Monday Morning Mixtape 081: Cool Cool Cool

Welcome to Monday Morning Mixtape, a PoYB Contributor-curated playlist of songs, made just for you on the first Monday of each month.

Welcome to our new monthly format! Regardless of what it does to participation, at the very least I don't have to put together Spotify playlists every week now, which is cool! Speaking of cool:

"Cool Cool Cool"

Give us the coolest songs you know (since we are bloggers, and are thus authorities on the concept of cool)

chosen by Joe

Spotify

YouTube

"Aching" by Mannequin Pussy

from I Got Heaven, 2024

I'm not gonna lie, this is the MMM that has given me the most stress since at least the Women's History Month one. The first problem is that I don't think that I am cool (the theme's explanation was sarcasm, obviously), and thus I get an intense imposter's syndrome when attempting to speak on what is cool. The second problem is that someone believing that they themselves are cool is the most uncool thing you could possibly do, and so I wouldn't dare even approach that line of thinking. The third problem is that I have a very narrow definition of what "cool" means, especially in the context of music. I can basically run every song through my head and come up with a reason why it's not cool. That's on me, though. And so I'm basically choosing songs that have the weakest arguments in my head. I couldn't think of too many reasons why Mannequin Pussy would be considered uncool.  —Joe

"Icky Thump" by the White Stripes

from Icky Thump, 2007

Here's what I'm speculating where my personal definition of cool comes from: grade school bullies. I use "bullies" extremely lightly, of course. No trauma, no hardship. But there were actions from me and reactions from others, and that trained me over time. The action was, uh, finding success, academically, in the small pond of elementary school. The reaction was "Joe is a fucking loser" because of that. I didn't bail on getting good grades (not until my last year of college, and even then, I got by), but I did build a protective layer. That layer looked something like "I will never show anyone that I care." Coolness isn't defined by what you do, but how you react to what you do, is what I found. I can get good grades but the crucial part is to pretend that I don't care. Cool is effortless and humble success. Uncool is having success and showing anyone that you're proud of it or that you tried really hard. And so I am trapped in this mindset, even though I realize how unfair it is. And so I apply it to music, within the context of this mixtape. What is cool? Cool is music from people who are really good at making music but don't ever show that they care.  —Joe

"Puppet to the Man" by Kurt Vile

from Smoke Ring for My Halo, 2011

I asked Pam what she thought of this prompt. Her mind was not twisted in the same way as mine was so her definition of cool was a lot broader. The first artist she named as an example of music that is cool was the War on Drugs. The first artist I had named was Kurt Vile. The dichotomy of those two answers is actually pretty useful in trying to explain what I think is certifiably "cool." I like the War on Drugs' music a little better, but I think Kurt Vile is cooler. The reason I like the War on Drugs' music a little better is because the care so fucking much about the craft, and the music is large and epic and feels like it's important, and that they are giving fucking everything when they make that music, and it makes my heart swell. That's what makes it good, but that's also what makes it not as cool. Kurt Vile has rarely, if ever, made music that felt epic. His music sounds like a stoner making the shit he wants to make while hanging out in his garage (that's because that's literally what the music is). He obviously cares about his craft, but the presentation suggests that he doesn't care. That's what the difference is! Not the action, but the reaction. He's cool as fuck.  —Joe

"expectations" by Olivia Rodrigo

from you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, 2026

This one finds me in the gap between knowing that the artist is cool and wanting to believe that the artist is cool. Besides, ya know, the whole idea of operating within the pop music industry that requires false pretenses for the sake of entertainment to the widest audience possible, Olivia Rodrigo feels to me to be the pop star most able to overcome those hurdles and present the truest version of herself that she can (again, understand the circumstances, which are trying for those who wish to present their true selves). She's working against the pop music grain in terms of music style (this being, what, an art rock song, post-punk, new wave, something like that? something that you would never fucking here from a banal Swift sort?) and in terms of play-it-safe PR shit (pretty outspoken about abortion rights; LGBTQ+ advocacy in a world that is actively trying to kill trans people; donations and forthrightness about UNICEF relief efforts for Palestinians who are currently being murdered by the Israeli government, in a culture that seems designed to silence such relief efforts). I believe that Olivia Rodrigo is working in an industry at a level that makes it impossible to make good art and act like they don't care, but I believe that Olivia Rodrigo gets closer to that cool ideal than basically any of her peers.  —Joe

"You're Gonna Miss Me" by the 13th Floor Elevators

from The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, 1966

So much of what's cool and what's not cool comes back to the reaction outside of the artist, that it makes it pretty much impossible for any well-liked artist to actually be cool. I'm still describing my own fucked-up brain, mind you, so take everything I'm saying with a grain of salt. But my reaction to something being popular is still, after all these years, "that's not cool." Again, this is completely separate from the "is this good" discussion. The Beatles are very good, one of the best to ever do it, but they are NOT cool. Way too popular to be cool! This took me so long to distinguish, that these were two different conversations, like an embarrassingly long time. There is so much great music out there that I love, despite the fact that it is popular. There is so much great fucking music out there that I love, despite the fact that it is so fucking lame. My love of music is vast, and is not strung up on whether it's cool or not. My love of cool music is small and narrow, and that's because my definition of "cool" was irrevocably damaged at a formative age. That's not cool.  —Joe

"What It Is" by the Cool Kids

from The Bake Sale EP, 2008

The exclusion of rap music from my own inner "what is cool" monologue has to do with the fact that I don't consider myself cool, and I certainly don't consider to cool to try to talk about what is cool regarding things I'm not knowledgeable about. I already said that there is a difference between caring and not caring, or at least the presentation of caring vs. not caring. But what would be a mortal sin would be the presentation of caring about something that you don't actually know jackshit about. The irony is that the very first rap album that I ever actually listened to of my own accord and appreciated and thought was cool because I grew to know it well and it became a part of my during my formative years was by a rap duo literally named "the Cool Kids." Do I think the Cool Kids are cool? Yeah, I do. Not every song on The Bake Sale EP is cool, but some of it is, because they feel like they are just fucking around, which is cool. I don't know if the Cool Kids think about coolness in the same way I do. Maybe what I think about cool doesn't matter. Probably it shouldn't.  —Joe

NEXT MONTH: TBA for the next MMM on Monday, September 7th!

In My Place 214

August 2, 2026. 38.99256, -74.79718. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

Remember when they tried to ban canopies from the beach? This was in Wildwood, the backwards fucking shore town that I've somehow found myself visiting every year of my life. The jabronis who live here year-round love to bitch and moan about the beach, and I guess a few years ago they looked around and saw that the rapidly shrinking beach was being increasingly covered with large tents, and, ya know, instead of attempting any long-term change, like voting for responsible environmental policies, they instead kept voting for the pedophile and then attempted to just make sure people didn't have shade on the beach. That ban lasted half a summer (I think this was like 2023ish), and didn't even last until I finally got down here with my own cabana. As I type this, I don't have sunburn. I've only seen one pedophile flag in town so far, none on the beach, and also only one nazi flag (a.k.a. the thin blue line-style "American" flag). Maybe these people are starting to realize they fucked themselves. Or maybe they just don't care anymore, which is probably worse. Anyways. It was a good beach day.

