Rosemary’s Baby turns 50 today, and I’ve been thinking a ton about this film and about the genre of horror overall. For a few decades, dystopias were the alarm clock we all needed, but because the dystopia is now and no satire could possibly outstrip the grotesque burlesque that has capsized the highest chambers of the land, horror is the perfect lens for examining the greatest biases and ugliest fears prevailing in our dying (dead?) republic. That’s why Get Out blew everything else in 2017 out of the water, and that’s why films like The Exorcist and, yes, Rosemary’s Baby haunt us still. The former was about an America possessed–why else do you think it took place within spitting distance of Nixon’s White house?–and the latter was about the way that women are gaslit about everything including their own intellectual and reproductive powers. It’s also why I’m so flatly unimpressed by the emptyheaded Hereditary, the Toni Collette everything-and-the-kitchen-sink horror film that has everyone’s tongue a-flapping this month. Continue Reading →
I woke in this garbage mood, like GARBAGE–this, despite the fact that I have extraordinarily loving friends, and (you may as well know) a lovely beau and (you already know) a lovely cat and a lovely home and a lovely neighborhood and even a lovely car. This, despite the fact that I working on a book I’ve wanted to write my whole life, despite the fact that I have an amazing space within walking distance in which to write it, despite the fact that I live next door to the friendliest most delicious most endearing coffee shop, despite the weather being about as perfect as New York weather gets, despite the fact that I am healthy and strong and dammit very much alive. I woke up feeling this way because (in increasing order) our country is truly in its end-days, exemplifying every theory Marx ever espoused about late-stage capitalism and also, not unrelatedly, because I am worried about cash and also, I am sorry to say, because my favorite Megjumpsuit disappeared, and it was that rare garment that was both obscenely comfortable and sexy as hell and therefore irreplacable and of course magic. This is a Capricorn for you–eyes on the prize but always obsessed SIMPLY OBSESSED with her things. Sheeeit.
Last night at Westchester’s Emelin Theater, I lectured on RBG, a new documentary about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was beyond reassuring to discuss this well-mannered, succinct, intellectually rigorous, even-handed, courageous, tenacious, and scrupulous woman. Even more reassuring to watch scenes of her working out vigorously with a trainer at age 85.
We need the Justice to live to a biblical age—200, even 250. Maybe clone herself too. But right now, she’s still a key cog in the U.S. government, the ultimate antidote to this political climate of hot air, hot heads, (not) hot messes. As I zoomed back into the city, the traffic a mere trickle at that hour, I looked at the spiny diamonds of the city skyline and just grinned.
It’s still ours.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. The world–especially the United–is still going to hell in a handbasket. But I am starting to think my prediction that Trump and his cronies will exit the White House in cuffs will be realized. Better yet, every day I continue to work on a book I’ve wanted to write for decades. Today I already have penned 1,600 words, and now am swilling an extraordinary spicy turkey sandwich and a post-work glass of vino. On my speakers Marc Dorsy is crooning: “Somewhere in life there’s a joy to be/Between the hope and reality.” I feel the extraordinary solidarity of my girlfriends far and near, foremothers alive and dead, and Miss Grace, sitting pretty on my legs. O, if money didn’t exist, I’d be the happiest 47-year-old in all the land.
Rosemary’s Baby turns 50 today, and I’ve been thinking a ton about this film and about the genre of horror overall. For a few decades, dystopias were the alarm clock we all needed, but because the dystopia is now and no satire could possibly outstrip the grotesque burlesque that has capsized the highest chambers of the land, horror is the perfect lens for examining the greatest biases and ugliest fears prevailing in our dying (dead?) republic. That’s why Get Out blew everything else in 2017 out of the water, and that’s why films like The Exorcist and, yes, Rosemary’s Baby haunt us still. The former was about an America possessed–why else do you think it took place within spitting distance of Nixon’s White house?–and the latter was about the way that women are gaslit about everything including their own intellectual and reproductive powers. It’s also why I’m so flatly unimpressed by the emptyheaded Hereditary, the Toni Collette everything-and-the-kitchen-sink horror film that has everyone’s tongue a-flapping this month. Continue Reading →
I woke in this garbage mood, like GARBAGE–this, despite the fact that I have extraordinarily loving friends, and (you may as well know) a lovely beau and (you already know) a lovely cat and a lovely home and a lovely neighborhood and even a lovely car. This, despite the fact that I working on a book I’ve wanted to write my whole life, despite the fact that I have an amazing space within walking distance in which to write it, despite the fact that I live next door to the friendliest most delicious most endearing coffee shop, despite the weather being about as perfect as New York weather gets, despite the fact that I am healthy and strong and dammit very much alive. I woke up feeling this way because (in increasing order) our country is truly in its end-days, exemplifying every theory Marx ever espoused about late-stage capitalism and also, not unrelatedly, because I am worried about cash and also, I am sorry to say, because my favorite Meg jumpsuit disappeared, and it was that rare garment that was both obscenely comfortable and sexy as hell and therefore irreplacable and of course magic. This is a Capricorn for you–eyes on the prize but always obsessed SIMPLY OBSESSED with her things. Sheeeit.
Last night at Westchester’s Emelin Theater, I lectured on RBG, a new documentary about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was beyond reassuring to discuss this well-mannered, succinct, intellectually rigorous, even-handed, courageous, tenacious, and scrupulous woman. Even more reassuring to watch scenes of her working out vigorously with a trainer at age 85.
prediction that Trump and his cronies will exit the White House in cuffs will be realized. Better yet, every day I continue to work on a book I’ve wanted to write for decades. Today I already have penned 1,600 words, and now am swilling an extraordinary spicy turkey sandwich and a post-work glass of vino. On my speakers Marc Dorsy is crooning: “Somewhere in life there’s a joy to be/Between the hope and reality.” I feel the extraordinary solidarity of my girlfriends far and near, foremothers alive and dead, and Miss Grace, sitting pretty on my legs. O, if money didn’t exist, I’d be the happiest 47-year-old in all the land.