EPISODE 327: KIMOTA!

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

So Tom Cruise actually can do pretty much anything (no, really), and I really do suggest not watching the last half hour of Mission Impossible: Fallout if you’re feeling fragile because it is so intense you will absolutely for certain go crazy, and also there’s a new movie about how we’re absolutely doomed but don’t worry it’s okay because if we come together and work really hard we can still save the enormous underwater frozen dinosaurs that were here first.

Meanwhile is it me or is it getting hot in here (so hot) and Pope Francis has just announced that the death penalty is no longer an acceptable option for Catholics and my niece just spent an afternoon with one of my college friends’ nephews without knowing we were friends and now we’re pretty sure we’re all going to be related.

It’s August. We made it this far, and no craziness is going to stop us from getting to September either as long we don’t find ourselves in a dark alley facing a Superman lookalike with a mustache. Let’s do this.

++ VIEWER MALE ++

Yesterday I got a letter from someone who’s been reading this crazy newsletter from the beginning. Amidst words way too nice, she pointed out that last week in describing my grace notes from Comic-Con I had two stories in a row which seems to revolve in large part about the descriptions of the looks of girls and women. And she wondered about that choice.

So suffice to say, if you too were reading last week and thinking, hmm, what’s going on here, you weren’t alone.

I was very uncertain about telling both stories, specifically because looks seemed to be an essential element, and what is this 1952 and I work in advertising when I’m not swilling bourbon over lunch at Gino's with the boys?

I especially went back and forth on the story of the little girl. I didn’t want the moral of the story to be “even ugly girls get to be princesses”. I don’t know if you followed the coverage of Ant-Man and the Wasp; one of the stories that got a lot of play was how Evangeline Lilly had insisted that she be allowed to be seen sweaty, with her hair a mess, etc. You know, like us. Her point being, real life is what’s beautiful, not Hollywood wind blown with lip gloss.

The little girl for me was another version of that, someone who had already wised up to the fact that that she didn’t need to “Hollywood herself up” to be awesome, that she was beautiful and strong and everything just as she was, just like Carrie Fisher herself seemed to insist that even among the donut braids and weird robes and impossible lines what made her special was that she was a strong, real woman, George Lucas.

But I think it probably did read – and maybe even does now, in this explanation – like I’m saying the girl was okay with being ugly, and isn’t that great, which is strange and weird and awful.

If others have reactions to this, I’d love to hear from you at jptmcd@gmail.com. Please, help a stupid writer overcome his enormous gaping blindspots...

(And many thanks to the reader who wrote me. I feel grateful that someone would feel comfortable enough to point out their concerns with my stuff at all, let alone do it with so much grace and generosity of spirit that I felt I was hearing from a friend who had just made me peppermint hot chocolate and wanted all the good things for me.)

++ UH OH IT'S MAGIC ++

I need to admit something to you right now. Sometimes I read interviews with Alan Moore.

For those not familiar, Moore and Neil Gaiman are pretty much the fathers (or grandfathers?) (oh God I’m old) of modern comics. Moore doesn’t write so many comics any more; he’s also pretty much sworn off of many of those he’s known for – Watchmen, Miracleman, V for Vendetta, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. When Marvel started republishing his run on Miracleman – which is basically what if Shazam eventually had become a middle aged horror story (and was awesome and so disturbing) – here’s how he insisted on his credit being listed:

You gotta love a guy who just straight up refuses to be the consumable product the world wants him to be. (And also, if I understand things right, refuses to take credit when the character of Miracleman was originally Mick Anglo's.)

Alan Moore is really into magic. Not the Disney sparkle stuff, real magic, forces and realities and relationships that exists somehow within or outside or next door to our own.

The interviews he does seem to run incredibly long and strange and seriously I can barely understand most of what he’s saying. But still I keep going back to those articles. In fact I think I find them comforting.

It's not that I think there are snake gods out there waiting for me to pop some psychedelic mushrooms so they can possess me and show me stuff (which is absolutely a thing he talks about, as well as who that snake god is and how it is connected to Asclepius, Greek God of Medicine) but because what he seems to be insisting at its most fundamental is that there’s something beyond all the automated customer service lines and traffic jams. That there is something more.

He tends to take that idea to a secret handshake kind of place, but for me I think it’s more about our awareness of the world around us. There was once a moment when some people went hunting and one of them was like, hmm, interesting. And then when they came home that person kind of begged off to a part of the cave system they weren’t generally in, and drew the animals they’d seen, and then called them over to see.

And they FREAKED OUT. Like leapt back, trembling and then maybe destroyed the art (and the artist). Because what the hell was that up there? How did they transport the animal to the wall?

When people first went to the movies they literally threw themselves out of the way when a train came toward them. Forget you, 3D glasses, those folks had their imaginations (and also no clear sense of what the hell was happening). People go to Disneyland every year for vacation and do much the same thing. They know it’s an amusement park, but the designers work so hard at making you feel like you’re in another world, from the decoration of the fencing to the fact that you can’t see outside the park from inside, you come to believe on some level that you are.

It’s like when you’re sort of trapped inside yourself, not really able to see things clearly. And then you talk to someone and their words sort of open it all up and suddenly the world is altogether different.

Or consider this crazy sheet of ramblings you’re reading. Right now, just by putting a bunch of random letters together, I’ve managed to get my voice literally into your brain. (It’s so nice in here, btw!) And not only that but if I say two kids chase a red balloon laughing, you actually see it and hear it. I mean, how crazy is that?

Moore wants to make that kind of stuff into some kind of stuff about conjuring, magic as verb. For me I think it’s more like magic is the word we use to describe the fact that life actually has a lot more colors to it than we normally see. And every once in a while something – a story, a song, an experience – gives us a glimpse of a little bit more of All That.

Vincent Van Gogh supposedly once said, “I am trying to get at something utterly heartbreaking.” I think that’s another way of saying what most art is doing, trying to get at something fresh and unexpected and underneath.

And also, that we’re basically all just like our kids, wandering around with our own versions of the iPhone and thinking it’s just the way life is when in fact it’s all so new and crazy and remember rotatory dial phones?

I’ve written a bunch of stories with magicians, but in looking back I notice every magician is a kid. Adult magicians, they make no sense to me, really; being able to fool us into thinking something crazy happened when we both know nothing did is not magic, it’s slight of hand. A trick.

But somehow with kids it’s different. Not that they’ve got some special technique or access to “powers”. But that somehow they understand the act of doing magic itself in a different way, as something real and substantial. It’s not a con, it’s a journey and a discovery that they absolutely have to share so that it can be fully real. ++ LINKS ++

Linda Holmes on ‘The Sad, Beautiful Fact that We’re All Going to Miss Almost Everything”.

Here Comes the Sunscreen (onto your kid!) – A New York Times photo essay.

Alec Baldwin talks to Obama photographer Pete Souza (such a good conversation).

And 22 brief stories about Tom Cruise that will make you question everything you think you know about him.

A little short this week. In the last ten days I turned in a draft of a big script and also yesterday of a big article. Other long-awaited projects are lining up behind, tapping their feet and checking their watches, but right now it’s sort of like that moment on the battlefield just after everything's over. I’m sure someone’s still alive, but for the moment we’re all just going to rest it out a little bit, thanks.

In the meantime the world keeps spinning, and maybe our heads do too. Never mind the commotion. Find a still point you can focus on, open up your arms and baby, let's pirouette.

I'm right here with you. Ready?

Here we go.