On missed opportunities

On February 27, 2017 By Luther M. SilerIn movies, Work1 Comment

I’ve said before that I regret not being able to see as many movies as I used to; there was a time in my life when I was seeing at least a movie a week and very frequently more than that. I don’t think I saw a single one of the Best Picture nominees (I say “I don’t think” because I can’t name more than two) and so therefore I haven’t seen Moonlight. Honestly I can’t even tell you what it’s about. I know nothing about the film other than it had a black director (who I can’t name) and at least a majority-black cast.

I wish to hell I had at least watched the Academy Awards last night, because Twitter’s reaction to the fuck-up with the Best Picture winner would likely have been the entertainment highlight of the month. It would have required me to be up later than I like to be nowadays, though. Unfortunately.

It’s pretty clearly tax refund time, leading to a couple of different fun phenomena over the weekend. First is people walking in, picking something out and then dropping a big stack of cash on the table to pay for it. That’s not exactly uncommon to begin with but it’s been increasing a lot lately. The second is people who deposit a check on Friday that is four or five times the size of their existing bank account and then come in on Saturday and are angry and startled that their debit cards aren’t working. And then they want to fight about it, which I suppose I sorta get, because it’s embarrassing, but goddammit I get paid for this shit and I’m not about to fuck with you so that you don’t get to have any furniture. So quit goddamn yelling at me.

There was something else but I don’t remember it. Oh well.

You didn’t do your homework: On Music

On February 26, 2017February 26, 2017 By Luther M. SilerIn Music5 Comments

I told you yesterday to listen to a song. Scroll down and do that right now. Or just click; that gets me more hits.

Kurt would have turned 50 this week, by the way. This post isn’t about Nirvana’s music but it’s not unrelated, as you’ll soon figure out.

Anyway: a few months ago I wrote a post about Rae Sremmurd where I talked about my utter inability to actually pay attention (or, honestly, understand) any of the lyrics to their songs. I continue to listen to Sremmlife 2 more or less weekly and other than Black Beatles I can’t actually name any of the songs or quote any of the lyrics. This is in stark opposition to the way I used to enjoy music, which was to memorize every syllable of entire albums. I don’t know what the hell Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi are talking about in the majority of the thing, and I had to look up their names just now.

But I love the hell out of Sremmlife 2 anyway.

The other day I downloaded Future’s self-titled new release on the strength of the cover art. I do that sometimes; I like discovering new music and occasionally I just buy something for the sheer hell of it.

(Sidenote: upon finding that link, I discover that dude has a second new album, meaning he has two new releases within two weeks. I buy it instantly.)

(Are we still calling these “albums”? I can’t use CD anymore, but “album” still seems to work. Anyway.)

So here’s the thing: I was listening to Future on the way home from work last night, and if anything to my old-ass ears the lyrics are even harder to decipher than Sremmurd. This seems to be a Southern hiphop thing; Sremmurd is from Tupelo and Future is from Atlanta. I put the YouTube “video” of POA on the post yesterday because that’s the song that was playing when I realized I wasn’t really in the car anymore, and upon checking the track realized I had not the slightest idea what POA might stand for. (“Power of Attorney,” according to the Google.) And this leads me to my question, and the reason I’m writing this post in the first place:

How important are lyrics to you to be able to enjoy a piece of music? Do you ever listen to music in a foreign language where there’s literally no chance of you understanding the words? Is it possible for a “good song” to be about a subject or topic you hate? I once tossed a brand-new CD out the window of my car on the first listen because it turned out to be laced with homophobia, but it was also clear and understandable. And I can’t stand a couple of very popular songs because of what they’re about.

These last couple of albums could be about goddamn anything and I don’t care at the moment because I can’t stop zoning out when I’m listening to them. Which isn’t a bad thing; I can’t complain. I’m just wondering how weird it is.

PS: I got home last night and went to check the mail, and stopped dead in my driveway because I could hear Rae Sremmurd playing and thought my phone had unpaused itself or something. It took a moment to realize that one of the two teenagers next door had their bedroom window open and was listening to Sremmlife 2 at perhaps an unhealthy volume level. So there’s that.

Homework for tomorrow

On February 25, 2017February 25, 2017 By Luther M. SilerIn Music3 Comments

An hour and a half before closing tonight, every toilet in the building overflowed at once. I didn’t think that was a thing that could happen.

