Coasting into the new year glutted on cookies and Mom’s cooking and too many presents. Attempting to enjoy these last few moments of calm and spend my time reflecting this coming first week of 2024. Remember, January is not for jumping into the deep end. Wade into the new year with thoughtfulness. The test run is February.
This month’s playlist:
How Do You Live?
What a banal decision to release this film in the West with the localized name “The Boy and the Heron.” It makes me sick.
How do you live?
A defeated statement in the face of our overwhelmed existence.
How do you live?
A demand to consider your responsibilities to community and ethics.
How do you live?
A desperate cry for guidance.
This is the most visual experimentation I’ve seen from Miyazaki--the loose, smeared chaos of the fire for one example. And the story is fantastical and terse. I feel an ocean beneath its surface and I have yet to plumb it.
I will be asking myself this question come the new year.
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey
My first Palahniuk. This book starts a little left of center and keeps curving until you wonder how you ended up where you did at the end. You cannot predict the destination. Not even sure what to think of it. All I know is I enjoyed the journey. I love the device of concurrent interviews, like a video documentary. You’re learning just as much about the interviewees as their perception of the protagonist. It’s impossible to divine truth from legend.
Final Fantasy VI
I’ve never played a Final Fantasy. I haven’t played many full fat JRPGs. But I’ve been told this is one of the best. Enjoying the GBA port on my Pocket. Still getting my feet wet.
Chai
I bought their latest album on cassette on a whim last time at the record store. Now I can’t get their exuberant pop songs out of my head. Never listened much to J-pop outside an anime opening or closing song. Interested to see where this will lead.
This month I’ve been resting and eating and not much else. That’s all I care to do. But I am giving my Sigma fp some attention it deserves. Also, you could check out my year in movies.