Weekend Report

[cafenowhere]

This weekend it snowed, and because I'm generally a fan of winter behaving like winter, I was pleased--doubly so when I didn't have to go out into the cold myself. J ferried Ash back and forth from friends' homes and, though he wanted us to get food delivered, he ended up doing carry out because it was so much faster.

I binge watched American Horror Story on Hulu. I finished watching season 11, NYC, which is set (mostly) in 1981 and deals with HIV/AIDS. Then I realized I never watched season 10, so I ploughed through that, which is a double feature, the first half a modern tale revolving around drug-induced vampirism and the latter half being (mostly) Eisenhower-era alien hijinks. Both season 11 and the alien half of season 10 included a lot of chronology hopping that I found unnecessary, but I think it's passé to tell a story in linear order these days. I think the only season of AHS I haven't watched is the fifth season, Hotel. That's mostly because of the extended rape scene in the first episode. After AHS, I gave Scream Queens a try, but after three or four episodes, I'm very meh about it. The comedy feels forced and I'm not sure it's really comedy when the protagonists say awful racist, homophobic, fatphobic things. I imagine it's all supposed to be "ironic" but I'm not in the mood (ever).

I also read a poetry collection over the weekend, and now I'm re-reading it: Tethered to Stars by Fady Joudah. I'm going over it again because I felt like I hadn't understood the poems enough to connect to them. Upon a second read (which is really third or fourth, because I read a poem more than once as I work through a collection), I'm understanding more but still not connecting that often. It's a bit disappointing, but I read A LOT of poetry these days and not everything can click for me.

What did you do this weekend?

Comments

[gwynnega]

I've never seen any of American Horror Story, but you make seasons 10 and 11 sound interesting.

A lot of contemporary poetry I come across doesn't click with me these days. Sometimes if I keep trying, I'll come to love the work, but oftentimes not!

This weekend I went to Skylight Books, which was fun, although there were way too many unmasked people, some of them coughing. Also I worked on my novel and continued reading Leigh Bardugo's Hell Bent. I loved Ninth House, the first volume of the series, and was really looking forward to this one, but it took some getting into because I'd forgotten a lot about the world of the novels. But now I'm really enjoying it.

[cafenowhere]

There's a fair amount of criticism of AHS 11, but I found it worthwhile and deeply sad, which of course it would be, considering the HIV/AIDS angle. It's focused almost entirely on white cis men, which is lazy and tedious, but frankly AHS has always needed more BIPOC talent. And, after some adjustment, I've decided I liked the Double Feature that was season 10. Neither storyline was sufficient for an entire season, but they were entertaining and too rich to stuff into an episode of American Horror Stories, the spinoff.

I'm glad you were able to get out to Skylight Books, in spite of the non-maskers. Did you buy anything?

[gwynnega]

This time I only bought a blank book for a journal, but a couple of weeks ago I bought Diane Seuss's Frank and picked up R.B. Lemberg's Geometries of Belonging! (I usually order new books from Skylight, since they're my local independent bookstore).

[asakiyume]

Huh, that's interesting about nonlinear storytelling being more a thing now--I haven't seen that much current-current media but the bits I've seen have definitely featured lots of time-hopping, so ... huh: that could be a thing now.

I spent a lot of the weekend getting this translation I've been working on ready to post. It's pretty much ready; I just have a couple of last questions for the author.

[cafenowhere]

I first started noticing the nonlinear storytelling in tv and movies when the subject matter was ghosts or (generational) trauma, which makes a lot of sense. But now it's expanded to all genres. Netflix had a popular series recently, Kaleidoscope, that was essentially a heist flick told out of order.

I'm glad you had time to work on the translation this weekend. I'm looking forward to the final product!

[asakiyume]

Someone else was telling me about Kaleidoscope! We need to give that a try.

And thanks, I hope you enjoy it!