Halfway Point
Updates (not too many this week)
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Mimic Apparatus the second prose short edited by myself and written by Ganzeer is up. Go read! I’m really enjoying editing these and I like Ganzeer’s philosophy of creating something short/small and then just putting it out into the world.
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The Mitch Hammer Kickstarter campaign is still in full effect. We are so very close to being funded. Help push it over!
2018 - Halfway Point
We’re a few days into June now, so here are some things I’ve enjoyed this year that will probably be there or thereabouts once those inevitable ‘Best of Year’ lists spin out into the electronic ether. I’ll qualify this list with a single caveat. It turns out if you don’t go on the internet as much you get back a lot of time to consume and make things. Who knew?!
Books
Frankenstein in Baghdad
I’ve spoken about this before, but it’s all worth repeating. Ahmed Saadawi’s reinvention of the Frankenstein story for modern day war-torn Iraq is a disturbing, but still poingnant, take on just what conflict has done to the country and its people, really digging into the idea of self-perpetuating cycles of violence.
She Said Destroy
I’m on a short fiction kick this year and this is the best collection I’ve read so far. Nadia Bulkin has an amazing knack of welding stories of oppression, political strife and other heavy topics and making them slightly off kilter. She imbues each tale with just the right amount of weird, making each story here something special.
The Box
Another short story. Jack Ketchum’s story plays on fears that come inherent with parenthood. He never explains the reasoning behind the horror that grips the narrator’s family, adding another level of creepiness to an already disturbing story.
Selfie
Will Storr leads the reader through a history of our idea of the self before bringing the book full circle to today. He then goes on to explore how that sense of self has changed in the age of social media and wider internet culture.
Surveillance Valley
Yasha Levine’s history of the internet is a bit of an eye-opener. It puts the ‘hippies invented the internet’ maxim under the microscope and reveals a much darker story, showing us the involvement of the military-industrial complex in the creation and development of the network was there from the beginning. The recent Google/Pentagon story is not an outlier.
The Murders of Molly Southbourne
More short fiction, this time in the form of a novella from Tade Thompson. The titular Molly Southbourne has a problem. Every time she bleeds a murderous clone of her comes into existence. That’s the set up and it’s one that Thompson executes on so well, exploring Molly’s rigid upbringing before she goes out and tries to exist in the wider world whilst the threat of violence hangs over her.
Movies (watched, but not necessarily released this year)
Catfight
A bizarre movie that introduced me to the awesome Sandra Oh (currently slaying it on Killing Eve). This is similar in its themes to Frankenstein in Baghdad, dealing with cycles of never-ending violence but this time it adds social commentary on art, class and gender to go along with it. Sandra Oh and Anne Heche are both great as women who drift in and out each other’s lives in the most destructive manner possible.
The Last Jedi
Late to the table on this one. Needless to say I will take a story that plays with, then eviscerates, expectation over one that is rote and safe every day. Up there with Empire in my opinion.
Molly’s Game
Sorkin through and through. Your mileage may vary as a result. Chastain is as awesome as she always is and Idris Elba is solid in a supporting role. This is just consumate storytelling told in a brisk, smart, confident manner.
Annihilation
The movie of a dozen think-pieces. Trippy, weird, creepy and beautiful. Garland continues to be a director to watch, delivering something different and singular here with this movie (Stalker swipes aside).
I’ll add some comics, TV and podcast recs next time around. I don’t want to make these things too long.
Links
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Atlas Obscura have a thoroughly detailed and excellent article on the life of a saturation diver, one of the world’s most hazardous jobs.
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I’m an avid runner and always tended to lean towards the ‘longer is better’ adage up until recently (hi Tendonitis!). But this article from FiveThirtyEight and this one from Runner’s World has crystallized some thoughts I’ve been having lately about maybe specialising in a shorter distance.
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A poignant and heartbreaking read about Scott Hutchison the singer of Frightened Rabbit who recently took his own life.
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Collateral, Michael Mann’s best movie (replies are open :D) is given an in depth look over at Cinephilia & Beyond.
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Obsession, the Zodiac and the serial killer as marketing genius over at The LA Review of Books.
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The New York Times on what austerity is doing to Great Britain.
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Elon Musk continues his metamorphosis into a real life Bond villain.