Monthly Archives: June 2022

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Every Rejection, Every Disappointment Has Led You Here To This Moment”

— Alpha Waymond, Everything Everywhere All at Once

My bicycle locked up in front of The Alamo Drafthouse theater in Richardson, Texas. They have the coolest bike racks.

Partly out of desire… but mostly out of necessity (we are down to one working car) I have been riding the five mile commute to my work on my bike every day. The mornings are OK – except I have to get up twenty minutes before dawn so I’m riding before it gets too hot – the rising sun slowly burning away the morning fog. The afternoon commute is already too hot, though – here in Texas it’s already in the mid to high nineties most days.

There was a movie I’ve been wanting to see – Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was showing at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Richardson at 6:15. My commute is five miles, it’s three or so miles to the theater, and four and a half home from there. Easy riding – except for the heavy rush hour traffic around downtown Richardson and coming off Highway 75. So I sneaked out of work a few minutes early and rode up to the Alamo.

It was hot and I was sweating like a stuck pig. A bit embarrassing, but I arrived a bit early so I bought a cold beer (Lakewood Temptress on tap) and sat in a dark booth in the back of the cool bar until the movie was announced… I was able to cool and dry off enough to at least be almost presentable.

The movie is getting a lot of hype —- and it deserves every bit of it… and more. It is not a perfect film – it is way too ambitious for that – and when the filmmakers have a chance to go for it… the do that and more.

I can’t really explain the plot. It’s the story of a middle aged Chinese woman named Evelyn (played by the incredibly talented Michelle Yeoh) and her immigrant family (with a very American lesbian daughter) that lives in a tiny apartment over their failing laundromat. They are straining with family drama and friction and are about to undergo an IRS audit. At that point Evelyn discovers that there is an infinite multiverse made up of all the different realities that each person has created with every decision they make. Not only that, but there is an evil creature named Jobu Tupaki that is jumping through the multiverse, destroying everything. Jobu makes Thanos look like a piker. Evelyn, this failing version of Evelyn, this worst of all possible Evelyns, is the only person that can stop this.

She is torn between saving all the universes and trying to complete her IRS audit. Things get strange after that.

This is not a sufficient explanation of the plot or an adequate description of what the movie feels like – those things are impossible. You have to see it to believe it.

Boiled down – it’s the eternal struggle between the googly eye and the everything bagel (really). You have to see it to understand.

Just see it.

I want to see it again. It is so complex, layered, with so many references and symbols – one viewing is not enough (maybe a hundred wouldn’t be enough). Plus, it is a movie with a heart – a giant beating, sometimes bloody heart. It’s really funny too.

Oh, see it in a theater. I can’t imagine watching it for the first time at home, alone.

It was dark when the movie was over, but I have good lights, the traffic had died down, and my ride home was uneventful (and maybe a little fun).

I slept like a stone – dreaming of people with hot dog fingers and sentient stones.

Daisies

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Am I tough? Am I strong? Am I hard-core? Absolutely.
Did I whimper with pathetic delight when I sank my teeth into my hot fried-chicken sandwich? You betcha.”
― James Patterson

Daisies

I watched another Czech New Wave movie on The Criterion Channel – “Daisies” – a very odd and unique film.

Two somewhat attractive young women decide that since the world is going to hell in a handbasket they will do whatever they want. A lot of what they want is to convince older men to take them out to expensive restaurants where they eat and drink wine to excess – then take the men to a train – pretend to go with him – then jump off and run home without.

The movie is surreal and jarring – there is a scene where the women cut up the very film stock with scissors – until it is reduced to a jerky collage of heads and body parts. There is no plot – only the two women messing around. There is one scene with one of the two covering her naked body with the display cases of a Lepidopterist who is passionately in love with her.

At the “climax” of the film (such as it is) the two ride a dumbwaiter up through a series of odd tableaux viewed through a tiny grimy window until they arrive at a giant hall set with a log table – chairs for twenty or so – and a sideboard groaning with food. They start out sampling here and there before graduating to gorging themselves and finally a full-blown food fight where they destroy the feast. Then they appear wrapped in twine and newsprint trying to clean up their mess as best as they can – in apparent penance for their chaotic destruction.

They finish – happy and satisfied – stretched out on the table amidst the broken crockery and stained cloth until….

But that would spoil the fun, wouldn’t it?

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Posted on by Bill Chance

“The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.”
― Alain de Botton

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Waiting on a workman to come by and cut up a downed tree – I wanted to rest a bit and take in a film – something streaming from the Criterion Collection. I decided to dive back into the Czech New Wave and chose what is often regarded as the last movie in that movement (It was released after the Soviets invaded the country and clamped down on artistic freedom and everything else) – Valerie and Her Week of Wonders.


