media journal. this is a place to dump my scattered thoughts on albums, books, comics, graphic novels, movies, and tv shows. most recent on top. here there be spoilers.

apr. – jun. 2025 | 🎧 31 ∙ 📚 24 ∙ 📽️ 21 ∙ 📺 7

• 📚 napalm in the heart, pol guasch — i have no idea, honestly. it was very much what i expected a novel written by a poet would be like. a lot of subtext that i think is mostly about catalonia? there was a lot to this world that could have stood being built out more, but since we see it only through the eyes of the very naive main character, it makes sense that it's all vague. it's very literary, very poetic. not really sure what the point was, though. read jun. 14 – 16, 2025
• 🎧 something beautiful, miley cyrus — this sounded like art rock/pop but mixed with a little lounge and disco? disco-lounge? is that a thing? i don't know, it sounded old to my millenial ears in a way i can't properly describe. (eta: maybe it's more yacht rock/pop?) it was perfectly serviceable and flowed really well, but the "old" sound and repetitive themes in the boring lyrics weren't particularly interesting to me. but it doesn't sound like anything else the pop girlies are putting out lately, so good for miley. i hope she keeps doin' the weird shit, even if i don't like it. listened jun. 14, 2025
• 📚 taiwan travelogue, yáng shuāng-zǐ — this book mostly just made me really hungry. it is mostly either people talking about food, eating food, or long descriptions of food. it all sounds sooooo good! the plot is thin, imo, but it does gently make the point about the relationship between the colonizer and colonized. i learned a lot about taiwan, too! i really wanted to go before i read this and now i really want to go! i'm gonna eat so much when i finally visit. the only thing that didn't really work for me was the translator upon translator conceit. it was needlessly confusing, and they had to actually put out an article explaining it was all fiction and there were no real people involved so clearly i wasn't the only one lost. read jun. 4 – 14, 2025
• 🎧 we are, i-dle — the rebrand is...whatever. frankly, i haven't been enjoying much of (g)i-dle's work the last few years and this album continued that. i don't know what magic soojin had, but when she left every release has been worse than the one prior. and i am so tired of the shitty, nonsensical english; it's gotta be on purpose at this point. i used to love this group so much! ah, well. listened jun. 13, 2025
• 🎧 ↺ ♡ impera, ghost — it's no mistake that the poppiest album ghost has ever released is also my favorite. add in the political/social commentary and oooh yeah, this speaks to me. a lot. i could let this play on repeat for hours and hours. relistened jun. 11, 2025
• 📽️ ↺ moonlight (2016) — sometimes the best picture winner says more about the state of american culture than the quality of the film. this is another example of that. it's a fine film, truly. beautifully shot and it covers a very important topic that is often ignored—homophobia and its effects within the black community. but is it the best of the bunch that was nominated? ehhh. my main complaint with this film is that the main character never feels like a real person. he has no interests, he barely speaks, and he spends most of his time being a traumatized victim. that's it, that's his whole character. everyone around him has more character features than he does. i could argue that kevin is more a main character than chiron because he has a full-ass character arc and development over the course of the film. chiron just...exists to be a victim and to be traumatized. it's an important story let down by this, imo. rewatched jun. 7, 2025
• 📚 summer shadows, john harris dunning, ricardo cabral, brad simpson, & jim campbell — beautiful art, boring story. i've watched and read too much stuff about vampires, i guess, because this was all so obvious and uninteresting to me. really liked the art, though! read jun. 6, 2025
• 📚 極主夫道 ‹ the way of the househusband › vol. 13, おおのこうすけ ‹ kousuke oono › — honestly, i think the concept is kinda getting played out. this didn't involve nearly as much househusbanding, and there were a lot more chapters devoted to other characters than usual. i'll keep reading, of course, but maybe this series should end sometime soon... read jun. 4, 2025
• 📚 us fools, nora lange — maybe i kinda see what this book was trying to do, but it desperately needed an editor. when it talked about a book that was published in 2013 being read in 2006...yikes. this is why editors exist! and there seemed to be whole chunks that were repeated in places, and i don't know if that was a stylistic choice or something else. i dunno. this book was weird! read may 28 – jun. 4, 2025
• 🎧 ♡ eve: romance, bibi — this album is such a vibe for me. really enjoyed the jazz influence here in the k-r&b here. it also flows really well because it's so cohesive. very much like! listened jun. 4, 2025
• 🎧 ↺ ♡ confessions on a dance floor, madonna — this is madonna's best album. i won't be taking other opinions. the mix of '70s disco-pop, '80s electro-pop, and various '90s and early '00s genres of edm is just perfect. the only skippable track is maybe "isaac" and even that depends on my mood. always a mood booster and works really well on repeat. plus, this is the last album where madonna created the trend versus followed the trend. hard candy was the album after this, and it sounded just like every other timbaland- or the neptunes-produced album that had come out in the prior two years, and she hasn't stopped chasing trends since. :( meanwhile, confessions was explicitly one of the references/inspirations for the 2020 resurgence of disco-pop, especially dua lipa's future nostalgia (absolute banger of an album). long live this album! it is the best madonna album!! relistened jun. 2, 2025
