The river was no longer blue; water turned into black, ready to whirl us in, and those sharp-toothed rocks were there to rip our flesh and hammer our bones. Freezing water and chilly wind slashed our skin like a thousand paper cuts slicing all over our cold and stiffened bodies.
FILM / Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo / July 2021 / Gabriel Ricard
Gabriel Ricard returns this month with an array of movie selections in Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo.
Teachers will reinvent learning
and make ghosts of poetry
the way poetry made a ghost of your voice.
The ones I love will go on
with their little lives—
reading, running,
fucking.
He was always drunk by the time night came around but you’d only know that if you really loved him. I asked him, once, what it was he liked about the band and he struggled with that, blustered vaguely for a time until, finally, ‘you can really hear the pain in the singer’s voice. He ended up killing himself, y’know, and you can hear that,’ he said.
When I moved out,
we both cried.
But you’re not blind, she said—
and things don’t just disappear.
FILM / Zora's Super Short Show / Twilight Saga New Voices Shorts / Zora Satchell
Anyone who follows my Twitter knows that I am a huge Twilight stan. Over the last year, I’ve gotten my friends to rewatch these beloved films over and over. I tweet constantly about its awful delights and violent faults. I speculated about character development or lack thereof, I complained endlessly about my issues with Meyer’s abysmal politics and less than ideal approach to prose, but mainly I gushed endlessly about the cinematic masterpiece that was the first film in the franchise. Everything about it comes together to make the perfect indie-teen-supernatural-romance.
FILM / Outside the City Limits: An Appreciation for Civilization's End / Wyeth Leslie
Since Parasite won Best Picture last year, spaces of civilization have become complicated. Formerly innocuous spaces, like grocery stores and fast food restaurants, now feel dangerous. Right now, a lot more of civilization is emptier than normal. This isn’t (and hopefully won’t) always the case. I miss when my edges of civilization were spaces relegated to the screen, landscapes home to characters usually driven by chance and desire. Revenge is another common thread through these films, whether it involves economic revenge (Hell or High Water), Sad Max revenge (The Rover), or drugged-out Nicolas Cage revenge (Mandy). All depict characters and society on the verge of becoming ghosts, but I think the some of the best examples of this dividing line are Fargo, It Follows, and Leave No Trace.
FILM / Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo / June 2021 / Gabriel Ricard
Gabe returns to a movie theater and tours us through what’s streaming in this month’s Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo!
I barely had half a glass of wine once & left the party wanting to kiss the entire room
brass flare melting the big band into a mirror a kind of Saturday night prayer
Marvin had an inkling of an idea why Doris wouldn’t want him to see the inside of the notebook, but he decided not to push the subject. Marvin continued unloading the items in the gardening wagon with Doris and putting them on the sidewalk. Although he didn’t have a clue what Doris’ intentions were, he found himself trusting her motives.
The Rat looks around assessing the danger. She is alone. Cautiously she moves toward the trap. The alley is littered with rats who have failed in their quest to get the cheese. Their bodies now one with a trap they could not outwit; some are dead, others still gasping for air, slowly dying. All Rats know that if a trap catches you there is no escape.
Feathered foie gras à la
Golden, gregarious, gutted.
Hold the flesh.
I want the eggs! Just the eggs.
Last month was a doozy, y'all. We had an earth shattering 441+ submissions. 141 of those were our 24 hour option. So, I am exhausted! I am grateful we have this month off to regroup and plan out the next few issues.
“Slow down.” He said. She did. Instead of reaching for the net, he was close enough to grab the toy with his hands. Arrella stopped the motor, letting the boat and the bay sail them on their own, climbing over the seats to him and the sight he held in his green flanneled arms.
What’s truly amazing is the character study packed into one song-and-dance-filled hour. Forced to sing their deepest feelings under control of a demon named Sweet, Buffy and her friends bare their souls to us, finally confessing the secrets they’ve been keeping all season.
She was certain something had happened to Melodie. She felt it in her chest, the feeling you get when you drive through a dip too fast. Falling, alight. It made her sick but it also made her feel energized, rushed with adrenaline and ready to face it, the terrible thing, whatever it might be. It was coming. It had already happened.
As the gathering shifted position in the house, slowly, slowly, like the sleeper in the Andy Warhol movie, I rotated my own position for maximum distance, remaining standing to avoid the possibility of pressing wetness both into my pants and into a fabric-covered chair or sofa.
It’s the ‘just’ that matters. It makes the experience manageable for people who have no trouble laying down and sinking head-first into an undisturbed pond. Insomniacs, however, know the secret of that ‘just,’ the reversal of physics that floats our fatigue-heavy heads on the water’s surface in ways even Peter’s doubt couldn’t sink.