This is Beautiful: "Moonflower Murders"

 So I'm only a short way into the book, but Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz promises to be as good as Magpie Murders. I think. I mean I haven't gotten into anything that made me REALLY fall in love with Magpie Murders yet, but he's setting it up well.

I wrote about Magpie Murders previously here, and I adored the mix of perspectives and deconstructing what can make a cool mystery novel that happened. Moonflower Murders still follows the same protagonist trying to solve another mystery. There's a couple other returning characters, her husband and the lead Detective on the case of course. 

Hopefully I'll have a happy update soon! I'm sure I'll write more about the book once I finish it.

Google Docs

 I've been thinking about this a lot over the years, but the rise of Google Docs (everything else about the company aside) has really contributed to making things incredibly accessible. It's so easy to put together a document with important resources and things like that and just make it publicly available.

Think about how many Google Docs you've used recently. I've used it for sharing documents at work. I've also used it to create documents that give advice to organizations on how to run events and collect institutional knowledge. I've also seen so many people collect lists of links and share them that way. You can find free pdfs of textbooks and other artistic works through Google Docs. I've seen people conduct research surveys through Google Forms! 

What's miraculous about this is that Google is a really shitty company. Probably all of the information that we're sending to them through these files is going to come back to bite us. But somehow all of the bad press tends to go to Google as a search engine, rather than using Gmail or Drive or anything else.

Somehow this tech giant has made things super duper accessible, anyone with an Internet connection can access Google Drive and see all of these files. All you need is a Gmail account to get access. Not going to lie, I got a Gmail when I graduated undergrad just so that I could take advantage of how easy it is to upload and share files through Google Docs. 

I can't quite tell whether this is a trend and things are going to continue to be so open or if the other shoe will drop soon and we'll have to pay for this. As far as I can tell, this is an innovation that hasn't gathered a ton of press, not many people are writing about Google Docs as a platform. But knowing Google, something is going to happen to monetize this at some point. 

I sure hope that isn't going to happen! But you cannot guarantee anything in this day and age.

This Is Beautiful: Staged

 I only recently found out about the show "Staged" starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen. The two previously starred on "Good Omens" and I think this show was essentially born from that collaboration and their friendship. The show essentially follows David and Michael playing themselves as actors whose play has been cancelled because of the pandemic and how they want to continue rehearsing over zoom.

I have to be honest, this is the only portrayal of the pandemic that I am interested in seeing within media. It's a super funny and honest portrayal of how we were all going insane a little over a year ago. I think anything else just isn't going to hit the mark in terms of how discombobulated we were, and yet there's an aspect of absurdist humor. 

I will have to check this, but I think the first season was mostly improvised. And now with season 2 out they're pretending that the first season was scripted and now this is them actually talking. Which is just a funny concept to me. I haven't made it to the second season but I'm excited for when I get there! The chemistry between the two leads and all of the guests on vibe just so well, it's such a cool show. I honestly have no idea why I didn't hear about it sooner.

“Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity, and Histories of Art” by Griselda Pollock

My latest acquisition from a secondhand bookstore, this is essentially a collection of seven essays on feminist art history and art critiques. Now let me just preface this by saying that I have never formally studied any of this. I simply am an art enthusiast who likes to think about things and is a feminist. And that’s really it.

So having said that, there was probably a lot of this book that went wayyyy over my head. But there was also a decent amount that I was able to pick up on as I read as well. In particular, I really liked Pollack’s discussion of how there isn’t a trans-historical female experience. Assuming that women have been through the same things throughout history and that they have responded to these challenges in the same way over time erases so much of progress and so much of the context that the work existed in. I know that I’m guilty of this, if you see an image of a woman being bothered by a man, I tend to assume that that’s exactly what’s happening here. However, Pollock brings up that symbolism is different over time, this could be a portrayal of a country’s refusal to enter a trading agreement or have some other political connotation entirely separate from an individual woman’s experiences.

