aberration | fugere non possum

Brick (2005) ★★★★1/2
Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019) ★★★
Queen of Katwe (2016) ★★★★
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) ★★★★
Aladdin (2019) ★★1/2
Marriage Story (2019) ★★★1/2
Charlie's Angels (2019) ★★1/2
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) ★★★★1/2
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) ★★★1/2
Lady and the Tramp (2019) ★★★
Blast from the Past (1999) ★★★1/2
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) ★★★
Pinocchio (1940) ★★★
Fantasia (1940) ★★★1/2
The Reluctant Dragon (1941) ★★★
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) ★★★★
The Last Unicorn (1982) ★★★★1/2
Return of the Jedi (1983) ★★★★
Dumbo (1941)
Saludos Amigos (1942)
The Three Caballeros (1944)
Bambi (1942) ★★★
Emma. (2020) ★★★1/2
Knives Out (2019) ★★★★1/2
Fun and Fancy Free (1947) ★★★
Muppet Treasure Island (1996) ★★★★
Melody Time (1948) ★★1/2
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) ★★1/2
Cinderella (1950) ★★★1/2
Alice in Wonderland (1951) ★★★★
Peter Pan (1953) ★★★
Lady and the Tramp (1955) ★★★
Sleeping Beauty (1959) ★★★★1/2

So… yeah, things sure are happening!

Hello from Brooklyn, now one of the epicenters of coivd-19. As we had our first possible tenuous exposure to covid back on March 9, we have pretty much been in social-distancing mode since then, working from home and only going out to the grocery store/pharmacy or for brief exercise walks. On my end, the courts have all closed, but they're now running online hearings for certain emergency issues so it's not really any less work. Other than I don't actually have to go to court, which is not nothing. I've been a little envious of people talking about how they have extra free time, if I'm being honest, while I feel like nope I pretty much have the same 9-5 job, I just have a little more energy from not having to deal with a commute. But also now with every archaic logistical problem with the legal system thrown into super sharp relief.

But we're also extremely lucky. I've had zero indication of job or pay insecurity so far (there's the matter of our union contract expiring in July but uh, we'll see – regardless given the fallout this will all have on the courts I don't see them wanting to lose anyone at the moment).

varadia moved down here last year so I don't have to deal with this alone. She sold her old condo back in January which is epically fortuitous timing and gives us a comfortable pillow in savings. And we got in a trip to Star Wars Land at DisneyWorld, which included briefly getting to see my mom, in mid-February. I don't know when I'll be able to physically be near my parents again – so far neither of us have shown symptoms I think are likely covid related (I've had the occasional cough, but I think that's from postnasal drip due to my allergies/rhinitis being worse than usual from being stuck inside), but there's no way of know if we're pre- or asymptomatic and for the moment we basically have to assume we are. So… who knows, there's no real timeline in this.

But I know, this is what we're all living with, who wants to relive it. I was trying to keep a coronavirus journal for a little bit but it feels the same as when I was trying to journal after Trump's election – I already lived through all of this, why am I making myself do it again. But given that there's also being Stuck At Home, there's not a whole a lot else to talk about because otherwise it's taking long baths while reading or watching all Disney movies in chronological order because damn it I paid for this disney+ subscription or rewatching Sexy Tudors for some reason (I started it but now we're at the fall of Anne Boleyn and I don't want to keep going…). Maybe some day I'll finish the fic I'm currently working on, though this was a bad time to be stuck with a fic that's very much getting myself to write the Upsetting Thing I'd Usually Sidestep, so.

I guess there are books that I've read, which:

I love Ted Chiang's stories, and this was another great collection. Even the simplest or shortest of them still somehow leave me in tears by the end. My favorite in this collection was probably "Omphalos," which was somewhat similar to "Hell Is the Absence of God" in Stories of Your Life and Others in that it depicts a world where God is definitely real and then does something really interesting with it. But in this case it was taking that perspective and then doing something to completely twist it – and then valuing compassion and optimism in the face of what would otherwise be despair. That's a pretty consistent tone in Chiang's stories that I really appreciate.

Making myself think critically about this, it was very well-written, particularly in that I feel like a lot of the time when I read a book by someone who hasn't necessarily pursed writing as a principal career focus (though Bourdain actually did) it can be read like a series of semi-thought-out-blog-posts and this was definitely not, it was smart and concise and cohesive.

But my main takeaway was that wow the restaurant industry needs to be unionized. And sometimes it did feel something like –

"All the best line cooks get the work done, never take a sick day –"
"But that's bad, Anthony."

(I'd also semi-recently read a New Yorker article about Bourdain that was written before his passing, which on my end did bring a little more perspective to his voice in this, but also – made that aspect all the more vivid and uncomfortable.)

This was my first time reading this book, and I didn't walk away with a lot of strong feelings about it. It was fine! It was kind of what I expected and that's about it.

My only thing was that, with my own point of view and inevitable projecting-onto-characters – I feel like there's this common interpretation that Jo rejects Laurie out of pride and her singlemindedness that she won't be married or tied to a man. It may also be true that they're not well-suited, but I just feel like Jo is often depicted as suppressing her own feelings and then showing regret when Laurie ends up with Amy. But from my reading Jo genuinely does not have feelings for Laurie, and worked pretty hard to avoid having to confront the fact that he obviously had feelings for her. Do adaptations often include how Jo at one point actually tries to get Laurie and Beth together because she thinks they may have feelings for each other and wants to displace any feelings she suspects Laurie may have for her? And from the book I don't really recall that much of Jo feeling regretful for either missing out on the opportunity to be with Laurie, or even for being alone.

And you know, not being able to muster the feelings for men I Was Supposed To Have is really relatable. As was the situation of knowing a man had feelings for me that I would never be able to return the way he wanted, to the point of feeling relieved when he directed those feelings elsewhere. And yes, this is kind of more relevant given that at least once Alcott pretty much said that she was primarily attracted to women (though yes I know she also had at least one relationship with a man).

But I think there is a lot of bringing a, let's say heterocentric lens to Jo's storyline, presuming that the only reason she could have had to reject Laurie was pride. And this maybe gets me especially about Greta Gerwig's Little Women, given that it so, so much emphasized that Jo = Louisa May Alcott. The movie so emphasized Alcott's feminist leanings and outright states that the 'marriage' ending that Jo has was something Alcott was forced into writing. So it seems really noticeable to me now that it didn't do anything to acknowledge Alcott's queerness, and instead fell into the same presumption that Jo couldn't possibly have not wanted to be with Laurie and not wanted to be married at least in part because, like the real life person the movie is outright stating she was, she had "fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man."

Like you know. At least maybe a little bit.

And in inevitable Star Wars media, I also read the third Thrawn book, but I'll complain about space fascists separately. And I guess I could also write about Star Wars Resistance since I did watch all of it (short version: it died as it lived, not knowing wtf it wanted to do), and eventually the return of Clone Wars. I'm currently reading Delilah S. Dawson's Black Spire, and I do want to talk about visiting Star Wars Land as it was an all-around positive Star Wars experience, but I'm thinking about waiting until I finish this book and just writing about the two together because… yes it is a Disney park advertisement. I do also think it's doing a pretty decent job of being more than that but. It is definitely also that.

(I should also talk about Doctor Who sometime given that I did watch it, and it actually did a thing that I love and really never get, but was also... not great.)

In any case, that's the update from the social distancing front – it sucks, but we're also really fortunate.