What Happened: “Gravity,” Beer, Death Cab For Cutie, Throwback Thursday

by Alan Hanson

Gravity (film)

I’ve been cigarette-free for forty frustrating days and I still can’t hold my breath as long as the Movie Stars do on screen, a gargantuan screen, a screen the size of Forest Lawn Memorial Park, here at the “only real IMAX theater in the city” a friend has told me, and I’m not sure what he means but I believe him because he’s the kind of guy who knows about these things and has strong convictions about movies, a trait that I admire greatly. I’m out of calm-downers and I’m measuring my lung capacity every three minutes and gasping like a kid again. You see, that’s the thing about this movie, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and all you “fuck a digital 3D” purists, all you Sadness Everdeens, yeah, yeah, I went to film school, I love a grain, I nut a Godard, I’m ‘bout that “Lubitsch touch” life, but sometimes I want a scream staring me down, I want a somersault, I want Edwin Porter’s train rushing right at my flickered, awe-twisted face. I’d rather take a ride through the park than contemplate the complexities of dinosaur cloning.

Score: a wholly worthwhile cinematic experience

Death Cab For Cutie’s announcement that they’re recording a new album

Jesus, I didn’t even listen to “Codes and Keys.” (What a terrible album title, by the way.) I hope this next one, if I listen to it, has songs about fading youth. I think that’s a safe bet. Or songs about how the things that once were important to you no longer are and the aging, guitar holding husks of what once was are only sad reminders of the dumb idiot teenage feelings you can’t have again. And now that it’s ten years since everything and since we’re exhausting any editorial angle possible, squeezing content out of every rock, we get to be reminded that everything is still around, just shuffling down sidewalk waiting for you to notice it again.

Score: will begrudgingly pirate, will likely be “fine”

Supper Club

This beer is a pale lager made in Middleton, WI, by Capital Brewery. My sister registered me for a monthly beer club for my birthday and now this company which is operated by a pair of cargo shorts sends me craft beers and microbrews from across America once a month. Supper Club is the only one that’s been good enough to make me write down its name and its quality is measured by its plainness. All the other beers with “clever” names, brewed with a smirk and with a hehehe devilish twist, are too something. Too hoppy, too heady, too fruity, too heavy, too dark, too flavorful, too what the fuck are all these stupid tastes doing having a family fist fight in my mouth. Not Supper Club. Supper Club is superbly middle of the road, amazingly smooth, crisp without a bite. It tastes only like beer. It is beer flavored. It comes in a beautiful can and when I drink it I think of my sister and my family and sneaking into sawdust bars in Kansas and shows at the Bottleneck and the VFA and masturbatory DIY scenes and racist cops and hospitable neighbors and ticks and playgrounds used for drug deals and crossing county lines to buy more beer because God decided we can’t have it after 8 on this side of town.

Score: three cheers for middle America

Throwback Thursday 10/10/13

Generally enjoyable Throwback Thursday. Steven was a cute little kid and Dani was clearly heading for babe-status in middle school. Fun fashions, obviously, filterless scans and good looking dads. Everyone looks better in the curated past. It’s a nice excuse to remember the better parts. And it’s easy to call it a widespread ploy for more likes, for more look at me and more fleeting validation but I like collectively remembering and when I see your mom zipping up your puffy jacket with your ruddy-faced grin I remember the nice things about my family, too, and though it’s a shallow well I’m still thirsty.

Score: a polite, close-lipped yet earnest smile to all

Government Still Shutdown

“And what can you say, to take that weight away? I look into the endless bottom and all I want is what should be. I’m damned ashamed to feel this rotten. Can we reclaim what’s been forgotten? That state of the State don’t let me feel that safe. I want to take it to the tired and affronted and all they want is one who’ll lead. But I’ll put it to you pain and bluntly: I’m worried for my tired country. That look on your face — don’t let it go to waste.”

Score: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists’ “The One Who Got Us Out”

Alan Hanson is a Californian writer living in Harlem.