Falling asleep on the couch watching films
I can count on the fingers of no hands the number of times I’ve fallen asleep watching a film at home. I have, however, fallen asleep watching one at the cinema.
This is perhaps for three reasons. First, I usually wear contact lenses, but not when I’m in the cinema. Second, because my wife and I can’t seem to watch a film at home without pausing it half a dozen times. Third, because I’d rather read than watch a film.
So, yeah, this article isn’t for me. But I’m sharing it because I can’t really get into the mindset of someone for whom this is a problem.
I’ve watched the first half of a billion movies. This is how a typical movie night goes for me: After eating too many fries from Rocketbird and washing it down with a couple of beers, I’m swaddled in a plush blanket, horizontal on the couch, and zonked out long before Michelle Yeoh reaches the hotdog finger scene in Everything Everywhere All at Once.Source: How to Stop Falling Asleep on the Couch During Movies | WIREDMaybe your schedule is hectic, but you still want to catch every twist and turn in the Glass Onion movie. Or perhaps your significant other’s date-night selection seems like a snoozefest, and you’re attempting to roll credits on Morbius. Whatever your reason is to stay awake, keep the following advice in mind the next time you’re streaming something at home.
Popular culture has become an endless parade of sequels
Once you start recognising colour schemes and sound effects, every new film ends up looking and sounding the same.
Yes, I’m getting old, but as Adam Mastroianni from Experimental History explains, there’s shifts happening in everything from books to video games.
The problem isn’t that the mean has decreased. It’s that the variance has shrunk. Movies, TV, music, books, and video games should expand our consciousness, jumpstart our imaginations, and introduce us to new worlds and stories and feelings. They should alienate us sometimes, or make us mad, or make us think. But they can’t do any of that if they only feed us sequels and spinoffs. It’s like eating macaroni and cheese every single night forever: it may be comfortable, but eventually you’re going to get scurvy.Source: Pop Culture Has Become an Oligopoly | Experimental History[…]
Fortunately, there’s a cure for our cultural anemia. While the top of the charts has been oligopolized, the bottom remains a vibrant anarchy. There are weird books and funky movies and bangers from across the sea. Two of the most interesting video games of the past decade put you in the role of an immigration officer and an insurance claims adjuster. Every strange thing, wonderful and terrible, is available to you, but they’ll die out if you don’t nourish them with your attention. Finding them takes some foraging and digging, and then you’ll have to stomach some very odd, unfamiliar flavors. That’s good. Learning to like unfamiliar things is one of the noblest human pursuits; it builds our empathy for unfamiliar people. And it kindles that delicate, precious fire inside us––without it, we might as well be algorithms. Humankind does not live on bread alone, nor can our spirits long survive on a diet of reruns.
Start Often Finish rArely
I love this, and along with this post about the joy of watching films in black and white, led to me starting a new art project.
SOFA is the name of a hacker/art collective, and also the name of the principle upon which the club was founded.Source: 🛋 SOFAThe point of SOFA club is to start as many things
as possibleas you have the ability, interest, and capacity to, with no regard or goal whatsoever for finishing those projects.[…]
You can be finished with your project whenever you decide to be done with it. And “done” can mean anything you want it to be. Whose standards of completion or perfection are you holding yourself to anyway? Forget about those! Something is done when you say it is. When it’s no longer interesting. When you’ve gotten a sufficient amount of entertainment and experience from it. When you’ve learned enough from it. Whatever, whenever. Done is what you say it is.