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I have a pet theory that a recurring theme in media created by trans people, or at least by trans women, is self reflection. We can parse through that another time, but Matrix Resurrections is very much the product of a self reflective trans woman. Much of the first half of the film explores binary dualities. Free will/Determinism. Life/Death. Male/Female. However, about halfway through, after teasing it plenty, it explodes those binaries into hundreds of shades of gray, and even makes fun of you for thinking this was just about red and blue pills. Matrix Resurrections isn't really the fourth chapter of The Matrix, or even really a Matrix movie. To me, it's a movie about The Matrix (this will make more sense after you watch it). It's not secret that this film has been pretty polarizing. It's made a lot of long time fans, VERY mad. The amazing thing is, the film knows that it's going to make people mad. It knows exactly who it's going to make made. It's astonishing how much this film knows exactly what the audience will be thinking next, both as an expression of leading us on a journey, and as a flex for Lana Wachowski to say, "I know more about my movies than you ever will" It would be tempting, I imagine, to make a total middle finger for the run time of the film. The Wachowskis have dealt with a torrent of mudslinging during their careers for all sorts of things and in some parts, the film does make it abundantly clear, how much people have hurt them. But what I really love, like with the infamous rave scene of Reloaded, is that the film never loses sight of who the art is for. Director Wachowski assures herself that she's come a long way, commends the next generation of rebellion for how strong they are,  and ends the film with an image of two people unabashedly smiling. 

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I was talking with my friend and I mentioned how I've never gotten butterflies from someone I'm see and she was kind of shocked because she can't imagine not getting butterflies for someone she's seeing as it's one of the main ways she knows she really likes someone. I think the reason why comes down to how we frame attraction and relationship dynamics. By my own admission, I'm not particularly discerning when it comes to partners so I've never really had a situation in which someone was trying to woo me and I had the giddy butterflies that come when someone you like also likes you. On the flip side, she's never experienced the feeling of "showing off" her partner (a term I'm not crazy about but w/e). She's never had a time where she was walking around with her partner and has the air of inspiring a bit of envy in those around them. Having said that, she's not super concerned with missing out because she much prefers to be shown off, which she is plenty. Now don't get me wrong, I've gotten giddy before. Trust me, I've experienced the rush and flutter that can come from a romantic encounter, but the butterflies that come from the beginnings of a honeymoon phase are something I've never experienced. What I find a little more shocking honestly, is how little effort some people put into inspiring butterflies in their partners. I've given butterflies to others, often incidentally, but also intentionally. A lot of it comes from small things, like good morning texts and showing enthusiasm on dates, and all the other schmaltz you'd expect. What's strange to me, is talking to people who it just never occurs to do those same things. They'll be sweet, but it often comes from a place of reciprocating, rather than initiating. They'll respond to a good morning text, but they won't send one. They'll respond to enthusiasm, but they won't initiate it. Again, these are all pretty base observations about how heteronormativity defines so many of us, so none of this is particularly groundbreaking insight, but I find it strange how much it can manifest as literal and overt ignorance towards showing attraction and excitement.

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Part of what really bothers me about The Office is that it's a really cynical "us vs them" found family type of story that rings really hollow to me. A lot of what I see people love about The Office is sort of the same stuff they love about those Bon Appetit Test Kitchen videos or other youtubers that they project a lot of feelings onto. This idea of "we're a family and the world might suck but we're just a quirky bunch of guys that get into hijinks" that never really lands for me because I get the vibe that the show insincerely pretends that I'm its friend. Lots of sitcoms do that (and I dislike lots of sitcoms) but I think the problem is especially egregious in The Office because the mockumentary format lends a greater sense of "intimacy" with the characters that I don't want to have with them.

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ai generated art with prompt “epcot”

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ive been crying on and off and unable to sleep for about two and a half months now. its pretty embarrassing that i let it get to me so much. a lot of my friends have been annoyed that im still going on about such a small thing, especially since they warned me that i had it coming. im sorry i didnt listen guys. . i dont know if i miss my ex. i miss the way they treated me, sometimes. i havent really had the privilige of how they treated me before or since. i think it comes with the territory, what they did. two ends of the spectrum. i tried to invite them back but they ignore me (which was kinda surprising tbh). i think id have a panic attack if i saw them. . early on they said that they loved my hair and they loved spooning me because then theyd get to be so close to my hair. sometimes we would wash each others hair in the shower. one time i felt so ugly that my hands were shaking and i couldnt button my shirt. they did the buttons for me. i wrote a script about it. . i still stare at the spot on the wall they held me against sometimes. its not hard to look at but sometimes i stop and look at it. i dont like using facetime any more now. im scared people will tell me to take off my clothes. stupid but its still on the back of my mind and i like skype better

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"Hey whole_dip! I heard disney doesn't let people vote?"

