92nd Street Y: April 29th, Liberties panel

Posted on April 15, 2025 by sheila

It’s an honor to be a member of a small panel having a group discussion for a live audience on April 29th at the famed 92nd Street Y. Discussion subject: “the intersection of political and literary culture in America — and how a small cadre of magazines are helping to rekindle the art of intelligent cultural discourse in the age of social media.” The event is in honor of Liberties journal’s 5-year anniversary.

The panel will be hosted by journalist David Shipley, whose successful career includes stints as executive editor of The New Republic, editorial page editor at the New York Times, and editorial page editor at the Washington Post (he resigned in February after Jeff Bezo’s craven announcement that the op-ed page at the Washington Post will not host pieces “opposing” certain ideologies. And so the dominoes topple, and the institutions cave, as they always do, and it’s amazing to watch it happen in real-time, after reading about such things through history. There really is a playbook, isn’t there?)

Participating in the panel will be Liberties editor Leon Wieseltier as well as managing editor Celeste Marcus, and regular contributors: Arash Azizi, Sean Wilentz, my old pal James Wolcott from Vanity Fair, and me. My monthly column at Liberties has been on a brief hiatus, mainly because of the deadlines for the massive project I’ve been working on for a year, all of which came to a head January-March. But my column will be back up and running shortly. I have some fun plans for it. In fact the one-year anniversary of the launching of my column is tomorrow!

This is kind of a heady crowd to be involved with, to be honest! Just for my own entertainment, I’ll try to work in at least one reference to Elvis. After all, I did write about Elvis in my column. (Shocker.)

These are dark times, and in such times – again, as we know from history – culture is more important than ever. It’s hard to feel that way when you’re in the middle of it. I’ve had to really dig deep to immerse myself in the Romantics – the Shelleys, Byron, Keats, Coleridge – for this project, and half the time I have barely had the bandwidth to do what I need to do. My personal life is beyond busy. I had a manic bout from around November to February, and by the time I recognized what was happening the train had left the station. The Supernatural rewatch is how I’m coping. You have your strategies, I have mine. But still: there is much work to be done and my ingrained discipline as a writer has paid off. I can rely on the discipline. I don’t have to think about it. The muscles are highly developed. I write whether I feel like it or not, and it’s been that way since I first started keeping a diary at age 13. My column at Liberties has been an oasis, not an escape. It’s a place where certain things still exist, my personal touchstones and talismans, which hopefully reach out to an audience with their own touchstones, who love art like I do, and in the midst of chaos, I’ve been trying to create an archive of my continuum of inner/outer life, reflecting the culture – whatever it entails – that still matters.

So I am really looking forward to the event! If you’re in New York, consider attending, and find me afterwards to say hi!

Posted in Personal | Tagged | 2 Comments

Supernatural re-watch, Season 7

Posted on April 15, 2025 by sheila

If you’re following along:
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10
Season 11
Season 12-15

Plus: my season recaps from back in the day:
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 1 “Meet the New Boss” (2011)
written by Sera Gamble
directed by Phil Sgriccia
It makes me emotional, seeing Sera Gamble’s name again. I’m in good hands. Castiel’s all evil, and I think Misha does a good – and subtle – job of showing how Castiel is basically inhabited by some other entity. No Cockney Clockwork Orange accent, in other words. It’s interesting, I’m trying to remember how the hell they got to that lab and I am failing. I know the “wall” in Sam’s head was broken and he’s getting flashes of hell. That I remember. Dean watching cartoon porn sitting in the kitchen. Not even stopping when Sam comes in.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 2 “Goodbye Cruel World” (2011)
written by Ben Edlund
directed by Guy Bee
The biggest thing that’s missing in later seasons – and I can’t even believe I’m saying this because it’s so elementary – is the brothers’ heavy heavy involvement with each other. Here, Sam is falling apart – rapidly – and Dean is freaking out with worry. This shit gets you through 23 episodes. They really lost sight of that. This episode gives us the raincoat that launched a thousand ships. This is also the beginning of Lucifer taunting Sam 24/7, on the periphery of scenes, basically the mocking voice inside Sam;s head. Is he dreaming, hallucinating? Either way: it works on the actual story level: Sam seeing through the crack in his wall-head. But it really works as a metaphor too of struggling (white-knuckling) mental illness. Had forgotten about how effective this was.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 3 “The Girl Next Door” (2011)
written by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin
directed by Jensen Ackles
I keep referencing later seasons. I’ll try to stop. But briefly: this episode opens with Dean in a full leg cast having broken his leg, and Sam having seizures in the ambulance before being given a head scan. Remember the episode much later when they have “bad luck”, and have to get it back, and suddenly they are incompetent and the car breaks down and they get headaches, and it’s so weird because nothing bad ever happens to them? As though they’re magical super-beings? Look at all the bad shit that has happened to them over the course of this series. What the HELL is your problem? Side note: I LOVE the motel room in this one with the full-wall mountainscape mural, so when Dean stands in front of it there’s so much visual interest. I just realized that this is the first time since I started this venture that I’ve had a couple of “wow, that is a great shot” thoughts. There were a couple this episode. And look who directed it. Dean and Amy: Dean is truly terrifying in this scene, but there’s a gentleness there too making him even more disturbing (it reminds me a little bit of Gandolfini in the scene with Patricia Arquette in True Romance. Dean is a fucking killer.)

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 4 “Defending Your Life” (2011)
written by Adam Glass
directed by Robert Singer
I’m not big on the ancient God episodes but what’s interesting here is THEY barely seem interested in it either. What interests them is finding a creative way to explore Dean’s guilt. This is the start of the Dean Guilty Arc, which leads to the brother break-up. Like the season 9 tension this feels like it goes on forever (and season 9 was worse because Dean hadn’t learned his lesson and Sam had had it). So you have a whole entire episode, yes, with an Egyptian God, JUST exploring the brothers’ relationship. I love the conversation between Dean and the pretty bartender. They used to know how to write these Dean-women interactions.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 5 “Shut Up, Dr. Phil” (2011)
written by Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming
directed by Phil Sgriccia
Dean’s alcoholic arc begins. And I am so into it. You can also see just how enmeshed they are as a couple (listen, just calling it like I see it). Sam has started running every day and Dean takes it personally. Dean counter-acts “new Sam” by drinking all day. This is not healthy. You are actually two separate beings, Dean. Sam isn’t running AT you. It has nothing to do with you. This dynamic is going to be interrogated within an inch of its life over Seasons 8 and 9. Seasons 7/8/9 all feature “breakups”, each one worse than the last. So into it. All of this is so intriguing I don’t even mind that I find the Leviathans a little bit silly. Digging their hair this season. Sam’s sideburns are dramatic. Dean’s hair is short. Always loved the visual interest in the final scene: Sam and Dean talking by the car, and all the buildings in the back have red lights in the windows and on outside stairways. This isn’t digitally done, as far as I can tell. This took care and thought and it gives the scene a visual POP (and also, in my opinion, connects subliminally to the scene in episode 2, I think, where Sam is in Bobby’s basement and suddenly everything glows red. So it’s not just visual interest: you only see it behind Sam here, so maybe it’s connecting us to his reality, which hasn’t been in evidence this episode: but it’s there in the red-lit backdrop.)

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 6 “Slash Fiction” (2011)
written by Robbie Thompson
directed by John Showalter
I LOVE Frank. And I love this new development, a bold one by a showrunner who decided to mess with the formula, but in a smart and story-driven way. The idea of Sam and Dean getting the attention of real-life FBI people has already been explored, with the wonderful Agent Henriksen. And they took that one to the limit, where Dean’s WANTED poster was still showing up in Season 15. Here, though, it’s even more serious and high-profile, so much so that they need to change their aliases and get rid of the car. Two beloved parts of the show. Here we are though in season 7 and it was good to shake things up (particularly – in my opinion – because the Leviathans feel a little silly). But it serves as an interesting emotional thing too, throwing the brothers out of their comfort zone (even though they already have so little comfort). But they’re thrown out into space, they are at risk, people are recognizing them, they are in true danger, and honestly it feels much more serious than the Leviathan threat. I dig it. This development helps ground the supernatural in the real and that’s always welcome.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 7 “The Mentalists” (2011)
written by Ben Acker, Ben Blacker
directed by Mike Rohl
“You’re not a necromancer.”
“This is a Lamaze class.”
I am on the record as being overly invested in the Melanie-Dean thing – the loneliest ship in this very very shippy show. My deepest thanks to Antipodes Annie (at least that was her name on Twitter) for making this gif specifcally for me:

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 8 “Season 7, Time for a Wedding” (2011)
written by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin
directed by Tim Andrew
I just think it’s so funny that Dean is in Las Vegas, talking to a hot waitress at a strip joint, getting along with her, and all he’s doing is bitching about how Sam decided to go for a hike. It’s like he learned nothing. Dean, enjoy your vacation. Bang the waitress. Let Sam do Sam, my God. This chick will come home to roost in season 9, a long long way away. Observation: the show still cared about the visuals at this point. Beautiful closeups: a clear love of their faces. Enter Garth! Re-enter Becky! And check out Leslie Odom Jr.!

