write-nonstop - Tumblr blog

[write-nonstop]

3月を生き抜いたという報告

ハァーイみんな元気？私は元気じゃないわね。

３月は目くるめく激務の日々でした。桜は会社の飲み会で見た。プライベートでも見ようと思ったんだけど無理でした。大体風邪か、生理か、膀胱炎だったので。勉強なんてもってのほか。どうしてこんなことに…。

今月はクライアント１の訪日とその準備、クライアント２のイベント開催のための英日翻訳、そしてクライアント３のための年次計画の更新作業に追われた。とくに大変だったのがクライアント１で、相手はヨーロッパにいるので連絡が取りにくく、そして相手方のキャパオーバーのために余計に返信がかえってこないので髪の毛をぐしゃぐしゃにしたくなること度々。しかも実際の訪日で連れて行ったツアー先でもなんだか理不尽な仕打ちをうけ、むしゃくしゃしてその夜に近場の飲み屋に駆け込んだら気温差でしっかり風邪をひいた。それをこじらせて（おそらく）現在副鼻腔炎になっている。まったく。

今月のいちばんの収穫は膀胱炎はほんとうに厄介だということ。まじで。血尿はほんとうにビビる。良い子のみんなは水分補給はしっかりして、トイレはちゃんといくこと。私との約束だ。お願いだからこのアドバイスは聞いてほしい。

３月ゲットしたもの：

Act Chair, ITOKI

https://www.itoki.jp/products/chair/act/

無茶苦茶高い。といってもコンテッサやハーマンミラーの高いワークチェアとくらべると桁が一つ下がる。その割にはパフォーマンスがとてもとてもいい。リクライニングの気持ちよさ、クッションの柔らかさ、そしてなにより肘置きの可動域の広さ。しっかり在宅ワーク・勉強する人でちゃんとした椅子を購入したいと思っているそこのあなたにお勧めしたい。（一か月分の家賃が飛んでいきそうだけど…。）

The Transgender Issue/トランスジェンダー問題（ショーン・フェイ著）

https://www.akashi.co.jp/book/b612082.html

恥ずかしながらまったくの不勉強なので購入。が仕事に押されて全然読み進められていない。今月頑張ります。

３月見たもの：

Everything Everywhere All at Once （＠TOHO シネマズ日比谷）

膀胱炎のために当初予定していた日程では行けず、一週間後に再トライ。母子関係のところで泣いた。ウェイモンドとエブリンの関係性でも泣いた。どちらもどうして泣いたのか、自分でもわかる。最後、すべてが丸く収まる（とくにジョイとエブリンの関係の改善）までその共感を持っていくことができなかったのは残念。

４月は勉強頑張ります！！でもまずは体調を整えてから…。

[write-nonstop]

1-2月の報告

　2023年の抱負を前回書いたわけだが、それからかなり状況が変わった。気がする。

　残業が恒常的に発生しているのが何よりつらい。とは言っても１－２時間の残業なので、深夜に家にたどり着く、ということはないのだが、それでもなんとなく生活が慌ただしい。この状況で勉強するために、かなりの精神力が必要そうだ。勉強するにしても朝のほうがいいと思うので、帰ったらなるべく早く寝ることを目指しつつ、土日にがっと勉強するしかないと思う。

　ちなみに、NHKラジオのフランス語はなんやかんや続いている。これは自分でも誇らしい。韓国語も最近はやってみたいなと思っているが、それより先にフランス語を定着させるべきかもしれない。

しかし、本当に社会人院生ってすごい。生活しつつ仕事しつつ勉強するって、並大抵のことではない。なんだかつまらないありふれた感想で恐縮だが、ほんとうにそうなのだ。

　1月はなんやかんやいって、近頃の私にしては本を読んだ月だ。「破果」（ク・ビョンモ）と「原発ホワイトアウト」（若杉冽）の二冊を読了した。前者に関しては、老いさらばえた暗殺者が最後の恋をして－という、ありきたりなプロットといえばそれまでの小説なのだが、その暗殺者が女性で、好きになる相手が年下の男性、というところがフックになっている。作家の狙いも、そしてそれにそそられる私も、わかりやすいといえばわかりやすいが、まあいいではないか。だってそういうフィクションがこの世の中に少なすぎるんだから。個人的に面白かったのは、読み進めていくうちに、たまに「回りくどい、長い文章だな」と感じる箇所があり、「翻訳者の癖か？」と思い込んでいたのだが、あとがきを読んでみるとどうやらそれが原文、というか作家の文体の特徴らしい。なので、翻訳者はそれを忠実に活かした表現を選んでいるわけだ。脱帽した。とともに、言語として近い韓国語の作品を日本語に翻訳するときと、より異なる部分の多いラテン語系の言語の作品を日本語に訳すときとで、そういった文章の癖をくみ取る難しさというのは差があるのだろうか、と考えたりした。あと、悪役のキャラクターが魅力的すぎて参った。あれは実写化したらすんごい色気のある役者をあててくるに違いない。

