Town-Living Country Mouse

Last night I went to a midnight screening of the Avengers Age Of Ultron! For those who haven't seen it or read the comics I can't reveal much without spoling it for you, except to say that the tale raises excellent questions about the AI Singularity and excellently sets up the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy crossover. 

A few things: Joss Whedon (the screenwriter) has spoken about this film in terms of how difficult it was to produce, saying that it would be “the death of [me]” and that the original 4-hour film was almost entirely left on the cutting room floor. It still clocked in at an impressive 175 minutes in the cinema, including adverts. You can definitely see this in the finished piece. It's almost as tightly edited as a Vine - the action is dizzying and non-stop, and we appear to have the reached critical mass of fight scenes in the Marvel Comics Universe franchise.

For some diehard fans, this is exactly what they wanted. Good CGI, fast paced action and a lot of punching. But I couldn't help comparing it to a Ghibli film with its calculated moments of stillness to set off the action, as silly as I felt when the thought of Princess Mononoke popped into my head while I watched Robert Downey Jr. punching a wave of foes. Whedon has always been a fan of snappy dialogue and tennis volley battles, and if you’re an unquestioning or particularly great fan of his (or what he’s brought to the MCU) then you are going to be raving about this film for weeks to come.

If you’re more of a comics purist or just didn’t like season five of Buffy, then you might not think that this wil be god’s gift to cinema. But you’re sure as hell going to enjoy it while you’re watching it.

On Saturday I visited the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition on sexology, featuring work by Kinsey and other noted sexologists as well as material from Wellcome’s permanent collections.

The Wellcome Collection is one of my favourite museums. It was one of the first I visited when I came to London to study, and I still talk about some of their stellar exhibitions such as those on prostheses and Brains over a year later. Their well curated book and giftshop has been an endless source of presents for friends (and myself!) and I recommend a visit to everyone who is passing through the city.

That said, I wasn’t impressed at all with the Sexology exhibition. Well publicised, the staff had had to install a ticketed and timed entry system, and the space was cramped with both exhibits and people (their ground floor main exhibition space is under renovation until later this year), and I had to double back at the end in order to catch a glimpse of half of one glass cabineted row.

The exhibition also advertises itself as showing "how sex has been observed, analysed and questioned from the late 19th century to the present day”, but I saw little evidence of modern sexology. Though some work done by the estimable youth trans group Gendered Intelligence was featured, tucked away towards the exit, there was little gender or queer theory present either. Most tellingly, the "complex and often contradictory” sexology from earlier periods was presented, decontextualised and uncontested, with several sexologists’ and researcher’s assertions that homosexuality was ‘inversion’ or that homosexuality and heterosexuality were a binary dichotomy going unchallenged or even explained.

I also felt like a lot of the exhibition material was padding, or at least not properly fitted into the curatorial narrative. We pored over boxes of gall wasp samples that Kinsey studied in his earlier work before his great sex survey undertaking with no explanation as to why this fitted into his later, more relevant work. Boxes of screens playing footage from people working at NATSCAL and a television playing an unexplained video confused people and took up space sorely needed for the cabinets, where people bottlenecked. There was also a box that visitors could sit in meant to store ‘orgone’, a pseudoscientific particle that seemed only to be tenuously linked to the exhibit by its pop culture influence on the ‘Orgasmatron’ featured in Sleeper. 

Another thing I found perplexing was the non-amount about AIDS, especially since the stigmatisation and misinformation about sex around at the time of the epidemic is something that everyone working in the study of sex and sexuality at the time was desperately trying to combat. However I did learn (though not enough, and subsequent internet research has shown up nothing) about how Thatcher obstructed the work of such people at almost every turn — leading to who knows how many more preventable deaths out of the thousands each year? 

However, my favourite part of the exhibition was the art created by those participating in surveys studying sexual activity. Beautiful pen and ink drawings of bodies and people making love as well as a photography sample of varying genitals and one woman’s exhaustive survey of people she slept with (complete with dry, medical notes as to the quality of the sex) served not only as a snapshot of these often anonymous people’s lives but also to normalise sex and the baggage surrounding it, which in my opinion is the aim of sexology and the study of sexuality (plus, I think I weirded out a few visitors by cooing to the friend I was visiting with about the economy of line in some sketches of people in the missionary position).

