On my way to work last week, I was listening to my favourite soundtrack of all time. My headphone must have been blaring loud enough for the person next to me to overhear, so he casually leaned over and asked what I was listening to.

“Oh, the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack.”

“Cool,” he said. “Is it a band?”

“No, it’s a movie soundtrack from a film set in early 1970s London.”

“That sounds neat. What’s it about?”

I opened my mouth to reply and then shut it. He seemed like a nice enough young man, dressed in khakis and a light pink dress shirt, clearly on his way to work in midtown somewhere. He had the clean-cut, all-American good looks of an Average Joe. Velvet Goldmine is not something you casually spring on someone before a first date; Velvet Goldmine is something you subtly drop hints about to see how comfortable the other person is before broaching the subject due to its, uh, less-than-mainstream content.

Which got me thinking: I have a lot of movies I adore that I happily recommend to people, but three of my favourite movies of all time always have been putting on the brakes before getting the word out. Without further ado, my 3 Movies I Love But Hesitate to Recommend To People Due to Less Than Mainstream Content are:

1. Velvet Goldmine

Brian Slade IS Maxwell Demon...

WHAT I TELL THE GENERAL PUBLIC: This is a thinly-veiled biopic of a David Bowie figure with an absolutely amazing soundtrack.
WHAT I TELL PRETENTIOUS PEOPLE: It sets out to answer the questions posed by Oscar Wilde’s epithets about fame, style, image, and substance through the lens of a slightly surreal 1970s glam London, narratively framed by a Citizen Kane-esque mystery.
WHAT I TELL FANGIRLS: It has Jonathan Rhys Meyers! And a naked Ewan McGregor! And Christian Bale! Making out! (Plus bonus Eddie Izzard and Toni Collette!)
WHAT IT IS REALLY IS: A gay fanboy’s real-person-slash fanfic of David Bowie/Iggy-Lou-Reed-Pop, plus bonus self-insert Gary Stu!
THE LESS THAN MAINSTREAM CONTENT: The gay. Oh god, the gay. Also, Oscar Wilde is an alien sent from space to bring style and flash to the world? Plus Ewan McGregor fucks Christian Bale on a rooftop.

Christian Bale in makeup and a blonde Ewan McGregor do it in this movie. You totally want to see it now!

This is actually hands-down my favourite movie of all time. When people ask me for a list of my favourite movies, Velvet Goldmine definitely comes out on top. I think it is an amazing, spectacular piece of visual storytelling, but that is par for the course with Todd Haynes, who was the visionary director behind I’m Not There (the Bob Dylan biopic, in which Dylan is played by six different actors, including one actress). This is the movie that introduced me to glam: its music, its aesthetic, its ethos.

Glam as a movement never quite made the jump across the pond from Britain to America; for us, the 70s seemed to be about disco, blaxpoitation movies, chest hair, and pornstaches. We seemed to be about machismo back then (and many would argue that we still are), whereas glam in England explored sexuality as a performance. The most recognisable glam group to Americans is probably Queen, but I tend to think of Queen as being coded masculine (despite Freddie Mercury’s spectacular camp act), rather than the more androgynous spectrum the others seem to lie on, especially early T.Rex and Roxy Music. And of course, Ziggy Stardust.

I say Ziggy Stardust rather than David Bowie because that’s really who the movie Velvet Goldmine is about (please see reference photo above–no, not the sex scene, the one with the crotch as prominently on display as the neck feathers). Ziggy Stardust as a character/persona is an alien from another world sent to this planet to save it through rock ‘n’ roll (and sex, let us not forget about sex), who was ultimately brought down low by fame and his own excesses (as chronicled in the concept rock album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars). At the height of his fame, Brian Slade as Maxwell Demon stages his own death, which causes his career to plummet. Was it a stunt? If so, why? What drove Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) to publicly kill the pop star–so to speak–and disappear? That’s what Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) journalist to find out.

What follows are accounts of Brian Slade from people who knew him–his old manager, his ex-wife, and even Arthur himself, whose past was punctuated by Brian Slade in a painful way. But just who is the real Brian Slade? I think the movie is brilliant in the biased way each person tells his/her part of the story, and it somehow manages to raise philosophical questions, endlessly quote Oscar Wilde, and delve into surreal fantasies with ease and dexterity.

