VI. The Lovers
Like Death, The Lovers is another often misunderstood tarot card, although not as drastically as Death (poor guy). In the media it’s often a rather simplistic interpretation, like “you will fall in love, but The Lovers is more nuanced than that, and more broadly about connection and making choices in relationships. This card can also be about all kinds of relationships, not just romantic ones, depending on the spread and its context.
The three I have chosen here are:
Yoshi Yoshitani’s Tarot of the Divine, depicting a Chinese adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, focusing on the importance of balance and communication in relationships
Anime Food Tarot, depicting Valentine’s Day chocolates from Cardcaptor Sakura, representing the importance and vulnerability of communicating one’s feelings to one’s loved ones.
The Pulp Tarot, showing Adam and Eve about to eat an apple, while an angel scolds them, which to me suggests the importance of understanding the significance of making major life choices.
I’ve been working mostly on short stories since my last newsletter, finishing an angry trans werewolf and a Norse gods as noir serpent shapeshifter story, and I’m almost done outlining a fungal mummies short. I had said previously that I was planning to work on book two in my ghost hunter series, but my best friend suggested I think about working on this cosmic horror cooking competition book I’ve had on the backburner for a bit. It was one of those moments when someone says something that I both needed and really wanted to hear. The next day I also read this excellent post by CL Polk about querying that served as further validation that putting down book two in favor of drafting something unrelated was the right call. To be honest, I’ve been trying not to write this book for so long, and while my reasons were good initially (finishing the second draft of Ghosts of Bakersfield and the first draft of the horror novella for the workshop I was in), it doesn’t make sense to put it off any further. It is always simultaneously intimidating and exciting starting a new book project, and I think the appeal of working on the sequel is that I already have so many of the bits and pieces already in place. I’m also going to be trying some new things in terms of voice and structure with this one, which is again, both exciting and terrifying. There’s always so much doubt that I just have learned that I need to set aside, and assume that if I screw it up, I’ll be able to fix it in revisions.
So, cosmic horror cooking competition. It’s a bit like a cross between Squid Game and MasterChef (although I probably should watch more of Squid Game before I continue to make that comparison). The competition reality show is run by a cult who worship the Elder Gods. But I’m not so much leaning on Lovecraft here, because he’s a racist and my Elder Gods are essentially those worshipped by Scientology and so much of christofascist nationalism - fascism, white supremacy and capitalism. This is going to be a really fun book to write. I’m also planning to put together a companion cookbook for it, so look forward to seeing some interesting recipes in this newsletter in the future as I work on developing them.
Things I’ve Enjoyed
Books
I’m re-reading some comfort reads right now, mostly T Kingfisher horror novels (The Hollow Places, A House with Good Bones and The Twisted Ones), and now I’m currently re-reading Caitlin Starling’s The Luminous Dead. I am going to see if my brain is back to the headspace where I can read new things after this, although I do also want to revisit Rachel Harrison’s books soon.
Movies
I watched three horror romcoms this month, fitting for the season - Significant Other, Your Monster and Lisa Frankenstein.
All three of them were fun, and I’d recommend them if they sound appealing, but I think Significant Other was probably the most interesting of the three to me, even though it was also the most uneven. Jack Lacy is in it, at his Jack Lacy-est, against a Maika Monroe who somehow puts up with him. The first half of the movie is almost pure classic horror, with the pair going out to the spooky woods of the Pacific Northwest, the fractures in their relationship increasingly obvious. And then it takes a hard right turn, including a line that made me want to crawl out of my skin and into a hole in the ground, about how humans are apparently unique in all of the wide universe in their ability to love (romantically). Despite that, I appreciate that it was doing something weird, even if it didn’t quite work, and I’d like to see more weird horror.
Your Monster was a lot of fun, with a bit of meta commentary about certain types of toxic relationships, against the backdrop of musical theater. I am almost always delighted to get a surprise musical number climax, and this one was horrifyingly great.
Lisa Frankenstein was my least favorite of the three, although it is also the most polished and visually impressive. I’m not a huge fan of the silent naive monster as a love interest, as this one is, and it also clearly derives a lot of inspiration from Edward Scissorhands, also not a particular fave of mine. But it’s still very fun, and the soundtrack is great.
Double Feature + Food Pairing
This month’s suggested double feature is Dune (1984) and Tremors (1990), paired with a cinnamon spice tea and an MRE.