cafenowhere

This weekend José and I attended a progressive poetry reading. It’s kind of like a bar crawl, but instead of bars, you move from one poetry reading to the next. The readings were held outside a neighborhood bakery, on someone’s front lawn, in a backyard, and the like. I was delighted when one poet read a poem published by Strange Horizons. I must have yipped or gasped audibly because the poet smiled and said, “Yes, we love Strange Horizons.” It’s always a surprise when my literary circle and SFF circle overlap.

It was a little chilly to be sitting outside, so J and I only went to three of the spots. We made sure to attend the reading where a colleague of J’s was a participant. That colleague tends to write speculative poetry but I think he exclusively submits to literary markets. In any case, he read a newer piece he’d told us about at a Latinx Council dinner. It was about a scorpion that wanted to marry a shoe. Another poet shared a piece about wanting to hold a goose, which had a response delivered by her boyfriend, that demanded the goose back off, he wouldn’t let a bird steal his girlfriend. It’s unfortunate the third poet didn’t continue the animal theme.

Last week, I watched Infinity Pool, directed by Brandon Cronenberg. I was disappointed. The premise is an interesting one: what if you could create a doppelganger of yourself that would take the punishments, endure the consequences, of your bad actions? Unfortunately, the only sane character quickly exits the experiment, leaving you no one to root for. Also, the protagonist’s devolution includes drug use, which led to too many “trippy” scenes of sensory distortion and sexual antics/fantasies. They were so tedious. I think Brandon Cronenberg’s made three films. Antiviral left me cold, but I really liked Possessor. Now this. I guess his work is hit-or-miss for me.

Right now I’m reading Shiny Things: Reflective Surfaces and Their Mixed Meanings. It is fascinating. The authors discuss how shininess can indicate wealth, power, and transcendence or it can signal that something is cheap, ubiquitous, and tacky. Shininess is disruptive, because it dematerializes the surface of a thing so we stop looking at it and begin looking into it. There’s a whole section devoted to Dutch Golden Age art and the worshipful (fetishistic) representation of various forms of shine. The section I just finished reading talks about how smudges, though common on shiny objects, are rarely if ever portrayed in art (big, if true) and just how hard it is to depict a smudge as intentional. “The central issue of depiction is that a smudge on a shiny surface is a disruption on an already disrupted form.” I love thinking about this stuff.

What did you do this weekend? Seen any good movies recently?