Why I’m reading Stephen
King during the pandemic
Over the last six months,
I
have
(understandably)
turned to reading books that
comfort me. I reread the first
“Harry Potter” book out loud
to my six-year-old neighbor;
I
revisited
the
meditative
poetry of Walt Whitman and
the remarkable prose of Tom
Robbins. The words that I
had read time and time again
consoled me while everything
else seemed impossibly crazy.
More and more, though, I
began to return to the genre
that my friends think I’m
insane for craving when I need
a night alone, curled up in bed:
horror.
Part of horror’s intrigue
is
the
ability
of
talented
horror writers to pinpoint the
aspects of society or our own
subconscious that bother or
scare us, and turn them into
something tangible. Effective
horror unlocks fears we do
not even realize we have, or
personifies it in a way that
makes
it
simultaneously
fantastical yet much more
real. Horror movies get a lot of
attention in the media: horror
books,
less
so.
However,
horror books, when done well,
are infinitely more terrifying
than
horror
movies.
They
force the reader to create the
thing they fear in their own
mind. Every reader creates a
different universe from the
words provided by the horror
book, no matter how specific
the author’s description is.
In other kinds of books, this
can be beautiful; the love
interest resembles the person
we love, and the houses of
characters look like the homes
of childhood friends, tucked
away in a corner of the brain
until a book unlocks it. But
when a book requires us to
create something we fear, we
do the same thing — we draw
from our own life to create a
parallel yet imaginary world.
We have to create something
uniquely terrifying to us. It
EMILIA FERRANTE
Daily Arts Writer
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Another slightly tone deaf
real estate show premieres
‘Chemical Hearts,’ full of
cliches, is unwatchable
The Hamptons: where your
richest friends go on summer
vacation. But reality TV’s focus this
time is on realtor JB Andreassi’s
opportunity to sell his first million-
dollar real estate property. His
listing at 21 Kellis Way, marked
at nearly $7 million and a two
minute drive from the shore,
includes eight bedrooms and eight
and half bathrooms. The house,
unsurprisingly, is the primary
focus of our quick entry into the
world of luxury real estate in
“Million Dollar Beach House.” JB’s
mentor, the property
mogul James, reminds
him to say that the
house is two acres
instead
of
7,000
square feet. In the
face of mountainous
stress, JB admits that
he prefers this new
line of work in The
Hamptons over the rat
race of New York City.
He professes he’s a
“rookie” again, looking
to make an impact on
the far reaches of Long
Island.
Despite his humble
nature,
the
beach
homes that JB and
his
team
peddle
are way beyond the
normal margins of
commission for any
amateur housing rep,
and far above any median income
level. It’s the type of attention to
the stress of wealth that constantly
draws our eyes into the theatrics of
reality television.
In the COVID-19 economy,
where so many Americans face
the threat of imminent evictions,
Netflix’s sudden premiere of a
reality show featuring elegant
mansions occupied by carefree
yuppies could easily be viewed
as
somewhat
tone-deaf.
Still,
as a son of two architects, I am
captivated by the allure of houses
as more than simply somewhere
to sleep. As a grandchild of two
native New Yorkers, I am deeply
in love with the sight and smell of
the Long Island shores. I just wish
these homes were going to more
wholesome people.
The Hamptons branch of Nest
Seekers International currently
has around 125 employees listed
on its company website. “Million
Dollar Beach House” focuses
on five Nest Seekers brokers:
JB Andreassi, James Giugliano,
Michael Fulfree, Peggy Zabakolas,
and Noel Roberts. Similar to
“Selling Sunset,” the series reveals
the
day-to-day
routines
and
SNAFUs of working in luxury real
estate
“You can’t do this part-time
and watch your kids,” Giugliano
says amidst the foreground of a
monochrome white living room.
“It’s impossible to make money
unless you’re all in.” In order to
make $2.5 million in commission
every year, he claims you’ll need to
eat, sleep and breathe the game of
home buying. But the game itself
is relatively easy to play if you can
afford the buy-in. Eighty percent
of all homes within the Hamptons
are secondary properties, meaning
that most of the surrounding
hamlets are purely for vacation
purposes.
Nest
Seekers
International,
the real estate group featured in
“Million Dollar Beach House,”
is in a more comfortable position
than the other 2,500 realtors
on the eastern-most tip of Long
Island. The small confines of the
Hamptons allow Nest Seekers
to deal exclusively in the sale of
ultra-luxury, multi-million-dollar
homes. Memorial Day to Labor
Day is known in the area as “selling
season,” where the fast-paced
nature of the luxury home market
eats at the pockets of the ultra-rich
and feeds our well-groomed team
of real estate professionals.