• 📺 poker face, season one — not sure i really understand the hype. it's a pretty generic "of the week" style show where the main character has an absurd amount of plot armor despite dumb decisions like always confronting the murderer without a plan or backup. the last three episodes were much better where they dropped the repetitive and stupid "charlie confronts the baddie with no plan and nearly gets killed". i do like that we spend so much time with the other characters, but it does make our main character feel flat and more of a plot device at times. i'll probably start season two at some point...it was nice to play in the background while i tried to decide on a colorway for a blanket (five contrast colors that create a tonal effect is really hard to decide! it's been three hours and i only just placed the order!). also: peacock "premium" is a worse streaming app experience on my tv than paramount+, which i didn't think was possible but the random freezing during ads until it times out even though my internet connection is absolutely fine is wild. it's extra funny that i have it for free via my isp! what a joke! watched apr. 18 – may 31, 2025
• 🎧 ↺ ♡ übermensch, g-dragon — the title is still ehhhh for those of us in the west, but as this is using the original definition, it's fine in my view, especially since this is meant for korean audiences. and honestly i love this album! g-dragon can be real hit or miss for me but this one hit across the board. i actually think this album is better if you listen to it in reverse order. this is definitely my most listened album this year. relistened may 31, 2025
• 🎧 ↺ ♡ racine carrée, stromae — this was probably my most listened album when it released in 2013. i listened to this constantly while living in south korea, and my strongest memory associated with it is walking around seoul in the summer of 2014. consequently, i love listening to it on sunny summer days even if they are unseasonably chilly. relistened may 31, 2025
• 📚 the house on mango street, sandra cisneros — not what i expected, honestly. it was far more stream of consciousness...and lacked quotation marks, which made it kinda hard to follow at some points. very interesting that it's one of the most assigned books in schools in the u.s.—presumably that's in non-small town schools like mine was, because i had never heard of this book until i moved to chicago. i kind of expected this to be more ya and not like, an allusion to the main character being raped at a carnival at one point. is it believable? yes. did i expect it in a book commonly assigned in high schools? nope! i wish it had fleshed things out a bit more rather than just be a series of impressionistic vignettes. still, i'm glad i read it and got some insight into the mexican-american immigrant experience. read may 24 – 27, 2025
• 📺 ↺ star trek: very short treks, miniseries — the day star trek isn't camp is the day star trek has ended for good. this nonsense mix of tas animation style, adult swim humor (that is absolutely the voice actor of master shake from aqua teen hunger force in episode 3 lolol), and totally game star trek actors to make a silly, silly series of short cartoons with the studio's explicit blessing and posted for all to see on the official youtube is just...so star trek. i think my favorite thing about this fandom is that it knows how to have fun, and the studio is actively encouraging the good times (there is, after all, an official star trek cruise and i have heard many stories about the partying that occurs on board!). are these good? not really! but sometimes i need that goofy-ass adult swim humor, and if it comes with ethan peck (absolute legend in star trek fandom already; we love him!) delivering the best of campy spock then i'll let my brain shut down for three minutes at a time and enjoy the hell out of this nonsense. rewatched may 27, 2025
• 📚 our moon: how earth's celestial companion transformed the planet, guided evolution, and made us who we are, rebecca boyle — i didn't dislike this book as much as this reviewer but this person does encapsulate my main complaints. i learned some stuff! but there was a lot of spiritual woo and feelings about the moon and not a lot of actual history or clearly explained science, which would have been fine if it wasn't restrained to just the typical western canon—mesopotamia, then on to greece, rome, and all the other white people. there's a passing mention of the rabbit in the moon that is seen by some asian cultures (versus the western man in the moon), but it's literally like, a footnote because i guess asian beliefs aren't important enough to discuss in a book about the moon even though she ends it on a "we're all one clinging to a ball of rock" note. truly bizarre choices in 2025. i wanted to learn more! i wanted more details! i also wanted less assumptions about my knowledge, like the author seems to assume we already know the details about the apollo missions, for instance. read may 4 – 26, 2025
• 📽️ strange days (1995) — is kathryn bigelow the best action director of our time? i think so! man, she is so good at filming all different types of action sequences. all of the action sequences in this movie look great! the story was very '90s (why did the two leads have to get together?! why did one have to be secretly in love with the other?! such stupidly '90s movie plot beats, goddamn.) with probably too much complexity and gotchas, but includes bigelow's unapologetic and unflinching pov on the militarized police state in the u.s. in some ways, this movie was ahead of its time by like 25 years...all that chaos from white cops stopping two black guys in a car. anyway, ralph fiennes's american accent is hilariously atrocious, and also i am still ambivalent on him as an an actor...angela bassett was absolutely wiping the floor with him in every single interaction on screen. but that's because angela bassett fucking rules so maybe he never stood a chance in scenes with her anyway. anyway, thus ends my movie marathon day. this was fun! watched may 25, 2025
• 📽️ the night of the hunter (1955) — this is one of those seminal movies in the american canon that is clearly the influence for so many movies that came after it but somehow isn't well known outside of major film buffs. it's also hard to classify genre-wise: is it horror? a thriller? a fairy tale? all of the above, imo! this is the only feature that charles laughton wrote and directed which is so wild... like, okay, cool, do one movie ever and just change the cinematic canon while you're at it, cool cool cool. watched may 25, 2025