 I think that the exhibition was trying to aim itself at an audience that was already versed to a certain extent in topics like sexology, queer theory and gender theory, but in that case, most of the work exhibited would have been old news to that audience. Certainly as someone who is interested in these topics I only found myself interested in the live work (such as workshops on ‘The Art of Cruising) or physical evidence of people like Kinsey’s work, not the theory behind it.

At Christmas I finished working at Fortnum and Mason. It was a really amazing job and I still can't believe I worked there - a shop that's over 300 years old and is the Queen of England's grocer's! The experience I gained there was invaluable and I would love to go back for another temporary position if another became available - especially on the beautiful shop floor (I worked in an office).

However, no matter how much I loved my job there were unfortunately some pretty rubbish consequences for my health.

In every retail job the Christmas period is very stressful, of course. But due to a combination of staff members leaving and other unavoidable issues, the Christmas period in 2014 was much more stressful than anyone had anticipated. I wasn't even taking on as heavy a workload as my colleagues who had been working there longer, but my working hours began to multiply, and I started to come in on weekends just to catch up with the Sisyphusian pile of work. I couldn't sleep or eat properly because I never had any time to, and because work started to trigger constant low-level anxiety for me. Eventually, it made me sick. It started off with a short stomach bug no one knew the cause of - then I had a cold that wouldn't go away. Then another. Just before Christmas I was sent home due to being too ill to work, but it was only because I'd run myself down and not looked after my health that my body became physically too ill for me to even sit in a chair and answer emails! It's several weeks after Christmas, and I am still sick. Stress did such a number on me that a simple cold became very serious. As a university student I know a lot about stress, too -  I and my friends often find that a stress over an assignment can make us physically ill or get us down emotionally. January can also be a very tough and anxious time as we try and start off the New Year, so here are a few tips to de-stress: Sleep and Eat The most important one. You may not think that this is necessary, but without proper rest and food you will get sick. When staying at a friend's after being sent home from work I once slept 14 hours. I obviously needed it! A good night's sleep gives you energy to do that essay and helps you keep feeling bright. Write Reminders I have an absolutely awful memory. Most of my stress comes from suddenly reminded about something that I've forgotten that suddenly becomes urgent! Almost everyone has a smartphone these days, so every single time someone tells you something with a deadline or date attached (whether it's for a pub meet or a dissertation) add loads of reminders and deadline's to your phone's calendar. Or your wall calendar if you prefer. Make Lists Lists don't just keep you organised, they give you a little frisson of accomplishment when you tick something off 'em. Make loads of lists, and keep them on your phone so that you're not always carrying around post-its. Break down big tasks (like essays) into little ones (like footnoting, paragraphs, research, editing) in your list and everything will seem much more manageable. Calculate time properly I once had to rewrite about half a year's worth of essays because I'd lost the original copies... Eek! I wrote tens of thousands of words in a single day, because I broke down each task. But it took me literally all day, about three times longer than I thought it would. Never underestimate how long it takes you to do a task. Sure, you can mow the lawn or organise your workspace in an hour, but how long does it really take you normally? Time how long it takes you to achieve a leisurely task, and factor that time in when you're doing something. You can't always count on yourself to be able to rush. That way, even if you have procrastinated a deadline you'll know that it will get done in a certain time without panic and racing to the finish line, which leads to mistakes. If you know you've done something unhurriedly and properly you can put it to one side after finishing, whereas if you half-assed it you'll still be stressing even after it's done!

I recently went to see Miss Saigon at the Prince Edward theatre with a good friend of mine. I'd never seen it before, so I went in knowing nothing about the plot or even that it was a musical. 

The Prince Edward theatre is nestled in the heart of Soho, so before the play started we wandered around trying to find somewhere to grab a drink  - but of course everywhere was full, of drunken office workers spilling out of their Christmas parties. Whilst I was waiting for my friend I saw a few people accosting passersby with, of all things, mistletoe on a stick! Tacky Christmas jumpers abounded and everything was very loud as people gambolled around the streets, yelling and carousing and stuff like that. The theatre itself is very plush, with a round low-ceilinged atrium you are ushered through by smiling female attendants. The seats are the cosy red velveteen affairs you see in many proscenium arch theatres, with not quite enough leg room for those above 5'6 or the unusually gangly. It reminded me of the Savoy Theatre, which I went to to see Will Young's Cabaret with my dad for my 18th! The set for Miss Saigon was brilliant. There were a lot of proper structures, such as the bar and bedroom, with a solidity I genuinely can't recall seeing in a production before in, well... ever, really, save perhaps Matthew Bourne's Cinderella (he of the brilliantly choreographed all-male Swan Lake - mum's a huge fan). Most modern musicals are very spare with their sets, but Miss Saigon had everything.

