Hello, friends and enemies. Here we are again with more tales from my existence. This every-other-week schedule is working better for me lately. I don’t feel like enough is happening in my life or my brain to justify a weekly blog. Thinking of writing this as not a “weekly” blog takes the (completely self-imposed) pressure off to drum up something to write about when not much of interest is going on.
Happy Superb Owl Sunday to all who celebrate! The Super Bowl makes me feel like Jews must feel during December. There’s no avoiding hearing about some big cultural event that everyone seems to care about. People are talking about their plans at work and everyone is having a sale on party food. I don’t care, but I hope you’re all having fun. I love that for you.
Media
Books and Other Words
Here’s what I’ve read recently:
- Permanent Distortion: How the Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever by Nomi Prins. This was a little bit of a hard book to get into for me because I don’t read a whole lot about economics, so it was tricky to latch on to some of the issues earlier in the book (the latter part of the book is about crypto, which I know more about). However, it is a good description of the fact that our economy (aka the stock market) is now purposely tilted in favor of wealthy people who own stocks and has no connection to the “economy” as the rest of us are experiencing it.
- Hotel Silence by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir. I decided to go for another Ólafsdóttir book after enjoying Miss Iceland. This book was also very melancholy, but in a different way from Miss Iceland. I don’t have any big thoughts about it but I really like her (and the translator’s) writing style.
Meanwhile, on the internet:
- Disorder or difference? Autism researchers face off over field’s terminology via Science. Some scientists are mad about political correctness or something and feel like they should get to describe autism however they want regardless of how it sounds to the rest of us. “’If you can’t use words like ‘challenging behaviors’ or ‘severe disorder’ or ‘symptoms’ or ‘comorbid disorder,’ then how are you supposed to study those things?’” they ask. Look, a “challenging behavior” isn’t defined by the autistic people experiencing behaviors. Neurotypical/non-autstic people are looking at autistic people and their behaviors and declaring them “challening.” All this language is about how the researchers feel, which is kind of fucked up when you consider that there are plenty of autistic people around who could tell you how they feel (and some who would struggle to do so, I understand, but still, we’re here and we can hear what you say about us).
- The people onscreen are fake. The disinformation is real via The New York Times (this is a gift link, it won’t count against your free articles). The unholy combination of AI and deepfakes used to create “news” videos means that everyone needs to update their media literacy skills, like, yesterday.
TV and Music
I made it my business to watch “Footloose” last weekend. My tap class is doing a number to the titular song so I thought I’d watch the movie. I also decided to continue my experiments with edibles and see about getting high to watch the movie because, frankly, it didn’t seem like it would be that entertaining on its own. Friends, this time, I did get high.
Even though Footloose came out in 1984, I hadn’t seen it before (spoiler alert for a 40-year-old movie. I guess). Going in, I knew that dancing wasn’t allowed but Kevin Bacon, through sheer force of will or charisma or something, wins the town over. What I did not realize is that dancing and music are literally illegal in this movie. I thought it was some kind of social prohibition or a church thing. No. Literally illegal. Kevin Bacon gets pulled over and ticketed by the cops for listening to music. It was at this point, that I couldn’t stop laughing (can we blame the use of substances? Yes, but it is also ridiculous). Something I also didn’t know about this movie was how extremely homoerotic it would be. In the beginning of the movie, some guy at Kevin Bacon’s new school makes fun of him, and Kevin Bacon responds by making a homophobic joke. These guys then become best friends through the power of homophobia. Later on, Kevin Bacon teaches this friend to dance via a montage. There’s nothing inherently gay about bros teaching each other how to dance, but it is in this movie.
So much in this movie made no sense to me. I know you might think, “well, Lindsey, you just told us you were high” (and you might continue “how high were you?” to which I would tell you that I got up to get some Oreos from the pantry, realized I was walking incredibly slowly, stopped and stood there putting Oreos in my face with Footloose on in the background. Then I started cracking up thinking about what would happen if Kirk came back home to find me dazed and standing around eating cookies. That high). It’s true, I was high. However, even sober, there’s nothing that makes sense about two teenage boys jousting on tractors out in the middle of nowhere. Why does the antagonist have a boombox on his tractor and why does he play Holding Out for a Hero when he rides into battle against Kevin Bacon? “Where have all the good men gone,” Bonnie Tyler asks us. I don’t know, Bonnie, but I can’t imagine these man-children riding farming machinery at each other are the men you’re referring to. I know Holding Out for a Hero wasn’t a gay anthem when it came out—it was made for the movie—but I can really only hear it as the gay song it currently is. I also found the pacing in this movie really weird. I guess I am spoiled by modern media, but there are no real signposts in the movie to tell you how much time has passed or what time of year it is. Things just kind of happen all on top of each other. Kevin Bacon wants to organize a dance, and next think you know, a dance is happening. Is it the next day? A week later? Apparently, it’s the end of the school year.
Anyway, I think my texts to my group chat honestly are funnier than anything else I can say about this movie, so please enjoy this selection of context-free chat screenshots.
Making Things and Doing stuff
I just want to share this really good lasagna I made. I made the noodles from scratch and I finally found a recipe that works well for me. I usually end up sticky and annoyed, but these instructions worked perfectly for me. Because I take good care of myself, I assembled this lasagna and put it in the fridge in the morning before I got high and watched Footloose last Sunday. Then all I had to do was toss it in the oven when I was not on the top of my game in the evening. Responsible adult activities.
Cat Therapy
Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. We’re all in love.
