This week's Rage & Softness
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This year I changed the name of this newsletter to Rage & Softness. I’m interested in duality, especially as it relates to anger and tenderness. My sagittarius stellium gives me a lot of rage to work with, my cancer rising shows me the softness I inhibit, even if I try to hide it. For me, rage and softness co-mingle. I try to bring some rage into my softness. I try to bring some softness into my rage. You get the idea.
Over the course of this newsletter, I’ve tried to reinvent the wheel hoping it would entice people to pay for my work. It hasn’t and it’s just made more work for me that I don’t have the time for. I’ve offered many different things for paid subscribers, and most don’t seem to make much of a difference, so I figured I should go back to basics and offer something that I would have fun with either way.
For this weekend column, I’ll be sharing more about what I’ve been reading/watching/listening to as well as more links that fit the themes of “Rage” and “Softness.” I hope you’ll share your own in the comments!
Rage:
Reading:
Anything political is enraging me these days so I’m reading what I can when I can and feeling enraged by other things. There’s a lot to be upset about, and reading about books bans, the liberal yassification of Kamala Harris, and Covid denialism is pissing me off. The continued horrors of P Diddy continue to enrage me. The people who keep joking about rape by making fun of the 1K bottles of baby oil that Diddy had (use your brain to figure out why he would have that). The joking about sex workers who were most likely treated like shit (and are still being treated like shit in the current conversation). For a good recap on everything (and history), check out this video from Feminista Jones.
Watching:
I recently watched “The Silence of the Lambs” for the first time ever (I know, don’t judge me). The film does a good job showing sexism in the workplace and misogyny. As a white woman with some basic bitch tendencies, I’m interested in true crime/serial killer stories. As a family member of someone who went missing for 24 years, detectives and detective work intrigue me. The serial killer in the film is an amalgamation of three well known people: Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, and Gary Heidnick. I had never heard of Heidnick previously and I was horrified after reading about him. He specifically sought out Black women to kidnap and killed two of them.
Though there were parts of the film, I appreciated, the harmful trope of trans folks/queer folks being grotesquely villainous was not ideal (I don’t want to give anything away for people here who haven’t watched it, so iykyk). However, Clarice Starling (Foster) does say in one scene, “There’s no correlation in literature between transsexualism and violence.” Apparently there was also a scene with a psychiatrist that spoke to this as well, but it was cut. Director, Jonathan Demme has since passed, but according to Jodie Foster in 2021: “I feel like he was really heartbroken that he didn’t make that clear in the film. If there is ever a gnawing part of him, I think he really did understand where the controversy came from and felt like he didn’t do as good a job at making his intentions clear. If there was something to revise, I think that he would have gone back and revised that just to make it very clear.”
The film was excellent and Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins were stellar. I was enraged by the sexism, misogyny, and men killing women, of course.
Listening:
I pretty much only listened to Doechii’s “Alligator Bites Never Heal” (and another album I list in the “Softness” section below) while finishing my manuscript. This album is amazing. It’s not necessarily “rageful,” but it’s definitely not soft, so I’m putting it here. It’s energetic, brash, and funny at times. Check out tracks: “Wait,” “Nissan Altima,” and “GTFO.”
Softness:
Reading:
Currently reading Johanna Hedva’s new collection of essays, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom. I’m a bit obsessed with Hedva’s work. Mostly I just love their writing and will read any and everything they put out. I’m only on the first essay of this book, but I’m already in love with it. Choice lines: “In order to live, we tell ourselves stories that do not include illness” and “To be alive on this earth is to live in the abundance of the body’s peculiarities, and to have a body is to be determined by that body’s ceaseless needs, and bodies, even at their best, even if they aspire to nothing else, are so delicate and dependent that they can’t get by alone” and “What does it do when we force disability into the background of our stories, as something either bad or bad but useful if it can be overcome, when it could be treated like love, war, coming of age, family, identity, et al.—a major subject that is strange, rich, powerful, and necessary to telling the story of life?” I already know this is a book I will come back to over and over again.
I typically try to read one fiction and one nonfiction book at the same time. The fiction book I’m reading is, Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice. The book is a post-apocalyptic story about an Anishinaabe community during infrastructural collapse in winter. Choice lines: “‘Yes, apocalypse. We've had that over and over. But we always survived. We're still here. And we'll still be here, even if the power and the radios don't come back on and we never see any white people again.’”
Watching:
I’ve never been big into comics, except for a brief stint in my childhood where I felt a strong kinship with Storm (I also just thought she was pretty). I haven’t seen many of the Marvel movies, but the ones I have seen have been fun and entertaining. When I heard that “Agatha All Along” was coming out, I read about the character of Agatha Harkness and was hooked. Witchy shit? Sign me up! Also, I will literally watch anything Kathryn Hahn is in, so that’s also a plus.
I’ve also been enjoying “Moonflower Murders” and “Van der Valk” on PBS. British shows calm me, ok?
Listening:
Marina Allen’s “Centrifics” (2022) was the other album I listened to on repeat while writing my manuscript. It’s soft, soothing, and sad. Check out tracks: “Getting Better,” “Or Else,” and “My Stranger.”