There are many ways to look at this movie: Roshomon/Citizen Kane sort of unreliable storytelling, a love story (between several different people), a portrait of an era, a biopic, a jukebox musical, but what makes Velvet Goldmine so fascinating is how deftly all these narrative threads are handled.

How did I discover this film? I can’t remember if it was deep in my Ewan McGregor crushing years or my Christian Bale ones–either way, a young, impressionable, teenage fangirl JJ found her way to this movie somehow and her mind was blown.

2. The Dreamers

Matthew, Isabelle, and Theo reenact Godard's Bande a part.

WHAT I TELL THE GENERAL PUBLIC: *shrug* It’s a Bertolucci film; you know, nubile young things coming of age and being sexy. Plus France.
WHAT I TELL PRETENTIOUS PEOPLE: Three youths–one set of fraternal French twins and an American exchange student–overcome their social anxiety by bonding with each other, their increasingly self-absorbed games rendering them oblivious to the tense political atmosphere surrounding the May 1968 riots.
WHAT I TELL FANGIRLS: Eva Green. OMG Eva Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen. Also, Louis Garrel. And, if it floats your boat, Michael Pitt, the poor man’s Leonardo di Caprio.
WHAT IT REALLY IS: A menage a trois film, plus bonus twincest!
THE LESS THAN MAINSTREAM CONTENT: Um…see above.

Matthew, Isabelle, and Theo in a bathtub. This one probably succinctly sums up the movie, actually.

This one begins with how I discovered it: through my crush on Eva Green. It also begins with how much I loved the movie Stealing Beauty, featuring Liv Tyler and Jeremy Irons. (And Rachel Weisz, my other crush.) Stealing Beauty is a relatively benign story about a young American woman who travels to an artists’ colony in a Tuscan villa after her mother’s suicide to find out who her father is. Oh, and to lose her virginity. I was charmed by the lush, indulgent, hedonistic world Bertolucci had created, and so when I saw he had made another movie, this time with bombshell Eva Green, I had to watch.

Sometimes, you gotta trust people.

I mean it in this way: I trusted Bertolucci enough to take a chance on another movie, even though I was young and unsure of where my boundaries lay. The sexual content of The Dreamers would have shocked me at the age I had watched it had I not trusted Bertolucci. Instead of being repulsed, I was enchanted, and I related so fiercely to these teenagers, with their obsessive interests, with their childish naivete that was twinned with cruel sexual curiosity. If I was not obsessed with French New Wave cinema or in love with my fraternal twin brother, it didn’t matter. I understood their desperate ennui and addictive behaviours and everything else was just details.

Or you can watch it for the eye candy. And there’s plenty to be had.

3. Heavenly Creatures

Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker

WHAT I TELL THE GENERAL PUBLIC: It’s the story behind an infamous New Zealand murder case.
WHAT I TELL PRETENTIOUS PEOPLE: It’s a story about two outcast girls whose shared imagination bonds them together, and whose friendship is slowly tipping into co-dependence and mutual paranoid obsession.
WHAT I TELL FANGIRLS: Peter Jackson! Yeah, the Lord of the Rings guy! This was the movie that kind of put him on the map! Also, Kate Winslet’s first role!
WHAT IT REALLY IS: Two possibly lesbian (but not really) schoolgirls murder one of the girl’s mothers because they fear being apart more than being on trial for murder.
THE LESS THAN MAINSTREAM CONTENT: Matricide, lesbianism, a weird ass fear of Orson Welles.

This movie emotionally destroys me to the point where I can only watch it once every 5 years. I kid you not; my last viewing was in 2010–I’m due for another in 2015.

All I can say is that this movie inspires the most terrible sort of compassion and sympathy in me, and not a little fear. I was just like these two girls: a little weird, a little eccentric, and just like these two girls, I formed intense bonds and friendships with other girls. I had a string of One and Onlys growing up, girls with whom I shared not only interests and hobbies, but my heart and soul. We were sisters in all but blood, but even better than sisters, we were the same. Girls with whom I made up fantastic worlds and stories, girls who were my firsts in almost every single way.

Could I be like them? Could I possibly kill because of the depth of my bond to someone else?

