; to see how far they’ll bend before they snap, as resilient young women come of age in precisely detailed rural environments. Terrance Malick probes the overwhelming temporal and existential connections to the world and people around us. All of these themes become even more enveloping and stark when experienced in isolation.

 Sinking into a leather seat and soaking in the widescreen imagery; a level of abstraction melts away. It's not that it instantly becomes a relatable experience so much as an urgent, detailed one. Without the distraction of phones or the companionship of friends, you become more drawn in in a visceral, tangible way. Your brain fires off an endless series of questions that open up even more thoughts; until it engages in an effortless dance with the images and sounds that are flooding your senses. Most importantly, you start to feel inextricably linked to the people on the screen. Film has the awe inspiring power to transport us to an infinite number of fantastic spaces, from the the volcano of Mt Doom to the deserts (wait, is it plural if the whole planet is a desert?) of Tatooine. But it also uniquely suited to intimately place into the lives of realistic analogues of people from all around all world. To provide us with a safe space to reckon with hardship and loss and perseverance and love. It allows us to marvel at the astounding amount of things that we have in common with each other, and to learn to understand and appreciate the things that make us unique.

 It’s all about engaging. Transforming what can so easily be a passive experience into an active one. Our lives are crazy busy and it’s so tempting to multitask at every moment. For me, the process of solitary movie attendance has been an excellent gateway drug. It's helped me key in more acutely to my home yoga and meditation practices. As someone who suffers from overwhelming ADHD learning to be present alone, but with outside stimuli was a great first step in learning to be present alone, without any external stimuli.

 A special shout out to the local Bow Tie multiplex for having the perfect, tiny specialty theater. Nothing beats a Monday morning showing, an overpriced coffee in hand and the screening room full of the over 65 set, eager to spend a couple minutes in post movie discussion with a stranger. That’s one of the most spiritual elements of the entire experience: the moments of spontaneous fellowship that follow the “sermon.”

 I deeply believe in the power of art to help us become better, more sensitive, more contemplative people. But so much of the best cinema can be walled off behind critical pretension and stigma. Independent cinema has for too long been largely dominated by film snobs (and self important bloggers). The simple act of showing up and tuning in is something that is accessible to many everyone, and by learning to be more present, to be participants instead of simply consumers, we can unlock that magic that, for me personally, has helped to shape the way I interact with the world around me. So next time you have a free afternoon to yourself, go experience a piece of storytelling outside of your comfort zone. You might just surprised by how it makes you feel.

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Ariel: The Misunderstood Mermaid?

“Part of your World” happens before Ariel meets the prince. That’s the first distinction I make when someone says that The Little Mermaid is about a girl who throws away her life and voice for a boy. Over the past decade, reading the film as anti-feminist has become extremely popular as we look at the problematic gender dynamics within Disney animated films. In this piece, I’m gonna push back against that and see if we can’t find a more nuanced reading, so that we can avoid throwing out the badass mermaid with the Disney bathwater.

In Disney’s version of  The Little Mermaid, we are introduced to Ariel. She is a young woman of great cultural curiosity, that seeks out  art, music and adventure. She’s a fiery and passionate hero who, with all the angst of a real teenager, yearns for something more in her life, to not be defined by the world and desires of her family.  She has a relatively flat character arc throughout the film, but this is by design. She’s not really having to change what she believes, but rather make good on those beliefs, and help the people in her life accept them. She believes that humans can be good, but more than that she believes in herself and that her longing to be part of the human world is valid. Most of her stumbling blocks are simply a part of self-actualizing that passion. On land we see her have  a series of misunderstandings of how things work. These play well enough as charming fish out of water (sigh) gags but their true intention is more significant. All of these mishaps are the result of an eternal optimist trying, falling down, and trying again. Getting her sea legs if you will (I’m not gonna stop). There are moments in the film where she gets discouraged but not a single one where she gives up. She knows what she wants, and despite the fact that society is telling her it’s wrong, she will not stop until she achieves her goals.

With that in mind, it’s important to note that our heroine has already sang us a whole banger about these goals before she meets The Boy. Eric in this film, is as flat and dreamy as most other Disney princes. But in The Little Mermaid, this bland goodness works, because he’s acting as a metaphor. Eric is simply the physical manifestation of Ariel’s goal of surface life. The film subtly keys us into the the fact that men are kind of the worst, when Queer Sea Goddess, Ursula thoroughly dresses them down during the song “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” Eric runs counter to many of the other male characters in the film by being fully supportive of Ariel’s journey. And it’s in an examination of these other male characters, that I believe the film shifts from simply a beautifully humanist story, to a pretty decisively feminist one.

