Wednesday, February 15, 2023 — 5
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
I first found Joe Pera through a
video titled “Joe Pera Talks You to
Sleep,” an animated special from
Adult Swim that would become his
show “Joe Pera Talks with You.” In
the Adult Swim episode, Joe tries to
help you relax before going to bed,
talking in a soft, monotone voice
about things such as pretzel facto-
ries and Pennsylvania Dutch barns.
I instantly felt comforted and at
home.
For me, home is in Michigan’s
Upper Peninsula, specifically a small
northern area called “The Keween-
aw.” It’s where I was born, where
I was raised and where I want my
ashes scattered one day. Writing this
makes me feel as though I’ve already
resigned to staying in one place for
the rest of my life, that I’m closing
doors and opportunities based on
the comfort of my hometown. But
don’t get me wrong — I do want to
leave that place, for a decade or two,
at least. However, the impact that
growing up in that area had on me
and the appreciation I have for it has
made me realize that I will never be
able to leave it behind. During this
period of my life, where I find myself
starting to redefine where my home
is, being able to talk about and con-
nect with people over my birthplace
feels comforting.
So when I found out that “Joe
Pera Talks with You” takes place in
Marquette, Mich., just two hours
away from where I was born, I knew
that I had to keep watching. To those
unfamiliar with the area, Marquette
might seem like a stand-in Midwest-
ern town. But having grown up near-
by and spending a lot of time there,
the landmarks and natural beauty
are important to me. Pera recog-
nizes and highlights these details
throughout the show, but especially
in the first episode “Joe Pera Shows
You Iron.” Here he walks across
the black rock beaches beside Lake
Superior and visits the Higgins
Bingo Supplies store, all while talk-
ing about his love for their region’s
rock and mineral formations. Being
able to recognize these things adds
a new layer to the comfort of Pera’s
show, like when you pull up an extra
blanket from the foot of the bed in
the middle of the night.
The culture and people of the
area are captured in a magical way
that makes them feel familiar to
me. Pera’s character in particular is
simple, modest and quiet. He drives
a 2001 Buick and eats strawberry ice
cream when he celebrates. The most
animated that we see him is when he
discovers the song “Baba O’Riley” by
The Who and stays up all night lis-
tening to it over and over again. It’s
these quaint little mannerisms that
remind me of people from my home-
town, and that made me fall in love
with Pera in the first place.
But it’s not just him that reminds
me of people back home. In the
episode “Joe Pera Takes You to
Breakfast,” Pera brings us with him
to a diner for a Saturday morning
breakfast. The biggest conflict of
the episode is his deciding what to
order, and while he tries to make up
his mind he talks with the people
he knows at the diner. These people
are familiar to any Midwesterner:
the group of retirees having their
weekly bullshittin’ session, or the
kid waiting for his mom to get off
of her shift as a waitress. They don’t
feel like caricatures; they’re the very
same type of people that I would
find sitting in a similar diner in my
hometown. It’s real, it’s human and
it’s my home.
Seeing someone else express their
love for the area makes me love it all
the more. It’s the same way that you
excitedly talk with someone you
meet at a party who is from the same
suburb of Chicago as you. It’s con-
necting over something that shaped
me into who I am today, and is a way
for me to be reminded of a place that
I’m away from for most of the year
now. It feels like Pera knows me,
even if it is just a part of me.
I’d like to end this piece by shar-
ing a bit about my favorite episode
with you. In the third episode of sea-
son one, titled “Joe Pera Takes You
on a Fall Drive,” Pera takes us along
with him on his annual fall loop
drive, which he does every year on
the Saturday following Halloween.
His goal is to give his jack-o’-lantern
a send-off down a waterfall, and, by
doing so, he will be able to heal the
part of his soul that he lost when he
gave his pumpkin life. He chooses
to do this at Tahquamenon Falls,
which are the largest waterfalls not
only in the Upper Peninsula, but in
the entire state.
The episode comes to a close with
Pera returning home to cap off the
night with a warm apple roasted
over a bonfire, accompanied by a
tune he wrote called “Warm Apple
Night.” Pera takes a bite of the apple,
and then delivers the episode’s final
line: “And just like that, I can feel my
soul grow back.”
Me too, Joe. Me too.
Joe Pera talks with me
Making change a friend through
‘Hours Were the Birds’
Design by Grace Filbin
MITCHEL GREEN
Daily Arts Writer
HUNTER BISHOP
Senior Arts Editor
How ‘Before Sunrise’ uses space
to build intimacy
CLAIRE SUDOL
Music Beat Editor
One
of
cinema’s
greatest
romances is seen in Richard
Linklater’s
decades-spanning
“The Before Trilogy.” The series
tracks the relationship between
Jesse (Ethan Hawke, “The Black
Phone”) and Céline (Julie Delpy,
“Three Colors: White”) from
meet-cute to the crumbling of
their relationship. The swelling
romance felt in “Before Sunrise”
flows naturally into the thorny
regret felt in “Before Sunset,”
which ultimately leads to the frus-
trating pain and conflict felt in
“Before Midnight.” But, in order
to work as a series, we have to buy
their relationship from the very
beginning. We must understand
how this deep connection could
be formed between the two after
spending just one day together and
not seeing each other for another
nine years. “Before Sunrise” per-
fectly lays the groundwork for the
entire series by building intimacy
between Jesse and Céline using
space in ways only the medium of
film can.
