I, myself, am strange and unusual
daylight come and me wanna go home.
The string of 9/10 and 10/10 weather days this past week is absolutely giving me life! I’m finally healthy again (for me at least) and have been soaking up as much outside time as I can manage while we’re in the brief stretch of perfect NYC weather. I’m going upstate next weekend to go apple picking and experience fall and I simply cannot wait.
In this week’s issue, I give you my thoughts on the new Beetlejuice movie. I didn’t love it, but the original holds a special place in my heart so the bar was admittedly unattainably high. I wonder how kids who have never seen the original and consider this new one their “original” feel about it. I also write a bit about some 9/11 remnants throughout the city. I think I covered some pretty tame stuff, but if that’s not your thing or if it’s a bit too hard to read about that this week, just skip the Learning section.
I love the original Beetlejuice movie. The Day-O dance scene quite literally plays in my head on repeat and my personal instagram has a quote from the movie as my bio because I grew up in a time when it was very important to cling to cryptic quotes as a personality marker. The fact that I keep reading that this new sequel has come out 36 years after the original makes my knees creak, but I, a veritable Beetlejuice fan, had to take some aspirin, put on my sneakers with arch support, and see what this new Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had in store.
TL;DR - I didn’t love it, but you should go see it anyways and decide for yourself. I never want my opinions of movies to deter you from watching something and forming your own opinion. This is simply a place for me to bitch about the things I hate and fawn over the things I love while using big movie words that I learned in college.
My primary issue with the movie was that there were too many goddam plot lines and none of them were explored in a way that felt satisfying. The first main plot involed Lydia and her daughter, Astrid, having a strained relationship because Lydia is focused on her ghost adventures tv show and Astrid doesn’t believe in ghosts. Also, Astrid’s dad died and Lydia claims that she cannot see his ghost. This really had the potential to be a great exploration of grief and mother/daughter relationships, but instead the movie managed to gloss over all of this entirely and opted for the most stereotypical and least creative storyline.
I also absolutely hate what was done to Lydia’s character; she was reduced to a little ball of anxiety (because she sees ghosts all the time) who had none of the chutzpah or wiles of her 1988 self. It would have been fine to start the film like this and then show us how Lydia got her groove back (to impress her daughter maybe), but that never happened! At one point Delia (Catherine O’Hara) even said something along the lines of “what happened to that little goth girl who always stood up for herself and made my life hell?” and I thought that this would be the turning point where Lydia would wake the fuck up and take some agency. But no, Lydia instead agrees to first marry douchemaster Justin Theroux and then marry Beetlejuice (again) with no plan whatsoever for what would come after. Astrid manages to get her out of both weddings by very briefly (and undramatically) quoting a passage from the Handbook for the Recently Deceased and then the movie simply…ends.
What I really would have loved to have seen more of was Astrid’s dad/Lydia’s ex-husband! All we learn is that he was an environmentalist, him and Astrid attended protests together, and him and Lydia were already separated before he died in a boating accident. Astrid repeatedly asks her mom why her dad’s ghost is the only one she can’t see and we never get an answer to this but goddam this would have been great to explore. Why can’t Lydia see her ex?? A supernatural reason? A human emotion reason? The trio only reunited ever so briefly in the underworld and this whole family dynamic angle remained unexplored.
But that’s not all! While all of this is going on, Beetlejuice’s ex-wife, Delores, played by Tim Burton’s current partner, Monica Bellucci, comes back from the dead dead and swears revenge on him. And that’s…basically it. She literally floats around throughout the movie and literally exchanges about 2 words with Beetlejuice during the concluding scene I mentioned above before being swallowed by a sand worm. If I was dating Tim Burton and this is the role he gave me, I would be so pissed. Like yes thank you for letting me look hot, but what a waste.