The answer is no. One and Onlys come and go, and it is unfortunately a truth of life that we grow up and develop our own lives. It isn’t that we drift apart–I’m still friends with several of my One and Onlys–it’s that we become adults and find our focus pulled in so many different directions.

And yet.

The most horrifying and deeply upsetting part about this movie is not the moment they kill Pauline Parker’s mother; it’s the moment they discover their relationship is about to come to an awful, tragic end. The movie opens and closes with the murder. In the opening scenes, we see a blood-splattered Pauline and Juliet laughing as they run out of a copse, saying that “Mummy” has been hurt. When we see this scene again, we come to see that they were not laughing; they were crying–gut-wrenching, broken sobs as they bludgeoned Honora Parker to death with a brick.

Ugh. This movie gives me too many feelings. But I wholeheartedly recommend you watch this at least once–it’s amazing.

Tis indeed a miracle one must feel that two such heavenly creatures are real.

Good to know I was born to be an editor.

Lawdy, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged isn’t it? Many things have been going on, but I haven’t had the time to sit down and give y’all a thorough update on what’s going on in my life, both professionally and personally. Everything’s all good!

Anyway, one of the pieces of news I forgot to mention is that I’ve now joined the ladies of Pub(lishing) Crawl as a contributor, so expect to see posts about the industry from me once a month there!

Today I blogged about the acquisitions process (complete with all the GIFs I stole from Tumblr), so head on over there to check it out!

Anyway, I found a Photoshop brush that pretty closely recreates what it’s like to sketch with graphite, so I drew a quick sketch of a sad Corliss (a character from my novel) referencing David Tennant because…everything should reference David Tennant. (Also, I seem to have forgotten how to draw on real pencil and paper. Ought to remedy that.)

ALL THE FEELS.

ALL OF THEM.

I just…I cannot. This show. THIS SHOW. IT’S SO GOOD.

APPROPRIATE GIF IS APPROPRIATE.

Last night I went to see Titanic in theatres.

Before I continue with my review, I must preface this post with this: I never saw Titanic in the theatres the first time around. It was January 1997, it was rated PG-13, I was in 7th grade, and I was 12 years old. My parents had a stringent rule about not letting me see PG-13 movies until I was actually 13 years old, an arbitrary rule that denied me from experiencing one of the biggest movie phenomenons of all time (I was six months away from turning 13!). For the most part, I didn’t begrudge my parents their strange and overprotective ways, but I still resent them for this, just a little bit.

Picture this: 7th grade JJ in her class of 36 was the only kid who didn’t know what on earth everyone was talking about. All my female friends had gone to see this movie multiple times—sometimes with male friends on whom I had crushes—and talked of nothing else. They swooned over baby Leonardo DiCaprio, they sobbed over the tragic romance, and they wouldn’t shut up on how it was so good, so good. For the entirety of its theatrical run, they gabbed on about it, and I begged and pleaded with my parents for an exception to their PG-13 rule, even pulling in my Mormon aunt to make a case for me (she saw it! She had no moral objections!), but my parents never bothered to check out this over-hyped movie for themselves to gauge whether or not it was appropriate for pre-adolescent JJ to watch.

Soon, like many other phenomenons, the hype died down, and by the time my 13th birthday came around, it was long gone from the cinema multiplexes.

So when I finally bothered to sit down and watch Titanic, it wasn’t until 3 years later, long after everyone had talked themselves out of it, and before the backlash against it had risen up.

And I cried.

At 15, I was a sophomore in an all-girls’ school and enlightened (or so I thought) about feminism, unlikely to be moved or swayed by Leo’s pretty blue eyes or prone to excessive amounts of eye-rolling about “love” and “romance” and all sorts of other gushy, mushy feelings. (And yes, I developed my anti-FEEEEEEEEEEEELINGS stance young.) I decided, after all those years, to determine for myself whether or not the movie was actually any “good”.

And it was.

I was half-right: the romance was a non-starter in my “jaded” and “cynical” eyes, but what I didn’t expect was a powerful film about the greatest maritime tragedy of all time. From the moment the musicians struck up “Nearer My God To Thee” to the end of the movie, I was a nonstop fountain of sobs. The fact that I didn’t care much about Jack and Rose didn’t stop me from caring about the plethora of other minor characters on the doomed ocean liner and crying when they died. Regardless of the hype, I thought Titanic was “good” film.

