Below are posts associated with the “media” tag.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Yiddish Policemen's Union
I’ve read this before, so I knew that I would enjoy it this time, but I had forgotten just how good it is. The premise is bonkers: It’s a noir story featuring a detective from an alternate history where the U.S. made part of Alaska available to Jewish refugees in the 1930s. The story picks up in the mid-2000s, when a strange murder unfolds in the months before the “Federal District of Sitka” is returned to Alaska.
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for The Princess Bride
It was really fun to introduce this to kiddo this weekend by watching it as a family. I don’t think this movie will ever be as good as it was when I was a teenager, before I could see the seams and tiny faults with it, but it will always be beloved in my family—and now including kiddo.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, by David Graeber
When I was in grad school, I was pretty centrist: more liberal than most of the students from BYU (where I’d just finished my bachelor’s) but more conservative than most of the students at MSU. I had an odd experience one day when a fellow student far, FAR to the left from where I was teasingly chided me for a Facebook post I’d made defending Common Core from one of my BYU friends who was convinced it was a communist plot.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Joseph Smith and the Mormons, by Noah Van Scriver
This is an excellent graphic novel adaptation of the earliest of Mormon history. The art is good, the story is compelling, and I enjoyed reading it. I came close to buying this twice in the past year after finding it in comics shops, and I was delighted to find that my local library had a couple of copies. I do wish that I either knew a lot more history or a lot less history going into this.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible, by Mitri Raheb
This book has been on my radar for a few months, and I’m glad to have found an audiobook I could check out (though I doubt I’d have regretted an impulse buy—this would be a good book to have on hand). Palestinian Christian ministers and theologians always call me to account in a way that I appreciate. I don’t think I should need someone from my own faith tradition (broadly speaking) to tell me how bad the situation in Palestine is (i.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Silo (Season 2)
I really liked this season. Each of the actors feels perfect for their role, the writers had some good fun with us through twists and turns (I’m sure some of it was original to the source material), and I’m looking forward to the next season.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Star Trek: Lower Decks (Season 1)
This is such a fun show. I am not as well-versed in Star Trek as I’d like, so I’m sure I’m missing some of the jokes, but there are still so, so many of them. It’s bizarre, it’s a loving homage, and it’s really good.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Debt: The First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber
Like everything I’ve read from Graeber, I appreciate the overall argument that he’s making and I find the evidence he marshalls compelling. At the same time, there’s a density to the latter that I admit having trouble following, so I don’t always see how it leads to the overall argument. Even with those caveats, I’m happy to endorse this read. I’m interested in how Graeber explores the relationship between moral thinking and economic modeling—as I posted earlier, I also find his thoughts on the moral dangers posed by abstracting interpersonal obligations into quantifiable debt with the help of money.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Volume 1), by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe
John Siracusa recommended the anime adaptation of this on the year-end episode of The Incomparable, and the premise sounded interesting enough to try getting into manga again. I love stories that explore the mundanity of fantastic worlds—there are lots of things I don’t like about the Star Wars prequels, but Jedi Knights resolving trade disputes is great—and this story delivers on that. It picks up after a D&D-style adventure party has completed their quest and asks what happens next.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Bezzle (A Martin Hench Novel), by Cory Doctorow
Despite meaning to reread this ever since I first read it, this is my first reread. While it’s very clearly related to Red Team Blues, it’s remarkable how different this book is. Rather than a tight thriller, this feels more like a meandering story that has a clear throughline but skips from event to event as more than a decade goes by. There’s a fun framing device that makes this work, though.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Red Team Blues (A Martin Hench Novel), by Cory Doctorow
So, I actually finished this last week and am behind on bookblogging. It’s the third time I’ve read this book (twice on audio), but with the final book in the trilogy coming out next month, it was time to revisit the earlier ones. This book is fun in an action movie sense while also being a searing critique of wealth and of our society’s seeming inability to take care of the poor.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 9 : Pour Maria, par Vance et Van Hamme
C’est méchant de dire que cet album m’a été utile pour combattre l’insomnie hier soir ? Bon, c’est exaggérer un peu (n’importe quel livre aurait suffi), mais mes sentiments complexes envers cette série continuent. C’est assez intéressant de revisiter l’Amérique latine, et il aurait servi comme occasion de critiquer le militarisme américain, mais pourquoi donc éléver un Irlando-Américain comme « sauveur blanc » pour ces rebelles ? Je continue à lire, mais je continue à me demander si j’aurais du me mettre à collectionner une autre série de bd.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 8 : Treize contre un, par Vance et Van Hamme
Je reprends donc cette série en lisant les albums que j’ai en format physique. C’est comme avant : J’aime l’art, et il y a des éléments de l’histoire qui m’intriguent, mais ce n’est rien de spécial.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Karla's Choice: A John Le Carré Novel, by Nick Harkaway
The book feels like fanservice, but not all fanservice is bad! Dan Moren recommended this at the tail end of a recent episode of The Incomparable, and I was surprised that I hadn’t heard that a new George Smiley story was coming out. In conversation with my partner later, she mentioned that she’d told me when she saw it in the news and that I’d brushed it off. That tracks: I had some trepidation about someone else writing in Le Carré’s world, but it’s quite well done.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 11), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
I think I’m all caught up on TPBs now. It looks like a new one ought to be coming soon, but I might start reading issue to issue, because it’s just that good.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 10), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
Strong return to the series after the major twists in Volume 9. It does a good job of continuing the themes of the series while still shaking things up—and continuing to deliver major changes.
