Rereading The Dawn of Everything finally pushed me to use an on-hand Libro.fm credit to get this in audiobook so I could give it a try. I find Graeber to be a bit uneven (I appreciate most of what he writes, but I don’t find all of his arguments totally convincing), and so I waffled on whether to give this full marks.

Ultimately, I went with the more generous rating, because even if some of his ideas didn’t land with me, it’s useful to have so much of his thinking captured in one place. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll need to get a print copy of this for the same research project that Dawn of Everything had me thinking about.

I avoided this series for a while because I was afraid that it would provoke some existential angst, but wow is it ever good. Despite what I just said, existential horror is my favorite horror, and this series delivers; it also has analog horror vibes that I find delightful.

I would say that I regret not having watched this earlier except it’s nice not having to wait for the second season in real time.

I wasn’t expecting to count this as a “work read” when I decided to reread it a couple of months ago, but wow, did it ever help make sense of some ideas I’m kicking around for a potential book project.

Like my last read, I have to admit that I’m ill-suited to evaluate the historical or anthropological claims. I really appreciate the framework it brings to its inquiry, though, not least for the way it echoes similar ideas in Jacques Ellul’s work. This gets me thinking about anarchist commonalities between these authors, which is something I want to explore more.

Would I read more of this? Absolutely. But I’m also glad to have exhausted the volumes available at my library, because as fun and cute as the premise is, there’s only so much I can read in a short time without getting tired of it.

Part of me feels like there’s only so long you can drag along the premise of “retired yakuza becomes stay-at-home spouse,” and a lot of the humor here builds on, rather than outright challenges, traditional gender roles. Yet, it remains a fun read!

This series is clearly formulaic and episodic, but it’s still fun (and since I struggled to follow the ongoing plot of My Hero Academia, maybe it’s an easier entry point for me).

“Cozy Yakuza comedy” was not a genre I was aware of, but it seems I like it!

Wow, was this good! I picked it up because I was struggling with a sermon on the parable that gives the book its name, but even if I didn’t end up taking much from the book for my sermon, it really made an impression.

It’s evocative, and it does an amazing job of describing a hopeful apocalypse. I can see how other media I like—Cory Doctorow’s Walkaway or the indie TTRPG Why We Fight—owe something to this book.

I like John Hodgman, and I liked this book. It’s well-written, nerdy and funny in the right places, and does a good job (or at least I think so) of valorizing his own lived experiences while also candidly acknowledging the mountain of privilege that serves as their foundation. Listening to him narrate the audiobook was even better.

Cette série continue à faire des bêtises que je trouve gênantes: Il n’y a que quelques personnages « importants » qui doivent vivre toutes les expériences d’un.e Français.e de cette époque, et il y a plein de choses qui se passent pour des raisons dramatiques et non logiques.

Pourtant, cette saison en particulier montre la saleté de la guerre, et je suis impressionné par combien on ose critiquer les Français.e.s même au lieu de croire que tout le monde a été des héros pendant la guerre.

See, here’s a volume that is also reallll dark but has enough anti-nihilism in it to make it shine. This is apparently the last of the volumes I own, and I don’t mind not having any more to read… this series isn’t quite as much fun the second time through.

Caleb is my favorite in this series, and so this volume gets full marks for introducing his anti-nihilism.

I don’t love the wild shift in premise at the end of this volume, but I do enjoy seeing Grant and Sara work through stuff in a way that feels earned, so it gets credit for that.

This series takes more turns in this volume, introducing a major villain who will continue longer than expected and further shifting the premise and main ideas of the series.

I think it works! Grant and Pia get some time to explore their identities and relationship, and playing with bonkers ideas usually works for me.

Okay, so let’s get one thing out of the way up front: After a long break from this series, I spedread the remaining five volumes in the course of a few days. My ability to distinguish the volumes is being pushed to its limits, so these reviews may not be super helpful.