　後者に関しては、仕事の上司に勧められて読み始めた。原発の再稼働をめぐって、推進しようとする与党の政治家や大手電力会社の上層部、経産省の上級官僚、はたまた反原発派の元記者で活動家などがくんずほぐれつする内容となっている。作家は現役の官僚らしく、実在する政治家や企業のオマージュが作品のスパイスらしい。まあ、たしかに私も見覚えがあるなあという場面もあったが、たまーあにそういうところがきつすぎて鼻につくなと感じた。かと思えば作家の妄想が入っているのではないかと思うような場面もあり、例えば元記者がハニートラップを仕掛けるシーンなんかは、作家が思うハニートラップ仕掛ける側の心理！みたいな匂いが強すぎて逆に作家がかわいらしく思えてしまった（全然思ってないです、普通に気持ち悪かった）。いや、知りませんけどね、私だってそんな心理…。

くわえて、仕事系の本も何冊か購入した。「コンサル一年目が学ぶこと」（大石哲之）、「外資系コンサルのプレゼンテーション術」（菅野誠二）「外資系コンサルのスライド作成術」（山口周）を購入し、一冊目は読了、二冊目は読み進めている途中、三冊目は積読、という状況だ。本屋やブックレビュー等でおすすめのビジネス書として推薦されているのをみるたびに「ケッ」と思って（しまって）いたようなラインナップだが、読んでみると意外と今の仕事に生かせることが多く、面白かった。そもそも手に取った理由は、ひとえにプロジェクトが燃えており、かつそのプロジェクトに新しくPMとして参加してきた人がかつて経営コンサルだったからなのだが、まあそういった状況はそれはそれで刺激的なので、よしとしている。というか、まだよしとできるぐらいの余裕はある。

…はたして今年の抱負を確定できる日は来るのか？

[write-nonstop]

2023年の抱負（ドラフト）

達成できるとは言っていない、というか、あくまでもドラフトなので修正版を後日確定させます。

1．文章を書く

硬派軟派問わず、文章を書く。仕事や日常生活において、文章能力の低下を感じるため、これを改善する。

硬派：後述の司法試験の勉強でカバーしきれるか？

軟派：二次創作か読書録（・映画録？）のどちらかが現実的と思われる。二次創作はワンライ系を利用する？しかしワンライはファンダムの人たちとの関係構築をしないと執筆のモチベーションがでないかもしれない。一度二次創作してみようと思ったことはあるのだが、（ありがちなことに）あまりにも長編大作になってしまい、看板倒れになってしまった。これは「好きなキャラクターには苦悶をさせよ」という私の性質から来るところも大きいので、どうしたものか。読書録はその点ある程度体系だっており、終わりが見えやすいという点で悩まずとも済みそうではある。（でも散文的な表現とか小説的な情緒表現とかも書いて力つけたいねん…）

2．司法試験の勉強をする（？）

今の会社はおそらく長くいるところではない。何年間いるにせよ、転職をみすえて動いておく必要がある。具体的にどういう職種に移っていけるかといえば、例えばこれまでに転職していった先輩社員のポジションをたどってみれば、個社の渉外部門やシンクタンク、大使館、あるいはNGOなどがある。

「ではなぜ司法試験を勉強するのか」について考えようと思ったのだが、言語化できない。どうしよう。ここを突き詰める必要があるようである。

一応、この前段を書くまで考えていたタイムスケジュールを残しておくと、以下のようになる。

・2025年4月までに短答式が60-80%の正答率になるよう勉強する

ー＞具体的にどういうアクションが必要かさらい出し、この目標が達成できそうか適宜修正する

3．仕事を頑張る。

言わずもがな。確固たるゴールは設定しにくい。いっぱしの文章が書ける人間になりたい。ただそれだけです。

[write-nonstop]

ちなみにバイオレットはホゲータで行きます

[write-nonstop]

