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Seems that I'm forgetting all that came before in this MainFictionThing in favor of the (very) blank slate of this new iteration which (I choose to believe) bodes well for the new iteration (?) though perhaps the well boding is that it opens up something in the previous version that I hadn't seen. Either way works, so long as the feels feel right, vibes and rhythms et al. Central question: does this surprise me?

Back into swing of movie viewing: depending on mood when the afternoon arrives, might start MAESTRO, KILLING OF A SACRED DEER, or THE PIGEON TUNNEL today. Or something totally different. Who knows which iteration will show up postprandial?

All I know is that I long to be as excited for something as Kotaro and Hana the sea otters are for their salmon.

PRISONERS (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)

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Considering PRISONERS the centerpiece of an unofficial pre-Taylor Sheridan blue-collar crime film trilogy circa 2012-13, Scott Cooper's OUT OF THE FURNACE and Andrew Dominik's KILLING THEM SOFTLY being the other two: bleak, brutal, unflinching, and breathtakingly beautiful (thank you Roger Deakins and Jóhann Jóhannson (RIP) – what a marriage of visual and music) in all of its bleak and unflinching brutality (emotional and physical), PRISONERS is one of the best studies of loss and the consequences of rage at one's own impotence I've seen.

Three career-best performances: Hugh Jackman (2019's BAD EDUCATION notwithstanding); Jake Gyllenhaal (my appreciation for and and recognition of my under-appreciation of his talent – though Dan Gilroy's NIGHTCRAWLER remains my favorite Gyllenhaal role – grew here by leaps and bounds; and Melissa Leo, which is saying something considering almost every performance from her could be considered a career-best.

Why, exactly, it took me more than 10 years to get around to seeing this masterwork is, like most things, beyond me. Duly added to the "procure blu / add to library pronto" list.

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Rewrites from, if not the ground, then at least the mudroom, up continue: only way I know how to make it so I don't know what happens until it happens – which is far more essential to me than I realized. At least if this fails, I have the backup of the original version pretty much done: considering this an exploration of choices not taken.

Beyond ready for this estate stuff to be done. Preferred being the executor, as I was with my mother's estate – at least then I didn't have to herd any cats (except Pumpkin, but he was pretty easy to manage) – but the trade-off here is that settling this estate is a lot more involved than writing checks and filling out forms, so I'm glad it's someone else's job. Nonetheless, the flurry of activity punctuated by thumb-twiddling punctuated by flurry of activity, repeat repeat repeat schtick is getting really fucking old, today being one of those flurry days with another few weeks of thumb twiddling ahead.

Finished PRISONERS; postscript coming later today.

CLOUDWARD – Mary Halvorson

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Took two listens to fall in love but once I did, I fell hard: much more of an insanely-talented-composer-who-happens-to-be-an-insanely-talented-instumentalist's record than an insanely-talented-instrumentalist-who-happens-to-be-an-insanely-talented-composer's. In Halvorson, I trust.

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Two-hour delay for K, freezing wintery-rainy-combo. County-wide delay – though rural and northern areas ended up closing. Morning run was a little... tricky. Slickery, as a one-time employer used to say.

How do you run on the ice? Carefully.

Hail Mary might be working in MainFictionThing – might be being the operative phrase: turning it into something else, something different. Writing it as though I started it now instead of piecing together from previous iterations (i.e. pre-death / emptying / etc). Fruits / labor, TBD.

Next up: lunch, box, finish Villenueve's PRISONERS (excellent, excellent, excellent) and "pot around," as my grandfather would say, with something resembling aimlessness and perhaps, even, general purpose: I do need to dust the TV / PS5 / 4k stand; vacuum, perhaps? fix the mess I made in one room cleaning up another? Oh, the possibilities – they are positively endless.

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Yes, you've seen (variations of / upon) this post before, once last night, once this morning, and now here, at morning's end; third time's a charm especially when a.) I find that I do, indeed, like writing these throughout the morning and b.) to arrive all the way back to how I started this experiment last week so I can kick myself in the ass.

One of those days, already.

Recovery from a rough night with NuHerbie (hence this morning's shittier-than-usual Attendance Card; I've been awake since 0300) continues. Went out of CGM range at around 0100, then stayed out of range, but NH was still pumping insulin – doing it so well in fact that when I finally made the decision to get up and figure WTF, I was, according to fingerprick and my blood, a teetering 56: nothing that 15g of carbs via gel and a handful of caramel popcorn (ok that was probably stupid but fuck me I was hungry) couldn't assuage and send me surging to 264 by breakfast, crashing back to 56 post-run, and now, after correcting via similar methods to the early morning, 241, 225, 202, 196...)

The definition of insanity being / welcome to day-to-day T1D.

Thinking: once MainFictionThing is done, I need to abandon all ideas from before my grandfather died and write from a zero point; a deepening conflict between the writer that started this FictionThing and the writer that's (allegedly) finishing it – though I am taking one final hail mary to see if that does the trick. Whether or not I get there is another matter: everything we create is, after all, a reflection of our past, present, and future – for better or for worse / consciously or un–.

The day / one of those days(?) awaits.

corpsicle

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Fantastic read via Polygon on how Issa López and crew made the show’s already-legendary ice-rink thawing corpsicle. Found this bit, on the influences behind it, of particular interest:

Among the influences they ultimately pulled in: 

  • “A shrunken head where the skin has started to pull back and reveal this mouth that’s been dislocated or disjointed” (a work by Phil Hale, a López suggestion)
  • Berlinde De Bruyckere, a Belgian artist who sculpts “really violent sections that you have cutaways through, and you can see this kind of skin draped and stretched, and you’re not quite sure whether it’s part of a body you’re looking at” 
  • Ringu — specifically “a reveal where they open a cupboard” (if you know, you know) 
  • The eternal anguish of Francis Bacon (the painter, not the lord chancellor of Britain)
  • A photograph of a baroque underwater dance to lend the whole thing a “sense of movement,” as if this pile of bodies was merely paused in panic."