2025-01-15 08:00:00
2025-01-02 08:00:00
Note for RSS readers: I designed a custom blog post layout for this, which won’t display properly in an RSS reader (in fact, it will probably be extremely screwed up), so I encourage reading it on my blog itself.
After belabouring my favourite media throughout the year on this website, I must now of course collect it all into a single incredibly overwrought blog post.
It’s like this: these are my personal media highlights, rather than a best of list. I’m including the most memorable, impactful, or beloved works of—creative genius, or something, that I’ve encountered this year. I’m not a critic; I am mostly just talking about things I liked. These are tremendous to me. I hope they can be tremendous to you, too.
This year, I watched fewer things—32 movies and 12 tv shows, versus last year’s 44 movies, 15 shows. Half of those movies were rewatches, and I started and dropped a lot of shows.
In 1920s Los Angeles, a bedridden patient in a hospital captivates a young girl with a fantastic tale of heroes, myths, and villains on a desert island.
I rewatched The Fall, a cult classic film from 2006 directed by Tarsem Singh. It is, famously, a beautiful movie, known for its landscapes—shot in 28 countries!—as well as the performance of Catinca, its child actress.
In my memory, The Fall is beautiful and sad. When I first watched it maybe a decade ago, I was in a different place and I connected too well with its suicidal protagonist. The scene I remembered the most was not one of the film’s cinematic fantasy sequences but rather one of the hospital scenes.
Ten years later, I am not so affected by that hospital. I enjoy the beautiful landscapes so much more (though the fact that I watched this in a movie theatre rather than a laptop screen helped). And I finally understand what the film is saying: a story lives in both the storyteller and the listener.
In my generation, once you saw a movie, it was really hard to see it again; you had a certain kind of nostalgia. You would think that this movie you saw as a kid was so amazing, but then you sit down as a grown up with your friends and show it to them, and they go, “But this is a piece of shit,” and you go, “Yeah, I kind of agree”—you had changed it in your head. So that was always true about storytelling: you’d change it in your head. This is a phenomenon that I think the newer generation won’t be that familiar with. Now, people can keep looking at film clips on YouTube or whatever, so the film kind of keeps up with how you remember it. But back then, you saw it and as you grew, the story changed and evolved—and you have to walk away for five, ten years at least to have that happen.
Smarter people than me have written about the film and its meaning. What I didn’t expect, however, was to be so enamoured by the behind-the-scenes story of how it was made. Molly Templeton writes, “This story, like most stories, gets romanticized to varying degrees; this is a movie that almost begs to be mythologized.”
The second story here is of The Fall’s creation: a self-funded labour of love, shot in 28 countries over four years, critically panned, and never widely released or distributed, until this year.
And it happened at the right time. My Italian girlfriend dumped me. I met Catinca, and I’d been looking for the child, boy or girl, for the film for seven years. I thought, We make the movie now, or like my brother used to say, we’ll be two old guys with a lot of money that are talking about a movie that they’ll never make. I told my brother, “Sell everything. I want to have nothing.” I’ll never be in that position again, because now I have a son. You gotta give him something to carry on and carry on. But back then, it was like, “Fuck it, burn the bridges behind me. Let’s go make this.”
—Tarsem Singh in Vulture
How absolutely romantic indeed. He thought about this for years, and made so much money doing commercial work (necessary!), and then spent it all making this. And then no one wanted it, and it had a cult following but no wide streaming or physical release—until 2024. And here we are.
Further reading:
Television highlight
Arcane is incredible. You already know this! Everything to say about it has already been said (it’s beautiful, stunning, etc.), so what’s left for me is the hyperspecific, nerdy shit:
[…] eventually computer-generated 3-D animation is going to age, ‘Whereas if the image is based on handmade artistic talent, that’s going to perdure.’
— Jérôme Combe (p.173)
I am unwell about it. It’s like how I felt after seeing Spider-Verse last year. I feel like my life is changed. I feel inspired.
Dir. Kiyotaka Oshiyama — Based on the manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto — 2024
The overly confident Fujino and the shut-in Kyomoto couldn’t be more different, but a love of drawing manga brings these two small-town girls together.
