Happy Saint Brigid’s Day to all who celebrate! For me, this is the true beginning of the year. January is indeed a trial month. For the last week of that trial, I had SXSW volunteer call, a few new (to me) coffee shops, and an Overheard with Evan Smith taping.
On my way to the volunteer call, I wandered around the city, looking for our angles, and finally found one that worked for both of us. The objective was to find a way to attend SXSWEdu for free, which went smoothly. I even got a vintage 2020 edition tote bag they found in a warehouse somewhere because that festival did not happen. And I finally got to try the Rosen’s Bagels in Republic Square.
The next day, I visited the new bridge connecting Shoal Creek to The Grove (after stopping at Stinson’s for the first time ever to try a buttered coffee).
The Grove is creepy, half-finished and more populated by construction workers and College Hunks moving vans than residents, but there are dogs. Lots of them. This one was off-leash when I went off-path, and we both froze to stare at each other. “Are you a spirit guide?” I finally asked. Her name was Lily.
Reading through The Chronicle this week, I was struck by District 9 Council Member Zo Qadri’s discussion of “trail-oriented development” to address his priority this term: mobility issues. The downtown councilman “would love to see more small businesses and housing along some of our trails.” I realized after reading the city council story that my trek through The Grove, for which I parked along Shoal Creek Boulevard and walked across a bridge spanning the actual Shoal Creek, had occurred right at the nexus of Districts 7, 9, and 10. The only business that suited my needs during that urban hike–although there is a liquor store open in The Grove because priorities–was the convenience store selling fancy snacks and boasting a taco bar that serves up a chicken tikka taco fresh enough that I don’t ever have to go back to that chain with the gross pun for a name.
This is how one accidentally becomes interested in local politics.
I also tried out boxing at Archetype. I went three days in a row on my three-class pass. I’m still processing.
Today, Saturday, I really tried to go paddleboarding, but all the rental shops were closed until noon and that was my drop-dead deadline for getting back home in time for work. I ubered out to EpicSUP, which ironically held a SUP clean-up on Friday that I didn’t find out about until Saturday when I reactivated my Instagram. The lake levels are low because Longhorn Dam got stuck open, which makes for excellent trash hunting, and I did see the Trail Conservancy volunteers out today. As soon as I joined the trail, behind a pair of dudes and in front of a pair of women, I overheard simultaneous conversations: “Why do you want to start the podcast?” and “It doesn’t scale” said as a call-and-response flow of two different conversations that mingled in an obnoxious way only I could hear.
My SUP FOMO led me to two more closed rental docks, walking about two miles in flip-flops and, under my Water Dog SUP Yoga rashguard, a swimsuit. But that journey allowed me to experience the new bridge and, lo and behold, some of Austin’s quirkiest residents: the green parakeets [not pictured; well, barely pictured].
There’s a flock that feasts in the parking lot of a bookstore I used to work at on North Lamar (one my kinder former co-workers feeds them). I can’t remember the lore, if they are descended from escaped pets or just a little too far north of their natural habitat, but someone once pointed out to me that they build nests throughout the city, following along the power lines (maybe for warmth?). Anyway, they were super active today! Busy building the nest and chirping the whole time. My grinning photoshoot prompted a few other people to look up, sparking joy, and I’m sorry the green isn’t very vivid in the photos, but IYKYK–they are remarkable. I just know the Hartman Bridge/Waterloo Greenway Phase 2 trail was routed to showcase their cute little communal home on Lady Bird Lake.
I ordered my California Club from Thundercloud while riding the bus home, and since it’s the last time I’ll be car-free in Austin (that news coming later), I showered, ate, and hopped right back on another bus over to Highland so I could get to campus and start work at Bennu. The Overheard with Evan Smith taping featured Jason Reitman and a reminder that public broadcasting is actively under attack as we speak, plus one of my favorite views of Austin at sunset.
Austin did put on a show today. I started this ExhAUSTIN’ category of the blog because I’m getting tired of her, but she really did meet me halfway today. Which is a good thing, because next week is a break.
I’ve been working my way through White Lotus before the new season drops, and I’ve been dragging my feet on starting season two because I know I’ll binge the whole thing but, also, I wasn’t all that wild about season one. It was more about catching up on what everybody was talking about, though I absolutely love the premise: let’s create an anthology series that moves around luxury resorts in stunning locales as an excuse to talk about class issues. Kai’s story was just so gut-wrenching, and not necessarily in an edifying way, but my favorite storyline was the absolute dork of a teenage boy (the crazy emperor twin from GladIIator) slowly falling in love with the ocean, as unrealistic as that resolution was (as was the quick and sloppy law and order that surrounds every crime that takes place, but I guess if you want a justice procedural, you know exactly where to find one that’s been on the air for two decades and launched countless spinoffs).