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 9 “How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters” (2011)
written by Ben Edlund
directed by Guy Bee
The problem with the Leviathans is they serve a didactic purpose. Although I can’t argue with the overall message. Dean stoned is one of my favorite things: “I just want my damn slammer back.” The consequences of “slash fiction” continue to reverberate along with the Leviathans’ tech savvy tracking: Sam, Dean and Bobby are on the run. Hiding. I love this because it gives us a lot of time with them as a trio. I almost forgot how this one ended. I blocked it out.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 10 “Death’s Door” (2011)
written by Sera Gamble
directed by Robert Singer
Sera Gamble LOVES these characters. You can FEEL it. This episode brings me to tears every time. If you haven’t done so, please listen to it with the commentary track with Jim Beaver and Steven Williams. It’s an acting master class by two veterans. A final word: The show lost a lot when death stopped being final. Here, when Bobby dies, he dies. Both Jared and Jensen are heartbreaking in this, but this is Jim Beaver’s moment. He gives me chills.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 11 “Adventures in Babysitting” (2012)
written by Adam Glass
directed by Jeannot Szwarc
The episode is fine. The final shot is a stunner. Jensen Ackles, man.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 12 “Time After Time” (2012)
written by Robbie Thompson
directed by Phil Sgriccia
“Who’s he, some farmer clown?” Gets me every time

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 13 “Slice Girls” (2012)
written by Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming
directed by Jerry Wanek
Dean getting distracted and falling into flirty chatting with the morgue attendant. They could have just kept going. They clicked.It has nothing to do with anything, but it’s a character thing. I am watching the progression of this season and it’s been a while, things are presenting themselves to me. In the previous episode, the conversation Dean and Eliot Ness had in the car seemed to strike a chord with Dean, who has been apathetic and also slightly drunk for almost the whole entire season. Ness’ “don’t think so much, you’re doing good on the planet, stop being soft” commentary … I thought maybe this would be the thing – or one of the things – to get Dean back in the game. (This is so interesting to me: like, WHY is he so apathetic? It’s not that it seems un-motivated, its just that it’s unexpected and it deepens the character. Sam is literally walking around with Lucifer in his head and Dean is slowly but surely checking out. It’s really intersting.) Dean is apathetic and cranky. I love the Dean we see in this episode. Jensen gets to do some great schtick (“accidents happen” plus a symphony of private memories on his face), but I mostly like how this whole thing shows how “over it” he is, and how he’s getting sloppy, and also how he doesn’t care. All of this feels motivated: Cas is dead (supposedly) and so is Bobby. Dean had been so taken up with hovering over Sam, and he can’t even do it anymore. Now Sam is hovering around Dean. Dean is thrown out into space. He doesn’t even have his car anymore. The episode opens and closes with the brothers in the car – not THE car, but A car – and Sam is driving both times. Says it all.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 14 “Plucky Pennywhistles Magical Menagerie” (2012)
written by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin
directed by Mike Rohl
Pure enjoyment. Very light touch, connected to the continuum dating back to Season 2, episode 1, a mention of the Leviathans and irritation with Frank – but as I mentioned in re: another season: the Leviathan search at this moment is happening off-stage and being done by other people, not them, which then frees them to keep doing monster hunts. This balance was entirely lost in later seasons, where Castiel was given whole solo arcs, Lucifer, Jack, Rowena – with Sam and Dean being off-stage. Just … WHY. (Please don’t say “Jared and Jensen wanted to spend more time with their families.” I know they did and I totally get it. Then the show should have ended four seasons before.)

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 15 “Repo Man” (2012)
written by Ben Edlund
directed by Thomas J. Wright
Way too many monologues, my God. Good stuff with Lucifer and Sam: the moment Sam looks at him acknowledges Lucifer as real. Very clever metaphor for psychosis, actually.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 16 “Out with the Old” (2012)
written by Robert Singer and Jenny Klein
directed by John Showalter
Dean lovingly touching the ballet shoes. I think the main issue with the Leviathans is that what they are doing – buying up mom and pop shops, poisoning the food supply, gathering wealth for themselves, becoming a multi-national conglomerate – I mean, this is the hellscape we already live in. Like, there’s nothing Supernatural about what’s going on. And yes, it’s scary and we can’t be apathetic, but … it’s kind of like they’re satirizing our current reality, or trying to make it into something supernatural, when it’s just good old capitalism. Capitalism as a monster is an intriguing idea but maybe not for this show or in this way. The Leviathans already are our overlords.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 17 “The Born-Again Identity” (2012)
written by Sera Gamble
directed by Robert Singer
Really dark opener. Sam and the dealer asleep in the car, especially. Effective, especially since Sam was already so out of it in the previous episode. It’s a slow build to a crisis. In the same way that Dean’s fatalism and over-it-ness has been increasing steadily over the course of the season. I forgot about this: that basically both brothers are going off the rails in season 7. It’s fascinating. Usually they take turns. Here, they are just not equipped to help each other at all. I forgot all about Cas/Emmanuel. This might be my favorite Cas episode, honestly. It’s really well written, and very strange. I seem to recall Destiel fans being outraged because Cas had a wife. Season 7 must have been pretty tough for people who watched it only for Castiel.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 18 “Party On, Garth” (2012)
written by Adam Glass
directed by Phil Sgriccia
The season is peppered with troubled families and troubled siblings, which, of course, connects us to Sam and Dean’s increasingly operatic problems, with each other and alone. This is the thing with establishing an emotional arc rather than just a “and this is what happened next” plot. You can hang anything you want to on the emotional arc. It’s something to keep in mind in the writer’s room, it’s something that always – ALWAYS – should be in play. Once you don’t have an emotional arc, you’ve got nothing. I am writing this because of the opener, the kids telling ghost stories in the woods, and the brothers, older brother trying to manage younger brother. More specifically: I love this episode. It’s loosey-goosey, Garth is a wild card. Other “arcs” come into play: Dean has been drinking all season. So an alcohol-ghost connects us to Dean but it also connects us to Bobby. The potential that Bobby is a ghost has been floating around for episodes now, first discussed openly in “Slice Girls”. That’s eight episodes of percolating: they aren’t in any RUSH. I love that. I love the chef at the Japanese restaurant whom they visit TWICE with crazy requests. Funny actor.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 19 “Of Grave Importance” (2012)
written by Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming
directed by Tim Andrew
I just think the casting of Jamie Luner as Annie, a woman who slept with Bobby, Dean AND Sam, was just so counter-intuitive and perfect. It’s NOT “central casting”. Annie is like Ellen. She’s beautiful but a little rough, she’s got a lot of miles on her, she’s not what you would expect. I also like the lack of slut-shaming (even in the “hooker”/”fancy lady” motif. Nobody’s judging the “hookers”, but they are confused about the terminology.) I love how Jim Beaver has taken his well-known character and shown us how being a ghost changes him. He was always blunt, but now he’s blunt with a kind of viciousness and anger behind everything, which is distinctly NOT Bobby. It’s subtle, but it’s there and it needs to be established as context for the NEXT episode. Interesting, too, that the brothers’ disconnect is somewhat lessened, maybe by the bonding over the Bobby/flask thing.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 20 “The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo” (2012)
written by Robbie Thompson
directed by John MacCarthy
Dean directing Charlie what to say over the headset is the kind of stupid schticky schtick that warms my cold dead heart. “You look amazing!”

