The Daily Struggle

“Are you making this magic?” “No. You are.”

a song of ice and fire aesthetics:

The comedy in the show came from the family’s “odd” lifestyle, rather than from infighting and petty bickering, or worse, as was common on other shows of the time, thinly veiled references to spousal abuse. They didn’t make fun of each other or act like their children were creatures from another world. Were they strange and outside of social norms? Yes. Were they united in creating a loving home and being good, supportive parents? Absolutely.

These two support and adore their children, care for an aging mother and an estranged brother, put family before everything, and they love each other, wholly, fiercely, without reserve. They are every bit as much in love after at least a decade of marriage as they were the day they met.

It’s nobody’s surprise that many of the aesthetic and thematic elements of The Addams Family in its various incarnations are influenced by Gothic tradition (not goth, that mostly came later. And not Goth, that was much much much too early), and I think Gomez’s words are a dead bullseye in terms of Gothic mentality.

“Make her feel like she’s the most sublime creature on earth”

The sublime is a recurring theme throughout Gothic literature. Although the word (like “awesome”) has lost a lot of it’s original luster over the intervening decades, sublime doesn’t really mean elevated and lofty (or even heavenly) as it’s often used today, but rather something possessing the power and grandeur to induce awe and veneration in the mind of the beholder. Although less than divine, something sublime possessed a wildness and power that transcended human ability to control…or even to comprehend.

Sublime is standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon leaning as far as you dare over the railing and still not being able to see the canyon floor below. Sublime is warrior-queen Galadriel being tempted by the One Ring. Sublime is waking up in the middle of the night in the heart of a wild thunderstorm.

“Make her feel like she’s the most sublime creature on earth”

Gomez isn’t advising Fester to treat a woman he fancies like a princess, or even elevate her to pedestal of angelic nature (who’s idea was it to equate femininity with purity anyway? What a laughable and historically damaging idea. Shame on whatever dead (probably) white dudes promoted that!)

Gomez is advising Fester that if he truly loves a woman he must do everything he can to remind her of how she’s an untameable force of nature who’s grandeur brings him to his knees in awe and terror. Just like Morticia, for Gomez.

I’ll sign off with one of my most favorite quotes of all time, because it feels suddenly very relevant:

“When I find myself surrounded by so much beauty, I feel as if I am the eye of a hurricane.”

motherfucking

401

You got somewhere to be?

Too bad you’re not getting there.

The 401 is where they weed out the weak. You don’t drive on the 401 to get somewhere. You do it for the challenge. You do it to test your abilities like some Uchiha clan shit. Rush hour 401 is the breaking point between heaven and earth. Are you going to descend into a Lovecraftian hell or reach Nirvana? You will double the size of your biceps death-gripping your steering wheel. There is no time for rest or pulling off over into an exit. Bodily functions shut down. Cars on the side of the road and crashes closing lanes are a constant reminder that you are driving the razor’s edge. Death is mere seconds away at any given moment. They’re always doing construction but nothing is ever finished. It’s a constant roadblock for the hell of it. This is the Dark Souls 2 of Canadian driving. git good or get out

And that’s just normal mode. Have fun in the six-month long Ontario winter and enter some top-tier level of highway driving.