This overlaps with some personal heartbreak of mine, and this is my attempt to feel my feelings. I saw something during a doomscroll that said you ruminate when you are not letting yourself feel something–you’re trying to intellectualize pain, or sadness, or heartache, or rage, or whatever. So the rumination on this particular White Lotus storyline is partly because it’s a fictional depiction–one of the few I’ve ever seen on this topic–that perfectly illustrates something I thought only I felt.
As an aside, I have to add that one of the people who told me about this show was the resident floozy (her words) on the one and only foreign yoga retreat I have ever attended. She and I happened to be on the same flight out of Houston, a fact we discovered in the pre-trip WhatsApp group. She was late to the airport, but we sat together–I held her a seat while she held up the plane, and I should’ve known then, but I was in my namaste open-to-the-universe phase of healing…a time ripe for picking by hustlers and manipulators. I can see why women my age GOING THROUGH IT get sucked into cults. Anyway, she talked about White Lotus on the plane, since we were heading to a tropical resort, but I had no idea that I was sitting next to our very own Jennifer Coolidge. The Tanya McQuoid of that week in paradise was twenty years younger and without the family money, but she was every bit as lacking in self-awareness and wrongly convinced of her own business acumen. (Again, I have only seen Season One, but I know what happens at the end of Season Two because the internet cannot keep a secret for long–including me. I’m about to lightly spoil Season One if you haven’t seen it.)
Anyway, there’s a very long rambling tangent (one might say rumination?) on my introduction to White Lotus. Without any further ado, here’s the character that scared the shit out of me in Season One.
We need the impact for the crazy eyes.
Rachel’s backstory is that she has married a man who covets her but does not understand her. He may love her, as much as he is capable of love, but she knows she is trading what she wants (a career in journalism) in a “Faustian bargain” for money and security. Needless to say, this happens a lot. So often, in fact, that I would argue we’ve grown numb to this storyline, so I think what caught me off guard about Rachel is the fresh take the show brings to that fear, and I do wonder, without googling, how much of Mike White’s own professional career has fed into Rachel’s story.
There are two-to-three major knots in this story thread that I want to tease out. First, Rachel has in the past written a profile on another guest at the White Lotus (Mrs. Coach T, playing a type of Sheryl Sandberg character here). Rachel has somehow profiled the woman without ever meeting let alone interviewing her. She admits, twice, that she basically repurposed something that ran in another publication, which Mrs. Coach T. rightly calls “just bad journalism.” I know I’m not currently earning a living in New York media, but I’m not sure that a Business Week-esque magazine would run a refurbished profile based on someone else’s reporting, but I could be very naive here. Rachel does say she writes a lot of clickbait, so it’s possible it was an online-only piece. Regardless, the magazine has enough legitimacy for Mrs. Coach T. to have read the profile…which she hated.
[Insert screenshot of Mrs. Coach T. saying “That was…a…hatchet job” with such aplomb I’m still hearing it.]
This ties in with the other knots in this thread, because that’s how knots work. Rachel has been offered another profile that honestly sounds like a lot of fun (van orgy at Burning Man) but her husband doesn’t want her working on their honeymoon. He, meanwhile, has spent their honeymoon “throwing the world’s biggest tantrum” and “tormenting that poor man” (Rachel’s words), capped off with a visit from his mother, so basically he’s been doing the rich person version of “work” the entire time. But when she wants to accept an assignment, to keep the network connected and wheels greased on her career, he says no. It is under this premise that she approaches Mrs. Coach T, to get advice, one career girl to another. She then gets eviscerated as only a writer can: It wasn’t your story to tell (twice removed) and, furthermore, you butchered it.
Pausing here to think of times in my career when that has happened, and often (but not always) it was the heavy hand of a bad editor. I cannot stress enough the importance of a good editor. Maybe this is what Rachel is alluding to when she talks about her industry connections, because there is no mention of a bad editor when Mrs. Coach T quotes “She rode the Me Too wave,” the line she take offense to in Rachel’s piece because it implies she stood on the empty and broken husks of other women’s careers to reach the pinnacle of hers.
“Because, for him, I’m hysterical about the fact that I can’t make 200 dollars writing hack-job articles that are clickbait. But, for me, that’s my entire career and that’s my entire life.” Alexandra Daddario explains character motivations in this behind-the-scenes footage.
All that leads to this third knot, the scene that shook me: Rachel trying to explain to her husband that she is afraid she doesn’t have any talent. He’s not listening to her, which is telling, because the words coming out her mouth are some of the scariest words a person can say. I don’t know if it’s just women, or if it’s the circumstances surrounding Rachel’s doubt, but this slippery slope right here is where many, many people crash and burn. It’s a steep fucking slope, and the slickness is not the fun kind. It’s black-ice terrifying. And having a partner who fails to recognize that can rip the soul right out of you before you even realize you’re in danger.
