Pop culture gives us a chance to objectively look back at the past, sifting for gold and ditching the detritus. This week, you’ll have not one but two chances to remember the glory of the ’80s (while conveniently forgetting the poofy shoulder pads, big hair, and inescapable pleather). On Friday, June 29, Netflix is dropping the much-anticipated second season of Glow. In solidarity and support, Reebok are launching a line of soft neon high-tops, working alongside the actors to create something that the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling would actually wear.
Britt Barron, who plays Justine on the series, tweeted about the collaboration on Monday.
Reebok themselves describe the sneakers as “wrestling up classic 80’s style with some modern attitude.” The sneakers come in rose gold and white/neon variants. The rose gold are a little underwhelming, but the white pastel neon kicks are simply to die for!
NOTE: these are meant for the ladies, but a quick browse through the men’s section of shoes on Reebok’s website reveals the rather boring, monochrome-d affair you’d expect. For the men unafraid of a bit of color or expressing themselves, we encourage ordering a size 1.5 larger than your men’s shoe size and rock that shizz!
Photo: Courtesy Of Reebok
The Freestyle Hi x Glow is the latest in the fiendishly on-point Freestyle Hi line of sneakers by Reebok, which are doing so much to kick the ’80s fashion revival into high gear (pun fairly intended.)
So pick up a pair in anticipation of Glow Season 2, dropping this weekend on Netflix for maximal bingeability, for your marathon watch parties or for starting your own amateur wrestling league. These will go great with much more than just leg warmers and side pony tails.
Photo: Courtesy Of Reebok
For the xennials out there, these kicks will bring to mind the black-and-white striped thrills of shopping at Foot Locker, begging your mom for the latest Pumps (also by Reebok, coincidentally enough) or Air Jordans if you were rich.
You don’t have to have been born during the Reagan era to still appreciate these stylish sneakers. Actually, you’re probably better off if you weren’t, as these sneakers are by-and-far muchmore stylish than anything we had access to in the days before Super Mario Brothers 3.
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Melissa Broder’s debut novel is an inversion of The Little Mermaid through the female gaze and a fish-eyed lens.
The Pisces is the story of Lucy, a stalled academic who feels like something’s missing in her life. It’s enough to cause her to shake it to pieces, breaking up her long-term relationship and heading to Venice Beach to write and find herself. She ends up something else quite entirely instead.
What follows is a detailed analysis and review of The Pisces. There’s not many spoilers but there could be some, so proceed with caution. Also, content warning: The Pisces is an erotica novel. There’s graphic depictions of consensual sex, and some of that will be discussed. Also, those sensitive to animal cruelty should also proceed with caution.
Lucy feels like something is missing in her life. She’s been in the same safe, but underwhelming, relationship with Jamie, a field geologist, for years. They both were okay with a commitment-free relationship, both quite convinced marriage is passe and diamonds are morally questionable. Besides, who has the time or inclination when both partners are so busy with their careers? Jamie with his field trips and Lucy with her long-term academic research into the poetry of Sappho, about which she’d been writing her Ph.D. thesis for twelve years.
Lucy struggles with many of the problems facing women today – the pressure to be it all and do it all. The nagging fear that maybe she isn’t getting enough? That her love life should be more overwhelming? That she herself felt no desire to have children but still feels the ticking of her biological clock, at 38 years old? Lucy’s literary bent and anxious, over-analytical mind just give these ponderings a yawning depth, a gravity – like the void which gets name-checked so regularly throughout The Pisces.
These concerns finally convince her to break up with Jamie. “Just take a break,” she says. “A trial separation.” Jamie agrees, much to Lucy’s consternation, beginning her love-sick obsession that sets the gears of The Pisces in motion.
Lucy’s sister Annika, a wealthy SoCal socialite who made her mint manufacturing bamboo yoga mats, offers to bring Lucy to Venice Beach for the summer, to watch her glass house and her precious pup Dominic. Lucy’s not been doing well following the break-up, spiralling into depression which culminates in an unfortunate incident involving an Ambien prescription, powdered donuts, and the police.
