4 September 2020
"I do not think I have said enough about the splintered disorder of June, July & August."
This Week
Last week we released episode three of Quiet Little Horrors, the psychological horror movie podcast I co-host, and in this one we discuss Hereditary. Enjoy! Or feel disturbed! Whichever is more appropriate!
I also showed up on Finding Favorites with Leah Jones, a podcast with a premise I really dig: talking to various people about their favorite things with unabashed enthusiasm. The reign of cynicism is over and I could not be any more delighted about it. Leah let me go on and on about one of my own favorite things, Mystery Science Theater 3000. (Hence the photo of me and my Tom Servo.)
Just as a note, last week I published the August essay for paid subscribers about finding heroines, how different generations find the same heroines and Nancy Drew. It also includes my own guide to playing Nancy Drew computer games and a list of my favorites, if you’re looking for something new to do at home.
Links
“As a means of abdicating responsibility, magical thinking is an egregious dereliction of duty, but it can also be a vital means of responding to the devastation that follows.” How the spirit mediums of New York are dealing with mass death. This is a pretty phenomenal piece about grief, ritual, mental health and how the lack of systems to support all three is a slow-growing crisis.
“Ultimately, the most important lesson here is that no one is coming to save us. That shouldn’t be cause for alarm; if anything, it’s a chance for people to come together and fight for a truly revolutionary vision of liberation.”
An involved primer on film noir with both watching and reading guides.
“This lake believes it is the ocean. It speaks the same language—a tongue like wind, the only word an unceasing sibilance.” Jill Sisson Quinn on the strange allure of one of the Great Lakes.
Reading/Watching/Listening
My favorite cartoon mild-mannered-office-worker-turned-karaoke-rage-monster, Aggretsuko, is back for season three.
I’m getting back into the swing of podcasts, so I picked up one I put in my queue a while back: Old Gods of Appalachia (Season 1), a narrative horror tale set in an a historical Kentucky coal mine disaster. There are demons and witches and ghosts and eldritch terrors. If you’re into that sort of thing.
Every so often I reread Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. This is one of those times.
I’ve been working my way through Joanna Hogg’s filmography. The recent The Souvenir (Amazon Prime) is probably the best, but I also really enjoyed her debut, Unrelated (Criterion Channel). Your enjoyment might vary, depending on how empathetic you are with an almost-forty-year-old woman mourning past youth and lost chances (I’m at about 100 on that scale, so there you are).
Revisiting Fiona Apple.
Do whatever you’ve got to do to get by.
Love,
Jen
Connections
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Today’s quote is from Virginia Woolf.