Spooky Season
Can we even separate the spookiest month of the year from our generally frightening existence? If you answered no, bless you for being a purveyor of common sense and actual reality. If you answered yes, please stop reading and we’re so serious.
We’re entering the time of the year where the veil between our worlds (woooOOoooOoo) is at its thinnest. Spooky season brings many an attempt at cute Halloween decorations, but what ends up being the scariest thing in one’s display is their lack of taste. It also brings the jump-scare of checking your credit card statements as you prepare for holiday shopping (if H*bby L*bby, Costco, and Michaels can get away with already having their decorations up to sell, I can bring it up). And don’t get us started on the corporate rush to “get everything done before the holidays!!!” But the spookiest thing this season brings is the ominous threat of seasonal depression that’s peeking around the corner.
SAD is inevitable so we’ve assembled our current cures for these spooky, early on-set feelings below.
Currently Consuming
Thoroughbreds
Credit where credit is due– I finally watched this movie due to the incredible hook in this TikTok. It had been on my to-watch list for the entirety of the pandemic. But sometimes it takes your FYP screaming at you to put your handheld screen down, turn on your mounted (humble brag) screen, and prepare to engage in discourse. It didn’t hurt that this movie had everything I needed this weekend: it was short (All hail the 90 minute movie), spooky, and sexy (Olivia Cooke AND Anya Taylor-Joy? We are not worthy). Obviously all signs were pointing towards “go watch!!”, but once I realized I could stream for free on HBO and it was my favorite and arguably HBO’s only genre, Rich People Being Rich and Weird, I was sold.
I deeply enjoyed this movie and highly recommend it as a ‘would have been great to see in theaters but watching from my couch at night will do!!’ must-stream. No spoilers, but one of my favorite scenes in the movie involved Cooke and Taylor-Joy performing a cost-benefit analysis of murder. What more could you ask for? I am not a film critic though so if you hate it please don’t tell me 🫣
This emoji 🫣
Ahhh! I’m so scared! I can’t look! I’m ashamed!!! What mood is this emoji not appropriate for? Every iOS (sorry Android girlies this is not a safe space) update brings with it new rules of engagement on emoji usage. Ventura has pushed me to use as many emojis as possible during every internet enabled interaction to describe my ever conflicting emotions. Luckily 🫣 sums up my mental illness better than any professional could, she and 🫡 will be carrying me through seasonal depression this year. Who needs healthcare when you have an iPhone?
Los Espookys Season 2
I would actually be a dumbass if I didn't talk about not only the spookiest, but also the best show on television right now, Los Espookys. Yes. Season two of Los Espookys is that good. So good your straight boyfriend who thinks Yellowstone is basically western Succession (it's not) will laugh out loud. So good your friend who hates subtitles (gag me) will finally get over themselves. So good your mom who loves Mexican food but only knows "hola" (love you mom) will be asking when season three is set to air. From the sick and twisted minds of Julio Torres and Ana Fabrega (eat ur heart out Sam Levinson <3), the gang is back to their usual tricks of spooking crowds, students, customers-whomever really- to help their clients. There’s also an obviously higher budget for season two and it's done nothing but add to the various storylines and spooks executed by the gang (we love that HBO money). Some of the funniest bits I've seen on tv are featured in this season: queer skeletons with single dangling earrings, a cemetery groundskeeper who wants grieving families to leave them alone even though they buried their deceased in the wrong place, and Tati, played by Anna Fabrega, transcribing classic literature but passing it off as her own. Just wonderfully idiotic yet somehow complicated stuff. We finally get more character develop for the show's resident queer woman, Ursula, played by Cassandra Ciangherotti. Andres, played by Julio Torres, has his Meredith Blake moment that gives Torres the chance to show off how his physicality as an actor makes him one of the funniest members of the ensemble. Did I mention Yalitiza Aparicio plays the moon? I went full L*o D*Caprio meme when she appeared on my screen.
And Fred Armisen as a minor but delightful character is like chamoy with tajin on the rim of the delicious drink that is this show. The season finale (sad!) is this week and I can't wait to see how they wrap up the storyline of the main character, Renaldo, played by Bernardo Velasco. I hope this show goes for as long as Julio Torres and Ana Fabrega want, because there has yet to be a single episode where I haven’t snorted from laughter so loudly that I’m happy I live alone.
Hocus Pocus 2
Obviously this couldn’t be discussed during Christian Girl Autumn week as they are up! in! arms! over this movie. Ugh, j’dore when the Christians are mad. The second coming of the Sanderson Sisters starts with an origin story that was equal parts fun and equal parts overacted. We also get a weird kind of addressing-but-not-addressing the whole virgin thing from the first movie (the 90s were truly wild). It kinda felt like they didn’t know what to do with it, but they realized they couldn’t bring back the sisters without it. It was Very Pleasing To Me, though, to have 150% more musical numbers - Disney really gave the people what they wanted (or gave Bette Midler a chance to potentially revive her Vegas residency if she reallllllly wanted to). And even though Sarah Jessica Parker was basically SJP playing Carrie Bradshaw playing Sarah Sanderson, it was cute that they let her character step into her power for a few lines. I appreciated that the story centered around friendship, and that the main throughline was basically “you’re only as strong as your coven.” A cute sentiment and a theme I haven’t become sick of yet. It’s nice to be in love with your friends/non-romantic people in your life - platonic love carries a certain power and I’m glad Disney read the room with Frozen in 2013 and never looked back. For as much flack as this movie has received, me semi-included as stated above, I realized there’s only one real answer and solution to putting out this dumpster fire of a conversation: it’s a fucking children’s movie? And the first one was also quite corny, too? But we still love it? It’s spooky season and we love lore and they sing and walk funny and ride vacuums and it’s also a CHILDREN’S MOVIE? Did you think this was being submitted For Your Consideration? Have fun? Get over it? After all, it’s just a bunch of hocus pocus.