Album of the Week: Sports

For the 38th summer in a row, I will be spending one week in North Wildwood, NJ. For the eighth summer in a row, the heavy pall of Record Club's music will hang over the week. Let's see how a week at the beach will affect how I feel about this album. There have been mixed results over the years. The Wildwood RC canon is: Fever Breaks by Josh Ritter, Watermelon Man! by Mongo Santamaria, We Are Not Your Kind by Slipknot, Don't You Fake It by the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, healing by In Love with a Ghost, Mindfuck Ultra by Yambag, and The Young and the Hopeless by Good Charlotte. All of these albums bring back specific Wild-Wild-Wildwood Days memories for me, even now. I appreciate you indulging me in some talk about vacation in this introduction to this week's album. If you're free, come down the shore. The beach is free, and there's room under my Cool Cabana for you. We won't listen to Modern Baseball though, the algorithm lovers in my family would never allow it.

Record Club:

archives | supplemental

spotify playlist | youtube playlist

choose | writing

WEEK 392 — August 2-8, 2026

Sports

by Modern Baseball

LISTEN:

Spotify | YouTube | Bandcamp | Apple

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PICKED BY VOTE

CATEGORY OF VOTING: "Sportsball" — Mostly a joke category, and it grew from an observation I had made at some point over the spring of a band called Sports appearing over a decade after Remember Sports changed their name from Sports to Remember Sports because Sports was too confusing, but apparently not too confusing for Sports, the new band called Sports, not Remember Sports. Anyways, I added a few more artists and albums with "Sports" in their names, and Modern Baseball won. I don't think anyone is considering the fidelity of the joke when voting, their just voting for what is the most familiar. Proud to say that Philly hometown heroes took the win.

LOSING ALBUMS: Boys These Days by Sports Team; Colors by Sport; The Refrigerator by Remember Sports; Sports by Sports.

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ALBUM DETAILS

GENRE: Midwest emo, emo-pop, pop punk, indie folk, indie rock

RELEASED: November 27, 2012

LENGTH: 30:48

TRACKLIST:

1. Re-Do
2. Tears over Beers
3. The Weekend
4. @chl03k
5. Hours Outside in the Snow
6. I Think You Were in My Profile Picture Once
7. Re-Done
8. Cooke
9. See Ya, Sucker
10. Look Out
11. Play Ball!
12. Coals

LYRICS: Genius.com

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ARTIST DETAILS

PRONOUNS: he/him/his for Ewald and (from what I could find) they/them/their for Lukens

ABOUT: Modern Baseball had its genesis in the late '00s, when Ewald and Lukens met in high school in Brunswick, Maryland. They both went to school in Philadelphia in 2010 (Ewald at Drexel and Lukens at Chestnut Hill), where they met Ian Farmer, who attended Drexel, and helped them record their debut album using school equipment. They played house parties at Drexel at "The Michael Jordan House" (the cover charge was either $3 or a picture of Michael Jordan). They all temporarily left school due to the success of the band. Modern Baseball (sometimes shorted to MoBo) is known as an important band of emo's fourth wave, a.k.a. the Emo Revival era. The band went on hiatus in 2017, and this is most attributed to Lukens focusing on their mental health. The band is still on hiatus, though Ewald and Farmer still operate together in Ewald's Slaughter Beach, Dog, which was a side project at first but is not their main gig. Sean Huber joined at some point on drums, I should mention. He's not on this album, but he's on the other two. Can't forget about the drummer!

DISCOGRAPHY: This is Modern Baseball's first of three albums. It was followed by You're Gonna Miss It All in 2014, and Holy Ghost in 2016.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

READING SOME SHIT: an interview feature on a random Wordpress in 2016

WATCHING SOME SHIT: "The Weekend" live in 2012

WATCHING SOME MORE SHIT: Zach sent this one over a few days ago, a 26-year-old woman basically answers the question "what is emo" over the course of eleven minutes, including a bunch on Modern Baseball, and mentions of other artists we've covered on this blog. Watch for her intense knowledge of the scene, and try to maintain your composure as you continuously want to pummel the male interviewer in the face.

RECORD CLUB CONNECTIONS: A few name connections. Modern Baseball comes after Metamodern Sounds. It wasn't the RC album, but Huey Lewis and the News also have an album called Sports. Sports references abound throughout RC, with (off the top of my head) Little Big League, Johnny Football Hero, Footballhead, the Philadelphia Eagles, what else?

Any previous Drexel connections? It's been noted that I saw Dan Deacon perform at Drexel in 2008, but that's more happenstance than a true connection. A bunch of RC alumni have attended other City Six universities, including Hall & Oates and Tim Heidecker (both Temple). It was noted in their Wikipedia that Modern Baseball toured with the Menzingers.

We should also note that this is the second week in a row that we're covering a band slapped with the Midwest emo genre tag, though I don't know if I'd necessarily compare the Jazz June and Modern Baseball. They are different emo waves, to start (second vs. fourth). Some fourth wave bands like MoBo took things closer to the "pop-punk" end of the spectrum than the second wave. In any case, if you find them too similar, then that's my bad!

MENTIONS ON THE BLOG: I only learned about Modern Baseball in 2014, and You're Gonna Miss It All ended up at #5 on PoYB's Top Ten Albums of 2014. It was covered in The Albums That Matter in 2019, in anticipation of its ranking in the Top Albums of the Decade list, where it landed at #21. "Your Graduation" from that album ended up at #40 for the Top Songs of the Decade. Steady Hands, drummer Sean Huber's so far unmentioned side project, showed up in Summer Song Challenge at some point. I used a MoBo song to speculate about actual baseball last summer. A song from Sports showed up on a Monthly Playlist just last summer as well. Finally, three MoBo songs have appeared on three different Monday Morning Mixtapes ("Play Ball!" on MMM012, "Your Graduation" on MMM014, and "Wedding Singer" on MMM078).

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RECORD CLUB ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

This week's discography dive album: It's Alive by La Luz

This week's follow-up album: Tragic Magic by Mary Lattimore and Julianna Barwick

This week's keeping up album (probably): Music, Fashion, Film by Charli XCX

Listen with us! Keep your favorite Record Club artists in the rotation!