Annika offers to put Lucy up for the summer for her to focus on her writing, and herself. Annika’s big on things like “finding yourself,” and “being authentic,” and other such platitudes that helped her to win a fortune. So is Lucy, all while also being simultaneously dismissive and even downright cynical about such frilly New Age-isms. Lucy prays to amethyst crystals, which she can’t help buying, all while thinking they’re bullshit.
Lucy prays to amethyst crystals, which she can’t help buying, all while thinking they’re bullshit.
Annika’s house-sitting proposition comes at one cost – Lucy must attend “love addiction” counseling, so she can “focus on herself.” Lucy reluctantly agrees.
The Pisces begins in earnest as Lucy begins to explore her new life, finding herself and working on her Sappho dissertation. Lucy goes to group therapy, where she mostly judges and derides the other members. Lucy begins to explore the world of online dating and has a few encounters, some thrilling but mostly squalid.
It is in the midst of this self-examination and online flirtations that she meets a mysterious swimmer on the beach one night. His name is Theo, and he never comes out of the water.
The Pisces’ action spirals around these few set pieces. Lucy explores her relationship to love, sex, and romance via the love addiction group. She explores the labyrinthine world of modern dating. All the while, Theo shows up on the beach at night, he of the tousled brown hair and thick, meaty arms. He expresses an interest, a sensitivity, and an intuitiveness that these other men-children just didn’t, or wouldn’t, possess.
Lucy starts to fall for Theo.
But Theo is harboring a secret.
It’s not giving too much away, as it’s pretty much the tagline for every mention of The Pisces, including the Amazon description – Theo’s a merman. A bonafide Nereid. Thus begins a truly torrid love affair, exploring the depths of obsession, the ultimate unknowability of another, and the sometimes hideous, self-destructive lengths we will go to pursue our ambitions.
Melissa Broder’s first novel, following a prolific online and poetry career, is razor-sharp, by turns hilarious, tragic, heartbreaking, and often dead sexy. The Pisces is romance meets erotica meets literary mythological existentialism told from an unflinchingly feminine perspective. Broder goes into dirty detail about Lucy’s fumbling sexual encounters with random Tinder dudes. These are written with a clinician’s gaze, with about as much love and depth as an Ikea instruction manual. You won’t find much eye-gazing when you’re engaging in anal sex for the first time in some chic hotel’s lobby bathroom.
These are in sharp contrast to her explorations with Theo. In Broder’s world, mermen’s tails start a little bit lower. He’s fully functional down there and has had an eternity, as an immortal being, to hone his craft as a lover. It’s steamy, swelling, spuming stuff.
Broder’s writing style, especially when animating Lucy, brings to mind Miranda July, with a similar sad, wistful, damaged, but also still good-natured and freaking hysterical, sometimes in the same sentence. It is to Broder’s testament that Lucy is not always a sympathetic, likable character. She’s kind of a wreck, to be frank, and Melissa Broder never lets her off the hook for a second. Instead, she shows all the insecurities, the hopes, the confusion, and contradictory desires that women experience in love, dating, and relationships. As someone’s who’s masculine-bodied and predominantly sleeps with and dates women, it’s beyond refreshing and also supremely useful to read tales of love and desire written from a woman’s perspective. The Pisces is written from the female gaze, no doubt, and it doesn’t falter for a moment. It also sees, and tells, all.
The Pisces is written from the female gaze, no doubt, and it doesn’t falter for a moment. It also sees, and tells, all.
As has often been noted already, The Pisces is just one of a triumvirate of Pop Culture artifacts reflecting on fishy love. Alissa Nutting‘s 2017 novel Made For Love is about a man who falls in love with a dolphin (based on a true story.) Guillermo del Toro‘s sub-aquatic fable The Shape Of Water even won an Oscar. The popularity of watery love stories possibly indicates a yearning for subconscious depth and real connection, on a societal level, from a Jungian/mythological perspective. While such connections and associations are always going to be subjective, the realms of Neptune do bear some resemblance to existing in the emotional depths. Nothing ever stays still, everything is always changing. The most unimaginable Terrors exist in these depths as do miracles.