In The Little Mermaid, the characters with the actual arcs, who actually have to learn something are the men. Sebastian, Triton and Flounder all have serious psychological hangups and must overcome these issues specifically and exclusively through the guidance and example of a 16 year old girl.

Flounder has to learn to overcome what I can only describe as a case of thalassaphobia. A fear of the ocean, as you can imagine, presents some serious problems for a fish. Sebastian has to to learn to speak up and and assert himself, a hangup that may be due to the fact that he seems to be coded as an ethnic outsider within the monarchy.  Triton has to start trusting his daughter and let go of a hyper controlling and overprotective personality that seems linked to unresolved issues with the death of his wife. Ariel helps each of these men mature through her her fierce and independent example. Flounder goes from running away from a shark at the beginning of the film, to taking on TWO eels in the finale. (I’ve never even battled one eel.) Triton learns to make peace with his daughter’s independence and willingly sends her off from home. And Sebastian…well Sebastian doesn’t really get a payoff scene, but the movie is 70 minutes along, so we can’t win em all.

Look, there is definitely a crucial need to look at the massively popular art that is consumed by children. And I also believe that there was certainly a time when the “The Little Mermaid is anti-feminist propaganda” take was vital and necessary. But art is fluid and re-examination is an important process. In this era where we are starving for great female characters in mainstream fiction, let’s not one of the great ones get dragged under the tide. (nailed it.)

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Double standards.

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY6cMMtLCcQ)

The number 1 country song in America features gender neutral lyrics and a video full of diverse couples and it gives me renewed hope for the genre that I grew up loving.

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Began the #52FilmsByWomen challenge, an effort to watch at least one film per week from either a female writer or director. Started late, so I had a bit of catching up to do.

Film 1: Little White Lie. Writer/Director Lacey Schwartz grew up believing she was white. This documentary chronicles her journey as she discovers the truth and the secrets of her families past.

Film 2: The Devil Wears Prada. Screenwriter Wendy Finerman adapts the novel by Aline McKenna. Though undoubtedly forced and formulaic in places, it’s still a sharp, witty comedy with a surprising amount of real heart.

Film 3: Why I Never Became A Dancer. Artist Tracy Enim packs plenty of twist and fantastic photography into this 6 minute short film about her sexually charged adolescence. 

Film 4: Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn wrote the screenplay based on her own novel. A perfect match for director David Fincher, the pair transform her beach read thriller into a chilling and darkly funny masterpiece.

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One of my favorite publications talks one of my favorite things.

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David and Amy and the Ageless Loss of Creatives

I’ve been wanting to write a bit about the loss of David Bowie for the past couple of weeks, but I was having a hard time figuring out exactly what I wanted to say or if I felt qualified to say anything. Blackstar is my first David Bowie album (it’s amazing). But what I really haven’t been able to get out of my head, is that Bowie, at 69, said that album’s primary influence was Kendrick Lamar’s masterpiece, To Pimp a Butterfly. This is remarkable because it means that after 26 albums, he was still studying other artists’ work, still being influenced and still creating. That is profound. Something about losing someone like that really got to me. So I started to think back to the other times I had felt that pain. I didn’t grow up with Bowie, even though I knew all of the words to plenty of songs and have watched Labyrinth countless time. His themes of isolation and feeling different and his pure embodiment of being alien were right up my teenage wheelhouse, but musically I leaned in a different direction. Dark, sarcastic and slightly vitriolic were where my non-pop interests lied and these led me to discover Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black.

I didn’t have a deep well of musical history knowledge at that point but I now realize that even if I had, Amy would have sounded unlike anything I had ever heard. She was acerbic at the same time that she was warm and she was inviting while being distant. But I believe what was most important was how she made sex and relationships feel like an earth shattering blend of tragedy and triumph. It’s how we all felt when we were teenagers but we couldn’t articulate it like that. But with her ageless wit, unparalleled vocals and her timeless Mark Ronson-produced wall-of-sound, she made those problems feel grownup and important, even if you couldn’t relate to the rampant substance abuse. Craving more, I went back and discovered her debut album Frank, which was pretty much my introduction to Jazz music. I swooned over “Fuck Me Pumps” and “In My Bed” (which are both incredible, genre blending hip-hop tracks). And I came to see her as the brilliant and limitless artist that she was. Someone who I was going to get to grow with and follow for years, as she released classic after classic, constantly innovating. And then I watched in horror and tears as all of that was taken away.

A lot of the media portrayal at the time painted her as a hopeless train wreck. But that was far from the case. She was tortured, no doubt but she was still creating. She was trying to stay off drugs. She had talked to Mos Def and Questlove about forming a super group. She was writing battle raps to satisfy her changing creative urges. And just weeks before she passed, she was in the studio with Tony Bennett for their “Body and Soul” duet, laying down her vocals over and over, making sure to get them perfect (even if you can hear the toll that life had left on her voice). She was still creating, just like Bowie was still creating. And in that light age and cause of death don’t matter. The work they left behind is indelible. The idea that there was more, that they’re only ones who could provide it to the world and that it can never exist, is a truth thatd haunts me, but if a legacy of work is the mark that an artist leaves behind, I am thrilled that I still have a whole lifetime to get to know Ziggy Stardust.