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COUNTDOWN:

69 Weeks Until Week 420

We are tracking and counting down every week from here on out till Record Club Week 420. We started this countdown 69 weeks out. During Record Club Week 420, we will be covering Donny Most by the esteemed Happy Days virgin Donny Most. The goal for Week 420 of Record Club is that it will feature 69 reviews from 69 different people. 

THIS WEEK: We are 28 weeks away from Week 420.

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Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!

In My Place 213

August 1, 2026. 39.03776, -74.83236. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

If you squint, you can see Wildwood, NJ. This is a follow-up to a blog post from seven years ago. We're still playing "Thunder Road" as we go into town. The kids are neither excited nor disappointed, it's just part of the sonic tapestry of their lives: we listen to "Thunder Road" as we cross the bridge. We hear the harmonica during those first moments of seeing our vacation town; we hear the drum triplets that bring us into the outro and we enter town in earnest. It's just something we do. Something we've always done. Something we'll always do, until something happens and we don't go to Wildwood anymore. A family tradition, but I swear there is very little fanfare. Sit tight, take hold.

Song of the Evening: "Mistakes (Too Many to Name)"

A column about music, and about how the music informs our lives. Today's author is Joe. See the previous songs HERE.

"Mistakes (Too Many to Name)"

The Reds, Pinks & Purples

from The Town That Cursed Your Name

2023

It's not really all that reliable, the number tracker. I suppose this is the 10,000th blog post published on Puke on Your Birthday, which is why I'm banging out a blog post really quickly, to note the occasion, so that the 10,000th post doesn't accidentally become a picture of a North Wildwood beach porta-potty or whatever the fuck.

But the number comes with plenty of caveats. Included in that count are the landing pages, like this one, which shouldn't really count. And then there are so many tiny blog posts littered around this stupid fucking blog that are just straight-up asinine, and probably should count either. Like this one, as just one example. We have 10,000 blog posts, but so many of them are lying in a landfill right now. And then consider all the blog posts that have been published and then since deleted. I'm mostly referring to all of Mike's posts, deleted in a pre-law school haze of regret, but there's been a few from my side of the fence over the years too. I recall a post from long ago whose premise was "here are all the other people on the internet who share my first and last name," which was deleted because there were just way too many redactions, now that I'm militant about not having my last name on this blog.

Anyways, you don't care about this. You shouldn't care about this. I'm just typing because I need to type something. I'm publishing late in the afternoon on a Saturday because I don't think you need to care about it, and I'm trying to make it easy to ignore. I could sit here and type all day about this fucking blog, but that would stretch the tolerance of our readership to its breaking point. No one thinks about this place in the same way I do. It's a nice place to visit for you, I hope, but it hasn't seeped into your bones and your blood like it has for me. You live your life and you come here when you want to.

I'm just realizing now that I wrote a long meta piece for our 1000th blog post. That was written toward the end of 2019, which means that, for the first eleven years of the blog's existence, we wrote 1000 blog posts, and during the 2020s, we've written 9000 blog posts. I think that post from 2019 is worth visiting if you want to know the origin story of how we got here. It misses 90% of the story as it stands now, of course, but that's what happens when you end up writing 9000 additional blog posts. In brief, here's where we've been since then.

In 2020, I blogged twice a day, with one of them being a blog post about whatever beer I drank that day, and the other being whatever I could cobble together. I learned that a blog-a-day habit was possible. I also learned (in retrospect, perhaps) that I was probably an alcoholic.

In 2021, I lost a sense of who I was as a writer, and found that maybe I still needed to blog every day. More on this discovery in a few days in another sappy anniversary post disguised as a Song of the Day, but suffice it to say now that this year, 2021, is when PoYB became its fullest form.

In 2022, I completed my only full calendar year of grad school, so the blog was kept burning but perhaps not as bright. Occasionally, I kept the lights on. I also got deeply into alcohol, more so than ever before, so you can start to see some of the cracks show if you read between the lines. Most importantly, the most satisfying blog project I have ever or will ever complete was worked through during 2022: Grannies Gone Wild. We peaked here.

In 2023, we had a good time through the year, but the summer yet again yielded another satisfying project: Summer Song Challenge. I already knew it was fun blogging every day, but it was cool to blog every day with other people. I felt a sense of togetherness through SSC that I hadn't felt before on this blog, at least not to that extent.

In 2024, we reached another peak, this time when we took the successful Song Challenge idea and blew it up to a yearlong project. By the end of the year, it felt like the ten of us or so had actually achieved something, a collective writing catharsis. It was deeply, incredibly satisfying. I don't think PoYB really ever recovered in the aftermath of Yearlong Song Challenge. The year also started with a bunch of individual weekly columns from some of our pals. Those all faded by the end of the year too, as they always do.

In 2025, then, we were basically hungover the whole year. Trying to find some sense of identity after losing so much. No overarching projects, just a diligent grinding out the blog on a daily basis. Oh, and Film Club too! Time will tell if this is something that will stand the test of blogging time, or if it'll fade like all other blog projects tend to do. If even one person still wants to watch movies with me, then Film Club will stick around.

In 2026, this year, I think I'm starting to get the sense that we're slowly petering out, losing steam, irreversibly. But maybe something will happen that will get us back and invested!

I don't think that we're going to end up with another 10,000 blog posts after this one. I guess you never know, but I think I know. There might eventually come a time when Record Club is literally the last thing standing, and so we'll still get at least two reviews every Friday, and a Sunday write-up for the new album, and those three-plus blog posts a week might eventually add up to 10,000 more posts. Theoretically. Realistically, though, the end of my life or the end of the world or the end of the internet is gonna get to us first.

Almost half of the blog posts published on PoYB so far were not written by me. With that in mind, I want to thank you for doing your part in making this website a cool place to be. At the very least, you made me happy, so hopefully you can feel good knowing that the arduous task of writing makes at least one human being's life better than it was before you wrote. I'm being sincere. Thank you.

Alright, that's enough for now. Let's get started on blog post #10,001.

