What a week! Between movies, wrapping up some books, taking Ripley to the vet, attending book club, and having to travel to an on-site, day-long meeting, I’m exhausted!
Reading
This week, I finished up The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin. I enjoyed the book! I haven’t read much “weird” fiction before, and I mainly know Lovecraft for his reputation as a (severe) racist. It was refreshing to read Jemisin’s version of it and all of its intricacies. The book wasn’t perfect - the pacing in the back half felt super rushed, and I felt like everything came a little easy to our protagonists.
Nonetheless, Jemisin is a special writer. Her portrayals here of anxiety, fear, and how those things connect to fuel hate, is powerful. Further, her prose itself is a delight to read. I particularly enjoyed her refusal to get caught up in highly technical explanations of how the magic in this world works - it’s magic! A great example of soft worldbuilding (link to a video I watched this week on hard and soft worldbuilding).
I gave this a 4/5 on Goodreads (full review here).
Book Club covered this book, and the discussion was a ton of fun! Especially hearing from folks who are from New York (especially Staten Island), who spent time there, was helpful for the story. I also loved hearing folks express how they saw themselves in the book and related to the experiences of the characters as people of color and folks with similar life experiences. I found the characters wonderfully written and easy to connect to, and I feel like that was a common thought. I love hearing how others are reading and viewing stories and characters in ways that I am not and sometimes cannot.
I also finished The Star Fox by Paol Anderson - I wish I could say I liked it. I gave it a 2/5 on Goodreads (full review here). I picked it up because the next book club book is very long, and I wanted a few light and breezy sci-fi pulps to cleanse my palette. Well, live and learn. This title is a “fixup” of three short stories, apparently (I didn’t know that going in). I bought it looking for something akin to the Nintendo 64 game STAR FOX 64, with starfighters and dogfights in space. Not so! Even when we’re on the verge of these, the author rudely skips everything interesting.
The author, instead, gives time to a rather plodding alien planet survival sludge, and the main character’s incredibly dated misogyny. I also could have done without the little George Washington role-play the main character engages in through the final segment of the story. Oh well!
After that disappointment, I started to re-read one of my all-time favorite books: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I am so pleased to be revisiting it!
Watching
What a week for movies!
I wrote elsewhere about watching MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME, TINA, LE SAMOURAI, and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 (Letterboxd reviews linked to each). Rounding out the week, I engaged in some light superheroing.
AMERICAN SPLENDOR - I watched this to prep for the 70mm Podcast episode - what a picture! I gave it 3.5/5 stars (full review here). I’d never have watched this if not for the pod. Technically a comic book movie, but sort of about a comic book. A really interesting interplay of animation and the different views of Pekar that are well known in the comic (which I was not familiar with). I felt deeply seen by Giamatti’s Pekar saying, “I’m an active guy!” while he’s propped up in his boxers and tank top on his couch.
BATMAN & ROBIN - really lives up to its reputation as very bad. I couldn’t sputter out any more than a few words for my Letterboxd review of this one-star-at-best flick. Look how they ruined one of my favorite villains (Mr. Freeze!).
SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE - (no story spoilers, but I do mention some characters who show up). What does it look like when a film gets everything right? A lot like this. A follow-up to the literally-perfect SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (2018), this sequel does it again. I was stricken anew by the animation style of this film - the makers are so thoughtful with the different styles and how they reflect each character’s personality and emotions all at once. Some of the panels of Gwen and her father are flat-out art in a movie that really does elevate us out of easy superhero flicks and into art.
The soundtrack and score are absolute bangers. INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE made incredible use of Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower.” I’m not sure there is as clear a stand-out hit with ACROSS, but Daniel Pemberton’s score has several incredible pieces of work.
I particularly loved the Indian themes “Spider-Man India (Pavitr Prabhakar)” and “Mumbattan Madness” - they are so fun, focused, and put to great use in the film. These instantly went to my Get-Shit-Done playlist. The tear-jerker leitmotif from INTO is present again, weaved throughout a few songs, and it keeps all of its weight with it here, too.