Even Beetlejuice himself was wildly underutilized in a film that bears his name (twice). He also felt sort of toned down? I’ll admit that OG Beetlejuice might not be super 2024-appropriate but this Beetlejuice literally had a job…in an office…with employees he managed! I guess you really can’t make it anymore as a freelancer, alive or dead. He wasn’t as watered down as Lydia, but I also didn’t really feel like the juice was, in fact, loose. He did very little in the way of mischief and sort of very randomly appeared to help Astrid nip her love interest storyline in the bud (something that I wish Astrid’s dad had the opportunity to do instead). Michael Keaton did do an amazing job reprising the role, though, for what little screen time he did have.
Notably, Lydia’s dad from the first movie played by Jeffrey Jones did not return (rightfully so, we do not want sex offenders in our movies) and I actually enjoyed how the movie killed him off. It was done in a claymation sequence, which really harkened back to how Burton got started in animation. I wonder if this was done to get around the Crispin Glover-ness of having one’s likeness in a sequel and I’d love for someone with more info around that to explain things to me. What I didn’t enjoy, however, was how often this (albeit headless) Charles Deetz appeared in the film! I know it wasn’t the same actor, but I thought the whole point of killing him off was so that we didn’t have to see the character and now here he is literally sprinkled throughout the entire movie. His repeated appearance just felt like rubbing salt into a wound and was completely unnecessary to any of the 8 plot lines.
All of the above aside, I did really enjoy jumping back into the world of Beetlejuice. Both the production design and the music (composed by my man Danny Elfman) did a great job of transporting us back into the weird, slightly German Expressionist, world of Beetlejuice. It felt and looked like Beetlejuice, even if the story would have you believe otherwise.
In the movie, Lydia tells Astrid that “Death is hard” to which her daughter replies “Sometimes I think life is harder.” Maybe there’s some deep movie wisdom hidden in this line that tells us that sometimes it’s ok to just let things die. The original Beetlejuice is regarded as a great movie and I don’t think we needed to resurrect it and try to force a new story (or 8) out of the characters.
*I wrote all of this and completely forgot that Willen Defoe is also in this movie and has another separate and totally unresolved storyline 🙃
Have you seen Beetlejuice Beetlejuice? Let me know what you thought in the comments!
I’m gonna write a bit about some 9/11 remnants found in NYC in this next section, so if that’s tough for you to read about, scroll on down.
I was in 6th grade when 9/11 happened - in second period Spanish class to be exact and we were watching Selena. I think everyone has very distinct memories of that day, especially if you lived in or around NYC (I was a Long Island baby at the time). I remember being herded into the school gym; no one knew what was going on. So naturally, they wheeled in one of those big tvs and turned on the news. The same big ass tv I was just watching Selena on was now showing me footage of the destruction in Lower Manhattan and I saw some shit that I’ll never forget.
I remember in the days and years following, there was a lot of debate over how to memorialize what happened. Some memorials were too personal (ie: triggering), others too bland. I think the reflection pools we ended up with are pretty nice, though I really hate when I see people there taking smiling selfies there. They’re fucking reflection pools goddammit - reflect! I haven’t been able to bring myself to visit the 9/11 museum, but I’ve heard it’s generally disliked by NYers anyways for various reasons. Me being me, I much prefer the unofficial 9/11 memorials or remnants or whatever you wanna call them that are scattered throughout the city and sort of just happened organically.
When I worked in FiDi, I would routinely visit Zuccotti Park during my lunch break (which was named Liberty Plaza Park in 2001). The park was basically at the foot of the original Twin Towers and sustained heavy damage in the 2001 attack. I visited my uncle at his job in the towers earlier that year and bought a beaded denim headwrap from a vendor in that park; I thought it was very cool. Something I don’t remember noticing when I passed through was a sculpture called Double Check. It’s a bronze cast of a businessman by John Seward Johnson II that’s sitting on a bench and looking through the contents of a briefcase (which contains a very 80s calculator and tape recorder). And I probably didn’t notice it by design; it was sort of meant to blend in with the population of businessmen who would frequent the park at that time.
The statue managed to survive the destruction of the park around it and remain intact, though it did sustain some dents and damage. However, because it was so lifelike, rescue workers repeatedly mistook the statue for a person in the rubble. It was eventually pushed to the side and soon became an unofficial memorial in the area and was adorned with flowers and notes and candles before being taken back to the artist’s studio.