Record Club Alumni Association — Minutes from Meeting #08: Fibulator, Melody's Echo Chamber, Menzingers

(Deeper Dive)

Fibulator

drankfromtheasphalt — RC Week 371 — 3.5 pukes out of 5

unhammerlike

1994 (unknown exact date)

This is the second week in a row that my Deeper Dive pick goes completely off the rails, after Gal. And to be clear, I mean this in a good way. Or at the very least an interesting way (which is what we're aiming for in Record Club anyway, you know). I suppose I'm technically less surprised about Fibulator, who were pretty weird to begin with, but I'm struggling to imagine what the collective consensus would have been if we had tried out unhammerlike first. drankfromtheasphalt was strange, but operate within the confines of the traditional rock 'n' roll structure. unhammerlike is, in comparison, unhinged. There are strange noises around every corner, creepy screaming throughout, someone squishing a dog toy throughout one song, basically no homages to any genre of music beyond freak art rock shit. This is the sound of a band playing like they knew it was the last time, and they had to go balls to the wall and include every single idea, even all the bad ones. Fibulator was right, this did end up being their last album. I just marvel at the idea of going out on this note, and letting this stand as your legacy. If that's true, Fibulator is one of the weirdest bands we've ever covered in Record Club. Again, in a good way.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

(Follow-up)

Melody's Echo Chamber

Emotional Eternal — RC Week 196 — 3 pukes out of 5

Unclouded

December 5, 2025

Pam saw this artist in concert a couple months ago, and I will say primarily that, after listening to her newest album, I'm assuming the concert was cool as fuck. Melody Prochet is basically doing everything that Tame Impala wish they could do, making this dreamy psych shit seem effortless and relaxed and homegrown. Like, there are artists that feel like they are doing it in effort to try to be good and well-liked, and then there are artists who are clearly just doing it for the love of the game. Melody's Echo Chamber falls most assuredly into the latter category. Something like "Eyes Closed" feels like it was made with love. It is propulsive and yet it calms. I don't know if this is necessarily "interesting" enough for me to dive deep into (I have no idea what she's singing about, for example), but I still appreciate the art, and what it's trying to do... or not trying to do, as it were.

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

(Keeping Up)

The Menzingers

Hello Exile — RC Week 36 — 4.5 pukes out of 5

Some of It Was True — RC f/u #23 — 4 pukes out of 5

Everything I Ever Saw

July 17, 2026

Here's something funny: I never realized that Menzingers had two vocalists until now. This isn't a new kind of stupidity for me. Just last summer, I figured it out way too late in the game about Goo Goo Dolls. And it's not like Greg Barnett and Tom May are that much different vocally. I mean, now that I know, I'll hear it all the time. But this isn't like when I didn't realize until embarrassingly late that Roger Waters and David Gilmour were singing different parts on Pink Floyd songs. ANYWAY, this little tidbit helped me find new depth in a band that doesn't necessarily seem all that interested in finding depth in their own sound. These dudes have a particular style, and they are sticking to it. Is it starting to become a little noticeable? Perhaps. Stale, even? Certainly not. I think we all need to take a step back and breathe in these types of situations. We need to be thankful that great rock bands are sticking to winning formulas. They could try to switch it up and fail, and we don't want that. Too risky. Let's stick to what we all know and love. Not every band should do this, mind you, lest we lose all chance of risks paying off. But some bands should just continue on and never change. There's a comfort in that. We need the comfort of the Menzingers to get us through these hard times.

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

(Random RCAA News)

• The Noah Kahan pissing and shitting fiasco continues, with fans continuing to piss and shit in their seats during Noah Kahan concerts.
• boygenius member Lucy Dacus brought out two members of two other RC bands at the Newport Folk Fest—Hayley Williams from Paramore and Brandon Flowers from the Killers.
• Bon Iver played a full set of Bob Dylan covers as "Bon Dylan."
• BTS is boycotting the Grammys, as maybe everyone should.
• Black Sabbath's guitarist Tommy Iommi is releasing a solo album.
• FUCK DATA CENTERS says Willie Nelson, and pretty much everyone.

In My Place 212

July 31, 2026. 40.07308, -75.06954. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here. Looks like shit if you don't click it, I'm sorry about Blogger's limitations.

"Does it always have to be a building?" —the only photographer in my life who gives a shit about this blog photography project

She's right to question. I do default pretty often to "here's a picture of the building that I was in." Initial arguments might defer to the title of the project itself, namely the word "place," and how that should be considered the focus. But, like, there's also no reason why the picture can't be of, say, an object that is located within that place. There are no rules. If I want to capture an object outside of the place that I spend the majority of my time (home), then that's cool, I assume. It's a better picture than another pic of the backyard or whatever.

I also really look up to my photographer friend and want to take her implicit advice.

I'm skipping town tomorrow (Saturday), so I'll have more pictures of buildings coming up, except these buildings will be in a different state, by the beach.

Discussion — Week 391: The Medicine by the Jazz June

I gotta assume that most people didn't even realize that we switched this week's scheduled album less than two weeks ago. Fine Art by Fine Art exists, I swear. It just doesn't exist online. But you know the trite saying that god-fearing boomers usually say: everything happens for a reason. I would like to believe that the folks who reviewed The Medicine this week liked it a lot better than they would have Fine Art. I'm writing this before reading anyone else's reviews, so I guess that remains to be seen. How'd it work out? Did any of these reviews persuade you? Let's chat in the comments about emo, god, your weekend, really anything, I'll be there.

The Medicine, Joe

Have I ever written about this? I don't know if I have. Maybe, maybe not. It's hard to say after 10,000 blog posts. I'm sure somewhere amongst the dirt and debris of tossed-off writing is the factoid that I am afraid of slugs. You know, like the slimy, slow-moving things that you find in a garden at night. This is my fear. It's both true and also funny to say. A good addition to any otherwise trite conversation about fears. No one wants to be the dude who's saying something like "I'm afraid of heights." That's boring as FUCK. You gotta surprise 'em when you're giving a piece of yourself like that. You want the reaction to be a giggle: slugs?! Yes, slugs. I'm not lying. It's not as effective if it's a lie. The trick is to make them laugh through truth. And my truth is: I'm afraid of slugs.

Now, when I say the word "afraid," again, I'm not lying, but we do need to clarify what it means to be "afraid" of something. How would you describe it? It's an emotion, which are typically difficult to define. You know the emotion because you feel it, and you know that other people feel those emotions too and know what you mean when you say "fear" because you know they have felt "fear" too, and you can relate in the use of the word because you don't have to define it, it's common knowledge, that emotion. But what if you HAD to describe what being "afraid" meant, how would you? Well, then we'd default to the physical properties that are tied to that emotion. Your heart beats more quickly. You get sweaty palms. You get dizzy, or nauseous. Your breath quickens or stops completely for a brief moment. Maybe your eyes get wide, your mouth hangs agape, your body starts to move away from the thing that is causing this emotion within you. I feel all these things when I see a slug. And the fact that I feel these physical reactions to the sight of a slug should, within this definition of "fear," prove that I am afraid of slugs.

In this definition, we are using the physical sensations to explain the emotional sensations. But what I'd like to propose to you now is: what if it moves in the opposite direction? What if we are using the emotional sensations to explain the physical sensations? In other words, what if I feel a certain way physically when I witness external stimuli (in this case: a slimy slug), and the only way that I am able to explain why I am feeling this way physically when I see this particular object is with the word "fear"? But what if those physical sensations are totally separate? What if I'm misinterpreting the way my body is reacting? And if so, should we still use the word "fear"?

