2023-10-07 11:26 pm

Forty-Two

Of course I am!

(I think this marks the end of my 12-year tradition of posting every three years on my birthday. I can't think of anything much to say about any multiple of three after 42... maybe 90...)
2020-10-09 07:16 pm

Nobody Is Really Writing Anything of Interest

I just turned 39. I can't think of anything particularly interesting to me about turning 39, but I have posted on DW/LJ when I turned 30 (this post is locked and I'm not able to log into the LJ account right now; I'll come back and post a link if I regain access), 33, and 36, and I intend to post when I turn 42, so I need to post about turning 39 just to keep up the tradition without a break in it.
2020-01-01 11:05 pm

2019 - The Year in Art

Book of the Year - The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Film of the Year - Cabaret - Bob Fosse
Music of the Year - Concert, Le Poisson Rouge, Dec. 20 - Kevin Barnes (ohdeargod, this video features me very audibly cracking up after "Bolero" in "St. Sebastian")
TV Show of the Year - The OA - Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling
2019-01-18 02:44 pm

2018 - The Year in Art

Book of the Year - Wheel of Time Liveblog - neuxue/Lia
Film of the Year - This is England - Shane Meadows
Music of the Year - White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood - of Montreal
TV Show of the Year - Avatar: The Last Airbender - Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko
2018-09-28 12:57 am

A Continued Ambivalence about Recognition by those I Admire

Okay, so apparently Jenna Moran has read my review of Magical Bears in the Context of Contemporary Political Theory.

I mean, look, given that it is literally the only review of the book on Goodreads (awkwardly, as I mentioned on Goodreads), yes, I was wondering.

She is presumably not going to read this blog post, but I feel like I ought to point out that I really don't think, even under fairly loose definitions, the book fits under the category of novel. I mean, I strongly suspect that she cares more about taxonomy than I do, anyway.
2018-05-31 11:24 pm

_Dear Evan Hansen_ (I Guess This Has Spoilers)

Saw Dear Evan Hansen last week, because I realized it was a musical that sounded like a YA novel and because I realized that if I am willing to go see theater in London by myself, why shouldn't I also be willing to do it in NYC? It was a good decision - the first half in particular gave me the same sort of feeling as the third quarter of The Wings of the Dove, when Merton Densher slowly realizes exactly what Kate Croy is expecting of him.

(On a total sidenote, the last book for my college alumni reading group this year was The Hate U Give - very exciting that I was actually able to read a YA book for my college alumni reading group - and, towards the end, there's a paragraph which consists of just: "Things will never be the way they used to be," and I actually cracked up, because all I could think of was, "We shall never be again as we were," and I don't know if it was a deliberate reference or not - it certainly could be, but it doesn't have to be - but it definitely highly amused me.)

That said, during "Requiem," I started imagining the alternative version in which Connor had actually attacked or even attempted to kill Zoe, and she had killed him in self-defense. I guess ideally in a sort of premeditated way, maybe having been violently attacked by him and then having to figure out a way to kill him but frame it as a suicide because otherwise she might not survive the next attack? So not only would Evan still have the ethical difficulty of the letter and his lies to deal with, but Zoe would have the dilemmas of the fact that she had killed (hopefully rather justifiably, but still) her own brother, and the fact that she actually knew it wasn't a suicide but her cover-up was really aided by the letter?

It's just - why is one ethical dilemma enough? The more the merrier! I mean, the opposite, I guess.
2018-01-01 11:36 pm

2017 - The Year in Art

Book of the Year - The Crown of Dalemark - Diana Wynne Jones
Film of the Year - Black Swan - Darren Aronofsky
Music of the Year - "Oh, Jeremy Corbyn" - anonymous, with help from the White Stripes
TV Show of the Year - Mr. Robot - Sam Esmail
2017-10-07 10:23 pm

"On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year," by Lord Byron

I hasten to assure anyone reading this that I do not in any way identify with the sentiments described in the poem, but I feel obligated to post it as a fan of the younger Romantics turning 36.

Poem )
2017-09-28 11:13 pm

Every Second of Time is the Gate through which the Messiah May Enter.

I have never actually read any China MiƩville, but this is a great piece of criticism on some of his work. It was constantly full of insight, and it even made me cry (I mean, not that that's too difficult, but still).
2017-08-12 10:12 pm

Autodidacts Who Know More than I Do

In of Montreal songs, Kevin Barnes makes all sorts of obscure artsy references to things that I've never even heard of (just read the lyrics to "Art Snob Solutions"), as well as plenty of literary references, such as those to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf or A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and Jacobean drama (my hope is that it's Jacobean drama through the medium of Eliot, since "The Waste Land" is how I know that quote, at least). Meanwhile, not only did Neil Hannon write "The Booklovers" (you should watch that video if you have never watched it), he also literally set Wordsworth poetry to music (in fact, this song is the only thing that has ever been able to make me take Wordsworth seriously). What's interesting about this is that neither of them ever went to college/university. It's hard for me to even imagine because I'm so used to having learned things from my college and even graduate school experiences. I have to admit to having a lot of respect for audodidacts.
2017-05-05 01:44 pm

An Excerpt from "Ash Wednesday"

. . .And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
2017-05-02 05:29 pm

An Excerpt from "Ash Wednesday"

. . .
Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
. . .