#i started doing episode notes back in february 2020 and am somehow only on episode 4 despite having rewatched the show however many times
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the witcher: of banquets, bastards and burials
Ciri entering Brokilon forest is pretty unsettling. Also, that’s the previous episode, but why do they shoot Dara if they don’t intend to hurt him in the long run? The sudden change in climate is a really nice touch--it feels so otherworldly and magical. Ciri’s really concerned about Dara once she snaps out of the weird trance, it’s cute. I like them.
“It swallowed that witcher whole”
“Oooooh, this is brilliant. Oh, sorry. It’s just Geralt is usually so stingy with the details. Uh, and then what happened?”
“He died!”
“Eh, he’s fine.”
This is so at odds with fanon!Jaskier. It amuses me a great deal. Jaskier does seem to think Geralt is kind of invincible, and not completely without cause.
“And now, witcher, it’s time to repay your debt.” --I think this says a lot about Jaskier, that he doesn’t feel totally comfortable asking Geralt to do something for him. It also comes off as sort of a game. I like the complexity and contradiction in their level of intimacy; it gets overlooked a bit. Jaskier also has a comfortably large ego in most situations, but I think he also is genuinely worried that he’s useless compared to Geralt (see episode 6).
I think this one is my favorite of Jaskier’s costumes. It’s a good color. The cut of the trousers with the trying to thread a needle between matching the outfit and looking “normal” to a modern audience works better here than it does in some of the other ones. Joey Batey as Jaskier seems to like leaning on things, especially posts, he’s very slouchy. (Mental note of physicality to use in fic.)
“I’m not your friend.”
“Oh, you usually just let strangers rub chamomile onto your lovely bottom? Oh yeah, exactly, that’s what I thought.”
Everything about this conversation has the feeling of well tread territory. Even the deeper stuff, like they talk about these sorts of things often, in little pockets of intimacy.
(That limp wristed bath salt flick is my favorite gif of all time--it’s one of only two or three I have saved on my phone.)
I think Jaskier is genuinely nervous here--and not just about being killed by someone’s partner. Geralt is actually the one who suggests that as the cause of his bodyguarding. I think he’s quite nervous about performing under these specific circumstances. It’s probably a big deal to have gotten this gig.
The way Jaskier puts his hand on Geralt’s arm! It’s both so forceful and casual.
“Yes, yes, yes, you never get involved, except you actually do--all of the time.” Jaskier knows Geralt. That is basically the core of Geralt’s character. He says things and he means them, but he’s uncertain, flexible in the face of reality, and/or self-delusional enough that he often does the opposite.
“Do witcher’s ever retire?”
“Yeah, when they slow and get killed”
“Come on you must want something for yourself once all this... monster hunting nonsense is over with.”
That’s not a denial of the reality of Geralt’s profession, it’s a denial of the validity of Geralt’s coping mechanisms. That’s Geralt responding to something in a way Jaskier thinks is inappropriate. Jaskier is Leslie Knope to a not insignificant extent.
“I want nothing.”
“Well, who knows? maybe someone out there will want you.” *floppy gesture* *pouty face*
“I need no one and the last thing I want is someone needing me.”
“And yet, here we are.”
“Hmm.”
That conversation gets very serious for a second. I really wonder how that line was intended to be read by the author. But the stillness of how it’s shot and the intimacy that’s emphasized in the way it’s framed really supports how seriously it’s performed. The words themselves seem like they very easily could be meant to be something of a joke, but it’s not played like that at all.
Both throughout the show and in the books, it’s pretty clear that the average person is not going to immediately ping that Geralt is a witcher. His eyes are really not that unnatural to be clocked at a distance, and the white hair is both within the realm of human hair color (just incongruous with the rest his apparent age) and also not typical of Witchers. But is there a particular reason Jaskier is trying to hide Geralt’s identity? Surely he is more of a threat as a Witcher than as a “Sad Silk Merchant”.
Mousesack calls Geralt the White Wolf--that has really caught on. They are clearly friends from before the song. Team Give-Geralt-more-weird-friends!
JASKIER LETTING A MAN A WHOLE FOOT SHORTER THAN HIM BACK HIM INTO A CORNER.
“Forgive me my lord, this happens all the time. It’s true that he has the face of a cad and a coward, but truth be known, he was kicked in the balls by an ox as a child.”
“That’s... true.”
And he gives Jaskier a coin!! How humiliating!
“You’re on your own from here on” but you will note that Geralt very much doesn’t leave and is still keeping an eye on him. Geralt also is repeatedly shown to be quite good at verbally diffusing conflict. I think this gets left out of fic a lot.
Calanthe! Delightfully dirty. I am into it.
“It will be done soon. You think I wanted to marry your father? I’ll have none of your water works here, you’re the daughter of the Lioness, behave like it.”
“Perhaps I should have some starving serfs brought in to slaughter then?”
Pavetta does not approve of the way Calanthe is running this country at all. I think this is an underlying source of conflict in their relationship in general. Calanthe thinks Pavetta is too soft and naive to take care of herself.
Aww, Ciri holds Dara’s hand when the dryad pulls the arrow out. I don’t actually have much to say about the Brokilon stuff without getting into my thoughts about adaptation, which would really take too much space. One day, maybe, I’ll get back to that.
Male posturing. Witchers are a threat to toxic masculinity. You have the dudes in Blaviken who are pissed off by Geralt’s existence and Renfri is just like chill, you have the bit in Nightmare of the Wolf where the dudes in the tavern are pissed at Vesimir’s existence but a whole little gaggle of women are totally chill. They exist outside social structure and the patriarchy.
“Are you calling me a liar? The Butcher of Blaviken bleats utter nonsense.”
*Jaskier makes a please don’t face*
“Perhaps the lord’s encountered rare subspecies of manticore.”
*Jaskier sighs, Calanthe laughs*
Geralt is perfectly capable of interacting with “polite society” and coming out ahead (for a given value of ahead). I think he chooses not to sometimes though.
“Any man willing to paint himself in the shadow of his failures will make for far more interesting conversation this night.” Yeah... women like Geralt (and Witchers in general cause they are outside the patriarchy)
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing, they’re gone now.”
Dara has not processed any of his trauma. I always liked him, but watching more closely, he’s actually quite an interesting character.
“As Queen I could demand it.”
“If I were one of your subjects.”
“I could torture you so very slowly into compliance.”
*Geralt is smiling, fucking kinky lunatic!*
“Her Majesty will do as she wishes. I’m not for turning.”
Yeah, they are flirting. Their powerplay dynamic is really interesting and fun. I like it.
Yennefer is so awkward and caught up in her own pain, and makes negative effort to comfort that baby. I love her.
That spidery thing is delightfully creepy. Poor Kalis, being fucking assasinated by a weird spider monster just for having the wrong gender babies. And Yennefer just abandons her. Shouldn’t she be better trained in defence? Like would that not be a reasonable thing to teach a court mage? Protecting people does seem to be part of her function. I have a theory that Aretuza does not prepare Mages very well for Court in actual practice. But we do see later that Yennefer can kill things fairly easily with magic. I guess she’s just not been in a combat situation before and kind of freaked out? That adds up.
Yeah, Calenthe is flirting. But also, woah abrupt change in topic. And Geralt actually answers her question. He does, in fact, talk about things.
“Tell me witcher, why are there so few of you left?”
“Hm. It is no longer possible to make more of us since the sacking of Kaer Morhen. Tell me your majesty, why do you risk your life on the battlefield when you can rest on your throne?”
“Because there is a simplicity in killing monsters, is there not? Seems we are quite the pair, Geralt of Rivia.”
“Hmm.” Sometimes a hmm is worth a thousand words. He is not impressed by this. But not unimpressed by this enough to take affront, which he is totally capable of despite Calanthe being a Queen.
