December 2019 Roundup
Posted: 02 January 2020
This would be easier if I wrote these down as I finished them instead of trying to remember everything all at once.
Books
Strange Pilgrims - Garcia Marquez
100 Years of Solitude is one of my favorite books and Marquez is securely one of my favorite authors, but besides 100 Years I haven’t really loved his other works that I’ve read. Chronicle of a Death Foretold didn’t resonate with me, and I only got 2/3 of the way through The Autumn of the Patriarch before I returned it to the library with no intention of renewing it. Strange Pilgrims, though! What a treat. It starts off with a bang, the first story is really excellent, and it stays excellent throughout. I have a huge soft spot for short stories and these hit that spot.
The Analog Sea Offline Journal Vol. 1 - Various
I bought an Analog Sea blank journal several months ago and it’s the best journal I’ve ever used. I highly recommend it. I’m using a different brand now and it isn’t nearly the same - the ink runs, the pages are transparent and stick together, it’s miserable. Analog Sea is the way to go. In any case though, through this marvelous journal, I learned that they also publish an offline literary journal, and that it is also marvelous. A combination of essays, interviews, and poems that were thought provoking and had a fantastic rhythm in the way they were interspersed. The stand outs for me were the first interview with Joseph-Antoine D’Ornano and the excerpt from the essay “The Scent of Time” by Byung-Chul Han, which seemed like a really interesting in-depth dive into cultural perspective on time and work. I deeply respect their mission of trying to bring more of life offline.
Movies
Witness
Not very funny story, I thought this movie was going to be the Fugutive, based on my vague understanding of what The Fugutive is: Harrison Ford, vague crime thriller vibes, one word noun title. Quite the dissapointment to learn that Witness is not, in fact, The Fugitive. In any case, I thought this movie was fine. It feels like the genre shifted around the middle from crime thriller to romance drama in a very bizarre way, and the ending was absurd. Alas.
Twelve Angry Men
This movie was a blast. I first tried to watch this was something like ten years ago and I only made it around ten minutes in, but I had a lot of fun with it this time around and thought it was great. I love courtroom dramas in general, and it’s cool to see how this movie took a really unique perspective in having a super constrained one room setting and rolled with it. It’s also really interesting to see how we’re having some of the exact same conversations about crime and criminality sixty years later, and it isn’t really obvious that much has changed within the legal system.
Television
Home Movies - Season 2
Home Movies may be my favorite TV show!
Music
Acid King - Busse Woods
I’ve listened to this album before but have returned to it because a friend asked me to give him a rundown of the metal music that I listen to and this isn’t exactly metal but it’s metal-adjacent and metal genres are their own insane spiderweb that I don’t want to wade too deep into. I love this album. They remind me of True Widow but with way crunchier riffs and a more classic Sabbathy musical personality. I really like how you can’t tell if there’s going to be singing on any of the songs, and if there is, when it’s going to be. And it’s just super crunchy overall. Great album.
Earth - The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull
I have a lot of respect for Earth as a band but I think this genre really struggles with differentiating the songs and keeping a listener engaged. It’s a really beautiful album and the music is fantastic but I feel like I’m more likely to have it on in the background and forget about it than have it on in the background and occasionally think “this rules”.
Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light 1
I like this album a little more than The Bees[…] but I have the same difficulties listening to it where the songs are all beautiful but all kind of sound the same and roll into each other without drawing any attention.