Favorite Fall Movies

I adore Fall and all of it’s lovely-creepy contradictions. It’s cozy, dreamy nostalgia, but it’s also vigor and productivity after the drone of summer has grown infinitely sluggish. It’s about darkness and death, magic and spiritual realms, even as it’s clean and unarguably wholesome—in the northeast, I hike and bike and pick apples. Down south, it’s football, muscadines and persimmons. Fall is carnivals, bonfires, corn mazes, hot tea, favorite sweaters, loose scarves and for me, thrifting and sewing and dusting off the vintage hat collection. In Boston it was mulled wine, strolls in my backyard (i.e. the gorgeous cemetery where e.e. cummings is buried) and Dresden Doll shows. Wherever I am, it’s costumes and friends, excess and collective energy—a frenzied preparation before the solitude and reflection that is winter. And I choose very specific movies, books and music to see me through my favorite season. So, here, on October 1, I give you a list of my favorite Fall movies, a different one for each day in October. Enjoy, and if your favorite’s not here, please let me know what I’m missing!

1) Chocolat…which is actually set around Easter, but if you ignore that plot point, everyone seems to be dressed for fall, and the whole comfort food thing is very much Fall for me…

2) Something Wicked This Way Comes…based on the Ray Bradbury book, which I’ve never read. But we used to watch this every year in elementary school, and there’s something about small-town carnivals…

Atlanta’s Youngblood Gallery, Part 3

This is the final installation of my (incredibly frank–thanks ladies!) interview with Young Blood owners Maggie White and Kelly Teasley. Parts 1 and 2 are here and here. In part 3, we learn about Young Blood’s community events, how the gallery navigates corporate sponsorship and finally, the long-awaited True Hollywood Story of Jolene-the-three-legged cat!

Cheree: So what about Jolene? What’s Jolene’s story?

Kelly: I’m a big animal person and I’m involved in rescue, and we all ganged up on Maggie and convinced her that we needed a shop cat. We went to the county shelter here, and we actually wanted to get a kitten but they didn’t have any, so we picked a black cat because there was like seven black cats there, and she only had three legs, so we decided she needed a break.

Maggie: So we brought her onto the island of misfit toys.

Keep reading at Juxtapoz.com.

 

America’s Obsession With Islam

Today is the ninth anniversary of the Al Qaeda-sponsored attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the U.S. Pentagon. The physical targets were emblematic references, chosen for their relevance to America’s core identity. We think of ourselves as an economic and military superpower, and to many Americans, the audacity and the sheer actuality of these attacks was inconceivable. But in the decade since, American identity has become confounded. This is particularly true for those of us who didn’t witness the Great Depression and the country’s subsequent recovery and were too young to have had our patriotism shaken by Vietnam and covert Cold War scandals.

I grew up in the 1990’s. The dollar was strong, every adult I knew had a job, technology boomed and America’s military engagements were largely successful. But post 9/11 America—thus far, all of my adult life—seems bleak. We’re a broke and battle-weary nation with stubbornly high unemployment, Congressional stalemates, malfunctioning social programs and a distrustful and recession-laden constituency. We hastily invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, a cause that now seems hopeless, even as we gulp guilt to think so and secretly wonder when, how and if we’ll leave.

We’ve become fearful of the principles our country was founded upon—freedom of religion, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom to bear arms and an open-shore policy for immigrants. Despite the counter of both President Obama and former President Bush, September 11, 2001 indiscriminately made terrorism synonymous with Islam for many Americans, and as we approach this benchmark, the media is obsessed with our nation’s paranoia.

Continue reading at Pakistani paper The Express Tribune.

Nashville Holga Love

I recently visited my sis and her hubby in Nashville, and my trusty Holga tagged along. Here’s the results: