New Year Resolutions (or a lack thereof)

I actually just forgot about NYR being a thing this year. And honestly this new year didn't seem to bring with it a new zest for life or renewed energy levels, so nah.

1. Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days (2018)
• I didn't realize this was the second part to a previous movie, though that makes sense and would probably ground the characters a bit more. That being said, I watched it as a standalone and it stands alone just fine.
• A fun movie, and you start getting the feeling things are more complex and interconnected than they first appear. Keep watching through the credits!
2. The Sixth Sense (1999)
• This was such a good movie! I had it spoiled to me before I watched it, unfortunately, but it was still so well done. It's something you could probably watch over again if you never knew, just to see how it all makes sense & pick up on the foreshadowing.
3. You Have the Right to Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar
• I want this to be required reading for everyone everywhere.
• So much of this resonated with me and I identified with a number of passages in this book - I was bookmarking so many pages throughout as I read it - and I think the fact that it did and that I did serves as further evidence that fatphobia affects everyone, whether you are "fat" or "not fat".
4. Mother (2009)
• What a subversion of the genre! I don't think I can write too much without giving away spoilers, but this was a pretty twisted film with lots of surprise turns along the way.
5. Before Sunrise (1995)
• I love this! It's such a quiet slice-of-life (in a very literal and clear way, in that we're literally getting this one slice, this one night, of their lives) that's romantic in the connection these two strangers find with one another, even in their disagreements.
6. Before Sunset (2004)
• Again, I love this so much. Both of them remind me a lot of Call Me By Your Name, in the way that they handle the portrayal of romance in each of the films. I also just love the concept of having a movie that comes 9 years after the original... that also finds its characters 9 years after the original meeting. This one had me in tears and I do not regret a moment of it.
7. Happiness: Essential Mindfulness Practice by Thich Nhat Hanh
• This was great to come back to during 15-minute breaks
8. Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds (2017)
• I enjoyed the movie as a whole, but I don't think I would've watched the second one if I had seen this one first. The second movie grabbed my attention more since it actually involved the guardians involved in the case and explored their past, though this one was nice too.
9. Hereditary (2018)
• When the naked people started appearing, things started getting real trippy.
10. Why Dinosaurs Matter by Kenneth Lacovara
• Short chapters that were to the point, told with a wry humour. It was, as one Goodreads comment has it, immensely readable, but I want to be careful and not equate immensely readable and approachable with immensely informative. For approachability, I would definitely give this 5/5, because I honestly love the way it's written and can see it being presented as a talk (as the talk it must've been based on). I also really enjoyed the illustrations, though if I'm being picky, they split up the text at odd moments and interrupted the reading of each chapter because you'd have to stop mid-thought to read the caption on the illustrated page before returning where you left off.
• If you've never really read anything about dinosaurs or much about evolution, then this will be a great intro to it. And while I'm by no means an expert on either topic (or, arguably, any topic), the little reading I have done regarding molluscs and marine creeatures & history in general, our evolutionary ancestors, and birds -even if I didn't finish everything I started on that topic - made it so that I knew a lot of the stuff that was in this book. It was really interesting to read about the author & his team's discovery of the Dreadnoughtus skeleton in Patagonia, and it was also really interesting to hear about the ways that we can still look to how dinosaurs overcame certain problems in order to figure out how to build machines to overcome similar problems in our lives, but apart from that, much of it was a review for me. An enjoyable review! I would still recommend this book for anyone interested in dinosaurs or even just the natural world as a whole (so... everyone?).
• Why am I being so hesitant in giving it a full thumbs up, then? I guess because the last chapter didn't convince me. I get it, and I fully agree that we should do what we can to save the environment, don't get me wrong, but what the extinction of the dinosaurs & the proliferation of us mammals teaches me as far as environmental lessons go, is that even if our species dies off, something else will probably take its place. Something we wouldn't expect to succeed in the new environment we've created by being the asteroid. And who knows? Perhaps that animal will be even more successful than humans have ever been and ever will.
• The day after I finished this book, happened upon this Quanta article: How Nearby Stellar Explosions Could Have Killed Off Large Animals, which discusses how subatomic particles called muons could have increased genetic mutation (with more mutation among the larger animals), causing them to go extinct as a result of the mutations. It's interesting, for sure, especially if supernova explosions do coincide well with mass extinctions throughout history (it links to a paper that I will probably not actually read or research more upon).
11. The Cakemaker (2017)
• Definitely an unusual romance if ever there was one, but one that's incredibly gentle and touching and that left me drifting along a river of my own tears. Watch it. Then weep.
12. Speaking Out: A 21st-Century Handbook for Women and Girls by Tara Moss
• I thought for sure this was going to be focused entirely on why it's important for women and girls to speak out and what tends to happen to women & girls who do speak out (especially the online part of it), but I was pleased to see a healthy section of the book dedicated to writing and getting good at public speaking. The self-care bit almost felt as though it was tacked on, like an afterthought, but it was still integrated well.
• I do think that because of the title, a self-selecting group of people will pick this up and that many of the people that perpetrate the abuses against women, especially those who speak out, who would arguably actually benefit most from reading this, simply wouldn't. That being said, Moss does a great job of giving women & girls what she purports to give them - a guidelines for why and how to speak out, what to expect, and how to take care of yourself - and I enjoyed this overall.
13. Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018)
• I've never watched the original movie, but I was pretty hooked onto this miniseries! There were things that bothered me, but overall, given that I had the time to watch it in two days, I don't think it was time ill-spent.
14. The Laws of Medicine: Field Notes From an Uncertain Science by Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Surprisingly short & concise! I loved reading through it, and I would love to listen to the TED talk at a later date.
15. Dear White People Season One (2017)
16. The Double by José Saramago
• The running commentary and dialogue through the use of commas could get a bit confusing sometimes, but I suppose that's also the point, in a way.
• Is this rambling style of prose common for a Portuguese novel? It's very similar to Gabriel García Márquez' writing in a way, in the magical realism. It's a different sort, but there's also this odd sort of almost horror that's happening here in The Double - an eeriness, I guess, until it all culminates in the meeting and the reality of the situation - but it's a bit different, almost a psychological slice-of-life? It's a bit hard to categorize, and I enjoy that.
17. Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History by Tori Telfer
• The wryly humorous tone works pretty well for this, but now I want to learn more about serial killing women throughout history from a more serious standpoint (and have a comparison point with serial killing men). Unfortunately, Telfer tells us that even when there is a serious study of female serial murderers, they're still not taken quite as seriously, as though the very fact of their being women makes them less harmless, less murderers?
18. Beast (2017)
• I can't help but wonder whether or not Pascal only went along with it because he was willing to love and accept her wholeheartedly and leave the past behind them to start a new life, or if he actually was the murderer all along and he's actually admitting his guilt.
19. Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (2017)
• This was... I feel like fun is the wrong word for it, but it was delightful and the drawn-out timing of the scenes was an interesting approach.
• The last act, I just knew the baby was going to be born when they killed off the guy, and it's like they're bringing the baby into a world where women are more empowered and making the space safer for the baby.
20. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori
• It reminded me somewhat of No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai, except less depressing and tortured. I expected something a bit more lighthearted, which it still was, but the person who recommended it to me made no mention of the protagonist feeling herself that she is missing something distinctly human that allows her to blend into society.
21. Sisu by Joanna Nylund
• Piggybacking onto the hygge hype, this book had some little gems in it and was overall a fun and colourful flip-through (with the exception of certain background colour choices that were dark enough to make the black text hard to read, physically). I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. It served its purpose. And now I'm done with it.
22. Beyond Measure by Margaret Heffernan
• Another of the TED books series, I found this one more enlightening and useful than the others so far. I've bookmarked a few pages, so I'll come back with a more detailed review later.