Whether you read Melissa Broder’s The Pisces for the Jungian resonance, the feminine perspective, to fill the lack of philosophical ruminations on Sappho, Nietzsche, the void, and underbutt, or just for the steamy, seamy sex stuff, you should read it. It’s really good. Unless you’re turned off by depictions of animal cruelty or people clipping their toenails during group therapy sessions, in which case you should approach The Pisces with caution.
Purchase Melissa Broder’s The Pisces from an independent bookseller!
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It’s a very special moment when you arrive someplace, look around at a vista that is clearly, awe-inspiringly fantastic and realize: “Holy ****! Almost no one else has SEEN this!”
It’s a very special thing for a TV series to show you something you’ve never seen before. You may not have even heard of Myanmar, the largest land-mass in SE Asia, due to a brutal military regime lasting 50 years. Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, didn’t open their borders until 2011. Anthony Bourdain’s film crew were one of the first Western filmmakers to document the splendor of Myanmar in the inaugural episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown TV series.
Parts Unknown‘s Myanmar episode opens up with some grainy black and white archival footage, detailing a half-a-century of oppression under the Burmese military. The intro also shows former U. S. President Barrack Obama visiting Myanmar and Aung San Suu Kyi, a local politician who’s risen to prominence after the fall of the military dictatorship. The first few minutes of Parts Unknowncaptures both Myanmar’s past, as well as where it’s heading.
Of course, the archival footage and background information set the stage for Bourdain’s travelogue. Like most things Bourdain had a hand in, Parts Unknown largely deals with food. And people. Parts Unknown‘s Myanmar episode tracks down the country’s most iconic dishes, meeting some fascinating people along the way. Anthony Bourdain truly offers us a taste of life in Myanmar, in every way imaginable.
Anthony Bourdain starts off in Yangon, the capitol of Myanmar. He tours the local thaw tea shops, which are not only a hot-bed of delicious-looking Myanmar salads, pastries, and sweet tea, served however you may like it. He meets U Thiha Shaw, the head of Myanmar Journalism Institute, who fills him in on the heavy censorship under the military and how tea shops served as an important hub of putting together real news from the official newspapers. Shaw ended up doing prison time for his journalistic pursuit of the truth. This sets the trend for the rest of the episode – nearly everyone Bourdain meets while in Myanmar had served time in prison under the dictatorship.
courtesy: CNN
Bourdain meets up with friend and fellow chef Philippe Lajaunie, the owner of Brasserie Les Halles, where Bourdain worked before striking it big with Kitchen Confidential. The pair attend the Full-Moon Festival, a three-day religious ceremony and street fair. “Like a New York street fair, but with infinitely better food.” Bourdain and Lajaunie watch in stunned disbelief as giant Ferris wheels are operated sans electricity, each one operated by a troupe of acrobatic Ferris wheel spinners.
They go on to 19th Street, the center of Yangon’s nightlife, where the meet local punk band Side Effect. The band fill them in even further what it was like being artists and musicians under the dictatorship, where even lyrics would have to be approved (and sometimes improved upon) by the censors. We learn that they even think Creed is the worst band in the world in SE Asia.
Finally, Bourdain and Lajaunie decamp for a harrowing 10-hour (more like 30 hour) “kidney-softening” train ride to Bagan. Bagan is home to some 3,000 Buddhist temples, built over the short span of 250 years between the 11th and 13th Century. Bagan is one of the crown jewels of Myanmar’s rising tourist industry, as part of what they call “the tourist triangle.” He also discovers Sarabha, Taunghi Village of the Nyaung Oo Township, which Bourdain calls “the best restaurant in the country.” He gushes over the slow-simmered chicken curry and roselle leaf soup, as well as the staggering array of side-dishes and salads. Everything is made to taste, in Myanmar, with every bite being different and highly personalized.
Anthony Bourdain tucks into chicken curry @ Sarabha; courtesy: CNN
They even discuss the origins of Myanmar’s lavish food scene. During the regime years, there wasn’t much to do, so everyone would gather and eat. Parts Unknown offers an insightful look into the local cultures and history of the places it explores without succumbing to the documentarian’s distance. Anthony Bourdain is in it. You are too, taken along on a fly-on-the-wall tour of one of the most remote and unknown places on Earth.
