Vaccines, writing, and MIDSOMMAR DIRECTOR'S CUT AT THE RIO!

Waiting for the pharmacy to call about the second shot - they missed week eight, I guess (which for me finishes today). I'm anxious about what to get now that NACI has actually RECOMMENDED getting Pfizer or Moderna if your first shot was AZ. My doctor's homepage doesn't really weigh in one way or another - it says it is "safe" but resists making claims about it being preferred or more effective, which makes me wonder if NACI knows something my doctor doesn't, or if my doctor is just more cautious (which is what I suspect). Still kinda resent that I have to try to sort out which way to go; getting vaccinated in a pandemic shouldn't be this complicated!

In other news, I did not make it to a record store on Record Store Day to buy Lou Reed's Set the Twilight Reeling on LP. It's a Lou I actually quite like - it is kinda jammy and off-the-cuff compared to, say, Ecstasy or Magic and Loss, but has some real wit on it, and, I mean, "Hookywooky" is idiotically fun - but the one store I asked for a price was asking $46. That's TWO HOURS of work at my day job, for me - I just can't justify it. 

Mostly I'm going to be trying to focus my energies this weekend on transcribing John Wright. I kinda sure don't FEEL like writing right now, though. Erika's away, I'm not at work, and I kinda just want to shake loose a little, take a walk or something - I've been sitting in this chair all week. I couldn't even pick a movie to watch last night, I'm so restless - ended up spending an hour and a half on ContraPoints' video on JK Rowling, which was VERY entertaining and very helpful in confirming stuff I suspected about Rowling but - not being trans, barely knowing anyone trans - had no confidence about asserting. Thanks, Natalie! 

The big excitement this weekend? Midsommar director's cut at the Rio on Sunday. I've only been able to do it previously as an iTunes download. If you liked the theatrical version, the director's cut is longer and richer. As I put it in a FB message, "the central male-female dynamic and its archetypal resonances - a bit more unilinear. The half hour added to this cut fleshes out the academic rivalry between the men and other aspects of the men's narratives, and gets a bit more into the feelings about the female character's re: her sister's suicide, all of which actually widens the space the movie deals with and makes it richer and deeper, and a little less suspect, misogyny-wise." (In its shorter form, while still rich, it seems like it MIGHT just reduce to being a "devouring vagina" movie; it is hard to be that simple about it in the director's cut). Anyhow, that's nice. Which I'd had a double-dose of whatever vaccine they're gonna give me by this point, but fuckit, I'm going to the movie, one dose will do (the last movie I saw theatrically, they didn't even HAVE vaccines yet, so...).

Note - for those who have missed it, this is the richest, most interesting film - even better than Left Bank or Apostle, both of which I loved - to deal with neo-Paganism since The Wicker Man. While it is mostly psychological, artful and slowly-paced, it also has a couple of really upsetting, shocking bits of horror that you should know exist BEFORE you go see the film - it's not for the fragile. Brilliant film, tho'. Good work, Rio - this is an inspired programming choice. (I thought you were a sports bar now?).