it-is-the-hannah

[it-is-the-hannah]

This is nice.

[it-is-the-hannah]

If you have a friend that wants to vent to you but doesn't want solutions but you are a solutions-oriented person, may I suggest Silly Solutions (TM)? For instance, whenever my friend complains about the people at her job being dumb, I remind her that if only one of us had studied engineering, we could create a giant hippo robot with laser eyes to destroy them. It fulfills my need to offer a solution, doesn't violate her boundary of not wanting to problem solve, AND it cheers us both up!

[it-is-the-hannah]

I saw a sign at a nearby village advertising a "veillée", a storytelling evening, which sounded intriguing, so I went out of curiosity—it turned out to be an old lady who had arranged a circle of chairs in her garden and prepared drinks, and who wanted to tell folk tales and stories from her youth. Apparently she was telling someone at the market the other day that she missed the ritual of the "veillée" from pre-television days, when people would gather in the evening and tell stories, and the people she was talking to were like, well let's do a veillée! And then she put up the sign.

About 15 people came, and she sat down and started telling us stories—I loved the way she made everything sound like it had happened just yesterday and she was there, even tales she'd got from her grandmother, and the way she continually assumed we knew all the people she mentioned, and everyone spontaneously played along; she'd be like "And Martin, the bonesetter—you know Martin," (everyone nods—of course, Martin) "We never liked him much" and everyone nodded harder, our collective distaste for Martin now a shared cultural heritage of our tiny microcosm. She started with telling us the story of the communal bread oven in the village. The original oven was built right after the Revolution; before that, people had to pay to use the local aristocrat's oven, but of course around 1789 both the aristocrat and his oven were disposed of in a glorious blaze of liberty, equality, and complete lack of foresight.

Then the villagers felt really daft for having destroyed a perfectly serviceable oven that they could have now started using for free. "But you know what things were like during the revolution." (Everyone nodded sagely—who among us hasn't demolished our one and only source of bread-baking equipment in a fit of revolutionary zeal?)

The village didn't have a bread oven for decades, people travelled to another village to make bread; and then in the 19th century the village council finally voted to build a new oven. It was a communal endeavour, everyone pitched in with some stones or tools or labour, and the oven was built—but it collapsed immediately after the construction was finished. Consternation. Not to be deterred, people re-built the oven, with even more effort and care—and the second one also collapsed.

People realised that something was amiss, and the village council convened. After a lot of serious discussion, during which no one so much as mentioned the possibility of a structural flaw, people reached the only logical conclusion: the drac had sabotaged their oven. Twice. (The drac, in these parts, is the son of the devil.) The logic here, I suppose, was that no one but the devil's own child would dare to stand between French people and their bread.

The next step was even more obvious: they passed around a hat to raise money, assuming the devil’s son was after a cash donation. But (and I'm skipping a few twists and turns of the story here) the son of the devil did not want money, he wanted half of every batch of bread, for as long as the village oven stood. Consternation.

People simply could not afford to give away half of their bread, and were about to abandon the idea of having their own oven altogether—but then Saint Peter came to the rescue. (In case you didn't know, Saint Peter happens to regularly visit this one tiny village in the French countryside to check that its inhabitants are doing okay and are not encountering oven issues.) Saint Peter reminded them of one precious piece of information they had overlooked: holy water burns the devil.

People re-built the oven, for the third time. The son of the devil returned, to destroy it and/or claim his half of the first batch—but on that day, the villagers had organised a grand communal spring cleaning, dousing every street and alley in the village with copious amounts of holy water. The poor drac simply could not access the oven; every possible path scorched his feet for reasons he couldn't quite explain. So he was standing there, smouldering gently and wondering what was going on, when some passing tramp seemed to take pity on him, pointed at his satchel and told him to turn himself into a rat and jump in there, and the tramp would carry him where he wished to go. The devil's son, probably a bit frazzled at this point, agreed without much thought, became a rat and jumped in the satchel, and of course that's the point when everyone in the village sprang from the shadows, wielding sticks, shovels, pans, and started beating the devil's son senseless. (Old lady, calmly: "You could hear his bones crack.") So the son of Satan slithered back to Hell and never returned to destroy the village oven again—and the spring cleaning tradition endured; the streets were washed with holy water once a year after that, both to commemorate this glorious day of civic resistance when the village absolutely bodied the devil's offspring and to maintain basic oven safety standards. (Old lady: "But we don't bother anymore… That's too bad.")

