bironic

Catching up on year-end roundups. Let's see if I have the oomph to reply to comments or post mini-reviews of any of these.

( 34 books in 2023 )

( 39 books in 2024 )

Continued from here

( Less than half the usual number, but I'm surprised it was even this many. )

I didn't write up any of these. Feel free to ask for or offer opinions.

disgruntled_owl reprised last year's autumn reading challenge, much to our friend group's delight. This is where participants rack up points for pages read and for completing Bingo- and/or Yahtzee-style boards and then trade them in for small prizes at a pizza party because we miss the '80s. After reading almost nothing during this summer's chaos, I finished 24 books over the 11-week game. One short of a Bingo card blackout, but that's all right.

That's a lot of books (for you), you might say, especially since in the previous 11 weeks I'd read about four. And you would be correct. We are looking at the consequences of depression/moving recovery, obsessiveness and the motivation that arises from gamification. Also, a few of the books were for young readers.

Favorite read: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Runner up: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Least favorite: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (DNF)
Timely reads: Doctor Sleep by Stephen King and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Took the most concentration: Squee from the Margins: Fandom and Race by Rukmini Pande
Featured the most butts: Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat: A Graphic Novel by Faye Perozich and Daerick Gross
Chewiest: Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Consuming that much media in that short a time generated some interesting comparisons. Like between Life of Pi and the movie The Lighthouse: mirror souls/shadow selves, which story is "true," whether "the truth" matters. Or The Deep by Rivers Solomon and The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill: the problems that arise from loss of collective vs. individual memory.

Here are my thoughts on all the books, if you want them! Summaries are adapted from our communal reading spreadsheet.

( 23 mini book reviews, from Bunnicula to Our Town to Gideon the Ninth )

( A longer one for Life of Pi )

( 2 DNFs )

Gotta post these before another month goes by. Continued from here.

( ~30 books )

Want to post in more detail about several of these. One day, one day. Until then, feel free to ask.

WATCHING

So much stuff while alpheratz visited.

The ten 11 episodes that've aired so far of the Taiwanese m/m dramedy HIStory3 – Trapped, one of her current fandoms. It's like if someone wrote an earnest but naïve AU where the original high school-aged characters become either police detectives or gangsters and half of them are in clueless love with the other half, only that's the canon. I liked the clam who started needing to fight to keep the amusement from his expression at the antics and/or obliviousness of his crush, whose ears recall Colin Morgan's as Merlin.

Our first episodes of Hot Ones, the YouTube show where celebrities eat a series of increasingly spicy wings between interview questions. We started with Jeff Goldblum, because Jeff Goldblum, and also because the emcee at a recent Jeff Goldblum-themed burlesque modeled her between-act hot wings schtick on his episode. Warning for "daddy" language at the YouTube link, which also featured prominently in the burlesque commentary. :( Our favorite, however, was Gordon Ramsay, hands down. After skipping ahead to when the spice started kicking in, we hurt ourselves laughing. I see we still have contestants like Michael B. Jordan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Key & Peele and Charlize Theron to look forward to.

The Kenyan f/f movie Rafiki. Enjoyed. Much lingering on beautiful faces, much detail of a few families' lives on the outskirts of Nairobi. Tricky for those seeking happy LGBT+ media, although where the ending falls on the spectrum of happiness or unhappiness depends on your perspective, and we are, after all, talking about a film that was largely banned in its originating country, where you can be imprisoned for 10+ years for having same-sex relations, according to *cough* the movie's Wikipedia page. Hope to hear from hermionesviolin or others who went to a special screening last night with guest commentary.

The sweet and uplifting Turkish documentary Kedi. If I'd known the movie was not simply about following street cats around Istanbul but also about the people who care for them and those people's views on life, I'd have watched it sooner. But the delay paid off in that I was able to experience it with someone who loves cats. A heartening portrait of community building and doing right by others, including animals.

Half of the Netflix show Special. We appreciated the importance of what it's doing, but the secondhand embarrassment, prominence of plots involving lying and coercion, self-conscious overuse of slang, and focus on the physical aspects of relationships proved too much.

And more, including this week's Game of Thrones episode, which I enjoyed, and which served as payback for Trapped since alpheratz got invested despite not having seen any of the show before. Anything further on GoT requires its own post.

ETA: and here it is; warning for S8 spoilers.

Thing I did not catch: The DS9 documentary What We Left Behind. I can't believe its only theatrical showing nationwide was last night! I've been enjoying the sprinkle of reactions and screencaps on Twitter but would very much like to see the whole thing when it's released on DVD or whatnot.