Yeah, I’m mixing metaphors here. I’m ruminating over Rachel’s storyline because I’ve rarely seen that kind of vulnerability about the creative life expressed on screen. Mostly because no one gives a shit–I’m deflecting here, but I genuinely don’t think anyone cares about this part of Rachel’s storyline, not when there was so much else going on at the White Lotus. It’s that moment, when Mrs. Coach T asks “Did you sign a pre-nup?” that sets it up, and Mrs. Coach T knows what that means: he says he’ll take care of you, but if you get off this treadmill, you will never gain this momentum again.
So Rachel’s story, and this is so obnoxious that Belinda literally gets up and walks away (a separate “Magical Negro” issue that I have no business commenting on here, but for the Louise from St. Louis of it: someone argued the other day that Louise is a figment of Carrie’s imagination brought on by the trauma of being left at the altar, and I can’t get over that–none of Carrie’s friends ever interact with her!) Anyway, Rachel’s “problems” look like rich people problems because they’re invisible: you can’t get assignments without the clips, and you can’t get clips without the assignments, so you have to be reliable and available. This is a boundary-setting issue I am only just now figuring out, but there’s a reason publishing is populated by rich kids…no one else has the safety net required to navigate this industry.
But the fear that you aren’t talented enough to see it through–I’m trying to hold space for this one, and the lack of a supportive partner, not necessarily because he’s mean, but because he just doesn’t get it–it’s so isolating and lonely. I’m scared to write about this because it sounds like I’m writing about one man in particular, the Shane/Pete character on his honeymoon at the White Lotus, but I’m not. I have come to realize that this is a theme in my life, a consistent problem in my romantic partnerships, and this White Lotus storyline hit so hard because I never talk about it. But I once had a conversation with a situationship where I had to say (text) the words: “I don’t think you can support my creative life.”
I didn’t even have the courage to say it in person; I had to send a text. Because it was my truth, and it was real, but I have never been brave enough to fight for that part of my life. Even afterward, I didn’t feel strong or brave or empowered; I felt so stupid saying those words that I still haven’t gotten over the cringe. The only thing I can cling to, the only rationalization I can muster, is that I had to go through that awkward moment so it would be easier next time. So I never compromise on that slippery slope again.
In the most haunting aspect of Rachel’s story, she finally gets up the nerve to admit she’s made a mistake. It’s incredibly brave, and hard, and scary, and so complicated that it leads to the big death of season one. When it’s all said and done, we see her husband waiting at the airport. This is where we met him in the flashforward at the beginning of the season, when a couple asked “If you’re on your honeymoon, where is your wife?” He tells them to fuck off, politely, before staring out the window at the makeshift casket of human remains being loaded on to the plane [my law-and-order question here is, if Thailand was next on their honeymoon, which plane is this and should the body and killer be heading to the same destination, but that is a separate tangent]. We’re meant to suspect, at the beginning of the story, that the unseen wife of the honeymooning couple might be the body being loaded onto the plane, but Rachel’s fate is actually…dum dum dum…much worse.
Because she goes back to him. At the last moment, she arrives at the airport, and the relief on his face contrasts horribly with the apprehension on hers. I understand there’s an element of “til death do us part” here, and Shane/Pete has absolutely been through something perhaps life-changing (probably not, he’s obnoxious and rich), but we fucking know Rachel is lying when she claims: “I’m happy; I’ll be happy.”
So she made her choice, to ski down that slippery slope in the best ski gear money can buy. To give up on her career, which probably wasn’t going anywhere anyway, because Mrs. Coach T said she had no talent, which was probably true, but I guess we’ll never know because she gave up.
Oh! I just remembered another work of fiction where I have seen this done well! The original series finale of Party Down (ergo, spoiler). Lizzy Caplan finds out her one line, her big break, has been cut from the Apatow movie, and she is understandably distraught. Adam Scott (who has abandoned his own once-promising and passion-driven acting career) tries to comfort her in a ham-fisted way, and she tells him: “I know what you’re trying to do; I know that you’re trying to help me. Maybe if we were the same kind of crazy, but we’re not. Because if you’re not crazy enough to believe it for you, how are you going to believe it for me?”
And just like that…I found some compassion for the other half of this dynamic. Because their doubt in you–even if they love you–is rooted in doubt in themselves.
I’m trying to align with the week numbers in my planner, so when we get up to week 26, I will just be able to look on the page instead of trying to count. This year’s planner pages end the week on Saturday, which is fine (ideal, actually) but throws me off last year’s visualization pattern.
