zoo wee mama!
it’s been so long i don’t really know what to say lol. didn’t write because i didn’t really know what to say after the election. i’m writing to you from the metro north going to new haven. angel and i are doing a little thanksgiving getaway which i’m only regretting a little bit. i’m a little bit sore and a little bit tired from yesterday’s thanksgiving festivities (tini’s mac and cheese is HEAVY). but the longer i sit on the train, the more excited i am to snoop around new haven and yale university :)
some fun home developments, angel bought a projector and i bought a walking pad. the projector is very cool and i’m looking forward to cozy nights in bed, falling asleep to star wars or futurama or something. the walking pad is also very fun, i love it frankly and have found the perfect place to store it. jupe is totally bewildered by it. he’s never seen anything like it.
i’ve been well, if you’re wondering. like holistically speaking. i’ve been busy. between work, lots of freelance hours, farm merge valley, and miscellaneous projects. had some disappointing forays in the way of job hunting but also am balancing a promising prospect that comes with a lot of considerations. had some fun outings, visiting poster house, getting brunches, taking photos, friends coming and going. a month fruitful in joys and labor. december is shaping up to be a busy month as well, but really what’s new. once halloween passes, everything is a total whirlwind until it’s january 2nd and life starts again for real 😌
(((wip)))
i finished the little polo knit. i love this little shirt, it’s the cutest. i do think i made the sleeves a bit too big and will maybe have to re-do them so they’re a bit more fitted. i have a sweater wip in the same kind of yarn that i’ve lost steam on. i think i’ll harvest it and use the yarn for matching leg warmers!
additionally have started a pair of mittens that now heavily rely on a yarn store in new haven. i’ve run out of the yarn i’m using (malabrigos rios) and there’s not a nearby new york store that carries it
and in addition to that i’ve started a little headscarf. freehanding this one so we’ll see how it turns out, it’s simple enough but it’s my first time freehanding something that includes a silly little decorative stitch :)
vlogs: i have a rough edit of amsterdam but have now become stumped on music. but working in premiere has been fun. i think with this first video i’m working out a lot of kinks in terms of process/workflow. once this one is wrapped up, the rest will move faster….. i would hope
christmas presents!!!!! yeah i can’t say, i’ll just say i’m being a little ambitious this year, which i guess is par for the course
will be picking up sock yarn in new haven as well, my family will be receiving socks this christmas
(((a bit on physical media)))
some of you may know that i’ve been very slowly collecting dvds and blu rays. i acquired a blu ray player from a coworker last year and have picked up discs at thrift shops, the odd cheap blu ray from amazon, or buying a movie that i know i love and know can be hard to find on streaming. over the years i’ve been burned by streamers and the way they butcher their own content for profit. and i’m looking directly at david zaslav and the horrid way he runs warner bros. so i’ve been feeling sad and angry about the idea of never being able to watch some of my favorite movies and shows. rip fallen soldier, genera+ion and seriously fuck david zaslav.
but i had the lovely opportunity to go to the criterion closet truck when it rolled through brooklyn!! i was kicking myself because it first showed up at the new york film festival, but i was thoroughly in europe at the time. a stroke of luck brought the truck to dumbo though, at the end of october. so i scraped myself together and woke up at 8a on a saturday (which is a huge rarity) and got in line at 9:45a. i ended up waiting in line for 6 hours!! this is the first time i’ve ever lined up for something on the street (i am not counting that disastrous snl attempt in 2022) and all-in-all i had a great time! i was lucky enough to get into position btwn a nice guy who was my age probably and a couple who were like in their 30s and they made the wait so enjoyable.
(in case you don’t know, the criterion collection releases these excellent disc sets every month. it’s very curated, they’re very intentional with what they choose to release, prioritizing movies they feel are important to preserve balanced with movies that are hard to find and don’t have strong backing for physical releases. along with high quality discs, criterion releases come with video essays, collectibles, behind the scene features, interviews, and some of the most beautiful custom artwork i’ve ever seen. a cinephilic graphic designer’s dream, if you will)
anyway, i say all this because while i’ve felt very doom and gloom about the preservation of movies, so my day in the criterion line was so uplifting and invigorating because i was surrounded by so many people who love movies and believe they’re important enough to preserve and keep in their homes. it was nice talking with people who cared about and valued movies so much that they’d spend a saturday on the sidewalk for three minutes to buy some pretty expensive blu rays. it was also so inspirational speaking with the employees there. everyone running the truck were full-time criterion employees and it was so cool because you could tell how much they loved their jobs and how much they loved movies. they were so thoughtful and careful with the line experience, i was really touched. the line and the operators were full of impassioned people and i walked away that day feeling very good about the state of movies.
my small dvd collection is now a little bit bigger 😌😌 (actually it’s like 16 discs bigger, i blacked out and bought the giant godzilla blu ray set)
my current high alert list for physical media is a sunshine on leith dvd, the entire dance academy series on dvd, ballet shoes, both of the murder on the orient express adaptations, and of course…. about time <3
(((what i’ve been consuming)))
what anna marie tendler did (not) write about john mulaney- ok like i’m enthralled with john mulaney’s personal life. who isn’t. i never really cared about anna marie tendler outside of her relevance to john mulaney so i wasn’t really across the autobiography she released earlier this year. but i liked the perspective offered by this video essayist youtuber. she brought up a lot of interesting points without being overwhelmingly judgmental to either side and i appreciated it!