And, of course, Geralt does get involved in the messy, violent affairs of men pretty quickly. Geralt fights to protect Duny, which is well... ironic. Considering. And so does Eist, which is... even more ironic. (It’s weird writing this stuff up now that I’ve read most of the books.)
I love the soundtracking so much! Especially Geralt’s theme, makes me very happy!
Calanthe really is quite blood thirsty, kicking her poor knight in the face before getting around to ordering everyone to stop. Goodness.
I really like how the baby has gone all white and frozen dead after the portal travel. It illustrates how unnatural tearing a hole in reality is even though Yennefer does it so seemingly effortlessly.
“Whatever windfall he came home to find would be mine.” That’s the law of surprise wording used by Duny. I wonder how many common phrasings there are.
“I bow to no law made by men who have never born a child.” Motherhood is such a thing. This deserves more thorough analysis than I am going to give it.
“Destiny helps people believe there’s order to this horse shit. There isn’t, but a promise made must be honored, as true for a commoner as it is for a queen.” Such a Geralt thing to say. And also something he is able to say because of his relationship with established authority.
Does Geralt Axii Pavetta? It’s not really clear what Geralt does to stop the tornado magic.
Ciri’s having nightmares :( About Cahir. I really wonder what they are going to do with that character. It’s one of the things I am most interested in.
“I drank the waters, it’s going to be ok.” That is really messed up. The waters of Brokilon are really messed up. Just like... cool, everything’s fine now!
“I’m sorry you didn’t have a life, but if truth be told you’re not missing much. I know it’s easy for me to say with warm breath in my lungs, and you with nothing. Still... what would you have had? Parents? Well, they’re the ones who wrote your last act, so not much loss there. Friends? Most likely fair weather. Lovers? Fun for a bit, I’ll admit but all eventually disappoint. And let's face it, you’re a girl. Your mother was right about one thing, we’re just vessels. And even when we’re told we’re special, as I was, as you would have been, we’re still just vessels for them to take and take until we’re empty and alone. So count yourself lucky, you’ve cheated the game, won without even knowing it.”
Fucking fuck. I can’t believe that people don’t feel for Yennefer. She is so disillusioned and in so much pain and she has every right to be. That is some extremely ineffective grave digging there though.
I like the hand binding marriage ceremony. Jaskier and lady-friend smiling in the background :)
“I think this has the makings of my greatest ballad yet.” already distracted from lady-friend who is trying to hand him a handkerchief for some reason.
“If you’re alive in the morning. Don’t grope for trout in any peculiar rivers until dawn.”
Why until dawn Geralt? Infidelity is not less of a problem once the sun is risen. And why that phrasing? How did you come up with that?
And Geralt is so close to escaping. But Duny has to insist on clearing the debt on his life.
“I want nothing.” Lol. You keep saying that.
“I claim the tradition as you have, the law of surprise, give me that which you already have but do not know.” (Second known wording for the law of surprise, which has nothing to do with returning home.)
Jaskier and lady friend are still holding hands, I guess the ballad writing *can* wait.
Aww, manly shoulder grab. “Be careful, old friend.” Yeah, Geralt needs more weird friends that just pop up sometimes.
And flash forward. Destiny has fucked up Cintra, if you want to read it that way. Necromantic and gut based divination. Gross. Fringilla is so poised, doing something so gross. So gross. Cannot say that enough times.
Special magic tree sap? It’s a pretty sort of opalescent color. Why is she in the desert for this vision thingy? And the tree, interesting.
“What are you child?” That’s a delightfully unsettling way to end the episode.
#the witcher#mayo blogs the witcher#i started doing episode notes back in february 2020 and am somehow only on episode 4 despite having rewatched the show however many times#i can totally finish before season 2 airs#this is really just a running list of crap for me to optimistically expand on some day#but writing good meta is so much work
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"THE SECRET DIARIES" DOCU-SERIES
EPISODE 2 "BLOOM"
AIR DATE FEBRUARY 7, 2022
SUMMARY sakura gets candid on what was really going on during her 2019 solo debut, why she almost quit performing permanently, how her old company completely damaged her health… and most importantly: how she picked herself up again.
EPISODE MASTERLIST
NOTES: ITALICS ARE QUESTIONS BY THE STAFF & MORE
AFTER FILMING THE FIRST EPISODE AS A GROUP, THE FOUR SEPARATED FOR SAKURA’S FILMING, LEAVING HER TO BE THE ONLY ONE ON THE SET. A FEMALE STAFF MEMBER SITS ACROSS FROM THE YOUNGEST WITH A LIST OF QUESTIONS DESIGNATED JUST FOR SAKURA, THE STAFF’S FACE IS OUT OF THE CAMERA’S VIEW.
THE QUESTIONS ROUND
SITTING HERE, WITH NOBODY ELSE BUT THE CAMERA CREW, DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD ENDURE ALL OF YOUR HARDSHIPS FROM THE LAST THREE YEARS AGAIN JUST TO GET TO WHERE YOU ARE, RIGHT NOW?
“truthfully, on one hand, i don’t think i’d go back in time and do it all over again… i was just a kid for most of the hardest points of my life so far, sometimes i still can’t process the fact that i’m still here… i know i’d find a way back to my members. but on the other, i get to live my dreams every day… i debuted when i was only eighteen years old, and i’ve been chasing my dreams since i was four. i’ve been through so much that i quite like the woman that i’ve become, i think she turned out okay.”
WHEN WERE YOU AT YOUR LOWEST AND HIGHEST POINT IN LIFE, SO FAR?
“i was nineteen when i was at my lowest, but somehow i met the right people and from nineteen up to this point, it’s also become the best time, somehow? it’s strange… if it weren’t for the people i’m surrounded by today, i can’t say i would still be here.”
DO YOU REGRET DEBUTING AS A SOLOIST WHILST STILL BEING A ROOKIE?
“absolutely. i wasn’t ready to be a soloist at nineteen, maybe this past year would’ve been a smarter and safer option for me instead. as both a group member, preparing for a solo debut is a type of burden that i couldn’t even begin to try to explain to the viewers… i fully regret having my solo debut at the time that i did, and i’m no longer afraid to talk about everything i’ve been through.”
DO YOU REGRET GETTING INTO A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR CURRENT PARTNER AT THE TIME IN WHICH YOU DID?
“no, because when i was starting to fall apart… we quite literally came together. i felt like i lost all of my armor and strength, he still stood beside me and i’ve done the same for him over the course of the last four years. i was really scared to be in a relationship with the kind of mental state that i was in back then, but when you genuinely love someone, you’d go through hell and high water for and with them. i couldn’t have gotten to where i am now without him and the kind of heart that he has. why else would we express how much we care for each other so publicly?”
IN 2020, YOU TRIED TO TAKE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST STELLAR ENTERTAINMENT, BUT THE CASE WAS ABANDONED SOMEWHERE DOWN THE LINE. WHAT WENT WRONG?
“i can’t say a lot about this, but what i can say is that i had multiple witnesses and a great deal of evidence as well. the court denied my case because all of my witnesses had ‘too much of a personal connection to the defendant.’ i’ve never met a group of people so money-hungry… it breaks my heart into a million pieces to see people with that company, still. i’ve tried all i can do.”
LAST QUESTION, WHAT DOES YOUR LIFE FOR THE NEXT FOUR YEARS LOOK LIKE?
“CORE4 is definitely still in the picture for me, i’m also hoping that i still get to shift more of my focus on aespa, too. the girls are absolutely lovely, it’s an honor to choreograph and watch them grow. but for me, i see myself slowing down a little bit, as well. i’ve always wanted to be a mum, i grew up with my own as my biggest role model… so the consideration alone for that path is definitely in the cards. if not, then i’d mainly like to be in better contact with my family, it’s very hard to stay in touch with everyone because my life is so busy.”
