My initial impulse for this post was a lengthy history of my personal “let people like what they like” realization, but it’s a real downer. The point was going to be it’s better to write about things you like or talk about things you like and enjoy. It’s immaterial whether you’re standing on the “what you like is what you think is good” hill or not. We serve mai tais from eleven on; mojitos start at one.
We just watched “Wayward Pines.” It is not good. I did not like it. We did watch all of it, and there were better and worse things about it. But I didn’t look forward to it.
Just over half the Halloween movies we’re doing commentaries for on the 709 Meridian pod are slogs. I was worried it was something about being tired, but there are just some things I don’t get interested talking about. There are only so many Joe Chappelle jokes because the joke’s always on the viewer. Doing the podcast is great, but it’s also the point, so goals for next season are figuring out how to have more fun slogging through a bad movie.
On the Onesies podcast, we’ve run into failed late eighties sitcoms not being particularly charming when it comes to… well, characterizations in general. There’s nothing it does well. So there’s a slog to it as well.
Also, I’ll note, there is no slog in Los Bros read-through (well, the porno comic was a rough starter) or Empire of the Summer Moon. Summer Moon’s beyond depressing; we’ve just gotten to the point the Kiowas are trying to decide to fight to the death or surrender, and it seems like extinction is the likely choice. But I’m still engaged with the prose reading goal.
What a day to be navel-gazing. Yikes. It’s February 28, 2022. 2022 is a really shitty year for even more people than usual. I’m pretty sure my writing constraint with Selected Declarations requires I post this post even after realizing it’s a weird time to be posting it.
Shit.
Something similar happened with the last regular blogging as writing practice attempt in 2016.
There’s a really sad pragmatism deep thought to be had right now. Though the way the Internet virtualizes the incorporeal is a very sad story. But the emotions, whether outrage or empathy, are real, incorporeal or not.
In writing class—undergrad, right after 9/11—the instructor came in after the U.S. had done something—invaded maybe—and asked if we wanted to write about it. I was the only one who did, and, unfortunately, all my hot takes probably turned out to be true, but it also would’ve given me a real space to write about it. Though, maybe, undergrad writing did?
Now might be a better time to write, not post, than vice versa. But the writing constraint must go on?
Leave a Reply