EPISODE 537: EVERYTHING'S PERFECTLY ALL RIGHT
We're fine. We're all fine here.
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
When you’re writing a screenplay, the sweetest of sweet spots is an ending that is unexpected and yet in retrospect completely unavoidable. Los Angeles funeral home show Six Feet Under features someone dying in every episode and is all about the characters’ quest to find and live the lives they want ; so of course in the series finale we watch everyone die, while the youngest character drives away into the life of her dreams. The ending is incredible, and absolutely fitting, but totally unexpected.
Longtime Companion, about the AIDS crisis, tracks its characters over a number of years, from before any of them had begun dying to a point where many of them are dead. And in the end we have this incredible scene on a beach where the characters left imagine all that have died now back and celebrating together. And as much as that’s a moment of wish fulfillment, it’s also absolutely fitting--the dead loom large over scene. They’ve never really left.
Unexpected and inexorable. That’s what you want.
Unless of course we’re talking real life, and a governmental administration that touts its disregard for health safety suddenly getting sick en masse a month before an election. Then it’s less what you want and more yet another level in the endless freefall that is 2020.
The last few days have felt like we’re in the last scene of The Sopranos. The family is at the diner and there’s this incredible sense of danger but also none of us have any idea what’s about to happen.
It feels like we’re the Cratchit family trapped in a version of A Christmas Carol where the only thing anyone ever learns from the ghosts is to double down.
It feels like the end of Raiders and the bad guys just opened the Ark – but with the twist that they’ve seen it melt millions of others’ faces, and yet they decided to open it anyway.
It’s a very strange moment, is what I’m saying, filled with uncertainty and apprehension. And there’s really not anything any of us can do but live through it.
(And vote – today is in many states the last day to register. Even if you think you have registered already, do yourself a favor and check again today. I discovered myself about a month ago that somehow my registration had been wiped from the records. Glitches happen.)
I was trying to figure out what could possibly be of help right now. I mean, there’s always comedy. Like this scary/hilarious article about MIT’s seemingly-insane desire to create a nuclear fusion reactor on earth, which could very well rip the planet apart.
Humanity can’t be counted upon to safely handle livestock—putting it in charge of a star seems like something that should not be allowed, by the universe.
Or there’s this very funny interview between Seth Meyers and Andy Samberg as a just-discovered mummy.
(I watched Samberg’s new movie Palm Springs on Hulu over the weekend. It’s basically Groundhog Day with a man and a woman. A lot of fun.)
Or there’s beauty, like this performance from the New York City Ballet. (NYCB is apparently going to post a new performance every week for what would have been their fall season.)
But then I googled the newspapers of a bunch of American cities right now. And in each city, I looked for stories that have nothing to do with politics. Things that just show people being people in our country.
It’s the thing that so often gets lost these days – us, normal people living our lives. And for me reading about some of them is a good reality check. Our big picture right now might be The Perfect Storm, but zoom in and you’ve got What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and My Best Friend’s Wedding and The Normal Heart and a million other human stories going on too.
So here you go. I hope it helps.
From NEW YORK CITY, a photo essay about two men who spend their days keeping a rollercoaster ready for when the sheltering rules finally end. Meanwhile in NEW ORLEANS the guy who has the Halloween house that everyone comes to because he fills it with funny skeletons has released a Hamilton-themed music video because he can’t do the house this year.
(The chorus is truly killer, no pun intended.)
In CHICAGO, the obituary of wonderful pediatrician. And in ARKANSAS, the (pretty hilarious) courtship of two elderly retirees. (Pay attention to her description of their first encounters.)
APPLETON’s Post-Crescent, trying to keep things in perspective, reports that “Michigan’ taste in Halloween candy is garbage.” Meanwhile PORTLAND Libertarians are maybe offering too much perspective of their own.
PHILADELPHIA people mobilized to help a woman get a fish chair. And FAIRBANKS residents have created a really great version of hide and seek.
In MONTANA, some Native kids have become Tik Tok famous. In FLORIDA, the proverbial Florida Man continues to weave his magic, this time around the virtues of almond milk. And in WEST HOLLYWOOD, the city council has sponsored different online and socially distant pop up performances for the month of October. Here’s a great one.
Whatever twists and turns the rollercoaster ride may offer this week, take time to look after yourself. Your well-being is important.