Well, kinda. See, Walt Disney World is big. Like, really big. It's the size of the city of San Francisco. And, while we may say it's in Orlando, it's actually in the city of Lake Buena Vista, a city that's run by the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Long story short, one of the main factors in why Walt Disney World is able to operate as efficiently and smoothly as it does, is because they own a large enough amount of land to build everything they need, as well as have a buffer between their infrastructure, and everything outside of the property. This means that they can do their fireworks as late as they want and no one will complain about sound or light. Or they they can build access roads and don't have to worry about someone's house being in the way. Why do they want this level of control? Well first off, who doesn't want that amount of control? Second, Disneyland doesn't have that amount of control, and it's a huge pain in the ass. Anaheim residents can tell you that it's a nuisance to have fireworks going off late and every so often local politicians run on anti-disney platforms. While it's smoother now, there have been times where Disneyland construction projects needed to be improved. Why? Because behind Disneyland are people's houses. Schools. People who don't necessarily want to live that close behind a theme park. You don't have that problem in Walt Disney World because there's no residents there. Or are there? Actually, there are a little under 50 residents who live within the Reedy Creek Improvement District's two cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista. These people work for Walt Disney World's construction projects and also run the governing councils. Their meetings are quick, nearly every vote is unanimous. All residents get free admission to the parks, not to bribe their loyalty, but because employees already get in for free. Allegedly though, they also get free admission for their family. These people are typically well aware of construction plans. They're not being forced to vote for things they don't know about, they're voting to approve their own projects. While this does bring up thorny questions about land ownership and the ways in which our corporate overlords might take over the world and our lives, I don't think this is a particularly good example of that. The Walt Disney Company has other aspects that are far closer to paying employees with scrip than this. Ever heard about the college program? To me, this is much more of an interesting quirk of running a vacation resort that's twice the size of Manhattan. "But what about EPCOT?" Here's the thing about Progress City. The only version of it that we really know about it is a blue sky plan. It's the version developed with infinite money, perfect cooperation, and no planning hiccups. Obviously, the next phase of that would be editing it to be something that's actually feasible. Upon considering the plans, many such issues become apparent, as they should. As someone outside the project, you should come up with objections that the designers would then have to address as part of the creative back and forth of developing the futuristic city of tomorrow. One such issue was residency. Namely, that residents wouldn't be able to vote on how the city should be run. This is true. The reason this is true, is because no one would be a permanent resident. You wouldn't be allowed to live there even if you wanted to. Progress City was to be operated by the Reedy Creek Improvement District in conjunction with multiple technology and engineering companies as a large scale, cooperative campus where employees would reside for long term projects that required them to live on site. It would be a showcase for how providing housing and infrastructure for employees would make it easier for them to develop projects that demanded more time and resources than before. It was also to be a showcase for how to solve traffic but that's another story. The idea was, that employees would be hired on for a long term project, one that would take a few years, and live in Progress City as they worked on it, moving out once complete. Employees would be well aware of the deal; it wasn't a secret. At the same time though, this still encourages a toxic attitude of living where you work. That I fully agree with. But again, this was in the blue sky period and the concept of a residential block on an engineering campus was not uncommon then, or even necessarily now. It would get developed over time into the laid back workplace style that we see in tech companies like Google, where the principle is to provide a welcoming environment that fosters social interactions and comfort so as to better support employees when working. Even that has issues abound, but thew way we talk about the reality of Google's workplace versus the blue sky Progress City is wildly different, and I think they shouldn't be.

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Some bathrooms at disney world that I feel a personal connection to

Magic Kingdom

The Tomorrowland Terrace bathrooms are on a path not as commonly used and are often not busy. The Tomorrowland music greets you in this quiet haven. Late at night after the fireworks I can go here and feel like I'm the only person in the whole park.

The Main Street Fire Station bathrooms are usually a fair bit busier but it's large enough that you don't have to wait. I like the red bricks.

EPCOT

The bathrooms on the western side of Spaceship Earth are usually pretty busy. You'll have to wait a few seconds before a spot is available to you. It's usually the first thing I do when I visit EPCOT and the music helps me transition away from a driving mindset while I think of what food I want to try first.

