EPISODE 630: DEMON VIBING
Boo, LOL.
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Happy Halloween! Or as I’m calling it this year, Hey, things are better now I definitely have to go to this halloween parade in the village wait why are there barricades up everywhere wait how many people go to this oh god hard pass I am not ready for that yet if ever’s Day.
In the lower part of Manhattan it is the custom to have a massive parade of craziness on the night of Halloween. I was actually in it one year as part of a troupe of dancers dressed as zombies and doing the Thriller dance. (I was a zombie priest. It was so so much fun. If you live in New York you can do it too.)
But it’s been a lot of years since then and also a lot of pandemic. So instead I’m in my room watching cherry colored clouds blow through a purple sky as the sun goes down and the night rises on whatever adventures the parade will bring.
How’s your Halloween? See any good costumes this year? I saw a dude dressed like Mario from Mario Brothers riding around on a one wheeled low-to-the-ground motorycycle-meets-scooter, and an absolutely pitch perfect Dorothy. Her shoes, you guys. SO PERFECT.
And the other night I was at a bar where we were all trying to figure out who a young woman in a black mullet-ish wig and a blue turtleneck was supposed to be. We decided she was doing Shelley Duvall in The Shining, and it turned out to be an incredible choice. She was clearly just being herself, but no matter what she did she seemed like she was secretly living in fear of a dude with a typewriter and an axe. (I desperately needed her to be accompanied by a boy in a big wheel.)
(A crazy thing I just learned: Stanley Kubrick arranged the shooting schedule of Danny Lloyd, who played the little boy, in such a way that he never found out that he was in a horror movie. He apparently just thought he was in a movie about a family that lived in a hotel.)
One of our editors wrote a fun piece about Catholic Halloween costumes. I originally pushed back on her critique of dressing like a priest; then I saw one last night wearing a big cross around his neck like he was a Catholic Flavor Flav and I suddenly got it. It just feels…weird.
Also weird: Priests who are trying to exorcise Covid-19 out of people. Just get vaccinated, for God’s sake. Literally, if that’s what it takes.
Actually, speaking of that, here’s a much more hopeful Catholic Church-Covid story.
Who knew a Halloween newsletter would have Catholic Covid content….
Last night I watched Dune on HBO. It’s not exactly what you’d call a thrill ride of a movie. Some nice action moments, but mostly there’s this sense of a bigger tapestry being built that everything is a part of. Which is to say, honestly the movie should be kind of boring, but in fact I think I liked it. It’s sort of like what if the Bible and Game of Thrones had a baby? And the answer is, it’d be a little weird, oddly deliberate in its pacing, but also kind of solid as stories go. In some ways I admire it more for the ways in which it decided to NOT do the traditional action/super hero stuff.
(Still haven’t seen Shang Chi. I just can’t do movie theaters yet, you guys!)
I also started watching Only Murders in the Building, the Hulu series about a retired/failed actor (Steve Martin), failed theater producer (Martin Short) and a mysterious young woman (Selena Gomez) who live in an apartment building on the Upper West Side. The three of them are obsessed with the same true crime podcast, and then there’s a murder in their building…
If I’m being honest it seemed like a pretty weak concept, but the series is actually really good. Selena Gomez is honestly kind of stealing the show.
Oh and Succession is still on, right?
I know Substack is refusing to show this video, but it’s definitely worth clicking on that link. Pretty much all I have to say about Succession other than *shrug?*.
It’s starting to get cold here. I find myself a little apprehensive—I bought a bunch of flannel shirts but honestly they don’t seem like they’re enough (and it’s only October).
But then I was walking home down 8th Avenue the other night and looking at the lights of all the apartments and imagining the coming winter chill and the Christmas lights and I felt pretty lucky to be here all over again.
Being in New York really is kind of like being in a Christmas card.
I also bought winter boots. (I’m not a complete nincompoop.)
I think I mentioned I wrote something about Dave Chappelle; it came out this week. My fellow editor Keara Hanlon and I also did a conversation about Squid Game. And I was at a meeting where people were talking about the rosary and I was like—quite seriously—“What is the deal with the rosary anyway?” which led to this piece which is hopefully a little funny as well as a little explainer-y.
And I was on an episode of our show Jesuitical talking about Midnight Mass, which was super fun. (It’s a Patreon episode, which I guess means you have to drop a couple shekels to listen to it? But I can guarantee it was a lot of fun to make.)
I think I’ve pretty much decided not to talk too much about Midnight Mass here. I think it’s such a uniquely great show I just don’t want to ruin it. Suffice to say, there is so much good stuff there to chew on. Highly recommend it to you all.
THREE TWEETS
There’s so much interesting stuff in this thread about writing and storytelling:
And for your Halloween nightmares:
Halloween is such a weird holiday. Many of us dress like either murderers or murder victims, which feels weird for any time, and the moreso now.
But one way of thinking about holiday is that we’re each trying to make friends with some part of ourselves that we’re afraid of or uncomfortable with or wish we could be. Which is a profound act of self-help, actually. Getting in touch with our rage, our fears, our sexuality, our power—these are incredibly positive, life-giving things.
We don’t have to go trick or treating or marching down 6th Avenue to accomplish that, either. Maybe today’s the day to sit back and have a cup of coffee with some part of yourself that you’re not totally good with. You don’t have to say or do anything. Just let them do them talking. Just let them in.
(Obviously this is terrible advice if you’re dealing with vampires. NEVER INVITE VAMPIRES IN. But otherwise, it’s all good. Monsters are way less scary if you let them have caffeine and your ear.
Although again, not literally. Don’t literally give anyone your ear.)