Emchap's Shit from the Internet 01/1/20 🍠
One of the weirder parts about entering the meat of adulthood in the latter part of the 20-teens has been the increasingly visible default assumption from my peers that the world is actively on fire, things are probably irreversibly fucked, and a default assumption of irony-poisoned absurdity is a completely reasonable starting stance.
All of which is to say that I started my 2020 by (having not slept enough and having consumed an edible) seeing Cats (2019) in a very nice theatre in Hollywood with the exact same people I'd seen the night before at a grilled cheese themed soirée that is basically my favorite party in execution and in theme that I have attended in recent memory.
For those readers who haven't been so ruined by the internet that they've been mainlining Cats reviews since the film came out, it is a horrifying adaptation of a popular nonsense musical; in addition to the source material being at best Very Silly, it's directed badly and filmed in such a way that each Cat (TM) is a horrifying homunculus of indeterminate, mutable size, made so much worse by the Digital Fur Technology used to craft their too-smooth seal bodies. It's the best and the worst thing.
I spent the film stoned-eating an entire container of movie theatre popcorn and drinking a gallon-sized Coke Zero and basically started laughing so hard I cried five minutes in and did not stop for the duration.
In the film, Sir Ian McKellen stonily intones "meow meow meow" and drinks out of a fucking saucer. Idris Elba whispers "ineffable" before disappearing in a puff of smoke like he thought he was in some much hornier nightmare version of Good Omens. Jennifer Hudson—singing the only truly beautiful song in the film, acting to a level it absolutely doesn't deserve—is put on a steampunk air balloon up into the skies to die, and that is the most genuinely moving part of the film.
It's like an alien read a description of how we all wanted to fuck the fox from Robin Hood but didn't totally understand it, and this was what emerged; it's somehow the horniest film I've ever seen while rendering individual viewers the spiritual opposite of whatever horny is.
It was awful and I loved it with my whole stupid heart.
My abs hurt from laughing. I hope everyone's 2020 started with the same amount of joy, and I hope that this year defeats expectations and maybe somehow is Good, Actually.
Shit to read
The internet was a mistake.
It's still the 2000s.
Accessible sex toys! This rules.
Fascinating article about can gleaners.
Someone said this has strong me energy and I respect that. Also I know more about how to prepare yucca.
An actual great piece about food and gentrification and lines near me.
I used to tangentially know the author of this piece on the last decade from improv, and I think this was my favorite look back of any that I read as the year closed down.
CBD in its consumer form in most of the country is a con and if people on the Facebook group I'm in don't stop suggesting it for every goddamn problem I'm going to lose my mind.
Shit to eat
Debate whether the greens being sold outside the grocery store at the farmers stand are collards, and realize that you are something of a poor southerner who can't remember what they look like whole. Feel bad when you do eventually buy a pre-washed, pre-shredded bag of them from the grocery store.
Take them home, fish out the half a sack of black eyed peas in your pantry, and prepare to bow to regional tradition.
Hot soak the peas for an hour, if you remember.
Whether or not you remembered the soak, dump the peas into a pot and cover them with water. Add salt and bay leaves and some smashed cloves of garlic.
Bring the whole situation to a boil, and then leave it to simmer half-covered for an hour or so.
As you round the corner on the hour, heat up your skillet and add some olive oil.
Add some garlic. Add some red chile.
Add the collards half a cup of stock; cover and cook until they're wilted down.
Uncover and continue to stir; add vinegar if you remember.
Serve them together, along with the cornbread recipe that best suits you, and feel regionally sufficient.
Shit to listen to
Shit to buy
God nothing let's all sit inside our houses by ourselves and recoup our financial losses, yes?