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 21 “Reading Is Fundamental” (2012)
written by Ben Edlund
directed by Ben Edlund
Enter the demon tablet and Kevin Tran. You really feel for Kevin. Chuck as Prophet makes sense because he was an author tuned in to the Supernatural metaverse. But Kevin? Why did he deserve this? Kevin is so relatable. He’s just a kid. He’s trying to get into college. Before he even knows what’s happening, he’s stolen his mother’s car and broke into a mental hospital to steal a broken piece of rock. He doesn’t even know why. He is treated so poorly, too, especially by Dean. It’s chilling to see how this vibe was in place from the start. Dean doesn’t respect him, or at least doesn’t respect the fact that Kevin the Prophet might have some not-positive feelings at being roped into this thing against his will. Dean is just always so short with him. There are a couple of respites but … not enough.

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 22 “There Will Be Blood” (2012)
written by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin
directed by Guy Bee
Gotta say, the secret pink room is perhaps the sickest this often very sick show has ever gotten. It makes my skin crawl. What had to have happened to Emily (who shows up as the newbie sheriff at the start of season 10) in that pink room to get her to the point where she doesn’t want to leave … Seriously. It’s so sick. Vampire episodes, man. The sex-trafficking of it all …

Supernatural, Season 7, episode 23 “Survival of the Fittest” (2012)
written by Sera Gamble
directed by Robert Singer
Moving backwards, again, has its uses. The final shot here is shocking – was shocking on first watch, still shocking now. Equally shocking is Sam’s choice to not look for Dean (which he was still apologizing about seasons later). I know there are many who basically rejected Sam’s choice as “OOO” (often, though, i see such critiques as coming from the idea that characters are meant to behave a certain way, and if it’s unexpected it’s OOO. I don’t know. I reject this. You might have an idea of who I am from the outside, and then I do something you don’t expect and you call it “OOO” when really, no, it’s still me, I’m just under enormous stress, or I wanted/needed to change, or … maybe you don’t know everything.) Does Sam checking out of his responsibilities track? I think, yes. The other time he did this he went to college, but he still knew his dad and brother were out there, still alive. Here, everyone’s gone. He had no one to talk to. And of course the longer you are inactive, the harder it is to jumpstart activity, especially if you’re ashamed of yourself – which Sam is. This, by the way, is of course why he would be attracted to a wreck like Amelia, who’s so got her own shit going on she’s not going to be all calm and bright-eyed and hoping you’re going to be healthy and sane. No. Interested to hear other people’s thoughts on Sam deciding not to look for Dean.

Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

“As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.” — Reed Morano

Posted on April 15, 2025 by sheila

“I feel like directing is more about who the individual is rather than if they’re a man or a woman. It’s kind of hard to generalize and group all of us female filmmakers into one group, like we’re all going provide you with the same thing, because we’re not. We’re all individuals.”
— Reed Morano

Louder for the people in the back.

Reed Morano started out as a cinematographer before segueing to the director’s seat (although she continued to shoot her own films). Because of The Handmaid’s Tale, which was “her” project, or at least “hers” in that she was responsible for setting the tone, mood, and look of the series – Morano’s profile went through the roof. The “look” of Handmaid’s Tale is part of its fascination (although I stopped watching after Season 1 – I had major issues with the adjustments made to the story). But you really can’t find any fault with the feel of that series, its tightly-controlled color scheme, its striking visuals, its claustrophobic close-ups … all of that is Reed Morano’s fingerprint.

I love Reed Morano’s career because it is a good example of “just doing the work”. Just do your work. There will always be bullshit, there will always be naysayers, there will always be obstacles. Take a second to feel bad about it, sure, but move forward and “just do the work”. Be the best possible whatever-it-is that you can be. There are many cinematographers-turned directors, and – similar to all the editors-turned-directors … having this other skill, working a job so crucial to the making of any movie/television show, a job that puts you in intimate contact with the director, serving the director but also serving the story … all of this gives these people an edge. They are accustomed to fulfilling another person’s vision. They are highly skilled at this. They think in pictures and rhythms already. It is the nature of the job. And so once they segue to directing – if they ever do – they have all that knowledge within them. They probably know how to communicate with other departments, they know how to work with cinematographers – since they’ve been one – or editors – since they’ve been one.

I interviewed Reed Morano on the occasion of her directorial debut – Meadowland, starring Luke Wilson, Olivia Wilde, John Leguiziano, Giovanni Ribisi … with Elisabeth Moss in a memorable cameo – and so I felt something almost like pride when everything happened after that, the rise of Handmaid’s Tale as a cultural phenomenon, its fortuitous timing, the rise of 45 and the awful specter of the people in charge who seemed to view Handmaid’s Tale not as a cautionary tale, but a How-To … And Reed Morano was at the helm, establishing the powerful mood and atmosphere and look of that series. I was happy for her. I remembered our conversation, her intelligence, her kindness, her toughness. She deserves all the success.

I loved Meadowland, which I saw at Tribeca in 2015 (its premiere) – Merano shot it as well as directed. I highly recommend it.

Here’s my review of Meadowland.

And again, here’s my interview with Morano.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Directors, Movies, On This Day, Television | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Supernatural re-watch, Season 8

Posted on April 14, 2025 by sheila

If you’re following along:
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10
Season 11
Season 12-15

Plus: my season recaps from back in the day:
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3

Full rewatch in reverse order continues:

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 1 “We Need to Talk About Kevin” (2012)
written by Jeremy Carver
directed by Robert Singer
Already signs of the slightly-orange-makeup tone in Dean’s face which is a fingerprint of this not-so-pretty season. But I have a lot of affection for season 8 – at least in memory – mainly because, like season 9, and season 10, the real game in town is the conflict/relationship, and also how PTSD presents in different ways. Sam dissociated, Dean dug in to the trauma. Jensen running through the forest in Purgatory is so freakin butch I don’t even know what to do with myself. “There’s a demon in you and you’re going to your safety school.”

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 2 “What’s Up, Tiger Mommy” (2012)
written by Andrew Dabb and Robert Loflin
directed by John F. Showalter
First two episodes have multiple flashbacks showing what everyone’s been up to and it’s a bit clunky. Sam didn’t look for Dean – ouch – and Castiel ran away leaving Dean alone in Purgatory. Dean takes it on the chin in Season 8. Which makes Season 9 even more fascinating if you consider the progression.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 3 “Heartache” (2012)
written by Brad Buckner & Eugenie Ross-Leming
directed by Jensen Ackles
This is Too-Much-Makeup Jensen. It’s interesting to look at this so far: there isn’t a Big Bad, in the way there was instantly in episode 1 of Season 11. There are things that need to be handled: Kevin is gone. Castiel is dead? stuck? But there isn’t a ton of urgency in terms of them being under the gun. So far there really isnt a wider arc, although the “closing the gates of hell forever” thing will obviously be important, but right now it’s a long shot. Sam’s hair this season is wild: lush, flowing, legit Harlequin-paperback hero flowing hair, and I DIG his pointy sideburns. It’s a LOOK.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 4 “Bitten” (2012)
written by Robbie Thompson
directed by Thomas J. Wright
God, this one is freakin’ GOOD. It really holds up on repeat viewings. It gets better, deeper, each time.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 5 “Blood Brother” (2012)
written by Ben Edlund
directed by Guy Bee
I just want to point out we are five episodes in and people are still going in and out of fugue states having lengthy flashbacks in order to fill us in on what they were up to during the hiatus. Welcome to the show, Amelia, you crazy kid with your lime slices. I don’t exactly have your back but I appreciate your purpose in the story AND I appreciate how you were conceived, because the conception of the character tells us so much about where Sam is at. You’re not some healthy regular woman falling for the handiman. You are a wreck. You, like Dean, are in a state of unmanaged trauma. If you see her as a Dean surrogate, it tracks, and Sam choosing her tracks, especially in season 8: Dean has really never been in a worse mood for such a long time as he is in Season 8. Not to mention borderline alcoholic. He might not be shoving lime slices down the drain but it’s in the same wheelhouse. Both characters drowning anxieties with alcohol. One of the main reasons why the Amelia flashbacks are NOT successful is they are so damn UGLY. The coloring is unlike anything else ever seen on Supernatural (thank God), and it’s hard to know what they are going for. This is not the proverbial “golden glow” of nostalgia. It’s more like the “golden glow” as seen in a Lysol commercial. Anyway, my point is: someone like Amelia, in the state she is in, lashing out at Sam inappropriately – in an overly personal way from the jump … would totally “put off” a man who wasn’t in such a bad state. But Sam’s in a bad state. She’s under his skin immediately. She might have even seemed familiar. (Like Cranky Dean). However I must note the sentimentalization of this: I’ve been cranky for long periods of time and I’ve never attracted a man during those times who has flowing romance novel locks and glamorous pointy side-burns. Oh no. I either attract annoying pests who won’t leave me alone or charismatic charmers who turn their spotlight on me, dazzling me, as they show me a facsimile of the real thing all while masking their need of the ego boost only I can provide, yes, I am the only one, I, who writes so beautifully about other people’s art, and maybe they can get me to write about them, because they want to be “seen” by Sheila, but then they realize I’m actually a human with corporeal life of my own and they ghost me. Those are the guys I attract. (Listen: it’s very specific but this has happened to me literally 4 times in the last 10 years, and is probably very specific to me, since I’m a writer and people know my work. I realize I’m the common denominator in this scenario and although I don’t seek out guys like this they FIND me, and I kept falling for it. Even online dating/Tinder isn’t safe. Those guys look me up, find my writing, and, like clockwork, want to be “seen” by me. Fine. I see you. Do you see me though? Once you see me, lemme guess, you’ll ghost me. Never again.) Subject-change: You know what I just realized? This is PRE-BUNKER. God, the show feels so much freer without that anchor of a home base. The home base anchor is just against the whole aesthetic of the show. Having the bunker guaranteed them comfort. We don’t want that guarantee. Another thing: it’s wild to go backwards and see how different Castiel became in later seasons. He lost definition. Here, he is still well-defined as a character, with that really distinct other-ness in his line readings. It’s the definition that makes Castiel. Castiel was always a problem, his powers were (supposedly) too big – although this didn’t stop them keeping Rowena – who wasn’t half as interesting as Castiel, not by a long shot – for endless seasons. I like stark rough grumbly-voiced literal Castiel. The character here is almost unrecognizable to the Castiel mentoring Jack in later seasons. Character growth, you might say? I mean … okay? But it makes Castiel seem even less defined. Dean and Sam grow and change but they are recognizably themselves throughout. What made Cas Cas kind of vanished – and what remained was increasingly amorphous. So Dean goes to meet up with his boyfriend Benny, who is still in love with Andrea, and yearning for revenge against the Twink who Turned Him. A love quadrangle. This is potentially some very twisted shit and because the show, at this point, wasn’t afraid of sick-sexy subliminal messages, it really is still there. Sam is angry Dean is palling around with a vampire. Sam is also angry because Dean “cheated” on him. And vice versa. Like: what the hell is going on here:

