I’d read a review that found the film disturbingly existential, even nihilistic, because–according to the reviewer–the film told its viewers that the happiness of childhood would eventually fade away and in adulthood we were all destined to be sad. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know that this is a complete misreading. Its message isn’t that we’re all destined to be sad and increasingly so as we become adults–it’s that it’s okay to be sad; you shouldn’t have to (and indeed, shouldn’t, period) banish sadness; sadness is a part of the human condition and it is the part of you that can ask for help when you need it. To be sad is to welcome the idea that life holds troubles, and to open oneself to assistance from those around you. The film is a destigmatization of sadness, not a harrowing picture that that’s all we’re destined for as we age, or that it is something to be championed at all times.
Tag Archives: california
conversation with my mother 3/7/2015
i want a goat, i tell her. pygmy or nubian? the cheese-making kind, i tell her. & their eyes are so cute. i say, my friend has a goat who will only deign to eat grass if you rip it out for her and let her eat it out of your hand. my mother takesContinue reading “conversation with my mother 3/7/2015”
Mourning from Cali
Morning from Cali! — Paul Walker (@RealPaulWalker) January 28, 2013 I miss Paul Walker. When he wasn’t filming, or on press tours for Fast, he would post the most adorable, endearing Tweets–the kind of adorability that comes from having, at best, only a tenuous understanding of the medium. You could always tell when it wasContinue reading “Mourning from Cali”
cost
why did the Challenger explode? asks my sister. we’re at Disneyland. o-rings, says my father. it was cold in florida, and the o-rings were brittle. the rubber was brittle and there was no seal. when the gas leaked, flames blew out the sides of the rocket boosters like crazed tufts of hair: unruly. the wholeContinue reading “cost”
poem from last midnight
it sounds like a bees’ nest at my ceiling but when i sit when i put my head out the window it’s water, a neighbor’s shower going; i go back to bed it’s bees again, some fantasy of wood and angles and bent sound but in the end it’s water a shower it stops. there’sContinue reading “poem from last midnight”
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