So today, Saturday the 25th of January, is the end of week four. Not four full weeks, but that’s about to not matter. I promised Better Man, Wolf Moon, and Fika, so let’s see if I can stay on track.
I trekked all the way up to Alamo Lakeline in order to see Better Man, which was fine. I love Robbie Williams, I get Robbie Williams–he is my Elvis–I am not like those other Americans…but I am so tired of Robbie Williams hating Robbie Williams. I read his memoir on my London semester in 2002, and it was the same damn story that got rehashed in the Netflix documentary last year and Better Man this year…except with monkeys. I wanted to make some sort of connection between driving south to Slaugher to see A Complete Unknown and driving north to Lakeline to see Better Man, but I just don’t care enough.
My favorite scene was the Nicole Appleton gold-glitter fantasy on a yacht with fireworks, and I did get to learn more about their relationship, but the “evil record producer dragging her away and forcing her to get an abortion” imagery felt disenfranchising, to say the least. I did cry when he brought a TV to Nan’s grave, though. I’m not bothering with spoiler alerts because these are all just artistic spins on the factual events from his life, that have been covered ad nauseam.
There was a wolf moon, which more or less coincided with my wolf circle. I also made a trip to the ocean (outside the realm of this blog category)—preceded by a stop at the always excellent Cafe Java and a flying visit to my hometown—for the sake of fika. I did visit the Smithsonian traveling exhibit in Brenham; it opened in Rockport today. I submitted an article on deadline after writing all day; my accountabilibuddies would not let me procrastinate. That was the start of Aquarius Season.
The freeze arrived on Tuesday the 21st, bringing something like snow. I went for a frozen walk and appropriately found a copy of Icebreaker in a little free library; I sent a photo to my friends who also read the book and themed it to the pond in Anderson Village, which had frozen over. I’m still giggling at their response.
Wednesday the 22 was Hi How Are You Day, which pairs with a book I’m considering leaving in a little free library–there are a few around town I need to replenish, since I’ve taken a book from each. I went up to Brentwood Social House to work on a piece that felt too personal–I needed neutral ground. It’s 2350 words, ostensibly about White Lotus, and I’m scared to share it in the state it’s in. It’s too revealing, so it derailed every other project I tried to write this week. There’s a lesson there. But Brentwood was warm and welcoming as always, and I scaled the arroyo seco for funsies on my way there.
Friday, the 24th, I randomly attended a free conference on bipartisanship at the LBJ school. It was the only thing I could think to do to combat my malaise and helplessness. The main takeaways I got were that AI is a field ripe for bipartisanship and the guy in the White House wrote a book called The Art of the Deal, so let him make some deals.
I should probably track the books I have been reading, because I finished John Larison’s The Ancients last Monday and Cory Cotton’s Go Big (the Dude Perfect book) on the drive back from the coast. And just to be a completionist, I finished Richard Powers’ Playground on January 2–it was my thick holiday read.
I’m going to hit publish on this now, with the full knowledge that I’m going to come back in and edit/add imagery. I’m just tired and making myself write this to stay on track. Oh, and grad school started up again Tuesday. And work, with this week in the news, has been rough.
Next week: SXSW volunteer call, September 5, and rewards points. Oh! Here’s an update on the seed patch: the professionals stepped in!
I have to write this now because I’m on deadline and procrastinating; this movie keeps rattling around in my head, and maybe writing about John Travolta’s magazine assignment will inspire me to finish my own magazine assignment.
I’m not proud of this, but I only finally got around to watching Perfect because of the Jimmy Fallon spoof that randomly showed up on my feed. I don’t watch the late night shows/don’t have a TV, and I confess I googled the wrong Jimmy when looking for this clip again this morning:
Thoughts on Jamie Lee Curtis and this bizarre sexually charged aerobics scene are best left to other people, but I only first learned of this film’s existence a few months ago when it was included in the Alamo pre-show: I’m fairly certain for Love Lies Bleeding and The Substance, but I could be wrong on one of those. Thoughts about those movies, plus the Apple TV show Physical, are part of a bigger project I have in mind, and right now I just need to write about the writing life…as much as that annoys me. Journalism and aerobics? Sign me up and put me in, coach.
The 1985 movie Perfect is streaming on Amazon, and it joins a pantheon of 80s films I think more people would enjoy if they were more readily available on Netflix (I’m thinking of Youngblood here, but also Skate Town USA, which is still eluding me by only being available at Austin Public Library on Blu Ray, and my dinosaur of a laptop can only play DVDs). These movies aren’t really that hard to find, it’s just a matter of convenience. And time.
