Parlovr - “Hell, Heaven”
And his mind game corners you/You thought it was a lie/But you made it the truth
Edward Hopper - Nighthawks (1942)
There’s something about the late-night diner that I can’t resist. Remember that scene in Zodiac when Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo are sitting at the ratty, ’60s-tinted greasy spoon and the black sky is pouring oceans over California? I love it.
Back in their heyday, diners were usually open 24/7 and became an important part of urban culture, serving as a symbol of nighttime loneliness and contemplation.
Pinings for this specific brand of dinerly isolation hits me hardest around March or April. I don’t like the sunshine or lazy days. I’d much rather have rain and fog and dandy coats, please.
The little postmark at the bottom of my most recent post indicates that the last time I took the time to update my nonexistent hordes of loyal followers was one month ago. Oh, I had IB exams, but I assure you that I most definitely did not study for an entire straight month.
It’s strange to be on the other side of high-stakes exams worth 80% of final marks. The month preceding them was a blur. I remember the stress, absorbed via osmosis through the quiet hysteria that hummed through the caffeine-fueled bodies of my 120 or so classmates. I felt simultaneously hectic and languorous most of the time, like being on the precipice of all the typical mental states-stress, elation, doom, hope-but not quite being able to get over the edge and fall into any of them. It’s not apathy; I was focused on doing well. It’s more like being in a constant state of depersonalization. Subordinating the prime part of myself to the other, more studious/impulsive doppelganger, demoting her from participant to observer.
My internal clock took a beating. I’d take showers at 4PM and go out for discrete jogs at 9PM. I’d go to bed at 12AM and fall asleep at 5AM. Know the feeling of being on an airplane, exhausted but unable to sleep?
I like isolation. I’m used to solitary nights. But during the off-season (from now on the months spanning from June until March will forever be known as such) these nights are voluntary and productive because there wasn’t actually anything I had to do that I didn’t want to. The exams themselves aren’t intense or difficult. The studying isn’t intense or difficult, either. But the lack of sleep, combined with a mounting, latent stress that never manifested nor resolved itself, eventually takes its toll.
I have a lot to do now that exams are over. I still have French and economics classes, an extended essay to research, a stockpile of extracurricular activities and responsibilities that need catering to, scholarships to scavenge, summer positions to finalize, and lots and lots of writing to do. Maybe I’ll even have time to get that auricle piercing (lame teenager is lame) and read large, inappropriate amounts of fiction.
I’m excited to be back, but something about me is out of step. Not the same. I’ve changed, again.
Rating: 4/5
I was thisclose to giving Hemlock Grove a 5/5 rating. It’s got brilliant dialogue and a simultaneously sympathetic and brutal sense of humour. It’s supposed to be a “reinvention of the gothic novel”. The usual suspects are present: vampires, werewolves, a string of inexplicable murders, sketchy genetic engineering. Indeed, Mystery and Danger are omnipresent forces that cast a queer shadow over the bizarre town. As pretentious as that sounds, the book is solid. It’s a literary take on monster horror, and it works, although maybe not for everyone.
It’s convoluted and not a breezy read if you prefer straightforwardness over vagueness. The novel unfolds to reveal a multitude of fascinating layers and secondary characters that prove themselves to be much more interesting than the murders themselves. It almost feels like the murders are only a device put in place to bring multiple preconceived back stories together, to provide an excuse to give form to these characters, their idiosyncrasies and movie lines. This might not sit well with people who find that sort of thing forced and showy.
There’s one point near the climax where everything appears to annoyingly fall neatly in place, but the happiness is short-lived and the main driving force in the plot is replaced with a dizzying array of further answers and questions. I can’t help but feel cheated, the conclusion is anything but satisfying. Will there be a sequel? It doesn’t look that way, but I really hope so. Apparently there’s a prequel.
On a more personal note:
When I started reading it I was struck by how many of my little hobby obsessions were present: Romani culture, biotechnology, Pennsylvania, Latin, biblical and animal symbolism, light, the word “pussyfooting”…it’s like someone hacked into my computer and went through a month’s worth of Wikipedia browsing history.
I devoured Hemlock Grove in two days.
If there was ever a character that served as the complete embodiment of a young adult’s battle with his or her own darker proclivities, with cowardice and evil and helplessness, it would be Roman. Roman, you and I share much more than a birth year and a habit of methodically shredding leaves into eighths. I do wish you wouldn’t dye your beautiful dark hair blonde, though.
In celebration of Roman noses on Asians, and man-faces on girls.