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 6 “Southern Comfort” (2012)
written by Adam Glass
directed by Tim Andrew
Sam goes into so many random fugue states in this one it’s like he’s having a stroke. Very awkward use of flashbacks. I almost feel like it would have been better to devote a bit of time to this at the very start of the first episode, kind of like they did with Dean and Lisa in season 6. It gave you a picture of what’s been going on.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 7 “A Little Slice of Kevin” (2012)
written by Brad Buckner & Eugenie Ross-Leming
directed by Charles Robert Carner
Flashbacks continuing. Guys, it’s episode 7. I do like this episode though. Again: I like this Castiel. Having him become amorphous – and also with his own plot-lines – didn’t do the show any favors. Uh-oh: Chuck reference. Conversation about prophets: “What about Chuck?” “I’m not sure what happened to Chuck.” Neither am I, but I miss these old days before Chuck – and the show – and its past – was destroyed. Very intriguing stuff between Dean and Cas. I am not a Destiel person but I have always understood why people were. I can see it. My thought is: something happened to this very VERY central relationship in later seasons, and this happened because Cas was watered down, to be made more … like us? Suddenly things like sarcasm came into play – that random awful scene of Dean, Sam and Cas drinking whiskey and laughing uproariously – in what freakin’ universe? And then Castiel’s out of the blue declaration of love when he said good bye … To me, that declaration would have made WAY more sense and not felt so out of the blue if we hadn’t had five straight seasons where Dean and Cas were barely in the same place at the same time, and there was none of that emotional tension I see here. The connection was somehow … if not severed, then downplayed, like the burner turned to low. I am only really perceiving this I think because I’m moving back in time and suddenly I’mw catching these scenes between them and I’m thinking, “Oh yeah I remember this whole THING between them.” Because it was not present later.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 8 “Hunteri Heroici” (2012)
written by Andrew Dabb
directed by Paul Edwards
Flashback fugue state continues for Sam. We’re on episode 8. Amelia’s dad has showed up and calls Sam a “real fixer-upper” but … I’m sorry. Sam is standing there with his long hair flowing in the breeze and his gorgeous hunkiness – in what world is THAT a “fixer-upper”? Again: it’s wild to see how involved Dean is with Cas, and how that basically disappeared in any meaningful way in the following seasons. They kept Cas around but they just … didn’t write him like this anymore. We still have Castiel not understanding things (“insect rabbit hybrid”) which gives all kinds of opportunity for humor. Once Cas “understands pop culture”, you lose that humor source. Then he just becomes an Everyman and it’s a shocking change from his former self. I didn’t notice it as it was happening my first time through: all I really felt was that Cas had become entirely peripheral and they gave him his own plot lines and I resented the time away from the real action.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 9 “Citizen Fang” (2012)
written by Andrew Loflin
directed by Nick Copus
Episode 9: Sam is still having strokes every 5 minutes so he can re-live Lysol Land. Whose bright idea was this? It’s a wacky structure to have Sam be dazed out for almost 10 episodes about hot dogs and spaghetti. This is a very good episode though. I had forgotten a lot of this. Not the particulars but the overall feel: Sam and Dean are not getting along. At all. Dean hasn’t shared anything about purgatory and he’s being so bitchy about Sam’s girlfriend. Understandable. Sam is on a rampage against Benny and it feels extremely strong, like he’s not willing to concede that Benny might have good points OR that Dean has his reasons. Sam goes behind Dean’s back and puts crazy Martin on Benny’s trail. He’s murderous about Benny. I am thinking now about how Sam was written in later seasons: this mild well-adjusted nerdy guy who always sees both sides, and is boring as fuck. This Sam has some JUICE. And maybe I’m reading into it but it seems like Sam’s determination to take Benny down has more to do with 1. his guilt that he gave up hunting for a year and is now trying to prove to Dean he’s “all in” 2. his hurt that Dean is cheating on him with a vampire than 3. good hunter ethics. Meanwhile, Dean pretending he’s Amelia to get Sam to come is as low as it gets. Finally: watch how Dean gets Elizabeth’s phone number. The subtlety of it but also the genuine-ness of it. This is Jensen’s magic at work, another thing lost and/or not understood about Dean in later seasons.
A question about the timeline, which I had then, and still have:
1. 1st episode of season: we see Sam leave the house, Amelia in bed, to clearly go meet Dean, who’s out of purgatory.
2. 9 episodes of flashbacks follow, where we watch the progression of this relationship.
3. In “Citizen Fang”, Dean “poses” as Amelia, sending out an SOS, basically to get Sam off Benny’s trail
4. Sam races to save Amelia, having one final flashback: of him packing his bags to leave Amelia and her confronting him.
So … did he … stay? What was that about in the first episode, him leaving in the night? Did I miss something?
Final observation to go with the Amelia/Dean observation: Sam stands at the window staring in at her, just like Cas stood at the window staring at Dean. I don’t know, I think these are intriguing ideas: there is a lot of doubling going on. Benny leaning his head on the counter for Martin, looking through the pie rack – which is empty – a pie rack we’ve already associated with Dean since he flirtatiously interacts with it. And on it goes.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 10 “Torn and Frayed” (2013)
written by Jenny Klein
directed by Robert Singer
Dean is being extremely obnoxious and hard-headed. I remembered that this was a season where they barely got along at all, although it was overshadowed in my memory by the operatic disconnect of Season 9. It’s kind of interesting: I think they both are behaving pretty poorly. And it feels deliberate (on the part of the writers, I mean: that this is part of the arc of the season). It’s hard to know what was going on behind the scenes and who was responsible for what. But Sam demanding Dean give Benny up … Dean using Amelia to get Sam out of the way … Dean choosing Benny over Sam … Sam choosing Amelia over Dean … Amelia choosing Sam over her husband … Amelia choosing her husband over Sam … Castiel is cheating on Sam and Dean when he’s consorting with Naomi in heaven … everyone’s cheating, on every front, creating the Winchester Hall of Mirrors that used to be effective before the ensemble got too damn big and the show got scared of sex and Sam and Dean basically sat around in the bunker looking at their laptops. In this episode, Sam and Dean finally break up with their mistresses and come back together.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 11 “LARP and the Real Girl” (2013)
written by Robbie Thompson
directed by Jeannot Szwarc
Pure silly enjoyment.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 12 “As Time Goes By” (2013)
written by Adam Glass
directed by Serge Ladouceur
Enter the bunker. The show breaks, although we didn’t know that then.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 13 “Everybody Hates Hitler” (2013)
written by Ben Edlund
directed by Phil Sgriccia
“Oh my God. These guys are psychopaths.” One of my favorite moments of a total outsider getting a glimpse of these guys and running with his interpretation. “The French Mistake” is another great one for that.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 14 “Trial and Error” (2013)
written by Andrew Dabb
directed by Kevin Parks
My later feelings about the bunker colored even my memories of it but these first episodes really are special, and how having a home base changes both of them. Or, changes Dean. He’s bustling around cooking and cleaning and decorating and gushing over tomatoes and water pressure. It’s one of my favorite unexpected details, and please note who wrote it. This makes what happens when he became showrunner even more mysterious. A lazy writer would think Sam was neat, Dean was a slob. But no: Dean’s domesticity comes from a real psychological place and Sam’s complete disconnect comes from an equally real place. (Again: Sam was not at all put off by lime-slices and bottles lying around). Sam doesn’t give a shit. He’s much more basic than Dean is. This is interesting and something we hadn’t really seen before and they really explore it here. There’s a lot going on plot-wise in this episode – first mention of THE TRIALS – but I’m all about Dean loving his room.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 15 “Man’s Best Friend with Benefits” (2013)
written by Brad Buckner & Eugenie Ross-Leming
directed by John F. Showalter
The less said about this the better.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 16 “Remember the Titans” (2013)
written by Daniel Loflin
directed by Steve Boyum
The Greek gods episodes are never really the strongest.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 17 “Goodbye Stranger” (2013)
written by Robbie Thompson
directed by Thomas J. Wright
The opening scene of this episode is chilling. “I’m going to go interrogate the strange-haired demon.” Again: Castiel is just so much more VITAL in this season. Did it stop in Season 9? Road trip with Hannah? Ambiguous angel status? Pop culture? Sam and Dean are so involved with him. Dean prays to him. It’s actually quite interesting, although I was bored by Castiel by this time in my first watch.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 18 “Freaks and Geeks” (2013)
written by Adam Glass
directed by John F. Showalter
I can’t get interested in Wayward Monster-Fighting Teens Living Communally. But again, just like Randy with Claire in a later season, there are always going to be creepy older guys who take it upon themselves to “mentor” – i.e. manipulate – troubled teens, and it’s gross and accurate. Just an observation about Season 8, a stark difference from the later seasons: The huge season-wide arcs – finding the demon/angel tablet to close gates of hell, etc. – mostly takes place offscreen and is mostly in the hands of Kevin, Crowley, Castiel and Naomi. Sam and Dean are involved, and here of course Sam has to go through the trials, but they’re almost like project managers, checking in with everyone. They still go on hunts. As everyone ELSE is working the overall arc, they’re Sam and Dean, flashing fake badges and working cases. It’s such a good structure. Why get rid of it?

