media consumption log: april 2023

 

Media Consumption Log:

March/early April 2023

            I'm back! And currently in the midst of a year-long crisis about what I am going to do with my life, where I'm going to live, when I'm going to move out, who I am, who any of us are, etc. etc. etc. The good news is, I've been consuming a lot of books, television shows, and albums to help me not act on the overwhelming urge to change my name, move to Switzerland and become a dainty little goatherd on the side of some snow-capped mountain. 

        Books:

• A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride
• The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath
• Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
• A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
• The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton*
• The Philosophy of Andy Warhol*
• Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• Ubu and the Truth Commission by Jane Taylor
• Translations by Brian Friel*
• Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett*

        Television Shows:

• Love is Blind. I love reality television. I love being judgmental in the comfort of my own home. I will defend this show forever and ever. It flirts with dystopia (everyone talks about "the Pods" and it sounds so laboratory-esque). Most everyone in the cast is awful, and the people who aren't awful are boring, because they are happy. The wedding episodes are always the best, because you never know who is going to say yes or no at the altar. And then, of course, there is always a reunion, and everyone is terrible at the reunion (even the boring people).
• Emily in Paris. I could totally make it in Paris, and I am convinced of this because Emily would definitely not make it in Real Paris (she does not know French, her outfits are often questionable, her influencer status makes me howl), and yet she makes it in Netflix Paris. This show is if a Wattpad author was given access to the trappings of television, and I eat it up. 

        Poems: 

• "The Orange" by Wendy Cope. I'm picky about poems that rhyme, and everyone knows this about me, but somehow, I did not notice that this poem rhymed until the third time I read it. It is just so utterly endearing and simple, and though it is happy, I find it has depth (in a way that most happy poems do not). I would like to get a small tattoo of an orange slice and the last line of this poem.
• "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" from Macbeth. I'm a Shakespeare nut. I wear a charm bracelet with charms symbolizing all of Shakespeare's greatest hits, and I have a dagger charm for Macbeth. This speech is so good. It's so well-written. It's so nihilistic. It's so weird. I have borrowed the "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" line before. This is one of the Shakespeare speeches I'd like to recite on an empty stage, if I ever had the opportunity to do so. 
• "The Double Image" by Anne Sexton. It's long but read all of it if you have the time. Maybe have a coffee while you read it. And then talk to me about mirrors and womanhood and mothers.
• "Miss you. Would love to grab that chilled tofu we love" by Gabrielle Calvocoressi.
• "Gravestones" by Asia Calcagno.
• "A Pity. We Were Such a Good Invention" by Yehuda Amichai.
• "Rehearsal Notes" by Len Verwey.
• "Hearts" and "Dust" by Dorianne Laux.
• "Eating the Avocado" by Carrie Fountain.

        Podcasts:

• Sounds Like a Cult. I love learning about cults. I made my family go to Waco when we were road-tripping through the South a few years ago (instant regret: my spiritual ass couldn't go any further past the gates. I felt nauseous). I love looking at the linguistics of cults and examining how their leaders came to power. This podcast looks at "culty things" in pop culture (like Peloton) and interviews experts before deciding if the "culty thing" is, in fact, an actual cult. 
• Marlon and Jake Read Dead People. Marlon James has a beautiful voice. He and Jake are both very well read. This podcast feels like overhearing your favorite professors having a conversation about books you read but have never gotten to talk about. 
• The Polyester Podcast. The only British people I like are the people who host this podcast. It's feminist, it's smart, it's critical. I don't agree with everything they say, and I think that's why I like it so much (because it means I'm being a critical listener!). 

        Albums: 

• Born to Die by Lana Del Rey. Should I be listening to her new album? Sure. But this album raised me. It's dramatic. It's fun to listen to when driving home at sunset, with the windows down. 
• Are You Haunted? (Deluxe) by Methyl Ethyl. I know exactly zero people who listen to Methyl Ethyl but I love them very much. They haven't released anything since 2017, so this album's a huge deal. Good train music.
• mini mix vol. 3 by Magdalena Bay. 
• A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships by the 1975. Love it if We Made it is my late capitalism love song. 
• Belladonna of Sadness by Alexandra Savior. Lana Del Rey vibes.

Artistic Inspirations/Whimsies to Follow:

• Fragmentation in the Irish canon. 
• Revisiting really old work; honoring what it meant for you back then and reinventing it for who you are in the present moment; reclaiming work a la Swift.
• Femininity defined through objects (mirrors, lipsticks, stuffed animals, jewelry, nightgowns, hairbrushes).
• Been writing about dance, museums, the digital world and its weirdness, the connection between the domestic/the romantic, working on a series of poems called Postecofeminist Diary Entries so I can further explore my passion for body/land connection and the aggressiveness of nature/how we can never fully control it/how the body and the land it inhabits can serve as mirrors to one another while also reckoning with my own desire to have children on a burning planet.