So when the news that they would be re-releasing Titanic in the theatres broke, I knew I simply had to go and avenge my 12-year-old self.

A decade later, I’m fairly happy to say that Titanic holds up: it is a wonderfully made piece of popular entertainment. I cried (more or less) when I was supposed to cry, I laughed (more or less) when I was supposed to laugh, and I left the theatre emotionally drained but satisfied. You can’t ask much more from a piece of commercial entertainment, but I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that there was more.

Feminism and James Cameron

I have this theory about James Cameron: that he is a feminist. He’s best known for making movies that make A LOT OF MONEY, but I think what I appreciate most about Cameron is that his big blockbuster movies all have strong female characters. Terminator has Sarah Connor, Aliens has Ellen Ripley, and even the female characters of Avatar were (mostly) three-dimensional and you know, actual people.

As a filmmaker, Cameron is best known for spectacle, not his writing skills, but damn he’s not ashamed or afraid of making women the emotional and physical centers of his stories. How is it possible in this day and age we’re still arguing and debating whether or not women can carry a film when Cameron has successfully proven many times that they can? Titanic was the highest grossing film of all time until Avatar came along, and that movie couldn’t surpass Titanic in ticket sales. (Also consider that tickets were cheaper in 1997 than they were in 2010.)

Here’s a radical notion: create three-dimensional female characters, and women might come see your movie. Or read your books.

• GEORGE STROUMBOULOPOLOS: There’s one thing that’s interesting about your books. I noticed that you write women really well and really different. Where does that come from?
• GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: You know, I’ve always considered women to be people.

Yes, it’s really that simple. Why are people still asking this question?

Rose Dewitt-Bukater: Feminist Heroine

Romance aside, let us consider the character of Rose Dewitt-Bukater, played by Kate Winslet. Rose is not especially deep or complex, and she can also be something of a Type: you know, the somewhat anachronistically modern heroine who wants something “more” than what society will allow her to have. However, I argue that Rose is more than just a Type: she is clever, she is resourceful, and she possesses spirit and inner strength. She saves Jack over and over again: she protects him from being arrested when her fiancé thinks he tried to rape her, she rescues him from social faux-pas at dinner, and she frees him from being handcuffed and left to drown (with a hatchet! That she got by using a firehose to break it from the case! See, resourceful!). You never once question Rose’s determination to survive against impossible odds, and the fact that she “never lets go”, that she never lets death and the loss of Jack prevent her from living a full life says a lot about her. She is a fighter. She saves herself.

• JACK: They’ve got you trapped, Rose. And you’re gonna die if you don’t break free. Maybe not right away because you’re strong but…sooner or later that fire that I love about you, Rose…that fire’s gonna burn out.
• ROSE: It’s not up to you to save me, Jack.
• JACK: You’re right; only you can do that.

And she does.

You know what else Rose does? She maintains control of her sexuality.

The sexual subtext of this movie was somewhat lost on me at 15, probably because I was distracted by the making out on the bow of the ship and the infamous hand against the car window scene, but it’s awfully refreshing to watch a movie in which your heroine maintains control of her sexuality and isn’t slut-shamed or demonised for it.

It’s clear that in the unequal relationship between Rose and her fiancé (played by the lash-linered and delightfully scene-chewing Billy Zane), she maintains sexual power over him. When Cal presents Rose with the Heart of the Ocean, he isn’t just asking her to love him–he is also asking her to sleep with him.

• CAL: There’s nothing I couldn’t give you. There’s nothing I’d deny you…if you won’t deny me. Open your heart to me, Rose.

Emphasis mine.

Here is a man who would put a leash upon Rose, and who tries throughout the movie to control her sexuality, but she escapes his clutches every time.

• CAL: I had hoped you would come to me last night.
• ROSE: I was tired.
• CAL: Yes. Your exertions below decks were no doubt exhausting.
• ROSE: I see you had that undertaker of a manservant follow me. Typical.
• CAL: You will never behave like that again! Do you understand?
• ROSE: I’m not some foreman in your mills than you can command. I am your fiancée.
• CAL: My fian–my fiancée! Yes, you are, and my wife. My wife in practice if not yet by law, so you will honor me. You will honor me the way a wife is required to honor a husband. Because I will not be made a fool, Rose. Is this in any way unclear?

