What a week, huh?
Plus, why I'm afraid of birds
It’s been a weird week. As much as I would like to roll up my sleeves and dig into the weirdness, shoving globs of it in your face like a proud toddler making his way through a plate of mac and cheese, a lot of that weirdness will need time to unpack and share. Needless to say, there will be a very interesting future installment of this newsletter soon.
So, what do I have left to talk about? I have struggled to produce the mental energy needed to read a book or watch anything over half an hour. That said, I did binge all three episodes of REN FAIRE, a new documentary television series on HBO. So don’t sneeze at the power of reality television.
REN FAIRE follows the behind-the-scenes power struggles at the Texas Renaissance Festival, the world’s largest anachronistic hullabaloo. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to TRF (it’s held annually in the fall, an hour’s drive outside of Houston), but I took an immense amount of perverse pleasure watching the highly dramatized story of George "The King" Coulam, an elderly amusement kingdom who has ruled over the Texas Renaissance Festival for the last fifty years. While under his watch, the event grew enormously in recent years; Coulam seems more interested in making his bathroom look like something King Midus threw up in or going on dates at his local Olive Garden with young women searching for a sugar daddy. As Coulam contemplates retirement, three of his employees seek to make their claim to his throne. There’s Jeff, the current general manager, who seems like a genuinely good guy, even if he’s prone to sabotaging his own self-worth in favor of cozying up to a boss who seems like a Grade-A asshole. There’s Louie, an energy drink-guzzling vendor who is ambitious as hell but may not have the connections and money he likes to brag about. Finally, there’s Darla, the head of vendors and former animal slaver, who is perfectly fit, pitting the two men against each other while she waits in the wings. Much of this series was spent yelling at the television, a sign of any good reality program. While the documentary series’ separation of fact and fiction is blurry at best (there are a lot of staged reenactments), the show is visually and emotionally stacked and a fantastic watch. And hey, it’s nice to know that a portion of every dollar spent at the Texas Renaissance Festival goes to George Coulam being able to take a nice lady to Olive Garden and ask if her brests are natural or fake!
Last week, I spent an hour in a sensory deprivation chamber. It was one of those “strip naked and lie in a coffin filled with ten inches of salt water” experiences that proved to exceed all my expectations. As I lay in the pitch black, weirded out by the fact that every piece of my body seemed to be floating on its own accord, I decided just to let go and try and relax. And it was relaxing, up until I started to have audible hallucinations of a woman saying, “Stop.” At that point, it became relaxing and spooky! 10/10. Would recommend.
This weekend sees the wide-ish release of A24’s TUESDAY, and I’m a fan! The film is written and directed by Daina O. Pusić and stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Zora, a woman whose daughter (Lola Petticrew) is dying. Zora spends her days trying her best to ignore the fact that her daughter is slowly shuffling off the mortal coil, but it becomes pretty dang hard to maintain that self-deception when the literal personification of Death shows up in the form of a giant macaw (voice of Arinzé Kene). I don’t want to reveal too much more about where the movie goes from there; suffice it to say there are some big swings. And I love a movie with big swings!
TUESDAY is a weird movie that isn’t ashamed of its weirdness. Nor does it use its weirdness to titillate. Its weirdness is a tool used to examine a very unweird, very human fact - one day, we all will die. TUESDAY is focused on the emotional journey its characters are going through - a hard journey and a deeply human one - but Pusić understands that to get to that journey’s end means having to go on some strange diversions. The movie utilizes the language of cringe comedies and horror movies, but - at the core of things - TUESDAY is about letting go. As a friend of mine said this week, “Everything dies. Worrying about it doesn’t make it any less true.” Nobody can take the memories of friendships and experiences and a life well-lived from you, not even a giant talking bird.
Speaking of birds, why the heck are birds so scary? I see a macaw and want to walk the other way quickly. Is it their talons? Their beaks? Their weird little prehensile tongues? Maybe it’s the primordial understanding deep in our bellies that we’re looking at little dinosaurs, but birds are scary AF, and I don’t want anything to do with them. If you have a pet bird, you’re a maniac. I’d rather own a pet Charlie Manson than have an avian timebomb ticking in a bespoke cage in the corner of my sitting room.
I received another completed chapter of fully-lettered WHERE WOLF artwork from Jack Morelli this week. That marks seven chapters and a total of 202 pages. It’s so weird to have what many other comic book creators would consider a fully completed project done, but know I still have another 100-plus pages left to go. Is THE CURSE OF THE WHERE WOLF too long? Maybe. There’s a real chance I split the book in half before I release physical copies. But I’m very much telling the story I want to tell, and I’m happy with it taking as long as it needs to take.
As always, you can request a copy of WHERE WOLF from your local library or buy a personal copy directly from the publisher, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Ghoulish Books in San Antonio, or Whose Books in Dallas. If you've read WHERE WOLF, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon, Goodreads, The StoryGraph, or wherever you discover new books.
I’m headed out of town for the next few days so I won’t be hosting Film Club this week. We’re showing THE NICE GUYS, though, so you should still go and see it!
On Friday, though, I’ll be back in town to host LAKE OF DRACULA. This Japanese horror film from 1971 is from Japan’s legendary Toho Studios and sees a woman return to her childhood home only to come face-to-face with the bloodiest of nightmares. Inspired by Hammer’s Dracula films and Italian hallucinatory horror, LAKE OF DRACULA is a mind-meltingly innovative approach to vampire horror. It’s a weird blend of cultural appropriation and cultural specificity. Don’t miss it! Buy tickets here.
I’m older than you, and I think I’m slowly slipping into a new phase where I am becoming interested in birds. I’m a low-key bird watching and keeping track of some fools. 🤦♀️