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
I was reluctant to read this book because I generally find anything related to parenthood and child-parent relationships off-putting, difficult to relate to, and cheesy. I’d seen the trailer for the film adaptation and was convinced it wouldn’t be much better than My Sister’s Keeper or other novels centered around self-sacrificingly noble parents who desperately love their children. I was surprised when a good friend recommended the read because its central character, the mother, “reminded her of me.”
Interest piqued, I started reading the novel and was instantly struck by how well I could understand Eva’s qualms about motherhood. It’s duly amusing and terrifying to see my own fears experienced by a like-minded character. Eva is resentful and petty, but she’s difficult not to empathize with. From the get-go, she resents everything. She resents the loss of freedom and her former jet-setting lifestyle, she resents how her husband expects their son to bear his surname, she resents the way people patronize her with little reminders when she’s pregnant, that she should eat more because she’s “eating for two now”, like she’s become public property, she resents that everything that makes her attractive to men are only there so she can bear children, she resents that the idea of being a mother makes her feel like she’s disposable, merely nature’s vessel to reproduce and ultimately replace herself; at one point she even resents that her husband seems to care more about their child than her.
Eva had Kevin for the wrong reasons. It often seems that Eva starts to see herself as a means to an end for her husband, as if her husband married her, not because he wanted to be with her but because he wanted the idea of a wife and child. It’s the little insecurities that build up and cause the relationship, characterized by power struggles and frustration, that Eva has with Kevin.
One passage of the book that really stood out for me was when Eva admitted to secretly having Kevin tested for defects while pregnant, against her husband’s wishes. Eva describes how she believed it was because he marveled at the idea of playing the self-sacrificing, heroic figure who is ultimately taught a poignant and a nauseatingly heart-warming lesson by the handicapped child about “what really matters.” Shriver possesses razor sharp observation skills and the precision of a poet.
I enjoyed this book a lot due largely in part to Shriver’s writing style, but it also made me think about whether women like Eva or myself should even have children, if it is our ambivalence towards motherhood that causes the Kevins in the world. It’s an unsettling idea, and it haunted me for days afterwards.
Promo photo from Pulp Fiction (1994).
Rating: 2 and 1/2 stars
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman
“Would you give a guy a foot massage?”
“Fuck you.”
Pulp Fiction was released about a year before I was born, so I can’t tell you whether or not I felt it “redefined cinema” (as the DVD cover blurb suggests), or if I agree with the Wikipedia user who identified it as a “cultural watershed”, but I can conjecture at the reasons why it remains a cult classic.
It’s the kind of film that’s hard to outright dislike, mainly because its focus isn’t on easily disparaged elements like plot or characterization. Where Pulp Fiction shines is in its dialogue: the pop culture references and the conspicuous eccentricities all its characters (mere vessels for Tarantino’s witticisms) possess.
It is here that Uma Thurman shines. Her character’s aesthetically pleasing in the way that a flesh wound is. She’s kind of uncomfortable to look at it, but you can’t look away. My friend says she’s an “acquired taste”.
Pulp Fiction wants nothing more than to be cool. Watching this, I was very acutely aware of this coolness, the kind that viewers hope to absorb via osmosis. I’m sure many have left the theatre with the conviction that they too will try to have cool conversations à la John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson’s more often. It’s the kind of film that readily awaits comparison to its neo-noir predecessors, that was made to be referenced in future conversations in conjunction with topics like the “aestheticization of violence” and other cool, adult themes.
This urge to be cool isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the end product is one that is entertaining and endlessly quotable. I finished the movie feeling duly satisfied and empty. Sometimes it’s nice to watch a film that doesn’t require you to give two shits about its outcome or any of its characters. But when I’m in the mood for a film that doesn’t sacrifice substance for style, but incorporates both superb depth and dialogue, I think I’ll stick with my generation and watch The Social Network again.
Dreamon - “One Day”
Practice makes perfect.
I discovered this while sifting through a favourite director’s work on Vimeo. Johannes Greve Muskat is so versatile.
Ideal listening for late February.
Modern Alchemy Candle - Brothel
I’ve had a hankering for a Modern Alchemy candle for a while now. MA offers some interesting candles under their “historical” product line. For $50, you can have the enclosed space of your choice smell like an opium den, a speak easy, or even a brothel.
Pictured is the brothel candle. It supposedly smells of “orris root, musk, ancient civet, peru balsam, and rarest plai”.
The theme of my school’s semi-formal this year is, according to the Facebook event page, “a tribute to glam-chic that defined 1960s Manhattan”. When I think of New York* in the ’60s, I think of Andy Warhol, The Factory, The Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan…not black ties and red lipstick. Is it obvious that I don’t watch Mad Men?
*I know NYC isn’t completely synonymous with Manhattan, but Andy Warhol and his crew (The Factory) were housed midtown…
