2025-09-14 17:51:09
I must have upset someone in a past life because I have spent the entire week wrestling with Microsoft PowerBI. I'm hoping my struggles ease soon because this is a project that will continue for the rest of the year!
My Kobo Nia broke this week so I'm using an ancient Kindle that is absolutely fine so far. I've started writing a bit more about it that I'll share next week.
No respect for beauty – that was characteristic of today’s society. The works of the great masters were at most employed as ironic references, or used in advertising. Michelangelo’s ‘The Creation of Adam’, where you see a pair of jeans in place of the spark.
The whole point of the picture, at least as he saw it, was that these two monumental bodies each came to an end in two index fingers that almost, but not quite, touched. There was a space between them a millimetre or so wide. And in this space – life. The sculptural size and richness of detail of this picture was simply a frame, a backdrop, to emphasise the crucial void in its centre. The point of emptiness that contained everything.
And in its place a person had superimposed a pair of jeans.
John Ajvide Lindqvist, "Let The Right One In"
2025-09-13 22:38:11
Piggy Builders follows Cornelia, Cesar and Charlie, three curly-tailed piggy siblings who love building and solving problems in their community – and, most importantly, they love each other!
Loosely based on The Three Little Pigs, this is a fun children's show full of adorable characters and an acceptable level of peril for young children. Everything works out OK in the end. The "villain" is Wilf the hapless wolf (I know!) who older viewers may recognise as being voiced by Spud the Scarecrow from Bob the Builder.
2025-09-12 19:32:15
German folk metal outfit Faun are back with some classic ethereal pagan folk on new album "Hex". Discordant strings, dual chanting vocals, the smell of dead wet leaves. OK the last one is only in my mind.
Opening with the sound of rainfall is always going to grab my attention and New Zealand's Finnegan Tui doesn't disappoint. "Lost Tales, Vol. 1" is a EP of Irish-y gloom folk with a whiff of Nick Cave to it. Ideal for autumn walks.
After a brief foray back into pop punk, Demi Lovato returns with dancefloor filler "Here All Night" which sounds like a Cool For The Summer B-Side. Vocoding a voice like Lovato's should be an actual crime. Bouncy, danceable, forgettable. Shame.
Another sadly forgettable release I heard this week is "The Scythe" by The Last Dinner Party. There's nothing wrong with it — it just feels a bit formulaic but lacking the oomph and grit of earlier releases.
As we head into Autumn, Leo Einaudi's rework of dad Ludovico's "Santiago" is bang on trend. Melancholy piano instrumental with gentle strings supporting.
Latvian industrial nu-metallers, Morphide, return with new single "Of Healing Part 1 - Denial"; mechanical fast-paced percussion, distorted guitar, and floaty female vocals that drop into guttural growls Alissa White-Gluz would be proud of.
2025-09-12 05:43:25
I read the book of this TV show many years ago and, as best I remember, it's pretty true to the original.
A competent cast of actors and the moody British Columbian landscape bring this tale of bullying and teenage murder to life.
Nothing groundbreaking but a decent true crime dramatisation.
2025-09-08 13:56:02
Earlier this year, AK Krajewska affectionately wrote about Bella and her truck and prompted a re-read of Stephenie Meyer's polarising vampire novel.
Full disclosure: I, unironically, love Twilight.
At its core, it's a conservative morality tale and, like many other vampire novels, draws upon centuries of lore depicting vampires as allegory for the perils of unsuitable dalliances and sex before marriage.
Edward Cullen is supposed to be a creep because he's a "predator" — not just a killer but in the sense of a sexual predator. "I can't help myself around you" kind of rape culture vibes. As though the woman is to blame for the man's unseemly behaviour. If only she hadn't lead him on and played hard to get… 👀
On this read-through it feels even more apparent; there are clear parallels in this older man targeting a romantically-inexperienced girl with low self-esteem and telling her she's the most special girl ever (in his eyes). We see it in his gentle negging of Bella's perceived faults and the way he casually overpowers her to demonstrate his strength and control. We see it when her eventually isolates her from her friends until he is her entire universe.
We're absolutely not supposed to root for them; Bella is heading into an abusive relationship that we can see but she can't and we should be screaming "Run, girl! Run!" not buying "Team Edward" shirts.
The less said about Jacob Black the better. Meyer caught some flak for her portrayal of the indigenous people of the Pacific North West and, honestly, it was probably well deserved. The whole werewolf tribe storyline feels extremely icky! 😬
The daftest plot points include Edward's glittery skin and Thunderstorm Baseball™ but they are throwaway fun moments and people who say vampire novels have to be serious are gatekeeping misery-guts.
The sequels were stupid, granted. Although, I'm kind of convinced there'd definitely be some pseudo-Catholic camp af vampire Illuminati mincing around Rome. But, yeah, silly.
Anyway, despite pretty much everyone missing the entire point of the story and fixating on the wrong things, it's actually very good.
2025-09-08 01:20:09
we are in the digital streaming age, there is no control over the algorithm, and it is stressing people the fuck out.
Lizzo