Today is Saturday, August 19, 2023. During a panel discussion on CNN early this morning, Democratic strategist Maria Cardona latched onto GOP strategist Alice Stewart’s comparison between “crazy-bread” versus “milquetoast” voters who will dictate who will be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024. This Democratic strategist predicted that there are not enough of these crazy-bread voters who vote for Donald Frump no matter how many times he’s indicted or even convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors to propel him to the White House in 2024. This prediction was made in an online article for Raw Story by Tom Boggioni entitled ‘Crazy-bread MAGA’ voters won’t be enough to save Trump: Dem strategist.”

Cardona said, “The crazy-bread MAGA extremist agenda that is trying to take away women’s rights, that is trying to ban books [despicable], trying to rewrite African-American history [appalling]; that is not something that Americans want in the White House.” She added, “They don’t want the crazy-bread in the White House. They had it for four years and I don’t think you’re going to see another independent voter or a suburban woman say, ‘Oh, a fourth indictment? Now I’m going to be able to support crazy-bread Trump!’ No, I don’t think so.”

Cardona concluded that there is no other Republican adding support at the moment and there will be no other Republican that will ensnare the nomination other than Frump. That is a sad commentary on this nation when we have no one better than Dumpty Dumpty to be the standard bearer of the repugnican party – as repugnant as it stands right now.

Today Elliot and I ventured into the Village to view an engrossing film at the IFC Center, on 6th Avenue and 4th Street, called Birth/Rebirth. The film is a modern version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and it tells the story of Dr. Rose Casper (Marin Ireland), a childless, single woman who is obsessed with experimenting with the mysteries of life and death, and is focused on reanimating dead bodies. Her experimentations collide with the life of Celia Morales (Judy Reyes), a maternity nurse whose daughter Lila (A.J. Lister) dies suddenly of bacterial meningitis. The two women forge an unholy alliance as they struggle to return Lila to life and, as what usually happens in such tales, the glimpse of success brings with it a hefty price to pay.

The film has some gruesome pathology scenes – of bodies being dissected and the such. But the story line is extremely engrossing and the two women at the core of the tale, Ireland and Reyes, do a pitch-perfect turn in their roles as dedicated, friendless researcher and grieving mother who feels guilty that she wasn’t with her daughter the day that she died and who will try anything to get her daughter back. In a review of the movie, one critic, C.H. Newell, compares this 2023 adaptation of Frankenstein to the original source material in that Rose’s mother’s death prodded her to experiment with life and death; Newell states that Mary Shelley was always haunted by the death of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, which played deeply into the writing of the classic horror story, and it’s the same motivation of Dr. Victor Frankenstein in the novel itself. Another comparison this critic notes between the 1931 version of Frankenstein is the port wound in the neck of the little girl that Rose brings back from the jaws of death which is compared to the neck bolts that are part of the Frankenstein monster in the Boris Karloff classic.

Many questions of morality and ethics are raised by Laura Moss’s picture (she also wrote the screenplay with Brendan J. O’Brien). The themes of grief and loss, of consent and bodily autonomy of women, are expressed in the film. Toward the end of the film, another pregnant patient under Celia’s care is violated in order to take her fetal tissue to Lila who needs to be nourished by it. What Newell writes in her review echoes what is going on right now in Republican America in which “the baby-over-mother attitude of Rose/Celia parallels the way Republican America views women regarding abortion.” This dismissal of women over the sanctity of the newborn is reflected in the scene in the hospital when the mother is told by a surgical assistant that the baby is going to be fine, but she whimpers, “What about me?” and then dies. “Moss’s film illustrates a general lack of consent when it comes to women, even little girls, and their bodies.” Thus this film is very contemporary and serves as a scary retelling of an enduring sci-fi, horror classic. Go see it and be very afraid!

After the film, we walked to the Bus Stop Cafe, on Hudson Street. There we sat outside and had dinner: Elliot had a Cobb salad while I ordered chicken parmigiana. I first had cream of tomato soup which was very good. Then Elliot and I separated, where Elliot took the subway up to Macy’s, and I walked to the Strand Bookstore, where I browsed the book carts outside around the back of the store. One book caught my attention, Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood, by Leah Vincent. I couldn’t resist, so I went inside to buy it for $3. I even spent a few minutes at Forbidden Planet, a comic bookstore next door to the Strand. I did not buy any new comics.

Then I walked to 14th Street and Union Square and waited for the R train which I took back to Forest Hills. When I got back, Elliot was already sitting in the living room watching the news.

The weather today was spectacular: not too humid or hot and sunny. We even ventured into a large outdoor street fair before seeing the film, where I bought a new black belt, two new red caps, and two coasters taken from photographs of Katz’s Deli and the Cyclone, the iconic roller coaster that I just rode on Thursday.

Have a nice Sunday.

Stay safe and be well.