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I haven't mentioned yet that major publication endorsements have come out for the August 1 primary election. It's no surprise whatsoever that for Seattle City Council District 3, the
Seattle Times endorsed Joy Hollingsworth.
It was briefly a surprise, actually, that
The Stranger did not do the same, and instead
endorsed Alex Hudson. After reading their endorsement, though, and even after hurling a
ton of criticism at Hudson herself, they were even more critical of Hollingsworth in ways that were both far less surprising in context and
very on-brand for
The Stranger.
Here's the disappointing part of
The Stranger, though: they mention "500 million" other candidates in the race, which is a slight exaggeration: there are 8 candidates on the ballot for District 3.
The Stranger spends a lot of time on Hudson and Hollingsworth, then dedicates three short paragraphs to other candidates in the race—mentioning four of them. Shobhit is one of
two they don't bother to mention at all. There can be a fair discussion about Shobhit's viability, but I think he deserved at least the respect to be mentioned as someone serious about running. (It kind of pains me to say because the one other person not mentioned is by a wide margin my least favorite of all the candidates, but to be fair, the same could be said of the other person they don't bother to mention.)
My greatest hope in all this, of course, is still that Shobhit makes it past the primary. Barring that, my greatest hope is that the campaign experience proves to be a useful networking tool for what direction to go in afterward, possibly finally pivoting away from retail.
He went to an event yesterday, while I was at Action Movie Night at The Braeburn, that turned out to be far more in line with this idea than I even realized. He told me he was going to this "Fish Fry" with his former accent coach Ellen, and I totally assumed this was an event to which all city council candidates were invited. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell was there, as was King County Executive Dow Constantine. Shobhit even had a conversation with Harrell, his first time having a real conversation with a sitting mayor.
I was somewhat shocked to learn that, although there was a few City Council candidates from other districts there, Shobhit was the
only District 3 candidate there—and it was literally thanks to his own connections: Ellen had invited him to come with her, not the other way around. Apparently this is a longtime annual event that has gone on for some 25 years or so, stopped several years ago, and was brought back this year for the first time in eight years. To me, that is a wild potential opportunity for Shobhit, and a much bigger deal than I realized. (Besides, as a vegetarian at a "fish fry," it's not like there's be a lot there for him to eat.) This must not have been an event really publicized at all, as I cannot find anything about it anywhere online. And Ellen is the person Shobhit knows who has apparently been going to this for many years.
I don't remember if Shobhit knew her name, but he was under the impression that historically the host was an elderly woman, who spent most of her time upstairs at the house where the event took place. She must have had some real prominence among city leadership over the years.
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Meanwhile, I rode my bike home from work, made the requisite batch of pasta for the Action Movie Night potluck, and went downstairs with the 25' HDMI cable I borrowed from Tony, plus my Macbook, the latter of which I did not need because this time Chris G brought his own laptop. We still connected the HDMI cable to it and kept it on a chair out in the kitchen, and this time the streaming worked without a hitch. Whew!
I just bought my own long HDMI cable on Amazon this morning, so I won't have this issue with movie watches coming up in the near future with Laney.
With Tony still in Europe, and Jake
also in Scotland at the same time just by random chance, we had far fewer attendance than usual—in fact, far fewer than I've ever since since starting to attend regularly last August. On the email group, only two others besides myself even confirmed attendance; last night, Ben arrived first, telling me his work cleared up at the last minute. I guess he hadn't expected to be able to make it. In the few minutes before the other two showed up, I learned when I told Ben I was soon traveling to Minneapolis that he grew up there! So, we had a good bit to talk about.
The other two were Chris G, of course—it was his pick this week, after being unable to stream his choice last time—and Derek, the guy who used to live in the Braeburn, moved out, and still comes to Movie Nights. He ordered a pizza, but it had meat on it so I didn't have any. This is the biggest reason I bring a meal rather than just snacks: sometimes it's the only thing of substance that a vegetarian can eat at these gatherings.
Two of the others complimented the pasta I made, though. I consistently get complimented on it, although I totally expected that last time as I had sprinkled bleu cheese on top of it, which really added flavor. This time there was fresh grated parmesan on top of it.
Anyway, what Chris chose to play was what he had initially had queued to play last time: the 2013 horror movie
The Conjuring. He told me he tends to choose horror movies, and this makes me less likely to look forward to his picks. Somewhat to my surprise,
The Conjuring wasn't terrible, although it's both overtly proposterous and has badly written dialogue, and it liberally borrows from movies like
Poltergiest (in one instance quite blatantly, with a cut to the snow of a TV screen with no signal). It immediately made me start thinking of far higher quality horror movies I could consider for my own future picks, including
Poltergeist itself and, another movie I'm surprised no one has picked yet in the group's ten-year history,
The Excorcist. I looked at the history list and found someone else had already once picked
Alien, easily my all-time favorite horror film, as well as the James Cameron sequel
Aliens. I might one day surprise the group by bringing in
Alien 3, just so I could later complete the series with
Alien Resurrection. There are too many other titles I have in mind with greater quality, though. I think the 1967 Audrey Hepburn thriller
Wait Until Dark could be fun.
I spent a lot of time looking at my phone, I'll admit. This was to distract myself from too many jump-scares. I'll say this much:
The Conjuring was definitely better than
Insidious, which was directed by the same guy, James Wan, just three years before. And that one was Jake's pick back in January.
I already knew that Ben had been attending for many years, but it sounds like Chris had too. He explained that when Tony first described the premise of these nights to him, back when it was first called "Man Movie Wednesday" (when they opened this up to the whole condo complex they called it "Action Movie Night," clearly to be more inclusive; we still very rarely have women come to it), he said they tended to watch movies their wives or girlfriends wanted nothing to do with—which often included horror movies. Chris will refer to review aggregate sites to find either good or "good-bad" horror movies. And
The Conjuring had a surprisingly high score on MetaCritic, for a horror movie: 68. Plus, Lili Taylor played the possessed mom, and she is always a welcome presence.
After the movie, Ben left first, and then Chris and Derek hung out until I had gathered all my stuff so we could all leave at the same time. I had a lot to carry, including the leftover beers that Tony usually stores in his refrigerator. Hopefully he can take those back after the next movie night in two weeks.
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