• 📽️ robot dreams (2023) — what the fuck, this was so good!? and so heart-wrenching but hopeful and optimistic?! also completely silent except for some choice cuts from earth, wind & fire's discography. yeah, i'll listen to "september" all day! i am so sad i missed seeing this in the theater at ciff last year!! ugh, i loved this so much! watched may 25, 2025
• 📽️ nanook of the north (1922) — i am still trying to watch at least one documentary per month, and this month i went with another pick from the early days of film. it's fine! it's clearly mostly staged! i understand that it's not even accurate to the way inuit people were living in the 1920s and instead was trying to portray something from 100 years earlier so it's debatable if it's even nonfiction at this point. it had very much a tone of "noble savage" at a lot of points that was really irritating to watch. i also did learn how to make an igloo and the dogs were cute as fuck, so it had some value for me. also, loved that the kayaks were essentially clown cars with the last one out being a cat because why not lmao. watched may 25, 2025
• 📽️ the man who fell to earth (1976) — everyone was high as fuck while making this, right? or at least for sure during the editing process because wow, this is a jumbled mess. the plot seems pretty straightforward but they somehow made it so confusing that i wasn't always sure what was going on and who was doing what. i love david bowie's music, but i did not even like this! oh, well. watched may 25, 2025
• 📚 how to end a love story, yulin kuang — terrible title, terrible book. it didn't even make sense? like, the characters were so ill-defined that they just do stuff and it doesn't make any sense but is treated like a perfectly reasonable thing for them to do. the whole relationship makes no sense at all from either character's perspective. bad! read may 22 – 24, 2025
• 📚 vacationland, meg mitchell moore — this one was recommended by emily henry at the back of happy place as something to read "for your maine vacation" and hello, i was on a maine vacation and this was available from the library, so obviously i had to read it. this was actually quite nice. not the happiest book but it ended happily, and i quite liked all of the characters. plus, it took place in maine! which may be my new obsession because maine is fantastic and i am in love. read may 18 – 22, 2025
• 📚 happy place, emily henry — i tried so hard not to binge this one, but my plane was delayed and whoopsie, finished it in two days! mostly in an airport or on a plane. however, this one was...bad? like, it all boiled down to shitty communication and there is nothing indicating they actually fixed the communication issues so...kinda pointless? i mean, i was into it as i was also on a maine vacation so there was a fun symmetry there, but otherwise it just didn't make sense to me. but a fun, fast read, as her books always are, so i can't complain too much. it did keep me thoroughly entertained while in the philadelphia airport for many more hours than i planned! (a fine airport! i have been stuck in much worse! looking at you, newark and guangzhou!!) read may 16 – 18, 2025
• 🎧 face down in the garden, tennis — i understand this is their last album, which is sad! but it's a quiet little romantic album that was a nice listen. tennis isn't a band i go back to often, but sometimes it really does make the day a little more bearable. listened may 16, 2025
• 📚 toward eternity, anton hur — a charming little piece of speculative sci-fi. i don't know that there's a happy ending, and i don't know that i really understood all of it, but i enjoyed reading it. this might hit harder if you're big into poetry and classical music, which i am just the most surface level of a fan of both as possible. read may 11 – 15, 2025
• 📺 ↺ ♡ friends, season five — for me, this is the best season of the show. i like something in every single episode. and monica/chandler!! the most believable, realistic couple on the show and one of the best relationships on tv in general. i have seen this particular season so many times i have most of it memorized and yet i still compulsively binge the whole thing. it's basically all i've watched for the last few weeks. ross having a breakdown! rachel's new job! monica and chandler, monica and chandler!! ugh, i could go on for days about how great this season is but i'm tired! i need a nap instead! watched apr. 28 – may 14, 2025
• 📽️ ♡ sinners (2025) — since i dropped a-list, i haven't been to the theater much because have you seen these ticket prices?! seriously, this ticket for a 4:30 p.m. showing cost me $18. $18!! a-list cost me $23/month and i could see three movies per week! sheesh. if only i had the time to commute to an amc and back, i'd have kept it. anyway, i finally got around to paying an arm and a leg to see this as i was reasonably near an amc and it's my birthday month so free popcorn was on offer, and it was really worth it! the entire time i was watching it i kept thinking that this viewing experience is what watching from dusk till dawn would have been like if it was actually a good movie. i really felt the influence of that movie in this one, but it was also so totally its own thing. a great vampire movie that is actually about so many things, but most obviously cultural appropriation, black joy, and the importance of cunnilingus in a healthy relationship (they talked about it so much it felt like a very specific interest of ryan coogler's?!). so, so good. i desperately need the sequel tv show about all the shenanigans mary and stack got up to the intervening years! watched may 10, 2025
• 🎧 fancy that, pinkpantheress — this album lost me pretty quick: track 2 interpolates a classic basement jaxx song and she did not make it any better than the original...i'd say she made it markedly worse, honestly. but the younger folks seem to like it based on the "i don't know what she's interpolating but she ate!" reviews. *shrug* it's fun(?) to encounter things that i'm clearly just too old for now. gen z, listen to basement jaxx! listened may 10, 2025