I saw this in theatres not knowing anything about it. It’s delightfully relatable—it captures the energy of being a young, obnoxious artist so well—and then it grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. People were crying all over the place. I’m crying again, just writing this.
It asks, why do you draw? The protagonist, Fujino, says that drawing manga is full of awful, hard work, yet she’s done it her entire life. Why does she do it? Why do any of us submit to the mortifying ordeal of creating art?
(We do it for what it’s always about: the rewards of being loved.)
Related listening: the theme Light song by haruka nakamura
Dir. Satoshi Kon — 2006
When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patient’s dreams is stolen, all hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist can stop it and recover it before damage is done: Paprika.
Paprika is known for its surreal visuals. Like with The Fall, I first watched Paprika on a shitty little laptop screen many years ago. Earlier this year, it played in theatres as part of a Satoshi Kon celebration, so I jumped at the chance to see it. It’s really so magical and beautiful.
Related watching:
Seasons 2–3
Season two was perfect: I love character development, and there was so much of it. My favourite episodes were the two standouts: S2E6 Fishes, with its mounting anxiety and chaos, and S2E7 Forks. Richie, that beautiful bastard, has his moment and it feels so earned. The catharsis! I love growth! I love Love Story by Taylor Swift!
Ironically, I don’t watch much YouTube. I’m a cranky millennial who hates video, and also I struggle more with processing speech than text, and I prefer the flexibility and efficiency of reading. But I know I’m missing out on a lot of great stuff, so I’m trying to broaden my horizons.
Since this is a new category, there’s some overlap with 2023.
By Hbomberguy — December 2, 2023
The four-hour video essay that was so widely talked about that even I sat down to watch it, and then I rewatched it as I was working on this post. It’s an entertaining video, engaging through its entire runtime, and Harry Brewis approaches the topic of plagiarism with a lot of humour. He goes through so many examples of YouTubers plagiarizing their videos, how they did it, why they did it, how they defended themselves…it’s very messy!
But he also takes it seriously: why does it matter that these YouTubers have stolen the work of others? Why is it important for people to be credited and known? It is more than just insular YouTube drama.
Maybe it’s a good idea to have some standards for not stealing. Maybe.
In current discourse, YouTubers simultaneously present as the forefront of a new medium, creative voices that need to be taken seriously as part of the next generation of media. And also uwu small beans little babies who shouldn’t be taken seriously when they rip someone off and make tens of thousands of dollars doing it. (3:36:12)
Related intervew: Hbomberguy Didn’t Want to Make That 4-Hour Plagiarism Video by Rebecca Alter in Vulture
By Patrick (H) Willems — August 23, 2023
About things like the devaluing of creative labour (this was released during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes) and the flattening of all types of creative work into “content.”
I too have to stop myself from calling things “content” out of convenience. If there’s a more precise word, I’ll use that.
In general, watching Patrick’s channel has also properly shamed me about doing the whole watch-movie-in-the-background thing—in this video, he talks about streaming services wanting “second-screen content” for that exact purpose, which is insulting! I’m trying to be better about it.
By Jacob Geller — September 4, 2023
This is the only Jacob Geller video essay I’ve seen (I’m sorry, I ordered his book, I can’t wait to engage with more of his work) and it’s a really gorgeous meditation on the pre-apocalypse—the before the world ends—as seen in various books, movies, and games.
In his words: “This is an essay about catastrophe and death and despair and hope and two dozen other things.” And hope. It is a hopeful video essay.
Post-apocalypse is easy. When the great defining event of the world is in the rearview mirror, characters in post-apocalyptic stories are free to grapple with smaller, more individual crises. What are they going to do? Unexplode the bombs? Unscorch the Earth?
Setting a story in the pre-apocalypse presents characters with similarly impossible challenges, but this time the stakes are so high that to NOT do anything would be…morally contemptible? Right? Clive [FFXVI] has a moral obligation to stop Zettaflare, doesn’t he? When the alternative is a burned world? (23:07)
XOXO Festival — August 2024
I was fortunate to see Cabel Sasser present this at XOXO Festival this year, and it was a whole experience to be in that room. It’s about a McDonald’s mural—“the Sistine Chapel of McDonald’s wall art”—and legacy.