　落ち込んだときほど、文章を書きたくなる。そして、そういうときはたいてい自分の納得のいく文章が書けることが多い。

　自分の趣味で文章を書く分にはうまい下手を気にせず、自分の好きなようにつらつらと書けばいい。仕事で文章を書くとなるとそうはいかない。わかりやすい文章でなければならない。必要な情報を伝えなければならない。くだけすぎた文体でも、硬すぎる文体もだめ。様々な注文が矢継ぎ早に私の目の前に差し出され、私は必至でそれをこなそうとし、何とかきれいな体裁にして他人の前に出す。顔をしかめて朱を入れられた原稿が突っ返され、「意味が分からない」との冷徹な一言が振り下ろされる。

　そういう日もある、ということでお茶を濁す。

　文章うまくなりたいなあ、というか、書くことをまた好きになりたいなあ、と思う。今はなんだか書くのが怖い。昔は水のように言葉がつながっていったのに、今はなぜかつっかえつっかえな気がする。リズム感がないし、表現に幅がない。どうやってもう一度好きになればよいのだろう。毎日、ちょっとでいいから筆をとるべきなのだろうか。

[write-nonstop]

灯台について興味ある

[write-nonstop]

日記でもつけるか

[write-nonstop]

The other day, I went down the rabbit hole of “cute donkeys” and came up with my head full of things I didn’t know about mules (the hybrid offspring of a horse and a donkey), and why they were once so coveted as work animals.

Brace for info dump, while enjoying this lovely photo of a trio of draft mules.

The explanation is hybrid vigour, when hybrid offspring have enhanced traits compared to its parents:

Mules are stronger, hardier, healthier, have better enduranve, harder hooves, sturdier skin and can handle extreme weather better than horses or donkeys. They are also more patient, more intelligent, and easier to handle than either of their parent species. Horses may be faster, but that’s about the single thing they’re better at than a mule of the same size.

So mules, being all around nicer to work with and getting you more work for the same amount of feed, and with less hassle, were preferred for just about every job purpose.

Habby du Magnou, a Poitevin Mulassier mare, and her daughter Lady du Magnou, a rare Poitevin mule

ALT

But since horses have 64 chromosomes and donkeys have 62, mules end up with 63 chromosomes, which means they are almost invariably sterile. That’s because biology gets very confused when trying to split an uneven number of chromosomes neatly in half to create germ cells. There are a few documented exceptions of fertile mule mares (never stallions), but they are very, very rare. So you have to keep crossbreeding the two parent species to produce them, usually by breeding a donkey sire (jack) to a horse dam (mare). This is because it’s easier for a 32 chromosome egg to incorporate a 31 chromosome sperm into a viable zygote (fertilised egg) than vice versa.

Because of this, there was (and still is) in France a breed of absolutely massive draft horses, the Poitevin Mulassier, and a breed of big-ass donkeys (pun intended, but honestly, it’s arguably the largest donkey in the world, and it’s shaggy like Highland cattle), the Baudet du Pitou, two breeds whose main purpose was to breed the enormous and super-strong Poitevin mule.

The Poitevin mule

This absolute unit was the must-have work-animal for all kinds of farm and industrial work for centuries, and a significant French export, until mechanisation made these magnificent creatures obsolete.

With no demand for the Poitevin mule , its parent breeds dwindled, almost to the brink of extinction. Determined conservation efforts during the last few decades are slowly bringing their numbers back up, but they’re very far from their heyday, when some 20,000 Poitevin mules were born annually.

The Poitevin Mulassier

Both the parent breeds are still endangered, which means most of the current effort is directed into bringing up the numbers of Poitevin horses and Pitou donkeys. This means breeding horses to horses and donkeys to donkeys, with very few breeding opportunities allowed to produce the Poitevin mule. Only about 20 of those are born each year.

The Baudet du Pitou

[write-nonstop]

“Anakin…” OBI-WAN KENOBI (2022)

[write-nonstop]

“I can’t walk away from myself, I know. You, being everywhere, can’t walk away from me either.”

— Molly Kirschner, from “Listening In,” Notes for Further Research (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017)

[write-nonstop]

History: The Minoan civilization had a rapid decline following the eruption of a volcanic island close to Crete where they had settled. The eruption was so large its effects were felt all the way in China.

Me: Oh yeah. The Mediterranean had a lot of problems with volcanoes every few thousand years or so. So why was this one special?