Working on:

1. How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide by Crystal Marie Fleming
• I'm about 2 pages in and this is already way more than I expected - what with a title like How to Be Less Stupid About Race, you'd think this volume would be a light, pop read, right? WRONG! It definitely edges over into the academic side of writing, though with some more casual touches than you might normally see in academia generally. I'm not even done the introduction yet, let alone delving into the chapters, so I can't say this is true of the rest of the essays, but I'm enjoying it so far.
2. Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom

Some comics I'm really liking from Webtoon (that I've been following for a while or just discovering now):

1. Lore Olympus
• I love everything in this from the storytelling to the colour palettes to the illustrations to literally everything except that I can't just keep reading because I've caught up with the updates
2. Gourmet Hound
• So adorable, I love it! Nice slice of life.
3. Seed
• THE SINGULARITY IS HERE
4. LUFF
• I feel like this hasn't really picked up yet, but it should be interesting once it does?
5. The Devil is a Handsome Man
• I do enjoy the pared down palette a lot! It's moving through an arc right now and I really want it to come back to Xo, but I also have high hopes that it will all come together for the best as it's going right now.
6. A Good Day to be a Dog
7. Ghost Teller (complete)
• I can't wait for the second season!!
8. Love Advice from the Great Duke of Hell
• Mojojojo is best girl tho
9. The Croaking
• Listen. I really like corvids.