• 🎧 even in arcadia, sleep token — sleep token feels to me like the metalcore version of like, taylor swift: immensely popular but just not interesting to me. kinda basic, to use an old millennial pejorative. apparently they also have a really toxic fanbase too? cool. nothing interesting happened at any point during this record. still, i enjoyed one of the singles so i'll keep listening to that on my 2025 playlist. listened may 10, 2025
• 📽️ ♡ marty (1955) — it is entirely by chance that i watched two different types of romance movies that clearly were the template for what came after...just my mood today, i guess. this one is very clearly the indie romance-with-so-much-goddamn-talking inspiration, especially the ones based in new york (looking at you, annie hall and every single movie that has imitated it but also let's call out the entire before trilogy too.). but man, what a charming movie! i really enjoyed watching marty's interactions with the people around him and i was really rooting for him to the point where i was saying aloud to the tv at the end, "good for you, marty! fuck your shitty friends!!" genuinely, good for marty. a very well done script! and the direction was just perfect with some nice, lingering shots of the sadness/loneliness that infuses the daily lives of these people. i see why it won both the palme and best picture! but holy hell, just an aside on how old as hell people in their 30s looked at this time due to the lack of sunscreen, constant exposure to secondhand smoke, and drinking alcohol instead of water! when marty said he was 34 i about choked—dude looks 45, easy! and i looked it up: in 1955 ernest borgnine was only 38! wow! good reminder to me, a soon-to-be 39-year-old, to keep wearing sunscreen and drinking water!! wow! watched may 9, 2025
• 📽️ ♡ it happened one night (1934) — i've now seen the über-rom-com and i'm not sure why i would ever need to see any other rom-com ever again, especially with how utterly charming this one is. even the tropes i find annoying as hell in modern rom-coms i found delightful in this because it's 90 years old and my brain reads it as "quaint" in a "look at these old timey people being so absurd!" kind of way. this was clearly the blueprint used by every single rom-com (in film and literature) that came after so what fun to watch! i genuinely really enjoyed this. i know the rat-a-tat-tat style of dialogue isn't for everyone, but it really just works here. the banter is so good and so funny about absolutely trivial stuff, like how to properly dunk a donut in coffee. everything about the situation is absurd, and the script absolutely calls it out with the newspaper editor being like "this story ain't real, pal!" and yet it keeps it so grounded with the real conversations between the characters. a marvel! pity clark gable was kind of a shitty person because he is charming as fuck like damn, i get his popularity. i get it. i get it. watched may 9, 2025
• 📚 うちの猫がまた変なことしてる。 ‹ my cat is such a weirdo › vol. 2, 卵山 玉子 ‹ tamako tamagoyama › — adorable kitties doing adorable things is a nice antidote to stressful days. i read this in chunks before bed to help me wind down and it was really helpful! now i need the rest of the volumes...glad i got that 10% off for the year at the manga store! read may 4 – 8, 2025
• 🎧 ♡ lost in love, found in pain (deluxe), miyavi — last year i gave this album a three?! i guess i wasn't really feeling it at that time, but i am now. i love a good j-rock album (though this is mostly in english) and i always love the chance to listen to miyavi shred on the guitar. listened may 8, 2025
• 🎧 thee black boltz, tunde adebimpe — good, but made me want to listen to tv on the radio instead. i really like "magnetic" and i'll probably keep that on my 2025 playlist, though. listened may 8, 2025
• 🎧 lucro sucio, los ojos del vacio, the mars volta — there's a review on musicboard that described this as "latin hold music" which feels perfect. this and the last album are just so totally different from what the mars volta was doing in the '00s and early '10s before they broke up. i'm glad they healed the rift, but also...this is like an entirely different band? it's not bad and i did enjoy it, but halfway through i switched to their 2012 album noctourniquet and wow, it's so different it's almost unrecognizable except for cedric's voice. i can see coming back to this album when i need to really chill out, which i can definitely say i never did with all their prog-rock weirdness before. anyway, a good example of how bands evolve and sometimes it goes in a direction i don't care for, and that's okay! listened may 7, 2025
• 🎧 true electric, röyksopp — i saved this for when i knew i'd need to do an entire afternoon of focused work, and this was perfect for that. it's basically just a bunch of remixes of most of their discography. i discovered röyksopp when i was in college and needed good paper-writing music, and they've always been a great, upbeat listen for when i'm doing something that requires more focus, but also just to listen to when i want a little mood boost. this is a fine remix album! it's nearly 4 hours though! i'll never listen again! listened may 7, 2025
• 📚 free food for millionaires, min jin lee — the last half of this book was very slow as it seemed to be going nowhere, which is kind of the point but also kind of annoying to read. i think min jin lee's style works best with something external happening for the characters to react to, which is what happened in pachinko. this just seemed to go on and on with characters being put into situations for the drama, but even that seemed to elicit only tempered reactions. that said, it was very ambitious and clearly commenting on class and the diversity of the immigrant experience in the united states, and i think it did that well. also, on the way pride can really prevent success, especially when that pride leads you to refuse a helping hand... pretty on the nose there. read apr. 27 – may 6, 2025
• 🎧 ↺ ♡ guts, olivia rodrigo — good vinyl to vibe with on a sunday. i really like olivia rodrigo, probably because she's just doing the same girl rock that was popular when i was a teenager. it's still fun! it's still got a lot of energy! the lyrics of "bad idea right?" make me laugh so hard because like, been there at her age. this is a really good album. relistened may 4, 2025