The American Adventure bathroom is massive and has a very good position at the far back of the park. I like the wood paneling here. It often feels very fancy.

Hollywood Studios

Gonzo's Royal Flush is usually pretty calm. I often go here after finding out that Pizzerizzo is closed. It's very good for planning the second half of my day.

The bathroom by the entrance to Fantasmic is small and one of the dirtiest on property, but if I'm there it means I'm going to be seeing Fantasmic in two hours so it makes me happy.

Animal Kingdom Okay so weirdly enough I've only used the bathrooms here like three times so I can't say anything.

Disney Springs

The bathrooms by Frontera Cocina are often the last bathroom I visit before heading back home. It's a place to decompress and reflect on my fun day and try to figure out how much I overspent.

The bathroom by the Art of Disney store is where I got to make tough decisions. There will often be an expensive piece next door that I'm torn on. After some time in there, If I still want it when I walk out that means I'm gonna get it. Hasn't failed me yet.

Hotels

The bathroom in the lobby of the Contemporary Resort is one of the fanciest bathrooms I've ever been to. The paper towels were on a tray and they were as thick as cloth. I almost took some home as a souvenir. I felt very welcome by that bathroom before checking in.

The lobby bathroom of the All Star Sports Resort was one I went to when I had to wake up very early for a special tour at Animal Kingdom. It was chilly that morning and there was a security guard chatting with the front desk attendant. The sun hadn't risen yet. It was a pleasant morning.

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One of the things I've always thought to be really well done was how Lilo & Stitch used the orphan card in its story. While I don't think any disney movie starts with a checklist of tropes and stock elements that have to be implemented (That's after the first draft. I'm looking at you Mushu), most disney movies do have dead or nonexistent parental figures for one reason or another in their story. Most of the time this is pretty inconsequential and has next to no bearing on the characters. Overcoming the grief she as for her late mother is not one of Cinderella's main arcs. Lilo & Stitch does a fantastic job of really showing the weight of that for both Lilo and Nani. Their parents are dead and they weren't ready for it; they still aren't. In almost every scene you can feel the weight of this in the characters and at the same time the movie doesn't get bogged down. Disney isn't a very subtle company when it comes to narrative themes and this movies easily could have been a slog of constantly hammering home, "LIFE IS SO HAAAAARD FOR THEM WITH DEAD PARENTS DEEEEAAAAAADDD" and yet it doesn't.

  I like this movie.

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Last night I dreamt I was staying in an old church for a few nights. A friend had converted it into a diner and asked me to watch it for a few nights while I traveled across the country. At night, while I was getting ready for bed in one of the booths, I saw a man watching me through one of the windows. Each night he would watch me, changing which window so I could never know where he was. Sometimes he would try to come inside but I wouldn't let him. He'd get mad, insisting he just wanted to watch.

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My Trip to Omega Mart

Opened in 2021, Omega Mart is an immersive art experience that utilizes numerous artistic mediums to tell a layered and thematically rich story to guests. A story that actively involves the guest in various different ways, challenging their sense of physical space, as well as eliciting questions of consumerism, family, love, and even the nature human connection. This story is told within a massive space comprised of roughly four main physical spaces, each with their own smaller spaces wherein guests may engage with physical media to the level of their interest. Omega Mart was developed by an artist collective known as Meow Wolf, a group formed in 2008 that specializes in immersive art experiences that are often referred to as psychedelic, dreamlike environments. Previous works include The Due Return, an immersive art experience depicting an alien ship that travels through time, The House of Eternal Return, an immersive experience showcasing a house that seemingly exists in multiple dimensions, and various other immersive art experiences across the country. I visited Omega Mart, located in Las Vegas, recently and this piece will focus on my visit. Please keep in mind that Omega Mart is often updated in small ways and some of my account may not totally reflect your visit, be it in the past or future. Along with that, I will be going into great detail about my experience and if you plan to visit Omega Mart with no prior knowledge, you may not want to read this until after you visit.