Again, I don't know much about this musical or its run in London, so maybe it was because it had a very big budget, but the sets made an impression on me.

The cast for the musical were brilliant, and I don't want to spoil the plot, but I found it was very predictable and lacklustre. I absolutely loved the actual production, though.

The costumes were excellent, the singers were brilliant and the actors were all excellent and trying their hardest to bring pathos to a script that didn't quite... seem to have it (which is odd, because it's about a US occupied town during the Vietnam War, which is pretty tragic in itself).  My particular favourites in the play were the way the female friendships were presented. The main female character is done hard by fate and the men around her, and yet even the women in her life most fleetingly act if not lovingly, in no way negatively toward her... Which is much less that can be said for the male characters, especially the male love interest!

I felt that the fact the male love interest was such an awful character made it difficult for the audience to be invested. If it had been presented by the writers as a tragic or abusive relationship, you could have more sympathy for the female character - and if it had been healthier than you could have bought it as legitimately romantic. But it was neither. There was also no comment on the (white) American GI's fetishisation of the women of Saigon, which is odd since the musical focuses on the plight of amerasian children ('Bui-Doi').

Today I went to see Horns!

I haven’t read the book and I am most definitely not a horror connoisseur, being a huge scaredy cat.

(However, I have read a lot of Joe Hill's father's short stories, which this reminded me of a lot.)

Horns started off in a really compact manner, with a lot of shots from the trailer popping up - usually a warning sign. ‘Oh no’, I thought, ‘it’s gonna be terrible’, but I didn’t care because the main character sporting horns and making snake friends is kinda my ultimate jam, as antihero tropes go.

Turns out the trailer selectivism was for plot reasons! I’m going to go into spoilery detail under a page break, but first, here’s some thoughts.

Okay, let’s get this out of the way, I may be biased because of Daniel Radcliffe, but wow I loved this movie. The surreality of the stuff that happens in this film is hilarious, mostly because it’s so at odds with this beautiful small town you’re introduced to. The movie opens with a misty landscape shot, but about ten minutes in Ig is already waking up with horns, and, well, you know the rest.

There were a lot of campy touches - a lot - in this film that I really liked. The stereotypical diner (“Eve’s”, of course), the banged up old cars, the wonderful moss covered woods everyone spends the whole time wandering through — the works. It really reminded me of Jennifer’s Body in the fact that the CGI is unapologetic, the soundtrack kills it and the ‘horror’ is squeamish at worst and darkly funny at best. I think my two favourite shots from the film are where Ig walks out of a flaming room and the smoke just billows out, a much more sexy understated version of the 'cool guys walk away from explosions' action film trope, and the scene in Terry's jazz gig.

It's not all dark comedy, so if you're a horrorphobe like I am there are a couple things I’d warn for -- if you’re familiar with S King’s story about the hell cat, the mouth horror in there makes a similar appearance. There are also a couple scenes where Merrin (Juno Temple) has some pretty horrid flashback scenes, but it’s pretty standard for someone who is killed off before the second scene. There’s a lot of drinking and a couple of sex scenes, plus there’s a scene where you experience a character’s trip (which personally freaked me out a lot).

It’s also very intense, not in a scary way - there are no jump scares or anything - but in that a lot of the time people were getting hurt or shouting or whatever and I was freaking out in my seat.

The story of who killed Merrin is also good, as well - call me ignorant of horror tropes, but I pretty much didn’t guess the killer until Ig did.

Now, onto the spoilers!

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I really liked the implication that the ‘Devilish curse’ wasn’t actually demonic at all, but angelic, in the Old Testament kinda way. Snakes, a symbol of temptation, helped Ig and served justice to the killer. I don’t know about the book, again, but this is what I got from watching the film. On the other hand, it could have been the devil working through Ig to find justice for Merrin’s killer. Eh.

The bit at the end with the paradise confused me, though - are Ig and Merrin truly reunited? The exact replay of the scene implies not, but you don’t know. Obviously there is an afterlife and a God, or Deity of some kind - else how do you explain the entire blessing/curse, and Merrin’s protection - but this confused me. Although, after a peruse on the novel's wikipedia page, it seems like the book doesn't answer this question either.