A todos los monstruos de mi guardería: Que nunca me dejen solo.
[To all the monsters in my nursery: May you never leave me alone.]
— Guillermo Del Toro
I am on eleventy thousand deadlines this week. It is invigorating. It is exhausting. I am ill-prepared, and I am over-prepared.
Add to that: my private life is a giant stress-ball I’m trying to deflate by repeated viewings of 2013’ Pacific Rim (Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Hunnam) and 2018’s Pacific Rim: The Uprising. The sequel is good (John Boyega, Kikuchi, Scott Eastwood), but the first film is excellent — and if you want a second opinion,
…a Jaeger tumbling into an abyss, its E.T. heart pulsing; a little girl's red shoe in a grey ash-heap on a rubble-strewn street; a kaiju unfurling kite-like wings; a one-eyed kaiju-body-parts dealer named Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman) stalking through wreckage, his steel-tipped dress shoes jangling like cowboy spurs. A simple shot of Elba's character taking off a helmet is infused with such emotion…
read ⤴️ this one.
The Pacific Rim original and its sequel are both unselfconsciously multinational and multicultural. It’s a Mexican franchise, from Guillermo del Toro (2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth). His work calls me because it is sincere. The muffled explosions, the eventual teamwork, the heroic, smart kids (who don’t lean on sarcasm or a cascade of smirks and quips). del Toro’s 2022 Pinocchio has me curious as well.
In the Pacific Rim films: deeply satisfying sensations of world-changing heaviness when the massive Jaegers run, or topple, or strike. Things are actually things. This science fiction has no trace of magic. Consequences are real. No extra lives. Evil always rises. And people always like evil. Then, tension. Then, the people who like good, beat evil. For a time. Families are built from scratch, or reunited. I tired to watch like, Argyle (it is in fact, “soulless”). I tried to watch NBA Playoffs. But since the Sacramento Kings are out, all I care about is my Celtics. So, until tipoff, the Jaegers it is. Let me know if you’ve watched.
I’m prepping for work travel to the Philippines: please give me your reccos for Manila and beyond, because I’m on my way, via a layover in Seoul. I will eating and walking and hopefully biking, and then eating some more. There will be updates here at Shine Bright HQ, and I’m active on Instagram, too.
I’ve been succumbing too often to my cravings for steaming hot white rice and tuna salad (basically, this with some purple onion, and mashed boiled egg).
It keeps me sharp for a reported memoir-ish thing I’m deep into that has me recalling and researching, among other things, the restaurant culture of New York in the 1990s and 2000s. This 2018 piece from the New York Times is okay —
By the 1960s and into the ’80s and ’90s, bar culture in New York had become as varied and textured as the city itself. Cocktail bars got yet another revival at the Rainbow Room, where Dale DeGroff — considered the godfather of the modern cocktail renaissance — took over the drinks program. In the Village, the Stonewall Inn and other spots became centers for gay culture, while uptown venues like the Shark Bar attracted a mostly African-American clientele.
— but there’s not much (if any) more juicy detail about where Black folks, or other marginalized folks were going after work for a cold one, and some conversation.
This, though, from New York magazine’s recent “Yesteryear” issue aims to tell the story of NYC through its restaurants and it’s relentlessly fascinating. From Fat Joe recalling Mary J. Blige (and the seafood paella) at Jimmy’s Bronx Cafe to
Sugar Ray Robinson’s ⤴️ 1950s hotspot.
There’s talk of “fermented squid guts, and little tiny crabs that were deep-fried” at Hatsuhana in the 1980s, and the “plates of oxtails, smothered chicken, and greens” served at 22 West back when Malcolm X frequented. We head over to where President John F. Kennedy got a steak and beer, and to a place in Jackson Heights where
it’s not uncommon to see a table of trans women and gays sharing a bottle of aguardiente sitting next to a group of straight dudes cursing at the soccer games playing on TV monitors
— all while munching on “chicharrón, chorizo, fried egg, avocado, and a crispy arepa.” Say what now? Count me in.
Today is the birthdate of Luther Vandross. Here’s a 2-hour Luther + Sade playlist I share very rarely because it leads to too much romance and yearning and block-spinning and even unexpected infants. Play at your own risk:
Design and build,
Danyel
Dig that 50s photo of the pink car in front of Sugar Ray''s favorite spot.
Del Toro’s Pinocchio is wonderful! The only thing that’s a but off putting for me is that Geppetto has a British accent. I would’ve preferred Italian-accented English.