A tiny review of the tiny book, The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

 

This was a wonderfully quiet calm book.  A couple meet a neighbour's cat and slowly become friends with it, welcoming it into their house and lives as an 'honoured guest'.  The minutiae of the cat's activities, and the joy in watching it, are described.  The story moves slowly and quietly through the seasons and years, telling me much about the sort of area the writer and his wife live in; the Japanese society they inhabit, and how you can come to love an animal that just wanders into your life, that you never touch.  Beware, it gets sad.  But there's hope at the end too.

This book proves that nothing much needs to happen, that there's no great need of 'conflict' in books, contrary to current wisdom and expectation.  Just hearing about this small string of shushy events was enough.  It was thoughtful, and spare and very real. And at the end there is a confusion of events and timings that puzzles and pains the author - and that was perhaps the realest moment in the whole book.  Knowing there are some things you will never never understand, and that time has taken them, they're gone, you can't search for 'the truth' or evidence or reasons.  You will never *know* some things. So human. This book was a tiny gem.

(Also posted on my goodreads feed.)

On Buffy, aging without noticing, and people’s opinions of you

 

Grrr Arggg.  I just finished watching Season 3 of Buffy again, for the however many-th time. MayorWilkins was the best villain Buffy ever produced, for me. Oddly layered, humourous and relatable (in a way Ted wasn’t, even though they were written similarly). I almost wanted him to be in my family.

There were two things watching this time that I saw that I never saw before – after all these decades of watchings.   

First that Angel probably did sleep with Faith in the episode where he pretended to turn to get her to talk about the Mayor’s ascension.  So Buffy was so righteously sick about it, much worse than a kiss – how could I have missed this implication before?   

And the other was seeing Oz and Willow sleep together for the first time; and seeing Buffy and Angel break up.  The Oz/Willow thing was realizing this is the first time I’ve watched it and known I’ll very likely never be back there again in this life: that place of first, early hope in a relationship.  That place where you want to kiss your boyfriend all the time, and just be within touching distance – never straying too far, lest that silvery connection fizzles out.  Energy exchange.  And Buffy and Angel – that fatal connection that hurts so much.  It’s thankful I will likely never be back there, but also sad that I didn’t go there the very first time with someone who wasn’t a liar and as selfish as I was, but should have known better because he was so much older and more experienced with life. Either way, those extremes of hurt or hope…getting them from a person is a gone girl now. Not a possibility.  Likely.

The thing is, watching someone tenderly cradle someone’s face, look at them with such love or awe…I had no idea I’d one day watch that and think: not for me, anymore, that level of youthful hopefulness.  When did I age? I’m 50.  I didn’t think it would feel so different, to realise these things that may never happen again. Or that I don't view love the same way. I'm irritated that Stanley and I are no longer cradling each other's faces!  What happened!

I really enjoy sleeping (bear with me here).  I was wondering the other day if I’ll be consciously on my death bed one day, and think I wasted so much of my life being scared of the pressures of the day and sleeping as a result.  But maybe I won’t.  When you’re dead you can’t get that lovely liquid, pastel feeling of falling asleep, or waking up feeling different (“have you tried turning it off and on again?” says Moss). It’s just the one way street, and possibly right when you were in the middle of something fun or important. No more being massively productive in evenings and the night, like I always have been.  No more of that. No choice. Weird.  When did I get so much closer to this?

Much earlier this year, in the just beforehand of the Charisma Carpenter revelations  and Joss Whedon turns out to be a shithead fallout (go Google it), Alyson Hannigan said of Buffy’s character that Angel was the right boyfriend for Buffy to have as she was coming into her power; and Spike was the boyfriend she needed when she had her power.  An ideal of youth, and a messy rather mental painful reality, respectively.  I wonder when I'll feel its time for my 'power'?  A very nebulous idea that.  Maybe it simply means self-worth, and the degree of confidence that comes from that.

I also meant to say, watching Buffy after all this Joss Whedon stuff is fine.  He doesn’t get to kill it.  It’s always been bigger than him.  The writers and actors, the music people – what they all made has survived and been extraordinary despite his toxic personality.  Like a lot of things, people made beauty despite pain.  There’s a lot of places pain shouldn’t be but somehow it is.  He may not really have been a feminist, or taken us all for fools in that respect – but he still somehow managed to have a big hand in creating a character, a set of characters so relevant they still sing out today, so strong.  It makes me cry to think they suffered to make this beauty.  But at least it’s beautiful, and strong, and will survive him. Those characters still help me now, today.  This day.

