EPISODE 615: THE CRAZY YEAR I WAS A ZOMBIE
And Because It's My Birthday I Get to Introduce You To My Girlfriend
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Do you think the pandemic has changed you? I mean, yes, now you know how many times you touch surfaces and with it a fun new use for sleeves.
Also, you now instinctively know how far is 6 feet and are happy to be social from there, you’ve got an Encyclopedia Britannica’s worth of new TV stories and YouTube clips stored in your brain and are unsure how to share any of it without all of it suddenly pouring out like some spooky Egyptian movie where the bad guy is actually just a million locusts in a trenchcoat, and you know what time of day to the grocery store and not run into anyone. (According to my dad it’s 6am.)
But having said all that, do you think the way you’re processing reality is more or less back to normal?
I want to believe I am, even as I am aware that I can’t yet handle crowds and I’m not a fan of Public Things That Happen Indoors. I am having Human Interactions that seem normal-ish. I’ve started to go back to places that I loved pre-pandemic. It’s all happening. Year spent in seclusion, we laugh in your face!
And yet, maybe it’s the horror movie fan in me, but I wonder if under the surface we’re all kind of really a mess without having any sense of it at all. Or maybe it’s not even under the surface, maybe it’s happening right there in front of us, yet instead of seeing it as part of the overall 2020 Swag Bag of Nightmares we try to interpret it away as we might have in the Before Times and so don’t even really clock the fact that weep-shouting at the lady in the grocery store because they took the last pint of Cookie Dough is maybe a slight overreaction.
Some people have said expect life going forward to resemble the roaring 20s, people just so relieved to have made it through this horrible time that they absolutely cut loose. And honestly that is my 2021 of Choice, also my 2022, please and thank you.
But somehow I keep wondering what is it like to be a zombie from the inside, where you’re not even really noticing the whole eating brains for dinner thing and just sort of having an existence, and I wonder if being kind to ourselves in this strange new time of hope and possibility doesn’t start with just trying to notice what’s actually going on in us and around us and to take our time and accept what we find there.
Not that I’m saying go for it, eat all the brains. But if you look down and see a little schmutz on your lips and wonder how it got there, there’s no need to run from the truth. It’s been a hard year. The recovery might have its challenges, too.
(On the upside, pop culture loves a good zombie story.)
Just saw this cover for a new horror comic from one of my favorite teams, James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno. So creepy.
Last week I started the final season of Shrill, the Hulu Aidy Bryant-vehicle about a 20 something writer in Portland who is trying to throw off the gross attacks of people in society about her weight and gender to claim the life she wants.
Last week I also finished the final season of Shrill, and then started rewatching lots of episodes. I’m not totally sure why. An episode from early in the second season was actually the thing I turned to night after night in the early weeks of pandemic to enable me to get past the fear I wasn’t even really aware of living in so as to be able to let go and go to sleep.
In fact, pop culture was a huge part of not just my evening rituals, as I’ve written here endlessly the last year, but that last half hour or so before going to sleep. First it was Shrill, then it was performances from the Marie’s Crisis Facebook page, and finally a very nerdy queer podcast about the X-Men – I’d put them on when I was going to bed, not so much to put me to sleep as to I think probably offer an more positive alternative to the things crawling around in the back of my brain waiting for my imagination to loosen enough to leap into the light. In a way they were my equivalent of the person who buys cut flowers every day to put in a vase in their office or on the kitchen table. A tangible experience of life and beauty.
But even having had Shrill be that for me in March, April and maybe May of last year, still I can’t quite understand why I can’t get enough of the show. I wonder if it’s not that everyone on the show is allowed to be messy. Sometimes they’re called out for the mistakes they make, and rightfully so, but underlying it all there’s just this deep level of acceptance, a Let’s Take Us As We Are that’s really encouraging. Maybe moreso now.
I won’t spoil the finale, but I really admire it for the ways it follows through some of the relationships of the show in unexpected ways. In a way it reminded me of the finale of Catastrophe, another fantastic relationship sitcom from the last few years.
TV, you guys, it’s great stuff.
Vulture had Palestinian-American comedian Sammy Obeid talk about a Palestine/Israel joke he’s known for. It’s a great article and obviously very timely.
Here’s the joke itself to get you started.
I love these girls and you will too.
Laura Olin posted a link to these paintings merged with art museum realities this week. I found this one to be incredible.
Olin also posted this great profile of Sinead O’Connor from the NYT Magazine where she argues that the moment she tore up the picture of Pope John Paul II was not the end of her career but the restart of her life.
Finally, two guys dancing.
And Shrek turned 20 this week. Happy birthday Shrek!
(And cursed be you, all you under 20s.)
On the road these days. Not sure if I’m going to be able to get a newsletter out next Sunday, but I’m going to try!
Be gentle with yourselves. And have a great week.