Feb 3

Feb 3 weekly brain dump

soundwaves

Much of the music in my **~*Spotify decade wrapped*~** did nothing but resurface some dark periods in my past. Nothing brings back the memories of when I went through a stint of dating frat boys like country songs by men crooning over their ladies who have their dinner ready when they get home from work and even read the Bible. But the one accuracy within said decade in review was that Bad Bunny was my top artist of the decade. It is true, I love everything about him - the personality he exudes, his style, his face, and of course, his music. I am confident that I’ve listened to X100PRE a triple digit number of times.

Although this Spotify confessional might convey otherwise, I do try to stay somewhat plugged into what’s released by underground/rising artists as well. Lately, I’ve felt like I’d been living under a rock in regards to music, but thankfully a new track has pulled me out from beneath that boulder. One of my personal favorite artist discoveries of 2019 was DJ Baby Uniq, and her latest cover of Bad Bunny’s NI BIEN NI MAL had me fucked up when I first heard it after it dropped last week. Two of my favorites from the past year sonically coming together as one? What did I do to deserve such good fortune?

Simply put, it is a beautiful rendition of a now-canonical emo-trap banger. Her signature moody vocals add a tangible layer of depth to the track’s well-known sadboi lyrics, while her own club-driven beat recreation brings a welcome edge to the sugar trap flavors which characterize the original. I also am a total sucker for any production that incorporates string instruments, and her version has that, too. Needless to say, it’s been on repeat for the past seven days. I recommend you listen. This will be the cover you didn’t know you needed.

insta | soundcloud

pictures that move wow

If you loathe capitalism but revel in its resulting dark satire, Korean cinema is for you. At least that’s what I’m learning. I am in no means an expert, but I haven’t been able to get enough since watching Parasite, and last week I finally saw Train to Busan. It’s a zombie flick from 2016 that’s been on my list for a very long time. Though an objectively gruesome and upsetting movie, director Yeon Sang-ho still manages to turn it into an entertaining thrill ride by injecting bits of dry, fatalist humor at throughout the movie, while creating a compelling and emotional storyline extending far beyond the zombie terrors. The acting and character development are also phenomenal. We have Gong Yoo playing serving a mesmerizing persona of the Very Hot Successful Father who is losing sight of The Things That Matter Most because of his soul/society-crushing finance career. Definitely was not upset to see my newest babyface celeb crush, Choi Woo-sik (Ki-woo/Kevin from Parasite), with a solid role. But the undeniable star is the young actor Kim Soo-ahn. Holy shit. I haven’t cried during a movie like that in a long time, and it was some of her most brilliant moments which turned me into an emotional wreck. How are you so good at acting already? Are you okay? Who hurt you? Just devastating.

All of the characters really did make me feel like I was on the brink of some crazy fight-or-flight decisions in the face of existential peril. What I love about zombie movies, or anything apocalyptic for that matter, is that they urge the viewer to examine human nature when placed in a mass fight for survival. I won’t give too much away, but this movie uses that pressure-cooker dynamic in excellently symbolizing the cannibalistic nature of capitalism versus the transformational ethos of cooperative action through the test of survival. In these kinds of “ultimate tests”, we see that people are quickly divided into camps of those who are driven by compassion, and those driven by the ego. Tragically, we are reminded that sometimes all it takes is one selfish act to sabotage the strides made on behalf of the common good.

WTF

I seem to have been blacked out the entire duration of the second or third grade given that I pretty much forgot about everything that went down in Sailor Moon. As a Chaotic Bisexual Female I believe Sailor Moon is quite integral to my very existence and identity, so I’ve been rewatching the series. The really old school version, from the 90s. It’s been a sweet dose of nostalgia and a healthy reminder that most white gays cannot be trusted, myself included. Therefore, we cannot, under any circumstances, believe any words spoken by Pete Buttigieg, or humanity will fall victim to the Dark Kingdom. Fin.

•••

Switching gears to another shady Republican. Jared Kushner is the human equivalent of stepping in a pile of dog shit while you’re walking in a rush to get to work or anywhere in general. This world is stressful enough as it is, and I sometimes forget that he’s always lurking somewhere in the shadows. But the minute I see a picture of him, my face contorts with disgust and my day is just fucking ruined. I was going to write more about his recently unveiled “peace plan”, but I honestly just hate thinking about him. So I’m done with him for today*. I’ll keep it concise by saying f u Jared Kushner and free Palestine.

*Here’s an article from Vanity Fair which summarizes my sentiments better than I could

•••

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this is mental. firefighters in france are lighting themselves on fire and punching riot cops in protest for better pay and working conditions. cops respond by shooting violent water cannons at protesters. we live in a global police state.

*makes a mental note to see the new lés miserables asap*

kitty

If a person has unhealthy attachment tendencies, the patterns can sometimes be traced back to relationships with one’s parents as a child. But it is not always these parental bonds, or lack thereof, which are our decidedly most formative. After years of counseling and learning from my mistakes, I can’t stop thinking about how I was emotionally abused by my cat growing up.

From the day she entered my life, this cat always sought to be in control. She made this very clear by not responding to my original name for her - Chiara. I’m not sure when it happened, but one day I realized that I had not called her by her given name for weeks. The adoption seemed like a distant memory. Chiara was gone. Kitty was here to stay.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Kitty dearly as a kid, and still do. Our bond strengthened as I progressed through adolescence and faced bouts of depression, loneliness, and general overdramatized-suburban-teen-angst. I could rely on her soothing purrs to calm me in my most anxious spells. But she’s always been shy around strangers and often struggled to bond with other humans, acting on instincts driven by fear (of what? she’s a house cat for doG’s sake), hissing and swiping her claws at passersby atop the perch on her looming feline tower. What I’m trying to say is that she was a total cunt to all of my friends. No one was safe from her misguided vengeance. But she was always kind and loving to me. That’s what mattered.

In hindsight, I see these attempts to isolate me from my friends as manipulative red flags.

Later in high school, shit started to get weird. She followed me everywhere around the house. I would awake from naps with her sitting on my stomach or chest, intensely staring at me as she waited for me to douse her with my undivided attention. It was impossible to just chill in my bed without her forcing her asshole in my face as retribution for choosing to read rather than offer her my affections.

My departure for college brought out her most insidious traits; I learned the hard way that she is the type to hold a grudge. My mother would inform me that she began pissing and defecating in my bedroom in protest shortly after I said goodbye. Every visit home would incite incessant meows, screams, howls, and even more targeted excrement attacks. Her acceptance of me became entirely conditional. If on these visits home I, God forbid, kept myself busy and left the house, had a goddamn life I would likely endure her cold shoulder for the duration of my stay. The only way I could win her over was to give her what she wanted without compromise. But I continued to love and forgive her time and time again.

It’s a new decade, bitch. I am older and therefore much, much more mature, which is obvious in the fact that I’m woefully unemployed and once again living with my parents at age twenty-six. I bear the sage wisdom that less than a decade of living independently and hating jobs and repeatedly finding oneself in dysfunctional relationships will give to a person. I look at my historical tendencies to mold myself into something new, based on the desires of my partners. And I can’t help but wonder, where did I learn to forgo my own well-being to appease different men who, for the most part, did not meet baseline expectations for how I, or any person, should be treated in a conjugal partnership? This question has been a nagging voice in the corners of my mind for much of my young adult life. Now I’ve returned home, slowly retracing the steps of my youth with a fresh perspective, I finally understand.

It was never my parents that fucked me up. It was always the cat.