duolingo stats: 395 day streak, 13031 lingots (i bought the owl the tracksuit), 623,801 xp to date, still learning latin
the first day of the month was gorgeous in the morning, and a humid monsoon in the night, so-full scorpio mode for nature, let’s go.
the second day brought uninspiring weather, and i almost did not leave at all, but i made it just in time for the last round of music bingo, it was disco, and i won the grand prize for the first time ever!
i missed nuit blanche (scarborough) once again because i was celebrating my dearest zahrabai‘s birthday (first time ever we could do both our bdays in the same city) and there was hallumi involved, so-i’ll get you next year, white night!
i worked food retail through thanksgiving again, and it was great! very well-organized and staffed so we didn’t feel stressed, just tired-long days with lovely rewards. and it was a bit late in the season for our third annual apple pick, and lambcoma. yummmm.
and, we are back on set! bigger, baaader, and baaaack together again!
i am inspired for long days and a long commute, but i don’t want to do my dishes!
on a related note, i can access my library account online again, my instagram is busted, and i am still holding out on my duolingo for desktop. (sigh). the innernets, amirite?!
i have been to a corn maze in a small town in ontario! i have also visited the peanut family empire, tasted celery bread, and have knowledge of the growing of local tabaco, ginseng, peanuts, and daikon. i am ever great-full for the impromptu road trip with one of my favourite couples.
plot twist-we hit a wall in the lease of our barrowcar, and a lot hangs in the balance of the next 24 hours. decisions must be made…and…see you next april!
1) us-dir. jordan peele i guess we kept on the twin-theme as this month rolled over. i was scared to watch this, but i should’ve known better. jordan is a visionary, and is not doing horror for horror’s sake. i liked the dvd bonus on how they actually pulled this off. i had to take a break and see the terrible brad pitt space movie (with great special effects) in between because i was still afraid to watch it in the dark. (it’s super petty of the library to charge me an overdue for this-it was returned by this morning/eodue date).
2) orange is the new black-season six the season opener took things to a fantastical space, and the subsequent episodes smacked us back to reality. new guards, same shit of blurring their lines between terrible and troubled and a product of their surroundings, blah blah, but i guess that’s been the direction that the show has been going in. unlike spoiled piper who is once again too focused on alex, i wanna know where maritza is. baddington (and her accent, as well as the “nigerian”‘s?) is interesting. they gotta stop putting behind the scenes materials on discs that happen before the plot points, because-spoilers. it’s also interesting that the writing room just went ham on fantasy inmate and other related white supremacist narratives, because it’s all fine and good to say that they are “starting the conversation” about racism and a broken system, but it’s also safe to say they totally dodged the reality of a very homogenous writing room. but, i suppose the easiest way to avoid addressing that is to just end the show, which they have. and shit-it’s probably a good thing, because this is depressing as shit-having the black woman falsely accused of murder, the latina that qualified for early release unexpectedly be passed onto ICE, and the white woman once again jumping the queue to go free-but at least she organized kickball before she left. WOW. aaaaaaah. and those two sister-murdering bitches killed each other over a story they both stole from a black woman?! after years of organizing prison fights between countless women who had no dog in their race?! i feel like i am at the same point i was at with breaking bad-i hate all these people and watching them makes me depressed.
3) blindspotting-dir. carlos lopez estrada this one was just as good the second time around. it was the perfect accompaniment to my belated birthday present of a “canine alphabet” puzzle. now that i know the spoken word history of these two talented mens, it’s even better.
4) the origins of others-toni morisson it’s unbelievable to me that folks still don’t know that we have a black bookstore in this city. but itah‘s been at the heart of a lot of cultural events, from the freedom ride, to quickly organizing a re/membering of toni morrison not even three weeks later. i haven’t caught up completely to her catalogue, though i did have an argument about where her work fits within the white-privileged metric of academia, and was surprised to find that this was also a slim volume, but it makes sense as it is essentially a transcript of her norton lectures. “Unlike starving China, Africa was both ours and theirs, intimately connected to us and profoundly foreign. A huge needy homeland to which we were said to belong but which none of us had seen or cared to see, inhabited by people with whom we maintained a delicate relationship of mutual ignorance and disdain, and with whom we shared a mythology of passive, traumatized Otherness cultivated by textbooks, film, cartoons, and the hostile name-calling children learn to love.” (101, The Foreigner’s Home) thank you, ms morrison, for naming this work that we all need to do, and for leaving such a prolific blueprint.
