December 2023

December, as it tends so, both flew by and slogged on very slowly. I had quite a lovely Christmas, despite a brief moment where I thought I had burned the roast chicken. I was very proud of myself for making a big Christmas dinner, the potatoes where great, cooked the carrots and parsnips perfectly imo and the gravy was nice and thick. The chicken carcass is now in a zip lock bag in the freezer, to be thrown into the instant pot to make broth. I successfully made Irish soda bread from scratch to have with Mt. Alice, Comte and the world’s most mild brie (the brie is sat in the fridge, the rest of the cheese was demolished). We made gingerbread cookies the night before and my god, fresh gingerbread cookies are great, plus making them ourselves was a very fun Christmas activity that I would like to do again next year. The icing recipe was questionable, too runny despite my best efforts to make it not so, but rather than feel defeated, I enjoyed learning what to do next time. Lots of cooking from scratch this year! It’s been very fun.

My sister very sweetly got me a bankers lamp, as I had mentioned being sad about leaving my old one in London. Got lots of books naturally, so I’m stocked up for next year when I’m doing a “no buy”. Spent a good part of Christmas day reading Ziwe’s essay collection. No great insights into family traditions and the likes, just had a very good couple days.

I write this the day before New Years Eve, anticipating the year to come. I know I often discuss how restless I feel day to day, wondering when my life will start again (I do know that it never stopped, just changed, but the feeling of time standing still remains). My whole life has been waiting, waiting to be successful (at what? Depends on the day), waiting for love, waiting for friends, waiting waiting waiting!

2024 is the year I turn 30. There is a significant part of me very depressed about that. I know in the grand scheme of things I am still young, but I’ll never be this young again. There’s a voice in my head that’s angry that I’m not settled down with a family and/or a career, that I am in a city with no social life. It’s funny to think I was 19 when I moved to London, that big exciting change, everyone eager to make friends and find their passions. I suppose the idea is that by 29 you’re no longer starting again. That by now one should have found their place in the world. Not that I know anyone who has. My friends in their 20s, 30s and 40s all seem to talk about the same feeling of floating. An idleness to their lives. Much how someone in a film is depicted as bored by laying in their bed throwing a ball at the wall. We are all looking around, wondering if this is it? Everything feels so small while out there is the big stuff. Where is this magical place where everything is happening? I’m in New York, I should be close to it. But instead, I spend my days doing things I could be doing anywhere in the world. I sweep, do the dishes, get groceries, budget. Life has become all about maintenance. Where is the excitement?! Where are the drunk people dancing in the square, their feet kicking too high and falling over, laughing as they do. Where are the singers, belting along to the shops, the chatty writer, the construction worker running down the road with flowers in their hands. Life feels so…lacking life.

I am reminded of the ending scene in The Green Knight where Gawain asks “Is this really all there is?” to which the Green Knight replies “What else ought there be?”.

All life has been for so long was preparing for an arbitrary future. Now I’m here, in the future, long graduated, and I feel as if I’ve been left on a desert island. There’s nothing here! I did everything I was supposed to and yet I am still that 10 year old feeling out of place. Life was meant to be big.

The last couple years I have been reacting to that disappointment. For a while it was drinking, now it’s therapy. In therapy we talk about the day to day a lot. Because life is only a day really. When I say “There’s nothing here!” that comes from a more cynical part of me. A part of me that I’m trying to forgive and let rest so other parts of me can grow. Getting older is realising how important little moments are. I have always been a romantic at heart and I’m trying to let her shine, as maybe naive as she can be, I trust her more (my therapist also likes to point out that I refer to myself in the third person a lot). It makes me think about how we raise children to only think about the future, I’ve seen parents not let their kids play, every moment must go towards study. Every book has to teach them something practical. Everything must go into another thing objectively. We can go on and on about how art is good for children’s brains, how learning music helps with math (the “superior” subject), but ultimately people see them as lesser because they do not yield obvious results.