 Omega Mart, is located within Area 15, an immersive art space located near the Las Vegas strip. As you enter, you’ll find yourself in massive blacklit warehouse that’s a sort of psychedelic mall. Individual kiosks show glow in the dark shirts and various other rave theme toys. To the left, lies the massive front entrance of Omega Mart. Flanking the entrance are walls with various advertisements for Dramcorp products that you’ll find inside. The entrance itself takes the form of an omega symbol, the central arch being a sort of portal inside. Once you enter, you find yourself inside, where else, Omega Mart. All around you are neatly organize aisles of typical products like cereal, household cleaners, salt and spices, like any other mall. The produce section lies to your left, meats to your right. A bluish glow from the fluorescent lights above gives the same sense of blah that you’d find in superstores like Wal Mart; inoffensive smooth jazz warbles out from speakers above you. It’s all drab and expected, until you pay closer attention. The products are all hilariously surreal, and there are truly hundreds of them on the fully stocked shelves. You’ll find cans of tattooed chicken, bottles of gender fluid, even zalg “America’s forgotten vegetable!” As you inspect the items their enticing labels show something more sinister going on. Most continue the absurd humor but a few seem to break brand style and urge you, beg you, to wake up from what you’re doing, to run away from where you are, to get back to reality, if it even exists any more. At times, the music will seemingly forget its place and skip incessantly as it repeats the same few seconds of music over and over to a maddening degree, only to go back to normal as though nothing happened. At other times, we hear Walter Dram, former CEO and founder of Omega Mart, and parent company Dramcorp, talk through the speakers. He’s exhausted, coughing and barely able to speak, halfheartedly assuring us that Omega Mart is the best supermarket in the universe, the he is Omega Mart, Omega Mart is him. He almost stumbles over his words, telling us about savings and being endlessly lost in the store. This story continues in the produce section, where on video, Walter advertises Omega Mart’s Valley of Plenty in-store brand. There, he, along with daughter Cecelia (heir apparent to Omega Mart and Dramcorp), showcase the incredible fruits and vegetables available for sale. He describes how he found the valley of plenty and admired the hard working local farmers as, taking the opportunity to share the fruits of their labor with the world. Just as the promo video ends, Walter drops his commercial persona and turns into his true exhausted self. He asks if he has to do it again. Cecelia reminds him that it’s his job, that soon she’ll take his place and that for now it is his duty to work. Walter sighs, resigned to his fate. Moments later, the commercial begins again, Walter repeats his spiel.

 As you explore, you��ll find various hideaways that take you to different locations. One such vestibule is the janitor’s closet, which houses nightmarish creatures made from brooms and mops. Their wood handle necks twist around and their fringed rag tails drip with glowing slime. Once you pass through, you enter the Dramcorp factory floor. Unlike the clean(ish) plastic of Omega Mart, the factory is a metallic horror of purplish browns, machines groan all around you as vile liquids ooze through pipes. On the floor above lies Dramcorp’s corporate offices with ominous glows seeping out from its closed doors. Here in the factory, you learn that Dramcorp has been utilizing something called, “Source” to develop and manufacture new products. Omega Mart itself is somehow fully infused with the dreamy, psychotropic qualities of source, but Dramcorp has refined it to make products addicting on a spiritual level. In one hidden corner we find a glowing orb that once was Walter Dram. He laments about his greed and how he went too far in his pursuit of profit. Now, his daughter Cecelia runs Dramcorp and he can only watch as she continues to be woman he raised her to be. Throughout the factory you’ll see that the refinement process is messy and various factory machinery are in disarray as employees try to clean up emotional messes and bliss outbreaks. Signs warn you of rooms with giant bugs or maddening corridors. In another corner, a particularly broken machine is spilling source runoff as a river out of the factory and into Seven Monolith Village.

 Seven Monolith Village is a small valley community in the Nevada desert where Dramcorp’s source runoff pools. Here, the psychedelic energy of the source has transformed the sleepy town into a living Alex Gray painting. The sun bleached rocks crack open with bright colored lines and massive desert wildlife like wolves and snakes now glow in fractal patterns. Giant humanoids made of pure energy slowly appear around you, only to disappear from our plane of existence moments later. Exploring the village leads us to find that the town has been ravaged by Dramcorp’s pollution and is near uninhabitable. One of the few people left Charlie Dram, owner of the local gas station and estranged brother of Walter. In his small gas station, we see that Charlie has begun a new business of collecting source runoff and selling it as a sort of psychedelic elixir. His phone regularly rings with calls from regular customers looking to make purchases from Charlie, many of them Dramcorp employees looking for an escape from their corporate lives.

