Hi everyone,
I hope all of you (in this hemisphere) are enjoying spring. I definitely am!
It’s been a nice month and a bit, I had a very restful week-long trip to Ireland to see family and a more recent one to Italy to see a friend and do some solo travel. On the other hand, I'm deep into looking for both a new job and also now a new flat. My job contract is ending soon and I've just found out my landlord is selling so it's a busy time. I’d begun work on the next video but very little has happened as yet in light of all the change. I have however attached a working thumbnail! I think I'll save saying more about it for down the line...
In terms of media, this month I read three books. First was Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park — this was a bookshop find (Libreria around Brick Lane if any of you are ever in London, a new favourite). It’s originally a Korean novel about a gay man living in Seoul and navigating various trials and tribulations. I found it quite moving and liked the writing.
I also read Up Late, a poetry collection by Nick Laird. I bought this a long time ago after reading an excerpt of the titular poem in a Forward anthology that made me sob, about the poet’s dad dying during Covid. That poem and a few others in the collection were incredible, the rest I found so-so.
I also just re-read my favourite novel — A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. It's been maybe ten years since my last read but it really held up and I couldn't help but think of Umineko reading it -- it's a work metafiction. It deals with a range of topics in really interesting ways and I thoroughly enjoyed rereading it, I would highly recommend it.
I also listened to Serial Production’s podcast The Idiot this month as part of my tradition of listening to everything they release. I’ve not found the subjects of their podcast series in recent years as interesting but still completed this one — it’s about the writer and host essentially trying to understand why his cousin tried to get his wife killed. It was fine. I also listened to the Guardian's podcast series Off Duty about a man who was wrongfully convicted of killing a police officer in Chicago which was also fine.
I also saw a few films at the cinema this month. Some friends wanted to check out the Jia Zhangke season at The Garden Cinema (also recommended) and I went with them to see Platform. I’m not familiar with Chinese cinema or history and so this film largely went over my head though I can appreciate reading reviews why it resonated with others.
A few of us also went to see Rose of Nevada together, which is a new film set in Cornwall and shot on 16mm film, about its largely defunct fishing industry and our relationship to the past. I thought it could have been shorter but it was full of beautiful shots and I feel like I understood what it was going for. It’s probably an acquired taste but I don’t regret seeing it.
Lastly, I saw the 4K Akira re-release — my first time seeing Akira! Very shameful as an anime fan but I am making my way through the classics slowly but surely. This is a friend’s favourite film so we went to see it together. I wasn’t sure whether to expect to like it but did in the end. Probably not a favourite so much as a film I can appreciate the relevance and weight of. I spent a lot of it wondering how many other works took cues from it and generally thinking about how WW2 has shaped modern Japanese media. Very happy to tick this one off.
That’s all for this month. Speak soon!