Chloe Cullen's Blog, page 16

A Beginner List to the 2023 International Film Festival Movies

Before I worked in entertainment, I felt overwhelmed at all the Oscar buzz that came from a few movies that all had to be seen in theaters from December to February. Where do they all come from? How does someone make the time for all of this??

The time management thing—still figuring it out.

But anticipating what will be fun to watch or hastily considered an “Oscar must-watch” before the ceremony early next year? We can get ahead of that.

Cannes, the French film festival pronounced “can” (oui ou...

DEMON COPPERHEAD: The Urban Liberal Response to Appalachian Opioid Narratives

A ten-year-old getting high on pills. Foolish children. This is what we're meant to say: Look at their choices, leading to a life of ruin. But lives are getting lived right now, this hour, down in the dirty cracks between the toothbrushed nighty-nights and the full grocery carts, where those words don't pertain. Children, choices. Ruin, that was the labor and materials we were given to work with. An older boy that never knew safety himself, trying to make us feel safe. We had the moon in the win...

11 Books to Quell (or Encourage) Your Off-Grid Daydreams

Wow, I completely forgot what it is like to apply for jobs. This stuff is a nightmare!

This is not my first rodeo, which offers a balanced mix of solace and frustration. I spent five summers searching for internships in college, the post-grad summer applying to jobs, and the 2020 furlough running in place without prospects. I am familiar with the desire to be autonomous or someone’s trust fund baby (accepting applications, my resume is ready to go). What if I could just travel wherever all the t...

Unemployment: The Sequel

It was a Sunday, or maybe a Thursday, and I had marinated fully into my couch. In the closing days of my first week of unemployment, I held onto a March 2020-esque optimism and willed ignorance. All the hobbies, the recipes for someone with a more advanced cooking/baking regime than me, the books with a creased spine where bookmarks split the pages for months and months--all floating ahead of me with the lightness of unticked to-do bubbles.

At the top of the month in the early days of unemployme...

Can You Reheat a Taco Bell Chalupa (TM)?

It was almost the witching hour on Halloween, some place after 2 a.m. in a Crown Heights Taco Bell.

Two employees ran between the kitchen and the cash register, constructing then announcing orders for the costumed cowgirls, leather goths, and Scooby Doo crew. We waited 15, then 20, then 40 minutes for microwaved tacos. The place smelled, to my muted 2020-COVID nose, like nothing, which is a bummer when looking for reasons to be excited about delayed food. At one point, a big-boned Caesar stood b...

can you reheat a Taco Bell Chalupa (TM)?

It was almost the witching hour on Halloween, some place after 2 a.m. in a Crown Heights Taco Bell.

Two employees ran between the kitchen and the cash register, constructing then announcing orders for the costumed cowgirls, leather goths, and Scooby Doo crew. We waited 15, then 20, then 40 minutes for microwaved tacos. The place smelled, to my muted 2020-COVID nose, like nothing, which is a bummer when looking for reasons to be excited about delayed food. At one point, a big-boned Caesar stood b...

A June Scrapbook

1.     June was an ache. It was an old sweatshirt in humidity. It was a weighted blanket, and it was a picnic basket of cheeses melting in their plastic wraps. It was a buttercup pulled from the grass by its roots, thin as hairs. It was a small scab, picked over and over, finally starting to scar.

2.     The new season of Love Island UK came out in June, though. The contestants are new, but the slang from previous seasons buoys the American anglophiles. He’s proper fit. Pull him for a chat. The f...

a june scrapbook

1.     June was an ache. It was an old sweatshirt in humidity. It was a weighted blanket, and it was a picnic basket of cheeses melting in their plastic wraps. It was a buttercup pulled from the grass by its roots, thin as hairs. It was a small scab, picked over and over, finally starting to scar.

2.     The new season of Love Island UK came out in June, though. The contestants are new, but the slang from previous seasons buoys the American anglophiles. He’s proper fit. Pull him for a chat. The f...

Waste Disposal

I.

Things I have thrown out because I didn’t know what else to do with them: lemon seeds, lemon peels, Persian cucumbers blanketed in both saran wrap and moss patches, broken hair clips, kales and arugulas that formed their own wet and brown biomes inside their plastic bags, toothpaste tubes squeezed flat, batteries that may or may not have juice left.

…

Read more

waste disposal

I.

Things I have thrown out because I didn’t know what else to do with them: lemon seeds, lemon peels, Persian cucumbers blanketed in both saran wrap and moss patches, broken hair clips, kales and arugulas that formed their own wet and brown biomes inside their plastic bags, toothpaste tubes squeezed flat, batteries that may or may not have juice left.

…

Read more