“Appreciate everything endlessly,” he says, and yeah, that’s really the heart of it, isn’t it? And maybe, just maybe, we can all live forever.
I watched A Family Affair and Bridesmaids on a bachelorette trip, neither of which I enjoyed, but the communal yelling at the TV was fun; my descent into Batman-related media (more on that in the Books section) included Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Batman: The Animated Series, and Young Justice; other beautiful animation I enjoyed were Suzume and Metropolis; the only show I continue to keep up with is Jet Lag: The Game, which remains impressively entertaining; I finally watched Fight Club, which I had somehow never been spoiled for.
I’ll confess: I don’t have any literacy in music, so this will be the most vibes-based section. I liked this song because it was good; it was good because I liked it; etc.
Artist Highlight #1
Like everyone else this year, I got really into Chappell Roan. Her music is—perfect? I love pop music and the pop girlies.
Good Luck, Babe! is my song of the year. The perfect bridge; the vicious well I told you so’s; the graphic design is my passion lyric video; the sapphism; you’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling. Chappell Roan, I am bewitched!!!
Other obsessions include: Red Wine Supernova (so fun n flirty), My Kink is Karma (deliciously destructive), and Pink Pony Club (this live performance is my Roman Empire).
Artist Highlight #2
I first listened to Vaundy late last year, and Odoriko showed up on my top 2023 songs list. I listened to a lot more of his stuff this year. Odoriko remains one of my favourites, and this year Koikaze ni nosete (恋風邪にのせて) topped my most-listened to songs list on Sp*tify. Tokyo Flash is a whole vibe. I like Omokage, which he produced and is performed by milet, Aimer, and Lilas Ikuta. Uh. Songs good. I like them.
Ma Meilleure Ennemie
Stromae & Pomme — Arcane season two soundtrack
Look At You
Rebecca Black — Let Her Burn
Fortnight (ft. Post Malone)
Taylor Swift — THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT
Playing God
Polyphia — Remember That You Will Die
Silhouette
KANA-BOON — Time
Gunjō (群青)
YOASOBI — THE BOOK
I don’t really watch music videos unless 1) they’re from my favourite kpop artists, or 2) my YouTube algorithm autoplays them, which is presently showing me a lot of Japanese music, on account of listening to a bunch of Vaundy.
Cody・Lee(李)
I’m obsessed with this song, the styling, and colours. It made me want to use a red/yellow palette for a while, and also go eat dim sum.
BUMP OF CHICKEN
This MV is so much fun. It’s the opening theme for Dungeon Meshi and it uses a bunch of video game and storybook styles to show an RPG party. Super cute!!
Sakanaction
I love 80s (I think it’s 80s?) vibes! The dancing, the camera movements, the palm tree background, the outfits…
I went to four concerts this year!
As is the case every year, Destiny 2 was the predominant object of my fixation, though it ebbed and flowed depending on how exciting the season was. I’ve officially reached 3000+ hours logged in Steam, which is a truly horrific number to behold, but it’s not like I’m surprised by it anymore. It’s more like grudging acceptance, at this point.
Note: This is very indulgent section that will be comprehensible to maybe the five Destiny sickos who read my website.
I say this every time, but: Destiny is the most beautiful game in the world. It’s terribly good at its space wizards and aliens setting. Every time I see a brand new skybox—a skybox!—it’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen and I take screenshots of it, even though my capture ability is awful and I never go back to look at them anyway. But they are beautiful, and I am compelled.
I did three weeks of Pantheon! It was a fun time, despite the anguish and suffering and so forth. The modifiers made it so challenging and interesting. Highlights:
I don’t even change my emblem—I’ve been using ‘Share a Glass’, the VOG sherpa emblem, for a couple of years now—so the proof of my Pantheon achievements go unseen. Ah well. Now you all know about it, at least.
