2023 media log
overview
here's a little summary of this year's media logs.
click through the side navigation to see each month's log!
here's a little summary of this year's media logs.
click through the side navigation to see each month's log!
books:
short stories:
articles:
comics:
podcasts:
tv shows:
films:
live performances:
games:
interactive fiction:
horror:
sci-fi:
comedy:
literary:
fantasy:
romance:
memoir:
nonfiction:
(if you, person reading this, are equally intruiged by quantum physics in ghost research, may i recommend the paper Quantum Entanglements and Hauntological Relations of Inheritance: Dis/continuities, SpaceTime Enfoldings, and Justice-to-Come by karen barad? a lot of it went over my head, since, again, i'm not remotely a physicist, and don't even really have a surface-level understanding of quantum physics — but even so, i found it super interesting. here's a pdf.)
there were a lot of really compelling bits, though, even if i wish there'd been more details. the research into electromagnetic effects on the human brain and whether those could either cause hallucinations that make people think they're seeing a ghost or make the brain more perceptive to actual ghosts that were already there was super interesting! i'd love to see what research has been added since this book came out in '05 — i might look into that on my own later, if i remember. i'd say i want a sequel to this that updates on the last two decades of study, but given the above paragraph, i might prefer just digging for the research by myself.
it's also super possible that i would've enjoyed the tone more if i hadn't read it in the midst of a weird depressive episode. i have a copy of another of roach's books already, so we'll see if it vibes with me more whenever i get around to reading that one, i guess.
• The deep sea is a haunted house: a plqce in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness. Unstill is the word Leah uses, tilting her head to the side as if in answer to some sound, though the evening is quiet — dry hum of the road outside the window and little to draw the ear besides.
• I loved her hard and at a distance, which made it easier to do, experienced brief but powerful compulsions to hug her and almost never did.
• I remember the slip of the craft across the water, long metal nose and sculpted conning tower, the way it seemed to dip and slink, eel-like, white lights along its spine and finial. I watched it float, not bobbing, seeming less to sit upon the water than to hang within it,half-submerged and threatening to sink. I remember turning to the woman on my right and saying I wasn't sure a ship like that could possibly withstand the ocean's weight on top of it, that the crew would all be crushed, that we ought to speak to someone. [...] By the time I looked back there was nothing — bob of gulls upon an undisturbed surface, gentle sense of something pooling in my wrists as if my heart had momentarily stopped.
Now the thing is, from everything I know and everything I have otherwise experienced, it seems unlikely that the ship could have gone down that quickly, and certainly not with such minimal disturbance on the top. But even so, this is what I remember and short of getting in contact with the other wives onboard the viewing deck that day, none of whose names I even recall, there is no way of checking this scenario for accuracy. What I remember, then, becomes what happened: Leah leaving like summer from the ocean, not by degrees but all at once.
• I found an online group for women who liked to role-play that their husbands had gone to space. I'm not entirely sure how this came about, though I believe it was probably a byproduct of my fruitless search for a support group that really spoke to me. I spent several days moving through the message boards, reading conversations between women about their fantasy husbands, learning forum slang, not posting anything. MHIS [my husband in space] was a common acronym, as was BS [before space], EB [earthbound], and CBW [came back wrong].
MHIS was such a loving partner, a typical post might run, a friend and helpmeet, a wonderful father, but ever since he came back things have been different, I wonder if he CBW.
• I see my mother in myself, though less in the sense of inherited features and more in the sense of an intruder poorly hidden behind a curtain. I see her impatience in the skin of my neck, her anger in the way my hands move. I see her when I press my tongue into the inside of my cheek with irritation yet refuse to do anything to make a situation better. I see her when I assume people are worse when they turn out to be.
• I had brought a Welsh dresser from my mother's house, a wine rack, a large oval mirror. The latter was a mistake — it seemed to haunt me about the flat as I tried to find a suitable place to put it, appearing at times to reflect not me but my mother's empty house, as though on a time delay. I tapped the second knuckle of a finger lightly against the glass and it sounded like something knocking to be let in.
a few favorite quotes:
• cw: body horror / eye horror
I think about this now with a peculiarly glassy sensation, as though I might raise my hand to my face and find it made of some hardened material, as though my thoughts might turn out to be equally so. I am thinking about all of this when the sound machine abruptly shuts off in the next room adn Leah makes a soundhalfway between a cry and loud exhalation and I realize she is standing in the doorway to the hall, naked and still wet, and that one of her eyes is no longer an eye but a strange, semisolid globe that on closer inspection appears to be made up of pure water. When it bursts, it falls down her face like a yolk escaping a white and I put a hand over my mouth and noise as though anticipating a smell.
that said, i do want every single one of barbie's outfits.
You mistake its silence for intent, its function a proxy: you resent the ship for making you the way you are. A blood bag. You take another swig, and instants later you hear the ship's innards groan in what you can only interpret as pain.
Good. Pain is a language you both speak well enough.
We heard the coasts were lost before the television signal cut for good. The fear in the announcers’ faces was human, but unbecoming of professionals, I thought. The skies had been a foreboding gray since daybreak, but the streaks of red that criss-crossed them now gave the impression of an oil painting. An oil painting of a bloodied hand dragged across a chalkboard. I took a picture. The local weatherman loves viewer-submitted photos of interesting clouds, I chuckled to myself.
It was as if the ground had been pierced by a dagger, and its wound had stretched as it festered.
A narrow yet perfectly cut stairway descended from the entrance, and you couldn't see further than six feet where the stairs met thick darkness. The irregular walls of this tunnel were covered in black mould.
shuttle five passed further out than ever before. so far from earth, the cradle of humanity, so far from the warm of human connection
when they passed into the shadow of jupiter they passed into the shadow of existence--out of sight, out of contact, out of reality itself
call it god if you like. they touched, for a moment, the sacred state of unbeing and returned transformed in the image of their own desire, of humanity's desires projected onto them
shuttle five was a message in a bottle, a plea for salvation from ourselves
incredibly gorgeous art - sekar does so much with fairly limited lines, fluid alien shapes, and striking areas of solid black. i love the loose paneling & using overlapping repetitive elements to show motion/time rather than solid panels; it gives everything such a lovely dreamlike quality that really fits the story.
formulaic hallmark holiday romcom, but this time it's jewish! i'm not a big romcom person but i do enjoy jeremy jordan, but this movie was simply not good, no matter how you slice it. also, looking up the main actresshalfway through the movie to try to figure out what the fuck her accent was + seeing big ol' zionist propaganda posts right at the top of her instagram feed was a Yikes from me.
now THAT'S a hanukkah romcom! this movie has everything! time loops! vic michaelis (of dropout fame)! niche comic book references (paper girls shoutout my beloved)! plot-important ttrpg nerd behavior! the most realistic sibling dynamics i've seen onscreen in a while! the reveal that the entire family has done the time loop already made me SCREAM. i want to see the lesbian sister's time loop sooooo bad. i want fifty more of these movies just about various family members' time loops. i'll be honest i was a bit tipsy and still recovering from how much of a disappointment hanukkah on rye was while watching this, but i'd love to watch it again and fully absorb the whole thing. absolute delight start to finish.