This Is Beautiful: Nice Try!

 When I found out that Avery Trufelman was hosting another podcast, I subscribed immediately. And it does not disappoint. 

Avery Trufelman was a host for 99% Invisible, where she got her start, and while she was there she made "Articles of Interest." This was a really cool series about clothes and how fashion affects and reflects society through its designs. She then hosted "The Cut" from New York Magazine for a year, and I loved hearing her voice weekly. Now she's at "Nice Try!" a podcast about home design. For this season, they're focusing on the interior and how the personal things we use everyday are political and affected by the world at large. 

The podcast is very 99pi in concept, focusing on the design of everyday items. But it's cool to hear Avery's voice again, and I'm excited to see where this season leads!

The Dave Chappelle Special: I'm not watching it

 Alright look, this isn't really about the special. It's more about how sick I am of this kind of discourse. I'm really really sick of someone saying inflammatory things and us giving them a huge platform for it by discussing it. I have no desire to watch this. If you want to see a decent breakdown of this, head to Jessie Gender's excellent video on it here. But I'm focusing on something larger than that.

It's just so exhausting seeing all of the transphobes come out of the woodwork and rally around this special and these comments. Everyone has some hot take on this one way or another, but rarely is the goal of these comments to learn and grow. It's more to just dunk on someone and yell about it. We all want to make a lot of noise, but rarely do we want to reflect on our opinions and what they say about us.

Particularly with people on the left, those that are defending trans people, they tend to virtue signal rather than really interact with the ideas. I'm very sick of people just taking a holier than thou stance and pointing out the contradictions instead of trying to contribute to work going against this. By educating people or dismantling the system of transphobia that creates people like this. (This is why Jessie Gender's video is good, she takes a lot of time to interact with it and doesn't just dunk on things and leave.)

Really the special is only popular right now because so many people are discussing it. We have made Chappelle so incredibly powerful instead of taking that away. If you want to cancel someone truly, stop talking about them. Don't even acknowledge it. No I'm not doing this right now, but I really need to vent and I'll go back to not discussing it afterwards. Interacting with these ideas just adds to their power, I doubt that Chappelle actually gives that much of a shit what we think anyways. Just walk away.

Anyways, I'm not watching the special, and I'm going to be super critical of anyone who does at this point because I suspect that they're just there to add fuel to the flames. And honestly shame on Netflix for putting it up on their platform. I'm exiting the system as soon as I can.

This Is Beautiful: acting?

 So it feels really strange to say this, but I'm acting again. I'm a very minor character in "Much Ado About Nothing." It's a little disappointing to be honest. But I'm having a good time doing Shakespeare again, and getting to say lines on a stage again. I really liked acting while in college and high school and middle school, so I'm hoping that this'll add some color to my life again.

But yeah, I'm acting! It's kinda fun. Good stuff.

“One Last Stop” by Casey McQuiston

I’ve wanted to read this book since I saw it being described as “magic subway lesbians” in a magazine review. Previously I’d heard of Red, White, and Royal Blue which is McQuiston’s other book, but I’d never read it. So I was thrilled when my book club selected this book to be our next pick!

Let me preface this by saying that it is very good. It’s excellently written. All of the characters are hilarious and larger than life, from the transmasc psychic to the drag queen working at a diner. They’re all delightful and super entertaining to read about. And the writing is terrific! McQuiston clearly knows what she’s doing. Yes it’s romance, but it’s also about magic and being queer and finding your family.

Having said that, there’s a lot of elements that really rubbed me the wrong way. So much of the plot feels like McQuiston checking off all of the tropes that queer readers will love. There’s the protagonist who has a hard time opening up to other people. There’s SO MANY queer characters. There’s the roommate who never talks to anyone opening up about how his parents kicked him out. There’s the love interest who’s a radical queer feminist and covered in tattoos. We KNOW that we’ll love it, but also I can see what you’re doing there. It just feels like every plot point is designed to inject dopamine directly into my veins, which is fine, but I’d like something I can find new or different in the plot beyond the number of queer characters. Representation is objectively a good thing, but I expected a little more from the novel beyond that.