Even if it’s only to see that I’ve gone past some points and may be headed in a different direction now. 

There’s this thing happening as I get older.  Not only does my quirkiness appear to no longer come across as cute - I used to regularly be told I was Phoebe-like, from Friends. Now instead I get reactions as if I am always nervous, uneasy and weird.  People seem to have either judged me before they met me (people at the café I worked at with Fry, judged me as Fry’s mum only); or made up their minds very soon after and decided I’m too much work, or awkward and totally lacking in confidence, or they think I’m a bit stupid.  This last is the cafe again, where one boss in particular (the annoying one) but also the other boss (the brilliant unusual one), seemed to view me as someone with no expertise at all, in anything.  And I was cleaning…

And I used to get it from my a more recent boss sometimes too, in a more conventional officey setting – I saw impatience or gritted teeth or something, go across their face when they ask me to do some writing, and I would ask for tone for it: perky, conversational but formal or conversational but informal.  They acted like they felt they’d said the answer enough times already, though each piece was different. Then they would over explain without the answer being within those words. 

It makes me wonder if people actually see me properly at all?  I know I ask the questions in a way that makes sense; sometimes I’ll say the questions again in a different way if the answer isn’t forthcoming.  But it’s as if people answer to their idea of me rather than what’s there or what I said or acted or did.

And people’s ideas of me appear to not be as friendly or charitable as they once were. When did this happen and what did I do? Is it partly to do with the Invisible Woman phenomenon noticed by lots of women in their late 40’s onwards, that once you get to be ‘middle-aged’, people (especially men) seem…to simply stop seeing you as active/dynamic/competent…or much at all? It’s as if you fade a little at the edges, and start to prepare to be someone’s nan, in print dresses, lots of polyester and very comfortable shoes; short helmet hair. Ugly coats.  It’s a whole thing coming at you[1].

I’m annoyed in a way to be writing this kind of thing (overthinky negativity) again – it’s the death of me ever wanting to read things back.  So many times in the past, I write to make sense of things, but then I’ll look at it weeks or days or months later, to see if I’ve learned anything, or can learn from my previous responses.  And all I find is this long tortured, convoluted and over complicated narrative I want no part of.  Even moreso if I handwrote it – I hate my handwriting. 

But things aren’t always simple, and especially not for me, personally.  So…I make sense best as I can?

The ghost of Fry is over my shoulder, and he says “your head, man…” while shaking his own head and looking rather smug that his head is not my head.

So who sees me and sees that I am an ok person, as much right to be here as anyone, and not useless, hopeless and stupid? I don’t know. 

It’s a shame we can’t trust our thoughts.  I suspect other people’s thoughts about me are incorrect (and maybe more about them), and I have read in countless books that thoughts precede feelings states, so that if I am sad and feeling hopeless, as I am now, it’s a problem with the thoughts I have had[2].  The words are useless and hopeless.  But the thoughts seem to come as feelings and they feel so true. It’s tiring to have the thoughts; it’s tiring to correct the thoughts.

I don’t know who the hell I am anymore.  People judge me on my children’s behaviour and attitudes; Stanley judges me on my sleeping habits, Best Mum thinks everything I say to her is a criticism; and I judge me on these thoughts that hold me down. But here they are.

Things are beautiful.  There is that.  The whole (slightly doomed) planet, filled with beautiful nature and creatures.  There’s art.  And I really really enjoy my books, films and TV…

There’s two quotes from Buffy that are apposite to my state of mind confusion here (of many, these were just the ones the popped into my head just now – it’s a damn quotable show). 

The ever astringent Cordelia, to Buffy in a moment of exasperation at her angry behaviour and navel gazing:

"Embrace the pain. Spank your inner moppet. Whatever. But get over it, because pretty soon you’re not even gonna have the loser friends you’ve got now." Gulp. That's me told.

And also the way more aspirational speech by Buffy in the last ever episode:

"I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking yet. I'm not finished becoming...whoever the hell it is I'm gonna turn out to be."

So I’m 50. There’s more to be done yet, no matter what people see and make of my currently chunky and rather grumpy exterior. 

Bring it on.[3] 

Well, you know, it'll come regardless what I say, so being spunky and feisty, and possibly even graceful, is the way to go, right...?