THE STAFF MEMBER NOW BIDS SAKURA GOODBYE BEFORE DEPARTING FROM THE CAMERA, LEAVING SAKURA ALONE IN THE FRAME TO ANSWER THE FINAL QUESTION:
YOU WENT ON HIATUS FOR SEVERAL MONTHS AT THE END OF 2018 FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH. WHAT WAS GOING ON AT THAT TIME? WHAT MADE YOU GET TO THAT POINT? DID THINGS GET BETTER? WHAT ADVICE CAN YOU GIVE TO VIEWERS AT HOME?
sakura’s nerves kicked in after she finished reading the question to herself. she planned out her answer in the dressing rooms earlier this morning, but was it even enough? the truth is what would be enough. she knew it, too.
“for the sake of my own health and privacy, i can’t get too descriptive on certain things, so i do apologize for that. back when we debuted, someone invaded our privacy late at night and my former company made false promises as a response. it really traumatized me. so much that i developed a fear of sleeping and being alone, i was getting the same nightmares from that situation over and over again. naturally, my lack of sleep led to my anxiety getting worse, and so did my performance at work. i’ll never forget the day before i spoke to psy for help in regards to it: eunwoo was so worried for me that he cried when i was struggling in practice.”
“even after we had joined our new company, i was still struggling. this was something that felt so psychologically advanced, that therapy eventually wasn’t enough as a solution. fortunately, i received endless support from my P NATION family and friends from the moment i had mentioned getting treatment. everyone was very encouraging, so when i left seoul for a few months to go to a treatment center near the city, i was finally on the right track.”
“i’m very lucky that i got the kind of help that i did, because i got the right resources and i was back home by late september of 2019. since my treatment, i’ve been better than ever. but truth be told, it would have never worked on me if i never believed that there was even a light at the end of the tunnel in the first place… now, i live with my boyfriend of four years, i live my dreams every day with my favorite people in the entire world, and i’m doing it because i found the strength and love in myself to get better… so i could be here, in this very moment. my best advice for anyone struggling with anything at all is that asking for help does not make you weak… it’s the first step. i promise you, it’s not something to be ashamed of.”
sakura had been talking so much that she had lost track of her emotions, she sat on the cushioned seat with tears brimming in her eyes — her skin was ghost pale from mentioning the past, but her eyes told a different story. her eyes shed tears of relief. relief that she was still here. they were tears of joy, and three years later, lee chaerin finally felt like she had set herself free by sharing the truth.
UP NEXT, WITH EUNWOO:
“i felt like i was never going to be myself. i just wanted to shout out my secret from the rooftops… but now, i’m doing it here. i can’t keep running from who i am anymore.”
@skzfairies @m00niesk7 @hyuncore
reblogs are always appreciated! don’t forget to tell me what you think of the second episode <3
#CORE4#the secret diaries: episodes#the secret diaries#sakura things#kpop ocs#kpop coed group#kpop au#kpop extra member#kpop imagines
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A personal look back on my summer 2020
My fall semester has already been going on for a little while, but in the past week the weather has suddenly switched from hot to autumny and now it feels like the summer was a period which is truly over and which I can look back upon as (unsurprisingly) one of the most singular summers of my life.
I consider myself to be excellent at autobiographical memory, probably in the 90th percentile or so, at least when it comes to being able to recall the year or month (or sometimes week) that particular events of my life occurred. I attribute this to often being able to connect various things that were going on in different areas of my life at the same time (rather like separate arcs in a television episode) in ways that allow me to anchor any particular memory to the time it occurred. Sometimes there are particular time periods where the "plot arcs" of my life somehow seem to fit together really well in a united larger story or a single flavor, whereas looking back at other periods I can with some effort remember various arcs but it's hard to hunt them out and put them together, as though they were part of a poorly-written TV episode which doesn't have any particular unity.
Summers for me have always stood apart from the years they were in (with the slight exception of the summers I spent abroad doing my first postdoc which had so little structure that my general routine was the same all year round). This summer I often looked back at the summer of 2010 (the last divisible-by-ten year), which was an example of the former: somehow all the separate arcs going on in my life at the time -- my studying and research (sadly, this was the most recent summer when I actually felt good about how studying/research was going!), stuff that was going on in my immediate family, progress in my social life, my first forays into doing local gigs as part of a band, the weather, my apartment/roommate situation, shows I was watching, and personal internal struggles I was facing -- feel like they were all nuances of the same flavor. (This was back in the days that I had cable and it so happened that Curb Your Enthusiasm was on the TV Guide Channel and I was introduced to it and watched it a lot just that summer; for years afterwards the theme tune immediately brought back the emotions that came with the flavor of summer 2010. Semi-coincidentally I've been watching a lot of Curb clips on YouTube since I noticed them appearing early this past summer.)
The following summer, summer of 2011, is an example of the latter kind of time period in my memory: I'm able to remember a bunch of separate things that went on, including a visit to Switzerland, some of the research I was trying to do, my living situation (and anticipation of a move and the shift in my social life it would bring), my discovery of the local Unitarian Universalist fellowship and being a regular attendant there the entire summer, some particular online interests, and the unpleasant bike accident I had, but it takes some effort to recall that this was all happening in the same three months. (One thing I do distinctly remember about my living situation is that my one roommate spent most of the summer out of town and that, in anticipation of my next roommate who I knew traveled less and would be much more social, I was telling myself, "Enjoy this level of privacy now because chances are you'll never have it again." I was absolutely right in my prediction that there would be much less solitude and privacy with the next roommate who I remained living with for several years, but I sort of assumed that after that I would have found some kind of a partner to be with all the time, and... oh the irony as I sit here, still continuously partner-free, after another day of the far more intense privacy and solitude of the past six months!)
This past summer, the summer of 2020, is very, very clearly bound to become a longer-term memory of the former kind: its extreme flavor is unmistakable. As is probably the case for most of us, my experience of summer 2020 has been shaped almost entirely shaped by the pandemic we're still in the midst of. For me this has meant constantly being home alone (although I settled pretty soon on into a pattern of going on daily bike rides and weekly supermarket trips plus a number of other types of errands. Also, a caveat to the rest of this paragraph is that my parents visited one weekend and that provided an exception to some of the otherwise constant conditions below.) I became uncharacteristically super introverted and very intent on making as much research progress as possible in the absence of teaching duties. None of this has been too unpleasant, but there has been a complete and utter lack of any form of fun, both in traveling (this may hold the record of the only summer where I stayed in the same 6-mile radius the entire time) and in social events. The one positively pleasant thing in my life this summer was discovering the most beautiful area for cycling in any place I've lived, as well as a handful of late-evening warm-summer-night walks. The extreme degree of loneliness and the necessity of self-discipline to keep my wheels turning has been smothering, and actually I think I dealt with it much better than I would ever have imagined I could if someone had told me this was coming a year ago.
I'd say my summer was a personal success in that way and in most other ways apart from the main concrete objective of completing a research preprint, which failed quite badly and is putting my career aspirations in a very precarious place (it would have been nice to get some heavier blogging done as well). One could say that this was a less important goal than that of not letting my mental health spiral, though, and I did succeed quite well at the latter. (In fact, I was doing much worse in January and February than I was when the pandemic hit.) I'm upset that my goals seem to take me much longer than I feel they should but am glad that this doesn't seem to be due to an inability to sit down and focus on the work, as was the case with research during some summers of grad school.
Part of the flavor of summer 2020 that will live on in my memory has to do with my being home alone so much of the time, never having to get near other people, in an apartment that I kept hot, that, let's just say it took me a ridiculously long time to accumulate each laundry load and there were often T-shirts draped over my sofa to be reused for an hour or two at a time over multiple days.
