August 4, 2021

🔥🙃👍🔥…fast forward 6 months

Hey there!

I’m only just now starting to be half a human again, the past 6 months have been…intense.

Okay, so what’ve I been up to?

• 3 house renovation projects, back-to-back; including an absolute nightmare bathroom renovation. I’m not joking; it’s the single most hellish renovation project I’ve ever been a part of.
• Finishing some work projects I’ve been tackling in some form or another since…2018? I’m so excited to talk about them when they’re done.

Unfortunately, it’s meant that I haven’t really had anything to talk since I wrote back in February. 🥴 Music’s been on hiatus, largely due to exhaustion, same with reading. But! I’ve seen some great movies lately, just finished an amazing game, and Kira is doing well!

What I’ve watched recently

• I’m thinking of ending things: This was one of the most surreal movies I’ve seen. I had no idea what to expect going in, I still don’t really know what I expected, and I love that’s what I walked away with.

• Sorry to Bother You: Demi Adejuyigbe put it perfectly:

  I can’t believe I’ve never seen a movie like this before. Not anything even close to it. Every frame of reference I have for what kind of movie this is isn’t enough, in plot or style or the gross, uncomfortable, energized way it made me feel. It’s the most insane movie I have seen in years.

• Steve Jobs: It’s basically a play, but that’s why I love it! It’s so compact and tightly wound, you can feel the stress radiating from every moment. It’s my favorite kind of biopic: focused on the ethos rather than the facts. You can only fit so much context into a movie, and for figures like Steve Jobs, the overall context of his presence matters. And this movie play captures just how difficult he was to work with, the pressures of delivering under that kind of leadership, and the impacts it has.

• Judas and the Black Messiah: The kind of movie that takes over your whole day as you chew on it.
• Fear Street & Scream 1 & Scream 2: They’re Really Fucking Good, Actually™
• Feast: Paid for the privilege to cry my eyes out in 6 minutes or less
• Logan Lucky: Still a perfect movie. It’s as if the Cohen Brothers wrote a heist movie, but done with an earnestness for the characters that is intoxicating.
• A Quiet Place, Part 2: This was the first movie I’d seen in a theater since COVID, and I’m really glad it was. It reminded me what’s special about the theater experience. You’d lose so much of the atmosphere watching it at home.
• The Green Knight: I’ve been waiting for this movie for over 2 years, and it completely delivered. I think it handles the complexity of adapting this particular poem well, addressing the inconsistencies and giving them all space to exist. There are so many ways to approach the poem, themes to latch onto, inferences to make. That’s the nature of stories retrieved from oral traditions, you end up with fragmented interpretations in what gets “published.” Adapting that is tricky, but I think they did an amazing job. Also it’s astoundingly beautiful. Just jaw-dropping in how arresting it is visually.

What I just finished playing

I just wrapped up the 2017 version of Prey and have recommended it to basically anyone who will listen. Probably the most exciting thing about playing is how it’s a collection of systems that stack on top of each other and interlock. I usually struggle with getting into the exact mindset of the game designers to solve the more esoteric puzzles in *shock style games, but because the environment is so consistent and realized, finding a solve was natural.

I also just finished Louie Zong’s new experimental game, Windsor Road. It’s very short, fun experiment!

How’s Kira?

She’s great! Here’s the requisite photo dump of her being a doofie. She’s loving her new yard, but this heat is brutal.

What’s next?

Hopefully nothing for the next couple months! I want to recharge and recuperate, and ease base into a normal schedule now that the bulk of the work has been done.

How’re you?

I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while, but I want to hear what you’ve been up to! Have you been listening to good music? Making good food? Whatever it is, I wanna hear it!