Because I'll tell you this: I am old enough to know that there's no real reason to be afraid of slugs. They present no actual threat to me. The most recent 200 times I've seen a slug, over the last 20 years or so, my response to seeing it is simply to move away from it. And if you know those dastardly slugs, you know that they are way too slow to catch me, a human man with abnormally long legs. I know this. I am acknowledging it now. I don't fear slugs when I don't see them, I am instead only reminded of my fear when I see one close by, and feel the physical reaction. I "fear" seeing a slug on damp, half-lit mornings along the sidewalk path, but really what I mean is that I don't want to feel sweaty or feel nauseous or feel my heart skip a beat or feel a strong motivation to run away quickly. Those are unpleasant physical feelings, and I don't want to see a slug because I don't want to feel that way.

I guess it doesn't really make all that much of a difference, how you or I choose to define my "fear" of slugs. Whether it's actually fear or not is a moot point. But it's interesting to think about what we feel and how we feel it and why we feel it, isn't it? We choose to define this sensation as "fear" because that's the easiest way to do it, that's the most understood emotion, and adequately serves to explain why I react the way I do when I see a slug. I must be afraid of slugs. And that seems to be good enough, even though "fear" is an ancient impulse that serves to inform the human body of a threat and trigger a fight or flight response in order to preserve safety and security. But slugs aren't a threat! I know this! Do you see why "I'm afraid of slugs" doesn't seem like a satisfactory answer to me? If I know something is not a threat and have decades of personal data to back up that fact, then why do I still think that I am afraid of that thing? It doesn't make sense.

So when you ask me what I mean when I say that I am fucking thrilled and elated when I listen to Midwest emo, then I am similarly curious as to how I would even explain those emotions. You know what I mean when I use words like "thrilled," of course. If something makes me happy, then you know what I'm trying to say, because you know what it feels like to be happy, and we can relate because we have both felt that human reaction, happiness. And you can connect the dots from there, and say, yes, if Joe feels that way about this particular genre, then I can interpret exactly what he means. He likes it, because of the emotion he says he feels while he listens to bands like the Jazz June is something that I've felt about something else, so this makes sense. The world makes sense. Good. Yes. I'm just curious if we need to be thinking about the Why here, or if it's just good enough to lean on words that signify universally known emotions, and leave it at that.

Like the origins of my love of this Midwest emo genre, the origins of my fear of slugs are murky, forgotten, lost in time. I do know for a fact that the backyard of the home I lived in from birth until the summer of 2003 (at the age of fourteen) was known to feature a non-negligible number of slugs on any given summer evening. My assumption, based on my limited knowledge of how trauma works, is that I had some sort of traumatic experience with a slug during the time in my life from which no memory still remains. Or maybe something happened to me with a slug after the moment in my life when my brain started hitting the Record button, but this particular traumatic experience rejiggered my brain chemistry so that the Record button became loose and stopped recording for that particular experience, ya know, as some sort of self-defense mechanism against whatever horrors I witness in that moment. And yet without the memory, my brain still responds like it probably did in that unrecorded moment, with the fear symptoms like sweaty palms and shortness of breath. This is all guesswork, but fits into the framework of human trauma psychology.

So what's the history—guessed or otherwise—of my love of Midwest emo? It's similarly patchy, though obviously the holes in the story have nothing to do with age. I was 30 years old when it occurred to me that I love this shit. There is documentation on the blog, but here's the secret I'll share with you: I was fucking loaded when I wrote that thing (oh whoops, not a secret, I literally say that in the blog post). This accounts for the bad, lazy writing. This also may or may not account for the shaky reasoning behind my love of this type of music. I know what I feel: I feel breathless, but in a good way, like when you're thrilled with something, like maybe akin to going fast on a highway, or winning a prize at carnival game, or seeing a smile on a newborn's face. But I don't know why that reaction for this music. I'm reading the RYM description of Midwest emo, looking for clues, finding information but no explanation. Did I have some eye-opening experience, back then in the winter of '18-'19, something that I can't remember because I was too blotto drunk but nevertheless changed my brain chemistry in some irreversible way to always be attracted to these particulars sounds?

What you might need at this juncture if confirmation from me that I like The Medicine by the Jazz June. I do. I can confirm it. This is an album review and so it must be said. It also must be clarified that I don't love every single piece of Midwest emo that has ever come across my desk. It, like all music genres, is vast and deep, and ultimately (because it, like all music genres, is just something someone made up and just happened to become widely accepted, even though it doesn't actually mean anything and isn't actually real) encompasses a whole lot of disparate sounds. Record Club's only other pure example of the genre came to us last summer, in Sunny Day Real Estate, and I struggled then to say what I'm struggling to say now. Not only that, but I was less impressed with SDRE than I am with the Jazz June. That probably has more to do with expectations than actual quality, but I'm really just bringing it up because I don't want it to seem like anything that could be reasonably affixed with a "Midwest emo" label gets the rubberstamp treatment from me. The difference in my own opinion between the Jazz June and Sunny Day Real Estate (and American Football, and the Promise Ring, and Braid, and Mineral, and Cap'n Jazz) isn't really that large, but it is there. And I really, really liked The Medicine, in the broader scope of my musical tastes of course (since I love Midwest emo), but also within the specific context of all Midwest emo bands.

I know how I feel when I listen, but those feelings are borne of physical reactions. I know that I love Midwest emo because of the physical sensations I feel when I listen to good Midwest emo music. Then I take those physical reactions and interpret them in a way that makes me label it like: I am excited, I am thrilled, I am happy. I think maybe it's time to just admit that I'll never know the Why. I won't be able to go back and figure out why I feel the way I feel about certain things. There is a reason, a genesis story to those emotions, but they are occasionally lost. And ultimately, they don't even matter, because you are you, and you feel what you feel, and you understand what you feel and what that means, to feel those things. I know how I felt this week, and I liked it.

Also: please don't talk to me about salt. Everyone always talks to me about salt. What about salting a slug do you think would make me feel any fucking better about this? Do you not understand what happens to a slug when they touch salt? And you think that would be helpful for me? That this would address my fear? C'mon now.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

In My Place 211

July 30, 2026. 40.07348, -75.0844. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

If I could just talk about failure for a moment, then I would talk about how Luigi did something right but failed to remain uncaught, and it was just one CEO, like maybe there are a bunch that need to meet Luigi, but for now, they're out here denying my medication, like even though it's not a life or death situation, it was helping me, and now I'm temporarily off of it while the insurance company squabbles about it, and so I'm back on the other drug, Taco Bell, and it feels so fucking good to eat because I love this food, but then I think that maybe I shouldn't have, that I won't feel great tomorrow physically or emotionally, scared that I'm backsliding, and then overlooking to the vacuums, the free ones at the car wash, the ones I would use if I had time, to clean out the minivan, I just don't have time, I'll never have time again, and that feels like failure, eating burritos and coming home to a dirty minivan.