While I'm continuing on this gratuitously self-absorbed vein, as I've noted that I love keeping track of personal "endurance" records, I've (again unsurprisingly, because of the situation) made a bunch of them which I'll finish by taking note of here:
Longest time without stepping out of the front door: I actually was careful to make sure I never stayed entirely inside for two days in a row, but it finally happened the weekend before last (after a late Friday night walk in my complex where I may or may not have gotten back inside by midnight). I believe it was 61 hours, or very nearly 61 hours, without exiting my apartment. This may be a lifelong record; the only other event that compares was a 2-3-day period in March 2011 when I was very feverishly ill in the wake of a snowstorm, and I don't recall how far beyond 48 hours I stayed in.
Longest time without going into my office (or even onto my campus) in over a decade of having an office: from April 2nd to August 11th. Hardly a unique one here, but I never thought I could have handled only having my home to work in for over four months.
Longest time not going near any public transportation whatsoever, since high school: Sunday March 8th (or just after midnight on March 9th, a bus ride as the final leg of the journey home from my last trip of any sort) to 26 Sundays later on September 6th because of having to leave my bike in the shop.
Longest stretch of time not withdrawing cash or paying for something in cash: since sometime in early March and counting. The only times I've touched the cash in my wallet at all during all of this time was on two occasions when I gave a bill to someone in need.
Longest time since age 19 not touching a drop of alcohol: since April 11th (at a virtual birthday party of a friend) and continuing. This smashes a record from last fall of something like 54 days.
Longest time with the thermostat completely off (no use of heat or AC): from one of the last days of March to, I think, June 4th. This was nothing to do with the pandemic (in fact, it makes the pandemic situation slightly more remarkable since I've had to be home for a lot more of the time); the spring where I am was just particularly pleasant.
Longest time not shaving my facial hair: 32 days in the late summer, breaking a record from earlier in the summer of exactly a month.
There are probably other even sillier ones, such as the fact that I’m pretty sure I didn’t put on shoes from sometime at the start of June to a few days ago. You’d also think I’d break an endurance record for not uttering a spoken word to anyone, but I haven’t kept track of that.
Let’s hope future intervals in my life are much less extreme and record-breaking; that’s the gist of what I wish for everyone right now.
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2021 Mid-Year Report
A lot of things can change in a year, but even more things can change in six months than you think. This is going to be a special post styled like my end-of-year reviews that focuses on the events of the past six months. I don’t know if I’ll be doing this again next year because I felt like making this post; in fact, I don’t know when I’ll stop posting my end-of-year reviews either.
Looking back at Sea Princesses
This time last year, I was in the midst of the second coronavirus lockdown in Melbourne, unemployed on double benefits without needing to look for work. At the same time, I was working on translating and reviewing the Princesas do Mar books, which I had brought from Amazon the month before. My original intention was to buy the books once I had saved up enough money from putting aside part of my paycheck, but looking back, I knew I made a better decision buying the books when I did.
At the same time, Fabio Yabu had also released the main series books as ebooks on Amazon Kindle and would begin releasing translated versions of the first four literacy series books on there as well. A year on, the last two literacy series books have still not been published as yet, though Ubook would publish them as audiobooks in Brazil (with the exception of Turtles in Danger for some reason). In our communications, Yabu had expressed interest in publishing translated versions of the main series books (based on my translations), but the last time we spoke in May, he stated that he had a lot going on, so that has been put on hold for the time being.
From time to time, I go on the wiki and make edits wherever I feel like. This isn’t something that I really needed to express, but I wanted to do so because I am planning on putting the translated episode names on their respective pages eventually. That information was originally posted on the International Entertainment Project Wiki before they planned to move the episode lists to Miraheze but never ended up doing so. Though the episode lists with the translated episode names have been taken down from the IEP Wiki, I have managed to save them and I will put them up on the Sea Princesses Wiki gradually and eventually. Keep in note that the only languages I have all the translated titles for are Brazilian Portuguese, Castilian Spanish and German; sources for other languages are always appreciated.
I’ve been thinking about this question time and time again over the years, but I’ve never brought myself to bring it up on Tumblr until now - Would I like to see a reboot, revival or continuation of Sea Princesses? My answer is both yes and no. I say yes because there is so much unexplored potential and unanswered questions in both the books and animated series with things like the Barracuda Kingdom saga, Marcello and Marcela, more interactions with other characters, more focus on other characters and so forth. However, I also say no because usual reboot criticism aside (character designs are shit, story is shit etc), I fear that the character designs of the Sea Princesses may not sit right with certain people and that they may be misconstrued as jailbait or something like that. While it would be nice to see something new in regards to Sea Princesses someday, that all depends on whether Fabio Yabu is interested in revisiting it like he did the Combo Rangers nearly a decade ago. And besides, if Yabu isn’t interested, then who needs him when I’ve made so much Sea Princesses content over the past few years, including my takes on the continuation of the series in Kisekae Insights? Which brings us to our next topic...
Kisekae Insights and my transition into adult life
In case you haven’t heard, I started at a new job at the end of May and it’s been quite full-on. Amidst all the distractions around me and my commitment to finish up my personal project by the end of this year, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make two instalments of Kisekae Insights per month as I promised in #21, but as I made clear from the very start, there is no set schedule for the series, so this isn’t necessarily the end of the second run. I decided to just take the rest of my personal project at my own pace and I will possibly do likewise with Kisekae Insights.
Coronavirus and vaccines
At the start of June, Melbourne went into a week-long circuit breaker lockdown that later became two weeks long. This was our fourth lockdown after a short third lockdown in February that lasted five days. And it just so happened that I had to start working from home because of it. It’s not that bad, I’m currently doing a mix of WFH and onsite working so I don’t have to wake up at 6 AM (play on my phone and wake up at like 6:30) and take two hours of public transport just to get to work five days a week.
Numerous variants of the coronavirus have been discovered in the past year. We have variants originating in the UK (Alpha/B.1.1.7), South Africa (Beta/B.1.351), Brazil (Gamma/P.1) and India (Delta/B.1.617.2) among others. The Indian (Delta) variant in particular has been the reason for the recent lockdowns in Australia.
In regards to the naming of the coronavirus and its variants, it’s absolutely funny how their timing came about. When the original coronavirus started in Wuhan, China and was declared to the WHO on 31 December 2019, the WHO named the resulting disease COVID-19 on 11 February 2020, keeping in mind that Asian crybabies were crying about “China Virus”, “Wuhan Virus” or “Kung Flu” back then and are probably still crying about it now. At the start of June, the WHO announced that they would use Greek letters to refer to the variants when the media have used “UK variant”, “Indian variant” etc for months, which is longer than it took mainstream media and society to adopt the name COVID-19. Though their motivation to do this is to prevent stigmatisation like with the original coronavirus, I have heard nothing about British, South African, Brazilian or even Indian people being discriminated over the variants. It’s almost like people have more problems with “China Virus” than “UK variant”, “Indian variant” etc because they somehow have a need to please China and make people realise that all Asians aren’t the same. On top of that, obscuring the variants will eventually lead to people being confused over their origins when more of them inevitably emerge.
Recently, investigations into the origin of the coronavirus have been ongoing, much to China’s ongoing outrage and condemnation. When the coronavirus started, there was a theory that it somehow leaked from a lab in Wuhan; back then, people were laughed for believing it (because Trump was the one who was talking about it), but now, the mainstream media is going with that story while covering the investigations (because Biden’s the one who is talking about it now). It’s almost like a big “I told you so” from the people who knew better.
I’ve said this in my Red Pill Year post and I’ll say it again; all this fuss over naming the coronavirus and its variants to prevent stigmatisation is just an act of political correctness for China’s sake. While I have started to warm to the term COVID-19 (in a humourous and ironic sense), I still stand by my current positions so far; while I don’t entirely agree with “China virus”, I still refer to it as the “Wuhan coronavirus” because it started in Wuhan until proven otherwise beyond all reasonable doubt, whether it leaked from the lab or whatever. I’ll admit, I wouldn’t have much of a problem with this if the virus didn’t start in China. I’m a person who doesn’t really mind or care about political correctness if it’s just a little bit here and there, but given the events of the past decade, I draw the line when it comes to China.
