Emchap’s Shit from the Internet 8/8/18 🍠
Last Thursday, I got to feel very smugly Los Angeles while attending a free preview screening of Searching, a thriller starring John Cho. It was hosted in LACMA's auditorium, which I 100% did not know it had, and Cho was there for a talkback afterwards, and I got to stare very creepily at his ankles. (They're nice. He's very handsome.)
It was interesting to see a film that takes place entirely on screens with substantial involvement from someone who understands technology—one of the writer/directors for the film is a former Googler. The first part of the film feels very much like a Google commercial (the kid is sad and his dog is dying and it's RAINING), and the rest feels more or less accurate to how people communicate through videos and texts and other screen-accessed media.
So often pop versions of tech feel wrong, fuzzily sketched out in the way that I'm sure doctor and cop shows are but on a platform that I am intimately familiar with, and this avoided that—the jump from a home Windows XP install to OSX in the opening montage was a completely pitch-perfect establishment of tech proficiency and affluence and the passage of time.
(This is a spoiler, so skip the paragraph if you don't want it, but of course the thing involved a cancer mom scene-setting and I hate that for the naked and boring reason that it makes me sad, but it does! It did! The actress playing the cancer mom did not look like she had cancer!)
I'm interested to hear what folks think of it as it begins to have a wider release; if nothing else it's a technically interesting film for its mostly non-cheese version of digitally mediated lives.
Shit to read
A trio of articles that I think pair well together, on heterosexuality and how it fails women: an Ask Polly from a new mother, a Broadly piece on how frustrating the neutering of emotionally intimate female relationships is for queer women, and a Traister piece on that same kind of friendship. True to what Traister calls out (and what is to some extent identified in No One Tells You This), even in my most deeply intimate relationships with men (sexual and not), I have so rarely felt reciprocally cared-for and looked-after in the way that I do with any of my web of female friends or my sister. Our culture does people a disservice by only allowing women homosocial intimacy; men could at least mirror the structures with other men.
Queer Eye is comforting.
Read this article about the American Sailor Moon adaptation all the way to the end.
I didn't know Fashion Nova at all and I still loved this article.
I don't care about Drake and loved this article, too.
Very much enjoyed Doyle's analysis of the Effortless White Woman (and her demise).
This piece on family and mothers and love as a sense of obligation was a gutpunch and so, so, so worth reading.
Fuck hipster hotels.
This cartoon about a failing relationship made me cry.
Shit to eat
Poke around your fridge; realize you inexplicably have a bajeesuston of butter left from previous versions of your life.
Heat your oven to 350.
Melt a stick of butter until it browns. This will take longer than you want for it to. It probably makes a difference.
Whisk in a cup of brown sugar after taking the butter off heat.
Ditto with an egg and a teaspoon of vanilla and a half teaspoon of salt.
In goes a cup of flour.
At this point I added a cup and a half of cored and sliced cherries, which will increase your baking time and be slightly irritating, so I can't say that I recommend it. Instead, add toasted nuts, or chocolate chips, or some caramel sauce.
I believe in you.
Into a greased 8x8 for 25 minutes.
Haul them off to a picnic and enjoy while surrounded by folks you like and a view to die for.
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen's blondies recipe.
Shit to listen to
"Bust Your Windows" pairs really well with "Before He Cheats" in terms of "women fucking up ain't-shit dudes' cars" songs. (It's a genre.)
Shit to buy
Do any of you have the washable silk pajamas from Lunya? I want these but of course they're bananas expensive.
This pajama set cops the Lunya aesthetic but is WAY cheaper and not silk.
I want this Universal Standard nightgown but they are sold out in the navy and I am sad. (Speaking of, I love this edit from them but would probably not want to wear 90% of the clothes.)