This movie was super good. I don’t even have the words right now[1].
Julianne Moore played the role of Evelyn Ryan so good. And I loved the idea of Tuff having been there for every single moment in the movie. Like, she was the first one to say “Dude, you’re drinking too much. Stop spending all the money” to her dad. Everyone else was just lurking around, constantly feeling like something bad was going to happen.
That’s fucking powerful, man. It’s like all the emotions in the world.
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Streaming: “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Oh” [Amazon Instant]
Disc: “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Oh” [Amazon]
Book: “The Prize Winner of Defiance, Oh” [Amazon]
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1. I am really fucking peebled. Plus I’ve got a serious mix of hormones happening at the moment. It makes my higher brain functions collapse in on themselves even as it raises my creative processes.
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She always carries a thick blanket everywhere shes goes. Folded in half, it makes a great mattress when she’s staying somewhere.
Couch surfing has kept her from sleeping in a gutter, and one of the keys to being invited back is good guest behavior.
She washed her blanket several times a week at the coin wash laundry. She’d found a place that had a 24-hour attendant and wi-fi. She wasn’t allowed to sleep there, but she could use it as a base of operations.
The place had heat, a bathroom, snack machines, and even a small bank of game machines (tablets with their cases bolted to a stand to prevent theft. At her suggestion, the laundromat attendant had even made some podiums so players could stand when they played. And somehow there were gray sensor mats rolled out on the floor and big monitor screen in locked cases for each tablet. And it was a real arcade and more and more kids came to play all the time.
The “Laundromat” became such a popular place to hang out that the attendant began selling membership accounts. The door was locked to the general public after 6-o’clock, and members were allowed the luxury of laundering in piece.
They created their own small community within the Laundromat, and it’s where the members’ children grow up. Playing arcade games, studying with the college crowd, and hanging out with other kids in a tight clique that lasts them for years.).
She gets a gym membership and a laudromat pass. She had a locker to store her things, a shower to use, and an incentive to exercise at the gym, which also had an attached healthy eating restaurant. And she spent most of her days and nights at the Laundromat.
For $200 a month she can maintain her clean and healthy appearance[2].
[Adventures take place in a family-run coin wash laundromat. It’s one of the businesses the Family own in The Red Bead.
Back when he was Poppy, Anse had enjoyed the charmed lifestyle of a laundromat owner. It was the business that had earned the Family their seed money. He’d been the kid running errands at first, then he’d been the attendant lounging behind the counter reading a magazine. There’d always been an area set aside for him to do his studying.
Because he’d been a girl, he’d been kept close to the Laundromat. She’d never been allowed to go out and play with friends. So many social events were passed over that Anse developed an uncaring attitude toward making friends. He had his family and Lee. He didn’t need anyone else.]
2. Which meant, after the money was taken from her support payment, she had $125 to live on for the rest of the month. That gave her $4.03 for 31 days.
With the small amount of money she had and no refrigerator, she nearly starved until someone took pity on her. And when that arrangement eventually fell through, she came up with the idea of buying an ice chest and adding a chunk of dry ice wrapped in a plastic bag to keep it cold.
Dry ice could last for a ridiculously long time. Which meant she was able to buy a 1/2-gallon of milk in the morning and have it stay fresh until lunch the next day. She once again was able to enjoy cereal for dinner[3].
3. It was a revelation, the day they first marketed People Chow. With the addition of milk it was a perfectly balanced meal.
Soy protein and dehydrated vegetables ground together to make the flour for the dough, which is mixed and baked as a cereal. Along with the cereal bits are dried fruits and nuts, granola, and dehydrated balls of yogurt mixed in.
People Chow came in kibble bits, rectangular bits, or flakes. It could be a neutral meal to satisfy the hunger, or a sweetened delight for even the pickiest of eaters.
It came in big bags along the cereal aisle. There were plenty of people that bought it to pour into snack bowls. People Chow could be savory or sweet, and came in a multitude of flavors. It hadn’t taken the food companies long to realize that once they made the cereal base they were free to flavor the bits as they liked.
Some People Chow flavors were a symphony of interlocking tastes where each bit came together with milk to create a single experience. Others were more like a trail mix, with different flavors to pick through.
(A family with a pantry stocked with industrial sized bags of People Chow along with canned goods and other supplies.)