Let’s talk about vaccines now. Vaccines have been a big topic over the past six months - in Hong Kong, Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac vaccine has become a meme in the pro-democracy population because to May, there were 24 deaths recorded as a result of side effects compared to the alternate BioNTech vaccine with 6 deaths. Granted, the deaths were in people aged 50 and over (possibly with underlying health conditions), but it has given people a reason to hold off or even refrain from getting the vaccine. On a side note, the “you’re going to Brazil” meme has never felt realer because CoronaVac is one of the vaccines being offered in Brazil along with Argentina, Colombia and Peru. My thoughts and prayers go to them at this point in time.
Now, I am by no means an anti-vaxxer, but I stand by the belief that coronavirus vaccines should be voluntary and not mandatory (I wish I could say the same for other vaccines, but I’d be perpetuating a double standard because adults are in control of our lives before we reach the age of majority). There are some countries and places that are providing incentives to people who get vaccinated, with quite a few of them being offered in the form of prize draws. In all honesty, given the nature of these vaccines, I don’t see the point of prize draws as incentives because there is no other benefit for those who don’t win except for protection against coronavirus, its associated symptoms, or even a release from our agonising and pitiful existences.
My main fear is that vaccine stigmatisation and discrimination might become mainstream with the existence of things like vaccine passports, where people who haven’t taken the vaccine are disallowed from accessing basic services. I can live with wearing masks indoors and on public transport and without leaving the country or even the state, but if the slippery slope gets to a point where people aren’t allowed to shop at supermarkets, eat at restaurants, take public transport or even hold a job without getting vaccinated, that’s the point where I start to become an anti-vaxxer.
There are some industries where getting vaccinated is not only highly recommended, but essential, such as health and aged care. I (luckily) don’t work in those industries so my opinion probably won’t matter, but if you work around vulnerable people regularly, then you as an individual should be responsible for taking the necessary precautions to prevent coronavirus infections and deaths.
So here’s my personal stance on this whole vaccination debacle; I will personally not be getting vaccinated for the foreseeable future, but I am not against people getting vaccinated if they so choose. This is not only because of the potential side effects or even my fear of needles (anyone who points this out to me is missing the point because my reasoning would be the same regardless of it), but because of the potential for the stigmatisation and discrimination of people who choose not to get vaccinated, the erosion of human rights for said people and most of all, the way that China has been involved in all of this; the vaccines were made to combat a virus that originated in China and I am particularly wary of some things coming from China, whether the vaccine is Chinese-made or otherwise.
Hong Kong pessimism
Things in Hong Kong have gotten worse over the past six months and they’re only about to get worser, but in spite of this, I believe that it will be all for the greater good.
Of significance, Apple Daily published their last issue on Thursday 24 June, taking down their website, social media and YouTube accounts on the same day. I used to make shitposts on a separate Facebook page by sharing their posts with satirical captions, sometimes with slurs (particularly the n-word on articles relating to mainland China) until some bitch I was having a feud with kept reporting my posts and got my page unpublished (he would have nearly taken my account with it if I hadn’t called him out and told him to kill himself, at which point we agreed to end the feud). Now that the Apple Daily Facebook page is gone, a lot of the shitposts on my personal page have gone as well; if I hadn’t deleted my separate page following the feud, chances are that I would be making plans to delete it by now because posts from that page made up a majority of my shitposts.
Since its founding in 1995, Apple Daily has been part of the mainstream media in Hong Kong, but due to its pro-democracy (and pro-Hong Kong) stance, it has been pushed to the fringe while other mainstream media outlets (like TVB) expressed pro-government/pro-police/pro-Beijing stances. While other pro-democracy news pages have popped up, there is a chance that the government may crack down on them following the enactment of the National Security Law one year ago; in short, Apple Daily was just in their way and the government will come for them eventually.
RTHK isn’t faring any better; while they are still running as a public radio and television service, they’ve been reined in by the government after their coverage of the 21 July 2019 attacks in Yuen Long. You know, the one where KKK members (in white clothes) lynched black(-clothed) people publicly in a train station and two police were seen walking away as emergency calls were being rejected? Earlier this year, some of RTHK’s programs were removed from their YouTube channel, claiming that their policy was to make content available for one year only, which is obviously not an excuse to fix their apparent pro-democracy bias.
Just last week on 25 June, there was a government reshuffling that led to a former police officer becoming chief secretary, the current police chief being the secretary for security and the deputy police commissioner becoming the chief commissioner. This just reaffirms my belief that all cops are bastards and that from 1 July, my bios on Facebook and Tumblr will be changing to highlight this and the plight of Hongkongers under these turbulent times. I’ve been wary of the Hong Kong police since their actions in the 2014 Occupy Central protests, but I officially became an ACABer sometime in 2020.
Here’s the thing. The government has outright ignored or rejected our requests for change over the years, so pro-democracy supporters are calling for a revolution, which the Chinese government somehow sees as advocating for independence, so the supporters have no hope of achieving their demands unless Hong Kong becomes independent from China, but the Chinese government is obviously not going to allow it, so they naturally turn to the international community for help. While sanctions did have an effect on the officials looming over Hongkongers, we are at an impasse right now because the next eventual step would be war, but no country wants to be responsible for firing the first shot, so the international community resorts to diplomacy while the Chinese government turns to condemning international interference in their internal affairs time and time again.
If, someday, the revolution were somehow successful and Hong Kong were to be liberated the way the protesters wanted, you know the first thing I would like to see? A fucking holocaust. I’d like to see a fucking holocaust of all the government officials who caused us suffering, the police officers who were “just following orders” and all the braindead boomers, Mainland Chinese n-words and other n-word lovers who have nothing but hatred for real Hongkongers. But hey, we all know that’s not going to happen because anyone who advocates for it is no worse than Hitler. Oh wait, that means I’m worse than Hitler because I said all that. Well, I guess that’s what I get for being pissed off at everything that’s happened and venting about it on the internet lol.
After Apple Daily’s shutdown, I have essentially doubled down on all of my beliefs. I have no sympathy for anyone who won’t stand with Hongkongers, and by that I mean anyone who actively stands against Hongkongers or turns traitor by questioning our motives and standing against them (I don’t really have an opinion on anyone who decides to stay silent because I don’t know what their true motivations would be). In short, anyone who doesn’t support Hongkongers is an n-word or n-word lover.
I’m really sorry for sounding toxic or harsh in anything I said about Hong Kong in the past couple of years. I only say these things because I really fucking love Hong Kong and I only hope that I won’t have to fear being confronted by the police or saying anything wrong the next time I visit Hong Kong with my family. Until things get really better, I’ve decided that Hong Kong is off-limits for me, but for now, let the government keep accelerating and laam chauing Hong Kong by themselves. It shows just how scared of us they are when they blame us for its eventual destruction, because in the end, it’s for the greater good.
UPDATE - 3 July 2021: I heard about the guy who stabbed a police officer then killed himself on 1 July. To be honest, I don’t feel sorry for the cop nor do I condemn what the guy did, particularly now that I’m fully into ACAB. People should be thinking about what motivated the guy to martyr himself in a lone wolf attack, namely the actions of the government over the past 24 years and the police over the last 7 years. Yet another reminder that all cops are bastards.
The US and Palestine
I have to say, Joe Biden has subverted my expectations when it came to Hong Kong and China. A lot of us feared that his administration would undo the hard work Trump’s administration did, but at the very least, they are still wary of the current situation and things have stayed pretty much the same.