She told us five stories, most of them artfully blending actual local events or anecdotes from her youth with folk tale elements, it was so delightful. She thanked us for coming and said she'd love to do this again sometime. I went home reflecting that listening to an old lady happily tell stories of dubious historical veracity involving the Revolution, property damage, demonic mischief and baffling municipal decision-making is literally my ideal Saturday night activity.

[it-is-the-hannah]

[it-is-the-hannah]

Kinda in love with the idea that different places on other sides of the world can look so similar. Something something universal human experiences

[it-is-the-hannah]

This song has single-handedly taken over my life and it’s only been like a week

[it-is-the-hannah]

clark shouting "people were going to DIE" in the face of the "think of the consequences of your actions" argument is so fucking important to me bc it really IS that simple you can't look at a genocide and just twiddler your thumbs bc you're a afraid of the consequences ESPECIALLY when you can do something about it and THATS WHAT CLARK DID. WITHOUT HESITATION. WITHOUT CONSIDERING HOW IT COULD HURT HIM. bc hes a good person and in his brain its really just people were going to die so i had to step in bc what else would it be. superman i love you i love you i love you

[it-is-the-hannah]

YOUR EMAIL FINDS ME ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE

[it-is-the-hannah]

Sooooo few people are actually willing to defend the basic human rights of people who have committed crimes. Like I know it's not fun but if you genuinely believe in human rights as a concept you can't be okay with the state violating them in prisons I'm sorrrrry. Having moral principles is not always a fun time.

[it-is-the-hannah]

I understand the appeal of wanting every adult hero to instinctively adopt teenage Peter Parker, but can it really beat the hilarity of acknowledging that at 15 Peter was 5'10", unusually buff, went by a moniker with Man in it, wore a creepy full face mask, and had a tightly guarded secret identity and probably a Queens accent thick enough to have come out of a jello mold, and adult heroes reasonably responded to him by going, “Wow, this grown man is an immature asshole for no reason.”

[it-is-the-hannah]

Parents are for telling their children who they're supposed to be. We're here to give you tools, to help you make fools of yourselves, all on your own. Your choices, Clark. Your actions. That's what makes you who you are. Tell you something, son. I couldn't be… more proud of you.

[it-is-the-hannah]

I absolutely adore how normal Clark's parents looked so normal. I realize the ideal of them is a strong farmer and his wife and that might be a beautiful older woman and her sturdy handsome husband. Nothing wrong with that. But Martha and Jonathan Kent in this movie were the kind of older couple I'd see at the grocery store in my own small-town. The kind of people at the community hall and auction grounds picking up hay bales for the cattle.

They were warm and just so normal it almost surprises you. They also don't resemble Clark at all which I think is important in driving home the fact that they aren't his biological parents. He stands out amongst them it's so clear he's different and special even. And my god do they love him.

The way they call for him and sit on a rusty bench outside the creaky screen door. That feels like home to me having grown up on the prairies. How authentic they feel only grounds Clark even more. It feels less like a dream or idea of a perfect farm family and is more two people who tried their best and will bake apple pie with calloused hands full of love

[it-is-the-hannah]

absolute menace but still such a good boy :')))

[it-is-the-hannah]

god this movie was so amazing

[it-is-the-hannah]

Guys do you think she’s excited

[it-is-the-hannah]

omg its krypto the superdog and uhhh some random guy from the daily planet or whatever?