Similarly, I thought she did an excellent job discussing the context that art pieces existed in. Instead of taking a typical approach to why there aren’t female art masters by arguing that women made art just as well as men, she went about this by pointing out how the entire construct of art and what we appreciate is dictated by men and their viewpoints. Which begs the question of how we can even tell what female artists are great or not, but I don’t think Pollock is interested in that answer. She simply wants to expose the fact that the game is rigged and we don’t have a good way of getting around it at this time.

I do think that this book would benefit from more basic explanations of concepts. For example, Pollock repeatedly discusses the modernist movement, as well as postmodernism. Now I’m a huge fan of postmodernism, and I have a good grasp on what that movement entails. But both terms refer to such huge swaths of thought and ways of looking at art, that I was never 100% sure exactly what aspect she was discussing. Maybe there’s a specific angle to modernism that gets discussed in art history circles, but I’m not in those, I had to fumble my way through and figure it out as I went.

This definitely was a book worth reading, and possibly one worth revisiting later as I pick up more knowledge of art history and feminist theory. Even if I didn’t understand it all, there were arguments that I thought were very well explained and articulated that I will be thinking about for a while. I just hope that someday I can go back and understand the rest of it as well.

This Is Beautiful: Department Retreats

 Sort of a strange post, but my latest blog entry was late because I spent all of Friday and Saturday at my department's retreat. It honestly was really nice to be seeing my cohort in person and to be going to in person talks.

To be fair, this sounds like some capitalist nonsense of "I love working all the time!" and it's not quite that. I'm still exhausted and really tired and science-d out. I definitely wouldn't want to do this every weekend. But after being virtual for so long and not being able to see others present their work in person and not being able to present my work in person, this was a nice change. And it really made me feel closer to my fellow students. We don't often see each other so it was genuinely very nice to get together.

So like all things, this is a balance. But I was able to appreciate the nice aspects and get a lot out of this experience.

“The Shadow of Kyoshi” by F.C. Yee

This is the sequel to The Rise of Kyoshi by the same author. I wrote about it previously here. The sequel is very similar, in some ways it falls short of the original, but as far as sequels go this one was marvelously done.

It starts with Kyoshi doing her Avatarly duties and working against the criminals in the Earth Kingdom. She is then summoned by the Fire Lord to help him with a problem. She goes, and there in the Fire Nation is reunited with Rangi. They encounter Yun, the boy who was presumed to be the Avatar before Kyoshi, who threatens Rangi’s mother. From there they travel to try and commune with the spirits better, to see if Yun is possessed. It turns out that no he’s not, but Kyoshi had to talk to her predecessor, Kuruk, in order to be sure. She then has a showdown against Yun with the help of her friends where she kills him and ends this.

So what I really liked about this book is that there’s definitely more of a sense of humor to it. The original seemed very stiff, not exactly humorless, but also I didn’t laugh while reading it. This one definitely had some jokes thrown in, which made it feel like it was more a part of the Avatar universe.

But for a lot of this book, Kyoshi doesn’t really have a Team Avatar. It’s her, Rangi, Rangi’s mom, Rangi’s mom’s doctor, and Kyoshi’s Air Nomad secretary. They don’t really work as a team since it’s mostly Kyoshi doing things to connect to the Spirit World. As a result it feels as though the book has lost a bit of its core.

However, this book wraps up Kyoshi’s story incredibly well. I was three chapters from the end and was wondering how the author was going to tie up the loose ends! But Yun is defeated, Kyoshi’s friends from the first book return, and all ends up well once more. It nicely forms Kyoshi into the Avatar that we know and love, while wrapping up any remaining questions from the first book.

Definitely read The Rise of Kyoshi first, but this is an excellent follow up if you need more Kyoshi! (And I think we all do.)

This Is Beautiful: New Music!

 I don't know how this happened, but a lot of bands that I'm into have been dropping music lately. I guess it's just about that time that everyone puts out their quarantine music for the world to see!

The Wombats just released "If You Ever Leave, I'm Coming With You" as well as "Method to the Madness." Apparently soon next year they'll be dropping an album too!

Walk the Moon announced that they're coming out with an album later this year. Date TBD as far as I can tell.

