things i think about while powerwashing 187

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Recently there's been a movie going around Chinese social media called Niu Lai (牛來). It's the product of five years of amateur animation by a mother-son duo, with a budget of $500 and has now raked in $3M at the box office in China. It had no marketing budget, no paid promotions, and no expectations.

The only problem is that it sucks.

Sucks is not really the best descriptor for this movie. The uncomfortable pauses between dialogue, repeated scenes and its poor but earnest animation style probably earn it the great moniker of being a terrible movie. It's this lack of polish and frankly audacity to be published in a theater that has people rushing into the theaters to watch. And because I have no personality and my mind is a part of the social media hive mind, I decided to watch it as well.

So one day, at like 4am, I watched Niu Lai. All 89 minutes of it! Each excruciatingly long pause between dialog, each scene where the Niu Lai's mom makes an uncomfortably smug face while her sun flails through life. There is a lot — and not a lot — going on in this movie. And yet I somehow like it. I'm not sure whether it's the incoherent plot or if it's the hive mind. But something I am sure of is that it is genuinely a human effort. No AI slop, just pure ... human slop, if you can put it that way. Someone put a lot of effort to make something that is truly mediocre. And that, in turn, has to be one of the most human things you can do.

So anyway let me know if I should host a Niu Lai showing! If you're interested in watching just text me or email me.

museum of the week

fter a very frenetic night and morning rushing through airports and connecting through three separate flights, it was time to take a break in Svolvaer. Esteemed subscriber Winnie Li smartly chose to take a nap in the car. I, however, was not as clever! I saw a museum when we were driving around looking for parking and I knew I had to go in the moment I passed by. After all, how many museums have a BOMB just sitting outside?

This museum, as it happens, is the Lofoten War Memorial Museum (Lofoten Krigsminnemuseum) and as far as I can tell is run by a single dude who runs the front desk and is somebody who remembers the times that are described in the museum. It's definitely less of a curated experience of a museum and more like a gallery of different objects. After walking around several of the displays and reading the scant English placards, I pieced together that Lofoten (the region of Norway I was visiting and an aera historically known for cod oil production) had been specifically targeted by the Nazis. From the museum itself I had figured that it was due to the geopolitical importance of Scandinavia to the Axis Powers as it allowed for a jumping pad to North America, but Winnie informed me afterwards it was due to the nitroglycerin found in the region's beloved cod oil. So that is kind of crazy!

Like France, Norway ended up having a lot of rebels and maybe some government in exile? The Allies set up a training camp somewhere in Canada called "Little Norway" where Norwegian freedom fighters trained in order to bring back control to their native land! But there were also resistance fighters back in Lofoten as well — Norwegians dug tunnels and lived in small dirt bunkers all throughout the war, leaving the museum to claim Lofoten as "one of the highest concentrations of bunkers in the world."

So all this is to kind of set up the answer to this next question: why is there so much Nazi stuff? Why did I look like Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse looking up in At Eternity's Gate when I walked into that one room with a Nazi flag? Well because the Allies did such a good job training the rebels, the rebels on the ground resisted well and the fact that allies also generally beat the shit out of the Nazis, the Axis fellas just surrendered on the spot! Which left a startling amount of artifacts to remind us in the future of the dangers of the Nazis, and genocide generally.

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Well I hope your 10k went well!

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• anon inspires: Trying to run 10k today

animal of the week

Tragedy struck: last week esteemed subscriber Peter Waller submitted a beautiful photo of a frog and I forgot to attach it. I leave this with you all!

In the spring my friend took me out into a swamp at night to go looking for spring peepers and other critters. This is one of the peepers we found. Such a small guy for such a loud peep.

Send me your animal photos at ryan@torrtle.co OR at this form https://forms.gle/NT3nSkKVbpkjCr1u8!