But I don't need to talk about failures, because there are so many successes in my life, and I am thankful.

Never Seen It #326: RENT

Find the one blog before the virus takes hold, glory, like a sunset. One blog to redeem this empty life! Time flies, you watch 500 movies you've never seen before, and then no need to endure anymore! Time dies.

RENT

2005

Chris Columbus

Welcome to our next installment of the "Already Seen It" subseries, where we asked members of Film Club to choose a movie they've already seen from the list, and force Joe to watch it. I was hoping no one felt obligated to rewatch any movies that they picked, but some of our loyal club members beat me to the punch and rewatched it anyway. Zach rewatched RENT, and has some thoughts. Then I'll share my thoughts afterward.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zach

This is the third time in my life I've seen RENT. The first was Thanksgiving Day 2005, in the theaters, with my mother's side of the family, who are all way more into musicals than I will ever be. I was deep in the mourning period for my high school girlfriend, even though we had broken up nearly a year before. Coming back to Maryland always made things feel worse, and I (while I don't remember specifically) assume I saw her at some point during that trip. Something about the emotion of the movie got me then. It probably had to do with the emotion of the music, and with all the breakups that happen in the movie, even though everyone seems to get back together at the end. The second time was when it showed at the cheap NYU movie nights in the theater. My main memory from watching it then was an audible laugh at the crowd during the scene where Roger walks out onto the rocks in Santa Fe. I think people laughed because it looked so stupid and contrived. It still does, although watching it now, for the third time, I didn't think it was the most embarrassing shot I've ever seen in a movie.

But let's be honest. To watch RENT today feels a bit eye-rolling. The absolute sincerity of the songs, the lack of irony, the cringeworthiness of "La Vie Bohème"—it doesn't really fit today. Portlandia made fun of that world, and now a show like Portlandia would never make it on air because the world is too dark, and making fun of free-range chicken feels irrelevant. So RENT is certainly dated. 

But the music. Oh, the music. "Seasons of Love" will always get me. "Will I" will always get me. So will "What You Own." Yes, I can laugh at the absurdity of the characters. Mark's movie kind of sucks, Roger is a very clichéd character, Mimi is a manic pixie dream girl, Benny represents THE MAN and the show makes sure you know that, Maureen and Joanne are archetypes... I honestly think the best characters in the show are Collins and Angel. 

Somehow I got lucky enough to like the music of RENT before I realized its cheesiness. I don't like musicals in general, but this one slipped by me, and I'm better for it. I found myself belting out "Seasons of Love" at the beginning along with the rest of the cast.

The show hearkens back to a different New York, too. Nowadays, Alphabet City is a fancy place, like most of Manhattan. It's all high-rises, and modern buildings, too. HIV is much more under control than it used to be. The idea of "selling out" is more of a joke than it used to be. It was a different time, it was a different place, and it's not culturally relevant anymore. But the songs are one banger after another, and that makes it all worth it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joe

I have no ties to any of this, which is what makes it difficult to have an opinion about this movie musical, and which also probably makes me more willing to accept it for what it is, as opposed to what it does to a thing or a place in time that people genuinely care about. What I mean is that I don't really give a shit about Broadway musicals, Gen X angst, the so-called bohemian lifestyle, the legacy of RENT the musical, New York City, or any dork who cut their teeth in New York in 1989, 1996, 2005, 2011, or 2026. So all that can be brushed aside. I care about the movie in front of me and I care about the music it contains. That's basically it.

A quick aside I might add here would be the fact that I have, of course, been familiar with the idea of RENT as a movie, having cut my own teeth right here in Philadelphia in a low-rate but lovable theater program at my local low-rate unlovable university, with all those theater rapscallions singing along to soundtracks of shows that I'll never seen in person, and also of course being familiar with it as a cultural institution, what with the Team America gag "Everyone Has AIDS" cutting RENT down a year before the film version's release, plus, I don't know, it's status as the perfect and also cringeworthy encapsulation of an entire generation's grappling with growing up in their specific place and time. I've also seen bits and pieces of the film over the years, probably some minutes here and there in the background as I slugged Natty Lights at an upperclassman's townhouse, and definitely during a particularly wayward moment in my high school years, when I made an icky, horny decision and hurt some feelings and feel the shame even now rippling through the two decades since, RENT the movie soundtracking that moment of my life, burned into my brain as the background to a low point. This is coincidence, and not important, but perhaps worth noting, simply because it's that kind of movie.

Any issues that you might have with this movie as an adaptation of a theater show you love is not really my problem. I don't give a shit. To me, it's a movie, and it's fine. That "fine" is circumstantial, though, and I'm trying to tell you now that it's a good thing that it went this way. If I don't give a shit about the musical then I'm not gonna sit here and tell you the movie is inferior. I literally can't, I have nothing to compare it to. There are people who hate this film because it's not like the original version. I'm saying that this movie is fine, don't worry about it.

They ("they" being: basically everything I've read online; Zach, above) say that it's outdated, and perhaps that's true. There are people who needed this musical in their lives during their formative years, when they were young and life was full of fake hardship papering over real privilege and wild fun, and then they see the movie adaptation later in life, see the original cast who are now way too old to play these characters, see what they themselves were actually like in their early 20s, and cringe, and think that there is no way that this film and this idea of RENT could possibly be relevant anymore. They are, as far as I can tell, completely correct. It's outdated because they are older now and this is no longer relevant. But here, too, I can say: I don't care. I am viewing it only as a time capsule, and nothing else. I didn't grow with it and therefore I cannot outgrow it. It's already of the past, and can never be my present.

For what it's worth, though, Pam—having seen the musical, having already seen RENT the movie a few times, and having already played the soundtrack in our car at least a dozen times since I've known her, and that's just counting when I myself am present—said that she liked the movie better than she remembered. My theory is that she went through that typical theater kid process of knowing / liking / obsessing over the musical, and then being disappointed with the Chris Colombus adaptation, due to aforementioned ideas of its "outdatedness" being personal much more so than cultural. But what Pam represents, here in 2026, in her early 40s, is the idea of making it all the way through and coming out the other side. She's far enough removed from "needing" or at the very least "relating to" RENT as a young teen or 20-something that she can comfortably see it as a time capsule now too.

That's growth. Now here's my growth: I liked the songs a little better this time around. I just said in the last paragraph that Pam has forced this soundtrack upon my ears more than a few times over the years. Not to the point that I was familiar with them all by the time I watched the movie (not like Hamilton, whose soundtrack was worn out by the time my ass hit the theater's cushioned seats), but enough that I had formed a general opinion of them. That opinion was: "Oof... rough..." I have always thought and still think now that the lyrics are some of the worst lyrics I've ever heard in any musical. Just some of the lamest, cringiest shit that's ever been put on stage.

