Blindspotting and Unsatisfactory ESL
Jun. 15th, 2021 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraNow that we are coming out of Covid isolation, I am happy to report that people are just as annoying as they ever were.
Not the people I know, of course!
But those randos the Celestial Casting Agency casts as “people in crowded supermarkets” and “drivers in bottleneck traffic.”
I was a little worried about that! I mean what if the world shut down for a year, and everybody learned how to be… nice?
###
What else?
It rained all day yesterday, which gave me an excuse not to leave the house, but I left the house anyway to, uh, shop and drive in bottleneck traffic (see above note.)
I remunerated! I gave birthday presents! I checked off all the items on my To Do List except the really, really easy ones ‘cause you know: I’ve gotta have some reason to continue beating myself up over the head.
In the evening, I conducted Lola’s ESL tutorial over Zoom, which I don’t honestly think works as well as face-to-face tutorials, but which she’s been pushing for.
I get it. She holds down a 9-hour-a-day job plus she’s the mother of nine-year-old twins. Her life is very, very crowded.
Still. My feelings were un peu hurt that she would prefer a bits-and-bytes simulacrum of moi to the fabulous moi of real time and space, breathing potentially microorganism-laden carbon dioxide molecules into her unmasked face.
Plus, I can’t understand half of what she says on Zoom. She talks a lot faster, and that makes it very difficult to call her out on grammatical mistakes.
I’ve set our tutorial sessions up to be discussions about literature because I know Lola is passionate about literature and will be eager to talk.
But they’re not discussions about literature.
They’re English lessons.
So, you know.
I’m gonna have to figure that one out.
###
In the evening, I watched Blindspotting, which is a TV series inspired by a movie I liked very much, called—you got it!—Blindspotting!
Blindspotting the movie was about the gentrification of Oakland, California, a city I lived in for many years and love a lot.
At the time I lived in Oakland, it was majority Black. The last few times I’ve been back to Oakland and have tromped around to get the lay of the land, I have been beyond gob-smacked to see the degree to which it has changed.
It is now a tech yuppie paradise. Even its meanest streets are lined with concierge caffeine boutiques.
Blindspotting the TV show takes place in West Oakland, a part of the city I know very well on account of little-boy Ichabod had a little pal called Armando, and I became close-ish friends with Silva, his mother, who had a little house in West Oakland and who did not drive because epilepsy. So, all portage of the young ‘uns was done by moi. The house had once been very grand: a summer cottage for some wealthy San Francisco residents, I suspect; a miniature Victorian with peeling wallpaper, ancient cut-glass sconces and that smell compounded of woodsmoke and dry rot that badly taken-care-of-houses over 100 years old seem to generate. It was right down the street from the Sav-Mor store on Peralta.
Much of the action in Blindspotting the TV show takes place in the intersection right in front of the Sav-Mor store.
Helen Hunt’s character?
OhmiGAWD, that could have been me if I hadn’t been an early Internet adaptor and that job at People Magazine hadn’t opened up to me like some kind of road to heaven.
Blindspotting also integrates singing and dancing scenes into life in the ‘hood in a way that the producers of In the Heights would have been wise to emulate.
So, all in all, the show left me feeling deeply nostalgic.
I’d give anything to go back to Oakland—not the place that exists now, but the place that existed 40 years ago.
But that’s not possible.
Of course.
Not the people I know, of course!
But those randos the Celestial Casting Agency casts as “people in crowded supermarkets” and “drivers in bottleneck traffic.”
I was a little worried about that! I mean what if the world shut down for a year, and everybody learned how to be… nice?
###
What else?
It rained all day yesterday, which gave me an excuse not to leave the house, but I left the house anyway to, uh, shop and drive in bottleneck traffic (see above note.)
I remunerated! I gave birthday presents! I checked off all the items on my To Do List except the really, really easy ones ‘cause you know: I’ve gotta have some reason to continue beating myself up over the head.
In the evening, I conducted Lola’s ESL tutorial over Zoom, which I don’t honestly think works as well as face-to-face tutorials, but which she’s been pushing for.
I get it. She holds down a 9-hour-a-day job plus she’s the mother of nine-year-old twins. Her life is very, very crowded.
Still. My feelings were un peu hurt that she would prefer a bits-and-bytes simulacrum of moi to the fabulous moi of real time and space, breathing potentially microorganism-laden carbon dioxide molecules into her unmasked face.
Plus, I can’t understand half of what she says on Zoom. She talks a lot faster, and that makes it very difficult to call her out on grammatical mistakes.
I’ve set our tutorial sessions up to be discussions about literature because I know Lola is passionate about literature and will be eager to talk.
But they’re not discussions about literature.
They’re English lessons.
So, you know.
I’m gonna have to figure that one out.
###
In the evening, I watched Blindspotting, which is a TV series inspired by a movie I liked very much, called—you got it!—Blindspotting!
Blindspotting the movie was about the gentrification of Oakland, California, a city I lived in for many years and love a lot.
At the time I lived in Oakland, it was majority Black. The last few times I’ve been back to Oakland and have tromped around to get the lay of the land, I have been beyond gob-smacked to see the degree to which it has changed.
It is now a tech yuppie paradise. Even its meanest streets are lined with concierge caffeine boutiques.
Blindspotting the TV show takes place in West Oakland, a part of the city I know very well on account of little-boy Ichabod had a little pal called Armando, and I became close-ish friends with Silva, his mother, who had a little house in West Oakland and who did not drive because epilepsy. So, all portage of the young ‘uns was done by moi. The house had once been very grand: a summer cottage for some wealthy San Francisco residents, I suspect; a miniature Victorian with peeling wallpaper, ancient cut-glass sconces and that smell compounded of woodsmoke and dry rot that badly taken-care-of-houses over 100 years old seem to generate. It was right down the street from the Sav-Mor store on Peralta.
Much of the action in Blindspotting the TV show takes place in the intersection right in front of the Sav-Mor store.
Helen Hunt’s character?
OhmiGAWD, that could have been me if I hadn’t been an early Internet adaptor and that job at People Magazine hadn’t opened up to me like some kind of road to heaven.
Blindspotting also integrates singing and dancing scenes into life in the ‘hood in a way that the producers of In the Heights would have been wise to emulate.
So, all in all, the show left me feeling deeply nostalgic.
I’d give anything to go back to Oakland—not the place that exists now, but the place that existed 40 years ago.
But that’s not possible.
Of course.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-18 07:13 pm (UTC)...
Oh wait, you're talking *character*, not looks. Okay, never mind then. I would have to watch the show!
no subject
Date: 2021-06-19 04:07 pm (UTC)I mean her character arc is similar to what mine might have been had I remained a kooky SF Bay Area quasi-activist. 😊
no subject
Date: 2021-06-19 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-20 03:07 pm (UTC)“Of course.”
Another reason to make time-travel possible! Okay, some people would f#ck with stuff in the past or future to bend things in their favor, so it doesn’t have to be in any way but the ability to look at the past.