Driver's Permit and Boosters

[davetheanalyzer]

I got my driving learner’s permit. After doing the DMV app practice tests at least once a day, my new mentor helped get me to the nearest DMV and the wait was a bit long until I got inside. I went through various checks for my papers, my vision which made it clear I needed glasses to drive, and at last the 25 Question test. I was surprised some questions weren’t on the practice tests. I did my best guesses and through chance passed by the skin of my teeth. My mentor helped a bit with familiarizing myself with the car. Unfortunately, then he had car and health issues that kept him away the rest of May, though he said he could return in the second week of June. In the meantime, I’ve been reading my state’s driver manual 3 times over the last few weeks, even reading the parts that don’t apply to me. I managed to drive the family vehicle a few Sundays back at a nearby school parking lot for an hour with Dad as the instructor. I did find it nerve-wracking, since the pedals were very sensitive and feeling like I was handling a giant weapon. He told me to slow down and not turn the wheel so hard when it seemed like I needed to turn the wheel hard in order to do a full turn. I’m getting assurances it’ll get easier with more practice but with the family car needing to be used often and my parents being tired or busy, I’ll probably have to wait for more on-hands driving when my mentor hopefully returns.

I saw the film I Love Boosters last Wednesday. I knew it was a Boots Riley film of Sorry to Bother You fame. Fortunately, unlike his last film, it came to my local theater and I saw it Wednesday while my parents watched another movie (and not too soon, since the film left my theater a couple days later). It was strange but good. It centered on clothes thieves who sold their wear at cheaper prices, with Corvette as the lead both in and out of universe. They live in a slightly exaggerated version of our capitalist reality where the rich can live in leaning towers and people can come on camera to openly condemn rent control (Though the latter sadly might exist somewhere). Corvette is an aspiring fashion designer who in some respects seems to like the rich designer Chrissie Smith and manages to meet her. She’s quickly disillusioned when among other things she finds Smith stole 1 of her designs. I admit at times I found it difficult to hear some of the dialogue. Their plan to steal at 1 of her clothing stores get derailed when the clothes disappear and they find via the security footage someone used a “magic bag” to take them. The story takes an interesting turn when they meet Jianhu, a Chinese worker for 1 of Chrissie Smith’s factories that underpays and poisons the workers. The company created a teleporter to get around shipping costs and Jianhu took it to put pressure on Smith to accede to their demands. The creation of what should be world-changing technologies for petty profit purposes feels sadly realistic in these times. With his depiction of these Chinese factory workers, I hope Riley has evolved from initially thinking China’s colonization of Tibet was justified, which, don’t fall into campist thinking please.

I like how Corvette’s group invites her to work with them to suck up the clothes. The clothes they wear to disguise themselves gets more and more over the top with each store they hit. The potential demon love interest who sucks up souls was strange but amusing at times. I surmise he’s supposed to represent a solution to Corvette’s lonely struggles? She does get followed around by a huge ball, which I needed to look up to discover meant all her bills and debts. A worker for Smith’s shops Violeta reveals the teleporter can also reverse its targets to their previous components or take them to their natural conclusion. Things get even more surreal with 1 of the characters being reverted to a man and woman having sex or their clothes changing to plant wear. The film deals with the conflicting interests of shop workers, foreign factory workers, and Corvette’s group, and how they could work together. Corvette’s comrade Sade wants to steal instead of destroy the clothes so she could use the money to pay for her children (which the film didn’t portray, unless they were the background children running about in a couple scenes). Ideals are nice but you still have to pay the bills. The skinless reveal of those like Dr. Jeff as Smith’s propagandists made me worry if this was indulging in the anti-semetic lizard people conspiracy theory but I was relieved they were originally human, just they took on many guises to spread Smith’s propaganda. You could make an analogy to the bigoted youtubers and podcasters paid for by rich people to spread their vile causes.

Corvelle does split the difference with Sade and give her some stolen clothes but they stick by her through the chaos that follows. They even use the teleporters to spread Violeta’s group’s protest to Smith’s event to everyone present. Defeated, Smith stops going after Corvette’s group. As expected, protests spread around the world getting concessions from unhappy rich people and governments. It doesn’t lead to a socialist utopia but it’s a start. Corvette and her friends run a community run clothes store and despite the demon asking to date her, she’s no longer interested since she has friends here and abroad. There’s some fake vomit, graphic sex scenes, racist microaggressions, worker abuse, and people with no skin. With that in mind, if this film sounds of interest to you, feel free to see it!

That’s all for now. Free Palestine and all prisoners in Israel’s torture camps. No war with Iran or anyone. May Trump and his ilk fail utterly and be held accountable. Until next time, see you!