So You've Decided to Become Isolated and Weird FIRST Newsletter!

Monday’s gone, and Tuesday is upon us. With only a week left until the election, it feels like the nation is turned up to 11.

Luckily, there will be little, if any, of that this week (no promises), as I wanted to focus on a few things outside the realm of politics and the general madness of this election cycle. I’m sure you get enough of that in your day-to-day, and seeing this newsletter is to allow pause…consider this me holding up my side of the bargain.

In this newsletter, we’ll cover:

• The movie Conclave starring Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, who is tasked with organizing the papal conclave after the Pope's unexpected death
• My admission of buying writerly things to write and then…not writing at all
• Celebrating the poet Dylan Thomas’s birthday

Conclave Concussed Me

Instead of venturing to the East Bay (I live in San Francisco) this weekend, my father and I got a noisy dinner at Palmer’s on Fillmore and Clay Street in San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood and decided to see Conclave. In my earlier years, I would’ve revolted against the idea of missing a Halloween Party. Still, being on the wrong side of 30 and attaining hangovers that would likely kill a small yak, each cell of mine struggling to keep whole after 15-plus years of revelry, I can say no every once in a while. That and his mother, my grandma, recently passed, and I knew he wanted the company. They had lived together in their childhood home for over ten years.

Conclave was probably - if not - one of the best movies I have seen this year. I don’t know if there is some secret that the public doesn’t know about, but it always feels like teams behind these kinds of movies always release masterpieces before the end to squeak a potential Academy Award nod. Directed by Edward Berger and written by Peter Straughan, based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Robert Harris, Conclave is set during a papal conclave (get it?) to elect a new pope after the death of the previous pontiff. The book’s main character is an Italian cardinal named Jacopo Lomeli, and the film changes this to a British cardinal named Thomas Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes. Fiennes's performance is intense and vulnerable, constantly teetering on the edge of a full-blown breakdown. He struggles with his faith while attempting to play detective and maintain unity among a diverse group of Vatican cardinals as they gather to elect a new pope. Other notable actors are John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini, who appears as Sister Agnes.

Stéphane Fontaine handled the cinematography for Conclave. Throughout the movie, I leaned over to my dad every other shot and whispered, “Jesus… that’s good.” Incredible portraits of cardinals walking as one with all their umbrellas popped to keep them from the rain, patient to meticulous ritualistic dressing scenes, and intimate, tense, high-stakes one-on-one scenes. The energy behind the direction of the conflicts was seamless and taut.

If you can see it in theatres, do it.

Buying Writing Things to Write and Not Writing

Like many writers I know, and people for that matter, I have somehow made myself believe that if I buy this thing, be it a physical notebook or journal, some special pen, a Freewrite, or a craft book perfectly constructed with every secret to write and write well, I, Mitchell, will be imbued with newfound, creative energy to get “it” out of me finally. Well, most of the time, it’s bullshit, if not all of the time. Writing, like exercising or asking that particular person out or simply doing the hard thing, cannot be achieved (if fully achieved) other than just doing it. I sound like a Nike ad, but no get-quick magical device, Chat-GPT, or a re-Markable Paper Pro will get you to do what you need. I’ve discovered, many, many times after buying an app or, yes, a Freewrite (I like it but don’t use it as much as I paid for it) that it’s all marketing to convince you that you will be that much better after you buy this “thing” to get you there.

It isn’t true. It might make it easier to get the words out and send them off quicker, but when it comes to the work that makes you the writer or the person you know you are, no subscription, plus-plan, or a new device is going to get you there other than the simple action of doing it.

Rage and Resilience: The Defiant Spirit of Dylan Thomas

And as we always should, let’s celebrate the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, born on October 27, 1914, in Swansea, Wales. It would have been his 110th birthday, and, as a fun fact, his father chose the name Dylan, which translates as “son of the sea” in Welsh. Plus, Richard Burton’s favorite poet. Being one of the most famous of the 20th century, he wrote one of the most famous poems, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” Below is an excerpt.

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at the close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is proper,

Because their words had forked no lightning, they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

I was reminded of the great poet’s birthday from a spot-on recitation performed by the Welsh actor Michael Sheen. A part of me senses Mr. Thomas and Mr. Sheen would have gotten along side by side pint after pint at The White Horse Tavern in New York or The Dove in Hammersmith in London, UK. I know I would have.

One Poem

“I and I” was inspired by walking down the street and spotting a lone man washing his cherry red convertible so passionately, scrubbing the depths of the mirrors, getting down onto the ground and into the guts of the gears while so full of joy, that I wrote part of the scene down. However, everything else that came after is hard to pin.

I and I

I saw a blind man wash their cherry red 1978 Porsche
with soaked’ and soapy rag, drenched in nothing but love.

I listened to a deaf woman heed the crying of a rainbow,
the sight of a landslide,
the off-brand flirtation of an earthquake.

I smelled anosmia as brother and sister danced arm and arm
in fields of gardenias and stargazers.

I felt a dying grandmother’s heartbeat as her family tucked her into bed one final time.

I touched the torch of a prisoner’s life sentence
whose only peace
was the dawn on their fingertips.

I imagined the life of another, a stranger,
and saw it was myself, directed by misdirection.

I dreamed of nightmares of a grandfather,
too traumatized to live,
too brave to die,
drinking through it all.

I hated to watch my countrymen hate for love's sake, for hate's sake,
for all that they thought was on their side;
a common pastime
to cut the line to fail to prove that
any of this was real.

That’s all for Tuesday. See you Thursday with flash fiction and an excerpt for my full essay for Sunday subscribers. If you liked what you read and want more, consider subscribing below. Thank you for reading.

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