HOWEVER, I say this as someone who just generally needs a lot to be impressed, NOT as someone who is any sort of Broadway skeptic. I will gladly cop to the idea that I am easily impressed when it comes to the combination of singing and dancing and "performing" on stage or screen. I am, in other words, highly susceptible to the magic of theater. The best example here is "La Vie Bohème," a song that I grew to utterly despise in my occasional dalliances with it in the family minivan. Its corniness made me want to tear my fucking hair out. But seeing the whole gang dance around to it, my Dazed and Confused boy Anthony Rapp go nuts dancing on tabletops and shit... ya know what? I finally understood the song. I don't think it's great, but I understood what they were doing, for the first time. It felt like a worthy part of this artistic statement, and I'm thankful to see it performed as intended.

Not that I'm going to be excited to hear it in the car next time around (I mean, we just watched the damn movie together, there's no fucking way we're gonna get past the next car ride together without hearing this shit again, right?), but I have a peace of mind knowing that I was simply missing essential pieces of the experience. Elsewhere on the soundtrack, there is another song that stood out in the movie, but for a different reason. Namely, because it's a great fucking song, straight-up, no contextualization needed. "Out Tonight" as performed by Mimi as performed here by Rosario Dawson. You don't even need the context of Dawson being one of the hottest people alive and playacting as a stripper here—homie don't play that shit when it comes to being a music critic. Taking my horny hat off and putting my music critic hat on firmly, I say wholeheartedly that "Out Tonight" is the best song from a music I've heard since Larson's "30/90."

The rest of the music is fine. The rest of the movie is fine. A lot of it is silly even though it's not supposed to be (lol at Zach mentioning the Sante Fe part, I literally turned to Pam and said "I was so fucking confused, I forgot he was in Sante Fe"), and a lot of the intended silly parts are not very silly at all (Idina Menzel's little one-woman show was so embarrassing it made me want to set myself on fire and jump off the fire escape like so many burning eviction notices). But we can stick to what we know, and only what we care about here in 2026. RENT is purely nostalgia now, and since I missed that whole thing at the beginning, I can comfortably say that this movie is fine, and all the glaring issues were simply chalked up to this being a goofy and charming movie, that meant something to some people some time ago. But not me. That's okay.

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: We have another round of small group work, and half the crew is gonna be watching Princess Mononoke.

In My Place 210

July 29, 2026. 40.08351, -75.08654. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

It happens every year, once a year, in this playground: the children wander away toward slides and swings, and the adults are left huddled up watching the movie. This year, the adults watched Zootopia 2. My thought is that next year they should just show an adult-oriented movie. Let us watch Fellini's 8½ at the playground if it's gonna be like that!

A Year of Blind Spots: The Dreaming

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

Yes, okay, sometimes you can appreciate the intention of the art without actually liking the art itself. Sure, yes, we know this. But sometimes that's not good enough for me. Just because something is weird as fuck doesn't mean I can't try my best to meet the art where it's coming from. With Kate Bush, I have seen firsthand twice now, it is incredibly arduous to meet the art where it's coming from, because it's bizarre and strange in a few different ways, and anything but approachable. But as I've seen with The Dreaming, the effort is mostly worth it.

I am familiar with Hounds of Love. I have been since before A Year of Blind Spots was conceived, but it was definitely a glaring Blind Spot at one point in the mid-'10s. I will say that I have never had a problem with Kate Bush being certifiably "weird." I like weird. My issues with her most critically acclaimed album have nothing to do with its weirdness, but instead with a complete lack of hooks on Side 2 (the "Ninth Wave" suite that comprises the entire side, and doesn't do much for me in terms of their being any actual good songs). The Dreaming, which is the album that came out before Hounds of Love, manages to hold it together for the entire length of the album, with interesting songs with good (weird) hooks, and nothing that devolves into the type of artistry that affects the strength of the songwriting.

I was also familiar with Hounds of Love before its most famous song tripled its fame through its use in the dumb Netflix alien show. I hated that show, watched the first three seasons, was skeptical during the first season and fucking despised the second and third (my fandom of Maya Hawke notwithstanding). I didn't make it to the season that apparently features heavily "Running up That Hill," so we don't have to worry about shit-ass lazy-ass alien monster pastiches mucking up my appreciation for that song. For what it's worth, I think that this is the second-best song on Hounds of Love, after "The Big Sky." The Kate Bush heads seem to push for "Cloudbusting." All this just tells me that the true opinion within the comparison of these two albums is that Hounds of Love's peaks are higher, but the nadirs are lower, whereas The Dreaming is consistently stranger also strangely more consistent. Like, there's no song as big or as good as "Running up That Hill" on here, but I'd rather listen to The Dreaming in full over Hounds of Love in full every single time.

There's something appealing about Kate Bush's brand of weirdness too, and it's not something that I really thought about until I left the confines of Hounds of Love. I love the intense mix of weird futuristic shit and the sense of outdatedness that most of it has. It feels like the sounds weren't intended to age graceful but did so anyway. Listen to "Sat in Your Lap," and immediately be perplexed by the synths hits over top of the pounding drums. They seem out of place, but because everything feels out of place, it somehow works. There is so much, like, growling and yelling and weird disparate vocalizations all over this thing. Listen to "Houdini" as a good example. What the hell is even going on here? What's happening is Kate Bush going balls to the wall in making evocative art, even within the context of an otherwise dramatic love ballad.

You ever watch some of the videos for this thing? My iPod is still broken, so I've seen a few on YouTube, and they are absolutely wild. They are almost kitschy, but like I said, it feels like they almost immediately aged well. The title track is the craziest example. The song is all tribal beats and falsetto chanting, and the video is, uh, Bush dressed like an alien, dancing with other aliens? But it's not supposed to feel realistic, it's supposed to look like Kate Bush dressed like an alien on a soundstage. At one point, she finds an alien with a penis made of laser beams and jerks it off? That's my interpretation, anyway. I find it all very charming. I cannot imagine, especially after the whole "Running up That Hill" thing, that anyone could possibly feel any differently about Kate Bush. It's silly and funny and fun as fuck. She's a weirdo theater kid with a huge budget, that's all. I love this shit.

I wondered for a little bit if there was another Kate Bush album out there that had perhaps an even better balance of weirdo art energy and sharp songwriting. Then I realized two things. First, that if there was, then it would already be more popular than Hounds of Love, so I think we can safely rule the possibility out. Second, that if there was, I don't know if I would necessarily have the energy to seek it out just yet. The Dreaming was deep and intense and it took a lot out of me. This isn't easy breezy pop music. I'm not saying it's better and I'm not saying it's worse, just a different experience. And if there was a chance that, for example, her debut album The Kick Inside was less weird and way catchier, then in all likelihood, I'd listen to it and be tempted to say something like "this is my favorite Kate Bush album so far." And maybe that's true. However, I also think that this would be me playing into my worst impulses, i.e. laziness.

