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Feb 28, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

Kipo! <3

Thank you for starting this exciting thread. ^^

I have chosen the things I have been consuming recently, to help nourish an inner monologue of "kindness".

I am reading Toko-pa Turner's book Belonging, which is a series of love letters to all of the various ways that we spiritually seek belonging, both internally and externally.

I am watching Chella Man's and Maryv Benoit's vlogs on loop. They speak to each other with such tenderness and care. It is providing me with a model on incorporating such tenderness and care into my own life.

And I am listening to Louie Zong's ghost music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXF3VYYa5TI

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Feb 28, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

The one that surprised me recently was the new Terminator movie. I went into it with -spectacularly- low expectations for a mid-budget, derivative, explosion heavy tribute-at-best. The kind of thing you watch when you can't sleep in a hotel. Instead, it's a wonderful combination of homage and update ... bending the gender expectations on all fronts while still being satisfyingly loud and flashy.

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I'm reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Amal, it's so beautiful. It's the intertwining of Indigenous knowledge, science, and folklore about the lessons plants can teach us. It has the most beautiful prose I've ever seen. I adore it.

I did finish the Dragon Prince although my interest took a steep nosedive when a certain Arab-adjacent character became a literal monster.

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Feb 28, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

I was curious how you'd get on with TDP - I think it's nowhere near as good as some of the other recent netflix animated shows (is this a good time to ask about your she-ra anecdote? :p) but the bits of it I Iiked, I liked a lot.

Anyway - I've been watching Picard, which has been really interesting (I'm only a very very casual star trek fan) because I think it's doing some things really well and others really... not. Regardless, it's refreshing to hear a line like "there is ample evidence for the therapeutic benefit of a shared mythical framework". Whether or not ot succeeds it's at least aiming for thoughtful, concept-driven SF, and I'm on board with more of that!

Book-wise, I'm about to start The Monster of Elendhaven and really looking forward to it. :D Music-wise I'm working on my electronic female-fronted artists with all-caps names playlist, featuring no fewer than five distinct artists so far!

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Feb 28, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

I hear ya on not getting on with the Dragon Prince. Or, more generally, on things that ppl highly recommend and that are super popular. I’ve heard so many good things about certain shows (in my case, Stephen Universe and Dr. Who), but when I tried them, they just weren’t my thing. That’s not to say they aren’t GOOD, of course. They just don’t quite suit me.

Stuff that I started recently? Gentleman Jack (on HBONow). I went to a teensie fandom convention and everyone and their uncle talked about it, so I tried it and am liking it thus far. I’ve also FINALLY gotten around to reading Rebecca Roanhorse’s TRAIL OF LIGHTENING and am also reaching Tochi Onyebuchi’s WAR GIRLS and loving both of them. :)

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Feb 28, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

Currently reading Borne by Jeff Vandermeer, The White Album by Joan Didion, Agency by William Gibson, and The Witchfinder Omnibus from Dark Horse Comics. Listening to Mazzy Star all weekend because it’s the law, and watching the Tales from the Loop trailer because I am so so smitten with it.

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Feb 28, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

Reading: Silver Screen by Justina Robson, which is one part human drama and one part really cool tech ideas, which is how I like my science fiction.

Watching: the Millennium Trilogy, again. I've decided I'm happy to claim Lisbeth Salander for the list of fictional autistic women, whether that's officially canon or not.

Listening: Uncomfortable, by Strange New Places, who make heartfelt, catchy folk punk with Simpsons references.

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Feb 28, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

Reading: Girls At The Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine. It's my first Valentine, and I'm loving it to insane degrees: re-telling the twelve dancing princesses with all the 1920's flapper and speakeasy energy was a genius idea. And dance as freedom, with the absolutely luminous descriptions of music and sisterhood; the writing grabbed me by the throat from the first chapter, where these twelve beautiful-beyond-belief and utterly mysterious girls are introduced by the men who dance with them but never know them, and never let me go as we carefully stripped back all these layers to see twelve sisters trapped by a tyrannical father who only craved freedom. Every one of the sisters has ferociously compelling desires, but Jo, forced to be the embodiment of her father's edicts while desperately wanting to protect her sisters, is absolutely breaking my heart. (And ooo, can't wait to see you talk Finna. Only learned it was coming out last week, and absolutely can not wait! to devour it because it seems so intensely my jam.)

Watching-wise: am binging the latest season of SheRah and really loving it, with plans to go to Kipo after that, because when you rec things, they're always. always worth a look.

As for listening: have been listening to old Celtic Woman stuff: mostly Celtic Woman and A New Journey, when, imho, they had the best vocalists and just general group composition. Those albums remind me of the endless wonder and delight I had as a teen in the early 2000's, discovering Celtic musi for the first time through their work and then branching out to folk like Loreena McKennitt and Heather Dale. That innocent, all-encompassing delight is something I wanna cling to in these deeply chaotic times.

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Feb 28, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

These videos are SO good! OMG I want to hear more from Dope Saint Jude like right now. Recently I've watched a) the Steven Universe movie (which I did not like quite as much as the series, but honestly still loved a lot of parts of), and b) about half of Knight's Tale (with Heath Ledger from forever ago), which honestly I found amazing. I get that it's pretty cringeworthy at times, but the OUTFITS ARE WORTH IT.

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I just finished reading The Leavers, by Lisa Ko, and it was excellent. Infuriating and heartbreaking, but excellent. For watching, I'm about halfway through the anime The Ancient Magus' Bride, which I'm finding interesting.