I don’t know why I’m complaining about not having a 9-5, family, Sunday roasts, whitewash houses with the same little cars parked down the road. I actively did not pick that life. Do you think I went to art school because I wanted the path to be clear? I suppose it comes from all my life being labelled as an “eccentric”. Which, true, but I think what annoys me is that somehow means I’m not allowed have similar things to you normies (then you dig deeper and discover that normal does not exist, everyone is weird in their own right). I’m annoyed by it because it is like I never had a choice in the matter, I never got the chance to be normal. I remember having a conversation with a friend when I was 20, we were walking across Peckham Rye, and I told her I decided I wasn’t going to have kids or get married because I felt like those things wouldn’t happen anyways, so I’d rather I have chosen it. We talked a long while about commitment, how we view marriage as a concept, her parents divorced, mine not, and how that impacts our choice. She also didn’t want to get married or have kids, but her choice was a more active one rather than me who was packing it up at 20 (like, girl, come on). I think of that conversation often, because it started to open me up to being open to wanting. To wanting to one day get married, to tell friends in confidence “Oh, yeah I’d like to have kids someday.” To wanting to be an artist, a writer, a bookseller. I became an active participant in my life, I was making choices.

Somewhere in the past 4 years that openness closed again. My want started to feel like desperation. I open dating apps and quickly close them again because what do I even have to say? I look at my life and at first glance wonder what the hell have I done with all this time? Then I look a little bit longer and I see myself carry those frozen dead ducks across the way, Clive the peasant watching me. I see myself walking the streets of Paris alone, visiting the Lourve, meeting up with an old friend. I see myself driving down the streets of Oakland, bobbing along to some song. Blushing hard every time I talk to someone handsome, striking up conversations with strangers because we’re the only ones in the smoking section or I liked the look of their coat. I am alive and I have lived quite a life. The reason I forget is because I am in the middle of it.

What else ought there be?

Thank you for reading,

Enya x

Total books read in 2023: 41

Total films watched in 2023: 138

Books:

It’s Lonely At The Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood: “Cartoonist ZOE THOROGOOD records six months of her own life as it falls apart in a desperate attempt to put it back together again in the only way she knows how. IT'S LONELY AT THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH is an intimate metanarrative that looks into the life of a selfish artist who must create for her own survival.”

I’m not one for graphic novels, but about once a year I like to read one. This one had been popping up a lot so I thought why not, and as a fellow depressed person it did resonate to a certain degree. I’m not huge on metanarrative stories, I think that it undercuts the impact when the author can simply tell you what the story is about rather than letting the story do the heavy lifting. But I really, really liked the art in the book. The haunting figure which represents her depression it great, I liked the different versions of herself, all talking to each other and having differing opinions. A little rushed at the end but overall liked it.

Blackouts by Justin Torres: “Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly but who has haunted the edges of his life: Juan Gay. Playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized, Juan has a project to pass along, one built around a true artifact of a book―Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns―and its devastating history. This book contains accounts collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried. The voices of these subjects have been filtered, muted, but it is possible to hear them from within and beyond the text, which, in Juan’s tattered volumes, has been redacted with black marker on nearly every page. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator recount for each other moments of joy and oblivion; they resurrect loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. In telling their own stories and the story of the book, they resist the ravages of memory and time. The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures?”

Had I read this sooner, it would be my book of the year. Best book of 2023! Bit late to the party but at least we got here. I read it in less than 12 hours, telling myself just a couple more pages until I had to force myself to go to bed at 1am and finish the last 10 pages in the morning. It’s so well written, it felt like butter. Cutting through with ease. The description above basically tells you everything you need to know. It’s a fantastic book that I will be thinking about for a long time and recommending to everyone.

This is Not Miami by Fernanda Melchor, trans. Sophie Hughes: “Set in and around the city of Veracruz in Mexico, This Is Not Miami delivers twelve devastating stories that spiral from real events. These cronicás—a genre unique to Latin American writing, blending reportage and fiction—probe the motivations of murderers and misfits, compelling us to understand or even empathise with them. Melchor is like a ventriloquist, using a range of distinctive voices to evoke the smells, sounds and words of this fascinating world that includes mistreated women, damaged families, refugees, prisoners and even a beauty queen.”