The ways people typically
build intimacy are all present in
“Before Sunrise,” like opening up
to one another and touching each
other. But those alone don’t con-
vince the viewer of the relation-
ship between Jesse and Céline.
As much as Hawke and Delpy’s
palpable chemistry adds to the
audience’s understanding of their
deep connection, what makes
the exploration of this relation-
ship more powerful as a film — as
opposed to seeing it on stage or
reading it in a book — is the way
Linklater constricts the space
around the characters to force
them closer together.
When Jesse and Céline first
meet on the train to Vienna, their
conversations are shot to create
distance between them — space
that will evaporate by the end
of the film, but will come back
when they leave each other. When
each one is speaking, they either
appear alone in the frame — with
the excess space around them
creating a sort of bubble that the
other is trying to break down — or
they appear together but spaced
on opposite ends of the image, the
table creating an artificial bound-
ary between them. They each try
to get close to the other, leaning
over the table to shrink the dis-
tance between them, but a final
barrier needs to be broken. Jesse
needs to ask her to get off the train
with him.
Later, once in Vienna, the two
ride the tram around town, kill-
ing time with no destination in
particular. They head to the back,
away from the rest of the tram’s
patrons. Linklater gets Jesse and
Céline shoulder to shoulder in the
frame, but not all over each other
yet. Jesse tries to brush a loose
hair out of Céline’s face but stops
himself. Céline seems like she
might be trying to lean into Jesse’s
arms but never does. They’re get-
ting closer to that physical intima-
cy, but they aren’t there just yet.
And yet that doesn’t stop them
from building intimacy in other,
non-physical ways. Here, the two
begin to have more frank, per-
sonal discussions about sexuality
and love.
As the intimacy between the
two builds, so too does the ten-
sion, and the crux of this ten-
sion comes when the two find
themselves cramped in a listen-
ing booth playing Kath Bloom’s
“Come Here.” The unbroken
close-up shot of them brings them
as close as we’ve ever seen them,
and the two, trying not to let the
other see them smiling and star-
ing at them, make a kiss — the
only act of intimacy we have yet
to see — seem inevitable. But the
film makes us wait. Linklater
knows he has hooked us, that we
have completely bought into their
relationship at this point. Despite
our own yearnings for them to
finally touch, we are willing to
wait for the more physical acts of
intimacy because the emotional
bond between the two is finally
palpable.
Despite the vast city of Vienna
acting as the film’s backdrop,
“Before Sunrise” shrinks the
scope to wherever Jesse and
Céline happen to be at any given
time. The viewer is given no real
sense of the geography of the
city: Perhaps they’ve walked the
entirety of Vienna in one night,
or maybe they’ve stayed within a
couple of districts. But that doesn’t
matter. Jesse and Céline haven’t
been paying attention to the city,
only to each other, and the film
wants us to do the same. At the
end of the film, when the two take
a moment to take a mental picture
of each other, they don’t do it by a
major Vienna landmark, they do
it on some backstreet. The film
has done such a successful job of
building an intimate connection
between Jesse and Céline that the
characters believe nothing else
matters except the two of them —
and we believe that too.
Design by Grace Filbin
Adrianne Lenker has a way of
worming herself into every cor-
ner of existence, weaving webs
and pulling tight. The art that
pours from her is squishy, pink
and human — so human that I
suspect it might bleed if a sharp
knife were drawn over the sur-
face. It’s as if she possesses a
deeper level of knowing, one that
my minuscule brain could only
hope to scratch the surface of.
The knowledge expressed in her
writing is so intimately felt by
Lenker and then known so inti-
mately by the listener.
I am a person deeply afraid
of change, of moving on and of
passing time — my favorite pair
of jeans have unintentional rips
and repair stitches, and I wear
my same third-grade backpack
with an embroidered wolf over
my name in silver letters. I’m a
creature of comfort (who knows
the power of good denim). Even
incremental change is deeply
troubling to me — when the bal-
ance so carefully crafted in my
life is threatened I feel like a bee-
tle flipped on its back, exposed,
belly and all. But following every
whisper of change, without fail,
Lenker is there, flicking me back
over, right-side-up, with a pop of
skin against chitin.