 Next door to Charlie is a small shack that’s home to Marin Dram, grandniece of Charlie and daughter of Cecelia Dram. Looking through her room we learn her story. Years ago, Cecelia, along with her father Walter, discovered the original, raw source, a remnant of ancient visitors to our Earth from a parallel dimension. Drinking of that well, Cecelia and Walter discovered receive a divine vision for how to make Omega Mart the most profitable supermarket in the multiverse. From there, they tirelessly worked to study the source, finding that it is the wellspring from which all life emerged and all ideas come from. With this knowledge, they developed Omega Mart’s products as addicting and powerfully satisfying. Along with that however, came Marin, an immaculate conception born of both Cecelia and source, with strange abilities unseen by anyone before. Marin was raised by Charlie while her mother was busy running the company, but Cecelia began taking an interest in Marin and the potential for her to lead Dramcorp and Omega Mart into a new age of even greater prosperity. Pushed too far by her mother’s need to groom her into the next CEO, Marin opened a portal and fled our world for somewhere else, and everyone has been looking for her since. The only remains of Marin are lingering projections of her dreams, surreal music videos of being tormented by her mother, teen heartbreak, and visitations from ethereal beings. Now, all of Seven Monolith Village and Dramcorp alike are searching for Marin, to save her, or use her.

 Nearby in another home within 7MV you are drafted into the fight against Dramcorp by an anarchist group fighting against the capitalist propaganda and the abuse against human lives, as well as the earth itself. You must venture back into Omega Mart, as well as Dramcorp’s factory, and hack into their systems before you finally enter the corporate offices.

 Dramcorp’s offices are a nightmarish cavern of cubicles, computers, and offices. The executive portraits have haunting smiles and smoke billows from all around as lights flash in strange patterns. Behind each test facility door are horrific sounds and lights. Each office tells a small story of business drones that work tirelessly in hopes of one day ascending into management nirvana where they will exist fully with the company. All the while, employees drown themselves in the very same poisonous runoff elixirs that they sell in the store downstairs. After hacking into all three branches of Dramcorp’s reach, my involvement with Meow Wolf’s story was complete, though I suspect more is yet to come were I to visit again in the future.

 Omega Mart is rich with themes that comment on capitalism, spirituality, emotional relationships, and much more. The biggest difficulty that has always pervaded immersive art experiences, even those that can be found at theme parks like Walt Disney World, is the difficulty in having thematic density when the audience is not guaranteed to be interacting with the art as intended. While other mediums have the benefit of standardized ways to consume them such as film or literature, immersive art spaces have no set path in which the guest should traverse the space, nor even the guarantee that guests will be able to have the time to interact with the art in ways sufficient of fully understanding the plot. Because of this, many immersive experiences rely on using a heavier hand with its themes and utilizing narrative devices that directly speak to the audience. Commonly, this comes in the form of narration that speaks directly to the audience. Meow Wolf however, takes the risk of the audience not being able to experience the story in the event that they miss key elements. Meow Wolf mitigates this by making it clear through the use of electronic media and hiding certain show elements that guests should be in somewhat of a scavenger hunt mindset. While most of the guests I noticed on my visit had no prior knowledge of their Omega Mart experience involving a story, it was very clear upon entering to everyone that a major aspect of their visit would be interacting with the story should they choose. Meow Wolf themselves have stated that they look to make their stories accessible to all people on the level of the audience’s choosing. A visitor to Omega Mart would not feel ripped off by having not experienced the full story, but rather someone might feel as though their ticket gained value for having fully experienced the depth of Omega Mart’s characters and world.

 Even so, there is still a challenge when designing the story that comes with the nature of the medium of immersive art. Truly, there is no one specific art form that takes center stage here. Each room in Omega Mart could potentially involved artistic use of light, sound (musical and practical), wood work, print design, sculpture, painting, writing, and much more. The challenge in designing Omega Mart is to not only make individual pieces of art that resonate with the audience, but to bring them together within a space that is narratively cohesive rather than just a series of interesting things in a large room. Meow Wolf’s artists were able to pull that off. A common example of that level of connectivity is the referential nature of each space, details in one room would be seen in other rooms, often with new contexts and plot information that would provide greater thematic depth. Many of the humorous gag items available in the grocery store’s aisles could also be found in Dramcorp’s development offices where they could be viewed not as the silly puns you originally saw them as, but now as cynical totems designed on a molecular level to be addicting to consumers. Even more than that, the overall story itself would only be possible by intricately weaving a story throughout the space in a way that guests could understand how each room referenced the other together to create the whole. The end result being an experience in which guests can fully feel as though they visited specific places, met complex individuals, and had meaningful interactions, all of which I did during my trip.