A banger expansion!!! Highlights:
Related: The Final Shape artwork on ArtStation
I love day one raiding, and have attempted each one ever since the reprised Vault of Glass. I went into this one cautiously optimistic—haha, what if it’s like Root of Nightmares? still hard, but doable?—and then it turned out that Salvation’s Edge was obscenely, undoably hard. I spent at least twelve hours doing that first encounter! Twelve hours! In Substratum! Fucking ridiculous. After we cleared it, we stumbled our way to the second encounter arena to take photos and then disbanded. Truly a classic Destiny experience, 2/10, would do again.
Off contest mode, SE remains quite challenging—though blasting our way through Substratum on normal mode was hilarious. The Herald boss is really satisfying, mechanically. Verity is beautiful, and I would argue it’s easier to dissect than to do whatever shape-juggling inside. The shape memes were good. I don’t love the third or fifth encounters, but I got the raid exotic on my third clear so I suppose I never have to do it again?
To understand the unique brain energy of this game, what compels us to devote our lives and souls to it, this article on PC Gamer really captures it: Yesterday I ignored 10 tornado warnings to finish a Destiny 2 raid, didn’t get the exotic drop, and disappointed my fiancée. Is there some sort of lesson here?
Dual Destiny is such a fun exotic mission with its mechanics—clock notation! lol!—and CHOOSE PEACE/KILL ending. I did so many overthrows in the Pale Heart because I was bored and just wanted to shoot things. I don’t even use my pile of Ergo Sums, which now collect considerable dust in my vault. I am never not using a rocket sidearm. If it’s not a rocket sidearm, I don’t want it. Double special meta rules. I still suck at PVP but continue to chase the thrill of Ruinous Effigy dunking.
After a zillion years, I made it to the award-winning expansion Heavensward. I finished the base campaign of A Realm Reborn two entire years ago, and then slogged through all of the post-campaign stuff. But then at the end, I had to sit and watch a 40-minute cutscene, and this was so egregious to me (remember: I hate video) that I put it off for at least six months.
When I finally did get around to it, it was the most engaged I had ever been in the entirety of my FFXIV experience. What a bananas sequence of events!!
Unfortunately, my subscription ran out and I am unable to play anymore unless I decide to fork over twenty dollars again. Maybe sometime next year. Now, I just watch my friends post screenshots and do activities together in Discord, like I am sad squidward looking out window.
I’ve been playing co-op with my friends every week, and we’re almost to Year 1 Winter. I’ve played several different farms over the past few years, so it’s nice to settle into familiar game mechanics (well, as much settling as you can do when also trying to optimize every second of every day) and hang out on a regular basis.
There was a couple of weeks in the fall where I got really into Balatro and then dropped off, which is probably for the best. I’ve made it to Black Stake but I’m admittedly not very good at it. I feel like I need to start watching guides or something.
Related reading:
Good for him!
I got back into playing Good Sudoku on iOS, which I had first gotten into a few years ago. This time, I’ve progressed enough to do the highest difficulty puzzles, though most of the time I use hints to solve them.
Y-Wing might be my favourite technique? I find it both annoying to spot and very logically satisfying.
Related watching: The Miracle Sudoku by Cracking the Cryptic on YouTube — it’s super fun to watch someone solve their way through a seemingly impossible puzzle. He makes it look so easy!
This was less of a reading year for me. I read one novel (a category I will conspicuously omit here) and a number of art reference books. Most notably, I got into DC comics towards the end of the year, which is funny and embarrassing because it makes me feel like I’m twenty again and getting into Marvel comics, which I have since left behind. So I’ve been reading a bunch of comics in the past few weeks and watching Batman-related media.
I’ve said this before, but to me, comics are the perfect medium. My last three homepage redesigns have been comics; I look forward to the local comics festival every year; I most admire the technical skill of comics artists.
There is really no shortage to brilliance happening here, and my ventures into the medium are embarrassingly limited. Next year I will try to do better.
Art by Starbite and written by CRC Payne
My first foray into the world of Batman that captured my interest. It’s an official DC webtoon, but tonally it’s light-hearted. It seems the best way to my heart is slice-of-life? In my mind, the Wayne family is full of love and happiness and nothing bad ever happens to them. Certainly, no one has ever, uh, died.