Personally, i can’t wait to try some Myanmar food, while learning more about their deep history and eventually visiting SE Asia. I’d take a bumpy, life-threatening train ride to see 2000 year old Buddhist temples and eat delicious curry any day!
As i’m sure you’re all aware, Anthony Bourdain took his own life last week, for still unknown reasons. I’m taking this opportunity to celebrate his work, his affable spirit, his exquisite taste. I’m endlessly inspired by his willingness to fall off the map and explore obscure regions of this Earth, but without the tourist’s detachment. I’m also highly inspired by the way he thinks and talks about food, which will be a running theme on this blog, as well.
Life is rich with detailed language and in-depth cultural analysis. It penetrates the haze of an automatic digital existence, making our environment come to life with sights, sounds, textures, and tales. You can practically taste the crispy fried game birds from the Yagong street fair. You can nearly feel the thump of your head hitting the top of a train threatening to fly off the rails at any moment. It’s a thrilling ride that elicits a deep sympathy and an intense curiosity about this previously-clouded SE Asian country.
Parts Unknown is available to stream on Netflix. We’ll continue to explore the series and the locations he explores over the coming months to come. We hope to inspire you to fall off the map and explore, with our travel and food writing!
Want more travel news, restaurant reviews, or movie murmurations? Still convinced these are the greatest times to e alive? Follow J Simpson on Twitter,Instagram, Letterboxd,Behance, and Yelp!
Posts may contain affiliate links. We get a small profit from every purchase made through our links. Purchases made through affiliate links allow us to continue to bring you the best writing on how to make the most of these times we’re living in!
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Crystal Crane Hot Springs natural mineral bath: photo: J Simpson
Steam curls off the sapphire and chrysoprase surface of Crystal Crane Hot Springs’s perfect 100-degree waters, caressing the warming air like graceful maenad fingers. The shrill calls of yellow-chested blackbirds punctuates the air like delicate bronze bells, as they reenact their ageless mating dance in the nearby cold-water pond. The day is shaping up to be warm and bright, following last night’s velvet black sky, star-studded like so many teardrop diamonds on the world’s most elaborate opera capelet.
I’ve already spent 1.5 hours in these healing, rejuvenating waters, and it’s only 11 am. Lily, Merry, and Mitch are running some preliminary errands, reliving some old memories from their time living in Harney County while i tip-type and get some work done. It’s a far cry from my usual civilized morning routine, which involves getting furiously upset as the world crashes and burns. I’m usually in a frenzy by lunchtime, and nearly insane by the time dinner rolls around. It takes its toll on relationships, friendships, your mental health and productivity. It eventually wears on yr soul, making you cynical and bitter if yr not careful. Unplugging and recharging is mandatory for mastering modernity.
46% of Americans who own smartphones check their phone before getting out of bed in the morning, as of the beginning of 2017. Considering that 77% of Americans own a smartphone, that means around 115,362,940 are letting our days be dictated by media providers. Sensationalist headlines shape our destiny rather than our own dreams or a long, luxurious breakfast with loved ones. Our selves get lost amidst the homogeneity. We becomes cogs in a machine rather than the rarefied gems that we actually are.
Unplugging and beating a digital retreat is just one benefit of visiting Eastern Oregon hot springs. Crystal Crane Hot Springs’ natural mineral baths are thought to possess medicinal qualities of their own accord.
Scientists are still out on why hot springs are good for you, but most seem to concur they are. Japanese researchers have been increasingly investigating balneology, or balneotherapy, which is the study of “treatment of diseases by bathing.”
Consensus is still out, but the data is starting to come to light.
Health Benefits Of Natural Hot Springs
Here are a few of the positive medical benefits of soaking in natural hot springs that have been emerging.
4 Benefits Of Soaking In Mineral Hot Springs
Good for arthritis
Treats certain skin conditions
Relief from fibromyalgia
Reduces high blood pressure
Natural mineral hot springs’ medicinal qualities may stem from the combination of minerals in the hot water.
