Dispatch No. 16: I hope your mango's ripe

Hey friends,

Took a little newsletter break because hey, sometimes life gets in the way. I've been cat- and housesitting for the last couple weeks, looking after a small creature named Lennon that likes to wake me up at seven in the morning by curling up square on top of my back. I don't fancy myself a cat person, but I really grew fond of this one. "Goodbye, little friend," I whispered as I rolled sticky lint paper over my black ensemble. "I actually like you." I left some wet food in a dish and, locking the deadbolt behind me, hoped she wouldn't think I'd abandoned her.

I also spent a weekend in Wisconsin with many good people and in moments of exhaustion we picked from a stack of DVDs: I watched You've Got Mail (my favorite movie of all time, did you know??) and Hot Fuzz (which I forgot to promptly return to the library so now I have a fine, yeesh!) and What We Do In The Shadows, which just doesn't get old. I also watched the Nicolas Cage debacle Drive Angry, it was absolutely one of the worst movies I have ever seen and very fun to watch! Laughs guaranteed!

Otherwise, you know, it's been kind of a snowy, stay-home-and-don't-budge kind of month. I watched High Maintenance and was swept away and delighted. I watched some Planet Earth II and was swept away and filled with pure wonder! I read The Round House by Louise Erdrich and some Antonya Nelson short stories. All good.

The Music Box is playing the Oscar-nominated Chilean film A Fantastic Woman. One of my co-workers saw it yesterday and walked up to me with a hand on her heart: "I wept." The movie follows a trans woman, Marina, after the death of her lover. TMB is also still showing Phantom Thread, albeit not in 70mm.

On Thursday 2/15 at 6pm at the Gene Siskel, the Chicago artist (and friend and bartender extraordinaire!) Latham Zearfoss will be showing his "Home Movies," created over the past decade.

The poetic and pop-infused videos of Chicago-based artist and organizer Latham Zearfoss unite themes of love, community, family, political legacy, personal agency, and collective action. In HOME MOVIE (2012), cell phone videos of social gatherings and public performances are layered with close-ups of natural life, naked bodies, and domestic interiors to form a kaleidoscopic notion of home — as a shared space, a sense of belonging, and site of intimacy. In EXTRAE (2016), shots of cats, unmade beds, and dried flower petals are paired with an irreverent ode to Tyrone Garner, one of the plaintiffs in the 2003 Supreme Court case that overturned archaic sodomy laws throughout the U.S. Zearfoss presents a collection of videos spanning the last decade, including the premiere of two new works, GOTH PARTY and WHITE BALANCE, and he restages SOMETHING TO MOVE IN (2014) and LOVE IS A STRANGER (2012) as live, interactive performances. With Darling Shear, Caroline Campbell, Lea Tshilds.

I'll be there, do join!

Alright, that's all for now. Enjoy the cozy week, and get to a theater if you can.
Happy Valentine's Day!
(Weegee!)

Yours,
Nina