It’s perfectly clear, and she sends him a huge “up yours” message by asking Jack to draw her naked.

Between Jack and Rose, she appears to be the more sexually experienced of the two, or perhaps the more willing to explore sex. She is the one who seduces him, and moreover, she is the one to ask him to “put his hands on her”. (The line is just as cheesy today as it was in 1997, but no less empowering.) And you know what? Do any consequences arise from the fact that she slept with him? No.

Jack is less full-developed than Rose, but in some respects I don’t mind. He is the vehicle for her to begin living her life the way she wanted to, a prop in her coming-of-age story. More than anything, this is ROSE’S STORY. And it gives me some hope for humanity that one of the highest grossing films of all time has a sexual woman front and center.

I still didn’t cry when Jack died though.

The Sinking of The R.M.S. Titanic

However, I did cry in the second half of the movie. I practically cry on cue when the musicians strike up “Nearer My God To Thee”. Say what you will about the rest of the film, but the images of the captain alone in his cabin, of Mr Andrews the shipbuilder adjusting the clock, of the old couple (Isidore and Ida Straus, a.k.a. the owners of Macy’s) in their bed as water floods their stateroom, of the mother telling her children a fairy story are still incredibly moving and powerful. I also found myself crying in different parts this time around.

“It’s only for a little while, just a little while. This boat is for the mommies and children. There will be another boat for the daddies later.”

Once the ship starts sinking, Cameron doesn’t linger or over-sentimentalize what happens. People are both noble and horrid under duress, and the tragedy of the disaster plays out in full in all its awfulness. There isn’t much I can say about the second half of the movie, aside from “Well done, James Cameron, well done.”

Verdict

My verdict? I think the movie holds up well with age. Is it cheesy? Yes. Is the story unoriginal? Yes. Do I care? NO, I DON’T. I am wholly unironic about my love for Titanic. Is it worth seeing on the big screen? I think so–movies like these are spectacles, and I think the experience of seeing it in a theatre with an audience is worth it.

Oh, and the 3D is meh. But let’s face it; I only went to see Titanic in the theatres anyway.

NOT ENOUGH TYRION.

Also, oh Sansa! Sansa, darling, you are my new favourite: you are smart and clever and stuck in a TERRIBLE position, but you’re a quick study and totally out-gamed Joffrey.

It’s agony waiting for the next episode! Any of you Game of Thrones fans? Did you watch the season premiere? Thoughts?

Last night I went to a midnight viewing of the Hunger Games.

I’m not going to say much about the film itself (although, for what it’s worth, I think it might be the best of the big YA properties adapted to the big screen—and a pretty good movie in its own right), but I am going to ruminate a bit on the three best-selling YA “phenomenons”—Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games—and publishing trends, science-fiction/fantasy, and coming-of-age narratives.

I’ve said many times before that the bildungsroman is my favourite type of story, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because it is universal. The journey from innocence to experience happens to all of us, not just once, but often several times over the course of our lives. For me, the most poignant of these coming-of-ages occurs during adolescence, and it is the reason why I am drawn to children’s fiction. I also think this is the reason why all three YA phenomenons resonate so strongly with their audiences—superficial plot and premise trappings aside, they are each at their core, strong coming-of-age narratives (although Mockingjay does screw with this a bit). However, I believe the specifics of why each property became such a cultural zeitgeist are reflections of our times.

Cultural phenomenons don’t happen in a vacuum, and I believe all good literature is a reflection of the period in which it is written and published. Aside from all the things that made The Hunger Games such a cracktastic read (blistering pace, high stakes, emotional conflict, etc.), there’s another factor that I believe made it take off so spectacularly: its pointed satirical commentary.

Its point was driven home rather sharply during the movie, which the author Suzanne Collins adapted herself with some help from the director and another screenwriter. More than the director’s vision, more than the producers and the studios’ bottom lines, it astonished me how much of Collins’ voice shaped the film. The premise of the book itself is inherently political: in a future North America, wealth has become so polarised that the rich can send the children of the impoverished to fight to the death…for their own amusement. How terrifyingly close is this future? The American rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class is all but disappearing. Our world is now shaped by bias—media conglomerates and pundits shape how we perceive news, and reality television reigns supreme. In our world, we can be famous for nothing, except that “nothing” is carefully crafted and branded and marketed to us. It is all a game.

