Mallory's Camera

It's raining & very warm for this time of year, in the mid-50°s.

Temps are supposed to drop precipitously by the end of the day, which, since I am utterly neurotic, is making me worry about the drive to Betsy's house tomorrow. She lives in deepest, darkest Westchester County near the Connecticut border: The roads will be rivers of ice, right? Who knows if I'll even make it to the end of my driveway?

Obsessing about slipping and sliding on ice-encrusted roads is a good diistraction from obsessing about how the kiskas & I will be forced to move into a refrigerator box beneath the bridge because the client whom I invoiced yesterday will never pay me.

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Yesterday was productive. I wrote 1,000+ words on the Work in Progress.

I do wish Brian were still around to bounce tasteless, black humor dialogue about dying of COVID in a hospital off of. It's an essential component of Chapter 4, and it is very difficult to write convincing banter on your own.

In the evening, I watched a few episodes of Pluribus, about a person who is immune to the virus that suddenly converts practically everyone on Planet Earth to blissful one-mind-hood.

It's an interesting premise with one big flaw: I don't much like the protagonist who's supposed to embody rugged individualism. She's just not very sympatique. So, while typically I'd root against the hive mind, in this one, I'm Team Borg all the way.

I continue to be Svengali'd by Selling Sunset, a reality show that is so-o-o horrifyingly Pynchon-esque, I simply cannot take my eyes off it.

It's about an ultra-luxury Ellay real estate brokerage that's run by two identical twin dwarves (no, I am not making this up) whose top agent is named after a gas station.

Every single $50 million property that's being shown to D-List celebrities (Jo-Jo Sliwa anybody?) looks like some house I designed in The Sims 15 years ago.

So, now I'm beating my breast. Did I make the wrong midlife career move? Should I have become an architect instead of an entertainment journalist?

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In other news of the Deeply Horrible...

Steve Bannon is spot on in this analysis and the danger Mamdani represents to people who think like Bannon.

(Steve Bannon is another one of those things I get Svengali'd by occasionally because deeply as I disapprove of him, the guy is crackerjack smart about the Long View, such that the hackles on the back of my neck often rise when I read him.)

Dreamed I was on an airplane, but instead of the standard safety spiel—Please secure your oxygen mask before assisting others—the attendant advised us on what self-help books we should be reading in flight.

These books are absolutely life-changing, she assured us.

The first was a book called So What? dedicated to the proposition that when someone close to you does something reprehensible, you should just shrug and wash your hands of that person forever. Surgically remove yourself from their life.

The second was a book called Fuck You Forever, which was a list of all the horrible things that had ever happened or were going to happen to anyone who'd ever crossed you in any way. Each copy is personally customized! the flight attendant told us in a cheerful voice.

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Yesterday, I pored over tax law. It's complicated! And the IRS actually fines tax preparers who let taxpayers use the Head of Household status when they're not eligible.

In the midafternoon, I began organizing stuff for the Big Halloween Fun I will be having when I visit my pal A___ in Deecie that weekend.

A___ invited me back in August. For weeks, Get Amtrak ticket had been at the top of my To Do list, and yet I was seized with a curious lassitude whenever I contemplated actually purchasing one.

Finally, day before yesterday, I got more explicit directions from my hostess: Arrive at such-&-such an hour!

Okay! So, that's why I had been putting buying the ticket off!

So yesterday, I booked the ticket and began searching around for my fabulous skeleton costume:



Alas! it seems to have disappeared in the move.

Which meant I was gonna have to make a trip to Spirit Halloween.



I have always been absolutely fascinated by the business model behind Spirit Halloween. Traditionally, it's been a seasonal popup retailer, opening in August, shuttering promptly on November 2.

In April, they begin booking 1,500 storefronts in distressed malls all across the nation. Malls love 'em—Spirit Halloween pays a 20% to 30% premium to use commercial space in a short-term contract.

In July, they hire 50,000 seasonal retail associates. Their inventory is bulk shit from China that gives the impression of scarcity (if Reddit is to be believed) because instead of passing along unsold merchandise to liquidators, they trash it all, actually breaking animatronics so potential customers can't dumpster dive.

Here's something hilarious: Spirit Halloween runs its own dodgy charity called "Spirit of the Children." Customers become hostages at checkout: Don't you want to contribute to the poor unfortunate children??? They could donate their unsold merchandise to their own charity, right? But they don't. And, of course, the charity is a tax write-off.

This is capitalism at its end-stagiest.

And it's an environmental issue as well because when that plastic unsold merchandise is trashed, it ends up in landfills.



In 2023, Halloween was a $12.2 billion industry. And Spirit Halloween has played a significant role in turning Halloween into a mega-retail event because there is a ripple effect: Even if you don't buy from them, you see those inflatable Frankenstein monsters on your neighbors' lawns, and you start thinking, Well, I gotta buy something...

And it's an industry that's comparatively immune to online competition because you don't know how you want to decorate your lawn until you see the perfect thing, right? You want inspiration, so you've got to look around.

Sales at Spirit Halloween didn't even dip during the COVID pandemic.



One other interesting (to me at least) thing of note:

Bad TV is my comfort food. Not on a television—I don't own one—but on my computer.

In particular, I'm a big, big fan of the various Law & Order franchises.

The new seasons have started!!!

And you know, I have Issues with Law & Order SVU, particularly with Olivia's creepy kid Noah and the way they keep trying to push a starcrossed romance with Stabler (Christopher Meloni was so much more attractive before he started taking steroids when he still had hair.)

But I was very pleased to see that Dick Wolfe made ICE the Big Bad in the opening episode of the new season.

Because this is actually how attitudes change. Not through protests! Not through Facebook posts! Certainly not through letter or telephone campaigns to your useless Congressional representatives.

But when your favorite TV character stares directly into the camera and says, ICE. BAD.

Kudos, Dick Wolfe!