Here, John Travolta plays Adam Lawrence, a fictionalized version of Aaron Latham, the Rolling Stone journalist who wrote the articles the movie is based on as well as the screenplay for said movie. There’s a lot of meta activity there, with a tangent into Blue Crush and Susan Orlean that will also have to wait for another day, because it gets more meta: Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone, plays a fictionalized version of himself named Mark. There is so much to unpack there that I’m just going to leave the entire suitcase overstuffed and intact so I can keep rolling on those little suitcase wheels.
While pursuing “real journalism,” Travolta sees two attractive singles interact at a gym; this sparks a story pitch about health clubs as the singles bars of the 80s, which Jann agrees to let him write while he’s in LA to cover legal proceedings for the real story he is pursuing. Dude’s per diem is phat, as is his NYC apartment, and I yearn for the days when writers lived like that. however fantastical (hello, Ms. Bradshaw).
I have so many thoughts about the health club aspect, which I’ll probably save for another post/that bigger project as I get around to it, but since I’m struggling to write my own magazine article today, I want to focus on two things that happen in the course of Travolta’s research: 1) One of the gym trainers tells him he doesn’t want Linda as a source because “she’s the most used piece of equipment in the gym,” and 2) Linda herself tells Travolta that looking for Mr. Goodbody is a lot healthier than looking for Mr. Goodbar, as in it’s better to go to a gym to meet people than to hang out in a bar. Ha ha.
He flat out tells Linda he’s going to use the Goodbody line, which becomes the headline, and the “most used piece of equipment” nickname becomes the concluding hook about the gang bang he witnesses. Yep. Gang bang–Linda’s own words for an entirely consensual experience in a parked van that she apparently invites a Rolling Stone reporter, who has identified himself as such to all involved, to witness. I will also add that, based on context clues and foreshadowing, the [off-screen] gang bang includes the trainer who gave Travolta the “equipment” line by slut-shaming Linda in the first place. Hypocritical? Or just boys being boys? BTW, happy inauguration day to all who celebrate.
Bad writing and bad behavior aside, what I’m hung up on here, today, as I struggle to write my own piece, is how Travolta’s character lets other people’s words write the story for him. The headline and the punchline are both words quoted/borrowed/stolen from other people, and I couldn’t help but wonder… ; )
Where is the line between interviewing and plagiarizing?
Here, in the story that Adam initially writes and had every intention of submitting (and for which someone, probably Aaron Latham, actually wrote the text we and Jamie Lee Curtis can see on Adam’s computer screen), he has gone in with his mind made up about the narrative and just found the evidence and quotes he needed to support that hypoTHESIS in the words and actions of the people he’s covering.
Without getting into spoilers, Jamie Lee Curtis’s character has some experience with this journalistic tendency, and she tells off Adam in a way that I’m still thinking about (and, in the movie, has such a profound effect on him that he perseveres with the other story, the real story he was a covering, in a pigheadedly ethical way that I found deeply satisfying). Her words “It’s not the truth I’m worried about, it’s the tone” keep reverberating as I try to write this admittedly less high-stakes article in a way that honors other people’s words without 1) using their own words against them and 2) allowing their words to drive the story for me.
So here are some more out-of-context screenshots since my Amazon rental already ended. I guess I’ll get to work.
I’m going to make this a short week because the calendar says so; will try to post more regularly as the year progresses.
I promised: Black Star Co-op, possible snow, Hank the Chron Dog, Longhorn football at the Cotton Bowl, DOC at AFS, and the Legislature…I’m just going to deliver on Hank and football, plus an urban hike I took. Everything else closed, got canceled, or didn’t come through. Plus I posted three other blogs today and I’m tired.
I went into Epoch on Thursday for my Chronicle ritual, and when I opened up the paper to the pages in back, as is my wont, I actually gasped as this obituary caught my eye. I never met Hank, but I didn’t need to; his good boyness was well documented and celebrated. I saw his art car at SXSW 2024, and even then the humans said he was home and not feeling well. If you know me, you know why this one hit hard, but it sounds like he had a noble death after a life worthy of a cowdog named Hank. Vaya con Dios, good dog.
Forced myself to go to Cover3 during my lunch break on Friday night so I could watch the first half of the Cotton Bowl. It was freezing and the only available tables were outside, but I did it, then came home at halftime and got in my pajamas, which was where I wanted to be all along. Every time I try to get interested in sports again, I regret it. The Longhorns lost.
Saturday did include a stir-crazy walk that wound up becoming an urban hike where I discovered a hidden disc golf goal, another shortcut to my street, and two fallen logs perfect for sitting along Shoal Creek. And in the spirit of communing with the natural world (and an upcoming book club selection) I threw a few seeds out on this barren patch of land that had just been cleared of an encampment and, sadly, the trees that were sheltering it. So we’ll watch and see what comes off this.
Next week, getting back on track: Better Man, Wolf Moon, and Fika.
