piano and the wind

It's late, so I'll start with some wallowing music: Asleep by The Smiths. Over the top lyrically, maybe, and canceled for good reason, but that lonely piano set against the howling wind sounds to me like being in one's home late at night.

The feeling that things are happening elsewhere, but all is still and quiet here.

I realize now how strange it is to be at home late at night. To be aware of it, I mean. It should be familiar, but I guess I am not here that much in these hours after all, or if I am, I'm too tired to think about what I'm doing. Or, if not that, I am working.

I'm not writing much these days, which is another thing I'm normally doing at my computer late at night. I have to access joy to write and my sense of joy is really blunted these days. Now my time at my computer feels purposeless and unstructured and a little desperate, all while set to wallowing music — sort of like it was in college.

I wrote this piece about Lynn Hershman Leeson's films for Filmmaker magazine. I'm really proud of that essay. If you're a WoMaN ArTiSt who has ever wondered why you bother (who hasn't!), you really owe it to yourself to watch Conceiving Ada.

I finally rewatched Contagion. Kinda glad I watched it as far along as we are in the pandemic for all the points of comparison. It's such a good film. Love the frenetic pacing heightened by the Cliff Martinez soundtrack. That moment when Matt Damon finds the digital camera is simply devastating. And now we just need Jennifer Ehle to save us all.

This would be a good time to read books I expect I won't like very much but feel would be useful to be familiar with, because I have trouble really loving and connecting with what I'm encountering lately. It’s not the books, it’s me (and the state of the world.)

But I have thought about rereading Falling Out of Cars by Jeff Noon because I'm thinking about it a lot. It's about a virus, yes, so technically pandemic literature, but more than that, the part that resonates is how media is depicted as fractured and confusing. The effect of the virus is that people's communication and comprehension breaks down. The maddening sense of isolation is strong. It's just a straight up beautiful novel that wouldn’t diminish or feel off-key with the intensity and sadness of these times.

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Thanks for reading.