You see that translated by Sophie Hughes on the cover and know you’re gonna be in for a good time (it’s the same feeling I get when I see Anton Hur). Though nothing will be quite like Hurricane Season, This is Not Miami isn’t trying to be. A village of stories, all looping back into each other. It’s as if you are walking through a bar, listening to different tales, some truer than others, some drunker, less reliable, others an air of great secrecy you only get a glimpse of. Melchor manages to make characters so vivid in such a short amount of time, within mere sentences I can see their hair, their eyes, the way they hold themselves. I will always recommend Melchor.

Black Friend: Essays by ziwe: “Ziwe made a name for herself by asking guests like Alyssa Milano, Fran Lebowitz, and Chet Hanks direct questions. In Black Friend, she turns her incisive perspective on both herself and the culture at large. Throughout the book, Ziwe combines pop-culture commentary and personal stories, which grapple with her own (mis)understanding of identity. From a hilarious case of mistaken identity via a jumbotron to a terrifying fight-or-flight encounter in the woods, Ziwe raises difficult questions for comedic relief.”

I really recommend this if you’re a fan of Ziwe, I don’t know how it would translate for someone not familiar with her style of humor. But I think it should be given a shot, if not for just her essay on Cancel Culture (and how it doesn’t exist! Was so worried when I saw the title and so relieved to read some actual sense). It’s funny and dark, intelligently observed, infuriating, I kept reading passages to my sister because every other paragraph made a wonderful point. Also watch Ziwe’s show which was sadly cancelled, it’s hilarious.

Best Canadian Stories 2024 selected by Lisa Moore- ”Selected by editor Lisa Moore, the 2024 edition of Best Canadian Stories showcases the best Canadian fiction writing published in 2022. Featuring: Madhur Anand • Sharon Bala • Gary Barwin • Billy-Ray Belcourt • Xaiver Michael Campbell • Corinna Chong • Beth Downey • Allison Graves • Joel Thomas Hynes • Elise Levine • Sourayan Mookerjea • Lue Palmer • Michelle Porter • Sara Power • Ryan Turner • Ian Williams”

I’m not normally a short story collection person, I find the tonal/style shifts a bit jarring and like any collection, some will be better than others. This is the most consistent collection I have ever read. The stories are so different, the styles change, but I guess what is consistent is the vibe. I often find short stories tend to be novels condensed, but here the stories are perfectly paced. Nothing ever feels cut down, they are exactly what they need to be. My favourite was Golemson by Gary Barwin.

Films:

Afire (2023)- “Emotions run high for a group of friends in a holiday home by the Baltic Sea as the parched forest around them catches fire.”

I wrote a whole essay on this film which will be out next week. I’m sort of surprised I engaged with this film as much as I have, because you could easily write it off as a standard stilted writer is confronted by a woman, etc etc. But what is so fascinating is how the film tries to work as a typical narrative but there is a looming threat of a forest fire (climate change metaphor, or just literal climate change). The film wants to be slice of life but the realities of the world can not allow it. Highly recommend.

Godland (2022)- “At the end of the 19th century, a young Danish priest is sent to a remote part of Iceland. The deeper he travels into the unforgiving landscape, the more he loses touch with his own reality, his mission and his sense of duty.”

What an absolutely gorgeous film. Every single shot it like a painting. If you don’t like slow movies, this isn’t for you but I really think you should try. It’s man vs nature vs god vs man. It’s quiet, allowing you to really take in the beautiful landscape. Wish I could have seen it in the cinema.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)- “As the inhabitants of Whoville prepare for Christmas, the Grinch, a hostile green creature who lives in a cave on Mount Crumpit, despises the holiday and attempts to sabotage their plans. Six-year-old Cindy Lou Who believes that everyone focuses too much on gifts and not enough on personal relationships.”