Minerals Found In Natural Hot Springs Include:
Hydrogen sulfide
Calcium
Sulfate
Magnesium
Iron
Chloride
Potassium
Zinc
You can see a full list of the minerals at Crystal Cranes Hot Spring on their blog.
These minerals are able to be absorbed thanks to the exfoliating properties of the natural hot springs. Your pores are more open, as well, due to sweating. Your veins and capillaries are, as well, due to the heat.
Remember to drink plenty of water and take occasional breaks when soaking in natural hot springs to avoid lightheadedness and dehydration.
The main tangential health benefit of visiting Crystal Crane Hot Springs is the closeness it brings with your friends and family. I’m out here with my lover and two of our closest friends who are also our roommates. It says everything that you want to go on vacation with somebody even though you already live together. I’m usually trying to get away from my roommates.
It’s totally different being out here in the wide-open expanse of Harney County. There’s nothing but time and space. We could do anything, at any time. There’s no hurry, no rush. The manic pace of living in a city slows to a crawl. There’s more time to BS and goof around. There’s all the time in the world to get to know one another, learning each other’s inner landscapes.
I’m getting a chance to investigate my own interior, as well. There’s been plenty of time to read – I’m currently reading Melissa Broder’s dead sexy new merman novel The Pisces – and it’s helping me to connect with my inner seascape, pertaining to dreams and instincts. I’m waking up and journaling of kamikaze landing in the day’s newscycle. I feel alive, refreshed, renewed.
As someone who can feel way-too-serious, in civilization, where I’m half-convinced everybody things of me as a stressed-out, curmudgeonly, fuddy-duddy, or maybe just plain old bitter-and-evil, its so sanity saving to get out here beneath the jeweled sky of Harney County and find my smile and laughter again.
Going To Be Traveling In Eastern Oregon?
A scant 5 hours outside of Portland, there’s no reason not to visit the vast, epic deserts of Eastern Oregon and Harney County. The people are friendly as can be and the whole area is steeped in history. The past rubs shoulders with the present in one ineffable now.
If you are passing through Eastern Oregon, stay a night at the Crystal Crane Hot Springs. There’s 24-hour access to the natural hot springs when you rent one of their Crane Creek Rooms or stay at the Cowpoke Inn. We cannot recommend stargazing at Crystal Crane Hot Springs enough!
You can read a full article i wrote on Crystal Crane Hot Springs on Ville Magazine.
Want more Pacific Northwest travel news, restaurant reviews, or movie murmurations? Still convinced these are the greatest times to e alive? Follow J Simpson on Twitter,Instagram, Letterboxd,Behance, and Yelp!
Posts may contain affiliate links. We get a small profit from every purchase made through our links. Purchases made through affiliate links allow us to continue to bring you the best writing on how to make the most of these times we’re living in!
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Bend, Or. Sun. Sky. Volcanic rock. 300 days of sunshine. A scant 162 SE of Portland, Bend is a sagebrush high desert – a world apart from Portland’s misty verdant mouldering decrepitude. The air is sweet, pouring off of the distant daydreams of Mt. Bachelor and The Three Sisters. It smells of sage baking in the sun, the faint linger afterscent of lilac, a distant hint of delicious Indian food, thick burgers, french fries waiting to be discovered.
I am typing in a hotel room – the Sonoma Lodge, a quaint lodge about 1.5 miles South of downtown, a straight shot down 3rd St., Bend’s main drag. It’s late. Lily’s asleep beneath a red silk Chinese bedspread. Noir films are playing softly in the corner. It’s peaceful.
Earlier, 1936’s The Petrified Forest was playing – a really rather excellent crime caper starring Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, and Leslie Howard, who would go on to play The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard Of Oz. Howard plays Alan Squier, a down-and-out intellectual, the last of a dying breed. He ends up in a small desert saloon being held hostage by Duke Mantee, played by a stone-cold Humphrey Bogart. Squier waxes philosophical about wanting to be buried in The Petrified Forest, as a fossil, a useless relic:
Alan Squier: You better come with me, Duke. I’m planning to be buried in the Petrified Forest. I’ve formed a theory about that that would interest you. It’s the graveyard of civilization that’s shot from under us. The world of outmoded ideas. They’re all so many dead stumps in the desert. That’s where I belong and so do you Duke. For you’re the last great apostle of rugged individualism.