Surprisingly, what separates
these homes from most others
within the sphere of reality
television is the genuine style and
artistry of the architecture. These
houses, for the most part, are not
the gaudy kind you’d typically
see from “Keeping Up with the
Kardashians” or “Chrisley Knows
Best.”
Additionally,
the
Nest
Seekers team shares personal
anecdotes about how they want
their lives to be changed by selling
these homes. Michael, JB’s lifelong
friend, announces his plans of
becoming a father. Peggy, the only
woman on the team, is looking
to
prove
herself
after
dominating
the
Manhattan
markets.
JB
compares
his
worries
about
becoming
a
successful
broker
to his trials as a
football player at
Dartmouth.
Maybe the most
significant moment,
though,
belongs
to Noel, the only
Black
person
on
the Nest Seekers
team.
The
show
quickly glosses over
his
appreciation
for The Hampton’s
geographic beauty
and instead cuts
strangely
to
his
coworker Micheal.
“Have you seen him yet? Noel?
Noel? — whatever the f***?” he
laughs. “Very polished, right?” This
strange cutaway seems to trivialize
the presence of Noel within the
brokerage. Later, when newcomer
Peggy accompanies Noel to a
home-buying pitch later in the
episode, she scolds his intelligence
behind the scenes after he proposes
a whopping $35 million in order to
convince the homeowner to sell.
For
all
its
entrepreneurial
glam and attention to detail, Nest
Seekers seems to be obsessed
with drawing in young, wall
street bachelors as their clientele.
“Million Dollar Beach House”
comes across like a fever-dream of
clout chasing. The luxury homes
showcased present unhealthily
high expectations of living for even
the most carnivorous NYU Stern
alumnus.
MAXWELL BARNES
Daily Arts Writer
holds a mirror up to our fears,
namely the darkest ones that
we prefer to hide away.
If
horror
unlocks
and
personifies
our
deepest fears, then
why would anyone
read horror? This
is,
of
course,
a
question I have been
asked many times.
Why do I choose
to
watch
horror
movies alone? Why
do I read so much
Stephen King? Don’t
I get nightmares?
Unlike a night spent
ruminating
over
both irrational and
rational
terrors,
a
horror
book
is
expected
and
contained.
The
images may linger,
but the story ends.
There is always a
final page, a point
at which we can
definitively
put
the
book
down.
Real-life fear does
not work like that
—
it’s
incredibly
(and
terrifyingly)
open-ended. Especially in the
COVID era, fear surrounds us.
For the vast majority of the
population, the various ways
one could get hurt or killed
doing
everyday
activities
never cross the mind. Now,
of course, it is imperative
that we think “fearfully” in
order to protect ourselves and
others. Every time we leave
our “bubbles” and venture out
into the world, that fear (for
most) comes to the forefront
of the mind. Horror does not
create terror, necessarily; it
consolidates it. Horror novels
allow us to set aside time
and space to be scared, and
to let out all the vague daily
anxiety we have. It packages
fear between two covers, thus
allowing the reader to set their
fears to rest.
For example, I consistently
return to one of my favorite
short stories by Stephen King,
taken
from
his
collection
of short stories Four Past
Midnight,
called
“The
Langoliers.” This is a story
I read when I know I am
a long way away from my
next flight on an airplane,
because
it
addresses
the
tiny, nagging question that a
master of horror like King is
able to pinpoint: What would
happen if you woke up on an
airplane and nearly everyone
was gone? In a larger and
more metaphorical sense, it
reminds us of the control that
we surrender each time we get
on an airplane. This resonates
now especially since air travel
contributed
so
heavily
to
the
spread
of
the
coronavirus. The
pandemic
adds
yet another level
of surrender to
the experience of
flying. King could
not have foreseen
the effects of 9/11
or
the
COVID-
19 pandemic on
air
travel
back
in
1990
when
the
collection
was
originally
published, but he
understood
the
basic
underlying
fear. In the story,
the
characters
look
out
the
window
to
see
their world being
eaten
alive
by
darkness.
This was never
something I was
afraid of before
reading
“The
Langoliers,” but the image
has stuck with me because
it turned an abstract fear
into a concrete image in my
mind. It is therefore easier to
compartmentalize that fear. It
focuses it on a specific image.
King said it best himself, when
asked by NPR in an interview
about fear in the pandemic:
“It’s not panic. It’s not terror
that I feel, that I think most
people feel, it’s a kind of
gnawing anxiety.” Horror is
a break from the “gnawing
anxiety,” while still feeding it
the fear it needs to be satiated.