• 🎧 ↺ ♡ scarlet's walk, tori amos — my favorite tori album and i'm so pleased it was re-released on vinyl. every track hits for me. '90s and early '00s tori was unmatched! relistened may 4, 2025
• 🎧 skeletá, ghost — ghost albums are so hit-or-miss for me. i'll like some songs on most albums, but rarely does the whole album hit for me—except for impera, i'll listen to that one on a loop for hours. this is fine! i enjoyed listening! my favorite track is "lachryma" and everything else just sort of fades in comparison to that. sometimes i think maybe they focus a little too much on the theatrics at the expense of the actual music... listened may 3, 2025
• 🎧 d's wave, daesung — i am so glad that 1) we're getting bigbang member content still even though we're all in our late 30s and 2) daesung left yg and escaped the dungeon to make the music he wants to make. this is a perfectly fine rock album! he has the voice for this genre and i'm glad he's doing it. i just...don't care about it because i need to understand the lyrics when i'm listening to this particular genre. i don't speak enough korean for that, so oh well. i hope his tour does well! listened may 2, 2025
• 📽️ 12 years a slave (2013) — prior to this year where i've decided to actually try to watch best picture winners, i rarely have seen them. if i did, it was often by happenstance because the venn diagram between films the academy likes to award and the films i prefer to watch doesn't have a lot of overlap. and that's fine! also, i've always thought awards in general were bullshit and just popularity contests and i stand by that. (see: the academy voters complaining this year that they have to actually watch the films nominated before voting next year...like, c'mon.) that and biopics are not my thing! i find them to often be just about how great that person was and lacking in depth or critical engagement with the subject matter. combined, yeah, it was gonna take a project to watch all the best picture winners for me to finally watch this film (and so many others!). but you know what? i'm glad i did. this film was beautiful in its cinematography and, importantly, the way chiwetel ejiofor stared right into your soul as the viewer. the quiet moments were what really made this film for me. well deserving of best picture against some strong contenders. watched may 2, 2025
• 🎧 ↺ mayhem, lady gaga — this album is growing on me. the first two singles being so strongly dark pop did not help me like this album, honestly. it's a mix of pop genres that go from dark to the lighter side and that was jarring for me initially. but it's gaga and i love her so i knew i'd come around eventually. relistened may 2, 2025
• 📽️ ↺ gladiator (2000) — i was, indeed, entertained. another film i haven't seen in at least 20 years, and i think it's still a good time. maximus is such a well done character, imo. pity everyone else is rather two-dimensional. russell crowe winning best actor for this but not for a beautiful mind the following year still baffles me (eta: oh, he punched a bafta producer during the awards season because of course he did. he really had the market cornered on hot but angry man for a long time, didn't he? jesus.). granted, i haven't seen the latter in just as long, but in my memory he is way better in that than in this. (it did win best picture so i'll be watching it at some point and can re-examine!) technically, there are some very 2000 choices—the random fuckin' slo-mo was so funny now—but ridley scott was still on his a-game here. anyway, i don't know if i really agree that this was the best film of 2000, but also it was a pretty weak year and the ones i would pick over this were total flops at the time and have only become more known due to being "cult classics" (e.g., american psycho, almost famous, so many others). of the nominees, maybe crouching tiger or traffic was better? i don't really remember either of those though... anyway, i looked up the sequel and lucius is turned into a gladiator and basically repeats the plot from this film? okay, whatever, i'm probably not watching that any time soon then. rewatched may 1, 2025
• 🎧 sable, fable, bon iver — honestly, i think i liked the ep version of this that dropped earlier this year better! it's definitely the strongest bon iver has been in quite a while, though. very good listen! will probably do so again sometime! listened apr. 30, 2025
• 📺 ↺ friends, season four — like most network shows pre-streaming, this is where the show finally is really in its groove. just good ep after great ep after good ep. i had forgotten that this season starts with ross and rachel maybe getting back together to ross marrying emily at the end lmao. it must have been so rough for those ross/rachel fans, but thankfully for me i am a monica/chandler fan and this is it!! this is where it starts!! now i have six more glorious seasons of monica/chandler and their believable relationship to watch. anyway, this season has the iconic apartment swap/trivia game and oh boy, that episode is still so fun. just a fun time to watch this for the...i don't even know how many times i've seen this show. it aired constantly in syndication and is an easy leave-on-in-the-background show. looking forward to the next season: "tow everybody finds out" is coming! rewatched apr. 27, 2024 – apr. 27, 2025
• 📚 a registry of my passage upon the earth: stories, daniel mason — wonderful stories. all very different from each other but elegantly written about the human condition. i really like daniel mason's writing. what a wonderful discovery his work has been this year. read apr. 23 – 26, 2025
• 📽️ ↺ haywire (2011) — the only reason i rewatched this is a long story best summarized in my friend's letterboxd entry about star wars: episode iii and then looking at the cast list of this movie. (i cannot believe we have been having an ongoing conversation about this for like five months!!) this is a terrible movie where no one is even trying to act because gina carano cannot act at all but she sure does beat up dudes really well, so it's fine enough to have on while making a list of all the books i bought today during the indie bookstore crawl (did i need to buy that many? no. but i went to 10 stores to get that sweet 10% off at all 55 participating stores all year so the least i can do is buy a book or two at each place!). it is hilarious how everyone's line delivery is flat as hell to match the lead's. the cinematography is largely garbage! just terrible! i hope whatever the rest of the cast got in return for this giant favor of showing up in this movie was great! rewatched apr. 26, 2025