Written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli
My first Batman comic! I love the art: its use of shadows, Gotham’s noir atmosphere, the way the characters are drawn.
By E.M. Carroll
A weird, surreal mystery/horror. E.M. Carroll’s art is gorgeous and sets a great eerie atmosphere.
By Sumiko Arai
THE CUTEST MANGA IN THE WORLD!!! This has me kicking my feet and giggling. It’s about two high school girls who bond over their love of Western music and then FALL IN LOVE and it’s VERY cute, very doki doki, springtime of youth. The art is so sparkly and green.
Also, this is a fun example of a series being born from social media—it was originally posted to Twitter, so each chapter is four pages long due to Twitter’s limit of four images per tweet.
Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons
This was my first time rereading Watchmen while actively being into superhero comics. Every time the characters talked about how ridiculous the concept of costumed crime-fighting was, it made me think about how ridiculous Batman is. Who watches the Watchmen?
The art is a delight, as always.
I’ve been buying more art books lately, because I’ve realized that owning physical copies of artwork is satisfying and I will actually look at them, versus novels and non-fiction books that serve as props for my cosplay of a person who reads.
I’ve linked to these in my weeknotes, but here’s a few of the most memorable.
By Celine Nguyen in personal canon — May 27, 2024
The idea of research as leisure activity has stayed with me because it seems to describe a kind of intellectual inquiry that comes from idiosyncratic passion and interest. It’s not about the formal credentials. It’s fundamentally about play. It seems to describe a life where it’s just fun to be reading, learning, writing, and collaborating on ideas.
By Elan Ullendorff in escape the algorithm — June 11, 2024
When you see a slightly generic news story design, you’re seeing the solution to the problem: how do I make this work for any headline, any image, any tone, any audience? How do I make this as adaptable as possible? The question of “what does this story want?” becomes subsumed into the larger goal of malleability and efficiency. A template, not a story. A map, not 500 maps.
By Winnie Lim — January 21, 2024
I thought about this all the time throughout the year.
What is the point of working on and completing a sketchbook? In practical terms – none. But the entire process enriched my soul deeply. Each time I completed a spread it feels like I painted another layer of my soul. It is a full circle: having an experience that becomes a memory, pulling out that memory to make art out of it, then holding that creation in my own hands and seeing that memory take a concrete form – it enhances and solidifies the original experience that would otherwise have been quickly forgotten. We could probably do something similar with photos, but somehow there is alchemy in the act of drawing, as though etching the memory deeper in a bodily manner. It is no longer merely visual, I have used my body and breath to record this.
If Look Back is about the external rewards of creating art—the validation, the connection—then this is about the internal, the enriching of the soul, the permanence given to memory.
What a year of surprising and beautiful things. I didn’t expect to be so enamoured by the story of The Fall, or for Arcane season two to be so devastatingly good, or to care so much about a McDonald’s mural, or to continue to be awed by Destiny as though I didn’t already know that it’s beautiful, or to find something appealing about Batman for the first time in my life, and so on! And there will be more next year. How exciting.
In lieu of setting goals I will not complete, I shall end this by reiterating Cabel Sasser’s words of wisdom: “appreciate everything endlessly.”
Thanks for reading!
2024-12-28 08:00:00
2024-12-22 08:00:00
can i be real with you?
you may notice a pattern here, called ‘a lot of newsletters.’
You ask yourself: What would have made me jump off my chair if I had read it six months ago (or a week ago, or however fast you write)? If you have figured out something that made you ecstatic, this is what you should write. And you do not dumb it down, because you were not stupid six months ago, you just knew less. You also write with as much useful detail and beauty as you can muster, because that is what you would have wanted.
One tag among Netflix’s thirty-six thousand microgenres offers a suitable name for this kind of dreck: “casual viewing.” Usually reserved for breezy network sitcoms, reality television, and nature documentaries, the category describes much of Netflix’s film catalog — movies that go down best when you’re not paying attention, or as the Hollywood Reporter recently described Atlas, a 2024 sci-fi film starring Jennifer Lopez, “another Netflix movie made to half-watch while doing laundry.” A high-gloss product that dissolves into air. Tide Pod cinema.
