kitewithfish (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kitewithfish) wrote2020-10-10 11:43 am
kitewithfish) wrote2020-10-10 11:43 am
Actually, just some recs - videos, stickers, stuff
Some things I have found interesting and helpful in my recent Hunkered Down phase:
- Maggie Mae Fish's video essay, Cats and the Weird Mind of TS Eliot, which is an really interesting look at TS Eliot as a person, his politics, and how his world view influenced his writing. A lot of the excepts from his writing here made me think about Cats the Musical in new ways, and while I still haven't seen the Tom Hooper film (and maybe never will), this seems like an entertaining and funny short examination of Eliot as a person.
-Three related things:
-Bande Washi Tape Stickers - Goldfish - These are just really damned cute. Since I'm doing a lot of Important Covid Time Journaling TM, I have been really enjoying just adding some stickers to upcoming pages of my notebook in advance of hitting those pages. I also have this brand of stickers with tulips, assorted garden and dandelion flowers. It's making me happy and chill.
- Maggie Mae Fish's video essay, Cats and the Weird Mind of TS Eliot, which is an really interesting look at TS Eliot as a person, his politics, and how his world view influenced his writing. A lot of the excepts from his writing here made me think about Cats the Musical in new ways, and while I still haven't seen the Tom Hooper film (and maybe never will), this seems like an entertaining and funny short examination of Eliot as a person.
-Three related things:
- Naomi Novik's new YA novel, A Deadly Education, which I really enjoyed and thought was had some really interesting worldbuilding. I have been reading Novik's published work for years and I have also really liked her fanfic under her pen name Astolat.
- the accompanying episode of the Be the Serpent podcast, Ep 71: Back to School, about magical schools (note: No spoilers for A Deadly Education, some discussion of JK Rowling's transphobic shittiness in the Hogwarts part), - which is a in-depth and loving discussion of magical schools in literature and fic and how they function and the tropes around them. I really enjoyed Novik's thoughts on Harry Potter's wizarding world as wish-fulfillment writing for a single mom who wanted to give their child the experience of being able to buy anything they wanted.
- For the commentary, I wanted to include this one-star GoodReads review of A Deadly Education which talks about some issues with the depiction of the multicultural elements of the school (Some spoilers for early elements of the book but nothing major). I think the notes in this review are accurate - the one passage about the minor demons that infest dreadlocks is WILDLY tonedeaf and completely out of left field, AND, I also didn't notice it when I was reading. Some of the other elements mentioned in this review are more open to interpretation and I'm a fan of this author, so I read them more charitably, but I don't think there's any denying that they are part of the book and might be dealbreakers.
-Bande Washi Tape Stickers - Goldfish - These are just really damned cute. Since I'm doing a lot of Important Covid Time Journaling TM, I have been really enjoying just adding some stickers to upcoming pages of my notebook in advance of hitting those pages. I also have this brand of stickers with tulips, assorted garden and dandelion flowers. It's making me happy and chill.