44: Sarah Reads You the Church Announcements

On Tuesday morning, I slid into my car and stuck the keys in the ignition. The radio came on with the engine, and when it did, WXRT was blasting something with a thick bass line, a viola ribbon weaving through the acoustics, and a baritone voice rolling measured syllables until peaking just after the chorus. I'd never heard the song before, but the voice sounded like Let's Dance-era David Bowie singing more sophisticated lyrics. I shazammed the song before pulling out of the garage for my commute. I didn't think about it for the rest of the day, but when I saw the tab for the song on my web browser, I played it in its entirety, and I've been playing it on a loop ever since. Turns out this Peter Murphy guy is pretty well-known, and the song, "Cuts You Up," is one of his most successful. I had a bit of a "Joe Pera Reads You The Church Announcements" moment about it.

For those who have never watched Joe Pera Talks with You, the episode I'm referencing starts with the lightly-fictionalized version of Joe Pera getting up at the front of the church on the second Sunday of Advent to read the church announcements, making it through about twenty seconds before going off on a long tangent about hearing "Baba O'Riley" on the radio for the first time earlier that week. He can't get enough of the song; he calls in to every radio station he can think of to get them to play it. He blasts it for the pizza delivery guy, he jumps around the house while he's listening to it on repeat, he installs a CD player in his car so he can listen to the song on the road, and he tells everyone who will listen about how much he loves the song. The joke is on Pera's character, a little, for having a life-changing experience with a song everyone else has taken for granted for decades. But the show's appreciation for Pera's enthusiasm is sincere.

I love that appreciation, and its specificity. I've been in Pera's shoes more often than not; if I find something that resonates with me, I want to share that joy and enthusiasm too. If I like a song, I'll play it on repeat, trying to get a sense for the tones and chord progressions. Maybe it's a product of my brain chemistry–I wouldn't be surprised if I'm somewhere on the spectrum, although I'm not formally diagnosed, so I can't say for certain. Maybe it's my age, and the fact that I got into culture criticism right around the same time that I started actually paying attention to culture. I can't always explain why I like things on a macro level. But give me something specific, a song or a scene, and I'll dig into the details. I love writing about movies (and occasionally music) from that angle, trying to understand why something resonates, and how it did it; if I'm able to articulate why something works for me on that level, maybe I can give someone else a taste of that enthusiasm too.

What I talked about:

I returned, along with Jeffrey Overstreet, to Veterans of Culture Wars podcast for part 2 of our discussion on our favorite movies of the year.

For Seeing & Believing podcast, Kevin and I reviewed Godland and My Night at Maud's, and I was able to give Kevin a rundown of a few highlights from True/False. (More to come on that front in written form.)

What I watched:

I've been waiting for Return to Seoul to be released in theaters for months; the film made the best-of 2022 lists for a few critics I respect, but I missed it on the festival circuit, and it's been in extremely limited release. If you live near a theater where it is showing, go see it. It's about a Korean adoptee, raised French, who travels to Seoul for the first time on a whim. She's sullen, magnetic, impulsive, and selfish; in a parallel universe, we'd all be comparing Park Ji-Min, who plays the lead, to Cate Blanchett in Tár.

What I'm reading:

This section is probably going to be an ongoing update about my progress on Infinite Jest, or my ability to procrastinate reading Infinite Jest by reading something else. I'm still reading Infinite Jest. There's a nightmare sequence in the chapter I read most recently that got its hooks in me; it feels like a turning point, and if I'm able to keep up the momentum I think I'll start powering through the rest of the book.