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Feb 28, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

I've been listening to lyric-free stuff in different genres - Hammock (sweet-moody ambient), Toumani Diabaté (Malian kora player who crosses multiple genres), Parov Stelar (electroswing). All things with a bit of sweetness to them. And I went back to read something quite the opposite of sweet: In Conquest Born, by C.S. Friedman. A staple reread for me.

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Feb 28, 2020Liked by Amal El-Mohtar

Reading Marina Lostetter’s Noumenon, which took me a little time to warm to in my brain, but finally clicked. I’ll finish that off, then jump over to Aliette de Bodard’s House of Binding Thorns. Yes, I know I’m behind, because, you know, life. Dominion of the Fallen has been amazing so far, though.

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Last week, I got two witchy zines from Fiddlers Green which were thought-provoking and pretty. Now, I am weirdly alternating between Jung's the Red Book, Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, and Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Somehow, it works. I'm getting a big package of Microcosm Publishing books next week and I am freaking thrilled.

I'm still listening to a lot of trip-hop for background music although I discovered Ludovico Einaudi last week so that was great.

When dealing with insomnia, I've been watching lots of cute animal videos which is wholesome and good.

Has anyone here read the Red Book? What did y'all think?

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Kipo... is adorable, I saw you squeeing about it last week and watched it. Today has been a good day - it's my name day, seven years Elaine, and I had a good job interview in Edinburgh.

So, home to cat cuddles and Picard, then a Luc Besson thriller, Anna, and a bottle of wine. Good film, for all that it's pretty male-gaze-y; in the end it's about escaping from misogyny and male control. I saw the latest terminator movie during the week and really enjoyed it too. And I binge watched The Lost Room. It's only six episodes, it's strange and wonderful and I wish that it had had a longer run, but happily the story wraps up. In some ways leaving all of the questions unanswered just makes it better.

Reading is Philip Pullman's Daemon Voices, and VE Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic. I've also been enjoying Kathy Reichs's Temperance Brennan books, and going back to Terry Pratchett for the first time since he passed.

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I cracked a rib today falling on some stone steps so I'm tanking the sav blanc and bingeing Riverdale while hopped up on cocodamol. It's not how I would have chosen to spend the evening, but I'll take it.

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A little late to the conversation, but this focus on things we're enjoying is much needed right now! I'm reading The Fellowship of the Ring. My second time, but last time I was 12, so it's highly nostalgic. A++. I'm also re-watching The Witcher with some friends, which I love with the disproportionate love of one who obsessively read all the books and has logged nearly 100 hours on the game so far. (Unlike the vast majority of American Witcher fans, I read the books first.) And I listen to The Witcher 3 soundtrack on repeat at work. Because I'm a nerd, I really want to write a piece comparing war in Lord of the Rings vs the Witcher. Tolkien and Sapkowski are coming from really different experiences, cultures, and backgrounds, and their fantasy worlds are very different, but they're both responding to war in their works and it interests me to a great degree. I'm also a nerd about adaptation and my friends know that all they have to do is whisper the word "Witcher" and I'll materialize next to them raving about the show's thematic interpretation of events in the books. It's not for everyone, but it is good.

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I'm currently reading My Brother's Husband (first time I've read any manga and I'm really enjoying it) for LGBTQ+ bookclub, and Blood of Tyrants in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series (which I adore)

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Reading: Well -- I was just on a holiday with my family on an island, many miles away that means a great chance to read some things. "Wizard of the Pigeons" by Megan Lindholm, "Wide Open" (Deborah Coates), and "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld" (Patricia McKillip). All things that were recs from twitter (Max Gladstone opined about Eld was a gem, and he was not wrong...) or old Readercon recommendations for fantasies that are not in typical places. "Wizard" was complicated and a bit in my face with respect to the dialog on mental illness / magic. "Wide Open" a mystery where you really never understood the antagonists in any satisfying way, but still very interesting due to the setting and atypical protagonists. And "Eld" is just a poetic, pastoral romance, with a falcon that killed seven men and the wisest talking boar in the universe.

Watching: Not much regularly. Catching up on Brooklyn 99 continues to be a panacea of laughter that I have not watched before. I have been saving a great many things for later (Picard, Golden Compass, Mandalorian... but I don't know when Later may be).

Listening: podcasts mostly at the moment. One that may be lost in the great many options out there is the "Jackie and Laurie Show", two mid-career female stand-up comics opine on everything that is happening in their worlds, and is a very interesting set of professional discussions about a business I know nothing about, but which has a great many parallels to the world of academic Science, strangely.

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Due to switching jobs--I'm taking over as the coordinator of the food pantry on my university campus--all of my reading has been training material from the regional food bank. It's not bad, but the beats are fairly predictable and calling the characterization flat would be charitable. But my new job comes with an office! That has a bookshelf! On which I can place at least a couple of the not-offputtingly-weird things from my TBR pile when I finish them!

I've been on an electronica kick this week. I've listened to a lot of 7dB on Soundcloud and broke out my she. playlist for driving. Someone passed me Night Runner's new release, "Magnum Bullets", which I really shouldn't like as much as I do. And after much resistance, I finally found the Babymetal piece that speaks to me: "Brand New Day", off their most recent album. It's a collab with Polyphia, my favorite melodic jazz/metal fusion band. Still can't get into Babymetal's other stuff. I'm too much of a BAND-MAID main, I guess.

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