Reading

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podcasts

podcast friday

You need a bit of positivity in your life so here's a Normal Gossip episode. First, it means they've started a new season. Second, they somehow got Malala Yousafzai to be on the show. WTF. Ahahahah. "Love Is Blind" tells the story of Kayla, who goes on a one-month European odyssey with her husband-finding-obsessed friend Barbara, Kayla's friend Seth, and Seth's roommate Joe, who is addicted to his mango vape. Things go badly, obviously, but the real delight is Malala's responses. Just a delight.

Entry tags:

books

Reading Wednesday

Just finished: Katabasis by R.F. Kuang. Yeah, she lands the ending. This was just too good—scathingly funny, unexpectedly sweet, and a worthy take on Dante's Inferno. It's one of those ones where I rush to Goodreads to see what stupid people thought about it and I think the complete opposite of that. I just love Alice so much, basically.

Currently reading: Kalivas! Or, Another Tempest by Nick Mamatas. Complete coincidence that I'm reading two genre takes on classic works of literature with similar titles one right after each other. Anyway, this is the cyberpunk take on The Tempest that you didn't know you needed. Caliban/Kalivas is the last free-range human, i.e., lacking in post-human augments and able to die in a post-apocalyptic world of godlike enhanced assholes. It leans very heavily into the play's anticolonialist themes and also into our current state of being ruled by lunatic billionaires who want to live forever. It's very good, obviously.

Entry tags:

podcasts

podcast friday

Double feature because there was too much good content this week.

I'm going to take the rare step of recommending a two-part episode before I've finished listening to part 2, because I've listened to the Conspirituality episode on the same subject and I know who Peter Thiel thinks is the Antichrist. Through all of part 1 and the beginning of part 2 of Behind the Bastards' "Peter Thiel and the Anti-Christ" you can just feel Robert getting increasingly excited about telling Sarah Marshall who Thiel thinks the Antichrist is and she keeps guessing and getting close but missing, critically, how fucking insane Thiel is.

You should listen to this because the people making all of the decisions in our lives with all of the money are actually batshit and believe batshit things and we all need to adjust our political strategies accordingly.

The flipside is Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff's "The Gallae: Trans Priestesses of Ancient Rome," where Magpie talks to Gabriel Dunn about how ancient trans women were persecuted but powerful and badass, into noise music, and did rave culture. Part 1, part 2. Not as much on Sumerian civilization as I'd like but maybe that's another episode.

Entry tags:

books

Reading Wednesday

Any day that starts with Cheney dying and ends with Mandami getting elected as New York mayor, even with the forces of both wings of the Party allied against him, is a pretty good day.

But onto the books.

Just finished: Nothing.

Currently reading: Katabasis by R.F. Kuang. Okay "academia is hell" is a cheap premise but 1) it's true, and 2) she does it splendidly, and I am devouring this book. It's so good. I love Alice. She's awful and such a fuckup and makes the wrong decision at every turn and I'm here for it. As I'm reading I just want to screenshot every page and text it to my academic friends.

I'm about 3/4 through and if Kuang lands the ending, this is going to be one of the best things I've read this year.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime

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holiday: birthday

well, how did i get here? (into the blue again, after the money's gone, once in a lifetime)

Much to my amazement, in two hours I turn forty.

Forty. Four zero. 40. 4. 0. I've been telling almost everyone I meet, repeating the facts to strangers and friends and acquaintances, my psychiatrist and my sister and my surrogate aunts. I didn't expect to get here and I find the fact of forty, frankly, jarring. My teeth grit against the absolute insanity of time marching on to this extent—how did I get here?

Some of the people who are reading this potentially have known me since I was 12 and just like me, probably didn't expect me to get here. Mind-boggling as well.

What has changed recently? Not much! To misquote Tolstoy, perhaps happy days are all alike, but each unhappy day is unhappy in its own way. Or maybe it's the opposite, and it's my newfound ability to revel in choice of enjoyable activities with a reliably upbeat mood climate that's truly unlocked this newfound persistence of pleasant presence.

Current psychiatrist has narrowed down my meds and diagnoses to a fine degree, now that she actually believes I'm ill. (Long story but basically she didn't take me seriously until my last attempt. Wait, not a long story.) Who would have guessed that the magic wand would be ~lithium~ and the magic words, bipolar disorder? Doc's not 100% on it yet but I'm pretty convinced.

My intention is to update again tomorrow, but I'll post this now just in case.