So the other day I decided to check out The Umbrella Academy, Netflix’s new show about a (sort-of) super-hero team slash (definitely) dysfunctional family that is reunited by the death of their adoptive father and then has to avert an oncoming apocalypse, which is scheduled to occur in a week or so.
Teaser Tuesday: “Range of Ghosts”
So this week I was reading Range of Ghosts, an epic fantasy by Elizabeth Bear, which — unlike most epic fantasies I’ve read — is set in what appears to be an analogue of the Mongolian steppes rather than an analogue of Western Europe, which is enough all on its own to make it interesting. Fortunately I also enjoyed the story.
Not A Review Of “Kingdom” Hats
So not long ago, I watched the first season of the new Netflix series Kingdom, a zombie thriller that also happens to be a Korean period piece set at the very end of the 16th century.
Teaser Tuesday: “Threshold”
So this week I was reading Threshold, by Caitlín R. Kiernan, a horror/fantasy novel in which a geology studen gets mixed up with sinister fossils. Or something like that.
The Early Years: Jim Has Stitches
So in last week’s post, “Safe/Scary“, I dredged up an ancient kind of creepy-looking sort-of Venn diagram from elementary school from the pile of old papers my folks sent me years ago. This assignment was to list things that were “safe” on one side and “scary” on the other. One of my “scary” items was “Going to get stitches”. This prompted an email from my folks with a photo of my first “Going to get stitches” episode, in which I tripped and fell on my face on the sidewalk at my grandparents’ house:
The Early Years: Safe/Scary
It’s been a while since I reached into the giant stack of old schoolwork and other papers that my folks sent out to me a few years ago, so I thought it was time to do that again. And what did I fish out? This vaguely creepy little pseudo-Venn diagram:
Teaser Tuesday 1/8/19: “The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland – For a Little While”
So recently I came across a long short story (or very short novella) called “The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland – For a Little While“, by Catherynne M. Valente. This is officially numbered as “Fairyland 0.5” and could be considered a prequel to her “Fairyland” series, inasmuch as it takes place prior to the events of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and concerns itself with how the missing monarch of that book, Queen Mallow, became Queen Mallow in the first place.
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Sonic Screwdriver Vs. Laser Eyes
A Review Of Who Might Or Might Not Make A Good Genie
So recently I was reading an article in Entertainment Weekly about Disney’s upcoming live-action version of Aladdin and, noting that the Genie would be played by one of my wife’s favorite actors, I thought I would see if she had heard about it.
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That Was The Year That Was (In Music)
Last week I posted my 2018 reading report from Goodreads; not long after receiving the Goodreads book report, I got a music report from Last.fm, a site which, once upon a time, I used quite a bit for streaming and discovering new music (“Neighbor Radio” was a favorite feature of mine). Sadly, some years ago Last.fm was acquired by CBS, and subsequent feature changes (and by “changes” I mean “deletions”) gradually turned the service into a steaming pile of crap. Maybe that was CBS’s fault*, or maybe it would have gone in that direction anyway, but whatever the reason, nearly everything I once used it for (and I actually subscribed, for a while, paying actual cash dollars) disappeared. No more desktop listening client. No more neighbor radio. No more real web listening client, either; the last few times I tried it, all it did was play crappy versions of songs that it apparently found on YouTube or something. Yet one aspect of its old functionality lingers on: The AudioScrobbler, which keeps an eye on what I listen to, so that Last.fm can make artist suggestions on those occasions when I briefly return to the smoldering wasteland that was once a decent web site. And this year, they sent me a recap of what I listened to in 2018. And even though this is by no means a music blog, I figured I would share their findings.
Viscosity 