Non-Weekly Cucumber Salad #11 š„
Contents
a) Updates
b) The failed newsletter edition: I have no focus
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a) Updates
- Iām trapped inside Thereād better be a mirrorball. Iāve been quite distant from the Arctic Monkeys since Suck it and See and I grew kind of annoyed with the music during AM, but I have been captured by their new single release. I feel the Italian vibes, I feel the theatrical vibes, I feel like the musical proposition is finally consistently ripe and has not completely fallen into commercial bullshit, as I feared during the AM era. Anyway, Iām excited about whatās coming next in The Car.
- I watched Nope and mostly what I have to say about it is that Iām very sad I didnāt watch it on IMAX. Itās a legit contemporary Hitchcockian experience, extremely fun and not so concerned with making people get lost in subtext. I felt disappointed with Us, but I feel like Jordan Peele understood the issues from that film and the conflict between what he wanted to make as a filmmaker and the expectations the public had from his work. He was able to deliver a film that has a reasonable amount of commentary, but that is more about being a fun experience than an intricate metaphor.
- Been obsessively listening to Jungle. Thereās not so much to say about that, good music.
- Last week I met for the first time in person my internet friend Reem! Weāve been internet friends for about 10 years and it was super nice and fun to spend an afternoon with her. I wrote a little bit about my experience with Tumblr over the years recently on a brief post on the platform.
- Started watching The Bear after several recommendations and quite liking it, but my heart still belongs to Irma Vep.
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b) The failed newsletter edition: I have no focus
I struggled to write the newsletter this week because there were different topics I wanted to write about, but I didnāt have enough concentration to start any. But one of the purposes of this newsletter is also just helping me write more, which I see as important exercise, so I will discuss briefly the things that crossed me mind this week.
My first idea came from looking at Amauri Guichonās instagram account after visiting the Strasbourg Modern and Contemporary Art Museums. In the Museum we were looking at this weird piano that looked like it had been covered in a thick layer of paint, and Reem said āis it cake?ā And we thought thatās of it was it should still belong in the museum.
Marina Abramovic cutting herself made out of cake at a fancy art gala party in 2011.
Twitter meme "You can cut it, it's cake."
On a first moment I was contemplating the skill of making complex sculptures out of cake, but then I started to think about a what could be the discourse around this popular artistic manifestation.
I didnāt go very far with the thinking around this topic, but I developed some ideas about, maybe, investing in short-living foods because of an underlying climate collapse anxiety.
Something else I considered was something about a deep desire for reality escapism, which can be a reflex of the ubiquity of social media platforms.
But as I said, I didnāt have enough concentration to actually invest in any of those ideas of make any legit research on the topic, but I still think thereās discourse around the āIs it cakeā phenomena. I think there must be some interesting reflection of society to this seemingly superficial and meaningless art form. I just donāt have enough patience to figure out what that is. But this is also an invitation for anyone who wants to discuss āIs it cake?ā and maybe take some conclusions together.
My second source of thoughts and ideas this week was the chaotic context of Brazilian politics. Iāve been feeling hopeless about the future of the Country and I donāt believe thereās anything in Brazilās future as long there isnāt profound political revolution.
Iām frustrated about the fact that I feel like many people donāt understand the fact that the bourgeoise democracy in Brazil has been deteriorated to its most un-salvageable shape, and thereās no point of trying to restore a system that has never actually served its people, and has actually allowed us to get to this point.
But since that topics is very upsetting I didnāt allow myself to get too deep into it. But I managed to write two toots ranting on the subject:
āLeftist" Brazilians using "Make Brazil great again" or "Make Brazil 2022 again"red hats are not aware that this appropriation doesn't generate the discourse that they're expecting. It speaks much more about the dominance of US political imperialism and how South America has to break free of it and create its own narrative.
Honestly there's nothing more desolating than seeing the manifestation for the excitement of the future of the country being an ironic misappropriation of a fascist US slogan.ā
There are so many things I want to write about, but its been very hard to get my head in the right place in order to properly layout my ideas. I hope Iām in a better and more focused state of mind next week and Iām able to present more complete and developed thoughts.
With love and frustration,
Ana Luisa