 

                          Me at 50; and Fluffhead at 11, unfiltered

 

---

[1] And then, if you fight it, and dress your mental age or actual figure – you’re ‘mutton dressed as lamb’?!

[2] There’s the basis of CBT – change the thoughts to change the feelings.

[3] Of course, there’s also the immortal "Dawn, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live." But I usually save that one for when things are really dark.

 

What I Watched for Halloween: The Burning (1981) - time to overthink the characters!

 

So MANY SPOILERS...

 

I have a very long history with this film, as a longtime horror fan. I first watched it in the living room with my dad when I was 12 - with my mum hovering nervously by the door, saying (as she did so many times), "Sid, do you really think she should be watching this?" To which he replied (as he did so many times), "Woman, sit down if you're staying, and stop worrying." Cue, mum looking very worried for my mental health - and immortal soul - and leaving quietly. 

 

So dad and I would carry on my unexpurgated exploration of all the dodgy 70's and 80's titles from the video shop.  The rule was, I could watch whatever, as long as he was there for the first viewing to make sure...I don't know.  That it wasn't porn? (Though I am strongly convinced after seeing 70's and 80's porn later in life that horror and porn are so linked up as to be close sister genres, in many ways; the low budget kinds of both, at any rate.)

So I saw lots of films I probably shouldn't have seen at this age because dad loved it when I thought for myself (except when I disagreed with him, when of course, it was disliked intensely!). I was fascinated with horror, and still am.  It's partly because I'm deeply woo, and convinced there's more here (in the world) than meets the eye and so far recognised science, and supernatural horror was around a lot at that time and was one of the few places to feed my need for more.  Since then there are many more books, documentaries and other sources for my speculative ideas on life.  But it was too late.  My love of horror, supernatural and otherwise, stayed with me when it's initial function was over.  I stayed with the countryside camp slashers (Friday the 13th [1980] being the classic there), because...I loved the scenery.  I know that sounds weird - but sometimes I'd be looking straight past the characters and slight plots and be wandering off mentally into the woods/fields myself. American countryside is beautiful. The Burning was a favourite of this sub-genre from the first time I saw it.

 

I've seen it off and on again over the years, always having new ideas and opinions about it, mostly about how I'm relating to the characters.  Sometimes I hate it - so many unlikeable characters; the time I forgot about Cropsy killing the sex worker near the beginning (so cruel, she was nice to him, and she wasn't representative of those who hurt him, so why her other than opportunity?); the orderly in the hospital being needlessly voyeuristic at Cropsy's suffering (more cruelty, casual and unnecessary)...so many unlikeable people. 

 

And then sometimes my mind focusses on the better natured parts of it - Fisher Stevens and Jason Alexander's characters sarcastically sticking up for the hapless and odd Alfred - who can't seem to express in words his fascination for the Sally character, creeping about after her and trying to scare her instead. The constant joking about, the sinking kayak scene.  As an English person and an introvert, the very idea of American summer camp seems hellish - you can't get away from people if you need to! - but these films often make it look like chaotic lighthearted fun. Fiction is great. Then there's Glaser - what a weird boy: strangely childlike all the time, sweet and insecure with Sally, but a bully and a thug with everyone else.  All the teens are much more childlike than we are used to now in our horror.  Not even the self awareness of the original Scream (1996) teens; and have you watched the series remake of I Know What You Did Last Summer (2020)? Oh my god, could you squash any more unlikeable, selfish and shallow Insta TikTokers into one series?  Why do TV execs have this idea of millenials as like this? They are a much more varied lot of people than this constant stereotyping as vicious overgrown children. I had to stop watching an episode before the end as I only liked 2 people and one of them got killed in a very early episode.  I just didn't care what happened next.

Yes, I am complaining about character development and portrayal in horror, be it in film or TV.  There's no reason why you can't paint a shorthand character and have it be interesting and sympathetic, even when you don't like that character. Everyone in Final Exam [1982], for example - tiny portraits, you get who they are, what 'types' and it works. Though, teen slasher horrors specialise in teens you don't like much.  It started off with the 'if you have sex you die' trope, but then just became about general spoiled youth, overprivileged and 'getting what was coming to them' in the eyes of...? I'm not sure who, middle aged white men most probably, since they are to blame for more or less everything in Western society (I'm not kidding).

