Whatever energy I possessed earlier in the day is long gone after everything I did around the house today, which is funny because it seems — as it often does — that my slow and clumsy efforts barely put a dent in my to-do list. But I remembered to take photos, which usually slips my mind once I’m immersed in something, so why not join me in the closet (don’t worry, there aren’t any Scientologists in there) and see whether you agree that our media storage could use an upgrade?
These boxes contain most of my DVDs and Blu-rays and a couple of Crankenstein’s. Though it hasn’t been updated in over a year, I have a spreadsheet that tracks which titles are in which box, which makes it easy (if no less inconvenient) to dig out what we need. The unmarked boxes contain temporary acquisitions that will be traded, sold or donated, including Lifetime and Danielle Steel movies for Cranky and some Hallmark releases for a project that was put on hold late last year.*
This isn’t the entire collection, some of which lives in Crankenstein’s office and in the living room TV cabinet, but it’s most of it. This closet is spacious enough that with shallower shelves and better organization, it could accommodate a heckuva lot of movies, and perhaps some of my geekier memorabilia. There’s a lot of wasted space now and most of what’s currently on the plywood shelves could be easily moved to the basement.
To the left, near some retrofitted ductwork, there’s little more than a wall tapestry, a Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack kit for Captain Pete lore, some building supplies and old movie rerelease posters, and the obligatory Damp-Rid hanger (soon to be replaced) every closet needs in an old brick house.** This space alone, if maximized, could house my entire collection and then some.
To the right, just past the Roger Federer hat I’ve never worn but bought for sentimental reasons, are “break in case of emergency” duplicates of Muriel’s all-time favorite squeak toy (she was so bereft after destroying her first that I vowed she’d never go without one again); my old DVD players, one of which I hacked to make it region-free; computer peripherals, including the microphone I used for Crankcasts; and some hobby stuff, including a 1977 Ford Pinto, U.S. Mail edition model car kit that I’d like to modify and turn into Sabrina’s bizarrely fancy Pinto from Charlie’s Angels.^^ The Pennywise figure is for a diorama I want to make for Felix.
If any of you are design-oriented and have thoughts on how I might turn this into a (much) more modest version of the Criterion Closet, with a little room to display a handful of small collectibles, you can drop me a line here or at Cranky. Until then I’ll be measuring and re-measuring, and cursing the day IKEA discontinued its Benno shelving, which would’ve been perfect for this application and sturdier than the ultra-thin particle board Atlantic media shelving I’ll probably end up with.
These are titles I fished out of storage because I’ve either upgraded the DVDs to Blu-rays (or the Blu-rays to Criterion or 4K UHD editions) or intend to do so in the near-future. I’ve seen all of these films, some of them many times over — of the directors represented, I particularly love Woody Allen, ShÅhei Imamura, Wong Kar-wai, Jacques Rivette, Martin Scorsese, and Joan Micklin Silver — but my current practice is to leave everything sealed for as long as possible since it seems like the second I buy a bare-bones Blu-ray, a feature-laden edition with a new remaster is announced. This potentially preserves more of a title’s resale value, which helps offset the cost of an upgrade (and sometimes pays for it entirely).
We’ll end this with the “Lights” part of the post title, which begins with a question: Have you ever looked around your house and thought “I wish this felt more like a Michael Mann movie, but without all the murder and cocaine?” I have, so I got a really neat lamp that can be displayed either horizontally or vertically and tested it out tonight and took some photos. Please forgive Muriel’s unmade bed in the background, which is only near the TV because she pushed it halfway across the house while running amok earlier.
Pretty cool, right? At least that’s what I thought until Youngest Sister sent her response. This is an exact quote: “wtf are you watching”
“Night Court,” I answered. “The original, not the reboot.”
“I have to look that up, idk what that is lol,” she replied.
“It was the only show besides M*A*S*H that kids whose parents didn’t have cable could watch in the ’80s and early ’90s,” I volunteered.
“I was gonna say that looked old. 1984-1992 is indeed forever ago,” she said after Googling it.
Funny, it often seems like just yesterday to me. But instead of telling her that I corrected myself: “Technically, I also watched I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and Cheers. All of which you’d regard as prehistoric.”
“Yeah those are all old as shit,” she agreed much too readily.
The conversation then drifted to other topics and I didn’t mention Michael Mann, lest she ask “Who the hell is that?”
* “Hallmark Hellscape” is its name and it’ll come to fruition eventually, either as a standalone site or a feature on Cranky.
** I’ve not yet started the kit but here’s a modeler’s build log if anyone’s curious about the finished product.
^ Crankenstein wore it once, many years ago, and would probably love to share that story here sometime; she still mentions it at least biannually.
^^ Joe strongly encouraged me to start a podcast or make videos and while I agreed with some of his reasoning (such as “Americans are increasingly illiterate”), talking into a microphone is really boring compared to writing and I’d feel like an idiot making videos where I talk directly at a camera. If I can come up with a way to discuss movies and TV shows in videos without making myself the focus, I’d consider trying it.