I do remember liking this one, though. I’m a bit annoyed at the timeskip, but this volume signals a real shift in the series where Remender introduces some exploration of his characters alongside the bonkers sci-fi premise. That’s cool, and I appreciated getting to know Grant better here.

Grandma and Grandpa suggested we all take kiddo to go see this over the long weekend. Spouse was skeptical, but I was excited—we’d apparently had very different impressions of the trailer.

Anyway, it’s not a deep cinematic work, and you can see some of the seams (I assumed some of them were due to an overly faithful adaptation of the book, but after reading the book summary on Wikipedia, I’m less sure), but I really enjoyed it. It’s trope-y in a meta way that works, it was fun and funny, and even my skeptical spouse was won over by the joke about “eating God on Sundays,” which had her in tears.

Elle n’est pas parfaite, cette série : On nous impose de croire qu’un tout nouveau personnage est évidemment un chef naturel, et il a plusieurs éléments qui sont là pour être là, même s’ils ne sont pas fondés sur l’histoire de la série ou sur la logique en général.

Pourtant, je lui donne 5 sur 5 car j’apprécie beaucoup la série, et cette saison en particulier. En avant !

Je ne sais plus comment j’ai découvert cette série, mais je suis bien content de l’avoir regardée (merci M. Le VPN pour m’avoir aidé à convaincre Arte que j’étais en France). Si elle est minimaliste, elle est plus forte pour ça.

J’ai écrit quelque chose il y a deux ans sur comment la chanson « Coup de vieux » de Bigflo & Oli m’a beaucoup marqué, car même si je n’ai jamais eu l’expérience d’être jeune en France, je reconaissais quand-même l’expérience d’être jeune. J’ai eu une expérience semblable avec cette série. Si certains éléments m’étaient étranger (je connais pas du tout Diddl, par exemple), les souvenirs de MSN Messenger me sont fort revenus, et même sans cela, l’expérience de jeunesse a quelques éléments universels.

“Intentionally bad” is a vibe that really works for me, and this is a masterclass of that vibe. I have some complaints: Some parts are grosser than they need to be, and even though I can forgive most of that as part of the “intentionally bad schtick,” there’s a rape reference in one episode that feels unnecessary even if it’s meant to be a bad call by the characters. Despite even that, I really appreciate this show for the specific thing it’s trying to do, and it made a good break from more serious media this week.

Même si je trouve que l’application Radio France est assez pourrie (difficile à organiser, de grosses pubs qui paraîssent en début de journée), elle a été utile pour trouver d’autres émissions sur Radio Londres et ses concurrents. Hyper fascinante, cette série !

This series isn’t perfect—the shaman character has enough vague stereotype surrounding him to raise a concerned eyebrow—but it’s good. What’s more, I’m so happy to be returning to it after a month-long semi-accidental break that I’m giving this volume full marks.

It’s very weird, with beautiful art to back it up. It’s fast-paced in a way that could be annoying but is justified by the story in a way that works. The characters aren’t always sympathetic, but that usually works to the advantage of the story being told.

Loved this. I don’t know why I liked it better than Tinker Tailor—is it a better adaptation, or do I actually like the underlying story better?

That got to thinking about how much of Smiley’s People is a clear riff on Tinker Tailor (George tackles a problem from the outside, brings in Guillam, chats with Connie, recruits Toby…). You can’t have Smiley’s People without Tinker Tailor, but I wonder if Smiley’s People is actually the better version of that story.

Excellent adaptation of a book I remember enjoying. My “book is better” brain wanted to quibble with some choices, but I think those choices made sense when considering the change of medium. I also really, really appreciated the almost-throwaway joke about the Phantom Zone.

Post-timeskip Dumbing of Age is good; some parts feel rockier, some parts feel even better.

Part of me thinks that I shouldn’t enjoy this particularly dramatic, action-packed sequence, but Willis does an excellent job of it—and of making it fit within the broader world and story he’s built.