All of the cameos of the various Spider-Men across the multiverse were so fun. Also - this movie does the multiverse well. I’ve been so sick of multiverse stories. I liked NO WAY HOME (apparently enough to give it 4.5/5 stars on Letterboxd, which I suspect needs some revising since I didn’t leave a review), but it is exceptionally boring to have a multi-verse where all of your primaries are functionally the exact same. It’s emotional to see Toby and Andrew there again, of course it is! But the wonder of seeing so many new Spider-Men, with different stories, different personalities, different cultures, and how these things weave in together - this is what a multiversal work should be.
The ending of the movie felt a little disjointed - it starts to end and then keeps going a few too many times, clearly laying the webwork for the next movie. Regardless, it felt a lot like reading a bunch of your favorite comics all at once. I gave it 4.5/5 on Letterboxd. It’s pretty remarkable that one of the directors of this - Joaquim Dos Santos - also put out SUPERMAN/SHAZAM! THE RETURN OF BLACK ADAM, which I watched last week and found dreadful.
On the TV and Youtube front - I haven’t done much concentrated watching. I continue to put on old video game lore videos for background noise. I did finally watch a video that’s been on my watch later list for ages, though - Hello Future Me’s exploration of Hard Worldbuilding vs Soft Worldbuilding, examining Studio Ghibli and the works of Tolkien. I really enjoyed it!
Listening
Took out several vinyls this week while I was getting some work done. I’d forgotten that I ordered Daft Punk’s 10-anniversary edition of Random Access Memories, and had a great time listening along. I still don’t like Pharrell’s voice for either “Get Lucky” or “Lose Yourself to Dance,” but I don’t find it as grating as I did when I listened to these for the first time, walking up and down Halsted in Chicago.
I was super pleased with some of the extras on this pressing! Particularly, “Infinitely Repeating” with Julian Casablancas and The Voidz. Julian has a beautiful voice; “Instant Crush” was my favorite from the original run of this. The percussion on this track, with the gentle synth/piano driving everything on under Julian’s lightly modulated voice is relaxing and carries the listener off smoothly. And what a cool video!
“Prime” really put me in the headspace of Daft Punk’s work on the TRON: LEGACY soundtrack, in a great way. Despite being, supposedly, unfinished, it has a great bass progression with some very cool arpeggios leading into lovely strings that drive through the rest of the track. The final segment of it reminds me a lot of the Eurythmics, in such a good way. I wish I had the words to describe it - I really enjoyed it! It’s heartbreaking we won’t get to hear more of Daft Punk’s work along this line.
Following that, I, of course, went straight into Daft Punk’s Tron: Legacy score, then into Mac DeMarco’s This Old Dog, which happened to be sitting on my player. I love both of these.
For streaming, a lot of my staples remain in heavy rotation. Ginger Root, The Arcs, Seatbelts. Particularly Japanese Breakfast’s Jubilee. I keep relistening to “Wichita Lineman,” which has become a favorite sing-along song lately. Of course, a lot of Tina Turner has been in the mix this week, sadly.
Playing
Have you heard of THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOM? It’s taking up all of my spare time and I love it. More thoughts once I’ve beaten it (tomorrow???).
Around Town
I had to take the metro up to Rockville this week and found that to be a nice little jaunt. I read The Star Fox along the way, then walked about 20 minutes to where I had to be. Rockville feels like suburbia, in a way I wouldn’t enjoy living in, I’m sure. Too many big roads - clearly very car-centric. I’d thought about riding my bike up, and I’m glad I didn’t. On my walk, I passed a Steinway & Sons store and realized I’d never seen one before. I thought about walking inside to see how much my net worth would crater once I crossed the threshold.
I finally stopped walking past The Green Zone and went in for a drink with some friends from my book club. I had a Shi Salbeh (Barr Hill Gin, Raw Honey, Lemon, Mastic, Arak, and More, apparently), and it was very good. I’ll have to go back.
I had to pop into an Ace to pick up some super glue to perform some surgery on a ceramic frog my mom sent me, damaged in transit. On the way back, I stopped through a garage sale and wished I still had a VHS player.