The cows watched Sofia Coppola’s latest and came to very different conclusions, which necessitated an emergency episode to sort it all out. Join us for a maybe autobiographical discussion of the complexities of modern parenting, gendered divisions of cognitive labor, and not losing yourself when asked to shoulder the emotional labor of your friends and family.
Here’s my silly Letterboxd review:
The origin of the idiom “on the rocks” comes from the literal description of a shipwreck, and, like those poor ships who missed the tell-tale signs of land and ended up in shallower waters than they could handle, our heroine Laura is adrift dangerously close to shore without a lighthouse. That is, until the sudden interest of her father in her husband’s possible extramarital affairs reinvigorates her Electra complex, spurring a perfunctory family adventure that culminates anemically and predictably in safe harbor.
Here’s another, more lively, read. Prometheus was chained on the rocks by Zeus for bringing the gods’ fire to humans. Thought of this way, for a relationship to be “on the rocks” is for it to be suffering precisely because of what its members know about themselves and each other, information perhaps gained illicitly, or by simply coming to better know oneself and ones desires. Unlike poor Prometheus, however, a failing relationship is salvageable—but there’s no going back to the pre-fire state of ignorance. Some changes must be borne mutually or not at all. // Blobcat
I think I’m going deaf. I can hear everything fine, except women’s voices.
Felix
Cows in the Field 