5) i’m afraid of men-vivek shraya “What might be cruising can also be contempt.” (24) this book is smaller than i thought it would be-i guess it just photographs bigger? it is much smaller than it could be, and that’s a thing. a few months ago, vivek‘s face was plastered across bus shelters and buses, and that’s amazing. she is beauty-full.
6) person to person-dir. dustin guy defa the options for ny ensemble film are quite limited now-either you stifle your disdain for directors who marry their children, or you suffer through something like this. the first shot was of a building that looks exactly one that i stayed at in queens in 2006. the second scene was one that made me question for a second why michelle williams was acting so annoying, but then i realized that it wasn’t her. as much as i like abbi jacobson and michael cera (and as fine as bryan tyree henry and his “over it” face is), this was largely hot garbage. but it was the perfect movie to not get too invested in, as i wound down after work with a pomelo and a ham sandwich.
7) finders keepers-directed by bryan carberry and clay tweel once again, i love the documentary section of a new library. this real-life story of these white mens fighting each other over the ownership of an amputated foot-“with the cholesterol dripping out of it” is perhaps the inspiration for the tv shows that they make about addiction, institutions, and mental health. what a bizarro world of family obligations, capitalism, and a take on one’s “fifteen minutes of fame”. and judge mathis is the hero! “i would like to thank shannon for being the douche that he is, because he was the catalyst” “sometimes, you gotta hang on to certain merchandise, and other times, you gotta liquidate”. i’m dead. actually dead. THIS DOOD RAN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2016?!
8) approved for adoption-dir. jung et laurent boileau well that was a different take on korean foreign adoption. i got it at fort york with twinsters, but with the animation, the difference in gender, age, and experience of internalized racism and familial abuse-we go further an deeper. it’s also much more lonely, as it’s a meditation on being an outsider in a completely different way. this one is a real exercise in form, and i believe it to be an oversight to remove “skin colour: honey” from the translation. it is to be noted that i’ve started reading pachinko (again) and i’m seeing this right now.
9) nurse jackie-season seven i’m not sure how i feel about this series finale, but i echo akalitis’ sentiment to jackie after the hearing: “so thank you, and fuck you.” i do appreciate how edie asked not to get scripts ahead of time-that’s an interesting acting note. unlike oitnb, this one felt like closure, and relief that it’s over.
10) pachinko-min jin lee this book is beauty-fully written, and i’m glad i’m back to it-i didn’t get to it before it was due last fall, and had to send it back. i do wish i got a paperback version, but, such is life. i had dreams about serving pate de campagne and making sure that korean immigrants were not persecuted in japan, so there was an imprint. i feel like the years and issues (internalized racism, war and migration, the inheritance of trauma, religion, and feminism) span all of the horrors that can occur, and some of the healing. it’s still quite heavy, literally and literally. i can see why this won so many awards.
11) the people’s future of the united states-eds. victor lavalle and john joseph adams “speculative fiction is too wishy-washy” i said to lindsay yesterday in a lamb coma. and that, in a nutshell, is my struggle. i don’t think that “imagining” trump is particularly future-looking, it’s just describing the present, but i do like the idea that we are the books/stories, and the battle for the end of the world would go down in a bookstore. there were some good stories, but this one took me two months to get through, and does not inspire me to go further into the genre. (but i did immediately put girl woman other on hold, bigups for splitting the booker with madge this year)
12) sharp objects-season one jean-marc vallee and his sentimental direction always gets me. i also love how he incorporates music, this time in the form of a different song in every opening credit and as a form of escape from the evil that lurks in one’s home/head. gillian flynn-i’m not sure of. and i suppose i should qualify that as film/tv adaptations of gillian flynn books, i’m not sure about. on the apple orchard, i floated the idea that perhaps her feminism is to show that women can be serial killers too-i just don’t know how useful that is. but i do know that i never trusted that little one, and that patricia clarkson is one of my favourite actors, ever.
