Here’s a brief summary of a truly miserable morning.
The NSW RFS today announced the two firefighters who lost their lives overnight were both fathers to young children. Shortly after, Prime Minister Scott Morrison finally admitted he’s been in Hawaii for the past few days, issuing a whiplash-inducing sorta-apology about his secretive vacation. While huge tracts of NSW burn, smoke from those blazes has actually blown over to Victoria, shrouding Melbourne in the kind of haze which has plagued Sydney for weeks. I can smell it inside the office.
And, as I write this, South Australia’s Country Fire Service is responding to blazes burning worryingly close to where I grew up – and where members of my family are currently trying to avoid today’s extreme temperatures. It’s so hot that the lifts are out at the Mawson Lakes train station. The cool change is still hours away.
#Bushfire Emergency Warning for #NORTHERN_EXPRESSWAY,_ANGLE_VALE #fire. You are now in danger. Take shelter in a solid building. Do not leave or enter this area in a vehicle or on foot. #EWM ID=0003571 #SAFires https://t.co/L0poXcwUcK pic.twitter.com/fVlOViD1gC
— Country Fire Service (@CFSAlerts) December 20, 2019
This harrowing sequence of events has shaped my mindset for the day. That doesn’t neatly dovetail with the rest of the day’s workload, which, improbably, requires me to pass judgment on a new fake Christmas movie poster from Netflix.
Both PEDESTRIAN.TV Style Editor Melissa Mason and Deputy Editor Alex Bruce-Smith, who take great joy in recapping festive trash, are currently indisposed; so too is my colleague Steff Tan, who is sitting to my immediate left while trying not to inhale too much smoke. Melbourne boss Cam Tyeson just expended all his festive energies shitting on reindeer not named Dasher. This means the task falls to me.
The conundrum is compounded by the fact I’ve not seen any of the deliberately (?) bad Christmas films which Netflix pumps out. I simply have no idea what any of the flicks are about, outside of vague notions of Christmas cheer, making me particularly unqualified to parse the image below. I get that it’s a gee-up of the Avengers: Endgame poster, implying a shared Yuletide universe – and that’s all I got.
Is that three different versions of Vanessa Hudgens? Why does the guy in regal attire look a bit like an airbrushed Will Ferrell? Is that Brie Larson, transposed from the actual Endgame poster? What is the dude from Parks & Recreation doing in an Akubra? Don’t even attempt to explain the elephant to me, because I simply lack the faculties to square the tusked lad with what I previously knew about Christmas.
To commemorate a season no single hero could celebrate alone, we assembled the Netflix Holiday Cinematic Universe! The festivities. Are. Inevitable. pic.twitter.com/VkS4tfxA4U
— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) December 20, 2019
I don’t know. I just don’t know. Have at it. I’m going to message my parents again to see what’s up.
UPDATE:
Thanks for the recommendation, Dad.
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