VIDDING

Nothing at the moment, although I'd like to make the sports movie vid in time for the FanWorksCon dance party deadline next month. (I can't seem to bring myself to call the party by its proper name of Sparkle Motion. As if its silliness detracts from the work that goes into the submissions. My issue to deal with.)

I don't think I've described the roadblock? Aside from time and desire, that is. Just that I'm trying an editing experiment that makes use of a small source list when those sources are an idiosyncratic drop in the ocean of sports movies, and I don't know how to explain-slash-justify the selection. Part of my brain knows it shouldn't matter, but another part wants a defense ready when someone complains. This was supposed to be a way to loosen up...

Spotify subscription continues to do its job of building playlists and sparking new vid song ideas. Unfortunately, those ideas refuse to align with current projects or sources I'd ever planned to vid. :) The second one so far is a moody female-vocalist folk song I think would be great for Jon Snow or the whole Stark family on Game of Thrones, but I do not want to make it myself. Too bad a handful of vidding auctions closed earlier this spring, or I could've pitched it to killabeez or sisabet or someone.

READING

Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now by Jane Burka & Lenora Yuen, a self-help book about various roots of procrastination, what it does for different people, and how readers might address their particular issues. Early pages seemed simplistic until the authors would come at you with stuff like 'when you consider a single piece of work as representing your entire capability, and you equate your capability with your worth as a person, then of course delaying completion of the project helps you put off confronting the fear that you're unlovable.' Now to find out whether the second half—the advice portion—has useful ideas that translate into effective behaviors. And yes, the running joke with friends and colleagues has been, "Have you read it yet?"

The book-length poem IRL by Tommy Pico, mostly because I wanted the foundation before reading Nature Poem, the second of four books so far in the series. It's strange reading on page what seems more like performance poetry; it's too bad our library doesn't have an audiobook version. I liked the excerpt from Nature Poem about the white ladies in the Museum of Natural History that appeared in New Poets of Native Nations, and Pico's audio version, recorded, ironically, for a museum exhibit, which Heid Erdrich played for us at the New Poets book event last fall, made the experience all the better.

Recently finished:

- Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse
- The True Queen by Zen Cho
- The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

They were all fine. If I were feeling better in the head, I'd probably label them "good."

Going to see Karen Russell (Swamplandia!, Vampires in the Lemon Grove) tomorrow with disgruntled_owl.

Doing: I confess I am not doing great, friends. It's probably just cyclical biochemistry, but combined with shenanigans at the office and acknowledgement that I need to turn back to medicine in search of help for stuff that therapy didn't budge after two years—even though it was dissatisfaction with medical solutions that sent me to therapy in the first place—there's been more than the usual amount of existential reflection and droopiness. Work is not getting done. Fun is not really happening either. I feel defeated in several arenas. Stuff annoys me everywhere I turn: an intractable audio delay on the Roku I bought over the holidays because the old one couldn't run apps anymore, road closures, bloggers' overuse of parentheses, con and other event organizers inviting original submissions without enough lead time, continuing frustration that so many Twitter users who cross my dashboard don't, to name one of many behaviors, track down original sources before RTing commentary.

This, too, shall pass.

Good things: Friend J. and I attended a book talk and signing with a powerhouse trio: G. Willow Wilson and Helen Oyeyemi interviewed by Kelly Link. It had its moments, but I wish it had gone deeper. The bookstore event organizer and Link both mentioned a conversation the authors had had earlier in the evening, and that sounded better than what we got. By contrast, last night coworker R. and I went to an alternately entertaining and illuminating talk with Werner Herzog, done conversation-style with a classics professor who has collaborated with him on ten films. It ran two hours with Q&A and could have gone longer, as far as we were concerned. Well, not the Q&A part; the questions and "questions" were of that painful sort that come from university students trying to sound smart.

My sister came to town for about 36 hours on her latest gig, with the Russian National Ballet, so disgruntled_owl and I got to hang with her. For those of you who are new here, my sister is basically a freelance tour manager for musicians. My favorite part was when one guy, whose English was better than most of the troupe's, gently teased her in the green room for eating sushi without drinking beer, and then a few minutes later, while watching the evening's performance of Swan Lake, I discovered he played the prince. Having seen the dancers offstage at the hotel and at the mall added a fun layer to the viewing experience: that one over there, she's the one who made an adorable pout when told the venue wifi wasn't working, and those two have just recovered from a bad landing and a fight, respectively…. Also, did you know the ballet has alternate endings? In this version, to the probable benefit of the children in the audience, Rothbart got defeated and Odette and the prince lived happily ever after.

