EPISODE 539: GEZELLIG-HEIT
In Which Steve Martin Wins U.S. Election Cycle Halloween.
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Anyone who has read this newsletter more than once knows that I’m kind of obsessed with television. (Little Fires Everywhere, you guys. It’s like Big Little Lies: Cleveland, but with teenagers and a focus on race relations.)
But as I’ve been trying to branch out and check out more films the last few weeks, I’ve been realizing again that there is something special about watching a movie. A couple weeks ago I talked about this in terms of the shared experience of going to the theater.
But this week I watched Eraserhead for the first time, David Lynch’s first film, and from start to finish it’s basically an exercise in alienating the audience. I would love to be able to tell you exactly what it’s about but this is David Lynch, so I have no idea. I can say it involved a tape worm baby with a dinosaur head, a woman who lives in a radiator and ambient noise so intense it kind of left me shaken.
I say it’s an exercise in alienating the audience, but really it’s a film that asks you to let go and just take the ride. It’s like abstract art; what it has to offer is not something you can go digging for. You just have to stand there and let it wash over you.
I find the films that are for me true works of art are often like that, experiences more than stories. Halfway through I suddenly feel so grateful, simply because the craft of the film is itself so very fine. When someone has clearly taken so much time and effort to make something, it’s impossible not to be sort of humbled in its presence.
While I’ve been binge watching dinosaur tapeworm babies, in Australia Melburnians have spent most of the last three months trapped in a second round of lockdowns—stay at home for anything but essential functions; no visitors; masks everywhere; travel no farther than 25km from your home; and a nightly curfew.
The new lockdown happened after the state saw 671 new cases and 7 deaths in one day. It was meant to go six weeks. They’ve just finished ten. As you can imagine it’s been hard on people. Apparently the first total lockdown makes you grateful, the second one…does not.
But with it has come this wonderful piece from a guy trying to find the word to describe the particular sense of longing of the current moment. His answer comes from his Dutch grandparents:
My opa would say it – "ah, gezellig" – as he eased into his comfortable chair after Christmas lunch while he watched his grandchildren play as his daughters nattered.
You would sigh it as a friend poured another big glass of cabernet late on a Friday night, surrounded by laughing old friends, ahead of an exciting weekend – "Ah, gezellig."
It’s less about living the perfect moment, and more about the warm and fuzzies you get watching it unfold with people you love, with confidence that they love you and that moment just as much.
I so relate. Yes, I’m daydreaming about traveling and I may have started to do French lessons on my phone again. But in some ways the greater fast is just from the experience of seeing other people live their lives and delight in each other.
Australia has also just produced this little essay about the events and choices of the first six months of the pandemic. It’s the first essay I’ve seen that really tries to tell the behind the scenes story of the pandemic, and the writer gets access to all the big players, including Australia’s prime minister.
Clearly, the crisis is not over, so it might seem premature for something like this. Except January really is so long ago that the decisions made then do have the feeling of history.
Author Katharine Murphy has become one of Australia’s great political writers. The publication Quarterly Essay is one of the country’s premier periodicals. It’s like a great New Yorker essay. I highly recommend it.
I don’t know how Miley Cyrus and Ariana Grande feel about the Melbourne lockdown, but I’ve decided to believe they did this cover of a great Crowded Song for them.
Fun fact, if you want to know what I imagine my niece Ally looks like every day of the her life, this video is it.
Vulture has collected all of Miley’s covers. I know I’ve mentioned her cover work before, but there are just so many good ones. She sang with Billy Joel, you guys.
THREE TWEETS
This week’s Three Tweets (and other things this episode!) come from Buzzfeed’s “14 Really, Really, Reeeeally Good Things That Happened This Week”.
The Teacher We All Wish For
Don’t Do This at Home (Unless The Bride is Very, Very Cool with It)
My Favorite Spot
It’s two weeks until the election. It’s very strange, as a Californian I feel captive to the decisions of other parts of the country.
But probably everybody feels that in one way or another, right? And I’m not sure it’s a feeling to trust. The election becomes about some faceless (or not so faceless) “them”, when in fact our votes do actually matter.
To paraphrase St. Augustine, Vote and do what you will (and make sure you have a nice case of shiraz on hand for two weeks from Tuesday). That’s all we can do.
Great to be with you, as always. Have a great week.