• 📽️ green and gold (2024) — i was looking at the movies page in the hoopla app and for some reason this was listed, and the title made me pause. then i read the description and they really did make a movie filmed in wisconsin in the area i grew up in about the family farming crisis of the early '90s and tied it to a memorable green bay packers season. like, i remember watching those games on my family farm as a seven-year-old! i especially remember that playoff loss to the cowboys (fuck the cowboys man). fuckin' wild to see basically my childhood on screen. and it was produced by culver's?! the movie itself was very hallmark and what i expected it to be. i noticed some reviews saying it's a stealth christian movie because the characters go to church and pray but like...those kind of people are christian?! why hide it?! it wasn't the focus of the movie, just a part of their lives and part of being in that community. bizarre reaction. also, what sort of degenerate-ass priest in wi runs service so late on a sunday that it interferes with a packers game?! clearly he's a stealth bears or cowboys fan! anyway, i want a butterburger now. i think i'll be hitting up a culver's soon! also: naming the pig "ditka" was just perfect. love it. go packers. (how apt i watched this while the nfl draft is happening in green bay lol) watched apr. 25, 2025
• 📽️ die abenteuer des prinzen achmed ‹ the adventures of prince achmed › (1926) — the first (surviving) animated film and it's directed by a woman! hell yeah! this was nice enough. i was mostly impressed by the technical aspect. it's essentially shadow puppets but with paper and on film. wild! given the time and that it's adapting a story from the arabian nights, it was also vaguely racist and misogynist at least 70% of the time, but, hey, that's 1926 for ya. watched apr. 25, 2025
• 📚 ↺ ♡ say uncle, kay ryan — i think what i appreciate about kay ryan's poems is that they seem so lighthearted and witty, but are actually deeply thoughtful and even insightful. this is my favorite collection of hers and it's a pleasure to reread it. reread apr. 24, 2025
• 📚 slaughterhouse-five, or the children's crusade, kurt vonnegut, ryan north, & albert monteys — a classic anti-war novel reimagined as a comic worked quite well. i had forgotten how random the trafamadorians are and the whole people zoo thing. so it goes, indeed. read apr. 18 – 23, 2025
• 📚 crosstalk, connie willis — the fmc sucked!! she was so dumb!! and annoyingly i've known people just like her in real life, but damn i didn't want to read a whole-ass book about how if they just stopped and listened to someone's complete sentence, so much hassle could be saved. honestly, all the adults in this book were insane. the nine-year-old was the most rational character. everyone was annoying and i guessed the ending twist with 200 pages to go because it was so obvious. so, whatever. read apr. 16 – 22, 2025
• 📚 the art of frugal hedonism, annie raiser-rowland & adam grubb — honestly i had forgotten to read a nonfiction book this month and there is no way i'm making it through the j.s. mill treatise i'm reading in a week, so i grabbed this audiobook off spotify (here's a frugal tip: get the most out of your subscriptions!). it was fine, but weirdly condescending. the advice is all obvious to me but i also grew up on a farm in a family that had to be frugal, so maybe this hits harder for those that don't have my background. the romanticizing of the 1950s was sure weird, though. i know the authors are aussie but to assert that people had better lives in the 1950s...yowza. they are clearly very white, and frankly this is a great example of the intersection of crunchy white folk with white supremacy and the crunchy-to-far-right pipeline. i'll probably avoid anything else by these authors in the future as a result. the audiobook itself was fine and i was pleased it was an aussie-accented reading (am i in the minority by liking the aussie accent? maybe!), though sometimes it sounded like the narrator was laughing at the text. anyway, i did manage to finish the poncho including the hour-plus it took to do that damn tubular bind off while listening to this, so that's a win! listened apr. 21 – 22, 2025
• 📽️ the battle of san pietro (1945) — i don't think i've ever seen one of these "documentaries" (propaganda) sponsored/produced by the u.s. war department during wwii. this was interesting in that it was very unflinching, which was probably john huston asserting himself a bit. ends on the typical american exceptionalism and the view of ourselves as the great liberators that has come to pervade the public view (via self-reinforcing propaganda) for the conflicts we've gotten involved in ever since wwii. i got a surprising amount out of this 38 minutes. watched apr. 20, 2025
• 📽️ jurassic park (1993) — i honestly just watched this so people will finally leave me alone about having never seen this in its entirety. dinosaurs weren't interesting to me as a kid, and they still aren't interesting to me as an adult. i might have enjoyed this more when i was kid, though. this was boring as hell as an adult: bunch of people making quips and every possible bad decision on offer while some poor kids are inexplicably dragged along for the ride and somehow aren't eaten. people talk about jeff goldblum in this movie a lot and all i saw was jeff goldblum acting the same way he's always acted in movies? just with his shirt off for a scene? he's funny with charisma, but that's kind of all he does in almost everything i've seen him in excepting the fly. laura dern's character was very '90s feminist with the one-liners, which was entertaining to see again—been awhile for me. anyway, it took me the entire duration of this movie to pick up all the neckline stitches and get the first round knitted on the poncho i'm making, which was humbling. one day i'll be good at picking up stitches, but that day is clearly not today! watched apr. 19, 2025
