Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

At times beautiful, at others devastating, Blue Heron is an accomplished study of how mental health challenges change a family. Sophy Romvari explores the limits of memory, how we process trauma, and the realization that solutions might slip through our fingers. Her twists and tonal shifts are masterful. Sasha's (Eylul Guven) childhood memories of her brother, Jeremy, (Edik Beddoes) demonstrate the limits of human connection, but the way Romvari traces the threads that hold her family together hold out hope for much more. In telling the story of a brother's mental breakdown and his family's futile attempts to help him, Romvari, strives to create a space for healing. She shifts characters and memories within her narrative, so that she can show the difficulties of understanding other people and how they navigate the world. Blue Heron points out the failings of the mental health industry while ultimately showing that some problems might  be unsolvable. From her vantage point...

A late March snowfall obscures the previously blue sky. With scattered snow flakes graying out the sun. No justice from puns and prose or even a desperate try. Instead the rotating orb does not stop for even a mourning dove's elegiacal cry. An old woman on the slushy sidewalk, dodging ice chunks, wishes winter was done. A late March snowfall obscures the previously blue sky. A muffled snore of a world never reborn nor showing its fragile eye It slumbers in fits and starts that block out the ruminating sun No justice from puns and prose or even a desperate try Where are the frolicking foxes? Are the mousy bunnies too shy? The places they once cherished, they now practically shun. A late March snowfall obscures the previously blue sky. The snow crunches beneath my feet even though I hoped to wish the season goodbye. The icy touch of spring, an irony that's lost much of its fun. No justice from puns and prose or even a desperate try. Soon it will turn to slush and the seasonal ach...

I'm hoping to start writing regularly again, particularly beginning work on my first nonfiction book. It's been a long time coming. I've written numerous chapters/articles, blog posts, poems, a few failed book proposals, and other miscellanea but have never finished a longer work, unless you count the dissertation. Of course, numerous health challenges in the last few years have dampened this dream. My hands feel better after using wrist braces for my carpal tunnel, but I cannot type like I once did. They still hurt and are shaky. I've been having brain fog and a stuffy headache from the forest fire smoke. I feel like I'm moving in slow motion. I'm posting this for support and motivation to get back to it. I want to find the strength and energy to keep going. I miss writing the way I used to since it has been part of me for as long as I can remember. However, I made it into work for so long that I'm trying to find the fun again, along with the ability to phy...

Film Twenty Five: You Are Not I (1981). Sara Driver's adaptation of a Paul Bowles short story exemplifies her ability to tell a quiet story about relationships and agency as bolstered by haunting imagery from her regular collaborator, Jim Jarmusch. Not that different in tone or pacing from When Pigs Fly , the thesis film was feared lost after her projection copy became unplayable. Another turned up in Bowles's holdings in 2009. The film depicts Ethel's (Suzanne Fletcher) journey as she comes across a terrible car accident after escaping from a mental hospital. Responders at the scene take her to her sister's house instead of back to the hospital. Watch for an absurd or possibly satisfying conclusion, depending on your perspective.

Over the past few years, I feel like I have begun to slowly unravel. I feel like I lost part of myself that I might not be able to reclaim. I am far more tired than I feel I have the right to be. But I also have never learned how not to be hard on myself. A colleague told me recently that "you are always so hard on yourself. You have to learn your self worth." Nothing could be truer, but it is hard to rediscover my value because of my own negative thoughts and self-deprecation. All the stress from my PhD studies is finally catching up with me. When I was working on my dissertation, I never had that much time to worry because I was so busy trying to get it done. Now I feel even busier. I teach five classes and have five tutoring sessions on top of it. I am working on an article that does not seem to be gelling quite like I want it to, and I hope that I can eventually catch up on sleep. My stress management seems to be failing me. I get home after a busy day at work and pre...