D&F 12/25/22

Happy Christmas, mid-Hanukah, and 4 days post-solstice. The days, my friend, are getting longer. I am excited. Coming back from Japan one of my three missed things was cycling (the other two are Snorri and my apartment with cycling being the third), and once I made sure I didn’t have COVID, I set out to climb more mountains. My muscles are sore, but it’s great to move again. I don’t have holiday plans this year, other than bike rides and watching movies at home, and that feels nice.

Whether you’re enjoying this time off with your pets, or with chosen family, I hope it’s restful. If you need an escape from talking, Knives Out’s sequel, the Top Gun sequel, and the new Avatar movies are all available for your viewing pleasure, and are a blast. If you plan to be stoned, Top Gun or Avatar are my top choice, with Glass Onion being a little more cerebral. Maybe some year I’ll enjoy the solstice on a small Greek Isle with my friends… and a murder mystery.

Links

If you choose to see Avatar, I recommend you read about a hilarious accident/poisoning on the set of Cameron’s first water-based masterpiece, Titanic.

If you’ve travelled recently, or even eaten out, you might have thought, “why is everything kinda ugly now? " Whether online or in person, there’s a cursed aesthetic of shoddy concrete with dull facades all over the place. Even the homes of the wealthy went from eccentric insanity to beige over the last century. The building I live in was previously a bakery, but is now a stucco and steel mall-esque structure that has the main benefit of being conveniently located and spacious. Every time I’m in Japan I’m amazed by the absurdity variety of buildings, styles, and zoning allowances, and jealous of the lack of on-street parking which makes even a mountainous vista of skyscrapers feel human.

Japan also summons thoughts of Gibson novels whenever I roam Tokyo in particular. His latest trilogy takes place in London and the US south, but the Blue Ant trilogy, and especially his earlier cyberpunk books capture a particular era of Japanese futurism that is responsible for a large amount of my fascination with the country. The ease of jet-setting that happens in Blue Ant is probably dying, but I can’t help but do a bit of Case Pollard cosplay and LARPing while I look around Omotesando or Meiji-Jingumae. It helps that like her, I also wear black. I reread Pattern Recognition this fall and thought again about how far past a single secret online video we’ve come, as Twitter dies and endless short vertical videos take over the ether—Banksy and Space Invader are old hat, and even ARG tie-ins with films are tired. I wish there was more mystery on the internet and in media again, but I fear that’s over.

That said, one man who continues to puzzle every critic is Nathan Fielder. The Rehearsal was an incredible show, and I can’t wait for the second season, or his new show with the Sadfies called The Curse. A lot of friends can’t watch Nathan for You because of the deep discomfort it puts on screen throughout, but it’s an all-time top hit for me. My first exposure to this guy though was as a boom-operator for the short-lived show Jon Benjamin Has a Van. Fielder and his style of comedy took a while to catch, but I’m so glad he’s getting that HBO money to do wild shit.

Closing

I hope you got everything you dreamed-of under your tree this year, or nearish a menorah? I’m not actually sure in what manner American Jewish folks give gifts to their kids, but I don’t think it’s under anything. I do remember being very jealous of my Jewish friend as a kid since he got eight gifts, and a big teen party. My gift this year was either my trip to Japan or one of many pieces of furniture I bought in a fugue state while jetlagged upon my return.

However you celebrate the winter, stay cozy, warm, and hopeful for a beautiful spring, space cowgirls~