In which I fracture a nuclear reactor, my dignity, and possibly my wrist

[radiantfracture]

Last night I should have gone to bed early because my internally imposed wake-up call is 5:30 am -- even with the eye mask and a later start on Wednesdays -- but instead I watched the last episode of Chernobyl with S. and LB. Which. Hell. Is very fine television and very grim humanity.

No spoilers -- just scattered thoughts (tm).

• All about fake news, in its way, of course, and a parable for other kinds of denial -- and as S. says, the things that can't be denied away, like radiation. (Or tsunami, or.)


• I hadn't realized the scope of the damage around Chernobyl, but then that's part of the point.


• The sound design is incredible (almost too good) -- and with this and other less tangible cleverness the show creates unbearable tension out of drama that is 99% bureaucracy and 1% action.


• It's on the side of science, which makes me want to sit everyone possible in front of it.


• Stellan Skarsgård and Jared Harris have this surprising and pleasurable chemistry.


• Minor quibbles only -- the actors are not supposed to be doing accents, but they can't quite help, faintly, doing accents. And I don't know much about radiation-resultant cancer, but they played it an awful lot like 19th-century consumption. Also, I wish they'd left in the team of noble scientists. That seems like an opportunity lost. thingy.
  


• I'd like to teach the series as a class text if I could think of a way to do that. At five episodes, it's not too big an ask timewise.

Anyway, when I got home I went 'round to get my laundry out of the downstairs dryer, but the landholder said it wasn't working. She very kindly offered to dry my clothes in her dryer.

Listen, if I'd known someone else was going to see my laundry, I would have washed something else. I'd have thrown out all of my clothes, bought new clothes, and washed those.

It was late, though, and there wasn't really an option, so I said thank you.

This was embarrassing enough, but when she brought the dry clothes back to me an hour later, she had FOLDED them.

No one should fold my clothes. My clothes are disgusting. Do you fold the werewolf's smelly pelt? You do not. You burn it in a fire.

My only window of denial was that she'd dump everything in and out of the dryer without looking, but I was not to have even this illusion.

Also, I may have broken a small portion of my right wrist, my writing wrist. I had three (3!) X-rays last Friday and the doctor didn't see anything, but -- some other person? -- was going to look at them, and yesterday the clinic called to ask me to come in for possibly a CT scan.

I did it in one of those nothing moments, jumping down from a bit of cliff to a bit of beach and jamming my wrist for a moment in the process. It didn't hurt at the time, but I had that uneasy this doesn't feel right awareness, and certainly something is wrong with it. (So I am typing you a long message about it, because. Denial.)

{rf}

Comments

[jesuswasbatman]

I haven't seen the series, but from reading the history I think it was meant to be acute radiation damage rather than cancer. Which maybe is like TB, but with more vomiting and hair loss.

[elusis]

Apparently they're covered in blood a lot? Which isn't a thing in radiation poisoning?

[radiantfracture]

I'm trying to remember. There was some blood, but it might have been due to secondary injuries. I'd have to watch it again.

(Shudder)

As I say, I thought the depiction of rapid and awful deaths from radiation sickness was really well done -- it was the longer-term deaths I was confused by.

[radiantfracture]

Well, this was just for the two characters who had a dose high enough to kill you over several years, rather than a few days. They didn't actually specify what they were dying of, so it could have been more generalized than cancer.

I thought the portrayal of the victims of high-dose radiation was pretty incredible -- although I also don't know what that is supposed to look like.

[sabotabby]

I hope you're okay! Ouch.

I haven't been able to watch the Chernobyl show. I read a really amazing book about it with firsthand testimony that scarred me for life and I don't think I can watch it dramatized until I'm in a better frame of mind.

[radiantfracture]

Oh, yeah, then I don't see why you'd do that to yourself twice.

What was the book? Do you... like... recommend it?

[sabotabby]

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich. And yes, if you're in a state of mind where you can cope with it. It emotionally broke me. It's not just the story itself but the writing is spectacular, and the translation is a masterpiece, and it draws you in the way that incredible poetry draws you in, except that what you're being drawn into is heartwrenching and true.

[oracne]

Owww. I'm glad you're getting your wrist checked, it is way better than letting it heal wrong.

[bibliofile]

Trading good tv for sleep? No, I've never done that either. (hah.)

I'm not sure how clean clothing can be disgusting, really. It's clean, right? I also confess to having folded other people's clean clothes, because I could. Also, I'm pretty sure it's possible to do it blindfolded.

Ow, I hope your wrist is okay somehow.

[radiantfracture]

I'm not sure how clean clothing can be disgusting, really.

I'm glad you don't know, and I hope you never find out.

[thewayne]

My werewolf pelts aren't smelly at all, I always use Downy fabric softener in the washer! They come out wonderfully fresh and as a bonus, without static-cling!

I've been debating what to watch tonight since the spousal unit is working, and I've also been debating watching Chernobyl. I think I'll give it a try!

There was a Top Gear five years ago where they were testing super-efficient hatchbacks in the Ukraine. Their final challenge: each car was filled with 23 liters of petrol and they had to drive up to Belarus and run out of gas before they hit the border, which was Chernobyl. Only Hammond managed to do it, Clarkson and May had to drive through it.

Part 1: https://youtu.be/5YtVV1VJ4f8
Part 2: https://www.topgear.com/videos/jeremy-clarkson/ukraine-road-trip-inside-chernobyl-series-21-episode-3

only slightly related laundry story

[yarrowkat]

we had this farm intern living here one time, and she and i had some conflict aroung unrelated stuff, and then there was a storm coming in and she took all my laundry off the line and folded it (WRONGLY!) and put it in the community house, and i was LIVID. for, like, days. it was already a tense situation, but the very idea that that person had handled my underthings was just too too much! i was all "let my clothes blow away next time they are MY responsibility not yours!"

[notasupervillain]

Oh no, you NEED that wrist.

Also. I'm willing to fold basically any clothes without comment if they're clean. Which yours were, if they came right out of the washer. Do you fold the werewolf's freshly laundered pelt? Yes. Yes you do, because fur is fucking LUXURIOUS. Like, I'm trying to imagine a situation where I wouldn't be okay folding someone else's clean laundry, and basically I'm imagining it's covered in mysogynistic sologans, and somehow I can't imagine your underpants have "women belong barefoot in the kitchen" written across the bum.