Ten Things, 2023-14/15

into the synthwave sunset we go

Here are ten things.

  1. It dawned on me that I have many friends, people who I admire and share hobbies with, that I never do see in person. So in an effort to break free of this particular spiral of isolation, I hit up a poetry reading at a local used book store (local note: if you haven't visited Phoenix Books, please rectify that), knowing that I'd run into people I hadn't seen in months. Now I have a bunch of plans in the coming week. Funny how that works.
  2. It's been a big couple of weeks for stuff on YouTube for your boy. First off: I devoured several of Lady Emily's videos because I, too, spent an inordinate amount of time watching James Rolfe yell at old video games in his prime.
  3. Every new Doc Destructo video is a cause for celebration, and this one is about the agony and ecstasy of playing Valheim.
  4. On April 10th, the avatar of chill studiousness known as Lo-fi Girl disappeared, and the internet fucking lost it. As it turns out, this was all in the lead-up to the launch of a sister synthwave stream, complete with its own mirror-world mascot, Synthwave Boy. Sometimes we can have nice things.
  5. I am thrilled to report that the new Dougie Poole album The Rainbow Wheel of Death absolutely fucking knocks. Get some cosmic country in your life.
  6. I love hyperspecific playlists/mixes, and so I made one called It's Senior Year and I Don't Own a Blazer to Wear on My Date So Here I Am at the Gap Buying a Blazer.
  7. I also love a good hyperspecific novelty Letterboxd list, so I made one called “Movies where Cate Blanchett plays a steely American who speaks German and trips at an inopportune time.”
  8. The great Roger Ebert passed away a decade ago, and the just as great Austin Kleon remembers his late-period blogging and drawing.
  9. Oh how the gods of chance have smiled down upon me during these last games of Watchlist Roulette: we have Hanna (kind of like a YA Bourne movie?) and Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill (what sumptuous problematic trash the man makes, and I say this with love).
  10. An excerpt from “A Parking Lot in West Houston” by Monica Youn (via Pome): 
    Angels are unthinkable
in hot weather
    
except in some tropical locales, where
from time to time, the women catch one in their nets,
    
hang it dry, and fashion it into a lantern
that will burn forever on its own inexhaustible oils.

#tenthings