SOME BETTER LIGHT FOR YOUR EYES
This is a SECRET SOCIETY
I finished reading Stephen King’s 11/22/1963 yesterday. I always pick up a Stephen King when I’m at a loss for what to do with myself. There are so many of them, and he always really throws himself into each one.
Even when he tries something weird, like narrating in the doggy-voice of a rabid St Bernard, and your initial reaction is: whut? … even so you still end up with CUJO--something devastatingly human, thoughtful, and sneakily literary and beautiful in a no-showing-off way.
I love that novel. And I loved 11/22/1963, just like everyone else. But I do have one beef with this book. I won’t air it here, because King is my hero.
(But if you go to the top of the stairs to the SECRET ROOM, I’ll tell you more, and I will also read some more MOBY DICK to you in a Maine accent).
I have been reading and watching more books and tv shows and movies lately. Because stories are distracting.
Of course, stories ALSO serve to engage and challenge and instruct and protest. But there’s a reason we tell stories around a campfire: it’s to give us something to think about instead of the darkness at our backs.
These days It’s full night by 5PM, and it’s hard to escape the feeling that the sun might be going down forever. Like some other people I know, I’ve realized that reading the news until 2AM and getting mad and sad about it does not actually affect the news. And that it’s OK to set it aside now and then in favor of imagined stories that have beginnings, middles, and thankfully: ends.
This is not an argument for apathy. Lots of people are engaging with what is happening out there with insight and empathy and appropriate anger, and you should read them (Akilah Hughes and Michael Ian Black this month especially)
That said, it’s also true that this is the season we kindle a light against the darkness, the Winter Solstice, longest night of the year. So here are some of the things I’ve been putting into my eyes instead of the poison deadlights of news and social media.
So of course: WICKED (Part 1) is fun and fizzy and virtuosic and, well, wonderful.
In 2004, Elphaba’s rejection of the charlatan who is running Oz felt gently subversive, maybe a little on-the-green-pointed-nose. But back then DEFYING GRAVITY felt mostly and appropriately about personal empowerment. Now, though, Cynthia Erivo’s full- and glorious-voiced rejection of corruption, the bright sunset blaring defiantly in the western sky behind her, feels FUCKING AWESOME.
(Also, Ariana Grande is an amazing actor, and if you weren’t sure about it, watch the silent dance scene at the Ozdust Ballroom again. Long ago I worked with an Elphaba understudy who showed me how she had to pretend to fly on the off chance that the cherry picker on stage failed to actually lift her up off the stage. She was amazing. There’s a lot you can do with just your face and body.)
HERETIC is not very fizzy, but it’s fun in its own way, and even better if you haven’t seen BARBARIAN. (And you should see BARBARIAN.)
As much credit as Hugh Grant gets for re-deploying his cutesy mugging for sake of menace, Sophie Thatcher from YELLOWJACKETS and Chloe East are just as good.
I don’t usually see a movie and think: I wish this were a stage play so I could just watch these people act at each other in a single room. Actually I have thought this before: like BARBARIAN, the first act of HERETIC is sort of its own, perfect quiet short film. (And you should see BARBARIAN. My friend Justin is really good at it).
I understand why both movies felt they had to leave that single, small room. And I was happy to follow Grant, East, and Thatcher through any evil-looking door they chose.
True, as the story descended into wild weirdness, the religious arguments also descended from the provocative to the kind of talk you might hear around a lava lamp in a Freshman dorm room.
But, Chloe Eastman’s closing monologue on the point of prayer, even in the most utter darkness, makes this a surprising, secret holiday movie. SEE IT WITHOUT THE WHOLE FAMILY!
And then there is 11.22.63, which I will discuss in more detail, as threatened, up in the SECRET ROOM.
As you ascend the stairs, maybe consider giving a gift of this SECRET SOCIETY to someone who you think might enjoy it?
Up to you! You have done enough! And now you may receive not one but two SECRET MESSAGES from me, including my dish on King, and the latest whaling report from Nantucket, Massachusetts.
