My Reading Rotation Lately

At work I have a lot of time for audiobooks and podcasts- the more you listen to podcasts the more you realize how bad people are at pronouncing the word podcasts, maybe to see if we'd notice?- Thursday I could even listen to the audio of the entire 9-hour long YouTube video I've recorded, take some notes on that on alterations I want to make (some of the audio I need to rerecord anyway, so might as well introduce some improvements; by this point (I realized this today) I probably need to restructure the entire first section, but anyway.)

Before the sabbatical I took to work on precisely that very video (there was always kind of this plan that I'd be able to add the audio of the video to my listening rotation so that I could get the effect of it and take notes, even if it may not have been the realization that it would take all day to do so) I was a little more formalized with the listening rotation, audiobooks in the morning and podcasts in the afternoon sort of thing, or vice versa or whatever-- listening through audiobooks twice, to absorb them better. It hasn't been the case like that lately, July and August back at work, getting through a lot of books only once, but the latest book I've listened through twice, so let's go over that.

I talked about Ranged Touch here before, with their Homestuck Made This World podcast, and Ranged Touch recently started their latest podcast, Shelved By Genre, where they take a middle road between their Just King Things one-book-a-month model and their Homestuck Made This World "partisode" model, wherein they do deep dives of genre books: one book a month but splitting that book into sections, doing a new episode a week (with room for breaks) each episode on its chunk of chapters. Their first project is the Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe, which I'd been going to get into anyway (partly because they'd made references to the series before.) Listening through twice goes like this with these ones: the first episode's worth of chapters, the first episode, restarting the whole book up through the reading for part two, the second episode, going back through where episode two started to where episode three's reading ends, episode three, episode three's reading again all the way through to the end, episode four, and finally the episode four reading again. That's how it worked for book one, The Shadow of the Torturer, at least, but now that I'm caught up, I'm not sure whether to wait to the end of the month so I can go all at a whack again, or go through them and read up in real time.

Book of the New Sun is very Moby Dick, which I quite enjoy, but it's also possibly even more animepilled than Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (which I finished, this week I think?,) and that book is deliberately based on and playing with anime tropes. (I called this post my, reading rotation, so may as well get in a report of actual reading reading with letters and all, and not just being read to: with Secret Project #1 I read a chapter a day starting with the publication/arrival day, same thing with Secret Project #3 except with saving the chapters up so I could read through it more-or-less a section at a time instead of a chapter at a time. Usually on Sundays.)

Speaking of Sanderson, the latest episode of Dan Wells's and Brandon Sanderson's podcast Intentionally Blank had them breaking down the bibliographies of their rankings of the greatest living fantasy authors- I'm already starting Dan's number one, but that still leaves like, seven other authors to get into now that my usual reading time has been cut in half (Gaiman whom-of-course-I-know was already on both lists, and I've already bounced off of Sanderson's number one, George R. R. Martin, so that leaves around seven. It should be noted here, Stephen King was DQ'd from Sanderson's list for being seen in the public imaginary as less of a fantasy guy, even though a lot of what he writes is 100% fantasy and not even horror.) 

On that note, as I think I may have brought up I've been making my way through The Dark Tower, I think I should update on that to tie everything together at the end. I've paused so that I can listen to Just King Things about Wizard and Glass before proceeding- that should be sometime in November. I'm listening to the audiobooks in series order and not publication order, though, while JKT reads through in publication order, so, while I'm moving on to Wind through the Keyhole first, Just King Things won't get to it till like 2025? I'm just going to have to depart come November I guess, make my way through the rest unassisted and they'll catch up eventually. Not sure about the re-listening of the ones upcoming; Wizard and Glass was my favorite the first time but it's a tough reread for some reason; maybe I'll do the second listen on these when the JKT episodes come out, I don't know, let's see how well I enjoy them the first time through.

Those Names Were the People Who Worked on the Movie

I'd been going to post yesterday, because it was actually July then, but didn't really have anything to post about aside from a personal thing about a private citizen, tracking down a friend which isn't any of your business (do it every July 31st, and yesterday I actually got a hit!) but that isn't any of your business, once again, and I've got something to talk about for today at least, call it, July's post in August, or something.

Today was basically my last chance to catch on the big screen either Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny or Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One, and, as much as I'd said I'd been going to have to rewatch Indiana Jones while it was still in theaters, I had to make it Mission, right? (Loooved Phoebe Waller Bridge's character in Indie, loved the whole 1935-abouts prologue, need to clarify my thoughts on a lot of other stuff there, and had fully intended to; but its last showing locally was today!, apparently to be replaced with the Wednesday-premiering Ninja Turtles movie. (Mission is being swapped out for Meg on Friday.))

Each of the Mission Impossible movies is my favorite, and I was kind of concerned last time I went to go see this one (this was my third viewing) because maybe I'd need to watch Part Two and judge Dead Reckoning as one whole, but after this showing, I'm gonna say it: this is my favorite Mission Impossible film. I should probably do a more thorough unpacking on my other blog, the one about like spy fiction and stuff, but frig man I've got such a backlog over there as I went through this whole process of realizing the harm of the antisemitism inherent in some of the tropes I was using, but I've figured out some workarounds that are pretty good, but anyway. None of any of that is what this is about.

Because after Mission ended and I sat through the credits, I swung by the screen next over right as the Indiana Jones credits started to roll, so I caught that bit at least, and two credit walls in a row. 

And I always watch the credits. My, girlfriend?, in college, who, really loves Ninja Turtles (I feel like that's appropriate and fitting to bring up) after I took her to Zootopia and as we were watching the credits thereof, said she always liked watching the credits, to see if there's an after-credit scene or anything. And that was like, some first time I felt truly disappointed in her, sort of deal, differing opinions on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse notwithstanding. It's more about recognition of hard work and talent and, really feeling connected to how big the world truly is to have such people in't. 

And processing lately, my feelings regarding Tom Cruise and everything, who by all accounts is a swell guy, in part because he realizes how small (yet crucial!) a part he is within the larger apparatus. Film bros at film school who make film their entire personality outputting movies that say nothing, while Tom Cruise is over here also loving movies and making movies his whole life and managing to be interesting as well though.

So many names! And, well bottom line is, who was it who said, find out who you are, and then be yourself deliberately? That. That's what I'm thinking about right now, after witnessing all those people.