I’m exhausted. Your homework is to watch this video (okay, it’s a still. Listen to the song, then,) and I’ll talk about it tomorrow.

On the decline of the species

On February 24, 2017 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

No, not humanity, although I’m sure I’ll write a post with that title about us eventually. I consider myself at least a nominally environmentally-inclined guy, although I generally let my wife (who actually possesses an advanced degree in environmental science) take the lead on the various green initiatives we participate in around the house. I like animals. I even like bugs. I understand that we need them around and that they need to be protected and that the average living thing is in fact a living thing and generally ought to be allowed to live independent of any human wishes or desires on the matter.

Unless we want to eat them, of course.

That said, the internet has 24 hours to come up with a reason why stink bugs need to exist or I’m going to go full-blown Mad Scientist on their asses and eradicate the entire species. I generally hear that the reason we can’t get rid of all the mosquitoes is because bats like to eat ’em and bats are awesome. Well, OK, that doesn’t apply to stink bugs, who don’t really fly and can’t be caught on the wing. Plus they live in buildings. So no bats. They’re probably too big for your average spider. They aren’t pollinators. As far as I can tell they exist for no other reason than to suddenly be in my house or place of business walking on something that they ought not to be walking on– like, say, the rim of a cup I like to drink from, or my fucking toothbrush. And then I can’t even satisfyingly smush them because they are stink bugs. They are the worst and I hate them and they all need to die.

24 hours and then I figure out how to destroy them all. If there are no comments I will assume the entire world agrees and will help with the project.

Thank you for your time.

On single daddery

On February 22, 2017 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting1 Comment

Don’t panic.

It’s already been a maddeningly long week– Presidents’ Day weekend is apparently a big thing in the furniture business– and Monday was a full staff day, meaning that everyone in the store had to be there on Monday whether it was their day to work or not and everyone got an extra five hours of work this week on top of our normal 46.

Everyone but me, that is. They didn’t actually announce the full-staff thing until, like, Friday, and by that point I was already pretty damn sure that there was no way I was going to be able to spend a single second longer at work than I absolutely had to today. My wife was at work until 8:00 on Monday and nearly 9:30 on Tuesday, meaning that my parents had to watch the boy all day Monday and pick him up from school and watch him afterwards on Tuesday until I could pick him up after I got off work at 8.

And today she fled town altogether to spend the next three days in Des Plaines (I think? I should probably know what town she’s in) and leaving me at home with the boy. Which in the overall scheme of things isn’t any sort of big deal– I am not actually the sort of father who panics at the thought of being sole caretaker for his kid for a few days– but it has rather increased my desire for sleep. Lots of sleep. And the extreme business of the last few days have already cut into my blogging time, so we’ll see if the next couple of days are the same way.

Long story short, I’ve got tons to do and don’t panic if I disappear for a couple of days.

On movies I want: I saw THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE

On February 19, 2017February 19, 2017 By Luther M. SilerIn movies, Reviews3 Comments

Last night I reviewed a movie that I consider sort of unreviewable because the act of discussing it will make it impossible to properly enjoy it. Tonight my wife and son and I went to a movie that doesn’t need a review: the Lego Batman movie. You already know what you’ll think of the Lego Batman movie. You already know whether you’re going to see it. Chances are you know what I thought of the Lego Batman movie, and could write this review for me. And chances are you’re right about all those things.

After leaving the movie, I was thinking about what I’m always thinking about when I leave a Batman movie, which is that I will never get the Batman movie that I want. Batman has been the star of a comic book called Detective Comics since nineteen thirty goddamn nine. That was a really long time ago. There have been approximately three hundred Hollywood films with the word “Batman” or some variant thereof in the title since then, and some of them actually had Batman in them.

Can we get a damn mystery Batman movie, please? One where he has to actually solve a crime and act like a detective? I mean, hell, they’re basically making one of these things every two or three years and seem likely to be planning to continue that until I die. Can I get one of those to be a detective movie? Bonus points (this will never ever happen) if it’s a noirish piece and actually set in the 1930s or 1940s. You can still end the movie with a slam-bang action sequence, just make all the stuff before that be quieter and give me a Batman who uses his brains and not his gadgets and ninja skills. Yes, Batman Begins, the movie about black-wearing-ninja-sword-fighting-not-Batman-angry-guy, I’m looking at you.