Ok, last one for today–like I said, I am making myself write, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what I had planned for this one.
I finally watched 2006’s Bastrop-filmed, Robert Earl Keen-cameoed All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. There’s all sorts of self-reflection here: it’s Texan, my name is Mandy, but there’s also the topical Amber Heard hatred.
Oh, now I remember: it’s about how easily we slander pretty women, which is tangential to the point of the movie…
This is all coming about because of the Blake Lively smear campaign, which was orchestrated by the same people Johnny Depp hired to takedown Amber Heard. This is such a weird new world of celebrity, all about image tarnishing and reputation management, and I can barely handle my own digital footprint. In a way, it’s cool I could hire someone to do that; in another way, it is absolutely terrifying.
What I keep coming back to is this:
This is two women talking about taking down another woman. I can’t stop thinking about it.
As much as I want to roll my eyes at this, and I very nearly dismissed all of it, I keep coming back to that line texted between two women talking about a third: People really want to hate on women.
The Mandy Lane movie is tedious to watch because of the way it handles Amber Heard’s beauty (and there is absolutely no denying her beauty: remember her at the beginning of Zombieland in 2009? Her 2011 turn as Chenault in The Rum Diary, where she was so stunningly gorgeous Johnny Depp left his French model wife?) This movie was made before all that, when she was a 20-year-old Austin native running around a *ranch in Bastrop allegedly 150 miles from the nearest gas station* as the quintessential–one might say apex–final girl.
In the movie, she resembles a cross between Bella Swann and Betty from the Riverdale series (indeed, Mike from the Twilight movies is one of the better presences in this horror movie). She is constantly pawing at her locks a la Kristen Stewart with her hairpiece, even in some really pivotal life-or-death scenes, and though she’s supposed to be a runner (the final girl has to be in shape enough to run!) her form is gawky at best.
Throughout the movie, the characters’ motivations are so flimsy that the final twists don’t shock because it’s been so hard to tell which character is deceitful and which is just played by a bad actor. The premise, though, is that all the boys are indeed in love with Mandy Lane, and that genuinely motivates every single action they take. It makes zero sense.
It’s hard to talk about Mandy Lane without giving away the end of Mandy Lane, but the idea is that it is supposed to be some sort of commentary about their focus on her, in hindsight. But to get there, you either have to see the twist coming (I did not) or endure this weird behavior the whole movie in order to get to the twist, which honestly does not hold up even when you look back at everyone’s actions through that lens.
I’m going to confess, I thought I knew the twist, and it involved everyone pretending to be so in love with Mandy to be faking it for very detailed conspiracy reasons (maybe that says more about me than the plot, but I’m convinced I read this in a review or spoiler somewhere). That would have made more sense. The people who died had more motivation to kill than the people who actually did the killing. And I think maybe that was the commentary. That beautiful women make us do stupid things.
So back to Blake Lively, and Johnny Depp running off with the co-star young enough to be his daughter, and this book on my nightstand about Helen of Troy, and the women who work as hired guns to take down other women. Yes, it is silly that Blake Lively’s haircare line flopped. In some contexts, it is really funny, as is the fact that Nicepool’s man bun is now part of a case presented in a court of law.
And we are forgetting the context of the movie that started all this. Mandy Lane is a slasher where dumb, good-looking kids (young Luke Grimes is in this one) are meant to get hurt, but It Ends with Us tackled domestic abuse in a way that resonated with a lot of people. I got annoyed because, in the end, the lesson was simply that Blake Lively’s Lily Bloom did not deserve to be abused because she was so beautiful and kind and good. Seriously. That’s what her knight in shimmering armor tells her (accidental Johnny Depp reference I’m rolling with): he says she saved him by looking out her window; he saw her pretty face and decided not to die. Her face saved him, like Helen’s launched a thousand ships. I got the impression, sitting in the theater, that those of us who don’t look like Blake Lively will probably need to fend for ourselves; furthermore, the implication that, if we aren’t perfect little sweet and kind angels, paragons of motherly virtue and patron saints of flowers, maybe we deserve what we get…that stung. It always does. So I almost jumped on the bandwagon when an actress’s public image took a hit, because it was gleeful and fun to do so.
Ultimately, though, I side with the creators, and in this case that means Colleen Hoover. I have never read a single Colleen Hoover book, but I’m not going to deride anyone who reaches that many people. If she wrote the book on men mistreating women and she sides with Blake Lively, flower puns and all, that’s enough to give me pause. It’s the other women’s words, the women destroying another woman for sport (and, yes, pay) that convinced me this is more than just a case of silly celebrities spatting over who gets more attention at the movie premiere.