As for Palestine, I would like to state that I stand with the oppressed peoples of the world and that goes for the Palestinians (and on a side note, Myanmar) as well. Jewish people have become a meme with their stereotypes and while I am not antisemitic, I apply the ACAB logic to them because it’s the system (or Jewish beliefs and Israeli governance) that is the problem here (haha AJAB lol). Ironically, it’s like Eric Cartman’s Mel Gibson fan club in real life.
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Anyway, I think I’ve said enough. Despite all the harsh things I’ve said, I only hope that the world will become a better place one day, but until then, I wish you peace in these turbulent times.
沿途在 修理著熄了的曙光
祝你在亂流下平安
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Pop Picks – June 15, 2020
What I’m reading:
I am almost in despair for the way the pandemic has reduced my reading time, some combination of longer days, lack of plane time, and mental distraction, I think. However, I just finished Marguerite Yourcenar’s magisterial Memoirs of Hadrian, a historical novel, though I hesitate to call it that because A) she would likely reject the term, B) it is so much more, and C) it stands among the towering pieces of mid-century literature for so many. It’s that last point about which I feel so sheepish. As a reasonably well-read person, how did I miss this one? It is a work of stunning achievement (don’t miss her exhaustive bibliography or end notes), highly refined style, and as much philosophy as anything else. It won’t be for everyone and you have to power through the first chapter, but it is a remarkable book. I’m intrigued to use it as a reading on leadership.
What I’m watching:
When I can finally turn off the computer screen, I find myself drawn to the television screen for its less demanding passivity. Pat and I absolutely reveled in the ten-minute installments of State of the Union (Sundance Channel), written by Nick Hornby, one of my favorite writers. It is stunningly good – witty, smart, warm, painful, and powered by the chemistry of its two utterly charming leads, Rosamund Pike and Chris O’Dowd. It’s just two people – funny and smart – trying to salvage their marriage and talking, in ten-minute snippets, in a pub and no one writes dialogue like Hornby. We devoured it. If you asked me to watch two people talk about their marriage for 100 minutes, I’d have said “no thanks.” But this was sheer, unequivocal delight. And because all great comedy is closely related to tragedy, there is more substance and depth and complexity here than sheer delight might suggest.
I don’t usually do two recommendations in my categories, but we also watched Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods. It is long, flawed, and uneven – but Spike Lee remains one of our most brilliant directors and Delroy Lindo already has my vote for Best Male Actor for his Shakespearian performance as one of the four buddies who go back to Vietnam to reclaim treasure, find the remains of their friend, and address the trauma of the war they fought then and the war fought against them as Black men in America. Even flawed Spike Lee is better than 95% of what makes it onto the screen and while made before George Floyd’s death, it feels so well suited for the time. Powerful.
What I’m listening to:
Protest music. Chronological and cleaned up for listening at home (if we could include the f-word, it would be a lot longer (see Nipsey Hussle or Kendrick Lamar), Pat put it together and you can find the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3z1W5Dbfcn7F9LBFcayTqa?si=u2oxkMTkSFef7_sQy3cNXw
Archive
April 1, 2020
What I’m listening to:
Out of nowhere and 8 years since his last recording, Bob Dylan last Thursday dropped a new single, the 17-minute (the longest Dylan song ever) “Murder Most Foul.” It’s ostensibly about the murder of President John F. Kennedy, but it’s bigger, more incisive, and elegiac than that alone. The music is gorgeous, his singing is lovely (a phrase rarely used for Dylan even in his prime), and he shows why he was deserving of his 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. It’s worth listening to again and again. The man is a cultural treasure and as relevant as ever.
What I’m reading:
The Milkman by Anna Burns, the 2018 Booker Prize winner, felt like slow going for the first bit, a leisurely stream of consciousness (not my favorite thing) first person tale of an adolescent girl during “the troubles” in 1970’s Northern Ireland. And then enough plot emerges to pull the reader along and tie the frequent and increasingly delightful digressions into the psychology of terror, sexual threat, adolescence, and a community (and world) that will create your narrative and your identity no matter what you know and believe about yourself. It’s layered, full of black humor, and powerful. It also somehow resonates for our times, where we navigate a newfound dread. It’s way more enjoyable than I just made it sound. One of my favorite reads of this young year.
What I’m watching:
I escaped back in time and started re-watching the first season of The West Wing. It is a vision – nostalgic, romantic, perhaps never true – of political leadership driven by higher purpose, American ideals, and moral intelligence. It does not pretend that politics can’t be craven, self-serving, and transactional, but the good guys mostly win in The West Wing, the acting is delightful, and Sorkin’s dialogue zings back and forth in the way of classic Hollywood movies of the 50s – smart, quick, funny. It reminds me – as has often happened during our current crisis – that most people are good and want their community to be a better place. When we appeal to our ideals instead of our fears, we are capable of great things. It’s a nice escape.
February 3, 2020
What I’m listening to:
Spending 21 hours on airplanes (Singapore to Tokyo to Boston) provides lots of time for listening and in an airport shop I picked up a Rolling Stones magazine that listed the top ten albums of the last ten years. I’ve been systematically working through them, starting with Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I just don’t know enough about hip hop and rap to offer any intelligent analysis of the music, and I have always thought of Kanye as kind of crazy (that may still be true), but the music is layered and extravagant and genre-bending. The lyrics seem fascinating and self-reflective, especially around fame and excess and Kanye’s specialty, self-promoting aggrandizement. Too many people I know remain stuck in the music of their youth and while I love those songs too, it feels important to listen to today’s music and what it has to tell us about life and lives far different than our own. And in a case like Twisted Fantasy, it’s just great music and that’s its own justification.
What I’m reading:
I went back to an old favorite, Richard Russo’s Straight Man. If you work in academia, this is a must-read and while written 22 years ago, it still rings true and current. The “hero” of the novel is William Henry Devereaux Jr., the chair of the English Department in a second-tier public university in small-town Pennsylvania. The book is laugh aloud funny (the opening chapter and story about old Red puts me in hysterics every time I read it) and like the best comedy, it taps into the complexity and pains of life in very substantial ways. Devereaux is insufferable in most ways and yet we root for him, mostly because A) he is so damn funny and B) is self-deprecating. But there is also a big heartedness in Russo’s writing and a recognition that everyone is the protagonist of their own story, and life’s essential dramas play out fully in the most modest of places and for the most ordinary of people.
What I’m watching:
I can’t pretend to have an abiding interest in cheerleading, but I devoured the six-episode Netflix series Cheer, about the cheerleading squad at Navarro College, a small two-year college in rural Texas that is a cheerleading powerhouse, winning the National Championship 14 times under the direction of Coach Monica Aldama, the Bill Belichick of cheering. I have a new respect and admiration for the athleticism and demands of cheering (and wonder about the cavalier handling of injuries), but the series is about so much more. It’s about team, about love, about grit and perseverance, bravery, trust, about kids and growing up and loss, and…well, it’s about almost everything and it will make you laugh and cry and exult. It is just terrific.
January 2, 2020
What I’m listening to:
I was never really an Amy Winehouse fan and I don’t listen to much jazz or blue-eyed soul. Recently, eight years after she died at only 27, I heard her single Tears Dry On Their Own and I was hooked (the song was on someone’s “ten things I’d want on a deserted island” list). Since then, I’ve been playing her almost every day. I started the documentary about her, Amy, and stopped. I didn’t much like her. Or, more accurately, I didn’t much like the signals of her own eventual destruction that were evident early on. I think it was D. H. Lawrence that once said “Trust the art, not the artist.” Sometimes it is better not to know too much and just relish the sheer artistry of the work. Winehouse’s Back to Black, which was named one of the best albums of 2007, is as fresh and painful and amazing 13 years later.
