Got a bit of wild news last week. I'm one of the winners of the 2019 Nicholl Fellowships--a competition I've been entering yearly for at least a decade now. It's completely unexpected, very wonderful, and somewhat anxiety-producing. It may also inspire an uptick in donut-eating. Posting about winning a competition (of any kind) is not something I would normally do. My brain, bless its fluttery little heart*, doesn't like public attention--even for positive reasons. Give me good news, and I'll instinctively look up, searching for the piano about to drop on my head. But I decided to post … [Read more...]
1999
On a crisp September evening in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1999, I accompanied two fellow residents of my dorm-style apartment building, Le Foyer George Williams, to a local theater to see Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. It was Kubrick’s first film in twelve years, an event in itself, and the official promotion for the film promised a lurid, boundary-pushing good time. The three of us ate American fast food prior to the movie—a memory of particular clarity because the two young women, one German and one French, had insisted—and then argued over whether to eat at McDonald’s or Burger King, each … [Read more...]
When a Movie Makes You Crazy
I saw a movie on Thursday, and it blew me away. Julia Ducournau’s Raw is about a young veterinary student who becomes a cannibal. It’s the best new film I’ve seen twenty years. I’m going to skip the traditional accolades here. Too many writers are better at describing why the film is great than I would be. And reviewing is not what I do on this blog. I will sometimes point you toward things I like, but mostly it’s a bizarre show and tell with a bit of futurism. So I will instead describe my reaction to Raw, and that will serve as my review. It will also demonstrate how crazy I … [Read more...]
Love Letter to a Dragon
Dear Vermithrax Pejorative, I still love you. I know this sounds crazy. You haven’t even met me. You’re a fictional dragon; I’m a real person. But I have admired you for many years, and I needed you to know. It’s a platonic love, but no less powerful for being so. I was only six when you appeared in our world, emerging from a lake of fire at select theaters around the country. Too young to see you in full widescreen glory, but I soon became a devoted fan. Monsters were hard to come by in my childhood. Not rare, exactly, but nothing like they are now. These days you can’t pass a … [Read more...]