• 📽️ ↺ ♡ chicago (2002) — i'm a known musical hater, but this one actually works for me largely because the musical numbers are almost all in roxie's head (and make sense because she's obsessed with being a star) and the cast can actually sing and dance. the casting is outstanding for this film, honestly. each of the leads can sing/dance, and they have unique stage presences that play off of each other really well. the costumes and staging are top-notch. the direction is great. i don't usually agree with the best picture winners, but this one was definitely well and above the rest that were nominated in 2003. and, frankly, i don't think there's been a better musical adaptation since this one. it's fun! the songs are catchy! everyone looks fuckin' great! i can't believe it's been like 20 years since i last saw this! rewatched apr. 19, 2025
• 📽️ ↺ the artist (2011) — films that are love letters to hollywood are always nominated and usually win at least one oscar, truly. this film doesn't have a lot of plot going on and what plot exists is stretched way too thin across the runtime, but it does have jean dujardin and a dog being charming as hell together. an enjoyable, light watch for a weekend. rewatched apr. 19, 2025
• 📺 futurama, season nine (or twelve) — okay, so in a season with levar burton guesting and a whole episode about coffee where a character spent a not insignificant amount of time exclaiming that there was coffee in various places, there wasn't a single "there's coffee in that nebula!" even when they were in space talking with the prehistoric coffee aliens?! come on!!! the nerds writing this show disappointed me yet again! anyway, this season was better than the last few. it felt more like classic futurama and the jokes weren't as stale. although: still no robot devil! bring back the robot devil!! watched apr. 11 – 18, 2025
• 📽️ the quiet earth (1985) — love a good sci-fi movie that ponders the meaning of existence and then ends with a wtf. this was interesting, though clearly low budget. i have no idea if anything happening to the main character was real or not, either. anyway, a good watch while it rains. watched apr. 18, 2025
• 📚 猫暮らしのゲーマーさん ‹ cat + gamer › vol. 7, 灘谷航 ‹ wataru nadatani › — there's only one more volume of cute cats getting up to regular cat shenanigans at home while a new pet parent struggles to deal with all the cat shenanigans?! this volume was just like all the others: adorable and lighthearted! i can't believe i'll only get one more after this, wtf. read apr. 18, 2025
• 📽️ ↺ no country for old men (2007) — back to (re)watching oscar best picture winners. i hadn't seen this film since probably 2008, and it's still a relevant allegory for these times. that and javier bardem's mushroom hair is still a crime against javier bardem, but damn is it memorable. this also reminded me i've been meaning to read the book this is based on for *checks calendar* 18 years. i'll get to it. rewatched apr. 17, 2025
• 📚 funny story, emily henry — i'm sure people do it, but i have no idea how to not binge emily henry's books. they instantly pull me in. this one got me especially because i felt especially seen/called out by the fmc, goddamnit. i can tell emily henry grew up in the midwest because usually her characters all have one or more of the deep psychological issues you encounter in white people 'round these parts. i don't know that i cared that much about miles (he is exactly the kind of nice/kind but deeply traumatized by shit parents white guy i've seen around the midwest my whole life. my dudes, go to therapy!! at least miles went no contact; good for him!), but i'm here for daphne and ashleigh's friendship and daphne's journey. i'll probably forget about this one quickly though—one of the highlights was the reference to the characters in beach read lol. read apr. 12 – 13, 2025
• 📚 james, percival everett — adventures of huckleberry finn was one of my favorites growing up and it still is, so i was pretty excited to see what percival everett did with jim. in the original, jim is a person in his own right but in a limited way. here he is a full-fledged human, which is great. i also really liked that this book addresses that huck finn is likely a biracial character—for years i have believed that about the character. i could never explain why, but in memory he is always biracial and then the original story throws me for a loop when it's like, "he's white!" huh? it's maybe a little wish fullfillment-y at the end, but if you can't do that with a reimagining, where can you?! i enjoyed this quite a lot, and it was a fast-paced read just like the original while adding so much more context to the original. read apr. 8 – 13, 2025
• 📚 the road to roswell, connie willis — this was so silly and i enjoyed it a lot because of how silly it was. there's this sub-genre in sci-fi where the alien is just a poor wittle thing who needs some help and love and probably a hug or two and this is one of those books, which is hilarious when it's a ball of tentacles that rolls around like a tumbleweed. indy is adorable! indy can fix everything! indy just wants to be besties and ride around in an rv with a bunch of human friends! sure, why not? silly fun! read apr. 6 – 13, 2025
• 📽️ ↺ ♡ office space (1999) — every year, my work life becomes even more like office space and dilbert cartoons, i swear. this film does meander a bit in the back half, but it's still so accurate that i can't even a little dislike it. replace the memos with emails, for instance, and that is just as relevant today ("did you see the email?"). when peter asks the hypnotherapist if he could have basically the entire conceit of severance done to him...relatable. also, if you've ever dealt with the monstrosity that is the printer/fax/photocopier in an office, the scene in the field is so cathartic. anyway, 1999 was a great year for film. rewatched apr. 10, 2025
