When I find myself in times of trouble...
Mar. 20th, 2012 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
autographedcatSo, having made a solemn pledge to start updating again, I promptly stopped updating. Which isn't to say things have been boring around here. runnerwolf came to visit, which was shiny and awesome, and then I went to California for Consonance, which was also shiny and awesome, and then I came home and had the plague, which was dingy and boring, and then Marian Call was in town for a concert, which was back to shiny and awesome.
So, rather than talk about those things, each of which deserves at least a post unto itself, I want to talk about Pop Culture Comfort Food.
This past weekend was mentally fragile for me. I do pretty well most of the time these days, but depression still sucks, and every so often it gets the better of me. There are some things that reliably help, but it's mostly a matter of just getting through them until my brain chemistry balances out.
Since I had managed to lurekitanzi into playing The Old Republic with me, I got the notion over the weekend to rewatch Star Wars. I followed it up with The Empire Strikes Back because, well, it comes next, doesn't it. And a couple of things struck me while I was watching it:
1) The Special Editions are fine. Seriously. There's really nothing wrong with them. (Before you start, I want to note something: Han still shoots first. Really. Go watch. He shoots Greedo, whose gun discharges at strikes the wall. At the very worst, they shoot simultaneously. It's Not Even A Thing, stop griping about it.)
2) These films are, for me, the cinematic equivalent of a big bowl of macaroni and cheese. I've seen them enough times now that they really are like comfort food. I go back to them and I'm 10 again and the world is okay.
kitanzi and I were discussing this last night, and she said that she couldn't really think of a movie that fit that category for her, but she certainly had books which did, most notably Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series, which she claims to have read more times than she can actually count anymore.
So what are *your* pop culture comfort foods? When you just need something warm and familiar, what entertainment do you turn to?
runnerwolf came to visit, which was shiny and awesome, and then I went to California for Consonance, which was also shiny and awesome, and then I came home and had the plague, which was dingy and boring, and then Marian Call was in town for a concert, which was back to shiny and awesome. So, rather than talk about those things, each of which deserves at least a post unto itself, I want to talk about Pop Culture Comfort Food.
This past weekend was mentally fragile for me. I do pretty well most of the time these days, but depression still sucks, and every so often it gets the better of me. There are some things that reliably help, but it's mostly a matter of just getting through them until my brain chemistry balances out.
Since I had managed to lure
kitanzi into playing The Old Republic with me, I got the notion over the weekend to rewatch Star Wars. I followed it up with The Empire Strikes Back because, well, it comes next, doesn't it. And a couple of things struck me while I was watching it:1) The Special Editions are fine. Seriously. There's really nothing wrong with them. (Before you start, I want to note something: Han still shoots first. Really. Go watch. He shoots Greedo, whose gun discharges at strikes the wall. At the very worst, they shoot simultaneously. It's Not Even A Thing, stop griping about it.)
2) These films are, for me, the cinematic equivalent of a big bowl of macaroni and cheese. I've seen them enough times now that they really are like comfort food. I go back to them and I'm 10 again and the world is okay.
kitanzi and I were discussing this last night, and she said that she couldn't really think of a movie that fit that category for her, but she certainly had books which did, most notably Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series, which she claims to have read more times than she can actually count anymore. So what are *your* pop culture comfort foods? When you just need something warm and familiar, what entertainment do you turn to?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-03-22 06:45 am (UTC)Comics: Old issues of Legion of Super-Heroes, my sentimental favorite -- though usually either the 1960s runs (written by the likes of Edward Hamilton, Jerry Seigel and Jim Shooter) and the 1980s Paul Levitz run. Also, Fables and its spinoffs and auxiliary material. (Though Jack of Fables grew tiresome.)
Music: Most filk. Vixy and Tony's Thirteen is my go-to disc for just about any mood I'm in; Ookla the Mok and Seanan and Mary Crowell and Randy Hoffman and many others function similarly. And one of my personal conceptions of paradise involves listening to Peter Alway and Amy McNally making musics together at length. Also, various local groups of my acquintance -- I can go and hear them do very similar sets from one month to the next, but they never get old. Also, the Beatles, because c'mon. And blues, despite its reputation, tends to make me feel content and fed and soothed. Johnny Cash. Satchmo. Beethoven. Most of the bands in the Terry Scott Taylor orbit. Big swaths of Motown and Stax and early new wave and outlaw country and seventies Jesus-rock and and and. I'll even cop to Jimmy Buffett and Neil Diamond.
Television: Doctor Who -- old Who, new Who. Firefly. Most iterations of Star Trek -- while Voyager and Enterprise didn't do much for me, they were still Trek. M*A*S*H*. Anything with the Muppets, especially The Muppet Show, of course. Various bits from SNL over the years -- the classic 1970s period, of course, plus I have a great affection for the Hartman-Farley-Rock-Sandler-Jackson-Myers-Carvey-Meadows era that brought us the likes of Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker who lives in a van down by the river. And formulaic as it is, sometimes NCIS marathons will suck me in. I loved Lost and am enjoying Battlestar Galactica (making my way through the DVDs on the latter), though I don't know that they're something I'll return to as comfort media.
Film: Casablanca. The Princess Bride. The better Bond films, like Goldfinger. ("No, Mister Bond, I expect you to die.") The LOTR films and the original Star Wars trilogy, of course. Many more, I'm sure. Reliable laughter fodder, as in Monty Python, the Spinal Tap crew, Mel Brooks (usually).