I remember seeing this in the cinema and being absolutely terrified at the beginning that I was covering my eyes and my mom leaned over and whispered “I didn’t pay for you to not watch the movie.” I yelped and nearly cried when the Grinch grinned. But somehow, this became one of my favourite movies as a child. The VHS was in constant rotation. My sister and I can nearly recite the whole script word for word. An incredibly formative piece of media for me. Is it good? I wonder if my eyes are clouded by the childhood love I have for the film, I can see those who love the original animated version or book being disgusted by it. But I was 6 years old, so, the pretentiousness had yet to kick in. It’s absurd, it’s great, you can skip the Cindy Lou Who solo song and lose nothing.

House of Yes (1997)- “A man (Josh Hamilton) and his fiancee (Tori Spelling) visit his warped clan, complete with dark mansion and incestuous twin sister (Parker Posey).”

I watched this for Parker Posey, who currently has a collection on The Criterion Channel. Parker Posey is the only reason to watch this film and maybe for Geneviéve Bujold but only because she was in Dead Ringers. Everyone else in this film are not great actors, the story was a bit eh. I think with the right actors this could have been a good film with an ok script but instead was overall fairly lackluster. It seems like the kind of movie I would have watched as a teenager with friends because of the risque premise and maybe then I would have a bit more to say about it. But I didn’t watch it then. So that’s about all.

Gremlins (1984)- “A gadget salesman is looking for a special gift for his son and finds one at a store in Chinatown. The shopkeeper is reluctant to sell him the `mogwai' but sells it to him with the warning to never expose him to bright light, water, or to feed him after midnight. All of this happens and the result is a gang of gremlins that decide to tear up the town on Christmas Eve.”

I’d never seen this film and finally got around to it and what a delight. I believe the term is “gateway horror”, not too frightening for kids, though I imagine the ending caused a few nightmares, more of a comedy for adults. The puppets are fantastic, some really great work by Chris Walas (The Fly), not too much stop-motion to take you out of it. Gizmo is the cutest damn creature, I love that little puppet so so much. If you haven’t seen it I’d recommend you give it a go.

Living (2022)- “Overwhelmed at work and lonely at home, a civil servant's life takes a heartbreaking turn when a medical diagnosis tells him his time is short. Influenced by a local decadent and a vibrant woman, he continues to search for meaning until a simple revelation gives him a purpose to create a legacy for the next generation.”

Eh. If anything, this film makes me want to watch the original Ikiru (1952). Am I just too cynical for this film? Certain relationships I felt were underdeveloped for the role they would later play. I just didn’t care about anyone in this film. They all felt like cutouts of people. There’s no subtly to the dialogue, it tells you everything you should think and feel. It looks good, the acting is good. I’m just a bit baffled by how schmaltzy it all was and I love schmaltz but even I felt it was a bit shallow. Maybe it’s not the script but the interpretation of the script? There is an air of importance given to the dialogue verses how I think it would be more impactful said not like a monologue but like how people actually talk if that makes sense? Everything everyone says is so fucking important and the film tells you this by the way its shot. To give the story a matter-of-factness sorely missing. The point of the story is how you will die and life will go on and tomorrow the office worker will be cold and unconcerned and the things you do may be only a glimpse at life but you got to do it for yourself because you know its right! And the film is such an overly sentimental slog.

Diary of a Country Priest (1951)- “An inexperienced, sickly priest (Claude Laydu) shows up in the rural French community of Ambricourt, where he joins the community's clergy. But the locals don't take kindly to the priest, and his ascetic ways and unsociable demeanor make him an outcast. During Bible studies at the nearby girls school, he is continually mocked by his students. Then his attempt to intervene in a family feud backfires into a scandal. His failures, compounded with his declining health, begin to erode his faith.”

I talked to my therapist about life affirming movies and how overly sentimental ones seem shallow. Though not a happy story, there was something to this film that was much more attune to being alive than some attempt at comfort. The story is a slow tragedy and I recommend.

Burning (2018)- “Jong-soo runs into Hae-mi, a girl who once lived in his neighborhood, and she asks him to watch her cat while she's out of town. When she returns, she introduces him to Ben, a man she met on the trip. Ben proceeds to tell Jong-soo about his hobby.”