On Visiting Bend, Or.
Visiting a strange city is like seeing the bones of former civilizations jutting out, penetrating the present, leaving ragged holes of questioning, trying to find the quintessence of a new locale. In Bend, you can almost feel the bones of an old logging or mining town (I’m guessing mining), a mecca of industry in the Cascade Mountains where the silver streams of the Deschutes River pass through.
Today, it mostly feels like an upscale outdoorsy paradise – a mecca for mountain bikers, skiiers, hikers, kayakers. There’s plenty of culture, to boot – outdoor concerts in Drake Park, several museums, a couple movie theaters. It’s an upscale hippy town at 3,623.
There’s a mellow pace to Bend life, that’s for sure, but the lava tubes that run beneath your feet seem to have an effect. Lily and i saw the most polite traffic altercation, a meaty marine type hop out of a pickup at full speed, thinking the person he’d cut off had flipped him off. “Did you just flip me off?” he demanded.
“No, not at all,” Car B replied.
“Oh, my mistake,” the meaty marine calmy strolled back to his white Ford.
We were out on the hunt for American food, fresh off the Cobreeze bus, hungry for french fries and adventure. We’d heard good things about JC’s Tavern, as they were open until 2, but settled on the Bend Brewing Company instead. We had an idyllic, sundazed walk through Drake Park, finally descending on BBC’s upscale pub fare with great enthusiasm. Lily had the black bean veggie burger, with sweet potato fries. I had the Sriracha burger with jalapenos and bleu cheese, and the most delicious brewery fries i’ve had in my life. They didn’t even need ketchup.
We never would have discovered those delicious french fries, that silvered lake, had we gone with our map pin. JC’s Bar & Grill looks great and all, and i truly can’t wait to explore. We wanted something a little more upscale, a little more memorable, plus a walk down by the water sounded nice. We changed our minds in a moment and mapped out our way to the closest, dankest pub burger we could find.
Likewise, I discovered The Petrified Forest flipping channels in our way-too-cute-and-comfy hotel room. Lily is passed out, and i am sharing our adventures with you all. None of these things would have happened had we a strict agenda and clung to it.
But we are on vacation! We have nothing to be and nowhere to do, except be ourselves. We wandered the neighborhoods for hours, smoking and chatting and checking out Bend’s Historic District. I don’t yet know much about the history of this place, but plan on learning more.
Haven’t yet had time to explore the many places of interest Bend has to offer but looking forward to rectifying that as well! We fill in the map a little bit more each time we come here.
For those looking for things to do in Bend, Oregon, in the meantime, check this article from The Guardian. You’ll find out more Bend, Oregon restaurant recommendations, day hikes, mountain bike trails, and more.
Want more Pacific Northwest travel news, restaurant reviews, or movie murmurations? Still convinced these are the greatest times to e alive? Follow J Simpson on Twitter,Instagram, Letterboxd, and Yelp!
I love how alive that traveling makes you feel. How the fresh river of new sights, sounds, smells, sensations, makes you prick up and take notice. I love how you’re not in a hurry, how anything sounds like an interesting adventure. Tomorrow, Lily and i will be leaving Bend, heading for the magickal, medicinal waters of the Crystal Cranes Hot Springs. Will try and update from the road at least one more time, so stay posted. Also reading and writing a ton, so expect lots more MM to come!
This is the state that is most ripe for creativity, which is one of the reason I’ll be writing so extensively on travel writing, among other topics. We’re learning to take control of ourselves, our lives, our minds, and our selves. We are learning to make the most of this world we’re living in and avoid the pitfalls.
