Senator's Selects 2023/08/23
Based on my research and what I'm hearing, we are definitely looking at a wolfman
From the Desk of…
I’ve been watching a lot of Mountain Monsters lately. If you’ve ever been interested in watching some West Virginians stomp around in the woods to hunt for different cryptids and building all sorts of juryrigged traps from salvaged materials out of the local dump, then I’ve got a show for you. It clearly has no budget, and mysteriously they never catch anything, but I’m having fun. I’ve also finally found copies of Fernwood 2Night and America 2Night, which I can only describe as a proto-Adult Swim series from the 1970s where Martin Mull is cursed to listen to small-town Ohio weirdos and his house band does the worst covers of “Disco Duck” you’ve ever heard. Suffice to say, I like it. Mountain Monsters is on Max, and the 2Night shows (and their mother series, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) are on the Plex. Anyway, between that and Baldur’s Gate 3, what else has been going on this week?
Recreational marijuana will be on Ohio’s November ballot, so be ready for anything. Of course, as citizen-initiated legislation, it’s prone to tampering from the hobgoblins, but they’re divided on it for now. Could mean that a decisive win would stay their hands… could mean that they feel unaccountable and above the voters. Time will tell! Here’s a great piece I ran across in Matter News about why Columbus’s transit options suck. Spoilers! Feckless leadership and corporate power. I could’ve guessed that, but it’s still a good read. I’m following this story about a Harry Potter-themed school in Indiana, but I don’t have as many questions as I do about the shooting of OSU senior Sammy Sasso in a carjacking last Friday night. Sasso, a two-time Big Ten wrestling champion, was “trying to run over a rat in his car, a blue 2011 Chevrolet Malibu. When he successfully ran over the rat, he stopped his car and got out to talk to two children,” as reported in the Dispatch. Now, I admit, my Friday nights can be a little quiet. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so bored as to, uh, recreationally run over rats in an alley in front of children before. I get the sense that something might be amiss here. Ah, there’s the construction noises again. We got so far into this draft. What was I talking about?
I shouldn’t be allowed to be given hope for a Talking Heads reunion. Don’t do this to me. It will never ever happen. I will not get hopeful about it.
The Brain Dump
just heard the first autumnal wind of the year
they should end Riverdale by having a Predator show up and just ripping the cast to shreds with his shoulder cannon and razordiscs
tucking my Bluesky invite codes into chocolate bars and distributing them throughout the city
while y'all are complaining about the heat, i'm stocking up on chili supplies before the weather turns and "suddenly" everyone realizes they want some. we are not the same.
i'm the new voice of mario
Eh. I’ve had better brain weeks. That’s true about the wind though. I can hear it in the leaves. Matter of fact, it looks like some leaves are turning now. Maybe that’s just wilting though.
At the Movies
Yet again, the tank is running low on movies. Hit three though.
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), dir. Michael Radford ⭐⭐⭐⭐
it's kinda funny how this is a really good and earnest adaptation of the text but it is completed outshined in maybe every metric by Gilliam's Brazil reworking the themes
I'm not dropping the score but with the Eurythmics soundtrack it's a 3.
what a ludicrous idea that televisions could spy on us
Brazil (1985) dir. Terry Gilliam ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ❤️
One of my top five movies.
It is not hyperbole to say that I love every scene in this movie. Every moment, every music cue, every background detail is simply sublime.
Listen, kid, we're all in it together.
Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979), dir. Allan Arkush ⭐⭐⭐⭐
a chilling look at a nightmarish world where the punks, the nerds, and the jocks put aside their difference to join in a collective struggle for class liberation
Paul Bartel dancing with a giant rat at a Ramones show! Effects by Rob Bottin! Dick Miller! Joey looking like a Bob's Burgers character! P.J. Soles!
I guess I gotta make a more concerted effort to keep watching movies for y’all. I did it all for you, Meowlets!
One Picture
It’s rare you see a dude’s car and think “oh yeah, we could have at least one good conversation”
In closing,
Mike LaFontaine, one-time star of programs like Wha’ Happened and folk act manager, once said that it was good his TV show only lasted a year because that’s how you establish enduring success as a cult program and don’t wear out your welcome. Such an idea can feel antithetical to our consumptive capitalist society that continually wants more and more and bigger and bigger. And sure, sometimes, we wish there were just a little more of something to give us closure - be it a TV show, a life experience, or a friendship. We never know when something is going to be the end, so it makes sense to be ready for it at any time. That’s not to become a paranoiac who sees Death around every corner, but rather it’s to come to terms with the fact that every ending is a new beginning and that so very often in this life we don’t get things wrapped in neat little bows - they simply happen until they don’t happen anymore. The mind tends to loathe uncertainty and ambiguity, but… that’s life. Embrace it. Until next time, try to—there’s someone at the door, hold on.
Your closing section at the end really hits. I feel like the pandemic has made me super conscious of the fact that nothing is permanent but partially, like, in a good way?