Knock Knock. Let The Devil In."

I recently saw this shared online from David Cronenberg's Scanners (which I have not seen yet but must. And will):

I've seen plenty of Cronenberg films which I adore. This one is particularly intriguing.

For now, what has had to suffice is the movie VENOM starring Tom Hardy, a movie from MARVEL/SONY - which I think taps into the hearing voices thing in a very, very amazingly fun and realistic way, giving the symptom (hearing voices) the cinematic and creative virtue it deserves. 

Sickness is like this. This split self - one barbarous and hungry and running on instinct. The other... weak, freaked out, unsure, paranoid...

In one part Eddie's girlfriend, after seeing him transform into the monster of Venom, says, "Eddie, you're sick, you're really sick." (And he is, Eddie has this parasite that talks to him and is stronger than he can imagine, this slimy powerful thing that controls him and his body, and finally becomes a part of him after he has been infected accidentally.) This is what Eddie says, "I'm scared. I'm just scared." This poor soul cannot control himself for this force has passed into him, a perfect match, and he has no clue what to make of it. 

And she replies, "You. You need to go to a hospital."

True enough. What I love about this movie is that the symbiote, the VENOM, finally becomes Eddie's friend, and Eddie's pure character actually changes this parasitic voice/embodiment for the good.

Too much to write now, already had two glasses of fabulous red wine with my husband. Which is the only reason I've watched this film by the way; I've watched every film in the DC and MARVEL universe. Every one. Because of him. But I wanted to leave a note to self: watch VENOM again, write about it, it'll help me understand a particular kind of sickness that I'm very sensitive to. 

For now I'll leave you with the movie's theme song, from who else but Eminem, a guilty pleasure, I don't care.

Also, happy new year. Cheers to 2019.

- F

She says hi

- F

You Are Not Alone

With Bierce, I agree. To an extent. But was it a blunder when you said that you don't believe in fate? Did you mean to say that your lack of faith is in destiny? Because fate is another thing, if not entirely then partly. 

But my question was answered. Things fall into our hands, into our story, into our path. Events pass through us like pure particles or viruses or DNA. And it is then up to us to lose our chains, wherever they are, and most times they are not chains at all...

At Mass a week ago the priest said this: God gives us the ability to change the meaning of situations. Of things. I found that quite smart, actually, despite your feelings about religion.

In any case, I feel we are in agreement. 

- F

Weather Report

When micro-agressions, intentional or not, spill out of our mouths like bile while giving the weather report.

"And *this mess* coming in from the Gulf of Mexico... a sheet of freezing ice..."

The nonchalance of words like this are easy to brush aside, but for some they linger, festering. 

When will language become a little more revered, a little more precise, a little more poetic in our day to day? I'm not there myself yet but I yearn for it. 

- F 

In which the Arab author imagines stolen Israeli art"

"THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL | THIS IS NOT A WALL"

from Imagining a Free Palestine by George Abraham via The Paris Review

- F 

Honey

Tea with a whole lot of honey tonight:

- F

Blood Bag

Maybe I'm Nux and you're something like my Blood Bag, in exactly this reversal:

- F

Regards

Sure, the clouds had already shattered. And now they've coalesced together and a bit too tightly, without a trace of patchwork, billowy and cold, refreshing all the same, leaving space for just two traces, one spread in flight, the other a piercing heart, both made of light, the splinterest difference of truth between them and their cover. 

Here, above my humble abode the other day:

- F

safe & sound

- F

Muddy, Muddier, Muddiest

I'm just glad I can write now. And talk, too. Because there was a point when I was stopped blank and couldn't. Not long ago at all. Eminem called his rapping once a kind of diarrhea of the mouth, in a really self-deprecating line in one of his songs. For me it was more like a diarrhea of the brain, being typed out by fingers, typing and typing by and from an unknown impetus that wouldn't cease, my mouth barely functioning. It was really bad. I've since deleted those tweets, some strange call for attention or help or whatever, a couple Facebook profiles too, because I didn't make any sense. I mean I could probably extract the meaning reading those lines now (of which some are written in various diaries/journals) but only because it was my own lived experience. I felt these things, I've felt it my whole life, I feel it now. It's coming to me piece by piece, some mysterious coherence, forming, but achingly slow. I'm not pushing it. Just waiting until time gives me a light the color of the deepest green, not just a faint, sickly lime, not a light at all, like toxic neon waste. 

(Now I function like a well-oiled machine. In speech. In writing. Other things, too. But not without, not without... this... sickness. Which can no longer be referred to as existential dread, something which I know I've crossed, something which no longer phases me.)

- F

Thoughts on Robert Zemeckis' The Polar Express" (2004)

The Polar Express is my favorite Christmas movie ever. This one absolutely wins me over. I watched it the night before Christmas Eve (and cried, plenty), and afterwards, I made up my mind to write about it. 