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Vengeance Most Fowl
I don’t think anything beats The Wrong Trousers in the Wallace and Gromit canon, but this could have been much worse as a follow-up to that classic. It’s silly (mostly in good ways), subtly but wonderfully British, and kept kiddo laughing. It’s the best Wallace and Gromit I’ve seen for a while, even if it isn’t as good as the classic stuff.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga (Volume 9), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
Comics do a lot of dumb things to keep readers hooked, shake up the story, etc. When Saga does them, they work. I knew the twists in this episode were coming, but wow did they still land.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga (Volume 8), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
I say this about a lot of Saga, but this volume in particular shouldn’t be as good as it is. And yet…
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga (Volume 7), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
Sometimes depressing art is the best art, and I felt that way about this volume. Saga is violent sometimes, but it never glorifies that violence, and that’s one of its strengths.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Saga (Volume 6), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
Like with my first readthrough, I’m noticing that every volume is good, but some volumes are just a cut above. This is one of them. What a series.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Interior Chinatown
This was a fun show: trippy, clever, and metafictional. It departs from its source material in plot but not in spirit, which I think is a sign of a strong adaptation. It could have been tighter, and some episodes felt like they were stringing the show along, but overall, I think it was well done.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 5), by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
Still weird, still grosser than it needs to be sometimes, but still surprisingly good.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 4), by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
I suggested this in an earlier review, but there’s a lot in this series I don’t normally tolerate (gore, “will this marriage break up?” plots) but that still somehow works here. I also appreciate how the series pulls off cliffhangers that I actually care about rather than just feeling like they’re obvious.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 3), by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
This series moves quick and never lets up on the weird. I don’t know how it so successfully keeps me interested in bizarre characters in bonkers situations, but it does.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 2), by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
This series combines dumb and crazy with genuinely moving, and I’m really glad I’ve decided to reread it all.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Saga (Volume 1), by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
I had been thinking about rereading this for a while, and there’s nothing like a transatlantic flight to get you to finally do it (even though there are two other books I “ought to” be reading. I continue to be amazed that I like this series—and how much I like it. There are so many things about it that shouldn’t work (at least for my tastes), but it somehow goes all the way around and back to captivating.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour Shenzhen, par Guy Delisle
J’aime beaucoup les albums de Guy Delisle, et j’avais comme objectif de m’en offrir un lors de ma visite en France. J’aurais préféré acheter « Chroniques birmanes » car je ne l’ai pas encore lu, mais en trouvant celui-ci, je me suis dit que je ne l’avais jamais qu’en anglais, une fois, trop vite dans une bibliothèque. J’aime bien sa façon de parler de son travail, sa vie, et ses expériences dans un seul album.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ pour Le français va très bien, merci, par Les linguistes atterré(e)s