The movie has been described as a fantasy film, as a horror film, as a coming-of-age film, as a vampire film, as a fairy tale, and as soft-core pornography. It is all that and… maybe… more.


What it is not is a linear consistent plot-driven film. It is a hallucination inside of a dream, jumping around, people change identities, die and come back to life. There are elements of lesbianism, incest, rape, reincarnation, magic, and eastern European folklore.


Valerie is a beautiful thirteen-year-old that comes of age (symbolized by drops of blood on blooming daisies) and is then thrown into a mystery of magical pearl earrings, a vampire grandmother, an evil presence that might be her father or her uncle or an anthropomorphic polecat. I guess what we are seeing is the symbolic introduction of the young girl to the mysterious world of adult sexuality – seen through a warped and horrific kaleidoscope.


It obviously is not a movie for everyone – but I’m not everyone and I liked it. It was a fun way to wile away a bit of time while waiting for something else to happen.

Sunday Snippet, Flash Fiction, Sneaking Away by Bill Chance

Posted on by Bill Chance

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine

What did you dream?

It’s alright we told you what to dream

—-Pink Floyd

Anna Karina, star of the French New Wave

Sneaking Away

For weeks, at work, Craig was seized with an odd obsession. He thought constantly about sneaking away in the afternoon and seeing a movie. It had been unbelievably hot – though it was a typical summer. Thirty-plus days in a row of triple digit temperatures. Coming up on two months without a drop of rain. This day after day of baking was affecting Craig’s brain – broiling his thoughts.

He thought of the multiplex down the street from his work. He thought of the cool darkness. The isolation and peaceful quiet, interrupted only by the cacophony of the film soundtrack itself. The crankle of ice cubes in a big paper cup, the swoosh of a straw, the smell of popcorn.

He dreamed of the time when he could lean back and close his eyes and feel the cushioned seat that jiggles a little, modern stadium seating, plenty of legroom. A modern bastion of entertainment, a pantheon to air conditioning. Cool whispers, dust filters. His fingers would feel the little paper stub in a pocket, a ticket to ride, escape.

It didn’t matter what the feature is… as a matter of fact, the more banal, the better. Some teen comedy maybe, or modern special effects smash hit mindless electric drivel. Escapism, is what they call it.

In his imagination he tells the girl at the front desk of the office, “I have an off site afternoon meeting,” and strolls out to the parking lot. It is only a five minute drive to the gigaplex; He sees himself locking his cellphone in the glove box of his car. The ticket seller, the ticket ripper, the concession slogger are all bored, the afternoon weekday crowd is light.

The worn carpet, the signs over the doors, the posters (coming soon)… He could see it all when he closed his eyes.

He didn’t do it though… He couldn’t do it. He worked in a factory, He was a critical cog in the machine. The oiled parts, hot and constantly moving, never know when his attention is needed.

So he took a hurried lunch, drove past the theater on his way back. The best he could do is to lean back a little between phone calls or emails, when nobody was standing in front of his desk with some question.

Lean back and close his eyes, try to smell the popcorn, hear the roar of the coming attractions.

Sparks

Posted on by Bill Chance

Some might find me borderline attractive from afar

But afar is not where I can stay and there you are

—-Sparks, Johnny Delusional
Sparks, Propaganda album cover.

There are so many thousands of streaming choices, yet it is so hard to find something to watch.

For some reason I chose the documentary The Sparks Brothers on Netflix. The title is a joke, of course, there are no Sparks Brothers. There are brothers – Russel (the good-looking heartthrob singer) and Ron (the odd-looking genius songwriter and keyboardist) Mael – and there is Sparks – a long running (25 albums and counting) and very odd band… but there are no Sparks Brothers nor Brothers Spark.

I have a little history of Sparks fandom. I missed their early years – we forget in this internet age how difficult it was to track oddball musical groups from Kansas and Nicaragua – no matter how interesting and good they were. I do think I saw them on Don Kersher’s Rock Concert in 1974 – but other than Ron’s Hitler mustache and strange demeanor – I didn’t remember much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKUJpjh34C4

A decade later they re-invented themselves to fit in with the MTV generation and they had a hit song, Cool Places:

I hat a bit of a crush on Jane Wiedlen (at any rate, she was my favorite Go-Go) and I became a Sparks fan. My roommate was also a fan (and a more accomplished student of popular music than I) and we actually went to a concert at Tango – on lower Greenville – here in Dallas – probably in 1983 or 4. I remember the show and really enjoyed it – but Tango was my favorite spot in the world at the time (I was in my mid-to-late 20’s) and any concert there was a blast.