I finally got to watch the Dude Perfect 30 for 30 over Christmas break, so now those guys are on my radar. I keep thinking about the similarities between Dude Perfect, the Savannah Bananas, and The Daytripper on PBS. This is not fully fleshed out, but I’m just trying to make myself write, so here are some half-formed thoughts I’ll revisit later…
They have to do it themselves. That seems to be what unites them all in my mind. One of the talking head journalists in the 30 for 30 doc said something about Dude Perfect taking their own relationship with sports and running with it. I’ll look up the full quote later, but I think that’s the idea behind both Dude Perfect and the Savannah Bananas.
I feel like, if you made a Venn diagram of Savannah Bananas and The Daytripper, you would get Dude Perfect in between. There are probably countless other examples, but these are the three I’m working with. Good clean family fun, wholesome and devoutly Christian, almost entirely populated by white guys. But there’s also something of an entrepreneurial spirit that says “We’ll just create our own game.” I’ve heard The Daytripper tell multiple people in and around Georgetown, those asking how he gets to do what he does, that he just found sponsors. You just have to find a way to finance the thing you want to do.
There is also an element of dads or dads-in-training just wanting to entertain their kids in healthy ways, and making your kids laugh is one of the best skills a man, woman, or non-binary parent can have. This is probably really important to their success, but since I don’t have kids, I’m not going to linger here…
Back to overhearing someone ask The Daytripper how he got to do what he does, plus looking at the Dude Perfect college-guys origin story and remembering how every single dude I knew in college played idiotic games just like that, there is absolutely an element of “anyone could do that.” Anyone could film trick shots and post them on YouTube. Anyone could take a faux-journalistic approach to family vacations. Anyone could reinvent the game of baseball into a sideshow with random rules no one bothers to follow. Anyone could do it. But they didn’t.
I’m thinking of what, for me, was the most poignant scene in A Complete Unknown. Bob Dylan, king-of-the-world-newly-famous Bob Dylan, has just been in a scuffle with alleged “fans” who recognized him on a night out when he thought he was just enjoying the (Irish!) music at a session. He says to Sylvie/Suze, and I’m paraphrasing again here because I can’t research this one right now: They ask me where the songs come from, but what they really mean is, why don’t the songs come to me?
It’s the aspect of envy that, when someone is so expert at something they make it look natural and effortless, we all assume we should be able to do that thing just as easily and just as well. Why aren’t we famous? Why aren’t we getting paid for it? I’m guilty of doing this (in the distant past!) with dance: dancing is something that should come naturally to us, so when we see professional dancers, part of us thinks: I should be able to move like that, no problem. I took dance as a kid. I was on a cheerleading team that performed at pep rallies. I can move. But you can’t, not really, not anymore, not like that.
I would argue every single armchair quarterback has this mentality.
With Bob Dylan, the dude was steeped in music. He lived and breathed music, all kinds–it just happened to be folk that propelled him. He could sit down and write a mumbling, rambling song, full of seemingly off-the-cuff slant rhymes, because he has an encyclopedic knowledge of everything that came before. He found his place within the flow of music that has been co-created right alongside our DNA. (I would argue that this is what the biggest female pop star on the planet is doing now, that she is the Bob Dylan of the social media age, but I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole).
So when I watch the Dude Perfect dudes show off their new headquarters (soon to be complemented by a branded store, just like The Daytripper, full of DP merch, just like the Bananas), I actually don’t get jealous because all I can think is, “Dude, they really love sports.” Like, I can’t imagine loving sports that much. So I don’t feel my ego threatened by any of that, but I can empathize with someone who does.
And bringing it all back home…I’m reading the Dude Perfect book right now, because that’s how I function. I get the appeal; I’m just trying to understand how to make it work for me…without being a jealous dick who punches Bob Dylan in a pub. Suffice to say, this happens a lot with writing and publishing. Lots and lots of people have passion, and sometimes it finds its outlet in punches or posted comments. Sometimes, when we listen to our higher angels and some really savvy money guys and social media mavens, we can find a way to make it work for us, to make it pay.
Like I said, I’m still working through this one… 😉
Dude! AI generated this image based on my content! I am not entirely sure what sport they are playing, but that’s kind of the point!
I just rewatched Bell, Book and Candle because I’m back on my witch shit, but also it’s a Christmas movie after all, and this viewing had the brunette fiancee stereotype nailed. There’s been a trend in recent years to flip the tropes of Hallmark movies and unimaginative rom-coms: watch the movie in reverse, and the woman escapes her small town to become a high-powered big-city career girl; if you are brunette and focused on your career, you will absolutely lose your boyfriend/fiancee/husband(?) to the blonde protagonist; be careful not to visit your small hometown over Christmas, or the Christmas tree farmer who never left town will trap you with his rugged good looks and folksy wisdom. Stuff like that.
