Something New (This Week)
TV, Movies, Books, Oh My!
I skipped this exercise last week, because life comes at you fast (I forgot). In these past fourteen days, I’ve watched my first new TV show of 2023, watched a middling modern-commentary horror movie, read a book, and hung some shelves. Let’s talk about it.
TV is BACK
Peacock, the least successful major streaming platform, has found their first gem in Rian Johnson’s POKER FACE, EP’d by and starring Natasha Leon. It’s a Colombo inspired mystery-of-the-week show, and it is smart, funny, fun to look at, and packed with great performers. THIS is what I want weekly television to be like. I don’t know why anyone makes shows that aren’t this, Succession, or one of Bluey/Peppa Pig. We simply don’t need to be trying so hard to reinvent the wheel. We love the wheel!
When TikTok Sells a Movie
Caitlin and I went to a local independent cinema at 1:00PM to catch M3GAN, a horror movie that was cut down from an ‘R’ rated child’s doll murder movie, to a PG-13 light thriller, after the trailer swept the nation (and the children’s TikTok feeds). This was the first movie to sweep the headlines and the attention spans of this silly, strange country, and it was fine afternoon fare, but nothing beyond. The movie industry continues to be weird, Allison Williams continues to be a great actress, and we now must continue to look over our shoulders and ask ourselves: “Where’s M3GAN?” (back in theaters in 2025).
Reading an Old Book
I was fortunate to find that my favorite local book purveyor (the six closest Little Free Libraries to my house) had an old copy of Treasure Island, a book I’ve never read, on its shelves waiting for me. It was a surprisingly tough read, with its antiquated and yarr-ing language and writing. Gone are the days of endless imagination and a brain less packed with norms and rules, when I was a child and my brain could wrap itself around any strange form of literature, like a river flowing around its many rocks. It was a fruitful read, and I’d recommend to everyone that they pick up a 150 year old children’s book the next time they see one.
Organizing (and Owning) Physical Media
A couple of days ago, after hanging some shelves on top of some wall-mounted brackets that had sat nakedly upon our wall for several weeks, I started to rest some of my books upon them, organizing them in what I know is the best way to organize all forms of media: chronologically. Finding gaps in publication dates for the books I read (apparently no one wrote any books between 2000 and 2012?) is a fascinating exercise; creating relationships between all of the books I own on a timeline in which they were written (ideas in this book from 1973 are very clearly also here in this 2021 book, and vice versa!) is a fascinating exercise; and just adding a bit of context to my own relationship to each book, and its author’s life and timeline, is a fascinating exercise. I organize my movies this way, my records this way, and now my books (previously just sitting in random piles all over the house) this way. If you don’t follow this same strategy, try it out, and then let me know that you also agree that this is the best way.
I’m going on a short trip to Colorado next week, where my partner’s family will be waiting for us to ski and do other outdoor activities, things I can’t really do in cold weather (thanks, Auguste Gabriel Maurice Raynaud). So I’ll bring my reading and writing supplies, and see y’all in the middle of the week, maybe with some thoughts on a particular old movie, or on a trio of records that I’ve been thinking about recently. Only time will tell.
As always, let me know what you’ve been reading, or hanging on your wall, or doing with your Saturday afternoons.
TTFN,
B