Just doing my job

30 Oct

Kate Fishman on the big dreams and shaky ground of Fantasmas and Problemista. Daisy shares good links from the Dirtyverse.

One of life’s more formidable tests of love for our fellow man is remaining compassionate in the face of bureaucracy that’s fucking up our shit. Trying to liberate my car from a tow yard this past summer, I handed the temporary registration conferred to me by the DMV to the man behind the desk, only for him to declare, “If I give you your car with just that on file, I’ll be out of a job.” I believed him, but with each day of back-and-forth, my bill grew. A line from Fantasmas echoed in my head: “That’s nasty.”

In the surreal HBO comedy series, created by Julio Torres, Alexa Demie sneers these words as a devoted customer service rep for Assembly Plan Insurance, desperate to cancel a flight (“Assembly Plan needs me!”) after booking a short vacation nearly a year away. She’s within the promised cancellation window, but Ziwe Fumudoh—answering for the airline one moment and straddling Demie in her seat the next—won’t budge. “You are a valued customer,” Fumudoh purrs, using Demie’s favorite power trip against her. In Torres’ comedy, as in life, you don’t make the rules, and they can always turn against you.

In Torres’ comedy, as in life, you don’t make the rules, and they can always turn against you.

Certain motifs recur throughout Torres’ work. His standup special, sketches from his 2016 to 2019 stint as a Saturday Night Live writer, and previous HBO show Los Espookys all employ hand acting, children’s toys, and the inner voices of objects. In Fantasmas (2024) and his debut feature film, 2023’s Problemista, these devices create their own sensory language, capturing how doing your job—and someone doing theirs at you—feels.

Problemista is the story of Alejandro (played by Torres), an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador trying to stay in New York and avoid deportation after losing his job. He’s hoping for visa sponsorship from art critic Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton) and works with her to exhibit her cryogenically frozen husband’s esoteric paintings. A half-hour show told in vignettes, Fantasmas loosely follows creative Julio (also Torres) as he seeks a lost earring the size of his mole (to prove that it’s grown), while avoiding signing up for Proof of Existence (necessary to get an apartment and “like vote, and stuff”).

With vibes as his medium, he dramatizes the already shaky ground made vastly more unstable by living without citizenship and working for low wages.

In a review for the New Yorker, Vinson Cunningham writes that Fantasmas “feels true, personally and sociologically, without pedantic attachment to any set of specific facts.” But risking pedantry, some facts: Torres is a Salvadoran immigrant and a melanoma survivor. He lives in New York City, at a time when many in America struggle to afford rent, let alone buy a home. With vibes as his medium, he dramatizes the already shaky ground made vastly more unstable by living without citizenship and working for low wages. In Problemista, “if they fire you, it’s like the government flips an hourglass.” As Alejandro waits to meet with an immigration lawyer, a paralegal tells a woman that her appeal to remain in the country has been denied. She evaporates on the spot, the paper she held wafting to the ground. The paralegal sighs, then calls Alejandro for his appointment. It’s another day at the office.

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PLAYBACK

Snippets of streaming news — and what we’re streaming.

  • ‘Do You Need A Friend’ by Christopher Owens (Spotify)

  • Soccer Mommy’s tribute to Stardew Valley (YouTube)

  • “At the film’s core is a wild but confused spirit. What are you supposed to do when there’s not really anything to do?” Nicholas Russell on Conner O’Malley’s Rap World (Defector)

  • idgaf (demos) by Nicky Nine Doors (Spotify)

  • “Da Real World is as much a testament to Missy’s tastemaking prowess as it is a bold solo statement…” (Pitchfork)

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MIXTAPE

Good links from the Dirtyverse.

  • “Worms like coffee grounds because they’re small organic material that can be eaten ground by ground…” (Composting)

  • “She has blunt, slightly uneven bangs that she hacks herself and dark eyebrows that she has gotten death threats over.” Ivy Wolk in The Cut

  • My life as a swing state voter (Media Events)

  • 50 years of Semiotext(e) (Document Journal)

  • Marlowe Granados is a bitch for a week (Language Arts)

  • “Both Drake and Kendrick are within the Top 80 most Google searched terms of 2024, not only in the US, but also in the entire world. This is more than the war in Ukraine, OpenAI and the Trump-Biden presidential debate.” (objects of)

  • Chia Amisola in conversation with Meg Miller (BOMB)

  • Hannah Gold on Al Pacino (Bookforum)

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