 

Back to The Burning. I always used to remember Alfred as the strange little hero – but it’s Todd, denim shirted Bruce Campbell lookalike, just oozing responsibility and grown-upness who actually saves the day.  Yet…Todd, in a twist I totally forgot, is to blame for the whole thing, by being one of the people who originally burnt Cropsy and caused him to stop being grumpy and start being psychotic in the first place.  He seems so nice and reliable and responsible – because of what he did before?  Trying to make up for it?  But…how could he tell the Camp Blackfoot story with such relish round the campfire, knowing he was a part of it?  That Cropsy may have survived, in agony, because of what he’d done?  On the other hand – they 'pranked' Cropsy in the first place because he was a bully, from what they said (beating a child for no reason was mentioned); so here is Todd again, sticking up for bullied (and now killed) children.  So maybe not all bad?  Complicated.  (And where could they have possibly gotten a skull with worms in it that looked so realistic?! Far too realistic for ...Stanley just walked past and told me to let it go.  Tsk.)

 

My relationship with the film is further complicated by realising Harvey Weinstein wrote the main story idea – the film is full of men trying to have sex with women – the women get killed either way – Karen for not doing it; Sally for doing it.  There’s prominent bullying entitled men here – and they die too: Glaser and Eddie.  When Jason David was asked what his best memories of filming The Burning were, he answered, “looking at Carrick Glenn” (actress playing Sally – naked shower scene comes to mind, lots of gratuitous and at the time expected boob action). In the context of a Harvey Weinstein stink laying over the production, which until all the stories broke years later with Rose McGowan in particular, I had no clue about because I follow films, characters and actors, not directors or producers; it makes the playful comment seem sad. But Jason Alexander distanced himself from The Burning many years ago, and in the same Twitter exchange too, see below. One of many actors making a film on the way up that is looked at differently later, the film a bit damned by association with an actual predator. The past is a different country. I've always liked Jason Alexander too.  I'm a sucker for the socially awkward characters he so often plays.

As a feminist (among other labels), I've spent years a bit conflicted as to why I love male made horror films, full of the male gaze, killing women.  The Italian and Spanish 70's directors in particular, enjoy it too much. The answer is complicated, and inconclusive.  There's the usual strong final woman protagonist who triumphs over the 'killer' - which is always cathartic.  Though I used to worry the women would be in mental hospitals for the rest of their lives as a result of the events, whatever they were. (Halloween Kills [2021] tried to riff on trauma caused to a final woman, and her town.  Sorry to say they botched that film almost unimaginably badly, but I see where they were trying to go with the idea of longterm and repeated trauma and how it haunts and warps you as a person, family, town, culture; abused becoming abusers etc.) The subject of why I like horror is a seperate post another time, I think. It's a lot about the characters, a lot about the psychology of being afraid and how to get past it. I'm a massive wuss as a person, usually - horror makes me feel braver.

 

Interestingly, in The Burning, there is no final girl - just two final boys.  Which is fair, as boys were the ones who hurt Cropsy to begin with. This is a film less about violence and a reckoning with pretty young women than many other slashers of the era. There's more male victims than usual.  It seems to me more about lost opportunities and the generalised rage that makes in a person. Coupled with the pain of a disfiguring and life-changing full body injury: five years in hospital is a long time to agonise and brood, and decide revenge against cruel children is a great idea. I often wondered if the weirdness of the Alfred character was meant to show that he was a sort of unfortunate Cropsy in waiting type of person, and the fact he had to fight him with Todd at the end, and that he was the one who burned Cropsy again showed that he would not be following on the path of the lonely embittered caretaker, that his life would go a different way now.  Not through a show of strength (defeating Cropsy), but because Todd came back for him and helped him, showing Alfred a different way of relating to people.  A more healthy way. But then, as you see, I can overthink for England.

 

Speaking of actors making long ago films reinterpreted later, this is one of those horror films containing early appearences by later stars, here the already mentioned Jason David; but Fisher Stevens and Holly Hunter too – Fisher Stevens gets more air time though, being the finger chopped of the wonderfully infamous and too short raft scene - which is always way longer in memory. I don't know why more pleople don't remember Tom Hanks' small but memorable part in He Knows You're Alone [1980] - another low key gem. Astonishing how many later stars began in horror.

Lastly, the Rick Wakeman soundtrack is the final word in horror themes: as iconic as Halloween, in a different sort of way. Music is a big reason why horrors are great.  Now, as usual, after having re-viewed this, I've got it earworming my head, probably for a week or so before its supplanted by something else. You hear too - this is the main theme:

That's enough overthinking for now. Till next time :-)