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Peter Weir’s 1975 adaptation Joan Lindsay’s surreal 1967 novel Picnic At Hanging Rock is the very definition of cult classic. Or perhaps just a classic with a cult following, performing quite well in the box office, both in its native Australia as well as abroad. It also won numerous awards. It’s inspired several fashion designers, from Alexander McQueen to a Gucci print ad campaign. It’s been graced with a Criterion edition. Sofia Coppola claims it among her favorite films and its influence can be seen in both The Virgin Suicides and The Beguiled. Both serve as a useful introduction to Picnic At Hanging Rock, in all its incarnations, with its nearly-Gothic exploration of girlhood in the late Victorian age through the lens of an Australian girl’s boarding school.
Natalie Dorner as Mrs. Appleway
For those who don’t know (or if you need a refresher), Picnic At Hanging Rock is the story of three young women who disappear in the early 1900s in a primordial wilderness called Hanging Rock. It’s based on true events. Peter Weir’s version is perhaps the penultimate ethereal 70s arthouse film, what this amazing Letterboxd list refers to as Pressed Flowers And Amethyst Glass.
So what does the new Picnic At Hanging Rock miniseries from Amazon Studios bring to the table, especially with such an iconic original? Is 2018’s Picnic At Hanging Rock a fresh take or simply another reboot, another attempt to sexify a cult classic for a CW world?
It’s not. So far, at least.
We’re going to be digging into the new Amazon streaming series, episode by episode, recapping and summarizing. We’ll offer a pithy little preview, at the top, for those simply looking for a synapsis. Detailed discussion will occur below the jump, however, so expect spoilers!
Now to Appleyard College!
Picnic At Hanging Rock Episode 1 Synopsis And Review
We begin with an enigmatic figure, a veiled woman dressed in black, touring a sprawling estate. The woman is Mrs. Appleyard, played by the razor-sharp Natalie Dormer from Game Of Thrones, she of the winsome smirk, whom we take to be a widow.
The year is 1900. The setting is the Australian countryside outside of Melbourne. “The ass-end of the world,” thinks Mrs. Applewood to herself after purchasing the estate following a fierce-but-understated negotiation. Curiously, Mrs. Applewood’s drops her posh society accent in her inner monologues. It’s the first sense that there’s perhaps more to Mrs. Applewood than we might take at first glance.
courtesy of Amazon Studios
Natalie Dormer’s Mrs. Applewood is the first departure from both Peter Weir’s cult classic as well as Joan Lindsay’s original material. Both portray Mrs. Applewood as an older woman, hinting that she is widowed and has moved to Australia for a fresh start. 2018’s Mrs. Applewood is a young, beautiful woman who plays at being a widow, but seemingly to keep the outside world at bay. Mrs. Applewood seems to be on the run, from something.
Rather than being a victim to life’s circumstances, she seems to be creating her own.
This subtle detail makes all the difference in the world, as the story immediately speaks to both women’s agency in the year 1900 as well as their current social standing (or lack thereof.) It also gives a psychological underpinning to Mrs. Applewood’s behavior and treatment of the girls. She can at times seem cruel almost to the point of sadism. This subtext makes us wonder if she herself has been hurt and disappointed by the world and is trying to spare these young girls from making the same mistakes.
Irma, Marion, Madeleine; courtesy of Amazon Studios
Most of Episode 1 of Picnic At Hanging Rock takes place on St. Valentine’s Day 1900, although there is some build-up to introduce us to the characters. There is a wide cast of precocious, talented young actresses, but most of the action follows the spirited Miranda Reid, played by Lily Sullivan; the glamorous socialite Irma Leopold, depicted by the resplendent Samara Weaving; and Marion Quade, played by Madeleine Madden, the only indigenous character, offering some insights into the racial politics of Australia along with the gender roles.
The slightly pitiable Sara Waybourne, portrayed by the waif-like Inez Currõ, also plays a prominent role. Sara worships Miranda Reid almost to the point of romantic love. She even recites her a lovely poem on St. Valentine’s Day.
Sara’s devotion to Miranda automatically bring some of the interpersonal relationships into focus, as the characters are pitted against one another following an unpleasant incident.
Miranda doesn’t care much for restriction. She’s a country girl, the only daughter of a prominent station owner. Her love of horses and her rebellious nature causes her to wander into the stables during an outing. A brutish stablehand tries to take advantage of her, in a particularly repugnant way. He gets what’s coming, as Miranda proves she’s no shrinking violet. She puts a pitchfork through his foot. This has consequences.