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 19 “Taxi Driver” (2013)
written by Brad Buckner & Eugenie Ross-Leming
directed by Guy Norman Bee
Member when hell was conceived by a team with imagination? Member when hell was scary and not a business with demons presenting statistics reports to their bored boss? What the hell HAPPENED. Heartbreaking scene between Benny and Dean in the alley. Stellar work by both actors.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 20 “Pac-Man Fever” (2013)
written by Robbie Thompson
directed by Robert Singer
I really really like this one. Charlie’s line “See? You can’t stop either.” is so good. It really nails the episode for me.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 21 “The Great Escapist” (2013)
written by Ben Edlund
directed by Robert Duncan McNeill
Enter Metatron. He is a mixed blessing but I prefer him to Chuck. Chuck, supposedly all-powerful, was just warmed-over over-it Metatron. Not interesting. It’s interesting: we’re on episode 21. The season is somewhat un-focused, but I prefer it to later seasons. Most of it was taken up with Dean and Sam being involved with their significant-others and all the problems arising from that. To me, that’s what I always remembered about this season, it’s the thing that stuck. Now we’re in the final stretch and Sam is getting sicker and sicker and Dean is now a mother-hen, vibrating with worry. It gives both of these great actors really substantial emotional things to play.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 22 “Clip Show” (2013)
written by Andrew Dabb
directed by Thomas J. Wright
Wow, I forgot how truly evil Crowley could be. He has some real psychopathic shit going on this season. He cut off Kevin’s finger. He kills Sarah. Like, he plays for keeps. For the 89th time: I hate what they did to the character. If you wanted to get rid of Crowley then give him a proper ending, this season or the next. Rowena showed up and neutralized him, which must have been humiliating to play, considering what a juicy role it was. He is so good.

Supernatural, Seasom 8, episode 23 “Sacrifice” (2013)
written by Jeremy Carver
directed by Phil Sgriccia
Sheppard is quite extraordinary in this episode. I forgot about the whole Cupid’s bow thing, which is very charming. Although I’m irritated: why does Casteil need Dean’s help for that, exactly? Sam needs Dean. Go away, Castiel. And here is where Metatron takes Castiel’s grace. THIS is when Castiel begins his journey to becoming an amorphous undefined Everyman, who still has powers? Or not? He can’t fly? It’s unclear. But here’s where it happens. Next thing you know he’ll be eating three-bean surprise. Jared Padalecki is overwhelming in this episode.

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“Even though I’m writing about very dark material, it still feels like an escape hatch.” — Olivia Laing

Posted on April 14, 2025 by sheila

“As a writer, I am always trying to get past abstraction, the world of ideas, and putting actual objects in my writing — paintings, photographs — really helps with that. They’re beautiful tools with which to think.” — Olivia Laing

It’s her birthday today.

Laing is one of the most exciting writers to come along in a long LONG time. Every generation needs someone who plays by her own rules, who brings her unique perspective, interrogates/meditates on art in a voice that speaks to where we are, but also where we’ve come from, where we might be going. Susan Sontag. Or Ellen Willis. Dorothy Parker. I choose women because they are often “labeled” as speaking only to women, because the default is considered to be masculine. It is assumed men speak to everyone, and it is assumed women speak to women. This attitude requires constant combat. If I can read Clive James and thrill to his observations, not feeling at all “left out” because he is a man – if I can read David Foster Wallace or Lester Bangs or whatever – people who write from a male point of view – and still feel these writers have so much to say to me personally – then the obverse should be true. No arguments against this are valid.

More on Laing after the jump.

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“It’s just one of the mysteries of filmmaking that sometimes you do something that you don’t even think it’s important, then it turns out to be.” –Lili Horvát

Posted on April 13, 2025 by sheila

It’s the birthday today of Hungarian director Lili Horvát.

I believe I made clear my love for Horvát’s Preparations To Be Together For An Unknown Period of Time, in a lengthy piece on my Substack.

It’s been a while since a film has grabbed me so deeply. I felt shaken up by it. I watched it three times in a week.

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“Ballet taught me to stay close to style and tone. Literature taught me to be concerned about the moral life.” — Joan Acocella

Posted on April 13, 2025 by sheila

Joan Acocella, longtime dance critic for The New Yorker, and regular contributor to the New York Review of Books died in 2024 at the age of 78, and I did not mark her passing. It’s her birthday today. Acocella brought a lot of great things into my life. I love dance, but I’m not at all learned in the subject. I would check out her columns to see what was going on. She was also a very elegant and pleasing writer. Her prose flows, and it’s filled with information, spiky with criticism (beautifully phrased). I come out of any Acocella essay better-informed. I am so glad I discovered her work.

I read a couple of things of hers before I put it together who she was. She wrote an enormous profile of Mikhail Baryshnikov for The New Yorker called “The Soloist”, where she accompanied him on his first trip back to the Soviet Union. I inhaled it.

Years later, I read an article about a biography of James Joyce’s daughter Lucia. I read the biography and believe I bitched about it here somewhere. This would be back in the early 2000s. Acocella went after the very concept of this biography, validating my own feelings about it. I don’t think I put together that “Joan Acocella” was the same one who also wrote the huge piece on Baryshnikov.

But then, somehow, I put it all together. Joan Acocella is a dance writer, primarily, and has written about almost every major figure in American dance in the 20th century, but she also has written many in-depth essays and book reviews, as well as introductions to re-issues of novels (like Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pity). Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, a collection of all these articles, is essential reading. I give it my highest recommendation possible. It gives the full picture of Acocella’s power as a writer and thinker.