 One of my biggest concerns before visiting was that Omega Mart’s story would be told in a way that said overarching ideas that were ultimately hollow. I dreaded that the only message Meow Wolf would leave me with is the trite “Corporation Bad” that so many hollow pieces of art tout. While a far more nuanced anticapitalism message is a major theme of Omega Mart, the story itself smartly anchors itself within the story Marin Dram. Marin’s story is one that I personally found to be profoundly relatable. The echoing dream in her bedroom mirror has stuck with me for days after my visit, along with the incredibly vaginal nightmare in a nook nearby. Marin’s story reflects each of the themes of Omega Mart’s message, that of feeling used by other, tied between two worlds, and the commodification of bodies for the sake of industry. There is a terrible sadness that I felt in my core as Marin cried at the school dance, only moments later to be covered in milk and cereal by her mother in some feeble attempt to become one with the family business. More than that, the Dramcorp, and the Dram family’s Cecelia and Walter themselves, tout plastic products as the quick fix solution to loneliness. We’re urged to question how we fill our own emptiness with products, or even how we use others as a means to an end. Walter and Cecelia use and consume their loved ones for their goals in much the same way Omega Mart’s customers are primed to use ridiculous products. There is a sadness to the way Cecelia can only connect to others through consumption. She can only connect to her daughter by offering products, she puts her father in the source well to be consumed by the store, ultimately she’ll be consumed herself by whomever is her successor as CEO. Everything in Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart experience is punctuated by the ways they can be balled up in put into your mouth for digestion.

 As an aside, I am somewhat disappointed in how prevalent the discussion of Omega Mart’s lore is both at the experience and online. Much of the discussion’s online is primarily about dissecting the origin of the source, the details of dark nula and light nula, and various other inconsequential details related to the world that props up the thematic meat of Omega Mart. Omega Mart, while not bashing the audience with its message, is not particularly subtle with what it wants to say. It is abundantly clear that Omega Mart’s messages of anticapitalism and reverence for emotional connection are the intended takeaways. One of the biggest drawbacks in how Omega Mart tells its story is the moments in which, typically on phones, the audience is given a neat summary on everything in the story so far. This is very much a personal gripe.

 Omega Mart’s most prominent medium is perhaps space itself. The uniting factor in every individual piece of art that makes up the whole is the unification of space itself, and the clear delineation of crossing the threshold from space that is wholly not Omega Mart, into a space that wholly is. Within that space, Omega Mart’s guests will find themselves walking, climbing, crawling, and even sliding at they traverse the location. We see this create transitionary vestibules like the janitor’s closet from earlier, but also a space bending soda freezer or even a staircase from the store to the offices that has the numbing drone of music fade into haunting groans with each step. As guests traverse the space they also find themselves crossing paths with staff and other guests, all of which flesh out Omega Mart just by the vary nature of being there together. Guests will find themselves falling back into the same patterns and habits they exhibit when visiting real grocery stores, struggling to pass each other in cramped aisles, knocking baskets accidentally and apologizing, all the motions of a grocery store, but none of the actual purposeful substance of visiting a normal grocery store. This contrasts with the purposeful halts guests will make when experiencing the dreams in Marin’s room, stopped and fully enraptured by a story beat. While Omega Mart as an experience is easily considered hard to describe, the actions guests take while there, reading, talking on the phone, navigating a blog, walking up stair, are all deceptively simple.

 However, this comes at a cost. Omega Mart, like much of Meow Wolf’s previous work, is not particularly accessible to many different types of people. The House of Eternal Return has been criticized in the past for not being wheelchair accessible. Omega Mart remedies this by always having multiple ways to access new areas including wide open pathways and an elevator, but the thrill of tunnels, rock climbing, and narrow passages are impossible to experience. Really, anyone who is not able bodied and below a certain size will have challenges when experiencing Omega Mart. Not only that, Omega Mart’s usage of the full emotional spectrum means that some experiences, specifically those that utilize sensory overload to intentionally elicit anxiety in guests, would be almost impossible for many neurodivergent guests, or just guests with sensory difficulties. None of the main experiences and plot requires guests to directly engage with intense rooms or inaccessible spaces, but there still might be a disappointment in some guests when finding that they are unable to fully experience every inch of Omega Mart.