Lenker’s album Hours Were
the Birds is so intimately inter-
twined with every season of life
and time, birthed in one moment
and dead in another. From new
life in spring to the cold, dead-
ened winter, Hours Were the
Birds offers us an outstretched
hand, a foothold or even a line
cast into deep water. “Hours
Were the Birds” and “Light-
house” speak of the excitement
that change deserves: “Zoom,
zoom, zoom / Here we go, Annie
/ No more planning / Isn’t this
dandy?” Warm acoustic guitar,
like sticky blood, pulses against
the outskirts of the track, rush-
ing underneath bone and sinew,
reddening a balmy face. “Light-
house” bursts forth from Len-
ker’s guitar, inviting us to spin
alongside and feel the world-
building power and buzzing
energy of newness. Hours Were
the Birds hopes we find comfort
in being able to revisit the places
and memories of seasons past
even after we have sprouted new
growth. And it tells us if “time is
just an ocean,” maybe it’s best to
surrender, letting the sea push
and pull, rather than try and
force a path through it. Maybe
then, when we give up control
and balance, those proverbial
winds of change are actually a
god to be revered and welcomed
in with open arms.
On the flip side, Hours Were
the Birds offers us a dead and
numb winter. “Disappear” and
“Butterfly” are for when growth
feels hard — when you find your-
self in the in-betweens of life and
you aren’t able to feel at home in
any place you’ve found. It’s cold
and frozen and stagnant. “Dis-
appear” details the experience
of losing yourself to time, trying
desperately to keep it all in order
and maintain a tight fist of con-
trol. I often find myself on this
side of change when I have “A mil-
lion different things / That I can’t
keep together / That can’t seem
to see / As they tumble around
me,” when everything falls apart
at once in a catastrophic, extinc-
tion-level event. I am left with
the ruins of comfort and made
to rebuild it all from scratch. It’s
almost as if Lenker recognizes
my fear of the in-betweens and
forces me to face them head-on.
While change is about letting
the current take you and cele-
brating the newness it can bring,
it’s also about missing the com-
fort you left behind and grasp-
ing for purchase in new places.
“Steamboat” resolves this dual-
ity for me; even if I can see the
value of growth and change, it’s
okay to be afraid. The key is being
willing to say that you’re scared,
bare-faced and exposed — but
hoping, desperately and humanly
hoping, that one day you won’t
be. Here, Lenker delves deeply
into philosophies of change and
acceptance, and Hours Were the
Birds teaches me everything that
I need to know — teaches me to
be honest about my fears and
apprehensions so that maybe one
day change may be a dear friend.
And trite as it may be, if we
still aren’t able to find comfort or
learnedness, at the very least may
we find solace in the fact that
change is a universality extend-
ing past humanity — passing sea-
sons, falling fruit, melting snow.
Existence is change, so may we
revel in it.
The intimacy of
comfort characters
We all have a TV show,
a movie or a book that we
love to get out when things
in our lives get particularly
stressful. We all have char-
acters that have seen us at
our worst moments — when
the only thing left to do is to
turn on a sitcom and watch,
laugh and cry with some of
our favorite people. Art is
intimate. It cradles us in our
darkest moments and pro-
vides the opportunity for
some of our most meaning-
ful
connections.
For
me,
part of what is so comfort-
ing about art is that it tells
real stories about real people.
So real that, sometimes, we
relate to their experiences
so intimately that we begin
to recognize certain charac-
ters as ourselves. I mean, just
how many Buzzfeed “Which
character from ___ are you?”
quizzes have we all taken?
For instance, I am the quirky
and lovable Jess Day from
“New Girl,” played by Zooey
Deschanel (“500 Days of Sum-
mer”). She knows me perhaps
better than I know myself.
She, along with her charming
roommates, is someone that I
could watch forever and she’d
still warm my heart. In fact,
she is a character that could
likely describe me better and
more intimately than I could
describe myself.
The characters whose sto-
ries and little quirks are just
like our own are characters
that I call my ‘comfort char-
acters.’ They’re the ones we
love so much that we bond
with people over them, the
ones that we cast our friends
as, the ones we watch just to
have in the background while
making dinner. This concept
can easily get confused with
a “comfort show” or a “com-
fort film,” but I’d argue that
they’re actually quite differ-
ent. Instead of just provid-
ing us with that warm and
fuzzy feeling that art so often
does, they tell us that we are
not alone in our experiences.
Jess from “New Girl” shows
me that there is something
lovable — even admirable —
about my funny quirks and
crazy energy. Comfort char-
acters show us that we are
not as alone as we think we
are — that we are seen and
loved.
This is what makes art so
intimate.
It
authentically
represents the human expe-
rience and makes the world
feel a little less vast. This is
why we turn to our comfort
characters; the silly Phoebe
Buffays (Lisa Kudrow, “The
Comeback”), the witty Lore-
lai Gilmores (Lauren Gra-
ham, “Parenthood”), or the
hilarious
Midge
Maisels
(Rachel Brosnahan, “I’m Your
Woman”) of the TV world.
They showcase, in perhaps
the truest form, what it’s like
to be human. It’s comfort-
ing for us to see ourselves in
them and to realize that our
intimate quirks and qualities
are what make us special and
beautiful.
So, the next time you’re
having a hard day or need
something to turn on while
you clean your room, maybe
turn to a comfort character of
your own: someone who sees
or represents you in a sur-
prisingly intimate way.
CONSTANCE MEADE
Style Beat Editor