Here’s the trailer for Asif Kapadia’s Oscar-nominated documentary, Amy.

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Tracey Emin: Why I Never Became a Dancer, 1995

Fuck

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2015′s best new show continues to innovate. 

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Hoping to have my piece on Amy WInehouse and the loss of a creative up by this weekend. In the meantime, read this essential Pitchfork piece. 

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Stream This: Vince Staples, Summertime ‘06

“Rounds up in that chamber, I’m a gangsta like my daddy./ My mama caused another problem when she had me.” More than any album released this year, Vince Staples' Summertime ‘06recalls the work of Ta-Nehisi Coates: drugs, sex, and violence aren’t glorified by Staples, so much as are they are deployed as armor against a society that is committed to the systemic failure and breaking of young black males. On his debut full-length, the 22 year old Long Beach native combines a breathless flow with a soul full of pain and a head full of cautious optimism. On the centerpiece,“Lift Me Up,” Staples takes us from Poppy Street to Paris and finds that his woes have stayed the same. Moving nimbly from addiction to abortion to appropriation, he creates a vivid window and a bristling call to action, all while still being fun as hell to blast out of your car speakers.

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Too “quiet”. Too “gay”. Too “cold”. Too good.

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Close Listens: Kanye West “Family Business” and “Real Friends”

For my own posterity I find it important to document moments when I have profound experiences of art. My first one of 2016 occurred this morning as I listened to Kanye West's “Family Business” off of his 2004 debut The College Dropout, immediately followed by his “Real Friends”, released this past Friday. Intentionally or not, Kanye has created an impeccable and emotionally devastating two-parter here, both remarkable and only possible because the two halves were released more than a decade apart. During that decade, he lost his mother, ended relationships with at least 2 long-time girlfriends, became a cultural pariah, got married, had two children (though Kim was still pregnant with their son at the time this was recorded) and soundly solidified his position as the biggest and most controversial rockstar on the planet.

“Family Business” is a lovely ode to the depth of familial bonds and the joys of big family gatherings. “Real Friends” is a seething lament on fake friends, fair-weather family and broken promises. The two tracks share hauntingly specific lyrical parallels. “Family Business” opens with with a spoken conversation, the first words of which are Kanye asking “How's your son?” and then following it up with specific, engaged questions. Whereas the Kanye of “Real Friends”, “Couldn't tell you how old your daughter was/ couldn't tell you how old your son is.” Elsewhere, the “Ya'll gon sit down, have a good time this reunion/ and drink some wine like communion” of “Family Business has turned into “I'm a deadbeat cousin, I hate family reunions/ Fucking up the church by drinking at the communion/ Spilling free wine, now my tux is ruined.” Both songs are also built around simple piano/808 combinations, but whereas in “Family Business” this is warm and inviting, almost holiday like (the song has been a staple of my Christmas playlists for years), in “Real Friends” it takes a menacing turn. In a vibe similar to the work on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, the piano becomes chillier; the bass hits twist into something claustrophobic and uncomfortable. This is fitting, as people that he used to lie to protect from prison or that would brag about seeing him on television, are now the people that steal his laptop and demand a quarter of a million dollars for its return. The socioeconomic dynamics are large-scale, but notable. The journey from Chicago to Paris has created a class difference that is understandably uncomfortable for all involved.

The harmonies further drive home the idea that the extended family that Kanye values most is now one of his own making. The children's choir of the older track has been swapped for frequent cohort Ty Dolla $ign (who apparently just showed up for the yams.) The people that he surrounds himself with now are his collaborators and fellow artists; a network of like-minded individuals. This reflects a very a familiar reality to most college graduates (the multiple ironies of that statement are not missed by this author.) Family becomes something that you build, more than what you're born into. You catch up with blood relatives on special occasions, but the people you actively choose to spend time with are those with shared passions and schedules.

Listening to the tracks back to back, you truly feel that in the past decade, something real was lost, probably irrevocably. What West has achieved in documenting that loss here is deeply personal, but it resonates because it's imminently relatable, because at one point or another, something similar happens to all of us. If “Real Friends” is a triumphant return to an artist's musical roots, it's also a sobering reminder that perhaps you truly can't go home again.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6wFxUq7Gr44N3uwLjVQRR0

https://soundcloud.com/kanyewest/real-friends-no-more-parties-in-la-snipped

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Millennial struggles