Elizabeth Cantwell

Comedy Happy Place (Actual Title TBD) - Ends on Sat, Feb 21, 2026 *** “Humor is just another defense against the universe.” - Mel Brooks For our upcoming March/April issue, in full recognition of the fact that the universe is a LOT right now, we're going full-on defense mechanism; we're going escapism; we're going coping; we're going with medicine; we're going funny. We want to hear about what makes you laugh, the movie or actor or director you go to when the world overwhelms you, the one you can count on, your

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:

The world is a lot right now, so we’re going a different direction for our next issue & are looking for essays on films you go to when the world overwhelms you, the one you can count on, your comedy happy place.

Deadline: 2/21

Details: brightwalldarkroom.com/submissions

A 2 panel sketch disgram of a 1 meter tall pod. in the second panel, an oval section pops off and a demonic little face with short tentacles flies out, crudely drawn.

My favorite artifact in the "you don't need AI to do art" discourse is, of course, screenwriter Dan O'Bannon's sketch of the facehugger to explain it to Giger.

Incredible

I’ll reluctantly allow it

This is smart

Reminder hack for people who hate crowds: tomorrow is the best day of the year in America to do something you wouldn’t normally do. One year we went to the San Diego zoo on Super Bowl Sunday and it was AMAZINGLY EMPTY

Yes!!

This is about The Washington Post but it is also about the slow death of movie theaters, of book stores—the rapid integration of AI into schools—the Kennedy Center—the way so many people in power are afraid of art (and wow even sports) for the power it has to give people common language and cause.

They are systematically trying to take away our art, our culture, our community. They are disassembling, brick by brick, page by page, seat by seat, the places we go to experience moments of joy, empathy, hope, collective grief, connection.

16 year old dog stares out a door at the top of stairs.

This is our 16-year-old dog in a rare moment of acting the tough sentry by the side door.

Or he’s staring out with no idea what the fuck is going on. Could be either, but we love him.

my two best TV show recs for comfort watching in troubling times are Angel and Rockford Files. You simply cannot miss with those shows. Also @ifyoucantwell.bsky.social knew what he was doing when he put Angel in a shot-for-shot imitation of the Rockford Files intro in his Angel comic.

The Fire Next Time: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, the fire next time!"

63 years ago today, James Balwin released perhaps his most prescient work, with an outsized legacy that has held strong for over a half century.

The Fire Next Time...

I thought this yesterday at the protest in LA … many more thrown together cardboard sharpie signs or no signs at all. Very few signs that had artistic effort put in … because people are not getting ready for a protest all week once a year, they’re rolling out when they can at the last minute.

Yeah I do a lot of in-class writing too. It just takes time initially but by the end of a semester you can really see the results!! But like your colleague I also teach small classes. I’m sure teaching a lecture makes it a lot harder in many ways.

Funny that this article cites The Conversation … I’m a month into this spring film class and I think it took about that long to retrain them. This was the first film they all totally watched and loved.

One thing I’ll say in my experience with high schoolers: young people desperately WANT places where they can settle into longer attention spans and connection with art, they just don’t realize it. I have found such success with tech bans in my classroom. Initial resistance, then relief + results.

getting up early for my little 'me' time to drink coffee, watch the sunrise, and attempt to disentangle the web of racism and pedophilia our society is balancing on

A man in front of LA City Hall at an anti-ICE protest

It was a good day to be out with people in LA. Fuck ICE.

I was at the Egyptian this last weekend for his Q&A there and i LOVED the revelations it brought about! Will definitely watch this!

It was my first time teaching it and I was worried about how it would go over, but it really landed!

Also can we talk about the fucking feat Achebe pulls off in the last paragraph of Things Fall Apart because DAMN it really got me

(“That’s cinema,” said reverently at the end of The Conversation by a student who was totally mesmerized throughout the back half of the film maybe made my day)

Today my 10th graders shared their reactions to the end of Things Fall Apart and my 11th/12th graders finished watching The Conversation and it was one of those days I felt really grateful to be present with kids experiencing art and literature and empathy

Right. And in a perfect world the kids don’t show up. But some parents (ER docs??) need school, & some kids need school—for lunches, etc. What’s the ripple effect of not showing up for them? BUT ALSO: what does showing up say about our willingness to perpetuate violence/fascism/hatred?

Ok genuine question. If your job is a caregiving profession (medicine, teaching, senior care, childcare, etc) how are you handling the idea of a national strike/no work day (either on this Friday or any day in the future?)

It’s really difficult & disorienting but the feds hit LA extremely hard today. There were kidnappings all over & reported cluster raids in Chinatown, East LA, Ktown. This list shows to 1130 AM but they haven’t stopped all day

Just because the media attention stopped doesn’t mean the abductions have

Oh I believe this

or is this just anxiety brain

SoCal brain is making sure your laptop isn’t balanced on a book before you go to sleep just in case the big one hits tonight

Ultimately you're not supposed to believe it. It not mattering is the point. The bolder the lie, the greater the impunity. The ultimate victory for evil is not convincing you, it's the truth being irrelevant.