My Week in Media: March 26

Everything I read, listened to, and watched

Mar 26, 2023

Hi, friends,

I hope you had a good week.

True to form, I lugged home 9000 books from the library last weekend, and proceeded to read, like, four of them. But for me, a giant stack of books is a source of comfort, rather than a source of guilt—it’s like a big pile of choice and potential?—so I feel just fine about only reading a few. If I don’t get to them this time around, I can always bring them back unread and then check them out another time.

Beyond that, my week off involved a lot of cooking, a lot of baking, a lot of eating, walking, crocheting, and generally enjoying the shift into spring.

And then it snowed yesterday, because March is always gonna March. But it’s sunny now, and already melting, so spring will eventually triumph.

Physical Manifestation of Choice and Potential!

bkshelvesofdoom

A post shared by Leila Ann Roy (@bkshelvesofdoom)

Pete counts off on his fingers:
A hero is brave, but not without fear.
Says what they believe is right.
Works to make the world better.
Acts out of love for others.

You check all the boxes, Reha.
I don’t know if it will work. If I’m a match, I say.
At least you’re trying. That’s the first step to being a hero.

—Red, White, and Whole, by Rajani LaRocca

Reading

Comics, Graphic Novels, and Manga

Unicorns vs. Goblins: Another Phoebe and her Unicorn Adventure, by Dana Simpson

Spy x Family, Volume Three, by Tatsuya Endo

The Prisoner of Shiverstone, by Linette Moore

Chapter Books & Middle Grade

Red, White, and Whole, by Rajani LaRocca

Watching

Television

The Cleaner: Adapted from a German show, this British dramedy stars Greg Davies as a crime scene cleaner. Each episode is centered around him cleaning up after a violent/sudden death, and chronicles his interactions with the folks in the house where the death occurred. Great character work—Davies also wrote it—and it’s so much fun to see him acting vs hosting. We blew through the whole first season, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we watch all of season two this week.

(Note to fans of David Mitchell: He appears in episode two as the crabbiest author to have ever crabbed.)

South Side: Comedy set in Chicago that follows characters who work at a local rent-to-own place as repo men. So smart, so funny—we had to force ourselves to not gobble the whole thing up in one go—buuuuut due to our lack of self-control, we ended up watching the whole first season.

Would I Lie to You?: Speaking of our lack of self control, we are now out of new episodes, *sob*. (More on this show here.)

Abbott Elementary: I love it.

josh: what even is jo’s fashion me: boosh-era noel fielding

Doctor Who (Inferno, 1970; Terror of the Autons; 1971): The shift from Liz Shaw (highly-trained scientist, acerbic, feminist, skeptic) to Jo Grant (bubbly, wide-eyed, needs everything explained, needs constant rescuing) gave me mental whiplash and made me want to throw my television out the window.

Super fun to revisit this version of The Master, though, and I’ll OBVIOUSLY continue on through the Jo years, if only to admire her wardrobe. ALSO, Liz’s last arc—Inferno—involved a whole alternate dimension thing in which Liz and the Brigadier basically played Nazi versions of themselves and it was so clearly done on a shoestring budget and it all felt very Community Theater in the best sort of way, I loved it.

Movies

Rebecca
Alfred Hitchcock, 1940

Laurence Olivier is so fantastic that he almost made me want to try to like the walking collection of nine billion red flags that is Maxim de Winter. ALMOST. So great.

They Live
John Carpenter, 1988

A documentary about capitalism starring Rowdy Roddy Piper.

The Fog
John Carpenter, 1980

Adrienne Barbeau, Forever Hot. As I know I’ve said before, I love horror movies in which the characters are like, well shit, we’re totally dealing with the supernatural, and this is one of those. And Tom Atkins is in this one SANS MUSTACHE, I didn’t even know that was ALLOWED?? Stacked cast that also features: Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, Hal Holbrook as an alcoholic priest??? ALSO MIND-BLOWING: John Carpenter’s ability to create atmosphere and tension and scares with, like, dry ice and some bright lights.

Big Trouble in Little China
John Carpenter, 1986

Kurt Russell’s talent for playing absolute dorks who THINK they’re really cool will never cease to delight me. Also, I would like a pair of his rad adventure boots.

Listening

TV/Movies

Again with This
Extra Hot Great
I Saw What You Did
Criticism is Dead
It’s Christmastown
How Did This Get Made?
Screen Drafts

Books & Language

By the Book

The section of The Wendigo that made me look up Algernon Blackwood to see if he was a Lovecraft fanboy or vice versa. (It was vice versa.)

From the ruins of the dark and awful memories he still retains, Simpson declares that the face was more animal than human, the features drawn about into wrong proportions, the skin loose and hanging, as though he had been subjected to extraordinary pressures and tensions. It made him think vaguely of those bladder faces blown up by the hawkers on Ludgate Hill, that change their expression as they swell, and as they collapse emit a faint and wailing imitation of a voice. Both face and voice suggested some such abominable resemblance. But Cathcart long afterwards, seeking to describe the indescribable, asserts that thus might have looked a face and body that had been in air so rarified that, the weight of atmosphere being removed, the entire structure threatened to fly asunder and become—incoherent....

—The Wendigo, by Algernon Blackwood

Short Stories, Storytelling, and Audiobooks

Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe

The Wendigo, by Algernon Blackwood (Nocturnal Transmissions, ep. 146, 147, and 148)

The Kidnapped Prime Minister, by Agatha Christie (Classic Tales Podcast, ep. 816)

The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim, by Agatha Christie (Classic Tales Podcast, ep. 817)

And I was going to go for a walk when I finished pulling this together, but it is suddenly cloudy and I think I might just… get cozy and make some popcorn and watch a movie?

Talk soon,
Leila

Bookshelves of Doom

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