Daily Arts Writer Emilia Ferrante
can be reached at emiliajf@umich.
But when a book
requires us to
create something
we fear, we do the
same thing — we
draw from our
own life to create
a parallel yet
imaginary world.
We have to create
a parallel yet
imaginary world.
If there were ever a perfect
movie to describe the trajectory
of 2020, it would be “Chemical
Hearts.” Much like this year,
every time you think that this
movie can’t get any worse, it does.
There isn’t any one thing
that makes “Chemical Hearts”
difficult
to
watch.
Rather,
every individual flaw of the
film builds on each of the
others, creating a beautiful
disaster. It starts with the
premise: an overused, well-
known story that everyone has
seen. Henry (Austin Abrams,
“Paper Towns”) meets Grace
(Lili
Reinhart,
“Riverdale”)
who is jaded and cynical and
has a past. He quickly falls
for her and wants to be with
her. She doesn’t want that, or
maybe she does. Nobody really
knows.
The story of their love
begins with a montage and
happens too quickly for it to
be realistic. At the same time,
it
happens
slowly
because
neither of them are ready to
be with each other. Nothing
about the film is unique or
special. While imperfections
can sometimes make things
better, that’s not the case here.
The imperfections of the movie
are obvious and right in your
face. They hit you at the very
beginning and continue as the
film plays out.
Hearing
“you
are
never
more alive than when you are a
teenager” in the very first line
of the film had me rolling my
eyes and physically cringing,
because as someone who is a
teenager, I’m pretty sure that’s
false. The whole point of life is
to find reasons to be alive, to
find reasons to be happy and
joyful, and if you peak when
you’re a teenager, then what
kind of life have you lived?
That’s the way the entire
movie feels. Like it tries too
hard
to
mean
something
that it could never mean.
The
characters
are
two-
dimensional at best, the story
is predictable and flat and the
meaning is contrived.
The very first day he meets
her, Henry falls in love with
Grace, a girl who was injured
in a car accident. But Grace
doesn’t want to love him, or
feels like she can’t, because her
boyfriend died in the accident.
And Henry, who partakes in
the Japanese art form Kintsugi,
which
involves
mending
broken pottery with seams of
gold, wants nothing more than
to make her happy, to fix her.
That isn’t exactly what makes a
healthy relationship.
Another strange thing about
the movie, perhaps the most
unsettling thing of all, is its
relationship with death. From
Grace’s boyfriend’s accident to
the high school newspaper’s
theme, death, and especially
suicide, are annoyingly and
inorganically prevalent in this
movie. The film doesn’t glorify
death, per se, but it comes close.
Teen
movies
have
featured
death a lot more than necessary
in recent history, but for some
reason, it seems much more
obvious in this film than in
others, and not in a good way.
I’ve seen tons of films like
this:
cheesy,
teenage
love
stories that are all unrealistic
and all nearly clones of one
another. And frankly, I was
hoping that the trend of making
those films was coming to an
end. It’s not something that
we need anymore, and in all
honesty, teens deserve movies
that portray them in a better
light. Not all teens are overly
dramatic like they often seem
in teen films. Teenagers should
feel a connection to the people
that are meant to represent
them on screen.
One aspect of the film that is
potentially the root of its many
problems is the issue with the
film’s perspective. As is the
case with so many of these
similar teen movies, the story
and perspective mostly follow
the male protagonist, Henry, in
this case. While I’m sure this is
done to keep a sense of mystery
that typically surrounds the
girl’s character, it tends to
seem wrong. Grace is without
a doubt the more “interesting”
character in the film because
of her past and the issues that
she is working through. To
have the film follow her would
be much more interesting and
unique. However, “Chemical
Hearts” does what so many
other John Green-type films
do, in having the film follow
Henry, the “observer” who
falls for the “different girl.”
Bad
movies
can
be
entertaining for the sake of
making fun of them, but there
are different levels of bad
movies. There are some that
are enjoyable to watch because
they’ll make you laugh in
shocked disbelief that such a
film exists, and there are some
where you sit in silence waiting
for them to be over. “Chemical
Hearts” is the latter.
Arts writer Sabriya Imami can
be reached at simami@umich.edu.
AMAZON STUDIOS
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
12 — Wednesday, September 9, 2020
SABRIYA IMAMI
Daily Arts Writer
Despite his humble
nature, the beach
homes that JB and
his team peddle
are way beyond the
normal margins of
commission for any
amateur housing rep,
and far above any
median income level.