Alas, Babylon Bugonia

There shan’t be in-depth analysis.  I just wanted to impart in this probable last entry of the year that I finished reading Pat Frank’s novel Alas, Babylon and loved it.  Although the subject matter is bleak, the themes of self-reliance, teamwork, hope, and groundedness coalesced into something of a comfort read for me.  The characters contemplate, strategize, and make tough choices, but they don’t live in their heads the way I live in mine, so how the author portrayed their challenges in third-person omniscient narration was refreshing to me.

I also watched Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2025) on DVD.  Jesse Plemmons and Emma Stone were cast perfectly.  I didn’t get around to watching it at the theatre and am glad I got it on home video.  The making-of featurette is insightful (I learned about its connection to the Korean film from the early 2000s called Save the Green Planet!).  Much of the film was filmed in and around Atlanta.  I was thrilled to see Fernbank get some screen time over the High Museum.  Yes, the Jackson Street Bridge had to be there, but so was the end-curve of the Spring-Buford Connector behind SCAD.

Bugonia inspired part of a poem.

Pic creds: Barnes & Noble, google street view

You Make It Impossible for Me to Hate You

If you like to read for fun, inspiration, comfort, education, enlightenment, or to challenge the way you think, you’ve probably experienced the phenomenon where the kind of or specific book you’ve been seeking finds you when you need it.  Up until tonight, I hadn’t seriously considered how this scenario could apply to movies.  Objectively, I know it does, but subjectively, I hadn’t really thought about it.

But then I watched When Harry Met Sally (Rob Reiner, 1989) for the first time ever and realized that I would never have appreciated it at any earlier point in my existence.  I’ve liked other films that Rob Reiner directed and Nora Ephron wrote (and directed), but this one just never piqued my curiosity.  I don’t think I could have appreciated truly the writing or Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan‘s performances because my younger self wanted romantic comedies to be formulaically more like Only You (Norman Jewison, 1994) and Serendipity (Peter Chelsom, 2001) — very goal-oriented not contemplation-and-chemistry-oriented.  I didn’t want romance films to discuss cleverly and profoundly that falling for someone entails more than physical chemistry or emotional safety; it also involves recognizing and accepting all the small habits and preferences a person has that might otherwise repel you. 

I was also pleasantly surprised at the football scene with just one snap, a complete pass from quarterback to tight end, and a tackle.  According to IMDB, some of this scene was filmed at Giants Stadium, Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey in the autumn of 1988.  The film’s end credits include the producers thanking The Buffalo Bill Football Organization and NFL Films.  My educated guess is that NFL Films provided the few seconds of football gameplay where Giants tight-end Mike Bavaro catches the ball and then gets tackled (in case you’re curious, here’s the 1988 New York Giants roster).  Why was The Buffalo Bill Football Organization thanked?  Probably because of this bit of trivia.

I watched When Harry Met Sally on DVD.  It has so many special features and interviews that I’ve barely begun to watch.  It also has an audio commentary with the director, the writer, and Billy Crystal.  

RIP, Rob Reiner.  

Pic creds: IMDB, YouTube screengrab

Finer Lines In Between

We sat on the ledge of the round balcony a dozen stories above the street.
You removed your hair ties and let your braids loosen as the night breeze swept around us.

You gripped the handle of the red ping pong paddle and insisted I call it “table tennis.”  
You’d won your match that afternoon, the last one for many moons.

Maybe this time your father will let you try a winter sport like skiing or something on the water like rowing.  

Just one more year, then freedom.
Freedom from the pressure of competitive physics wrangling.

Because you never liked table tennis, did you?

You laughed and turned to look at me.  I asked you what’s so funny.
You looked down below at the shiny Cadillac convertibles parallel-parked like sardines
and dropped the red paddle that won you regionals.

Who says there has to be another title? 
Why wait another year?
Freedom is now
on the ledge of this round balcony.

— yiqi 14 December 2025 1:25 am

~!~

I had a conversation with someone the other night and haven’t been able to stop thinking about them.  The image of sitting on a balcony and looking down at some vista below came to me yesterday, but I was too tired to write anything.  And then while watching Cash on Demand (Quentin Lawrence, 1961) on TCM, this prose-poem came to me.  I can’t actually picture this person playing ping pong, but for some reason, that’s the sport that made it into the verse.

Spend an Eternity with whom?

The trailer for David Freyne‘s contemplative comedy Eternity (2025) presents the premise that Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) must make the afterlife choice of spending eternity with Larry (Miles Teller), the husband with whom she had a family and grew old with, or Luke (Callum Turner), her first matrimonial love who died at war and represents a profound what-might-have-been.  The film itself holds true to this synopsis but ends up being much more about and placing the thematic center on Larry as a character. 

The trailer (also) keeps as a surprise that the film opens with Joan and Larry well into their grandparent years and on their way to a gender reveal party of a future grandchild.  They get on each other’s nerves in the car, Larry has a thing for pretzels, and Joan’s health is on the decline in such a way that they’ve decided not to bring it up at the party.  The introduction makes the rest of the movie more satisfying as the characters and the viewer ponders what choice Joan should make within the parameters of how the afterlife operates:
~ Once you die and regain consciousness on a train, you end up in a bus terminal that has hotel-like accommodations for every newly departed.  
~ You take on the appearance and age of the time you were the happiest, but your initial outfit seems to be whatever you wore when you died or were close to it.
~ You have seven days to decide to choose an eternity that is a geographic location as in a setting (the mountains or the beach), a city (Paris in 1955, a specific neighborhood), or a third place (a museum, a library, a mall surely).
~ You cannot change your mind once you’ve committed to and arrived at an eternity destination.  If you escape and attempt to make your way back to the terminal, you will be chased down and then chucked into the void of darkness.
~ Each eternity has an Archives tunnel that allows everyone to see vignettes of key moments of their life. 

I laughed a lot, got teary-eyed, wondered what I would do if I were in any of the main characters’ positions, and thought Da’Vine Joy Randolph was a scene-stealer in the role of one of the Afterlife Coordinators.  Among her many memorable lines:
~ Everybody gets an eternity — the good, the bad, and the ugly.
~ All we are is a collection of memories.
~ Doing the right thing can sometimes feel terrible (paraphrasing).

I’d wanted to watch this movie on Thanksgiving but it wasn’t in the cards.  I’m happy I got to see it today with just two other people who also laughed as much as I did at the relevant moments.

Pic creds: Youtube screengrabs

Black Friday Blues

the sky is a piece of lemon meringue
spread sloppily and thickly
across a blueberry muffin waffle
stuck over concrete pathways
ferrying metal and plastic motors
that some people cherish
and others treat like a fowl blanket

you cross my mind stealthily
like a scent profile in air conditioning
i wonder where this plot is headed –
evaporation, condensation, voyeuristic collaboration

there’s just this knowing circling
my cells and tell me
i must accept
the possibility
the eventuality
of my being too tired to follow you
farther down into the garden
of luxuriant wanting.

– yiqi 28 November 2025

 

~!~

Yep, it was midnight after Thanksgiving. You ever just know something? The core idea may have been triggered by a conversation (and you don’t know how serious you or the other person is), but then you’re filled with this understanding or acceptance of a turn of events that you have no rational reason to believe is going to happen. It’s just that in terms of probability and conversational topics, it’s the most likely plot progression.

Pic creds: yours truly

Originally posted at my tumblr.