What the island looks like today:

Me………….. oh

[write-nonstop]

i’ve been on hold at my library for a book about asexuality for a few weeks and i just read an article about some concepts in the book re: consent. and holy shit. blew my mind. i’ve NEVER read about consent in the context of a relationship with an ace and an allo that resonated so strongly with me, and as a person in such a relationship!! it’s so!!! i’m even more excited for the book now.

for anyone interested, the article is How to Negotiate Better Consent: An Asexual Perspective and the book i’m waiting for is Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society and the Meaning of Sex.

[write-nonstop]

Heaven and Hell: or my experience being a person of color in Disney’s Hyperion Theater

by Cooper Howell

Heaven and Hell: or my experience being a person of color in Disney’s Hyperion Theater. #holdingtheateraccountable Im just gonna go ahead and be straight up. This is pretty scary to share. HEAVEN: Once upon a time Liesl Tommy cast me as Prince Hans in Frozen: Live at the Hyperion. And I was gooped. GOOPED. There was nothing in my prior history that gave any indication this was possible. Up until then every role I played had to do with my race. Every. Single. One. And even ones where it didn’t (Shakespeare or classical pieces mostly) I was always made aware that the novelty of me being a poc in that role that gave me the part. So much did I not expect to get this part that when I got the callback I rolled my eyes and didn’t take the actual callback seriously. I mean, there was a zero percent chance that Disney would ever let me play a Prince, especially when the dude in the movie is a ginger. But then I got it. And immediately everything I thought was possible about my career changed. My whole life I’ve never inwardly felt black. I’ve never inwardly felt white. I’ve always felt like I was Cooper, you know, on the inside. But whether it was every single white human in Utah reminding me that I was “the whitest person they ever knew/saw” (which DIDNT mean how white my skin was. It was how white I ACTED) or Mr. Johnson, my 7th grade drama teacher, telling me that he “wanted to put Velcro on the ceiling to see if I’d stick” or Mr. Smith, my high school drama teacher, saying “finally we can do black shows” as soon as I entered high school and then not casting me in roles because of the “optics” of it, or even my best friend in high school Tanner Harmon who called me “blackie”, I was always reminded that I was an other. So imagine getting paid good money to put on that $10,000 costume and waltzing out to 4000 people a day to play a really amazing part. A fantastic, evil, complicated, person who sings a killer duet and then grabs the show by the throat with a vicious about-face monologue… and not once was my race ever mentioned cuz it didnt matter. What was being prized was Cooper, my talent, not my skin color that I never asked for. Heaven. Liesl MADE SURE, almost overly sure, that the poc’s in the cast felt equal. The kingdom of Arendelle, after all, is a make believe place. It can be whatever. From having Disney executives come and tell us that they were happy to have us there, to side conversations with John Lasseter, we were made to feel overly welcome playing the parts we were playing. She encouraged us to dive deeper into the script of a cartoon that I didnt really think much of until I was in it. We were encouraged to ask why. We felt seen as talent and not commodities. There were, of course, detractors. Gosh, I remember people at a party of cast members from “Mickey and the Magical Map” another show at Disneyland which features a princess and the frog number and many of those casts mates angrily claiming that “if that black girl Tiana Okoye can play Elsa than I should be able to play Princess Tiana” and then looking at me to confirm that was okay to say, not realizing that a) she’s one of my best friends, b) that I’m in the show with her also playing a role that wasn’t created to be a poc, c) how racist that sounded, and d) why there’s a difference there and why that wouldn’t make sense. On Liesls final night I came up to her and said “I don’t know why you did it but thank you so much for casting ME in this part” to which she replied “you mean why would I cast a handsome, talented person in this role?” And I stuttered something like “well, I mean, I’m black. You know…” to which she tilted her head to her side and said “no. I don’t know why. Tell me why that matters.” And I had no answer. Seeing that I had no answer she smiled. That was the answer. There was no reason. On the spot my outlook about myself changed. Windows into what I thought was possible for me opened. ————————————– HELL: And then Liesl went back to NYC and she was replaced by a man named Roger Castellano as show director. Rogers task, he told us on the first day, was to “change the show”. We were not told what needed to be changed or even why, but that changes were on the horizon. You’ve got to understand: to a full cast of actors who had just spent more than three months dissecting a 60 page Disney script with a Tony nominated director like it was Shakespeare, we were initially emotionally/mentally/spiritually resistant to changes. But then it became clear that the spirit of collaboration was over, and the show changes were to be given without the same care, consideration, and thematic explanation of why they were being made. Everyones initial reaction was to push back, but when people who questioned their notes or their changes started getting days removed their schedule or being replaced entirely by a new actor, the Hyperion theater became a place where no one was allowed to speak out. Injustices were happening left and right and no one felt they could do anything for fear of losing their livelihood. And that’s when the Frozen: Live at the Hyperion became a living hell. In my first note session with Roger he pulled me into a room with Domonique Paton, my best friend and incredible costar who played princess Anna in the show I was in. She just so happens to also be black. Almost all of Prince Hans’s scenes in the show are with her character and so most of my notes would be primarily based on those interactions with her. Earlier in the day I performed with a different (white) actress but it was the show with Domonique that I had a note session about. Imagine my surprise and dismay when, with how Liesl set up the show experience, we were told this: “WHEN THE TWO OF YOU PERFORM THE SHOW TOGETHER ITS TOO… URBAN.” Urban. What else could that have meant, do you think? He could have said maybe “too contemporary” emphasizing that we were maybe too modern in our speech patterns or movements. We weren’t. He could have said “too lax” or “too loose” meaning that maybe we were being unprofessional and goofy up there because we’re really good friends. We were not. The best me and Ms. Paton could think of was a 8 count moment of improv dance that me and Domonique decided to use as a synchronized moment of unity. It happened to fall on the line “our mental synchronization can have but one explanation” and thought, with the freedom that Christopher (the