Honestly, the idea of finding WiFi routers based on the signal strength seemed pretty intimidating at the time. The idea impressed me.
But don’t get distracted by all this; the software was intended to kill people.
if you care deeply about something, you can compel other people to care through your work. You may find, too, that it may seem as if no one cares as intensely and passionately as you—but once you start writing, all these people come out of the woodwork who are just as invested as you.
I’m noticing this platform has become a really good way for women to monetize their diary entries — lists, random thoughts, and (easy to write) roundups of “what I’ve been doing” do really well on this site.
AI-generated images of celebrities or disasters are not meant to suggest reality. They diminish the value of reality in constructing opinions or informing decisions. To post this image is, of course, a manipulation of Swift’s image, a violation of her agency, and to be very clear, I’m talking about this specific “Uncle Sam” image, not the pornographic content with her in it. All of it points to the idea that if we share an illusion, that illusion matters in ways that are just as valid as any political reality. It is about controlling the symbols of the world, and it buys into a purely symbolic structure of power.
As you can see from those links, I fell into a weird Substack-shaped rabbit hole. I don’t subscribe to any newsletters but I do read individual posts when I come across them. I’m just terrible at Keeping Up—instead reading new blog posts via RSS, for example, I go through my browser bookmarks folder and manually click on the websites in it to see what’s new (lol), or I type the url into the address bar, or I see someone in my mastodon feed and think huh I wonder if they’ve published anything recently and go to their profile. Newsletter subscriptions would just die in my black hole of an inbox.
So I’m not very attuned to whatever is going on over there in newsletterland, which is apparently interesting writing about interesting things.
This started when I was reading Robin Sloan’s newsletter (robin sloan dot com, which I manually visited), who in turn highlighted this observation from Max Read’s newsletter:
My standard joke about my job is that I am less a “writer” than I am a “textual YouTuber for Gen Xers and Elder Millennials who hate watching videos.” What I mean by this is that while what I do resembles journalistic writing in the specific, the actual job is in most ways closer to that of a YouTuber or a streamer or even a hang-out-type podcaster than it is to that of most types of working journalist.
— Max Read, How to Substack
Which is. Yeah! Guilty as charged! I hate watching videos but if interesting videos were made available in text form, then I would consume that. This comparison of newsletters to video feels apt.
Anyway, I was reading a bunch of newsletters, and thought it would be useful to highlight stuff to save, which led me to downloading Obsidian.
My ‘personal knowledge management’ system is non-existent, which isn’t a huge issue because I’m not an academic, but sometimes I want to be a bit more—organized? about it? I chuck links into Raindrop out of convenience, write scattered notes in the apple notes app, and sometimes compile something in my digital garden, but there isn’t much rhyme or reason to it. I’m certainly not able to draw conclusions from stuff or form coherent arguments.
Obsidian seems like it can solve at least one specific problem for me: organizing highlights/notes from different sources about a topic. Like saving all my generative AI-related readings so I can one day synthesize that into a thesis (a blog post). Or whatever. Or just better understand things!
I feel overwhelmed by the software possibilities—there are plugins? and customizations? that I could be doing? but I’m going to hold off on looking into that. I want to use this until a need for specific solution x emerges, and then I will pursue it. In this house, we do not fall victim to premature optimization.
I googled various permutations of obsidian setup notes structure though, because after a little bit of notetaking I ended up with like, ten different notes in my root folder, one for each piece of writing, which seems like a wrong way of going about things, so at minimum I should figure this out.
Maybe I should put them all in one note by topic? e.g. my ‘Netflix’ note was me trying to fit all Netflix-related commentary into one note; versus putting different sources into their own individual notes and putting them all in…a folder? I found this post about the ‘SCTO system’ (Sources, Compendiums, Thoughts, Ontologies) by Ilya Shabanov that may be fitting.
I dunno! Feel free to @ me if you have concise suggestions about this specific thing. Because I don’t care enough, I am not too receptive to other optimizations at this time. There are apparently a lot of YouTube videos about Obsidian, but as I have mentioned, I am a hater of the Video so I will never watch any of that.