Her focus overall seemeed to be on writers in the early decades of the 20th century, particularly Austrian writers writing from the final days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, and others. Once the Empire was gone, the Jews were on the run, no longer protected. In Acocella’s work on artists in general, the same themes emerge: where does genius come from? What does context add to our understanding of someone like Jerome Robbins? What does it mean to be an innovator? Her taste is eclectic, but with a motivating principle behind all of it. Perhaps all of her work will be collected in one volume. There’s so much of it.

She wrote about M.F.K. Fisher. Balanchine. Bob Fosse. She wrote about famous cases of writer’s block. She wrote about Martha Graham, Mark Morris, Suzanne Farrell. Stefan Zweig. Primo Levi. She wrote a book on the Victorian phenomenon of “hysteria”. All beautifully written. I learned so much from her.

Some excerpts:

On Ralph Ellison’s writer’s block:

We will not hear from Ralph Ellison. Ellison’s first novel, Invisible Man (1952), was also a best-seller, and more than that. It was an “art” novel, a modernist novel, and it was by a black writer. It therefore raised hopes that literary segregation might be breachable. In its style the book combined the arts of black culture – above all, jazz – with white influences: Dostoevsky, Joyce, Faulkner. Its message was likewise integrationist – good news in the 1950s, at the beginning of the civil rights movement. Invisible Man became a fixture of American-literature curricula. Ellison was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was not just a writer; he was a hero. And everyone had great hopes for his second novel.

So did he. It was to be a “symphonic” novel, combining voices from all parts of the culture. It grew and grew. Eventually, he thought it might require three volumes. He worked on it for forty years, until he died in 1994, at the age of eighty, leaving behind more than two thousand pages of manuscript and notes. His literary executor, John F. Callahan, tried at first to assemble the projected symphonic work. Finally, he threw up his hands and carved a simpler, one-volume novel out of the material. This book, entitled Juneteenth, was published in 1999. Some reviewers praised it, others cold-shouldered it, as non-Ellison.

On Rudolf Nureyev:

Almost everyone who describes Nureyev eventually compares him to an animal. They bore you to death with this, but it was true.

On Italo Svevo:

Beth Archer Brombert has produced a version of Senilita, called Emilio’s Carnival – Svevo’s working title – that is faithful in a way that de Zoete was not. Brombert’s language is very plain, and when she comes up against a knot in Svevo’s prose she does not try to untie it. (De Zoete did.) We have to puzzle through it, just like the Italians. The same rules seem to have guided the distinguished translator William Weaver in his new version of La conscienza di Zeno – Zeno’s Conscience. I do not like his title. The Italian conscienza, like its French cognate, means both “conscience” and “consciousness.” There is no good way to translate it, and de Zoete’s throwing up of hands, with Confessions of Zeno, was probably the best solution. But the title is the only thing wrong with Weaver’s boo. Its appearance is an event in modern publishing. In it – for the first time, I believe, in English – we get the true, dark music, the pewter tints, of Svevo’s great last novel.

On Simone de Beauvoir and Nelson Algren:

Beauvoir’s critics should read some history books. When The Second Sex was published, in 1949, Frenchwomen had had the vote for only five years. If Beauvoir’s mind, as her detractors claim, was swamped with “masculinist” ideas, those were the only ideas around at the time. If she omitted to tell her public about her lesbian experiences, to do otherwise would have been fatal to the reputation of any woman writer of the period. (Beauvoir’s critics should also take another look at her defense of lesbianism – a whole chapter – in The Second Sex. For 1949, that was brave.) It is possible that the best writers on social injustice – certainly the most moving – are those who grew up when the injustice in question was not viewed as a problem, and who therefore say things that get them in trouble, later, with holders of more correct views, views that the earlier writers gave birth to. I am thinking of Abraham Lincoln’s pre-Civil War statements on the inferiority of Negroes, so decried by recent historians. It is one thing to free a people whom you regard as equal. But what does it take to free a people whom you have been trained to regard as inferior, and who, by your standards, are inferior? It takes something else, a kind of imagination and courage that we do not understand.

On Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian:

Yourcenar regarded the average historical novel as “merely a more or less successful costume ball”. Truly to recapture an earlier time, she said, required years of research, together with a mystical act of identification. She performed both, and wrought a kind of transhistorical miracle. If you want to know what “ancient Rome” really means, in terms of war and religion and love and parties, read Memoirs of Hadrian. This doesn’t mean that Yourcenar, in her novels, conquered the problem of time. All she overcame was the idea that this was the special burden of the modern period. Human beings didn’t become history-haunted after the First World War, Yourcenar says. They were always that way.

A scathing review of Carol Angier’s biography of Primo Levi:

As for his life, the position she takes is roughly that of a psychotherapist of the seventies. She’s okay. We’re okay. Why wasn’t he okay? Why did he have to work all the time? Why didn’t he take more vacations? And how about getting laid once in a while? She records that as a teenager he mooned over various girls, but whenever he got near one he blushed and fell silent. “What was this?” Angier asks. “Can anyone ever say?” I can say. Has Angier never heard of geeks? They are born every day, and they grow up to do much of the world’s intellectual and artistic work. One wonders, at times, why Angier chose Levi as a subject – she seems to find him so peculiar. And does she imagine that if he had been more “normal” – less reserved, less scrupulous – he would have written those books she so admires?

On Joseph Roth:

One of the remarkable things about Roth’s early writing is its political foresight. He was the first person to inscribe the name of Adolf Hitler in European fiction, and that was in 1923, ten years before Hitler took over Germany. But what makes his portrait of the Nazi brand of anti-Semitism so interesting is that it was done before the Holocaust, which he did not live to see. His treatment of the Jews therefore lacks the pious edgelessness of most post-Holocaust writing on the subject…As for German nationalism, he regarded it, at least in the twenties, mainly as a stink up the nose, a matter of lies and nature hikes and losers trying to gain power. He was frightened of it, but he also found it ridiculous.

On the legendary collaboration between Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine, who created the New York City Ballet.

In truth, the two men who together founded New York City Ballet had very different notions of dance. Balanchine took his inspiration from music; Kirstein cared little about music. Balanchine’s idea of ballet was lyrical and visionary; Kirstein’s was visual and narrative. (Once, Kirstein recalls, he invited Balanchine to go to a museum. “No, thanks,” Balanchine replied. “I’ve been to a museum.”) As Balanchine went ahead with his idea, Kirstein was able to participate less and less in the making of the ballets. Soon, as he put it bluntly in his New Yorker interview, “There was nothing except what [George] wished.”

On the collaboration between Balanchine and Suzanne Farrell, but mostly about Farrell:

But when Farrell arrived Balanchine didn’t just change his style; he seemed to change his content. Before, in what might be called his classic years – from 1928 (Apollo) to about 1962 (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) – his ballets had addressed sex and religion, grief and fate, but those matters, for the most part, were bound in by classicism: tempered, formalized. Now they became pressing and specific. Many of the works that Balanchine made for Farrell in the so-called “Farrell years,” the 1960s, had a sort of jazz-baby sexiness. In these pieces, her costumes tended to be fringed; she tended to be partnered by Arthur Mitchell, the company’s one black man, a pairing that in the sixties had sexual implications. Some observers were taken aback by such directness. In time, the profane yielded to the sacred, and that was even more surprising. Now the supposed abstractionist was filling his stage with angels and gypsies, visions and confessions. Balanchine had embarked upon a “late period”, and it was Farrell who led him there.

On Mikhail Baryshnikov called “The Soloist”:

I asked Baryshnikov recently whether, after his mother’s death, ballet might have been a way for him to return to her. He paused for a long time and then said, “In Russia, dancing is part of happiness in groups. Groups at parties, people dancing in circle, and they push child to center, to dance. Child soon works up little routine. Can do a little this” – hand at the back of the neck – “a little this” – arms joined horizontally across the chest – “and soon make up some special steps and learn to save them for end, to make big finale. This way, child gets attention from adults.” In the case of a child artist, and particularly one who has suffered a terrible loss, it is tempting to read artistic decisions as psychological decisions, because we assume that a child cannot really be an artist. But, as many people have said, children are probably more artistic than adults, bolder in imagination, more unashamedly fascinated with shape, line, detail. In Baryshnikov’s case, the mother’s devotion and then the loss of her can help to explain one thing: the work he put into ballet. For the rest – the physical gift, the fusion of steps with fantasy, the interest in making something true and complete (“Toys become boys”), all of which are as much a part of him today as they were when he was twelve – we must look to him alone.