13) the gospel according to andre-directed and produced by kate novack i watched this twenty minutes at a time, over the thanksgiving rush, and if given the option, everyone should watch a young karl lagerfield through a tantrum with silk scarves. also, i’m kind of mad that i may have been in white plains at the same time as andre leon-talley, but then again, i may not have. i appreciate the exhilaration and the loneliness of blazing a trail and taking up space.
14) the sixth man-andre iguodala with carvell wallace that other AI…(who played with the first one) without whom (along with shaun livingston) the golden state warriors would have zero championships. you can say that he won “steph’s” mvp but sixth man of the year is no small deal-just ask lou will. i listened to his spot on the only a game podcast to see if there was any insight into this-it just reiterated the same things in this book, but it was nice to hear his voice saying “my name is andre iguodala and i am a human being”. the book doesn’t have a conclusion, and i’m wondering if he knew he might be retiring when it came out/now. i really want to know how he feels about his current limbo/his current feelings about steve kerr. he describes being traded from the sixers in the exact way that demar was traded, as well as losing coach jackson (who he confirmed as having built that team as well as being an amazing coach) in the same way. i love that he also loved scottie more than michael, and the advice that he got from iverson. he also brings up the crucial point that when a team wants to change direction (and players), it’s just business, but when a player wants to do the same, it’s somehow an insult. that is important because it confirms how entrenched in the patriarchy and systemic exploitation that is the structure of the league.
15) the kiss quotient-helen hoang i am completely here because i read the bride test last month. gotta love a half-vietnamese person who is either autistic or dating an autistic person who only occupies one of their races. i liked the plot twists in this one, it was actually less predictable than the newer release (that i read first). a great, easy read nonetheless.
“Besides, large groups of horny women were terrifying. You couldn’t defend yourself against them, and their nails were sharp.” (11)
“Love, he found, was a jail. It trapped, and it clipped wings.” (249)
16) french exit-patrick dewitt i forgot how much i love this guy’s writing. to be fair-this is my very favourite of his showings. insider info from a former anansi employee is that he’s kind of hard to deal with, he has a way with a sentence, and i enjoyed his author talk at the reference library during the junket for undermajordomo minor.
“Frances had come to think of gift-giving as a polite form of witchcraft.” (10)
“He was a pile of American garbage and she feared she would love him forever.” (20)
swooooooooooon. i also love the idea of a person being so rich that suicide is a privilege being reincarnated as a cat that cannot die through all the lives.
17) 26 knots-bindu suresh so this is a bonus, as gerard put it on hold and never read it, and i committed to it because i trust that he put this (cbc featured) book on hold for a reason (that he no longer remembered), and its slim volume, along with its mention of lionel-groulx (i can see the tiles now!) and oyster shucking within the first pages hooked me, and here i am-writing about it before i return it a few hours into its due date, on my way to a corn maze. reading the author’s motivation, she claims that she would count success as a reader walking away thinking about their own relationships and decision-making process in any way, so i suppose this book is a success. it takes ghosting to the absolute next level. everyone always has at least a brief moment when someone disappears that something could have happened to them, but it all comes down to your abandonment issues vs theirs, and there’s this weird power play attached to who “leaves” first, and i guess i’ve never seen death as an abandonment, because life has always been so much more present. the introduction of the next generation, and the inheritance of abandonment in the form of reality is also a thing. yesterday as i was leaving, the trope of clones was being discussed on the radio-the concept of do-overs and giving up your present life for a second chance at the sacrifice of it, but it’s also a way of starting over. even when you are so obsessed with someone (who is so obsessed with someone else) that you miss the fact that you are hurting everyone who loves you.