 Meow Wolf has been around since 2008, but beginning with the opening of House of Eternal Return in 2016, Meow Wolf has exploded in popularity and is noted by the theme park industry as a group to watch. House of Eternal Return even received an award for outstanding achievement by the Themed Entertainment Association, one of the industry’s highest honors. While many people are oblivious to the small movements within the themed entertainment industry, the larger pushes done by groups like Disney and Universal do get noticed by the general vacationing public. Some have noted that what Meow Wolf is doing today, could in fact be what Disney is doing a few years from now. Meow Wolf’s principles could be most applicable in the upcoming Galactic Starcruiser experience that also promises to be similarly immersive and engaging to guests. More than that, Meow Wolf does consider their work to be made for the general public rather than niche crowds of art lovers and theme park fans. This is clearly evidenced by how many guests I saw at Omega Mart surprised to find out there was a story at play, some of which actively chose to not engage with in out of disinterest. One does wonder if a version of Meow Wolf’s immersive experiences, bigger than an escape room but not quite EPCOT, that tells a complex story with characters and themes, could be common relatively common place for most people to visit. Meow Wolf is wholly unique in their execution, but spaces of play, even for adults, aren’t. At the same time, while Dave and Buster’s and barcades may be popular, how likely is it that middle class office workers would clock out and head to something like Omega Mart? Even beyond that, Meow Wolf actively updates their experiences in various ways and their website encourage guests to visit at least once a year. I certainly would not be opposed to visiting again in a year, but the experience would be less akin to going on a rollercoaster a second time and more like rewatching a movie. I can’t see typical socialization, small talk and the like, occurring in a place like Omega Mart.

 Ultimately, Omega Mart sets out to, and very much does, create a thematically rich experience that is truly mind bending and challenges the ways we consider our traversal of space, and our connections with others. While everyone will likely come out with a different experience to varying levels of intensity, I personally found my trip to be one of the most spiritually intense experiences of my life, one that drastically made me rethink my relationship to others, as well as to myself. I don’t think visiting Omega Mart should require pre and post consultation with a therapist, but I do encourage guests to be prepared to have at least one of their ideas about the world to be radically challenged. Time will tell if Meow Wolf’s continued work in the world of immersive art experiences is sustainable with an audience, but for now Omega Mart is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before and afterwards you may find yourself to be unlike you were when you entered.

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A longer post about this is coming soon, but recently I've been overwhelmed with anxiety and discomfort about the ways in which I've commodified my body for the approval of others. I just got out, as in literally yesterday I just got out of a relationship that had been wheezing its dying breaths for over a month, though my partner was none the wiser because of the dynamic in our relationship. I've recently grown aware of the lack of agency I have over my body, both directly and indirectly and how so often in my life I've allowed myself to be consumed by others as a way to get what I want, namely approval and short term emotional intimacy. It's no secret that I have very particular views on the nature of approval and social viability of appeal. I think I might pretty clear how much I think the approval of others is important and why I think that. I'm not open to debating it. But more recently I found myself in a relationship in which the dynamic caused an expectation for me to be sexually available on demand, something that I'd been in before no problem. I've been told by others that I don't really express a "respect" for my body but if I'm being completely honest, I don't really have a concept of what that would even look like. I don't see myself as having a body to respect or even have a relationship. My body is merely a vessel in which I command and it obeys, only creaking in discomfort on the off chance that I succumb to hunger or thirst. What shocked me recently was to discover that my body had been lying dormant for years and now was rearing its head at those that wanted to consume my body, and even at myself for letting it be consumed at all. I find myself overwhelmed, sobbing and shaking, at the same cold and emotionless sex I would perform with no problem just mere months ago. I am horrified at how little my body has been listening to me as it acts in ways that I can only interpret as self preservation. I am disgusted at how much my body dares to defy me, its master. I have never been particularly interested in sex but I am very bothered that I cannot rely on it as the consumable resource I once did.

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Often times you'll hear of a rejected or unused concept from a movie/game/whatever that, if realized in the final product, would make the work a wildly different piece of art. A great example of this is 2010 game Epic Mickey which is (in)famous for its particularly dark concept art. Every so often some of the more intense pieces of concept art for Epic Mickey will surface and people will lament what could have been were it not for some form of censorship. This notion is misleading because it favors the narrative that creative freedom should be full and limitless and all art would be better for it. In reality, people often forget that the creation of art is often very exploratory in its nature and that creative limitations, be it budgetary, censorship, or just artists restricting themselves, inform the final work in innumerable ways. Similarly, Star Wars has wealths of unused concepts that have been cut for plenty of reasons. The exploration of what does and does not make it in actively informs the final piece and whatever media we love doesn't exist despite the creative decisions, but because of it. 

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I like this video.