original choreographer) had given us, was appropriate, especially considering everyone behind us was doing the robot. As in the 80s robot. But he didnt clarify. He just said “WHEN THE TWO OF YOU PERFORM THE SHOW TOGETHER IT’S TOO… URBAN” And when asked what he meant he smiled with a little shrug and said “you can figure that out. You’re smart.” And thats how I became Black Hans and Domonique became Black Anna. My every moment onstage afterwards became about the optics of being a poc in that show. It was if I was suddenly made aware that I was LUCKY enough to be there and under any normal circumstances, or this new directors circumstances, me getting this part would have never happened. But the message was clear. It was especially clear when me and Domonique Paton shows together durastically decreased and made even more clear when the vast majority of the new hires were not people of color. But no one said anything. And made even MORE clear when, over the next few weeks, both Domonique and I got COPIOUS notes, ten times that of our coworkers that played the same parts. It was almost a game. In fact we did turn it into a game, seeing who would get the least amount of notes from him in a day. Our costars would even joke about it onstage with us, during the ballroom scene, and jokingly whisper “The shows been up 15 minutes. How many do you think you got today?” But no one said anything. And the notes were about all kinds of things. How we held our hand. If our inflections went up or down on a word. Which side of a couch we leaned on… which was fine! When you’re an actor, thats the gig… until we started comparing our notes with the actors that played our same parts and none of them, NONE, would get the same notes. Our notes would be outrageously longer, the note sessions sometimes lasting 10/15 minutes. Others would get the “Oh hey, try doing this or that next time, okay bye” walk-by notes. Sometimes I would sneak into the audience and watch as some of the other Han’s, some of whom changed lines, changed entire intentions of scenes, some of whom adding in all types of vocalizations and cackles and dance moves and what have you, and would receive ZERO notes. But I was watching them to see what was wrong with me. What was my performance missing? What am I actually doing to feel this singled out. And then I realized that the thing that was wrong with me was that I was a different color than the 5 other white Hans’s they cast. And then I started getting notes about my penis. Most of the time these “penis sessions”, as I called them, were given in private rooms without another stage manager present. It was incredibly unpleasant and unprofessional. In fairness, those Prince Hans pants are TIGHT! And yes, Mr. Howell is indeed a party in the front and a party in the back, but so were a lot of those fellas. And thats where I put my foot down. If Disney was going to provide me with a costume it is not my responsibility to fix their problem, especially when other of my (white) costars had been given a dance belt for the same thing. But they never got penis notes. Private session notes about what their penis looked like in that show. Over and over again I was told to fix it, to not make it (my dick) so apparent, and that “if my daughter were younger I wouldn’t want her to come to a show you were performing at" all the more insulting considering his daughter, a cast member in the show, was a friend of mine and the loveliest person. He started demanding that I buy a dance belt. It was “my fault”, “my responsibility” …and thats where I took my stand. And then it really became hell. Penis sessions were now done out in the open. Once, he screamed at me, in the green room in front of all of my costars during lunch, about how incredible unprofessional I was, about how he was tired of seeing my dick, and that if I didnt go buy myself one I didnt deserve to be there anymore. Followed by a huge litany of notes. That doesnt compare to some of what Domonique went through and I invite her to share them if she’s willing. During this time I went to every stage manager in the building and told them about being singling out and about my penis. They all told me to write a complaint report and it would go to some place called “HR”. Which I did. Numerously. More months passed. Nothing from “HR”. Multiple cast members who witnessed my note sessions encouraged me to go to the HR themselves. I didnt honestly know what an HR was. As soon as it was explained to me by my allies even what an HR was I went to the head of HR at Disneyland herself and waited outside of her door. I asked her if she got any of my HR reports and she told me that she had received no HR reports from the Hyperion. Ever. And then asked me to fill out a HR form. As we went over it, she asked me some questions, and then set up a second meeting. On the second meeting she said that in order for my report to be given credence I would need witnesses to give their testimony. The witnesses, in fact the very people that told me to go to HR in the first place, said no. They didnt want to lose their jobs. In retrospect that might be the thing that hurt the most but, whatever… anyway, I was told ““well… without testimonies we’ll do an investigation and we’ll call you when we’ve completed it.” I never received a phone call. With absolutely zero protection from the stage managers from both the sexual harassment or my obvious racial targeting I (and others) were experiencing, not to mention that HR reports were doing nothing, aka not being forwarded, I thought about quitting. And when a white stage manager made a show mistake and laughed it off to the cast by saying an entirely offensive lynching joke, I quit. I didnt matter to Disney. How I felt and what I was being put through didnt matter. I was a commodity. My departure was unceremonious. Bizarre. 100% un-magical. I hung up my costume one last time and it was given to a new Hans, one who looked very much like me oddly, and stepped out of the theater. The park was playing “every wish your heart desires will come to you” and I remember laughing at how dead that song felt. The director has since moved on but still works as a musical theater director in Southern California. This one time 4 years ago I got to feel something other than my color for the first and only time in my professional career. It lasted from about March 2016 to July 2016 and never again since. I will never forget in those early days looking at all the beautiful princesses I got to woo and thinking “wow. I’m a prince right now.” Im sure that sounds stupid. But it didn’t feel stupid. And a Disney prince! Yeah, a shitty prince kinda… I mean, he’s a sociopath… BUT still a Prince! Especially special was being able to look in Dominique’s eyes and I could see the same glimmer of “can you believe we get to do this right now” reflected back. We never knew it was in the cards for us. My race always has and will always be part of my career equation and a determining factor of its projection. It will always be a determining factor in how im treated, by creatives, by people, by the those in authority over me, including the government and the police. #wasitmyskin

