EPISODE 449: Ms. Zonko is Just Trying to Help
Finals Week and Other Things to Make You Ugly Cry
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
So Boris Johnson swept in to a stonking majority in the U.K., and Scotland seems ready to take its bagpipes elsewhere, thank ye very much ye wee mop headed prime minister; meanwhile LMU is a ghost town now that finals are over, and where exactly did the fall go, because I’m pretty sure I left some stuff there that I was supposed to get done.
It’s also so windy up here on our bluff that one of the older guys in my house actually fell over. And we’re all desperately hoping that’s not a metaphor, as the campus is supposed to host the next Democratic Debate on Thursday night, but now the seven candidates are threatening to pull out over news of a labor dispute between our food service union and the company who employs them, Sodexo, who apparently walked out of negotiations with the employees last week without explanation.
And Star Wars is mere days away, and I still haven’t fully rewatched the original trilogy and I totally accept your quiet judgment. (I did re-watch Rogue One; basically it is to A New Hope what Last Jedi is to Empire Strikes Back, i.e. the dark twin, the “but what if really everything went wrong for the Resistance” version of the story, and I love it).
This ep is going to be short and sweet as I’ve spent a lot of the last week slowly transcribing pages from a Hungarian history book into Google translate for a screenwriting project, let’s call it EVERYBODY SAYS DON’T, and now I’m way behind. (By the way if you’ve never spent any time with it, Google translate is all kinds of amazing. If Hungarian would just stop with all the accents and umlauts I would be very much enjoying this.)
Also, I’ve been writing pages for a possible serialized short form something or other, let’s call it PROJECT ANOTHER HUNDRED PEOPLE, and if I can get it up and running I think it would be very dark and twisty and also involve writing a lot of scenes in a confessional, which so far I am loving writing.
Oh and I’m having a colonoscopy on Tuesday because that is a thing that apparently is done when you are my age, but also I’m told I need to be more careful in my word choice because it is apparently not the same as having a colostomy. I just know I have to drink a lot of Gatorade tomorrow but I was asked to put something in it that looks like sugar, so I’m all good.
The UK election results were…unexpected. Also eye opening. I’ve been telling myself for some time now that anyone who could vote for our own current administration again, particularly after what it’s meant for immigrants in this country, is not worth my bootspit (which is a thing that my boots do in fact do, like whole loogies and do not get on their bad side is all I’m saying).
But seeing the situation abroad, I find myself instead just acknowledging the awful truths: that cruelty and hypocrisy are not factors likely to sway people from right wing leaders, no matter how terrible the policies they create; that bold visions of change are actually likely to keep people away (sorry Warren and Sanders); and that people are more than willing to vote against their own self-interest if they just aren’t feeling the other guy. It really is in some pretty fundamental ways a personality contest.
I’m not saying any of this is good or right. But somehow seeing things for what they are feels like a positive step, even if it is also a complete dumpster fire.
For Three Tweets this week I looked for stuff to do with final exams. I found some real jewels.
THREE TWEETS THAT ARE SIX TWEETS : FINALS EDITION
I feel your Pain, Bianca.
Also you, Des:
Well this is just cruel:
If my mom had had Twitter back in the day I’m pretty sure this is the tweet she would have tweeted:
Brothers, amirite?
And on the high school final front, Ms. Zonko fights for every additional moment of sleep she can get.
It’s that Christmas season time of year, during which I’m always looking for some hopeful stories that will make you ugly cry in public. This year’s contenders:
In the running for Christmas Ad that Will Wreck You, 2019, “English For Beginners” (P.S. Everyone please hire this actor for everything.)
A Beautiful Sesame Street Moment that Was Sneaking Up Behind You During that Polish Ad.
And Finally, An Adoption Story that Has Just Been Waiting to Lay You Out Flat .
I’ve been thinking about doing some more Interviews with Interesting People, and I came up with a kind of fun idea for this week, where I ask a whole bunch of great people that I know just two questions: 1) For you, what has the Star Wars saga been about? (A theme or idea that has most spoken to you). And 2) What do you hope from Rise of Skywalker?
My guests include one of the most prominent Catholic writers in the world, some really brilliant writers and academics, a bunch of my family, a couple people I’ve interviewed here before and more!
God willing and tomorrow’s liquid diet doesn’t destroy me I’m hoping to release it sometime Tuesday. It may end up Wednesday, but that’s the plan. I hope you like it.
One of the great things about a new Star Wars movie is it always brings out some crazy hot takes about the saga as a whole. For instance, Wired has a whole piece arguing the Ewoks are “the most tactically advanced fighting force in Star Wars”, which I’d comment on but Grand Moff Tarkin just asked me to hold his beer.
Meanwhile Gizmodo has a nice piece arguing the biggest crime of the prequels is the lack of face time for Christopher Lee. (It’s a great point; his Count Dooku has an actual compelling argument about leaving the Republic that really should have shook Obi-Wan – imagine the series if the real temptation is not Anakin but Obi-Wan; also his fighting style is full on Graceful Duel for You and yet still badass.)
And this piece on the stunt man playing Mando in The Mandalorian made me wonder whether Pedro Pascal is basically pulling a James Earl Jones. (Btw the stunt man is John Wayne’s grandson, and he is great.)
Okay I’m off to drink clear liquids. They told me tomorrow I cannot drink anything that’s red, but I was thinking it might be fun if that’s all I drank and see if that really freaked them out.
We make our joy wherever we can.
Have a great week.
