Choose

We got up early yesterday to go to Genie's funeral. (Side note: I realize now I don't really have any good funeral shirts, a kind of depressing wardrobe observation.) We weren't terribly close to Genie, but we liked her and it's all really sad and weird. The service was at The Church of the River, which is downtown, as it says, right on the river. The wall you face when you sit is mostly just one giant window looking out onto the river and it's a very lovely view. It's a Unitarian church and the service was kept very secular (probably honoring Genie's wishes as an unreligious person, or at least her sister's request knowing what Genie would want, etc.) so that was very respectable. It was a pretty gloomy, drizzly day. Afterwards, we were going to go pretty much straight to the grocery store, but I ended up passing out for a bit after a bit of an emotional conversation. We did make it to the grocery store though eventually. Later at night I watched Bandersnatch (that's the Black Mirror "choose your own adventure" episode/movie, in case I'm later rereading this and it's faded into the obscurity of a cheap gimmick). I make the crack about a "cheap gimmick" but it was pretty enjoyable. The self-referential and meta aspects, having layers relating to the device and the theme of choice helps it, I don't know if the whole "choose your own adventure" thing would work for a lot of movies, but it works here (at least to an extent). I was drawn in for the Tangerine Dream content and at least I was not disappointed in that regard. You choose between Phaedra and a Tomita record at one point in a record store and of course I chose Phaedra and it then becomes a soundtrack throughout much of the rest of the movie. Also, another character later puts "Love on a Real Train" on (and among the many posters on his wall is one for Exit, which is funny 'cuz the movie poster very much resembles one of the two covers of that album (concentric neon shapes), whereas this poster is the OTHER cover (the one that just looks like some blinds) and that kinda also reinforces all that divergent choices stuff, eh?). I got what I'm sure is a very bad ending, though. I mean, it was entertaining and good from a narrative standpoint but it was kinda abrupt and definitely not "good" in the sense of where you're typically trying to end up in a "choose your own adventures" book or whatever. The use "O Superman" during it was very nice. [[Spoilers in these double brackets, even though it's only one of several endings and it's probably the lesser of them all. Well, so in the flashback I chose to go with his mom and then of course we both die in the train (even though, as I was hoping, in some of the timelines the whole "mom dying in a train crash" is a staged point of trauma for some whole research conspiracy thing. But yes, then the main character dies and it flashes back to the "present" and he's with his therapist and has just suddenly died. Then the credits roll and I was hoping for what had happened so many times before when you die or make a bad choice, you get the option to go back to some earlier point and try again, but no, that was the final end. Bummer.]] I kinda want to go back and try it again, but now I'd have to rewatch and redo so much and it'd take so much repetitive time starting over. Anyway. Now it's a new day and it's the day that my submission for that installation is due and I haven't finished it yet (in true Robert-procrastination fashion, though I kind of did think I'd finished the other day before Mary Beth brought up some things I was lacking on it so I need to actually add them). Well, I guess I should be doing that shit and get it in at a reasonable hour and not stupid late and all that.