A review from Robert Ebert (The Polar Express 4/4) encapsulates much of how and what I feel  about Zemeckis' film. Some bits:

"The Polar Express" has the quality of a lot of lasting children's entertainment: It's a little creepy. Not creepy in an unpleasant way, but in that sneaky, teasing way that lets you know eerie things could happen. There's a deeper, shivery tone, instead of the mindless jolliness of the usual Christmas movie. This one creates a world of its own, like "The Wizard of Oz" or "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," in which the wise child does not feel too complacent."

...

And the North Pole looks like a turn-of-the-century German factory town, filled with elves who not only look mass-produced but may have been, since they mostly have exactly the same features (this is not a cost-cutting device, but an artistic decision).

...

Santa, in this version, is a good and decent man, matter-of-fact and serious: a professional man, doing his job. The elves are like the crowd at a political rally. A sequence involving a bag full of toys is seen from a high angle that dramatizes Santa's operation, but doesn't romanticize it; this is not Jolly St. Nick, but Claus Inc. There is indeed something a little scary about all those elves with their intense, angular faces and their mob mentality.

That's the magic of "The Polar Express": It doesn't let us off the hook with the usual reassuring Santa and Christmas cliches. 

All true, all right on the nose. I'll say two things: 1) I haven't read this in its original book version written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg, which I'm sure is equally wonderful, and 2) the film is extremely touching, visually. Not beautiful, not pretty, not gorgeous - but - touching.

Visually, the story is sparse and cold and doesn't wow us with sparkles and the usual elements of coziness. Nor does it try to by funny. There is no comedy in this film whatsoever and I am in love with that element of it. (That is not to say there aren't parts where you won't laugh. I laughed, plenty. And not because of any punch line, but true laughter, the pure laughter of those slivered moments in which we think we understand existence.) For those of us who know that true feeling of loneliness - not adult loneliness but a child's loneliness - when all the basic amenities of home are met (mom, dad, sister, house, bed, toys) but yet, there is a lack, and that cold blue light comes through the window, first the sad, heavy twilight, then the deeper blue like an opaque denim colored sky, and lastly the darkest royal, midnight blue... and you're alone and young and thinking and these colors surround you and you know no one can are truly relate to what you feel because you are the only one experiencing this lonely melancholy at exactly this time. And somehow, it's scary, but you feel OK. 

Well, this movie, for me, captures that rare feeling in the first sequences. And the best part (one of many) comes when the Polar Express gets there, and the young boy runs out of his house and, tentatively at first, decides to hop on that mysterious train. Which is warm and cozy and full of warm light and adventure and is moving and and and... it is also full of strangers. All curious, some annoying, but all there in wonderment together. And the story captures this feeling of communal unknowing - everyone - each child, more specifically, coping with this *not knowing* it in a different way. 

Arguably, this movie is not even about Christmas. It is - it is - but underlying it all it isn't. It is about believing in something that you believed in when you were little and then knowing that it's not true and then rekindling that belief in some strange way, doing whatever it takes to find out the real, God-honest truth, even taking some strange, mysterious, and possibly dangerous train away from your home in the middle of the night. For the main character, that's what it's about. The way the story tells it describes this in terms of Santa Claus. Which is endearing and precious because of the culture we grew up in. But there's something more here. 

My favorite character (though I love all of them dearly, as if they were real), is the lonely boy. After the Polar Express stops to pick up our hero, it goes on for a while and all the way on the "other side of the tracks" it stops to pick up a poor boy, thin, with shaggy blonde hair, utterly depressed. He misses the train but luckily, his future friend pulls the emergency brakes and let's him jump on. The lonely boy decides to sit by himself in the last car. His story is something I must think more about, but this boy seems to appreciate everything, though it may not seem so on the outside. He has trust issues, but by the end he makes two friends, who he may not ever see again, yet, we now that those friendships will be cherished somewhere other than just in his memory. Somewhere deeper. 

So much of this movie reminds me of being little. I had plenty of dreams that turned into odd nightmares of riding long, long, long tracks that would suddenly slide down as if a roller coaster, then winding and winding again, and Zemeckis' Polar Express seems to have incepted those dreams from me in a science fiction universe - that's how immediate my reaction was to them. 

There is so much more to say about and write about... like the absurdity of the North Pole. The emptiness of it, like a convention center where the decorations are up but everyone has left, the party ended, until one realizes it has just congregated to another space. The beauty of the North Pole town, a painting of gorgeous townhouse like buildings, but without inhabitants. Waiting to be explored. Inhabited. The entire cleanliness of the place. The hollowness that didn't fear this hollowness. 

Here's the key. The Polar Express' three main characters (and arguably know-it-all boy as well) are not like anyone else. Santa knows this. Santa sees them. Acknowledges them. Speaks to them. Makes sure they are presented with something precious and heart-rending. The train conductor - though he acts as if the proprietor of an egalitarian and equal community - knows that these three (or four, with know-it-all) are, indeed, special. The three don't even know it themselves. But they can feel it. It could be something like - that piercing feeling in your heart when - you're sad because - because you're stellar. And perhaps you realize that you are more rare than you, even you in your brilliant form, would like to admit. Because, really, it can be truly lonely. But maybe you meet a couple (or three) new friends that can match that new knowledge. Maybe your Santa, whatever his form, gives you that eternal present, like the boy's bell, in which you can hear (and see and feel and understand and produce), what many others simply cannot. 