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Some things I regularly did in high school that I have learned to not reference as though they are universal experiences

-Play video games with a computer connected to my brain -Be forced to identify facial expressions by a therapist -Live in the woods -Be emotionally intimate with a teacher -Sloths on campus -Receive messages from god -Watch Dr. Katz

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INT. FLINTSTONES KITCHEN - NIGHT WILMA and FRED are cleaning up after dinner. Wilma scrapes the plates clean into the garbage disposal (a small prehistoric boar) as Fred dries and puts away the clean plates. The disposal munches away on scraps but suddenly begins to choke on a bone. It coughs and wheezes. WILMA: We have got to get the new model. She leans over and starts whacking away at the pig's back. Fred looks to her butt, smirks, and gives a flirty slap. Wilma jumps at the surprise and turns to him. FRED: Can ya blame me? WILMA: I can do a lot more than blame you. Wilma grabs Fred's waist and pulls him towards her. They kiss, passionately, like a seasoned couple would. He kisses her neck as she lets out a soft sigh. Then- COUGHING, the disposal starts loudly choking again. Wilma turns back to it and shoves her hand down its throat to fish out the bone. WILMA: Sorry Fred, this thing's always acting up. Don't you have to return the mower to Barney? FRED: Yeah. Guess I'll go over before it gets too late. WILMA: Alright then. See you in a few. Fred heads to the garage. WILMA: and tell Betty I said hi! EXT. RUBBLE HOUSE - NIGHT Fred walks towards the Rubble's front door with the lawnmower (a pug sized brachiosaurus on wheels). It snaps up stray weeds as they pass by. There are numerous foot powered cars in the driveway and shadows of guests can be seen through the windows. FRED: I don't remember there being a water buffalo meeting tonight... Fred approaches the door and hears raucous laughter from inside. He's puzzled. He knocks. No answer despite the clear sign of fun on the other side. He knocks again. Nothing. He shrugs and tries the door. It opens to a gathering of strangers in various states of undress. They're kissing, cuddling, touching each other all over the living room and their bodies. It's a full on orgy. Fred freezes in shock. He sees BETTY, naked, laying on the couch being pleasured by a man that's very much not her husband. Suddenly BARNEY'S head appears from below a random woman's underside. He smiles at the sight of Fred. BARNEY: Oh, hey Fred! How ya doing? Fred remains speechless. Barney realizes what the scene looks like. BARNEY: Uhh, it's not what it looks like. CUT TO: TITLE

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Some Underrated Hanna Barbera Shows

-Marchin' Washington While many Hanna Barbera programs featured music, Marchin' Washington features the best funk and soul soundtrack from the studio. Forgettable characters but I love the theme song.

  -Psych-a-Sadie We all know the classic gay HB characters like Snagglepuss, Wally Gator, and Danny Bonaduce, but do you remember lesbian favorite Psych-A-Sadie? Sadie was always in hilarious antics with best "friend" Aggie that constantly had them in cool costumes and close quarters. Believe it or not, the original pilot was titled Ridin' Gals!

-Ron's Gone Wrong Jumping off the computer crazy of the late 70s, Ron's Gone Wrong featured the story of a young boy and his wacky computer BBS (BeeBee for short). Long forgotten, this film served as the basis for the new animated film.

  -Digging the Oldies These dogs really know how to dig it! Digging the Oldies primarily served to promote the studio's music department by utilizing the unused catalogue of songs for the canceled Archie in the Orient series. Despite Archie being canceled for anticipated racial backlash, Digging the Oldies still broadcast insensitive songs and aired in reruns through 1991.

-Death Comes To Us All What would have been the first in a push for more mature and nuanced films after the success of Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat, Death Comes To Us All was a six part historical fiction that explores the struggle for workers rights that Cesar Chavez worked towards with the United Farm Workers. 

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I recently found out about this song called Laika by Mecano that I instantly fell in love with. If you don't know, Laika was a dog used in the soviet space program to study life in orbit. Laika, was a stray found in Moscow and was one of the first animals in space, sometimes misattributed as the first animal in space. Tragically, there was no plan for her landing, and she died before returning to us. There have been many works of art referencing and tributing Laika, a subgenre I'm particularly fond of. This song, by spanish band Mecano, is perhaps one of the best songs that captures the feelings I have about her. I think it's truly beautiful and the line "en la Tierra hay una perra menos Y en el cielo, una estrella más" moves me to tears. A friend of mine made this video featuring the song which is how I first heard it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.