What I’m reading:
Alan Bennett’s lovely novella An Uncommon Reader is a what-if tale, wondering what it would mean if Queen Elizabeth II suddenly became a reader. Because of a lucked upon book mobile on palace grounds, she becomes just that, much to the consternation of her staff and with all kinds of delicious consequences, including curiosity, imagination, self-awareness, and growing disregard for pomp. With an ill-framed suggestion, reading becomes writing and provides a surprise ending. For all of us who love books, this is a finely wrought and delightful love poem to the power of books for readers and writers alike. Imagine if all our leaders were readers (sigh).
What I’m watching:
I’m a huge fan of many things – The National, Boston sports teams, BMW motorcycles, Pho – but there is a stage of life, typically adolescence, when fandom changes the universe, provides a lens to finally understand the world and, more importantly, yourself, in profound ways. My wife Pat would say Joni Mitchell did that for her. Gurinder Chadha’s wonderful film Blinded By The Light captures the power of discovery when Javed, the son of struggling Pakistani immigrants in a dead end place during a dead end time (the Thatcher period, from which Britain has never recovered: see Brexit), hears Springsteen and is forever changed. The movie, sometimes musical, sometimes comedy, and often bubbling with energy, has more heft than it might seem at first. There is pain in a father struggling to retain his dignity while he fails to provide, the father and son tension in so many immigrant families (I lived some of that), and what it means to be an outsider in the only culture you actually have ever known.
November 25, 2019
My pop picks are usually a combination of three things: what I am listening to, reading, and watching. But last week I happily combined all three. That is, I went to NYC last week and saw two shows. The first was Cyrano, starring Game of Thrones superstar Peter Dinklage in the title role, with Jasmine Cephas Jones as Roxanne. She was Peggy in the original Hamilton cast and has an amazing voice. The music was written by Aaron and Bryce Dessner, two members of my favorite band, The National, with lyrics by lead singer Matt Berninger and his wife Carin Besser. Erica Schmidt, Dinklage’s wife, directs. Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play is light, dated, and melodramatic, but this production was delightful. Dinklage owns the stage, a master, and his deep bass voice, not all that great for singing, but commanding in the delivery of every line, was somehow a plaintive and resonant counterpoint to Cephas Jones’ soaring voice. In the original Cyrano, the title character’s large nose marks him as outsider and ”other,” but Dinklage was born with achondroplasia, the cause of his dwarfism, and there is a kind of resonance in his performance that feels like pain not acted, but known. Deeply. It takes this rather lightweight play and gives it depth. Even if it didn’t, not everything has to be deep and profound – there is joy in seeing something executed so darn well. Cyrano was delightfully satisfying.
The other show was the much lauded Aaron Sorkin rendition of To Kill a Mockingbird, starring another actor at the very top of his game, Ed Harris. This is a Mockingbird for our times, one in which iconic Atticus Finch’s idealistic “you have to live in someone else’s skin” feels naive in the face of hateful racism and anti-Semitism. The Black characters in the play get more voice, if not agency, in the stage play than they do in the book, especially housekeeper Calpurnia, who voices incredulity at Finch’s faith in his neighbors and reminds us that he does not pay the price of his patience. She does. And Tom Robinson, the Black man falsely accused of rape – “convicted at the moment he was accused,” Whatever West Wing was for Sorkin – and I dearly loved that show – this is a play for a broken United States, where racism abounds and does so with sanction by those in power. As our daughter said, “I think Trump broke Aaron Sorkin.” It was as powerful a thing I’ve seen on stage in years.
With both plays, I was reminded of the magic that is live theater.
October 31, 2019
What I’m listening to:
It drove his critics crazy that Obama was the coolest president we ever had and his summer 2019 playlist on Spotify simply confirms that reality. It has been on repeat for me. From Drake to Lizzo (God I love her) to Steely Dan to Raphael Saadiq to Sinatra (who I skip every time – I’m not buying the nostalgia), his carefully curated list reflects not only his infinite coolness, but the breadth of his interests and generosity of taste. I love the music, but I love even more the image of Michelle and him rocking out somewhere far from Washington’s madness, as much as I miss them both.
What I’m reading:
I struggled with Christy Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo for the first 50 pages, worried that she’d drag out every tired trope of Mid-Eastern society, but I fell for her main characters and their journey as refugees from Syria to England. Parts of this book were hard to read and very dark, because that is the plight of so many refugees and she doesn’t shy away from those realities and the enormous toll they take on displaced people. It’s a hard read, but there is light too – in resilience, in love, in friendships, the small tender gestures of people tossed together in a heartless world. Lefteri volunteered in Greek refugee programs, spent a lot of interviewing people, and the book feels true, and importantly, heartfelt.
What I’m watching:
Soap opera meets Shakespeare, deliciously malevolent and operatic, Succession has been our favorite series this season. Loosely based on the Murdochs and their media empire (don’t believe the denials), this was our must watch television on Sunday nights, filling the void left by Game of Thrones. The acting is over-the-top good, the frequent comedy dark, the writing brilliant, and the music superb. We found ourselves quoting lines after every episode. Like the hilarious; “You don’t hear much about syphilis these days. Very much the Myspace of STDs.” Watch it so we can talk about that season 2 finale.
August 30, 2019
What I’m listening to:
I usually go to music here, but the New York Times new 1619 podcast is just terrific, as is the whole project, which observes the sale of the first enslaved human beings on our shores 400 years ago. The first episode, “The Fight for a True Democracy” is a remarkable overview (in a mere 44 minutes) of the centrality of racism and slavery in the American story over those 400 years. It should be mandatory listening in every high school in the country. I’m eager for the next episodes. Side note: I am addicted to The Daily podcast, which gives more color and detail to the NY Times stories I read in print (yes, print), and reminds me of how smart and thoughtful are those journalists who give us real news. We need them now more than ever.
What I’m reading:
Colson Whitehead has done it again. The Nickel Boys, his new novel, is a worthy successor to his masterpiece The Underground Railroad, and because it is closer to our time, based on the real-life horrors of a Florida reform school, and written a time of resurgent White Supremacy, it hits even harder and with more urgency than its predecessor. Maybe because we can read Underground Railroad with a sense of “that was history,” but one can’t read Nickel Boys without the lurking feeling that such horrors persist today and the monsters that perpetrate such horrors walk among us. They often hold press conferences.
What I’m watching:
Queer Eye, the Netflix remake of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy some ten years later, is wondrously entertaining, but it also feels adroitly aligned with our dysfunctional times. Episode three has a conversation with Karamo Brown, one of the fab five, and a Georgia small town cop (and Trump supporter) that feels unscripted and unexpected and reminds us of how little actual conversation seems to be taking place in our divided country. Oh, for more car rides such as the one they take in that moment, when a chasm is bridged, if only for a few minutes. Set in the South, it is often a refreshing and affirming response to what it means to be male at a time of toxic masculinity and the overdue catharsis and pain of the #MeToo movement. Did I mention? It’s really fun.
July 1, 2019
What I’m listening to:
The National remains my favorite band and probably 50% of my listening time is a National album or playlist. Their new album I Am Easy To Find feels like a turning point record for the band, going from the moody, outsider introspection and doubt of lead singer Matt Berninger to something that feels more adult, sophisticated, and wiser. I might have titled it Women Help The Band Grow Up. Matt is no longer the center of The National’s universe and he frequently cedes the mic to the many women who accompany and often lead on the long, their longest, album. They include Gail Ann Dorsey (who sang with Bowie for a long time), who is amazing, and a number of the songs were written by Carin Besser, Berninger’s wife. I especially love the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the arrangements, and the sheer complexity and coherence of the work. It still amazes me when I meet someone who does not know The National. My heart breaks for them just a little.
What I’m reading:
Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad through the lens of a captive Trojan queen, Briseis. As a reviewer in The Atlantic writes, it answers the question “What does war mean to women?” We know the answer and it has always been true, whether it is the casual and assumed rape of captive women in this ancient war story or the use of rape in modern day Congo, Syria, or any other conflict zone. Yet literature almost never gives voice to the women – almost always minor characters at best — and their unspeakable suffering. Barker does it here for Briseis, for Hector’s wife Andromache, and for the other women who understand that the death of their men is tragedy, but what they then endure is worse. Think of it ancient literature having its own #MeToo moment. The NY Times’ Geraldine Brooks did not much like the novel. I did. Very much.