While there, the sculptor actually created a second casting of Double Check that included some of the notes and flowers that were left on it. Dubbing this new version Makeshift Memorial, he welded the castings of the notes and flowers onto this new version of the sculpture. Makeshift Memorial can be seen at the Hudson River Walkway in Jersey City. The original Double Check sculpture has since been moved out of Zuccotti Park and now sits just across the street on the corner of Liberty and Broadway and there’s a plaque at the base that describes the sculpture’s significance. I love how both of these sculptures became organic memorials created by the people who were actually there experiencing the tragedy and they feel much more personal to me.
While the majority of the area at Ground Zero was destroyed, there were bits and pieces that stayed intact like the Double Check statue. Although much of the subway system under the towers sustained heavy damage (the Cortlandt subway station alone took 17 years to fix before it was reopened) there is one small section of the World Trade Center E station that has been preserved.
The WTC station entrance on the Fulton St side is actually one of the original entrances to the station. Upon entering, turn right instead of going through the turnstiles and you’ll see this door. This little chunk of the station is actually all from the 70s and oh boy does it like it, compared to the Oculus that you’ll get to if you keep walking. The walls, the floor, and notable the doors are all original. In particular, there’s one door encased in glass that has orange spray paint on it.
There are multiple plaques in this area that explain what the writing on the door means and why this area of the station looks different from the rest. It’s a very simple memorial, quite literally just some scribbles on a door. Most people probably walk by without giving it a second thought, similarly to how folks probably pass by Double Check without even noticing. I think these small remnants, in addition to the official memorials, provide folks with a choose your own adventure of how to remember 9/11; neither is particularly right or wrong.
While the big reflection pools will always be the big markers of that day, these smaller memorials and remnants will eventually fade into obscurity (even more than they already have). They’ll become the fountains of youth, the murder wells, and the muffin houses that dot our city and remain forgotten save for the little plaques that I love to stop to read. I much prefer these little bits and pieces of the city that were created by the people who lived there and experienced it.
The Bed-Stuy Goldfish Pond still exists?? Like I get the positive intention behind this but why are we letting fish live in a glorified puddle?
When I went to China, I learned that it was very common for folks to post dating ads along the fences in parks. Sometimes there are scheduled meetups where parents will try to pair off their children. In a similar move, folks have taken to posting their own dating classifieds on a wall in Mccarren Park! Photographers have even been setting up shop and offering to take photos for folks. Would you try the McCarren Park dating wall?
Do you all remember the Grape Lady video of Youtube past? Her pained oh oh ohs echo through my mind often. If you want to try your hand (feet?) at stomping grapes, join Outsiders NY on a trip upstate on Sep 22. Tickets are $134, but they’ll arrange transportation there and back, provide a guided hike, grape stomping, and wine tasting!
Join Think Chinatown on Sep 21 for a tea and mookcake tasting to celebrate Mid-Autumn. Tickets are $45 and you’ll get to drink three loose leaf teas along with your mooncake snackies.
Friday the 13th is coming up which means tattoo shops are offering flash specials! I got a Friday the 13th flash tattoo a couple years ago and it’s just a silly little thing that made for a fun afternoon. A couple shops that I follow are offering specials: Ba Neul Tattoo, Crooked Heart Tattoo, Tattoo Pacific, and Hand of Glory.
Something I learned a couple years ago is that 9/11 is widely considered to be the largest civilian maritime evacuation in history–even larger than Dunkirk. When the coast guard put out a call for help that morning, 150+ vessels showed up to help ferry people out of Lower Manhattan. I was very lucky to attend a screening of Boatlift, a short doc about the water evacuation that day. It’s very much worth a watch.
The Feast of San Gennaro kicks off today in Little Italy. If you’re not into crowds, plan to avoid that area until things wrap up on Sep 22. If you’re into fried oreos, make sure you stop by to indulge in my most favorite fair food delicacy.
