2022 in reading and films

hello!! i have done zero substantial typing on the computer for exactly 8 weeks and it has been glorious. the best thing i did this year was to wing it and take more time off to enjoy decompressing along the way. (of course this was within reason and with thorough establishment of expectations and there were no unexpected implosions or consequences). i took several small trips and read a lot! 

- 75(!!) books read. none of them by straight white men. only one by a male author at all, i think (The Three Body Problem, where i was not inspired to read the sequels.) 

my favourites, in order of being read:

- Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead: a solo character epic. engaging and extreme and probably too neat in the end but i didn't care.

- Flung Out of Space, Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer: ahh patricia highsmith is fascinating in horribly distasteful ways. i loved the art (also highly recommend Cosmoknights) and the pacing. one to re-read at different speeds.

- Companion Piece, Ali Smith: classic Ali Smith - lyrical, very current yet also timeless because it is about people, who are endlessly interesting.

- On a Sunbeam, Tillie Walden: excellent webcomic of graphic novel proportions! boarding school sci-fi and beautiful art.

- Vera Kelly Lost and Found, Rosalie Knecht: love this mystery series (written in classic style and form and very engaging plot-wise) and wonder if there will be more?

- Skinship, Yoon Choi: long-ish short stories based in the Korean-American experience. so many facets and aspects of the immigrant and inter-generational experience. sometimes quite funny, in a sparse, indirect way.

- Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield: ooo this one is very memorable. seamless melding of different writing styles in an honestly weird gothic body horror sci-fi-ish romantic story. i don't think adding any more description will help. it was perfect.

- Ornament and Silence, Kennedy Fraser: New Yorker essays in the art/fashion world, reminiscent of Janet Malcolm. excellent. one of the only real hard-cover books i read this year because i could only find it at the university library.

- Raised by Wolves, Jess Ho: incisively written, a fascinating look into the world of the Melbourne hospitality industry, and millennial Cantonese-diaspora life. 

- Leech, Hiron Ennes: sci-fi gothic period body horror, in a completely different way from Our Wives Under the Sea. a very very interesting premise that dissolves and then reforms the lines between individuality and a hive mind, but without you knowing. 

- How Far the Light Reaches, Sabrina Imbler: marine biology/queer memoir in essays. somehow it works, astonishingly well in fact. 

laid out in this fashion, this list is hugely varied! it's as if i chose 11 niche genres and picked one book to represent each. 

highly commended: The Priory of the Orange Tree, The Liar's Dictionary, Portrait of a Thief, Salt Slow, Cleopatra and Frankenstein. 

quote of the year, from a book i have not yet finished: "Her voice is like three sick pigeons trapped in a grocery bag." (Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel). wow.

the reinstatement of in-person film festivals also meant that i saw quite a lot of films. i overestimated my capacity and was very tired at the end of MIFF. in any case, i saw 28 films throughout the year and my favourites were, again in viewing order:

- The Power of the Dog

- Turning Red

- Petite Maman

- Never Rarely Sometimes Always

- The Matrix Resurrections

- Nelly and Nadine

i attended a range of concerts and opera! highlights included Ensemble Gombert, Victorian Opera's Elektra, Jonas Kaufman as Lohengrin, Melbourne Opera's Lucrezia Borgia, Australian Ballet's Kunstkamer, and the most technically mind-boggling show of the year, The Picture of Dorian Gray, a truly astounding one-person show. 

'til next time! may we appreciate art in all the ways it deserves.

why hello

cxxxv. ethan frome, edith wharton
so bleak, god.

cxxxvi. the remains of the day, kazuo ishiguro
well i mean it was ok; it was well-written and subtle. but ultimately was it gripping and newly insightful? not so much.

viii? this is our youth, sydney opera house drama theatre march 22
this was quite enjoyable now that i think back about it, but at the time i just felt like it was new york/internet snark in person. this was most likely an effect of some people in the audience who found some average lines funny and the good lines hilarious beyond belief. this kind of weird exaggerated response relative to my own was a bit disconcerting! anyway this is quickly becoming a judgy judgement of the audience rather than the play itself, which i enjoyed. michael cera was pretty great in a michael cera way, and while kieran culkin was operating at a higher level they both had stilted monologue patches but were otherwise consistently good.

.

it's so weird to listen to my mum talk with her friend on the phone about said friend's divorce proceedings with my dad in the same room.

in other news i worked like a full 10.5hr day today for the first day in many, many, many moons possibly more than 12. therefore current nagging headache.

in the last 2 days i have been listening to a lot of megan washington, mainly because of the great similarity between her chord progressions and that 'for the beauty of the earth' hymn, specifically in 'little women' featuring kirsten dunst, and yes, winona ryder, i am very predictable.

oh oh last night i saw 22iii. 'august: osage county' and my reaction and review is as follows: holy shit! such manipulation. brilliant acting. we were sitting a little too far for my poor eyesight to distinguish facial features but my hunch that george clooney's older sister in 'up in the air' played one of the main roles turned out to be correct.

summer will be in a couple of months. this is a portable watermelon cooler:

only in japan.

not material things

19xliii. shantaram, gregory david roberts
this book is around 900 pages and took me since approximately May to read, mainly because of its poor portability. i will admit also that it didn't make very good bedtime reading because i'd get sucked in and then get inadequate sleep. i think the reason for so many pages is that there are so many words used to describe something or a conversation, just a lot of writing to get through. but i would qualify it as good writing about india, which doesn't happen easily.

22ii. wicked, capitol theatre sydney
a little backstory, my sister loves wicked. she went to see it with her friends a few months ago and since then hasn't stopped singing (slight exaggeration). so since i missed out on seeing the show with Team Ice Cream she has been trying to get me to go before it ends in september. anyway turns out there is a lottery before every show for $30 front row tickets! which we won yesterday, for the saturday matinee. no on in my family ever wins anything lottery-related except for my dad, and sure enough he won it for us.
so it was a great show! our fears of only seeing legs or up-costume were unfounded.

hmm so this 101 list is pretty much the only reason why i blog... except for this one:

i should just start a watermelon-themed tumblr.

22(i) avenue q

saw this tonight at the theatre royal, it was hilarious, moreso in the 1st half perhaps. i wondered why they had real people characters and then 'human' muppets and then monster muppets? that was never really explained, but in any case i wonder if looking at a muppet while hearing someone speak or sing makes it sound more like a muppet voice. the acting and muppeting and singing were all really really good. i mean now i can totally understand why several people i know have seen it multiple times.

oh i also wanted to say that when we were finding our seats, i asked the guy in the seat next to me just to check his seat number and he didn't even respond, he didn't even look up, just waited for his girlfriend on the other side to clarify, what? why so awkward and rude? then he put his elbow on the shared armrest, but not just on it, over it, into my column of air over my seat. ugh.