Ed Sheeran announced a new album from him in October too! And new song, "Bad Habits" is out already.

It just feels like the next year or so is going to be great for music! I'm really excited.

“The Rise of Kyoshi” by F.C. Yee

Recently the book club that I’m in decided to read the Kyoshi novels. These are books written about the Avatar universe by a separate author, one who wasn’t involved with the show. It’s really cool to see what he’s done with Kyoshi’s backstory, she’s one of the most beloved characters but we don’t get to see very much of her within the tv series.

Kyoshi grows up in a world that didn’t have an Avatar for a while. After fruitless searching, the friends of Kuruk, the previous Avatar, identify Yun as the Avatar since he was a powerful earth bender and seemed to know things that only the reincarnation of the Avatar should know. So, Kyoshi is a servant in the Avatar’s household, until one mission where she demonstrates that she is also a very powerful earth bender. Tragically, one of the supposed mentors to the Avatar then brings her and Yun to a spirit who confirms that Kyoshi is the next Avatar. This mentor then leaves Yun with the spirit, murders Kyoshi’s father figure, and threatens Kyoshi. She runs off with her fire-bending bodyguard Rangi. They go to a group of outlaws that Kyoshi’s parents belonged to for help, and those outlaws end up training Kyoshi. By the end of the book, Kyoshi confronts her previous mentor and shows herself to be a bending master. Miraculously, Yun reappears and kills his old mentor. However, circumstances make it seem like Kyoshi is a criminal who destroyed the building this happened in. She then goes to the Air Nomads for sanctuary.

Alright so despite the fact that this is a book based on a children’s show, there’s a lot going on here. There’s plenty of questions about how a leader should act. Because despite her previous mentor’s flaws, he does take care of those in his charge. Or so it seems. Halfway through we learn that he’s a master of blackmail and manipulation, sullying his reputation and making the choice to kill him clearer. There’s also a lot of discussion about tradition, how Kyoshi has to do things the proper way to be a proper Avatar, and is breaking that by going to the outlaws. Traditions inherently have power to them, even the Avatar is a form of tradition, and seeing how those bonds hold the different characters is interesting.

Some of my favorite aspects of the book have to do with Kyoshi’s character and how the author used the information from the show to create this story. Kyoshi seems like a badass who kills without hesitation in the show, which is partially why she’s a fan favorite. But at the beginning of the story, they don’t even think that she can earth bend. Or when she can, it’s very clumsy and without control. Seeing her grow and change is a great part of the story. Plus a lot of the book is her learning about justice and how she as the Avatar continually has to make choices about who is right and wrong. You can see how this, combined with how she is viewed as an outlaw, make the severe Avatar that we meet later on.

And then there’s the gay. Kyoshi and Rangi start up a relationship about ¾ of the way through the book. It’s really sweet and shows how those two find comfort and family in each other when they cannot find it anywhere else. There’s some mentions of homophobia in the book, but nothing severe. Still, it’s interesting that homophobia in any form exists within this universe.

There’s one other book in this series, which I am very excited to read. I particularly want to find out what Yun’s deal is, now that he’s back from the spirit that kept him captive. Will Kyoshi be able to save the Yun that she knew? Or is he gone forever? Plus seeing her continual growth as the Avatar, and all of those adventures that she is bound to go on. It should be a fun time!

This Is Beautiful: Cars

 Alright well I was kinda hoping that this day wouldn't come, but somehow it has. I bought a car! 

I was hoping to avoid it because I love walking and taking public transportation, it's better for you and the environment. But here we are, I'm in a city without a great public transit system, and it just became necessary. I am now the proud owner of an orange Scion iQ which is this tiny, super cute, car. It's so small that it doesn't have a glove compartment! But it gets great mileage, very easy to park, and I'm into it.

Didn't think that I'd be excited about having a car, but it is nice that now I can get back and forth from my partner's place without him having to drive me. Plus can get groceries whenever I want. I don't know, it's just nice having that freedom!

Don't get me wrong, I will still be taking public transit whenever possible. But having a car is kinda nice as well!