Panem et circenses, bread and circuses. This was a political strategy of the Roman Republic: give the people food and entertainment to divert and distract them. In modern usage, it implies pandering to the lowest common denominator, and a misappropriation of people’s popular support—give them want they want, and not what they need. Collins chose the name of her future North America very carefully; it’s no coincidence that the members of the Capitol have Roman names: President Coriolanus Snow, Seneca Crane, Cinna, Flavius, Venia, Octavia.

This is why I think The Hunger Games as a film is perhaps “better” than Twilight and Harry Potter (except the last two Harry Potter films, which I felt were commentary on fascism and racism)—this film is not just a way to capitalise on a buying public, it has something substantive to say about the buying public. It’s rare to see a piece of pop culture hold up a mirror to its audience in such a direct and unflattering way. This movie not only entertains; it makes us think.

Every change made from book to film was added to further this “message”: from the hosts “sports-commentating” on children killing each other to “behind the Games” scenes in which the head Gamemaker (played by Wes Bentley and his magnificent beard) and the President discuss political strategy through game theory. “A little hope is more effective than fear,” says President Snow (a delightfully sinister Donald Sutherland), “but a lot of hope is dangerous.” Without Katniss’s (rather plodding) narration, you don’t get long explicatory passages explaining how the Games are rigged against the poor (the concept of tesserae, for example), but you get the gist nonetheless. This is all so terrifyingly plausible, despite its fantastic premise.

To me, Harry Potter was very much a product of its British (well, Scottish, to be precise) writer; I argue that without Britain’s history of class divisions and its brush with fascism during World War II, it couldn’t have been written. Of course, at its core, it’s a fantastic Chosen One narrative—well, barring its last two book installments, which is strange considering how I think the last two movie installments were the best—but its major themes include prejudice and power, viewed through the metaphorical lens of magic and fantasy.

I am not as familiar with Twilight, so I’m not qualified to speak of it, although I think that in a world in which women’s rights and autonomy seem to be in increasing danger of being taken away, there’s something powerful in a narrative about a young woman trying to claim her own sexuality against a controlling male figure. That…might not be what Twilight is actually about according to its myriad fans to whom I’ve spoken, but nonetheless, my analytical feminist brain prefers this interpretation to “This is the most romantic piece of aspirational literature ever!” However, Twilight, more than Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, contains unexamined problematic elements which unfortunately undermines what I felt could have been an empowering message.

• BELLA: Edward, sleep with me!
• EDWARD: No, not until we’re married!
• BELLA: Edward, turn me into a vampire, which is clearly a metaphor for sex!
• EDWARD: NO WOMAN, WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT BEING MARRIED?
• BELLA: FINE. I’ll marry you, and then can we have Teh Sex?
• EDWARD: (is a 107-year-old virgin) But…sex will kill you! (Subtext: You slut!)
• BELLA: Pffft, I’m sure you’re wrong. (Subtext: You controlling douchehound.*)
• BELLA: Fuck, since I’m now infected with your demon-spawn that is literally devouring me from the inside out, I suppose I was wrong. Fuck you, patriarchy.**

* Bella doesn’t say this. I wish she had though.
** Bella doesn’t say this either.

The Hunger Games is the most recent of these big YA phenomenons to come into the public consciousness. I’ve laid out my reasons why, but I think my reasons also point to why writing to publishing trends is somewhat pointless. After Harry Potter, there was a wave of imitators (“If you like stories about boys and magic, try…”), from the more successful Artemis Fowl to the less successful Septimus Heap. Twilight, as you know, spawned a paranormal romance craze, and we are now in the midst of a dystopian resurgence due to The Hunger Games. But in my opinion, the reason “the next big thing” is never like the previous big thing is because what makes something a phenomenon is not the superficial elements (magic, vampires, dystopian futures), but because the next big thing will touch on a cultural nerve that resonates on a deeper, subconscious level.

I personally can’t wait to discover that the next big phenomenon is and what it says about us.