On Martha Graham:

Early Graham dances such as Heretic (1929) and Primitive Mysteries (1931) are remarkable, first of all, for their abstractions. They are an enactment, not a narrative. Other choreographers were experimenting with abstractions at that time, but what is striking about Graham’s early work is its severity, what people then would have called its ugliness. (“She looks as though she were about to give birth to a cube,” the theater critic Stark Young wrote.) Graham was part of the New York avant-garde of the twenties and thirties. In Blood Memory, she tells of sitting with Alfred Stieglitz and reading with him Georgia O’Keeffe’s “glorious letters” from New Mexico, including one “about her waking just before dawn to bake bread in her adobe oven.” The Southwest, the dawn, bread, adobe, by now it’s a cliche, modernism’s embrace of the “primitive”, the non-European. But it wasn’t a cliche then, and Graham turned it into something tremendous. Heretic was about society’s persecution of the nonconformist. Any would-be artist in downtown Manhattan could have made a piece about that, but who except Graham could have imagined the ensemble groupings she ranged against the heretic: great slabs and walls of dancers, wedges and arcs and parabolas?

On Bob Fosse:

If, today, you go to see a dance act in a night club, it may well start with a single light trained on the stage, a single white-gloved hand jutting out, a single rear end gyrating meaningfully, and, then, as the lights go up, a pair of eyes staring at you as if to say, “I know what you’re thinking.” If you switch on MTV, chances are you’ll see the same thing: the glove (Michael Jackson), the cold sex, the person eyeballing you as if this were all your idea. There is an imp of the perverse at loose in mass-culture dance, a spirit that has little to do with the blowsy cheer of old-time night-club numbers, not to speak of the innocent jitterbugging we used to see on television. One could say that this is just part of postmodern culture – its toughness, its knowingness. But it is also something more specific: the heritage of Bob Fosse, who was Broadway’s foremost choreographer-director during the late sixties and the seventies.

On H.L. Mencken:

But the key to Mencken’s popularity was his prose. His writing crackled with “blue sparks”, as Joseph Conrad put it. His diction was something fantastic, a combination of American slang and a high, Latinate vocabulary that sounds as if it came from Dr. Johnson. That mix, of course, was part of his polemic, his belief that Americans should get smarter and dirtier, go high, go low. Often, he pushed the formula too hard. In my opinion, the long passage quoted above is overwrought. It is from one of Mencken’s many volumes of collected essays, in which he habitually jacked up what he had put more plainly in his daily writing. I like his daily writing better.

On Dorothy Parker:

Even after women began to make their way economically in twentieth-century culture, they were still left with an ages-old inheritance of emotional dependency, the thing that marriage and the family, having created, once ministered to and now did not. If in the old days women were enslaved by men, they nevertheless had legal claim on them. Now they had no legal claims, so all the force of their dependency was shifted to an emotional claim – love, a matter that men viewed differently from women. Hence Parker’s heroines, waiting by the phone, weeping, begging, hating themselves for begging. This is a story that is not over yet. Parker was one of the first writers to deal with it, and she addressed it in a new way. Because, it seems, she identified with the man as well as the woman, she saw these women from the outside as well as from within, heard the tiresome repetitiousness of their complaints, saw how their eyelids got pink and sticky when they cried. She did not feel sorry for them. They made her wince, and we wince as read the stories – for, burning with resentment though they are, they are even more emphatically a record of shame. Female shame is a big subject, and for its sake Parker should have been bigger, but she is what we have, and it’s not nothing.

On M.F.K. Fisher:

Then came an experience, seemingly benign, that did almost break her. In 1949, her mother died. Her father now needed someone to run his house, and Fisher, his oldest child, decided she should do it. For four years, she remained in Whittier – a conservative town where she no longer felt comfortable – cooking, cleaning, running around after her daughters, and watching her father, who was dying of pulmonary fibrosis, hawk up phlegm and spit it into the fireplace. She had no one to talk to. She began having spells of depression and, if I read her correctly, severe anxiety attacks. She began seeing a psychiatrist. During this whole period, she wrote next to nothing, apart from columns, including her father’s, for the Whittier News. (This was part of the deal. As long as she was there to help with the paper, he didn’t have to sell it, though he was far too old and sick to run it.) She stopped thinking of herself as a writer. Rather, as she wrote to Norah, she was “a genteel has-been now and then asked to speak ten minutes at an arty tea.” This state of mind continued long past her father’s death, in 1953. She who had published nine books in twelve years brought out not a single new book in the twelve years after she moved into her father’s house. Those who lament the dissolution of the American family – kids with no way to get to Girl Scouts, aging parents put into nursing homes – should remember what it was that kept the American family together: women’s blood.

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“I trust contrariness. I simply rebelled at being commanded.” — Seamus Heaney

Posted on April 13, 2025 by sheila

heaney_seamus

It’s his birthday today.

Jean and I went to visit Siobhan in Ireland. Siobhan was in school, so while she was in classes Jean and I rented a car and drove across the country to Galway, and other Western points. On the way, we pulled off the road to go visit Clonmacnoise, a crumbling monastery by a river. We had gone there as kids. It was November, so there was nobody there but us. We wandered around in the frosty air, along the slopes with tilting lichened Celtic crosses as tall as we were and taller. The river there is low, the ground merging into the water, so the sky is reflected in often dizzying and strange ways. It’s a magical place.

There is a legend about Clonmacnoise. During the medieval era, when it was a working monastery filled with monks, a ship floated by in the air. It stopped above the monastery while the monks were at prayer. The anchor was caught below, and a sailor slid down the rope to free it. He lay there, gasping. The monks helped him back up the rope, and the ship floated off in the air.

If you go to Clonmacnoise, and you see the effects of light and water and air – how up is down and down is up – you can see how such a legend would be born.

Or … maybe it’s not a legend at all. Maybe it really happened.

When I came home to the States, I told Dad about our trip to Ireland, and I mentioned our magical stop-off at Clonmacnoise and how good it was to see it again after all those years. I told him how quiet it was, and how, on that wintry day, it was easy to imagine a ship floating by in the air.

Dad got up and went to his bookshelf. He pulled down a book. He always knew exactly where the right book was. He flipped through it until he found what he wanted.

Then he read out loud to me Seamus Heaney’s stunning poem:

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,

A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
‘This man can’t bear our life here and will drown,’

The abbot said, ‘unless we help him.’ So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it.

Every collection of Seamus Heaney’s work that I own, the poems, the essays, were given to me by my father. When I read Heaney’s poems, I hear my Dad’s voice.

One of his most powerful poems:

Casualty

I

He would drink by himself
And raise a weathered thumb
Towards the high shelf,
Calling another rum
And blackcurrant, without
Having to raise his voice,
Or order a quick stout
By a lifting of the eyes
And a discreet dumb-show
Of pulling off the top;
At closing time would go
In waders and peaked cap
Into the showery dark,
A dole-kept breadwinner
But a natural for work.
I loved his whole manner,
Sure-footed but too sly,
His deadpan sidling tact,
His fisherman’s quick eye
And turned observant back.

Incomprehensible
To him, my other life.
Sometimes, on the high stool,
Too busy with his knife
At a tobacco plug
And not meeting my eye,
In the pause after a slug
He mentioned poetry.
We would be on our own
And, always politic
And shy of condescension,
I would manage by some trick
To switch the talk to eels
Or lore of the horse and cart
Or the Provisionals.

But my tentative art
His turned back watches too:
He was blown to bits
Out drinking in a curfew
Others obeyed, three nights
After they shot dead
The thirteen men in Derry.
PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,
BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday
Everyone held
His breath and trembled.

II

It was a day of cold
Raw silence, wind-blown
surplice and soutane:
Rained-on, flower-laden
Coffin after coffin
Seemed to float from the door
Of the packed cathedral
Like blossoms on slow water.
The common funeral
Unrolled its swaddling band,
Lapping, tightening
Till we were braced and bound
Like brothers in a ring.

But he would not be held
At home by his own crowd
Whatever threats were phoned,
Whatever black flags waved.
I see him as he turned
In that bombed offending place,
Remorse fused with terror
In his still knowable face,
His cornered outfaced stare
Blinding in the flash.

