Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Finished "The Dark is Rising Sequence" Susan Cooper - still one of my favourites. But exchanging comments with magid I think part of that is that I came to it at the right age, if I'd first read it as an adult I'd probably still like it but not necessarily love it. Stuff like how reminiscent the ending is of Lord of the Rings, which would've passed me by when I first read it but is really noticeable now. And the Light being good by fiat rather than by their deeds doesn't sit as well now. But it's a bit of my childhood and there'll always be a bit of me that wants to be Will from The Dark is Rising (I do like the idea of reading a book that gives me knowledge of all things).

Started "Revenant Gun", Yoon Ha Lee - the third book in Lee's Machineries of Empire trilogy. Space opera, where the calendar you observe has an effect on the laws of the universe around you, affecting technology. Seems to be doing something interesting with memory & identity - there's at least two characters who have memories from the same person, neither of whom are in the original physical body. One has memories up to "present" (I think) but isn't him, the other last remembers (consciously) being 17 and yet is him. Although it's more complicated than that.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - reading about Fisk's quest to find who makes the weapons that have dealt out such death & mutilation in the Middle East and his attempts to find out if the men that run the companies that make them have anything approaching a conscience.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 4 Scenes 2-3 - we finally find out what Silvia thinks of Proteus (not good) as Julia watches in disguise (and heartbroken horror). And Silvia resolves to run away to find Valentine who she doesn't know has joined the bandits, mirroring Julia.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 196-220 of The History of England - now well into the Tudors & the early part of Henry VIII's reign before he's started disposing of wives.

Sunday Podcast: ep 29 & 30 of Living with the Gods - finishing up the series with a look at religions seeking to found states (2nd Century CE Jerusalem & 19th Century CE Sudan as his examples, nothing more contentious), and a look at how living with the gods is what helps bind societies together. An interesting series, and better than the exhibition it accompanied in my opinion. I didn't always agree with it, tho - just like with the exhibition itself I think it was presenting religion as the only possible way bind a community together, whereas I think it's just a way to bind a community together and there are other options.

Music: While running I listened to The Cure's greatest hits and The Monkee's greatest hits.

Live Music: We went to one day of the BST Hyde Park festival on Saturday (which I wrote up on Polarsteps to try out that app). The bands we saw were: Pale Waves, Slowdive, Editors, Goldfrapp, Interpol and The Cure. The Cure were why we'd bought tickets, and they were awesome :) We lucked out with the weather too, it was gloriously sunny and a good day to spend in a park.

Watching

ep 4 of Africa's Great Civilisations - (yes, I said ep 4 last week but I was wrong, that was ep 3), this time about the great cities of Africa during the time immediately preceding Europeans coming along to fuck things up.

I Was There: Kate Adie on Tiananmen Square - Adie looking back at the massacre on Tiananmen Square in 1989, both her personal story of reporting on it and the wider political story. Parallels with the Arab Spring of 2011 were definitely brought to mind.

Great Exhibition of the North - a half hour thing advertising this summer's Great Exhibition of the North, a bit of fluff really but some stuff I might be interested in seeing but probably won't get the chance to as we won't be there during the time it's on. Tho having said that, I think the Glenn Brown exhibition is still on past the time we're in Kielder this autumn so it might be doable.

ep 1 of Civilisation Stories - a collection of half hour programmes from different regions of Britain looking at artifacts from civilisations of the past. This one was the Bronze Age things found in East Anglia, and really quite good.

Akala's Odyssey - hip-hop artist/poet Akala investigating the context & background for Homer's Odyssey while writing his own response to it. Really rather good, and I should check out his music.

Oh Do Shut Up Dear! Mary Beard on the Public Voice of Women - a lecture Beard gave at the British Museum a few years ago about the long cultural history of silencing women who speak in the public sphere going back as far as the Odyssey and Telemachus telling his mother Penelope to go away and let the men talk. Her basic thesis was that just saying "it's misogyny" is too shallow - it's important to think about the roots of it and to challenge some of the actually rather bizarre cultural assumptions we have. Like why are deep voices serious & authoritative? It's something we've culturally decided that doesn't need to be that way. I'm not sure I agree with her decision to not talk about commentary on women's appearance. I think that's an important part of silencing/ignoring women in the public sphere - if you spend a lot of time talking about what she was wearing then you don't have time to spare to talk about what she might've said.

World Cup Football - missed England's Quarter Final win on Saturday, we were too busy watching the bands in Hyde Park (tho the mobile network held out long enough that I was getting score updates on my phone so knew they'd won). In fact the only Quarter Final I did catch was Brazil vs. Belgium (1-2). And watched the Belgium vs. France (0-1) Semi Final last night. Neither of which looked like sides we could beat ... but I've been pessimistic all the way through so far & England have done much better than I expected every time, so who knows! Maybe it is coming home?

Comments

[magid]

There are definitely books I still love despite their not-amazingness because I read them at just the right time.

I suspect it's similar to how some younger people absolutely love the Harry Potter books, while I enjoyed, but was not that level of entranced at all.

[mousetrappling]

Heh, yeah my own reaction to Harry Potter was more "meh" than anything else - and definitely due to having come to the books as an adult rather than a child to whom it was all new.