So I’ve been paying extra mind to the non-other women in these movies, the ones whose perspective makes the protagonist’s behavior look selfish at the least, insane at the most. Carrie Bradshaw is our favorite anti-hero in this regard; the woman cannot stop fucking up. There’s a long, luxurious deep dive I want to do into the psyche of Big’s first wife, Barbara–a children’s publisher whose deceased ex-husband left his second wife a million dollars, his third wife with a lifetime’s worth of “I couldn’t help but wonder…” questions. What did he leave her? How has her career progressed? What was their marriage like? I have so many thoughts, fan fiction levels of ideas, and I do think she is the most interesting side character in the entire Sex and the City universe.
But, as usual, I got distracted talking about Sex and the City. Another perfect avatar of the brunette career-girl fiancee is Parker Posey in You’ve Got Mail, a movie I don’t care to rewatch (I am growing weary of the “we must save this beloved neighborhood bookstore none of us actually spend money in” attitude, but that’s a separate post as well). It doesn’t matter if I do the research because it’s Parker Posey, which is enough, but her character Patricia Eden works in publishing too. Perfect. No notes, mostly because I don’t want to rewatch the movie.
So, back to Merle. We learn of her through letters on Jimmy Stewart’s desk, which Queenie has leafed through, but when we first meet her, she is wearing this exquisite green dress I would argue rivals Kiera Knightley’s Atonement green dress, adjusting for inflation and, you know, 1958 morality standards.
Anyway, before I get too carried away looking at images of green dresses on Pinterest, the point is that Merle herself is actually an interesting character. She went to college with Gillian and was known as something of a “beau-snatcher”; she once wrote an anonymous letter to the dean complaining about a girl attending class barefoot. She is deathly afraid of thunderstorms. She agreed to accompany her fiancee to the Zodiac club, where the musicians torment her until she leaves (granted, she had just insulted one of them, the perfectly gay-coded and bitchy Jack Lemmon). I’m not sure what she does for a living, but she has a nice apartment to herself, though Jimmy Stewart rightly asserts that she needs to redecorate, and she paints in a skilled abstract style that is too confusing for him. After he jilts her on Christmas Day, she refuses to take him back. Yeah, she is kind of unpleasant, but she has a rich inner life. She was simply with the wrong man, and it took a bit of witchcraft to convince them both of that.
Just trying to get the ball rolling by blogging again in the new year…
I started the new year with a coffee house 10K at Halcyon, though I didn’t run. The Cap10K Sunrise Tour meets most Saturdays to run a 10k and drink coffee afterward, leading up to the Capitol 10k on April 6. The 10k routes, available on RunGo any time, take runners through various neighborhoods of the city. The tradition started during the pandemic, when coffee shops needed the business, but now you’re lucky if you can wait in line long enough to get a cuppa after everyone finishes the run.
There are two sunrise tour traditions I love watching. One of the ambassadors always takes a selfie after he takes the group photo, with all of us grinning like goofballs behind him. Another group likes to wait until everyone has started, then pose with their feet surrounding the “starting line” decal on the ground. I think they also do this at the finish.
As I said, I didn’t run this week, but I’m glad I went to check it out. There was no post-run yoga this Saturday, but we did get free travel-size bottles of Yellow Bird, which is apparently going to be a staple at all the runs. New this year is the wooden token, pictured, which runners can exchange for a free coffee after the run (formerly this system required a runner’s bib to be reused every week). I’m also considering ordering a shirt this year; the new one is yellow.
Made a trip to Round Rock and of course got some donuts; it was the first time I had to navigate influencers, plural, to get to the donuts. Also visited Rock Rock’s new library.
The next day, before seeing A Complete Unknown at Alamo Drafthouse on Slaughter Lane, I swung by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center for the last night of Luminations. I’m glad I went, as sort of a scouting report for when I go with someone else, so I can know what to avoid if I want to enjoy the experience with another human being. This time around, I booked the second earliest timed ticket, got there early enough to park within walking distance (no shuttle across MoPac for me), and made a quick outer-then-inner loop around the wildflower center while drinking a $10 hot chocolate (I tipped well).
The tower is closed off during Luminations; I verified, with three 10-year-olds double-checking my work. We were all disappointed.
Next Week: Black Star Co-op, possible snow, Hank the Chron Dog, Longhorn football at the Cotton Bowl, DOC at AFS, and the Legislature?
Retiring these cowgirl boots from Maurice’s. The vinyl is peeling, and they were never my style anyway (though I do know how to ride a horse). I took them for a final spin around Ulta and Whole Foods, but the J.Crew outlet was closed.
I have some ideas for weekly blog entries; for today, however, this will be enough.
Mandy Shelton 