Last and perhaps least, I replaced the living room area rug I'd disliked for five years. Pretty. (Not my apartment.)

Reading: Local friends are wrapping up a March mini-version of our autumn reading challenge. I decided to use the communal motivation to finish some books I was stuck on, plus one I'd had on the shelf for 20 years, A Canticle for Leibowitz. So at least some books made it back to the library completed after the maximum number of renewals and a few cents in fines.

Fanfic-wise, I tried some Star Trek: Discovery fic and have enjoyed this person Alethia's collection of Christopher Pike/Michael Burnham stories, except for one thing. They have excellent banter and good character voices and a variety of simple yet enjoyable premises, but there's little to no attention paid to the incredible breach of protocol inherent in a ship's captain sleeping with a crew member. It's either not mentioned at all, or it's brushed aside in a line or two. For me, that's a big disappointment. Also, the author likes italics more than I like reading them, because you shouldn't have to rely on them to indicate what you want emphasized, and even if they add force and movement to words like thrust in a sex scene, you don't need them multiple times per paragraph. Okay, see above re: being easily annoyed. At least it's not The Magicians, where, I'm told, fandom has decided fic should be written in the style of e.e. cummings.

Watching + Vidding: Ask me about the time I watched an entire TV show for Equinox Exchange after saying it was going to be a low-effort project. That's done now, and over the weekend I returned to a sports movie vid I'd been planning two years ago but set aside when Fandom Trumps Hate came along. It has structure. Structure is my friend. When I'm feeling less despondent I would like to work on the vid I suuuuuper owe deelaundry, as well as other projects recently mentioned here. And, you know, actually finish something.

How are you?

Continued from here.

I've got an unfinished set of book and movie reviews titled "Lightning Round" because it was going to be super quick. It's dated September 23. Ha ha ha. Here is the list anyway. If and when I finish that post, I'll add the links here. ETA: Link added!

( 24 novels, 3 novellas, 7 graphic novel volumes, 5 short story collections, 3 nonfictions, 3 poetry collections, 1 play )

Total for the year:

• 35 novels
• 8 novellas + 1 partial
• 12 graphic novel volumes
• 6 short story collections + 1 partial
• 9 memoirs & nonfiction
• 3 poetry collections
• 1 play

a.k.a. 74 complete + 2 partial, a.k.a. about 25 more books than usual.

Quick-and-dirty demographics:

• Women & nonbinary: 39 authors/poets + 4 coauthors/illustrators, 31 books
• Native: 28 authors/poets, 8 books
• Other non-white: 5 authors + 2 coauthors/illustrators, 7 books
• Translations: 2 books + some poems

As always, happy to talk about any of these.

( An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (2017) )

( Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (2018) )

( Guardian angels & other monsters by Daniel H. Wilson (2018) )

( Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead (2018) )

( New Poets of Native Nations, ed. Heid Erdrich (2018) )

( A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (2016) )

On the theme of enjoying sequels more than the originals, I'm almost finished with Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, which catered more to my tastes than Uprooted (which I did like), and the third Murderbot book, Rogue Protocol, came in at the library.

To review in a separate post: Art and Fear by David Bayles & Ted Orland

( 11 novels, 5 novellas, 5 batches of comics/graphic novels, 4 memoirs & diaries, 2 nonfictions, 2 short story collections )

Currently reading: An Unkindness of Ghosts - Rivers Solomon
Up next: Trail of Lightning - Rebecca Roanhorse

As always, happy to talk about any of these.

Remember that post from January about how our bus-mates came together to support substitute drivers who didn't know the route? Rinse and repeat 25 times, toss in some other transit shenanigans, and finally I had to change my commute in order to get to and from work on any sort of reasonable schedule. The new method is much more consistent but requires transferring and only provides a 50/50 shot of snagging a seat, which cuts into my reading time.

That said, I'm still on track to have read an average of a book a week for January-June this year. Hoping that continues.

Some reads since last we spoke!

( Bear in a Bookshop by Zoe Chant (friend) )

( Descender vols. 1-5 by Jeff Lemire & Dustin Nguyen et al )

( Autonomous by Annalee Newitz )

( Artificial Condition by Martha Wells (Murderbot book two) )

( In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan )

( The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay (reread) )