This is one of those movies I swore I’d seen but realised I hadn’t. One could call it a slow…burn. Is that anything? Anyways, I found this to be a very good film, there’s a great mystery to it. You’re never given more information than the protagonist which I really liked and you see the leaps of logic and how the film concludes the way it does. Never is anything explained, it treats the audience like intelligent adults! What a relief.

The Eight Mountains (2022)- “Two young Italian boys spend their childhoods together in a secluded alpine village roaming the surrounding peaks and valleys before their paths diverge.”

Magnificent. Made me want to cry at the end. A beautiful story that doesn’t depend on resolutions because life has no true resolutions. I don’t want to give anything away, I say just watch it.

Priscilla (2023)- “When teenager Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who's already a meteoric rock 'n' roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, and a gentle best friend.”

Well, though it wouldn’t be hard, this is a much better depiction of Elvis than that terrible Baz Luhrmann film. That being said, this movie is fine. It is so very okay. I get it, I get what Coppola was trying to do but making Priscilla a void of a person doesn’t make for a very intriguing story. But it’s probably true to life. It is successful in what it wanted to do. I’m just not a huge Sophia Coppola fan to begin with. My sister did point out the great sound design though. The google synopsis saying Elvis is a “gentle best friend” is a bit of a stretch. At no point did I think either knew each other at all. They were figurines to each other. Quite tragic all and all.

White Christmas (1954)-”Singers Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby) and Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) join sister act Betty (Rosemary Clooney) and Judy Haynes (Vera-Ellen) to perform a Christmas show in rural Vermont. There, they run into Gen. Waverly (Dean Jagger), the boys' commander in World War II, who, they learn, is having financial difficulties; his quaint country inn is failing. So what's the foursome to do but plan a yuletide miracle: a fun-filled musical extravaganza that's sure to put Waverly and his business in the black!”

I watched this with my dad on Christmas eve last year and after it ended he muttered to himself “What a stupid film”. It always makes me laugh. For some reason it was a family tradition to watch this film on Christmas eve every year since I was little. I’ve missed a few but the majority of my Christmas eves have been spent watching this film. There are many suspect things, bizarre song choices, a lot of army propaganda, and good ol’ fashioned trad values. The film is a novelty, only watched now because it doesn’t feel like Christmas without it. I hate musicals for the most part, but this film is so odd I find it all endearing. Can I recommend it? No, but it’s amusing.

Holy Spider (2022)- “A journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so-called Spider Killer, who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.”

This was a very good film but a tough watch. It holds nothing back and is incredibly brutal. One could call it cynical but I found it to be quite matter-of-fact in it’s disillusion of the criminal system and how men like these are vindicated by society.

Malevolent (2018)- “A brother-sister team that fabricates paranormal encounters for cash gets more than it bargains for when it takes a job in an estate with real paranormal activity.”

This might be the most forgettable horror film I have ever watched. Although, during the last 20 minutes I went to make dinner and half paid attention (and this was the most exciting part of the film!). It’s interesting watching Florence Pugh in one of her early roles, she’s a professional but it’s evident she’s not giving the same performance as the superb Lady Macbeth. She knows it’s a shitty Netflix horror film. All Netflix original horrors operate and look very similar and are generally boring. The only plus is that it’s a horror film, so you still get to ask “Why the hell are you going in there?”.

Phantom Thread (2017)- ”Renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock and his sister Cyril are at the center of British fashion in 1950s London -- dressing royalty, movie stars, heiresses, socialites and debutantes. Women come and go in Woodcock's life, providing the confirmed bachelor with inspiration and companionship. His carefully tailored existence soon gets disrupted by Alma, a young and strong-willed woman who becomes his muse and lover.”

I have watched this three times within the last 18 months. I saw it for the first time in October of last year. I was worried for a minute that Malevolent would be the last film I watched in 2023 and made sure it would not be the case. It is a superb film. One of my top 5 for sure.