— चार हजार सात चौबीस —

I will freely admit that Nine Months is not that great a movie. I added it to "My List" on HBO Go when I saw it on the list of comedies they had as options, and I remembered the movie just being okay until it had a very funny last act. And now that I've seen the movie again for the first time since the nineties, I would bet anything that Robin Williams as the nervous Russian doctor was improvising all over the place in just his three or so notable scenes, thereby making the movie way funnier than it ever was in the original script, and funnier than it would have been with anyone else in the role.

But, Shobhit turned on the movie early on. If that had not happened, and he had not just flipped that switch in his mind already, I am convinced he would have really enjoyed that last act. He still did laugh a few times. But, several times during the movie he said, "This is a dumb movie." I was like, "You watch dumb movies constantly!" His reply? "This one is dumber than usual." Are you fucking kidding me? This coming from the guy who regularly—and I do mean regularly—watches the most jaw-dropping dreck on the Syfy Channel. He just watched Lake Placid a few days ago, for fuck's sake. But, I guess dopey action movies or dopy disaster movies (or dopey action disaster movies) are preferable to dopey romantic comedies. Although he sometimes even watches those ones too.

I guess part of it, and Shobhit never specifically articulated this, could have been Shobhit's natural aversion to a movie about a guy with no interest in children "learning his lesson" that becoming a father is just an expected part of growing up and being "mature." The thing is, the arguments made by characters against having children actually hold more objective weight, and the couple played by Tom Arnold and John Lithgow with three children and another on the way, are the antithesis of any argument for having children. The movie ultimately wants you to feel otherwise, even though they show that couple's kids as being horrible. In the end, the message is: "having kids is totally worth it, even when they suck."

And not even I am on board with that sort of messaging. But! I still remembered enjoying that slapstick last act, and I did this time around too. Maybe it's straight up slapstick Shobhit is not into. I had been so convinced he would love What's Up. Doc? and when I finally got him to watch that one, he thought that movie was dumb too. Oh, well.

At least it killed another two hours of yet another evening in which I could not go anywhere. This is by far the most interesting thing I have to tell you about the past 24 hours. How sad is that? I mean, it's not that sad . . . except as it relates to the fact that, as I learned just this morning, Covid-19 is rapidly becoming America’s leading cause of death. Fun!

— चार हजार सात चौबीस —

— चार हजार सात चौबीस —

There's just not much else to discuss. I know Washington State is regarded as further along over the crest of "the curve" than the nation, which locally puts us in a better position than that Washington Post headline says about the nation overall, and I suppose I take some comfort in that—although maintenance of flattening that curve depends on social distancing restrictions remaining in place. At the moment I am thinking a re-opening of even the local economy by May 4 is probably a pipe dream.

Nothing will make a greater difference in all this, at least before the vaccine that we're told isn't even possible until next year, is widespread testing. And the United States response to that has been disastrous, thanks in large part to the fuckwits running the Executive Branch in the federal government, and the fuckwits making up just over half the Senate who are enabling them.

Shobhit was watching his regular MSNBC news programs yesterday, and there was mention of a nursing home in New Jersey where 17 bodies were found crammed into a morgue built for four. We have a long road of this kind of news ahead of us, and that is some dark shit.

I mean, whatever. The world has been through darkness before. Vietnam, World War II, hell, the Spanish Flu a century ago which was worse than this. Just to name a few that are the tip of the iceberg in history. We find joy where we can. Like I do, with the art across the street. Which of course is itself obscuring one of thousands of closed-up restaurants. But we take what we can get!

— चार हजार सात चौबीस —

[posted 12:25 pm]