There’s also just the amount of sex. I’m fine with reading about it but wooooow that last chapter was a lot even for me. If you are asexual or aromantic, this might be a hard read for you. I also just left thinking, is that what allo relationships are like? Is that what people do? It’s all queer sex so I’ll support that being seen and written about, but I kinda wish that I had a bit more of a heads up.

Then there’s the ending. Yes it’s romance and it therefore gets a happy ending. But I feel like the story could have been a lot more interesting and stand out more if it ended differently. If Jane went back and they didn’t end the story together. There was a half of a chapter where this was teased and I thought that seeing August’s development and her coming to terms with it MUCH more interesting than the final chapter where they just had a lot of sex. You never see a book where that happens and the author goes through the recovery detail with as much care as the romantic details. (Which McQuiston is definitely capable of.) Queer happiness is a radical act, but queer happiness after a tragedy to me seems like something with more depth to it.

Definitely read this book and adore this book, and find other queer authors to read and love. But also, I think there’s areas to improve and make changes to in future works. And maybe that’s just for me, and that’s alright.

This Is Beautiful: The Lifespan of a Fact

 Last weekend, my partner and I went to go see a local play, "The Lifespan of a Fact." It was an excellent production, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it! It was at a local theater company that I saw once before the pandemic, I'm glad that they're still running and able to put on shows!

The play centers on an essay written for a magazine. A recently hired employee is tasked with fact checking it, a job that he goes to with zeal and enthusiasm. A little too much enthusiasm. He ends up travelling to the writer's place in Las Vegas to ask him some questions about the piece. There he's met with a writer who considers the crafting of a compelling and well-written essay much more important than sticking strictly to facts. Meanwhile, the editor of the magazine is trying to publish this gorgeous essay without offending anyone, and acts as the middle ground between these two extremes.

The writing is wonderfully done, it exposes the ridiculousness within both worldviews. But also how they both can have valid claims here. There also aren't any answers given within the play, the audience leaves not knowing if the essay was published in the magazine or not. But it really makes you think about what a fact is, and how facts should be used to serve the purpose of crafting a story.

Definitely would recommend seeing it if you can! It's a production that really makes you think and reflect.

On Living in a Hybrid World

 I feel like we are now at the worst part of reopening: when some things are virtual and some things are in person. The bulk of my meetings are still online through web conferencing platforms, but more and more things are at the very least trying to go back to in person. There's quite a few aspects of this that I find exhausting.

First of all there's simply logistical issues. It's really hard to plan my day when I'm not sure where I need to be when, and trying to find ideal locations for virtual meetings is harder than it seems. If my work is in person and I have a virtual meeting, is it then my responsibility to find a quiet, private place to have my virtual meeting in? I'm used to running around for in person things, but this feels like a different kind of frantic and inconvenient. Virtual meetings are very convenient in a lot of ways, and I think I've also gotten used to being able to hop instantly on and off calls. Now with more in person events, travel time is a thing and it's harder for me to do everything that I used to do easily. It takes some adjustment. This liminal space that we're in between virtual and in person is really highlighting this change.

Then there's the fact that I don't feel safe being in person for a number of events. The Delta variant is still out there being spread by vaccinated individuals, I'm not willing to take huge risks when it comes to that. So I constantly have to check what form meetings are in and how comfortable I feel about this at the time. This pandemic has definitely eroded my trust of others, I don't care if they say an in person meeting is fine, I personally may or may not be comfy with that.

The end result is that I feel way more exhausted than I would if everything was either online or in person. The constant back and forth of it all and trying to plan out where and when everything is taking place has been a drain on my energy. Plus I constantly have to think about whether I even feel safe in these in person situations when they do take place. It's a nightmare and a lot for one person to handle.

I'm not sure what the solution is though. The hybrid world is the one that we now live in, and it's probably here to stay. Possibly if the ratio of virtual to in person events skews one way or another it'll get easier, but the underlying issues will still be there. I'm not sure. All of which is to say, if you feel similarly to me, just know that you're not alone!

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.