Hi, everyone! This month has been spent voraciously reading and outrageously movie-watching and pathetically gaming for a series of videos, some announced, some un-. (Can you tell I drank a coffee on an empty stomach?). I've found some great stuff, so this month's production diary will be a supersized edition of "Time Lily Does Reviews": two books, two articles, two movies, and two games that I've enjoyed lately; in written form for ease of perusal.
Before that, though, here's how the work is going:
How the work is going
Pretty well!
AdditionaLily returns this week with a lengthy Q&A video. I've already recorded it, but if anyone has a truly burning question, let me know and I'll try to fit it in.
My Twin Peaks podcast, TS TV, just wrapped up its second season. Our episode on "Beyond Life and Death" is out now on the public feed, and the first of two Fire Walk With Me episodes has hit Patreon and Nebula. (I'm five episodes into The Return now, and Jesus Christ it is so good.)
After announcing a new video, "Finding God in the City", in my last production diary, I realized my city was in the middle of its ugliest phase:
I'd rather film a video about loving the city when the city isn't a barren wasteland, so while I wait for things to come back to life, I've been working on a smaller video (famous last words) that'll serve as a preface.
Following a thread between starling murmurations that blot out the sun to absurdist head-empty TikTok slop, the video is about feeling awe at things we don't understand, and what happens to that feeling when we move a little closer. I'm calling it "Finding God on the Endless Feed", though the public-facing title might be different.
I've really enjoyed researching this one. I think the final product will be very cozy and grounding. You gotta love birds.
But enough about me! Enough about birds! Let's get onto LILY'S DIGEST:
Articles
Hannah Baer, "Loving the World on Fire"
This piece has been a guiding light as I try to move out of doomerism and back into love and connection and yada yada yada. The piece is about that pretty common theme, but the way it gets there is fascinating: the psychoanalytic concept of "container and contained", or, as Baer describes them, "mama and baby". How much of our dysregulation is owed to structures meant to be "mama" (and not just the obvious ones) failing to contain, protect, preserve us?
Honestly, my description can't do it justice. It's a singular piece I'm really grateful for. (Still scratching my head at Baer's use of "Cluster B", though.)
Sandy Ernest Allen, “A Brilliant Cure but We Lost the Patient”
A long, brilliant essay about the modern use of electroshock therapy (ECT). When I watched "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in a high school class, my teacher explained that ECT had been central to the abuse of psychiatric patients in the mid-20th century... but that nowadays, the treatment was deployed in ways that were consensual, humane, and genuinely therapeutic. Whatever my teacher thought had changed, Allen clarifies that it didn't: ECT is overwhelmingly used on women and disabled people, often to debilitating effect, sometimes without their consent. The piece is heavy but less brutal that I'm making it sound – it's riveting, and follows survivors' struggles toward wellness and justice.
Movies
The Doom Generation
A very stylish, very bisexual, very 90s road trip movie featuring a world & performances that are deliberately on-the-nose... so when it finally gets weird (AND IT GETS WEIRD) you're caught completely off-guard. The surface is so lovable but bubbling underneath it is deep thick red. Aesthetically and thematically, this movie is a clear forebear of I Saw the TV Glow – and I might actually like this one better!
Picnic at Hanging Rock
In 1900 Australia, a boarding school for girls goes for a picnic near a suspiciously young mountain. After every member of the excursion falls asleep at once, three students (and one teacher) vanish into thin air. Where did they go?
Like The Doom Generation, Picnic at Hanging Rock is on-the-nose in ways that lull you into a false sense of security. Every other line of dialogue is obvious foreshadowing, delivered more-or-less directly to you, the viewer. By the end, though... what the hell was this movie? A horror story about the earth punishing colonizers for our crimes? A lesbian dream of sexual liberation? A warm-up for The Truman Show, which the same director made 23 years later? I think it's all three – and it's so cool.
I was pretty tired the first time I tried to watch this movie. When the picnic-ers fell asleep, I did too. It was scary!!!
Games
Perfect Tides: Station to Station
I could praise this game for a full lifetime. (In fact, I kind of already have – check out my extremely long liveblog of the game on Bluesky.) I think I'll probably make a full video about the game on AdditionaLily, so for now, I'll be brief:
You're Mara, an 18 year-old college student who wants to be a great writer. You can explore the big city, meet new people, and read books in order to become a better writer (by way of boosting stats like "Sex", "Movies", and "Anarchism").
By the end, the game pulls a bit too much focus away from her growth as a writer, to spend more time on romances I wasn't as into... But man. It just has so much compassion and interest in the lives of young women. And it's so funny!!! One of my favourite games I've ever played.
Sudoku
...Heard of it? I was gonna review Cult of the Lamb here, but honestly, it's not grabbing me – management sims stress me out, and the combat so far is too simple to be interesting.
Sudoku doesn't have those problems, on account of Just Being Numbers. Lately, I've been picking up sudokuexchange.com on my 5-minute pomodoro breaks, and I think I'm getting kinda good at it? I'm getting quicker! I'm developing elaborate new strategies that are sooo boring !
When I'm too tired to do more than look at my phone, it makes me feel like I'm still accomplishing something while doing so. Thank you to MATH for a low-stakes win.
Books
The Salt Eaters
We start with Velma, a Black radical organizer who's pushed herself well past burnout – to the brink of death – for a movement that hasn't always loved her back. In her hospital room, time cracks open, and we experience the scene in an exploded view: the thoughts of every person present, and everyone they know, and everything that's ever happened to everyone they know. The novel is written in extremely omniscient third-person to reveal... you know, everyone's dealing with a lot of shit, and everyone has their own idea about how shit should be handled. Bambara respects (loves!) all of these characters – reactionary bus drivers to gossipy church ladies to conspiratorial traditional healers – but has an endless supply of jokes at their expense.
The book is about how to be well, especially as a radical. It's occasionally hard to follow, but in a way I can't get mad at – would you begrudge your fascinating, brilliant, hilarious friend for rambling on a bit too long? I doubt anyone has made this comparison before, but: read this book if you liked Disco Elysium.
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
I read this because I'd been meaning to since childhood, not because of the depraved American/Israeli war on Iran. The book is not a complete, objective account of the Iranian revolution – it's been getting some flak for that, which feels wild given the author was eight during the revolution?! It's called "The Story of a Childhood"!!
Persepolis is the story of how the revolution impacted a child (from a well-off, secular family), and the people she cared about. The revolution's impacts are explored in the small scope that is a child's life – her teachers punished her for mouthing off. Her friend was killed by a bomb. This allows the story to raise completely different questions than an objective account would: how does a government exploit a child's trusting nature? How much should we lie to protect children? All of this stuff matters because it affects people, and I found this to be a really profound, beautiful look at the people.
✦
Whew, so many words! If you check out something I recommended, please let me know what you thought of it :)
Sorry it's been quiet here lately, by the way. I'll try to check in more often.