I went with my partner to their holiday work dinner, which is always fun—my company is remote so we have no such thing, so it’s nice to go to someone else’s, as much as I am an anti-social introvert. It’s a once-a-year affair, I can handle it. I also like to eat and drink on someone else’s dime.
Relatedly, every year I revisit the iconic Ask A Manager holiday story: ‘I will confront you by Wednesday of this week,’ about a holiday party gone off the rails, which lives on in my head rent-free.
The DC fanart continues! Honestly, I am having so much fun! It’s kind of embarrassing but also this is why I drew anime as a kid!! So I could draw my favourite characters in outfits and situations! Truly the meaning of life. I am cringe but I am free?
This week I watched Man of Steel, because the new Superman trailer looks fun, and I’ve never watched a Superman movie before. I had heard Man of Steel is dreary and unenjoyable, and I did indeed find that to be the case. I also heard about the city destruction / collateral damage aspect of it being pretty over the top and yeah wow, it really was.
This holiday break, I’m hoping to reset my brain, which has sucked for weeks now. I feel like I’ve developed some kind of horrible work-life imbalance in my brain that is incapable of being normal about work. Not in the sense of working too much but more like, because of the overlap between work and hobby (websites), I’m unable to do hobby website stuff on a work day, even if I have the time and energy, because I feel inexplicably anxious about it. Like the residual anxieties from work seep into the personal, no matter how unfounded. (To be clear, my job is nice and I enjoy it, I’m just a needlessly anxious person and this is a me problem.) Then I get anxious about not being ‘productive’ and my brain suffers and it becomes a whole cycle. I would like this to not be the case? I hope the time off work will be a nice mental reset and I don’t have to feel so tense about it.
2024-12-16 08:00:00
I’ve started posting my art on Tumblr again as @vanhn. Currently, it’s just a bunch of DC fanart. thoughts about this:
anyway. I’m there now!
Here’s the latest DC thing I drew:
still trucking along with my media recap post. I’m a bit apprehensive that the end result will not look as good as any WIP screenshots that I share and I should just stop talking about it! But I feel pretty determined about it still!! I can do this!! I can make thing look good!!!
2024-12-08 08:00:00
Twenty-four is a pleasing number, so I feel inclined to make these weeknotes a bit Better, but not by much.
It is useless work that darkens the heart. But good work? Work that serves the living, that brings us into alignment with ourselves and with each other and with the earth? Good work lights us right up.
I like this tweet from @jasonsbmoc about music:
I spent this year paying more attention than ever and hunting for new releases and I have been blessed with so much amazing music as a result. I refuse to be poisoned by such jaded cynicism. great art is made every day if you care enough to look for it
And relatedly, a post on tumblr by @annabelle–cane:
niche indie art is great because most of it is very middling in a genuine and charming way. this song melody is kind of nothing but the lyrics are clever. this novella plot is flimsy but the prose has a lot of bounce. this video essay could have been a text essay and lost nothing but it’s still intellectually interesting. and then one day you take a gamble and click something that you don’t really know much about and you’re like. ah. they put some god in this one.
I finished watching Arcane season 2, which is the most beautiful show in the world. It’s so lovely to witness art like this. You know? What a gift.
I rewatched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, because I’m apparently in my Batman era. There are so many iconic lines and moments that invite pointing at the screen, Leo-style. Die a hero. The pencil thing. The voice. Watch the world burn. do u even lift, master wayne?!?!
I played a bit of Destiny—a two-hour stint in Iron Banner PVP, in pursuit of a Cool Reward. I suffered, gathered mostly L’s and then, finally, my reward, and absconded. Destiny is very backburner right now. I don’t feel like booting it up to collect More Loot, this specific reward excluded. I’m sure that fancy will strike me later, but right now I just—don’t want to.
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Say happy birthday to my current site design. I published this redesign—‘version 6’, with the cozy brown autumn palette and rounded corners—last December 11, 2023! It feels like it’s been much longer. I also shoved an unfinished blog post about it into my digital garden last month, because I accepted that I will never finish writing it but I made too much progress to leave it in my drafts forever.