He had gone miles away
For he drank like a fish
Nightly, naturally
Swimming towards the lure
Of warm lit-up places,
The blurred mesh and murmur
Drifting among glasses
In the gregarious smoke.
How culpable was he
That last night when he broke
Our tribe’s complicity?
‘Now, you’re supposed to be
An educated man,’
I hear him say. ‘Puzzle me
The right answer to that one.’

III

I missed his funeral,
Those quiet walkers
And sideways talkers
Shoaling out of his lane
To the respectable
Purring of the hearse…
They move in equal pace
With the habitual
Slow consolation
Of a dawdling engine,
The line lifted, hand
Over fist, cold sunshine
On the water, the land
Banked under fog: that morning
I was taken in his boat,
The Screw purling, turning
Indolent fathoms white,
I tasted freedom with him.
To get out early, haul
Steadily off the bottom,
Dispraise the catch, and smile
As you find a rhythm
Working you, slow mile by mile,
Into your proper haunt
Somewhere, well out, beyond…

Dawn-sniffing revenant,
Plodder through midnight rain,
Question me again.

I love this piece on Seamus Heaney by Sven Birkets, written when Heaney died. Read the whole thing:

Auden wrote of the moment of Yeats’s death that ‘he became his admirers’, and I had the strongest feeling just then of what he meant. I conjured all at once, if this is possible, the idea, the emotional image, of all of those who knew and loved Seamus, or knew and loved his work — or both — and I felt inside the ghostly trace of a circuitry. That in this one moment all over the world, and of course most densely in Ireland, in Dublin, and most overwhelmingly on his own home ground in Sandymount, this same shock of incomprehension — not yet bereavement — was being registered. I pictured one person after another, dozens perhaps, and these were only the people who I knew who had a connection. Of course there were hundreds, many hundreds more.

When I drove down to the general store the next morning to get The New York Times and The Boston Globe, that sense was confirmed. There was massive front-page coverage everywhere — the biggest I’d ever seen for the death of a writer.

Here is Heaney’s first major poem. It is a declaration of self, of independence. Its words shiver with importance and newness, with the radical feeling of a young man carving out his own path. Dangerous, for reasons emotional, familial, cultural, political.

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground.
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

I went and heard Heaney read at NYU once. It was part of a poetry seminar, not a public lecture. I sat in the back. There weren’t that many people there, amazingly. It was the students and a couple of outsiders like me. He stood up front, with his white hair a wild nimbus around his head, and the way he spoke – the cadences but also his use of language – his storytelling gifts, his sense of seriousness but not lugubriousness, always leavened with a sense of humor … I went up afterwards and had him sign my copy of Opened Ground (given to me by Dad).

If you haven’t read it, take a moment – take 20 minutes – unplug – and read Heaney’s Nobel Prize Lecture.

Here are some of the things I’ve written about Heaney:

On his collection Death of a Naturalist.

On his collection Door Into the Dark.

On his collection Wintering Out.

On his collection North.

On his collection Oopened Ground.

I wrote a series of essays too, about his GORGEOUS essay collection The Redress of Poetry.

I miss him still.

“I wanted to deliver a work that could be read universally as the-thing-in-itself but that would also sustain those extensions of meaning that our disastrously complicated local predicament made both urgent and desirable.” — Seamus Heaney

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

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“I don’t think you go to a play to forget, or to a movie to be distracted. I think life generally is a distraction and that going to a movie is a way to get back, not go away.” — Tom Noonan

Posted on April 12, 2025 by sheila

Most well-known for playing supernatural-style “heavies” in movies such as Manhunter and Robocop 2, he got his start in the 1960s experimental theatre scene in New York City, and in many ways he’s never really left that scene. He established his theatre company in 1983, where he developed projects, produced plays, etc. That’s the background for his first feature film, a two-hander called What Happened Was… First developed as a play at his theatre company, where he and Karen Sillas played the two roles, he then shot it very soon after. What Happened Was… is one of the great films about loneliness (and that’s a very short list!)

In 2019 I wrote about What Happened Was… – in DEPTH – for my column at Film Comment.

What Happened Was… came out in 1994, won a couple of pretty big awards (at Sundance and elsewhere) and then lapsed into cultural obscurity mainly because it was never released on DVD. All that changed last year. Oscilloscope stepped in and supervised a restoration of the film, and then released it (virtually), with a DVD/Blu release following in June. More info here. I was tapped to write the booklet essay – not a repeat of the Film Comment piece, but another one. That’s included with the release.

And after THAT, I was honored to be asked to interview Karen and Tom for the Film Forum’s premiere (virtually) of the restored film. I’d been obsessed with this film and these two performances for 20+ years and I finally got to ask everything I wanted to ask. The walls/curtains DID change color over the course of the film. Oh my God!!

It’s been an exciting time to be a fan of the film! This whole thing was a major moment for me, as a critic – especially since it wasn’t my intention (consciously) to bring the film back into the public’s consciousness – or, no, I DID want to highlight this special film – but I had no ulterior motive. But it felt like the piece started a conversation that then led up to what happened next. In fact, Noonan himself told me my piece was a huge part of why the film returned and was restored. So I’m proud of that.

Tom Noonan’s career has been diverse and fascinating and What Happened Was… is just a small part of it, but this is an important film, one of my favorites, and I’m so excited to have lived long enough to watch it come back into the landscape, and be widely available so more people can discover it.

New Oscilloscope trailer for the film: the trailer back in 1994 made it look like a romantic comedy/erotic thriller – complete category errors. This is more like it:

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

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“If you don’t see the book you want on the shelves, write it.” — Beverly Cleary

Posted on April 12, 2025 by sheila

“I think children want to read about normal, everyday kids. That’s what I wanted to read about when I was growing up. I wanted to read about the sort of boys and girls that I knew in my neighborhood and in my school. And in my childhood, many years ago, children’s books seemed to be about English children, or pioneer children. And that wasn’t what I wanted to read. And I think children like to find themselves in books.” — Beverly Cleary

Beverly Cleary, beloved children’s author, died in 2021 at the venerable age of 104.

Like so many other children, then and now, Beverly Cleary’s books were huge to me growing up. I read all the “Ramona” books, and also all the “Henry” books. My favorite was Ramona Forever (I still remember that moment with the mirror – haven’t read the book since I was a child). It’s so touching to me to see my nieces and nephews also falling in love with her books.

The obit on NPR is really good and this part struck me:

In her autobiography, A Girl From Yamhill, she wrote about clamping around on tin can stilts and yelling “pieface!” at the neighbor. She was an only child, who grew up in Portland during the Depression and still remembered when her father lost his job.

“I was embarrassed,” she recalled. “I didn’t know how to talk to my father. I know he felt so terrible at that time that I just — I guess I felt equally terrible. And I think adults sometimes don’t think about how children are feeling about the adult problems.”

Cleary used her crystal-clear recall to capture the tribulations of young children exquisitely in her books.

What a fascinating and complicated memory, a child understanding the pain of her father, and absorbing the pain, but not knowing how to say “I know you’re hurting, Dad” because you are a child.

Cleary’s books are filled with insightful moments like that. In fact, when you read them as an older person, outside the realm of childhood, the adults start to take on more shape. You begin to see that THEY are having complicated full lives too.



One of the interesting things is the cross-generational aspect of this, at least in my family, but considering the tributes I’ve seen it’s true for others. She started publishing books for children in 1950. Long before I even arrived on the planet. But the Ramona and “Beezus” series were a staple of my childhood, and then down the line: I’d outgrow reading them and then my younger brother and sister would start them up and then they’d outgrow them and my youngest sister would start… Almost like a rite of passage. And now THEIR children love these books!

And now it’s so funny when my nieces start explaining Ramona to me, as though the books were published yesterday … I want to say “Believe me, kiddo, I know all about Ramona.” But of course I don’t because everyone has to discover those books for themselves.

Beverly Cleary started out as a librarian (so many writers begin this way and as a librarian’s daughter I am HERE for it), and she noticed a trend: little boys kept asking her where they could find books about boys – regular boys like themselves. There weren’t many out there (see the quote above), and so she decided to write one. She wrote Henry Huggins, which was published in 1950 and was an instant hit. People are still discovering this series and the Ramona series. It doesn’t matter that it takes place “back then”, because for a child it’s all the same stuff. Parents … friends … worries … problems … school … all seen through the perspectives of children trying to understand – or rebel against – the often incomprehensible behavior of adults. An eternal subject.

Cleary’s books have never gone out of print.

My niece is named Beatrice. Her little brother calls her “Beezus”. Beverly Cleary’s is a living legacy.

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

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