September Updates

Hi everyone!

How are you all? England has definitely made the transition into autumn and it's been lovely so far. October is also my birthday month so I have a soft spot for it.

September for me was dominated by settling into my new job. It's busy and has left me with less free time than I've ever had, but I'm loving it and it's giving me great personal and professional experience and a huge boost (I get a lot of energy from working in busy environments if the work is fulfilling).

In terms of the video, progress is slow but steady, all considered. I scored the whole thing (chose all the music) and have edited about 15%. The good news is I'm making good headway with it when I do have time to sit down and focus for a while. I'll share the first preview as soon as I can. I'm working as hard and as fast as I can in the midst of everything else going on!

My new long commute has given me a lot more time to read which I'm honestly really happy about as it's something I've been neglecting for a long time. I've lost track of which books I got through in August vs. September, but I've got no less than four to talk about.

The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono is a very short one I picked up as I was on holiday in the south of France in August (and try to read something relevant to each place I visit). There's nothing much to say about it but it's always nice to diversify and read a bit of translated fiction.

I also picked up Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin for my French holiday and it blew me away. I've never read any James Baldwin but will definitely be picking up more of his books in the future. The writing was stunning and almost brought me to tears on the train more than once. An incredible atmosphere and depth of characterisation is established for what's such a short book and the themes were really deftly explored, principally that of the main character (not) coming to terms with his sexual attraction to men. Heartbreaking. Scooped everything out of me with a spoon. A new favourite.

I next read Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi. It's been sitting on my shelf for a long time and I finally picked it up as my current role is in addictions. It's the story of a family of Ghanaian immigrants who settle in Alabama, and narrator Gifty's career in neuroscience research following the loss of her brother to an opioid addiction, as well as her relationship to religion. I had high hopes for this one as I thought the interplay of topics sounded fascinating and very relevant and relatable to me. In some ways, it was a story that really resonated with me, and I often had a lump in my throat reading, but I feel the novel overall was poorly constructed, executed and thought-out, with meandering writing that tells a series of events rather than gives much meaningful insight into its characters. A bit of a confusing one but overall unfortunately a disappointment.

Lastly, I finally finished We Don't Know Ourselves by Fintan O'Toole, a tome on modern Irish history. I come from an Irish family, spend a lot of time there and generally it's a place that holds a lot of importance in my life and so I was overdue coming to understand its history that bit better. I did a lot of reading about where would be good to start and am really glad I chose this book. It's a look at Ireland over the last 60 or so years through the eyes of journalist, critic and writer O'Toole, who has so happened to live through and often quite directly experience the country's huge transformation in so many domains, and does an incredible job of recounting and reflecting on this. This is one of the best-written books I've ever read (listened to actually) -- every line is meticulous, artistic and weighty. O'Toole is a master of his craft and I found the book to be a really accessible, engaging and human account as somebody who would never typically be drawn to a history book.

Finally, I also saw A Silent Voice at the cinema with some friends as it was showing and yes, I'd still not seen it. I've watched what feels like a million video essays about A Silent Voice, to the point of almost feeling like I'd vicariously experienced it and had some malleable but semi-formed existing opinions on it. I went in with an open mind but it was what I expected and in fact potentially worse. I'm a big KyoAni fan and typically love love love Naoko Yamada's work but A Silent Voice was a real belly-flop for me. I don't feel it was a well-constructed or written film at all, and that was before its portrayal of a disabled character (which was what I went in with concerns about). There were moments of creativity and mastery typical of KyoAni -- some of the animation, and sound design particularly when portraying how Shoko experiences the world. I do, however, think that anime (and visual novels) have a real problem with infantilising and fetishising disability, to the point that it's something I'm considering making a video on one day. Perhaps I'll share more thoughts then. Unfortunately wasn't a fan.

Lastly, this podcast interview with Anitube peer Replay Value popped up in my recommended the other day and I ended up listening to a few of the videos in this series which was a lot of fun.

And I'm on a real K-Pop kick recently and found this overview of some of the year's releases really well-curated. So much good music.

Phew! Hopefully all those thoughts make up a tiny bit for the slow video progress. Thank you so much for bearing with me.

Speak soon!