It's all become looney tunes with sugar packs and plastic spoons

[sovay]

This is neither of the posts I planned to make today, but rushthatspeaks asked me if I wanted to watch the first season of The Great British Bake Off with dinner and the next thing we knew we were making monkey bread. It came out more like sticky buns and midway through the procedure we discovered that the oven wasn't working (all hail the toaster oven), but as I am eating a piece with cream cheese glaze as we resume watching, I think it all worked out.

P.S. This isn't the post either, but asakiyume has just alerted me that Anaïs Mitchell's Hadestown (2010) is being staged in New York City. Outside of the two windows of time this year I have already planned to be in town! It's still really tempting, even if I have no idea who's in the cast. Greg Brown's Hades troubled my childhood definitively. It's not an epic tradition if it isn't reperformed.

Comments

[sovay]

I have been hoping this film would be as you've limned it.

If it's still playing anywhere you can see it, or if the Brattle brings it back as part of their ongoing "recent raves" series, I think you will love it. I almost didn't go because rushthatspeaks had a migraine and derspatchel couldn't meet me either and I am currently having difficulty making myself believe that it is worthwhile to do things for myself, but I went anyway because that last reason is garbage and it was everything I had been hoping and honestly more. The story goes on past the scene where I thought it would stop and made me very happy. I had never heard of anyone connected with the production before, but I'm keeping an eye on several of them—including the composer—now.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I AM SO GLAD YOU LIKED IT. And as ever, your observations are mine.;)

[sovay]

I AM SO GLAD YOU LIKED IT.

It was so good! I love how it avoided the obvious ambiguity—is the supernatural real? Is the family tormented by a witch or only turning on themselves?—in favor of the much scarier one: the supernatural is real, but how much of it is the family correctly perceiving? Does it matter? Within their religion, witchcraft is the answer to all kinds of natural and interpersonal calamities; they are right this time, but will the knowledge help them? Can it help them? What does it mean if it can't? William and Katherine with their hands linked and outstretched, praying above the body of their apple-afflicted son as if warding him with the desperate angles of their bodies: I think the exorcism works, but if it does, it only saves Caleb's soul. Their faith tells them that should be enough. It so clearly isn't. If the love of God is no longer a consolation, what does it matter whether the Devil is abroad in your cornfields or not?