18) an american marriage-tayari jones this one has been orbiting for some time, but i only put it on hold when i found out that tali would be moderating a talk with her for IFOA at the end of the month. silly me. right away, i knew that i would love it, and i’m kind of glad i avoided press for it, because what a treat it was to fall into its pages. the story, the plot twist, the format of letters, the history that is unveiled-whoo! and a quick google search to see what other books of hers i must put on hold has yielded that i am already familiar with the work of her brother, bomani, on the other formats of twitter and podcast, on the topic of sports. i’m kind of loving that my life right now is about shooting the show and catching up on my library materials. and letters of my own.
“There are too many loose ends in the world in need of knots. You can’t attend to all of them, but you have to try.” (187)
“It’s like the difference between a raw egg and a scrambled egg. It’s the same thing, but it’s not the same at all.” (41)
“If you have a woman, you recognize when you have said the wrong thing. Somehow she rearranges the ions in the air and you can’t breathe as well.” (16)
19) office christmas party-dir. will speck and josh gordon i’m not gonna lie-this one was a complete impulse pick one day when returning my library materials-way to use my home branch, though the system continues to disappoint this year, with the refusal to back down on the grounds of hate speech-but supports my theory that the folks who profit most are the ones who don’t really care about the library-i mean-it’s a pretty clear stance to not support local authors’ and performers’ boycott, not to mention a petition that got 8000+ signatures faster than the settlers could hand out syphillis-infected, alcohol soaked blankets to the indigenous. shame, tpl, shame. i guess jennifer aniston and jason bateman have a real office comedy niche going on for them, and i will see anything that kate mckinnon is in. this is the first thing i recall seeing tj miller in since crashing, and he’s got a russell brand thing going on. this was silly, predictable, and perfect for zoning out between shooting days.
20) 13 reasons why-season 2 i am still figuring out my feelings about season 1 of this show, and it’s interesting to find out that they have since removed the suicide scene, though i feel like they pushed it even further this season with that surprise rape scene and all of the somewhat irresponsible flirting with gunplay and the reasons and methods that kids have access to in expressing their feelings with guns and bombs. it’s still a completely casual attitude towards sexual violence and underage drinking that is wildly problematic, and i’m not sure that the disclaimers are doing any good. i am also not sure that slut shaming is adequately addressed in a way that does not glamourize it, and unlike other shows that just claim to be “telling the truth” instead of presenting even a different outcome in a fantasy world-i’m a bit intrigued that bryce gets his “just desserts” in season 3, though my money’s on his mom. i do know that black tar heroin is a realistic addition, thanks to dreamland. as an aside-it’s horrible that the screen adaptation of that book focuses on fentanyl between the us and canada and not the other relationship between the us and mexico that is way more nuanced and implicating.
21) haiti noir-ed. edwidge danticat the second of the akashic noir series that i’ve read now has reminded me that mystery isn’t my favourite genre, so i should prolly take a break, though i am intrigued by the travel aspect of things. i was legit shocked by some of the plot twists and the win of the “dark element”-i can see why this works as escapist for people. i was surprised to see that mark kurlansky was a part of this, and that he’s been reporting in the caribbean, but then again-i’ve read his books about salt and ports (oysters), so i’m not that surprised, just delighted to “know” someone else in this ensemble cast. i appreciated the kreyol, and the fact that i can kind of understand it, and giggled to remember the misguided secret intentions of that man to start literacy projects with me in haiti (that he never told me about) whilst also refusing to teach me kreyol. my only pull-quote comes from the editor’s piece:
“San manman, motherless, was the way you described someone who was lost, brutal and cruel. Fantom, ghost, was another. People without mothers, it was believed, were capable of anything.” (125, Claire of the Sea Light).
et, alors.
22) while we were young-dir. noah baumbach for some reason, i have a strong memory of this director being that of the squid and the whale. i barely remember the movie, though. funny how the mind works. i guess hip hop is not the only way in which halflife generations are observed, it was just the one that became first visible to me. that being said-watching these people do “hip hop class” at home and in the studio to “hit ’em up” is one of the most uncomfortable things i have ever seen. part catfish, part mid-life crisis, this movie is watchable enough, but kind of depressingly inspiring in the way that girls and reality bites are.
metrotextual 