Mid-Week Update
My quest to watch 7 movies in a weekend defeated me, but I'll try it again sometime; I've still got too many books, but I'm working on it
So, I (thought I) had a very open weekend and planned to watch seven movies, one in theaters. I saw two and started two more. There will be full reviews forthcoming of Titane, Crimes of the Future, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, and perhaps the Creed movies. The original plan was to watch Titane, Crimes of the Future, Pinocchio, and Mad God back to back on Saturday as a sort of double-double-feature (two body horror films, two stop-motion pictures from visionaries). Titane was really good and made me very happy with the decision to finally watch it; Crimes of the Future disappointed me and took some wind out of my sails. So I took what was suppose to be a short break but ended with me playing Citizen Sleeper for four hours. And Sunday’s other responsibilities precluded my return to the project. I ended up starting and not finishing both Mad God and Creed between Sunday and Tuesday, and I plan to finish them later this week. And hopefully I’ll see Creed 2 sometime soon so I can see 3 before it leaves theaters.
I’m currently editing a piece about Cyberpunk, because having gone through the process of playing the game will feel somewhat wasted if I don’t find something to say about it, and working on an expanded list of best video game podcasts and a piece about the Black Panther movies (because I’m a silly nerd that wants mainstream nerdcore properties to be better than they can or will be, and the Black Panther films are my favorites of the MCU bunch). And I also need to watch John Wick 3: Parabellum because I’m going to be reviewing John Wick Chapter 4 for Vague Visages next week.
As ever, I am facing the existential crisis of wondering what I need to consume to be a good writer (in the sense of having a good variety of resources to draw from to see what makes good art) and feeling the ticking of time, the press of it, the knowledge that I don’t have enough to read and watch and write and play everything. Even if I didn’t have a bunch of competing interests (and foolishly recently decided to get into wrestling after writing this piece for Paste about the best wrestling movies, which also got me to go back to the gym because of Pain & Gain and Predator) I’d still have a fulltime job (which I quite like and want to keep), personal responsibilities, and the human needs to eat and sleep.
Frankly, I’ve got quite a tremendous reading list – history (ancient, medieval, and modern), philosophy, novels, collections of criticism, pop cultural histories, short story collections – that I have no illusion I’ll totally conquer this year. Smartly, I’ve decided – again – to give away books I haven’t and won’t read, or have read and don’t want to keep. In my history MA program, I read somewhere north of 100 books for school (plus, somehow, GRRM’s last three ASOIAF novels, Fire and Blood, Fire and Fury, Stormy Daniels’ memoir, and idk what else), but then between undergrad and graduate school I also picked up other books that people were getting rid of, shamefully few of which I’ve read. So then when I was living in Western Mass I sold a bunch to a used book store, and sent some others to friends. And I’ll probably never have the collection in svelte shape. To say nothing of ebooks (also does anyone have a tablet suggestion so that I can read both kindle and Nook books on the same place that isn’t my phone or laptop?)… and the games and movies I feel I need to get in touch with to have a better understanding of these mediums I presume to critique.
Of course, it isn’t merely the consumption of art, or criticism, or directly and indirectly related writings that make one a better writer – and a good writer of criticism and a good writer of history and a good writer of fiction and a good poet aren’t necessarily the same thing, even if they’re also not mutually exclusive. It’s the practice of writing. So that’s why I’m doing a little word vomit here to express some of what’s going on in my head, to let you all know, broadly, where I’m at and – slightly more significantly – some of what’s to come.