all the young dudes…. i’m at 46% of this fucking fanfiction, i’ve still got 12 hours of it to read. this is taking forever but i am really enjoying myself. super eager to finish this and get to other books but i’m also really afraid of continuing because they’re about to finish school soon and only bad things happen once they finish school :(
i’m currently sitting at 196 movies watched this year. so by the time we meet again, i’ll likely have cleared my 200 movie goal :’) i’d like to thank my company for letting it be so easy to watch movies while i “work”, i’d like to thank my boyfriend for letting me hog the tv, i’d like to thank alamo for some really stellar programming, and i’d like to thank brazilian twitter who supply oft-needed google drive links because i can’t trust streamers for SHIT
can i make it to 250 before eoy ? doubt it but i think 225 could be safe ;-)
so this time i was also a menace at the times square regal and joined angel and brady in getting olive garden calamari and lasagna fritta and eating it during a 4dx movie. we had plans to watch gladiator ii super high and with something in ziploc bags and by george, we did it. it was exhilarating and a ton of fun. and we were also so high once we got out of the movie at like 11:50p that we turned around and bought tickets to the next showing of wicked at 12:10a…….. a very, very good and accidental glicked night
sorry to say but 4dx lowk is the optimal way to watch some movies and highk is the best way to watch wicked lmfao
gladiator ii!! ok i’m like a moderate gladiator fan. i watched it late in life and appreciate it for what it is and think it deserves all the iconicisms it’s been. lauded with. and this iteration with paul mescal and denzel washington and pedro pascal made it so easy to be excited for. i don’t really have any other thoughts besides it just being a good old dad time. ridley scott has maybe run through the last of the good will i had for him though
ok wicked!!!! as some of you know, i have a long history with wicked.
i first saw it in the west end back in 2014, the first show/play/musical i’d ever seen and it knocked my socks off. i was obsessed and kept the little playbill and learned all the lyrics. in high school there was like a two hour gap between when i’d get home from school and when the rest of my family came home and a lot of days would be me singing along to the cast recording on spotify
i saw it again on broadway in 2016, my older cousin bought those tickets for me and i had a very magical new york night. i felt really adult and sophisticated walking up to the gershwin theater in heels and then getting drinks afterwards with friends who lived in new york (now also feeling very adult for saying that i don’t talk to those people anymore and for living through several friend cycles since then) and then starting college just a week later
my most recent brush was seeing it last year with hannah, my sweetest cousin. she snagged us some glorious student priced tickets. felt extremely, extremely adult buying her alcohol but had such a good time and re-remembering how fun the musical is and how good the sets were. such a good production, it’s understandable why it’s been such a hallmark for like 20 years??
so you can imagine how happy i was after seeing wicked part 1 and it being as good as it was. i won’t go into the technical aspects of it or anything but as a fan of the musical, i couldn’t be happierrrr. it was as sweeping as soaring as anything i could’ve wished for it to be. seeing it in 4dx/3d on a whim was spectacular and so special and then seeing it again with friends was even better :)))) i’ll see you ALL at the times square regal in theater 1 or 2 for the 4dx showing, i’m accepting nothing less
i’m antsy for the next one. it was cruel of them to split this into two movies and crueler still to have the second part coming out a whole year later!!! act i of wicked has a lot of popular songs but act ii contains the real heavy hitters. as long as you’re mine and thank goodness and no good deed are going to ruin LIVES (mine)
anyhow, i’ve also watched some notable movies outside of glicked
reality bites: um ben stiller directed and i didn’t feel like my eyes were falling out of my head? shallow maybe but still swept me off my feet. ethan hawke just crushes it every single time!!
the freshman: i think maybe my first feature-length silent film? legendary and so humorous. i enjoyed myself way, way more than i expected
conclave: ok GREAT. ok so beautiful. everyone did so well and i was compelled throughout. maybe a simpler story than i expected but i still enjoyed the ride. this did have a phillip seymour hoffman-shaped hole in it
megalopolis: i can almost barely recommend this in good conscience. but as ridiculous, farfetched, harebrained, and sloppy this was……… there was so much love put into this. i find it hard not to be fond of it. so i will say that i loved this movie.
i do want to write a little oscar’s focused letter, maybe around when nominations come out (jan. 17!). so i’ll comment on other oscar contenders like anora, emilia perez, juror #2, etc. then
in the way of tv, we’ve been watching arcane s2 which we love, of course. we have the final episode left to watch, maybe over this weekend. i’m not really ready for it to be over but we’ll have the future LoL series to look forward to
every episode, we remark about how jealous we are that the LoL fandom gets to have the best, most creative animated series adaptation
nothing new outside of that i think. not a ton of time outside of our schedules. we’ve slowly kept up with survivor but think we’re hitting that bit of survivor burnout we feel now and again. the fall seasons always kind of feel like that
started a vanderpump rules rewatch upon news of bravo rebooting the series. truly vpr has been one of the greatest treasures of my adult life. i’ll miss like three of the cast members, good riddance to the rest!
for the next few weeks, i will be hunkering down and drilling through my wips. i’m gonna be editing, i’m gonna be knitting, i’m gonna be secretly scheming. i bought a new coat and so i’m very excited for the cold weather. i look cute so i am happy. i’m thankful for every single one of you, i hope you’re feeling cute and happy too.
happy thanksgiving, happy holidays, talk soon
s