current(ly)…
- what I’m feeling: dread
- what’s outside my window: 66°F & rainy
- what I’m reading:
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
- Reykjavik by Ragnar Jónasson & Katrín Jakobsdóttir
- what I’m watching: Today show
- what I’m working on: editing a client’s novel
friday 5: this week in the news
1. Has the death of a famous person (not connected to you personally) ever made you cry?
I felt it when Katharine Hepburn died. I love her as an actress, and I’ve always admired her committment to being true to herself. In so many ways, she was a feminist before her time, a fact that caused detriment to her career for a long time.
2. Have you ever sent money as relief aid after a disaster?
Multiple times. I often wish I could do more.
3. How will the recent declaration affirming alcoholic beverages as cancer-causing affect your consumption?
Not much. I rarely have more than a glass of wine, and even that is infrequent at best.
4. What is the most bizarre (or difficult to understand) movie you’ve seen?
Snowpiercer was pretty bizarre. Cloud Atlas is up there for difficult to understand on the first viewing, I think. Donnie Darko is probably up there, too, although I love that movie.
5. How willing and able are you to separate art from artist when a musican, actor, writer, or other creator is discovered to have behaved very badly?
After She-Who-Can’t-Be-Named let it be known she was a hardcore TERFer, this is a topic that really became important to me. That was hard for me, because I love the Harry Potter world. It very much is part of the fabric of our family. I came to this. Harry Potter is what it is because of the fandom, which makes it separate from SWCBN. I owned the OG movies and books before she outed herself, so I still enjoy them. BUT, that being said, I will no longer purchase anything that puts money in her pocket.
That’s where I draw the line. As a consumer, my power lies in where I choose to put my money. If an artist/creator behaves in ways I find reprehensible, I will choose not to put my purchasing power toward their offerings. I won’t buy their music, buy their movies, buy their books, watch their content, etc.
Dread… that is what I’m feeling. Dread with sides of worry and anger. Monday and the shit show that follows. That’s what I’m dreading. Four years of bullshittery that will have years of consequences. Do I hope I’m wrong? Sure do. But I think tRump and his cronies have given us ample evidence to support my belief that this is going to be a damn nightmare. I worry for women, I worry for people of color, I worry for the LGBTQIA+. I have queer sons, and I am terrified for them. And I’m angry as hell about the whole damn situation.
I was just telling someone at our book club that I very seldom cry when famous people die (although there are some who, when they DO die, are going to cause me to take time off from work because I’ll be a wreck), but I did cry when Phife Dawg (A Tribe Called Quest) died, and I’m not even that much of a hip hop fan. I just really admired him.
I read Cloud Atlas before I saw the film, so the film made a lot more sense. It had been considered impossible to make a film from, and although it’s a terribly flawed film in many ways, I actually admired the effort. :) Plus, the Big Island.
Cloud Atlas… I did it in the opposite order, which is probably the problem!!
Like you, I’m not one who cries too much about celebs,. Over-the-top parasocial attachments have never made sense to me. But every now and then, there’s one that really means something to me beyond their celebrity. And then the waterworks!