It's easier to like some albums and harder to like other albums. The Dreaming was hard to like, but I listened, and listened, and I have found a way to love it. And the fact that Kate Bush made it hard for me is the part that's important, and interesting. My appreciation for this album feels earned. I saw an article of the author's Top Ten Kate Bush Songs, and someone in the comments said "I would nominate for this list every song from The Dreaming," and someone else responded, "I just listened to The Dreaming for the first time, and I'm never taking a recommendation from you again." This is the whole of that classic music conversation, in miniature. You can either listen a lot and love it, or listen once and hate it. The longer it takes you to love something, the more frustrating it becomes, but the more worthy becomes the reward at the end.

I would not blame you if you don't like this album. But it feels pretty good to like it. Only because it's fucking WEIRD.

In My Place 209

July 28, 2026. 40.073, -75.06934. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

It's a stupid picture because you can't see the horse, but if the lighting was better you'd see a horse. Maybe for the best you can't see Tina; I would feel weird passing a picture of someone else's pet. It's not our pet, Tina the horse, though of you asked my kids they might say something different. She is our closest neighbor, and certainly the only neighbor that we can see sleeping when we look out our bedroom windows. She was also the first neighbor we met when we moved in. Her birthday is in my calendar. There is a feeling of comfort knowing that Tina the horse has been a constant presence for the last six years. Especially since the other neighborhood animal, Tré the three-legged cat, recently moved, and we haven't broken the news to the kids yet. There's Tina, though. She's still there, don't let the photography fool you.

Never Seen It #325: The Notebook

I am no one special. Just a common blogger with common thoughts. I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me, and my name will soon be forgotten, but in one respect I've succeeded as gloriously as anyone who ever lived. I've watched 500 movies I've never seen before, and for me, that has always been enough.

The Notebook

2004

Nick Cassavetes

The memory I have is in a friend's basement, and The Notebook is on. The friend was female (platonic). There were other female friends (platonic) there. I may have been the only guy, I forget. It was a snow day, and we had been sledding, and now we were getting warm and dry and sipping hot cocoa. My friends put on The Notebook. This was done on purpose, a winking nod to the fact that I did not want to watch The Notebook. It was a whole thing. I assume that the pretense of my not wanting to watch The Notebook was based along gender lines. I was a boy and thus The Notebook was not to be my type of movie. It was mutually understood. I didn't want to watch it. I wasn't interested in a cheesy love story.

I was also a teenager. I was young and dumb and didn't know shit about the world and didn't care. I knew nothing about love, and The Notebook, had I watched it back then, would've landed with a heavy thud upon my green, untested heart. So my women friends assuming that it was "not my kind of movie" back in the mid-'00s were absolutely right. It wasn't then. But that was 20 years ago. I've lived through some shit since then. I have a much better understand of what love is now. I'm not saying that I think The Notebook is a great movie because of that. It's fine, it's not great, but it's a fine, pretty good movie. I do think, however, that I appreciate The Notebook for what it is, at this age, better than I ever could have when I was an idiot teenager.

That's probably the case for all movies, right? But here, I'm talking about romance dramas specifically. If the point of The Notebook is to make the case for following your heart in the direction of true love, then that becomes the specific reason that I could only like this movie now, and not then. I have known true love, I live with it each day, and I am motivated now to want that for the protagonists of a film that I am enjoying. Even if the story is fictional. Even if the movie is kinda cliché, as these movies sometimes are. I understand it now, and that makes all the difference.

I was wondering, though: would I have liked this movie even more if I hadn't known the narrative conceit of the senior citizens in the framing device being older versions of the main characters? Was this supposed to be a secret? I don't know. I knew from the beginning, I suppose because this was explained to me smirkingly in that snow day basement of yore. I could imagine a scenario in which I suddenly snap to attention that Duke is actually old person Noah and he's chatting with old person Ali with dementia, and maybe that elevates the film even more.

But I don't even know if that was ever the intention of the film. Maybe it would have been obvious from the very beginning, whether I knew anything about The Notebook prior to or not. Like maybe the creators of this film predicted its cultural ubiquity and didn't even bother with any sort of surprise. Not to mention the fact that this was a book beforehand. That's what Pam told me when I asked her. She said that she has seen this movie many times, and that she had read the book before the movie even came out.

I wonder if she's seen it at any point in the last sixteen years, i.e. in the time since we fell in love with each other. To be clear, I'm not saying that you need to experience any movie's characters' motivations and emotions for yourself before you can ever truly understand them. That's not the case at all, never has been. Movies can show you things that you'll never know for yourself, or simply haven't yet. I remember getting fucked up watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall after a tough breakup, for example. I didn't know what love was, even though Jason Segel's character gradually learns what love is throughout that movie.

Interesting that I was more invested in a rom-com (with Sarah Marshall leaning heavily toward the "com" side, but still), and yet in the same timeframe could never picture myself being invested in a rom-dram (is that a thing?). But see, this doesn't have anything to do with the subject matter of love and my inexperience with it. It has everything to do with what kind of movies I can appreciate and which I can't. I'm saying now that being intimately familiar with love and the joy and pain that comes along with undying love is the thing that makes me able to tolerate The Notebook in the first place.

Otherwise, it's a pretty cheesy movie! It hits a lot of the same beats that your typical schmaltzy love story would hit. It was interesting that they papered over the apparent fact that our star-crossed lovers fought constantly. Also interesting that the "other guy" was by all accounts a really good dude, and was only saddled with the fatal flaw of not being The One. The Notebook either did not do enough to distinguish itself from the tried-and-true romance drama formula, or has become ubiquitous enough in pop culture that it feels unoriginal only because it inspired so many knockoffs.

At the end of the day, though, I liked this movie, because I love love, and I know it well. Eighteen-year-old Joe could fucking never.

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: Everyone has AIDS in RENT.

In My Place 208

July 27, 2026. 40.02388, -75.07766. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here. The photos continue to look like shit on Blogger, click to see a better version.

I can see it in my mind: the rain beginning, then picking up speed, the hail falling sharply, the winds blowing, the lightning cracking; the tree falling at the exact angle so as to block the train tracks; a train stopping completely before crashing, stopping safely, no harm, except for the inconvenience; the radio signal back to the station, the rerouting of various train routes, the stupid decision to send one particular train down a different track, nonsensical as it is.

I can see it through my own eyes: the number for "minutes left" turn from green to orange to red; the young employee, cheerful, smiling, announcing my doom; the internal clock on the worst day of work jump up a full out; my body sagging as I slink toward an alternate mode of transportation; the rain pelting the subway car as it hits the open air and brings me toward the station crowded with the hoi polloi, all of us coming home from work, exhausted, defeated, despaired.