“The fear of love not being returned lives in the deep recesses of our imaginations and torments us until we lose all faith. In stories, hopelessness burns like a fire through a heart. And hope in love is the gentle sudden rain that soothes” (Cestellucci, Batgirl, Volume 43) Unrequited love is like a hunger that isn’t fed, and one that can cause great pain. Most of us have experienced this feeling at least once, some of us more than once, to the point where we feel, as Bilbo Baggins said in Lord of the Rings, “like butter scraped over too much bread.” Butter scraped over too much bread is a feeling a lot of us have during the age of the Coronavirus, just for different reasons. For the person
So, not much going on, you know, just the end of days, I guess. With the focus on trying to stay informed but also avoid the current hellscape why not take the time to catch up on some entertainment and binge like there’s no tomorrow, because thanks to the current administration there may not be one. Please enjoy the following recommendations to escape, become enlightened, or just decompress: Toast of London (3 Seasons, Netflix) Part IT Crowd, part Flight of the Conchords, full outrageously vulgar British comedy. From the mind of Matt Berry (The IT Crowd, What We Do in the Shadows – The Series) comes this wickedly enjoyable look at life through the eyes of the vain and gleefully depraved str
Set in 1770 France, Céline Sciamma’s visually decadent and emotionally intimate feature Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) is a beautiful queer love story that emphasizes the power and peril of ‘the look’ and examines the role of art and image in these relations. Marianne (Noémie Merlant) arrives to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a reluctant bride and subject. The prior artist left having never convinced her to sit for him. Marianne begins the process of trying to paint Héloïse in secret, internalizing her form and features as they go about their days together. Struggling to capture her essence as she paints from memory. The film’s initial s
Caution: Contains Spoilers The hero’s journey theme resonates with many people. So does the theme of letting go. The hit television show The Good Place has developed a large fan base. Many of the primary characters were in the middle to later end of their “young adult” years. However, some of my “tween” aged Generation Z students watched the show and appreciated the humor in it, and a handful of them have written fan fiction about it as part of my Humanities course. I know people across age spans who have watched or expressed interest in the show. I’ve read blogs that discuss the Millennial-centered humor of The Good Place, but the interest among age spans shows that the show will likely rem
