Weekend Listening Post (+ links)
I'm still very much enjoying Namoli Brennet (I have two albums, Boy In A Dress and The Simple Life, her first and latest). There are very few of her tracks on YouTube, other than Boy In A Dress, which I've already posted, so you'll have to take my word for it. One odd thing is that aside from Boy In A Dress and one called 'The Works of Man', none of the individual songs really stick in my mind? But I find both albums a Good Vibe.
Podcasts and audiofiction: I'm making some headway with Paradise Lost, via Anthony Oliveira's podcast. Made it as far as the creation of Eve, as told by Adam, tonight.
I feel that the difference between raised-catholic queer (Oliveira) and raised-protestant queer can be epitomised in my reaction to his interpretation of Adam's tale:
Anthony waxes lyrical about Anne Carson (via Carly Rae Jepsen, natch), and her concept of 'art without a personal centre, a hole in the middle left open for God', and the compulsion to companionship and love.
Meanwhile, me: Life without - God's Love - is like a DONUT! (Context. You gotta wade through, like, TV kids giving thanks to God before you get to the psychedelic song).
I've also made headway with Magnus - I found Hive interesting, clearly an important piece of the Ongoing Plot, but I didn't love it (this is a pattern: I am way more impressed with the tight standalones than the ones intricately bound with the overarching plot). First Hunt I quite liked for how it wasn't contributing plot *pieces*, but it was developing plot *themes* - good refraction there, although I must admit I was a bit surprised by the show's stepping so far into a clear vegetarian politic. Boatswain's Call, meanwhile, I really loved - it exhibited the thing that first impressed me about Magnus, the restraint: you never see the monster, you *never even find out what the monster was or does*, or if there was a monster at all.
Meanwhile, links backlog!
Maya Alexandri (LitHub), Navigating the dual nightmare of an opiod epidemic and a global pandemic. Problems with framing opiod addiction as an epidemic granted, this is... a harrowing piece.
Merve Emre (The Point), The Longing Man. Yearning, indecision, impossibility—the frustrated agency of romance proves endlessly fascinating to the longing man. He believes in soul mates, in beloveds and in the inevitability of cultivating his feelings for them, in cultivating his feelings through them.
Abby Dockter, interview with Irina Dmitrescu (Essay Daily), Digesting Texas, And Other Pursuits of a Fusion Medievalist.
Jessica Xing (Electric Lit), Lesbian Pulp Novels Made Me Feel Normal.
Sonia Saraya (Vanity Fair), How Immigration Nation's filmmakers captured America's broken immigration system. What's striking about this is that they were given unprecedented access to ICE enforcement teams, without lying to them about their film, because ICE just *assumed*, couldn't really conceive of any alternative, that they were doing a gung-ho 'Border Security' style take.
Rachel Corbmann (Notches), Lesbian networks of (cat) care during the sex wars. What it says on the tin.
Lauren Gravitz (Spectrum News), At the intersection of autism and trauma
Olivia Rutigliano (LitHub), The #ReclaimHerName controversy ignores the authorial choices of the writers it represents.
Catherine Taylor (TLS), The story of a new name (same topic as previous).
V.S. Naipaul (The New Yorker), The Strangeness of Grief. Contains many more things than kittens (including, alas, the death of the cat that was once a kitten).
AphroChich (The Spruce), The History and Uses of Indian Charpoy Beds. These were mentioned in Ibn Battutah's Travels, and I couldn't picture them from his description. Research lead me here!
Scott Robinson (Overland), Loneliness without privacy: on isolation under lockdown.
Podcasts and audiofiction: I'm making some headway with Paradise Lost, via Anthony Oliveira's podcast. Made it as far as the creation of Eve, as told by Adam, tonight.
I feel that the difference between raised-catholic queer (Oliveira) and raised-protestant queer can be epitomised in my reaction to his interpretation of Adam's tale:
Anthony waxes lyrical about Anne Carson (via Carly Rae Jepsen, natch), and her concept of 'art without a personal centre, a hole in the middle left open for God', and the compulsion to companionship and love.
Meanwhile, me: Life without - God's Love - is like a DONUT! (Context. You gotta wade through, like, TV kids giving thanks to God before you get to the psychedelic song).
I've also made headway with Magnus - I found Hive interesting, clearly an important piece of the Ongoing Plot, but I didn't love it (this is a pattern: I am way more impressed with the tight standalones than the ones intricately bound with the overarching plot). First Hunt I quite liked for how it wasn't contributing plot *pieces*, but it was developing plot *themes* - good refraction there, although I must admit I was a bit surprised by the show's stepping so far into a clear vegetarian politic. Boatswain's Call, meanwhile, I really loved - it exhibited the thing that first impressed me about Magnus, the restraint: you never see the monster, you *never even find out what the monster was or does*, or if there was a monster at all.
Meanwhile, links backlog!