Copied in its entirety here from Cooper Howell’s public Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10163696376095054&set=a.10151302685610054&type=3&theater

[write-nonstop]

“I think there’s a rich ream of horror, from The Haunting of Hill House to Ghostwatch, that delves into the idea that certain places can simply go wrong – and once these bad environments have been established and ostracised by society, they can’t be exorcised. They simply keep accruing power through the individual stories that play tragically out in their shadow.

“I mention a real-life example of that kind of bad architecture in one episode; the Pope Lick Bridge in Kentucky, a place that looks and feels so sinister that it developed its own local folklore about a goat-man who attacks people who stray too close to the edge – and which has ended up resulting in deaths as visitors peer over the side trying to get a peek at the monster.

“I find this kind of stuff fascinating, because it plays into my own paranoia about environments, and my dislike of ghost stories with explicably human antagonists. Like David says in the first episode, people aren’t frightening. Places are frightening.

“If I’m sitting alone at home on a dark and stormy night, and I glance nervously up towards the bedroom doorway, my fear is not that my house is being haunted by a spirit called Mabel who died in the 19th century at the age of fourteen and is constantly seeking her favourite teddy bear… because all of these details both humanise her and make her ridiculous.

“My fear is that there will be something standing in the doorway, because the doorway is where things come to stand.

“Because unoccupied spaces, in our imaginations, must find something to fill them.”

— from “The Saturday Interview: ‘I Am in Eskew’ podcast”

[write-nonstop]

i won’t forgive you. i’ll make you pay. PROMARE (2019)

[write-nonstop]

Ulyana Sergeenko spring 2019 couture