Not long after that I was married then with kids and any attempts at keeping up with alternative music was drowned out in a three decade long tsunami of art projects, soccer practice, and working my ass off to pay for everything.

Now, from watching the documentary, I discovered that the two brothers went through a number of dry spells – but kept reinventing their music and getting the occasional hit in the occasional country and have survived until this day. I think I’ll dial them up on Spotify and make up a playlist.

The fun thing about these documentaries that follow a band for decades is how you can watch and relate what the band was doing to your own life at that time. It actually manages to give a little more perspective on your time in this world of strife and pain.

I learned a few interesting things about the band. One, I had never appreciated their lyrics. Ron writes from the heart – and though the songs are often funny and quirky – they had a dark heart. I think I’ll copy some over, there might be something to learn, some inspiration in there somewhere. There sure are a lot of them.

Another tidbit is a live project they did – in 2007… at that time they had 20 albums out and were about to release their 21st… they performed all their albums in order, one per night, for 20 nights – culminating with their new album on the 21st. Think of how hard this would be – hundreds of songs – they rehearsed for months – how would you remember the songs from the 1st album while you were working on number 20?

Finally, I learned that Russell Mael had a brief affair with Jane Wiedlen back in the day. Lucky dog.

Here’s my current favorite Sparks song:

What I learned this week, June 3, 2022

Posted on by Bill Chance
FAILE uses the year 1986 in their work – the year of the Challenger Disaster.

The New Normal Is Failure

The clusterfark in Uvalde is just a symptom of a much bigger pathology. It is a symbol of the failure of every institution in our society. And the solution is never to revamp the institutions and eject the parasites heading them. It’s always – always – to take power from us and give it to the people who screwed up in the first place.

Mojo Coffee, Magazine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana (click to enlarge)

People who drink coffee daily live longer, study says.

IS THERE NOTHING IT CANNOT DO? 

This is ART!

Mona Lisa is attacked with custard pie by man disguised as elderly woman in a wheelchair screaming ‘think of the planet!’… before he’s dragged away by security.

“The man, who wore a dark black wig and lipstick, turned out to be an artist and climate change activist who said he pied the prized painting in protest. ‘Think about the Earth. People are in the process of destroying the Earth!’ he declared as he was led away by security guards. ‘Artists think about the Earth, that’s why I did this. Think of the planet!’”

As Karol Markowicz tweets, “An environmental activist trying to destroy the Mona Lisa is in line with what leftism is right now. They think their righteous cause means all of their behavior is OK and this is reinforced by a friendly media who covers riots as if they are peaceful protests. It’s wrong.”

Get Ready for $1 Per Egg: USDA Forecast Predicts Highest Food Inflation Since 1980. 

“All of the predictions in the May report from the USDA are subject to upward revision.”

Renner School House desks.

Harvard professor finds remote school led to massive learning loss

Remote and hybrid learning during the COVID pandemic led to large declines in academic achievements, especially in high poverty districts, according to a study from Harvard University economist Thomas Kane.

“High poverty schools were more likely to go remote and the consequences for student achievement were more negative when they did so,” the research team with Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research reported.

I have friends with school-age children. Every one of them says that the schools are a disaster post-pandemic and the kids have been irreversibly harmed. “We have destroyed an entire generation,” one parent of told me – and keep in mind they were talking about their own children.

We Have Entered the Self-Pity Stage of the Biden Presidency.

There’s no doubt that Democrats are seeing a perplexing disconnect with the public: In one particularly daunting example, the onetime recipients of the now-expired expanded child tax credit have, according to polls, moved from supporting the Democrats to supporting Republicans—all despite the fact that no member of the GOP supported the expansion of the credit. But the carping over how the people are failing to truly see the distinction between the parties only underscores the self-pitying tone of the administration and its leader at the moment.

Real Americans prefer an economy with low inflation and increasing wages — like we had before the lockdowns — to an economy that practically requires child tax credits just to get by.

 One Man’s Case Shows Why the Looting Isn’t Going To Stop Any Time Soon: Serial looter committed serious crimes, never spent a day in prison.

Caribbean Sunset, Twenty Years Ago

Posted on by Bill Chance

“We are homesick most for the places we have never known.”

― Carson McCullers

Caribbean Sunset, June 3, 2002

Grumpy Fuckers

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.”

― Emily Dickinson

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

I received a random internet ad for merch from the “Grumpy Fuckers Coffee Shop.” I liked it – not enough to order anything (at least not right away) but I did look up the address on Google Maps – 253 Gunt Street, Cardiff, Wales. I wanted to see what the storefront looked like. I was a bit disappointed when I discovered the address didn’t exist.

It is all Fake News.

But is the best kind of fake news. It is the kind that I wish I had thought of myself.