Ce n’est pas tous les jours qu’on trouve un bouquin en librairie dont on a entendu parler sur Mastodon—surtout quand il s’agit d’un bouquin francophone et qu’on habite aux États-Unis. C’est pour ça que j’ai su que je devais absolument m’offrir ce petit « tract » quand je l’ai vu en visite à Colmar. Et je suis bien content de me l’être offert ! Bien que je ne travaille plus avec les langues, la sociolinguistique a beaucoup influencé ma perspective sur le monde, et ça fait du bien d’en apprendre un peu plus.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 7 : La nuit du 3 août, par Vance et Van Hamme
Avec l’album précédent, j’avais retrouvé pas mal de mon amour pour cette série, malgré tous ses problèmes. Pourtant, celui-ci (qui sert comme suite directe) m’a encore embêté. Le pire scène de toute l’histoire, c’est ici, quand on montre une tentative de lynchage pour Jones, une personnage qui est toujours capable sauf quand on veut qu’elle soit sauvé par XIII. Répéter des insultes racistes ne me plaît pas beaucoup comme divertissement (même si on veut condamner les racistes), et d’une perspective féministe, le fait qu’elle est en sous-vêtements pendant la tentative est insupportable.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 6 : Le dossier Jason Fly, par Vance et Van Hamme
Ce tome est encore plus difficile à classer. Comme « thriller », il est assez efficace, les nouveaux personnages sont intéressants, et les petits retours en arrière réussissent à donner du contexte et à accrocher le lecteur. Je continue à aimer l’art aussi. Par contre, le traitement des femmes dans la série devient encore moins supportable. Connaissant quelques femmes qui ont éprouvé beaucoup de douleur à cause de la stérilité, je ne suis pas forcément contre l’idée d’une femme fictive qui éprouve cette même douleur pour des raisons dramatiques.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour XIII Tome 5 : Rouge total, par Vance et Van Hamme
Je me sens un peu déchiré là. C’était intéressant de voir la fin d’une certaine partie de la série, mais je suis toujours dérangé par les attitudes y présentes. Les personnages féminins dans l’histoire semblent n’exister que pour coucher avec XIII ou subir des menaces de viol. Même si tout cela est insupportable, il est intéressant de voir comment Vance et Van Hamme perçoivent les États-Unis. Quand XIII et Jones se vouvoient, je me demande ce que cela signifie, vu qu’on n’a pas les mêmes moyens de se parler en anglais.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 4 : SPADS, par Vance et Van Hamme
Bon, j’ai commencé cette relecture en espérant pouvoir défendre mon amour pour cette série malgré ses problèmes. Il est vrai qu’elle continue à être intéressant, mais le sexisme s’accroît, et ça devient se plus en plus difficile de justifier mon intérêt.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 pour XIII Tome 3: Toutes les larmes de l'enfer, par Vance et Van Hamme
Bon, il y a quand-même des limites à mon amour pour cette série, et je n’ai jamais trop aimé cet album. Même si les éléments des complots se révèlent (et se révèlent assez intéressants), la cruauté de l’asile pénitentiaire où se trouve notre héros pendant l’album me dérange. Même si cette cruauté reflète la réalité de telles institutions, ce qui se déroule dans ces pages est pour amuser, et je ne le trouve pas très amusant.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour XIII Tome 2 : Là où va l'indien, par Vance et Van Hamme
Dès le deuxième tome, on voit déjà combien cette série va se montrer stupide. On ajoute complot sur complot et identité sur identité. On condamne la guerre au Vietnam mais on fête la violence des militaires. Le lieutenant Jones est un paradoxe en elle même. C’est intéressant d’avoir une femme noire comme personnage important et capable, mais elle reste toujours quelqu’un avec qui XIII peut coucher. Je ne devrais sans doute pas pardonner tout cela à la série, mais j’aime beaucoup l’art, j’aime apprendre le langage de ce genre de BD, et il y a des séries qu’on aime malgré leur stupidité, er pour moi, c’est celle-ci.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour XIII Tome 1 : Le jour du soleil noir, par Vance et Van Hamme
Ce n’est pas un chef d’œuvre, et il y a plein d’attitudes des années 80 qui me gênent dans la série, mais j’avoue que j’ai quand-même un grand amour pour ces albums. Ce premier, c’est bien intéressant, même si on a piqué les meilleures idées de « La mémoire dans la peau ». Bref, ça fait un moment que j’ai envie de relire ma petite collection, et c’est donc maintenant que je commence.