#The End of Summer

[cinematicjourney]

The End of Summer (1961) | dir.  Yasujirō Ozu

[the-night-picture-collector]

/ Yasujiro Ozu, The End of Summer, 1961

[israelcastillophoto]

The end of summer….

[hobgoblingorl]

August sinks its bloodied teeth and claws into summer with a primal and panicked desire for sameness. it tries to hold the summer, horror struck and unmoving, in it’s violent grip. the ember colors of fire-hot coals drop to the earth and the forests are alight with a warning of September. a slow burn while Autumn paces placidly, with sorrow, at the madness of august. Change will always come again.

[thebermonthslove]

[catharsis-in-a-bottle]

what does tillie walden do?

i don't know.

i just finished 'are you listening?' and it left me with the same exact unidentifiable shrimp emotion that this beautiful author bestowed upon me with on a sunbeam and the end of summer. i want to curl up in a blanket and cry. i want to draw. i don't even know what this book has done to me. i want to know how tillie walden captures something [this unidentifiable but very present feeling] that no other work of art has captured for me.

are you listening? follows two women through their road trip through western texas, both traumatized and both hurting. one older and more experienced, one freshly eighteen and emotionally raw from years of sexual abuse. the road trip is the story's through line - they find a cat and the landscape begins to shift, becoming more indistinct and unreal as they travel further - but the body of the story is the characters themselves. i think the thing that gets me overall is that the characters don't mark the strangeness of the shifting landscape until well after it begins. even then, it isn't their main focus - they focus on the rawness of their pain and the friendship they find in each other. what does this do? it captures the experience of deep emotional pain, the experience wherein the world doesn't feel real - the world is already warped into darkness in your vision. the true landscape change thus becomes irrelevant to the characters - it's a product of pain. it's just how they see the world. absorption in one's thoughts makes any external weirdness perfectly possible.

to add to all of this, both the characters are gay, a fact that tillie walden so beautifully incorporates into their personalities and experiences. the warping of the world sees strangers - men in particular - become shadows, silhouettes, looming figures defined only by too-large, colorful eyes. (i think this reflects the common queer experience of not knowing who can be trusted with the knowledge of our identities. and personally, i know that when i'm in a shitty mood and am overthinking my own identity, the surrounding world begins to feel like a bunch of untrustworthy strangers.)

the landscape itself also adds to the deep isolation of this graphic novel. yes, the characters are alone on a road trip with only a cat to keep them company, but the surrounding world is also huge and foreign and unreal. they are alone with each other. to me, their own pain and this isolation compound each other; i felt myself slipping further into walden's constructed darkness as i read.

and at the end, there's hope. the world is dark and that darkness is inescapable, and then at the end of it all, the characters continue on with their lives, changed for the better.

IT MAKES ME INSANE.

tillie walden did the same thing with on a sunbeam. a group of space travelers isolated on their ship, exploring strange buildings and ultimately venturing into a strange, unknowable landscape (The Staircase). a group of travelers bonded by pain. a group of queer travelers bonded by their love for one another. a world that is fundamentally built upon queerness - upon lesbians, upon trans people. i think the recipe is ultimately similar to are you listening? pain + isolation + queerness + found family = a reader response of despair, catharsis, hope, tears.

perhaps my own response stems from the fact that on the deepest level, i most relate to the struggles of butch lesbians, if i am being entirely real with myself. what does tillie walden do? she knocks it out of the fucking park and writes a type of very real-feeling queer darkness that caters to me specifically. (chomp chomp.) but apart from my own shrimp emotions, she's also just a really fucking good storyteller. a brilliant artist, a brilliant character creator, a brilliant writer. and her graphic novels are really fucking brilliant books.

[wildemoonbud]

Summer Will Show / Sylvia Townsend Warner

[kodachrome-net]

The End of Summer. Illinois Beach, September 3, 2023

[mailmiocuoredipietratremaancora]

Dune du Pilat • october 2023

[cinematicjourney]

The End of Summer (1961) | dir.  Yasujirō Ozu

[nobodiesheartlessshitblog45]

Once again another summer has come.

There still a bit of warmness in the air still, the crisp air of autumn slowly taking over winds.

The days will get slightly shorter and the days a bit cooler, but I know summer with come once again.

See you next summer, my dear friend...

[hopefulmilkshakeengineer]

01.09.2023

OMG IT'S SEPTEMBER

I love this month. And I love October, November, December. Now it's my favourite time of the year 🧡🧡

I came to my home (finally). I missed my little lovely room with many flowers and plants🌱

In the morning I made a breakfast for my grandma and my sister. Next I was drawing and studying history. Also I was reading "Dymy nad Birkenau" by Seweryna Szmaglewska.

I packed my things and I came to my house. I'll miss my aunt's doggie sooo much❤️‍🩹

Tomorrow I'm hanging out with my friends, I can't wait✨

Take care of yourself, love you guys 🫶

[antinousamongthereeds]

[livisnotlit]

[sideshow-tornado]

This is where the summer ends

In a flash of pure destruction, no one wins

Go nuclear. Nuclear.

The violets in my eyelids goin' red

Sentimental geek

Shut up and go to sleep…

[beetplease]