Do me a favor: see the movie. For fun. 

(The ghost character reminiscent of Tom Waits is pretty awesome, too.)

- F 

Gin

Dan took this. I like this one. 

- F

Postmodern Nihilism, 1

I could have shared this in other places, but this, this reminds me of you. The completely exposed ceiling of the gym I go to, which no longer makes me depressed, as it would if I were a child. I just feel nothing, now. 

They've got no intention of covering it, either. 

This kind of exposure would be OK if it were intentional. Even if it looked the same, but intentional, instead of whoever just not giving a fuck. 

- F

I'm not in the business. I am the business."

- F

I've been wondering the same thing.

- F

Natural Circuitry

And all it does is breathe 
without thought, until
under attack.


(words my own. image from Threadless: Nature vs. Industries: Threadless Guys Pima Tree)

- F

Communism (?)

I've finished writing two new blog posts for CPL, which should be publicly available on the CPL homepage on January 1st, though they'll already be published by December 21st and available via this link: Felicia's Blog | Chicago Public Library. One of them has five books I've selected for National Science Fiction Day, which includes P.D. James' Children of Men. 

I'm writing now, though, about something else. First:

"...equality is a political theory not a practical policy..." 

Right. I've heard this thousands of times from the mouths of many different people, none of which really dig into communism. Furthermore, the contemporary writing I've read about communism is, as of yet, too difficult for me to comprehend, though I will give myself credit enough to say that I have tried and will not stop until I feel I understand it. I'll take that with me to the grave. I've studied Marx, and, like some awful mathematical course from my childhood, I'm still.... lost. 

Is the way contemporary theorists and philosophers use this term following this popular opinion, which I've underlined in the first pages of Children of Men? Precisely, communism as being a great political theory to only put into practice via the written and spoken word? 

It seems when I come across the term I feel an inherent or innate adversity to it, perhaps due to my lack of comprehension, but also from what I gather the use of the term communism that seems to directly oppose what the intellectuals, whoever they are at whatever given time, seem to be trying to do. Elaborations on this further will have to wait. 

Exacerbating my confusion is Carly Rae Jepsen - an American pop star of the now annoying song "Call Me Maybe" who claims she is a communist on her Twitter page:

She claims she gets it, which I don't doubt that she does, but, why not I? It irks me so. 

Periodicals such as The Nation and The New Inquiry - beehives of political expression that I'm trying to make sense of - are watching this star on twitter, so that also gives her bio some creedence. 

There are lots of people who are late to the party, but I'm afraid I'm going to completely miss it. 

Sincerely,

F

From the Intro to W.B. Yeats' Collected Poems (by Robert Mighall)

...

Alas! The dichotomy of the rural and industrial - a now familiar trope - of which there is no escape.

- F 

Drink Fire

Current advertising urges us to become dragons by now offering substances akin to “a crackling fire” and somehow making this experience “cozy and sweet” which is not typically what a crackling fire should taste like but I’ll take it:

Okay, okay but you're not getting the point.

The point is that this is an example of a bad simile. Cozy is not a taste, neither is crackling fire, which is why this doesn't work. Cozy and sweet, like a hearth or a fireplace is still bad, but not as bad as crackling fire. Cozy is a state of being, crackling fire is a sound as well as a vision. It's just a messy simile. OK? Bad advertising. Though I'm sure it's only a select  number of us who even take notice of this stuff. 

- F

exploration and discovery

I've just begun to explore Embassytown. I'm in love with this book, I've never read anything like it. It's very cerebral, which makes me excited and happy. I'm here now:

"The Ambassadors spoke to me in the language of our Hosts. They spoke me: they said me. They warned me that the literal translation of the simile would be inadequate and misleading. There was a human girl who in pain ate what was given her in an old room built for eating in which eating had not happened for a time. 'It'll be shortened with use,' Bren told me. 'Soon they'll be saying you're a girl ate what was given her.'"

A bit speechless,
F

Whiskey

This is a photo Dan took of me earlier today, as we sat, complicit, amidst the hordes of holiday shoppers, all blessed with the mediocrity of future Christmases/Hanukkahs/Kwanzaas/New Year's to come... until one day ⚠️ (error 404 not found!)... and just like that that... celebrating becomes something else entirely... 

I ended up with a stomach-ache in bed, but I finished Lem's Solaris (phenomenal phenomenal phenomenal) and I will have written a review by the end of tomorrow, which will be posted here: To Read & To Write

Cheers,
F

P.S. I don't like this photo but it doesn't matter. 

destruction is a form of creation"

I don't know, but this pretty much sums it up. At least right now.

1.

2.

....

- F