Current Affairs #3

FORMERLY KNOWN AS "ZIGS PICKS"

“Zigs Picks” is now going to be called “Current Affairs,” because I didn’t like the name “Zigs Picks” to begin with. I also thought it was pretty excessive to put half of what I was going to be talking about in the headline (again, a lot of this is trial and error since I’m basically attempting this Substack for the first time but for the third or fourth time).

Since the title of this blog is based off of Reader’s Digest¹, I thought it would be fitting with that allusion to name this column after something similar that you might find in a Reader’s Digest, or at least something that sounds more in-line with that. It was going to be called “Week in Review,” but whenever I write these things I’m never actually rounding up my week. It’s more like a collage of Stuff collected intermittently across any old span of time. I don’t feel like lying to my subscribers. Thus: “Current Affairs.” These are my affairs, and they are all somewhat current.

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Evil Does Not Exist

I never got around to seeing Evil Does Not Exist at the 2023 New York Film Festival. At the time, I was very depressed and consequently I skipped out on a lot of the films that played that year, and this one just fell to the wayside in perpetuity. But the other night, Brian was getting home late and I was in the mood to watch any movie under two hours. I scrolled through the Criterion Channel, saw that Evil Does Not Exist was 109 minutes and said [Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood voice] “Tonight the night? Why not!” The film is about a rural Japanese village whose way of life is threatened when a developer plans to put a “glamping” site upstream, and the various environmental implications that would come from it. Even though I’ve embarrassingly neglected a lot older, foreign and/or art-house films as of late, Evil Does Not Exist reminded me why I do genuinely adore slower, more minimalist cinema.

I never have anything smart or insightful to say about these films (I even feel stupid referring to it as “mininamlist”) but they’re not as inaccessible as one might think, and watching them feels like falling into a deep, warm dream. It’s also the most unflattering portrait of glamping since Tom Sandoval took his girlfriend and his mistress together on a glamping trip in Season 10 of Vanderpump Rules. Be miserable in the woods or don’t do it at all—that’s why I never will.

The Valley

What if Vanderpump Rules took place in the suburbs instead of at SUR, and peoples’ lives were falling apart in a way that is 50x darker, more depressing and more material because almost everyone has children involved. If you ever wondered what that would be like, consider watching The Valley, which makes you feel like you’re somehow complicit in crimes that are happening 3,000 miles away.

MonikaFit

I hate exercising and likely always will. I’m just one of those people. In spite of this, I do remain active almost every single day—if I’m not walking anywhere, I have a stationary bike, a stair-stepper, and a mini treadmill like the TikTokkers use for their stupid little videos. If I don’t get 20-40 minutes of solid sweating into my daily routine I just feel terrible. Still, even though I’m “slim” I’ve always been more or less out of shape, and that bothers me more now for various body image/self-esteem reasons as I’ve gotten older. Since I don’t have the money to join a gym at the moment (I also just really prefer privacy when I exercise) I started looking for free, higher intensity at-home workout routines.