TW: Earnestly Reminiscing
Goal Planning
As a twenty-something who had meticulously planned every step of my formative years to become a world-renowned anesthesiologist by the age of 32, but then stopped being pre-med after Organic Chemistry, I thought goal planning was Out! But in the never-ending journey of un-learning my previous views of “success”,
I have realized that if I don’t reflect on things I have accomplished, I will think I have done nothing at all! And as we are in a safe-space of reflection and earnestness, I’m a badass! Who is jealous of people on The Internet who set goals and also brag about accomplishing them. I’m currently going through an exercise of outlining 30 things I want to accomplish prior to turning 30. These goals are extremely specific and tangible (it’s giving STAR method and I hate myself) such as go on a solo trip and pay off my student loans. I see them as both binding and flexible goals– if I experience something that makes me no longer want to travel (doubtful but a recession is incoming) then that goal is off the list! Anyway, as you get lost in the throes of despair this winter, I highly recommend outlining goals as a way of reflection on what excites you. You can’t rely on your silly little brain to remember all the incredible things you accomplish, so let’s help her out and write some things down! How else will you be able to brag on the internet?
Baseball (not the playoffs but this scene from Twilight)
One of the (many) great things TikTok has done is create a TW: safe space to fully analyze and appreciate the cultural phenomena of post-recession tween culture, the greatest of which is Twilight. I think this revelation of Letting People Enjoy Things is long overdue, specifically when it comes to pieces of media that were historically made for the girls and the gays. Perhaps we are swinging the pendulum too far in the name of cult classics, and removing a western/white lens when it comes to appreciating art and media, but I don’t think that mindset is mainstream enough to pull back quite yet. I’m looking at you Lena Wilson and your Bodies, Bodies, Bodies review. don’t worry about getting through the paywall readers, Wilson appears to be incapable of understanding satire and shockingly, Seth Rogan’s review of the film is the only one you need. Spooky!!
Metra commutes
Before the pandemic, I was an avid Metra Girlie. I had my express trains acting as book-ends to my working days. I had my two (2) reusable to-go cups of coffee. I had my water bottle and lunch packed. I had my laptop, noise-canceling headphones (essential) and current book with me. But although I was a Minted Structured Girlie, I started to hate the grind of fighting for my life to find a seat if I was running late, or just being around That Many Men after a day of Working Around Men (yes, literally any woman in the history of time has felt you staring). The pandemic putting an end to the Metra commute as we know it actually made me so happy I could’ve thrown-up. But two weeks ago, after joining the Car-less Community of Chicago, I took the Metra back to the burbs for a r*hersal d*nner. And I found myself romanticizing my commute and, honestly, missing it. Without the daily grind fueling my ride, I realized riding the train is arguably one of the most brooding and dramatic things one can do without saying a word. In other words, a Cancerian dream. The main character energy that literally anyone exudes when they do absolutely anything on a train is truly unmatched. The feeling I got while riding that Metra train is only what I can imagine the mid-thirties protagonist in a Greta Gerwig film feels when they inevitably and apprehensively return to their hometown to fulfill some bygone destiny that ends up saving their life: benevolent nostalgia. Someone send this to Greta and tell her I’m ready to co-write Ladybird 2: Back In Action. But I digress. It felt good to return and actually miss something that I thought I was completely done with. It was kind of, well, sweet to contextualize my current journey through the lens of a personal lifelong fixture. It helps that Metra ridership is down so I didn’t feel like a packed sardine. And that I wasn’t going to have to do it all over again the next day. But you could say after that ride I’m back to being a Metra stan who almost wants to buy a ticket just to ~feel something~.
Emo pop punk
Yes I am earnestly reminiscing on this genre, but I am also kinda sorry for being an early fan of this music. It was one of the first things eight year old me discovered on her own with unsupervised iTunes access and I absolutely imprinted on that shit like Jacob in New Moon (looking at you The Starting Line). I’m at the point now, though, where if liking this is right then I don’t want to be wrong. It absolutely doesn’t help that I finally saw All Time Low live this past summer, adding fuel to my pop-punk fire and making my inner twelve year old self scream with joy. Every time I fall back into this genre I feel like I should be on MySpace absolutely losing my shit over not being in someone’s Top 8. Either way I come crawling back like a little baby because when the urge to scream “I want someone provocative and talkative” comes, I have no choice but to give in. Sorry for containing multitudes. Sorry for party rocking. Sorry for linking my playlist to my faves here so can reminisce with me.