Don’t take this as a criticism of Lego Batman, by the way. There’s nothing wrong with it; as I said, it’s exactly the movie I thought it would be (perhaps a bit more clever) and is probably exactly the movie you think it’ll be. But gimme just one dark, shadowy, film-noir Batman crime movie where he has to slink around and detect some shit and doesn’t do a lot of punching. I promise it’ll still make money. Please?

On mostly unreviewable movies: I saw SPLIT

On February 18, 2017February 18, 2017 By Luther M. SilerIn movies, Reviews7 Comments

So, I’d call myself an M. Night Shyamalan fan, right? I’ve seen most of his movies, or at least his adult thrillers (I haven’t seen The Happening or The Visit, and from what I’ve seen that’s at least 50% good news) and I’ve liked damn near all of what I’ve seen. I will defend Signs to the death, for example, and I remember really liking Lady in the Water although if I’m being honest I can’t tell you a damn thing about it now.

(There’s gonna be some minor spoilers about a paragraph down. Don’t panic, no big deal. But just FYI.)

Here’s the thing about Split. You should see this movie if you’ve ever liked anything by Shyamalan. All of the things that he’s good at are on full display in this film, along with an incredible performance– set of performances, maybe?– by James McAvoy.

There is– brace yourself for this– not a twist ending on this one. Sort of. I guess. But what’s getting frustrating about Shyamalan is that he’s done the twist ending so many times at this point that his movies have this weird metatextual thing going on that rather than watching the movie you’re trying to figure out the twist. There is a thing at the end of this movie, and the more of a Shyamalan fan you are, the more likely you are to walk out of the theater with a huge smile on your face. If you are not a Shyamalan fan than the ending of the film– which is more of a Marvel-style stinger than anything else– will likely leave you more than a little bit confused. But there’s not a twist, so don’t go looking for it. Bask in the good performances and the creepiness and enjoy the film. Because the performances are great and the film’s excellently creepy and Shyamalan’s directing skills are used to their fullest effect.

All that said:

I feel like I ought to warn you that this film is going to be triggery as fuck for a lot of people, and there are about to be a couple more spoilers. It’s about three high-school aged girls getting kidnapped by a maniac with MPD, right? Which is a problem on a couple of levels: one, you spend the whole movie playing the “when are they gonna get raped?” game, which is always horrible. The answer: there is one scene of implied molestation in this film and it will come at you sideways and not the way you expect it to be. There is a lot of implied child abuse. There is not actually any sexual violence between the kidnapper and his victims. There are also a lot of angry disability advocates out there who are upset that once again dissociative identity disorder is being used as a crutch for a villain. I’m… a little more sympathetic toward the folks who will be triggered by the film than the disability advocates, if only because McAvoy’s character’s therapist is also part of the film and she has some very interesting comic-booky theories about DID that… well, probably won’t make anything better for those bothered by the disorder being featured in the film but it certainly makes it more interesting for the rest of us. That’s probably not entirely fair of me but it’s how I’ve reacted.

Another thing I just realized

On February 16, 2017 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching, Work

5104389f26c12.image_.jpg My kid’s school is cancelled tomorrow– not because of the weather, which is supposed to be absolutely outstanding, but because nearly 40% of the students in some grade levels and a not-inconsiderable number of teachers and subs have been sick lately. The email from the principal named no less than four different diseases that had been running rampant in the building lately, and apparently the janitorial staff will be boiling the building tomorrow.

It’s probably good that this happened, because the email also made reference to the “four-day weekend” that the kids were about to have, which made both my wife and I realize that he actually does have Monday off, which neither of us had really realized because we don’t have any idea how the hell to check a school calendar.

So here’s the cool part: I started the Current Occupation in June, right? And it’s mid-February now, as insane as that might feel. During all that time I have not missed a single day of work due to illness. I’ve come home and died a couple of times, and had some less-than-fantastic days, but I haven’t really been sick in months. And that’s after fifteen years of missing, usually, around a day a month every single year I was teaching. I was rarely if ever able to carry sick days across from one year to the next and had to dip into the sick bank twice. And not one illness worth any serious consideration since June, despite constant contact with the public throughout that time.

Add that to the pile of reasons I don’t miss teaching, I guess.