I‘m a big fan of the movie Midsommar. It’s a lot funnier than I remember, and a lot more beautiful, too. The architecture is the biggest star as far as I’m concerned. I’d consider building half of those set pieces some day, especially the enormous circular entranceway, that thing’s gorgeous. 

I watched a critique of that film a few years back that said the true horror of the movie is that it praises something just next door to fascism, and even fascism itself. 

You watch the beautiful buildings and the beautiful place and the beautiful people and you think that it might not be that bad to be there, even with all the murder and the incest prophets or whatever. 

I’ll admit I’ve thought it mightn’t be so bad to live there. I watched it tonight and I still sort of think that. They make everything into ritual and community and aesthetic. Nothing is done for its own sake, it’s all made to be beautiful, and I believe that inclination to be sadly missing in our own day to day. 

As I greet this new human, and as my friends greet theirs and as we raise them together here in Vermont the inclination to make our time in the world an endless ritual and a practice is not something I intend to turn away from. Quite the oppoiste. 

Aesthetics are important.

While talking about manhood rites with a friend I referenced another A24 film, The Northman. There’s an excellent scene in that film where the King and his son eat hallucinogenic drugs and howl like wolves. 

I intend to do that sort of thing.