• 📺 futurama, season eight (or eleven) — a revival of a revival probably wasn't needed, yeah? of course they had a sense of humor about it in the first episode, but so many of the topics feel like, 3–5 years too late at this point. at least they let amy and kif appear as a couple again. the robot devil had one scene which is an absolute travesty, imo. anyway, it was fine. watched apr. 6 – 10, 2025
• 🎧 hurry up tomorrow, the weeknd — so long, so mediocre. i've never been a huge the weeknd fan, and this just seems like a rehash of everything he's done before and for an hour and a half for some reason. yawn. listened apr. 10, 2025
• 🎧 _love & hyperbole, alessia cara__ — love the title! a good listen! probably won't go back to it! listened apr. 9, 2025
• 🎧 blood on the silver screen, sasami — fine! totally forgettable! i think i only listened to this because it had some good reviews on musicboard, tbh. my taste really doesn't align with most of the users on there, i'm finding. listened apr. 8, 2025
• 🎧 forever is a feeling, lucy dacus — some of my queer lady friends love boygenius and i am ambivalent about them, but i checked out this solo album from a member of that group and it's good! i'll probably never listen to it again as it's not my vibe, but it's good! listened apr. 8, 2025
• 🎧 rarely do i dream, youth lagoon — i have never cared much for youth lagoon's music, but i really enjoyed "speed freak" so i checked out the full album when it came out and...i have never cared much for youth lagoon's music! ah, well. listened apr. 8, 2025
• 🎧 for melancholy brunettes (& sad women), japanese breakfast — a pleasant listen and generally well done, but not something i'll go back to despite being a melancholy brunette. listened apr. 8, 2025
• 🎧 alter ego, lisa — lisa, girl, if you're gonna do a series of songs from different characters' vantage points, you have to tell us who the fuck these characters are really clearly. what a mess of an album. it kind of made me want to go back and listen to tori amos's american doll posse which i don't think did this concept well either but at least it was consistent, unlike this album. listened apr. 8, 2025
• 📚 horror movie, paul tremblay — this came in from the library while i was reading the deluge and i attempted to use it as my night reading instead, but it just wasn't interesting enough in comparison so it just sat for a while. the format is fun—it's an audiobook narration read by the protagonist, and it's sliced in with the original screenplay for the movie. but where it went? meh. it was pretty obvious to me, and it just wasn't an interesting ending. i read this specifically because i loved the short story "the last conversation" by this author. maybe i'll check out more short stories by him...this novel could have been a novella, honestly, and i think it would have been far better. read mar. 22 – apr. 6, 2025
• 📺 ↺ ♡ severance, season two — rewatching really is required with this show. there is so much more context around everything, and i'm also able to enjoy it more because i'm not waiting anxiously for gemma to finally get her episode. speaking of, her episode is still the best of the series so far, and catapulted her to the top of my character list. i want everything gemma next season. actually, what i really want is a team-up between gemma, outie irving, outie burt and fields, devon and ricken, and cobel to take down lumon. fuck lumon, man!! at this point i'm more invested in what happens outside than inside as it seems like inside is now on borrowed time (and their expressions in the last shot of the season show they know it!). anyway, great character development as usual, mostly strong writing, and a lot of unexpected laughs. this show is great, and i hope season three doesn't take three years. rewatched mar. 30 – apr. 6, 2025
• 🎧 so close to what, tate mcrae — more perfectly good pop music! i liked "sports car" so i'll listen to that one a few more times this year. the rest was forgettable. listened apr. 4, 2025
• 🎧 short 'n' sweet (deluxe), sabrina carptenter — perfectly good pop music. the deluxe didn't have anything i was too interested in, but it did get "espresso" stuck in my head again. i do enjoy that song still! listened apr. 4, 2025
• 🎧 glory, perfume genius — absolutely lovely! i don't go back to perfume genius a lot, but damn, this album is strong. listened apr. 5, 2025
• 📚 ♡ the deluge, stephen markley — storygraph has a descriptor ("mood") for books called "challenging" and, generally, i haven't often agreed with my fellow readers on the books that deserve that description. but this book? "challenging" fits it perfectly. it was so good and incredibly engrossing, but also so hard to read. i would read one chapter and then lie awake (don't read this in bed!!), or read a few chapters and just be down for the rest of the day. it's very well-written, and very incisive, and also disturbingly close to american reality as "speculative fiction." stephen markley really gets what makes us tick, and it's tough as hell to read nearly 900 pages chronicling how many ways we will shoot ourselves in the foot no matter our social class or any other identifiers only to finally kinda, sorta snap a half victory from the jaws of defeat. "american exceptionalism" is such a sickness that's embedded so deeply in every one of us (especially us white folk, but no one's immune...it seeps in, honestly) that it makes us act crazy more often than not, and sometimes about the most mundane shit. not that other countries came off any better in this, but it was mostly about america, americans, and our fucked up collective psychology even in the face of climate disaster and mass extinction. each character felt so real and lived in and at least half of them were kinda like people i've known irl here in the u.s. this was just such a remarkable book that i will almost certainly never read again. at least i'll be able to sleep better finally. (note to self: do not read his prior book while trying to fall asleep when it comes in from the library!!) read mar. 10 – apr. 4, 2025
• 🎧 bunky becky birthday boy, sleigh bells — okay, i'll be honest, all sleigh bells albums basically sound the same to me. whether or not i like one really has to do with my mood at the time i listen to it. i like this one! listened apr. 4, 2025