A Powerful Miasmagasm
Hello yawning void, I want to get some thoughts down just because I haven't in a while and I feel like doing it now. Did some traveling recently and in between have been oscillating between feeling ok and feeling really bad. I mean hey it happens. Time marches onward anyway. So what else have I been up to?
Movies
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Of course I would have seen this, you kind of have to if you like films and are trans. I liked it a lot, I thought it was fun. I feel like the reception I have seen from other trans people has been quite chilly though, I think maybe people have very high standards for a trans slasher meta-commentary but the movie is more preoccupied with having fun and playing toys than anything else. So if you're expecting a transfeminist manifesto that really sticks it to Hollywood you should should temper your expectations. I also think maybe some trans people go to see it because its the new Schoenbrun, and aren't sick horror movie freaks who have seen dozens of shitty sequels to mediocre slashers. Like if you don't already know who Felissa Rose is before you see this movie there is context you are missing which I think actually does provide some useful insight into what the movie is doing. Not necessary to understand the plot but context. But given that I am definitely the target audience and I have to take wins where I can get them. Yes it is self-indulgent and crass, but I don't think that aspect of it was totally detrimental. Ultimately I think the message is more 'you can't be uptight all the time' more than 'you should be engaging in escapism all the time'. Especially since the film is more directly timeboxed to the course of a few days as opposed to I Saw the TV Glow where years and decades are passing the blink of an eye. Sometimes you can do a dommy mommy CNC chase scene in the woods as a treat. If it gets too real you can always turn it off. 5 stars Jordan says check it out.
Books
Currently about a quarter of the way through Underworld by Don DeLillo and enjoying it quite a lot. Unfortunately I am kind of a slow reader and easily distracted so I am doing my best but I don't usually try to tackle books this long. I really like the sort of circular way he writes, bringing up a topic drifting away from it, going back to it, and the dialogue is often like that as well. I'm not sure if any of these stories or characters are building to anything yet but excited to see where it goes.
North Sun by Ethan Rutherford - Read about half of this on a sailing ship, highly recommend if you get the chance. Dreamlike seafaring tale about whaling as the end of a 'golden age' of non-renewable resource extraction cough cough and how it chews people up and spits them out.
Becky Chambers' Wayfarers - Read A Closed and Common Orbit (really good, cried a lot) and Record of a Spaceborn Few (Not bad). Fun romps but ultimately fluff. The dual Sidra and Pepper stories in Orbit are great and deal very sensitively with a lot of emotional topics, but the end being "and then they all ran a cozy coffee shop the end" is just so Becky Chambers it's almost embarrassing.
Anyway that's some of what I've been up to. If you have any burning thoughts about Camp Miasma or horror sequels or whatever drop me an email on my webzone blog@maango.biz. Be well!