Lexical Gap No. 57: Fudgelling
November 2024 summary
I feel a strange sort of melancholy upon me.
No, not melancholy.
Malaise.
I spent much of November in a sort of haze. Something about time just didn’t seem real. Part of that was the fact that I was traveling and teaching and there was the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, but frankly, an enormous part of it was the results of the US election.
To say the results were surprising would be a lie, but what was startling was my realization that culture had shifted significantly to the right and I had missed the signs. No, not missed. I have touched on parts it in my newsletter, in the obscure arts section, so a part of me must have noticed. No, it was not a case of missing the signs; it was a case of misreading them. I had the mistaken belief that the tsunami was still in the distance, not understanding that the rising waters meant it was already too late. Trends are mirrors of culture, and I had noted the troubling implications of the self-infantilizing “girl math” videos, the inherent racism and classism of the “clean girl” and “old money” aesthetics, the rise of “tradwives” and the growing conservatism (and subsequent romanticization and eroticization) of popular romance tropes such as billionaires, breeding kinks, and mafia bosses. All of these things in a vacuum are morally and/or ethically neutral, but when placed in context with one another, they are symptoms of a society already in the throes of regressivism. I won’t lie; I feel blindsided by the epiphany.
I don’t mean to be bleak or nihilistic. I have repeated several times that I am, by nature, a rather sanguine person. I still am. But neither am I blithely optimistic, and I see now that there is no turning back from the waves. What remains is my desire to survive, to build a life raft, and to help others from drowning. And to find joy where I can. It’s only that the work of recontextualizing myself within the scope of this cultural shift I find myself has been somewhat overwhelming, leading to a general sense of malaise with, well, everything.
I have bipolar disorder, and I’ve lived with it long enough to recognize when my moods are starting to turn. Long ago, I once described being manic as being Too Much Me and the depressive phases that followed as being Not Enough Me. I’m not in either place at the moment, which leaves me with the somewhat unfamiliar sensation of situational depression (according to my therapist). The good news is I have immediate ways to cope with it. Real, in-person human connection with those I love and others in my community. Castor and Pollux. Taekwondo. BTS. But I can’t deny that joy is fraught now in ways it wasn’t before, and that joy performed in public (on my social media, in this newsletter, etc.) is tinged with additional implications. Defiance, obtuseness, stubbornness, naivety. I am more aware of the mask I wear outside my personal sphere than I have ever been, and I’m dealing with sensory overstimulation.
All this to say, if I have been scarce, this is why. It is not merely that I have been busy; I am disengaged from social media, for all it does is contribute to my sense of malaise. I’m building my life raft now, and once I have my bearings, I will set a new course.
In this issue
1. JJ’s magical world
2. Lexical gap
3. What I’m watching
4. Other things of note
lexical gap: fudgelling 🧩
Well if this hasn’t described my entire autumn to a tee.
what i’m watching 📺
Agatha All Along. This one surprised me. To be honest, I have not cared for much of the MCU’s output post-Endgame (except Wandavision and Loki), so my expectations were rather low for this one. Kathryn Hahn killed it, as per usual.
Arcane: Season 2. DON’T TALK TO ME I AM EXTREMELY FRAGILE. T_T
Twisters. This is the most Aggressively Okay movie I’ve seen in a long time. Was it a decent way to pass time on a flight from the mainland to Hawai’i? I guess? I mean, it was fine. Script? Serviceable, if ridiculous. Acting? Also serviceable. Glen Powell was probably the only really interesting person on screen, which says a lot because I generally do not find him interesting.
Wicked: Part I. I have…thoughts. Overall, I did enjoy this quite a bit—once I got over my theater kid dissonance over some of the musical choices1—but I felt the length in this one. I actually think dividing this up into Part I and Part II made sense, so I don’t have issues with that, so it was more the pacing of it all that felt off. And despite the added run time, I thought we could have used more of Elphaba and G(a)linda’s relationship, as well more of the plight of the Animals. I thought the cast was phenomenal (Ariana in particular was a delightful surprise), but was constantly frustrated by the directorial choices made in the film when it came to framing, staging, and lighting. (Whose brilliant idea was to film Dancing Through Life BACKLIT the entire time????) Then again, I have never found any of John M. Chu’s previous movies (including Crazy Rich Asians) particularly notable…
other things of note 💾
Michel, Lincoln. “Art Without Intention.” Counter Craft. Substack, Sep 2024.
Brinkley, Nicole. “Why would writers use AI?” Misshelved. Substack, Nov 2024.
Sato, Mia. “The influencer lawsuit that could change the industry.” The Verge, Nov 2024.
May we all ride through this storm safely,
Probably an unpopular opinion, but I thought chopping up Defying Gravity robbed the song of its power and momentum. I am biased, of course, because the moment Elphaba takes flight on stage is so arresting and a highlight of the show, but I did not feel the same sense of righteous awe with the song stopping and starting so often at the climax.