What I’m watching:
The BBC-HBO limited series Years and Years is breathtaking, scary, and absolutely familiar. It’s as if Black Mirrorand Children of Men had a baby and it precisely captures the zeitgeist, the current sense that the world is spinning out of control and things are coming at us too fast. It is a near future (Trump has been re-elected and Brexit has occurred finally)…not dystopia exactly, but damn close. The closing scene of last week’s first episode (there are 6 episodes and it’s on every Monday) shows nuclear war breaking out between China and the U.S. Yikes! The scope of this show is wide and there is a big, baggy feel to it – but I love the ambition even if I’m not looking forward to the nightmares.
May 19, 2019
What I’m listening to:
I usually go to music here, but I was really moved by this podcast of a Davis Brooks talk at the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/david-brooks-quest-moral-life. While I have long found myself distant from his political stance, he has come through a dark night of the soul and emerged with a wonderful clarity about calling, community, and not happiness (that most superficial of goals), but fulfillment and meaning, found in community and human kinship of many kinds. I immediately sent it to my kids.
What I’m reading:
Susan Orlean’s wonderful The Library Book, a love song to libraries told through the story of the LA Central Library. It brought back cherished memories of my many hours in beloved libraries — as a kid in the Waltham Public Library, a high schooler in the Farber Library at Brandeis (Lil Farber years later became a mentor of mine), and the cathedral-like Bapst Library at BC when I was a graduate student. Yes, I was a nerd. This is a love song to books certainly, but a reminder that libraries are so, so much more. It is a reminder that libraries are less about a place or being a repository of information and, like America at its best, an idea and ideal. By the way, oh to write like her.
What I’m watching:
What else? Game of Thrones, like any sensible human being. This last season is disappointing in many ways and the drop off in the writing post George R.R. Martin is as clear as was the drop off in the post-Sorkin West Wing. I would be willing to bet that if Martin has been writing the last season, Sansa and Tyrion would have committed suicide in the crypt. That said, we fans are deeply invested and even the flaws are giving us so much to discuss and debate. In that sense, the real gift of this last season is the enjoyment between episodes, like the old pre-streaming days when we all arrived at work after the latest episode of the Sopranos to discuss what we had all seen the night before. I will say this, the last two episodes — full of battle and gore – have been visually stunning. Whether the torches of the Dothraki being extinguished in the distance or Arya riding through rubble and flame on a white horse, rarely has the series ascended to such visual grandeur.
March 28, 2019
What I’m listening to:
There is a lovely piece played in a scene from A Place Called Home that I tracked down. It’s Erik Satie’s 3 Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, played by the wonderful pianist Klára Körmendi. Satie composed this piece in 1888 and it was considered avant-garde and anti-Romantic. It’s minimalism and bit of dissonance sound fresh and contemporary to my ears and while not a huge Classical music fan, I’ve fallen in love with the Körmendi playlist on Spotify. When you need an alternative to hours of Cardi B.
What I’m reading:
Just finished Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel Washington Black. Starting on a slave plantation in Barbados, it is a picaresque novel that has elements of Jules Verne, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Yes, it strains credulity and there are moments of “huh?”, but I loved it (disclosure: I was in the minority among my fellow book club members) and the first third is a searing depiction of slavery. It’s audacious, sprawling (from Barbados to the Arctic to London to Africa), and the writing, especially about nature, luminous.
What I’m watching:
A soap opera. Yes, I’d like to pretend it’s something else, but we are 31 episodes into the Australian drama A Place Called Home and we are so, so addicted. Like “It’s AM, but can’t we watch just one more episode?” addicted. Despite all the secrets, cliff hangers, intrigue, and “did that just happen?” moments, the core ingredients of any good soap opera, APCH has superb acting, real heft in terms of subject matter (including homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, and class), touches of our beloved Downton Abbey, and great cars. Beware. If you start, you won’t stop.
February 11, 2019
What I’m listening to:
Raphael Saadiq has been around for quite a while, as a musician, writer, and producer. He’s new to me and I love his old school R&B sound. Like Leon Bridges, he brings a contemporary freshness to the genre, sounding like a young Stevie Wonder (listen to “You’re The One That I Like”). Rock and Roll may be largely dead, but R&B persists – maybe because the former was derivative of the latter and never as good (and I say that as a Rock and Roll fan). I’m embarrassed to only have discovered Saadiq so late in his career, but it’s a delight to have done so.
What I’m reading:
Just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Home, part of her trilogy that includes the Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, Gilead, and the book after Home, Lila. Robinson is often described as a Christian writer, but not in a conventional sense. In this case, she gives us a modern version of the prodigal son and tells the story of what comes after he is welcomed back home. It’s not pretty. Robinson is a self-described Calvinist, thus character begets fate in Robinson’s world view and redemption is at best a question. There is something of Faulkner in her work (I am much taken with his famous “The past is never past” quote after a week in the deep South), her style is masterful, and like Faulkner, she builds with these three novels a whole universe in the small town of Gilead. Start with Gilead to better enjoy Home.
What I’m watching:
Sex Education was the most fun series we’ve seen in ages and we binged watched it on Netflix. A British homage to John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, it feels like a mash up of American and British high schools. Focusing on the relationship of Maeve, the smart bad girl, and Otis, the virginal and awkward son of a sex therapist (played with brilliance by Gillian Anderson), it is laugh aloud funny and also evolves into more substance and depth (the abortion episode is genius). The sex scenes are somehow raunchy and charming and inoffensive at the same time and while ostensibly about teenagers (it feels like it is explaining contemporary teens to adults in many ways), the adults are compelling in their good and bad ways. It has been renewed for a second season, which is a gift.
January 3, 2019
What I’m listening to:
My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.
What I’m reading:
Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.
What I’m watching:
Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.
December 4, 2018
What I’m listening to:
Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.
What I’m reading:
I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also rereadbooks I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.
What I’m watching:
Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star. The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.
October 15, 2018
What I’m listening to:
We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.
What I’m reading:
Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.
What I’m watching:
Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.
September 7, 2018
What I’m listening to:
With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.
What I’m reading:
Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.
What I’m watching:
Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.
August 16, 2018
What I’m listening to:
In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.
What I’m reading:
John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.
What I’m watching:
I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching. And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.
July 23, 2018
What I’m listening to:
Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.
What I’m reading:
Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.
What I’m watching:
Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.
June 11, 2018
What I’m listening to:
Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.
What I’m reading:
The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.
What I’m watching:
The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.
May 24, 2018
What I’m listening to:
I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.
What I’m reading:
Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia. It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.
What I’m watching:
I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.
April 27, 2018
What I’m listening to:
I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan. Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.
What I’m reading:
I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.
What I’m watching:
I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.
March 18, 2018
What I’m listening to:
Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.
What I’m reading:
Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.
What I’m watching:
Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news.
March 8, 2018
What I’m listening to:
We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.
What I’m reading:
Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.
What I’m watching:
The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.
February 12, 2018
What I’m listening to:
So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.
What I’m reading:
I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.
What I’m watching:
We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.
January 15, 2018
What I’m listening to:
Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.
What I’m reading:
A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.
What I’m watching:
David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.
December 22, 2017
What I’m reading:
Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.
What I’m watching:
Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.
What I’m listening to:
A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.
November 14, 2017
What I’m watching:
Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?
What I’m reading:
Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.
What I’m listening to:
Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.
November 3, 2017
What I’m reading:
Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.
What I’m watching:
We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.
What I’m listening to:
I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.
September 26, 2017
What I’m reading:
Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.
What I’m watching:
HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.
What I’m listening to:
The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.
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