Mrs. Appleway’s particularly strict and controlling of the girls who attend her college. Amazon’s update makes it seem that she’s afraid of people looking into her affairs too much. It’s also due to the insanely rigid roles on women during the Victorian Age. A woman who’d lost her purity was almost as good as dead.
Mrs. Appleway comes upon a shaken-but-intact Miranda and helps her clean and collect herself, while also tending to the wounded stablehand. The following day would be St. Valentine’s Day, when most of the action transpires.
A good chunk of Picnic At Hanging Rock is comprised of young girls trading Valentine’s in gauzy sleepwear. If that sounds dull or boring to you, this is decidedly not the series for you. For one, it’s a feast for the eyes, from the lavish Edwardian fashion to the vintage Victorian Valentine’s, which are almost ludicrous in their ornateness. Secondly, it also offers a window into what St. Valentine’s Day means to young girls and women, which is one of the most prominent themes of the series and film. You can watch social dynamics play out as the most popular girls, Irma and Madeleine, have girls line up to offer gifts to their queen.
These rituals of girlhood and young womanhood are pivotal to both the plot of Picnic At Hanging Rock and why it ultimately succeeds. It’s a magickal time, full of yearning and longing and self-discovery. Friendships are so close and intimate, in a way they will never be again once adulthood sets in. It’s no wonder that young girls and women are often accused of being witches. And also lesbians.
To punish Miranda for her transgressions, Mrs. Appleway keeps Sara from attending the picnic at Hanging Rock, knowing this will hurt Miranda more than simply keeping her from going. This offers us an insight into what a cold, calculating, sometimes cruel woman Mrs. Appleway can be. She punishes Sara while her classmates are away, while simultaneously grilling her to find out more about a secret revealed earlier in the episode. Mrs. Appleway’s past is catching up with her. “Retribution is coming,” she mutters to herself, in the scene’s final, apocalyptic moments.
During the lazing, idyllic picnic, most of the girls drift off, in the ethereal, otherworldliness of Hanging Rock. Irma, Madeleine, and Marion do not, instead going to explore the rock, followed by the dowdy Myrtle. Myrtle would be the one to sound the alarm after the three young girls simply vanish without a trace.
We’re left to wonder what might have happened. We’ve already seen that Hanging Rock is a strange place, indeed. Watches stop. Compasses don’t work. The wind whispers like windchimes, casting a strange faerie magick.
The underpinnings of a Gothic murder mystery also seem to be manifesting. We wonder which it might turn out to be?
courtesy of Amazon Studios
These shifting tones are part of what makes Episode 1 of Picnic At Hanging Rock such a bonkers surreal trip. Which brings us back to the original question: what does Amazon’s remake of Picnic At Hanging Rock improve upon from the original?
We wouldn’t say ‘improve upon,’ per se. More like ‘occupying a similar cultural niche.’ Peter Weir’s 1975 epitomized the soft focus, subjective, eerie, earthy glamour of the 1970s. Amazon’s update shows us stylish, feminist, arthouse psychedelia in 2018. Any scene could be tailor-made for a Lana Del Rey video, as one reviewer pointed out, while the hyper-saturated colors make you feel you’re on a lot of drugs, slightly burning your retinas in the most delicious way imaginable.
Other visual elements – notably the costumery and camera angles – are quite in keeping with the original. Both feature wonky camera angles, to add to the uncanniness and surreality, as well as high shots, low shots, distant shots framing the girls in the landscape like a tableaux. It’s a stylish look that will make you want to pause and screenshot every other second (as well as take notes for your moodboards) but it also serves the story, seeming to hint at the role that girls and women play in late-Victorian Australia.
So far, style and substance are evenly played, making us eager to see what happens next.
Outstanding performances, killer set design, interesting characters with lots of socian dynamics, and lavish attention to period detail which is also overlooked when need be, prevent this from being yet another stodgy period piece.]
Watch Season 1 Of Picnic At Hanging Rock on Amazon Prime.
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