Pop culture round-up!
The photo I posted last night was actually a video, but apparently when Flickr embeds videos they do it as a still. So anyway, I made it into a TikTok.
@sarah_kay_gee #steadywork #hoodoo ♬ Coast - Hotel Pools
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Even the fools in Tlaquepaque, with their healing crystals and their chants, believed in something. You had to be a bit afraid of a superior power. Those who weren’t were treading on dangerous soil.
I read Mexican Gothic last year and really liked it; I had thought at the time it was her first novel, but apparently Moreno-Garcia has written several. I think Mexican Gothic was just the first to get an English translation from a major publisher? Or maybe it was just the first to catch on with a wider audience. I had heard it was being developed as a series, but a lot of the projects getting dumped overboard as the streamers tighten their belts seem to be stories by and/or about women and people of color, for some reason.
Also it wouldn't surprise me if some fucking suit was like "Eh, we can't do another fungus-based storyline with a Hispanic protagonist after The Last Of Us", even though the stories are wildly different.
Anyway, Velvet Was The Night is a very pulpy noir novel set in the opening days of Mexico's Guerra Sucia of the 1970s, something I knew very little about. (Wait, why is "war" a feminine noun? I call bullshit on that, Spanish language!) I know more about Mexico's colonial and revolutionary periods than I do about the Mexico of my lifetime. Growing up white in Reagan's America did not encourage curiosity about other cultures, although I at least had the advantage of spending my formative years in a place that a lot of immigrants came to. Mostly from India and China (Taiwan and Hong Kong mostly, not so much PRC), and, during the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan. Parts of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner are set in my hometown. It was always easy to find late-night kabobs, I tell you what.
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I finally finished re-watching Fringe. It took a while because I wasn't super into the 5th season and kept stopping it to start other things. One thing I didn't like is that the perspective shifted from Olivia, where it's been for the previous 4 seasons, onto Peter. Again, this really feels like some fucking network executive was like "But why isn't the white guy our main character?" No disrespect to Joshua Jackson, who did fine work on the show (and also turned out to be both cuter and less of a dumb Trumpy jackass than James Van Der Beek. Team Pacey 4 life.).
Also Lance Reddick's old age make-up in the last season is distractingly bad. Seriously, this show spent so much on effects and that was the best they could do?
So I finally started the re-watch of The Americans I've been meaning to do for a while. I only had time for the pilot last night, but holy shit. Like I remembered it being good and would frequently say it was one of the best first episodes I'd ever seen, and yet I was still amazed all over again by how good it was.
This show cracks me up because you know they cast Rhys and Russell because while they're attractive, on paper they read as "normal attractive" and could pass for spies hiding in plain sight. But both of them just have so much magnetism that they come across as stupidly hot, especially together. Whoever said that real life couples have no onscreen chemistry, these two did not get the memo.
I briefly entertained the idea of keeping track of the wigs, but gave up halfway through the first episode. There's so many wigs!
I also rewound and watched the scene where Philip beats up the sleazy guy who was hitting on Paige like, half a dozen times. It's the best.
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Trailer for the 5th season of What We Do In the Shadows!
I am physically unable of not calling crepe paper "creepy paper" thanks to this show.
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I've been re-listening to Cocteau Twins' entire discography. I'd forgotten about the bonkers names they gave songs; last night I was listening to Blue Bell Knoll and cracking up at the track list.
Suckling the Mender
Spooning Good Singing Gum
Ella Megalast Burls Forever
The titles are basically just nonsense phrases, because Elizabeth Fraser didn't sing in any real language. It was random vocalizations with a few English phrases here and there, usually in the choruses.
@sarah_kay_gee #steadywork #hoodoo ♬ Coast - Hotel Pools
~~~~~~~~~~
Even the fools in Tlaquepaque, with their healing crystals and their chants, believed in something. You had to be a bit afraid of a superior power. Those who weren’t were treading on dangerous soil.
I read Mexican Gothic last year and really liked it; I had thought at the time it was her first novel, but apparently Moreno-Garcia has written several. I think Mexican Gothic was just the first to get an English translation from a major publisher? Or maybe it was just the first to catch on with a wider audience. I had heard it was being developed as a series, but a lot of the projects getting dumped overboard as the streamers tighten their belts seem to be stories by and/or about women and people of color, for some reason.
Also it wouldn't surprise me if some fucking suit was like "Eh, we can't do another fungus-based storyline with a Hispanic protagonist after The Last Of Us", even though the stories are wildly different.
Anyway, Velvet Was The Night is a very pulpy noir novel set in the opening days of Mexico's Guerra Sucia of the 1970s, something I knew very little about. (Wait, why is "war" a feminine noun? I call bullshit on that, Spanish language!) I know more about Mexico's colonial and revolutionary periods than I do about the Mexico of my lifetime. Growing up white in Reagan's America did not encourage curiosity about other cultures, although I at least had the advantage of spending my formative years in a place that a lot of immigrants came to. Mostly from India and China (Taiwan and Hong Kong mostly, not so much PRC), and, during the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan. Parts of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner are set in my hometown. It was always easy to find late-night kabobs, I tell you what.
~~~~~~~~~~
I finally finished re-watching Fringe. It took a while because I wasn't super into the 5th season and kept stopping it to start other things. One thing I didn't like is that the perspective shifted from Olivia, where it's been for the previous 4 seasons, onto Peter. Again, this really feels like some fucking network executive was like "But why isn't the white guy our main character?" No disrespect to Joshua Jackson, who did fine work on the show (and also turned out to be both cuter and less of a dumb Trumpy jackass than James Van Der Beek. Team Pacey 4 life.).
Also Lance Reddick's old age make-up in the last season is distractingly bad. Seriously, this show spent so much on effects and that was the best they could do?
So I finally started the re-watch of The Americans I've been meaning to do for a while. I only had time for the pilot last night, but holy shit. Like I remembered it being good and would frequently say it was one of the best first episodes I'd ever seen, and yet I was still amazed all over again by how good it was.
Click to viewThis show cracks me up because you know they cast Rhys and Russell because while they're attractive, on paper they read as "normal attractive" and could pass for spies hiding in plain sight. But both of them just have so much magnetism that they come across as stupidly hot, especially together. Whoever said that real life couples have no onscreen chemistry, these two did not get the memo.
I briefly entertained the idea of keeping track of the wigs, but gave up halfway through the first episode. There's so many wigs!
I also rewound and watched the scene where Philip beats up the sleazy guy who was hitting on Paige like, half a dozen times. It's the best.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trailer for the 5th season of What We Do In the Shadows!
I am physically unable of not calling crepe paper "creepy paper" thanks to this show.
~~~~~~~~~~
I've been re-listening to Cocteau Twins' entire discography. I'd forgotten about the bonkers names they gave songs; last night I was listening to Blue Bell Knoll and cracking up at the track list.
Suckling the Mender
Spooning Good Singing Gum
Ella Megalast Burls Forever
The titles are basically just nonsense phrases, because Elizabeth Fraser didn't sing in any real language. It was random vocalizations with a few English phrases here and there, usually in the choruses.