Media + a thing I read at one point

[dhampyresa]

Look, my media intake these days is pretty much ~20mns of TV a day, for reasons of not having any time. I haven't watched any further than s2e3 of Agent Carter or s1e1 of Jessica Jones. I'm trying and failing to stay current with Supergirl (s1e2), Legends of Tomorrow (s1e3) and Lucifer (s1e3) because they're currently airing, but I think I need to just focus on the last two because they're not as far along. I'll just catch up on the first three when I have time. For what it's worth, I'm broadly enjoying all of these. I find Legends of Tomorrow's "fuck the timeline, let's start a bar fight" and Lucifer's "it's not a secret if I tell you the answer" attitudes towards timetravel and his identity as the Devil respectively very refreshing. (For some stupid reason, I am also watching the Clone Wars cartoon -- the eps are roughly 20mns so it's easier to fit one in than half an ep of a 40mn show.)

Okay no, I lie, I also listen to musicals a lot, but only ones that are sung through, are on youtube and I've already listened to, because I can drop in and out of the narrative as I (un)focus on other stuff and still follow along. So it's been a lot of Hamilton for me. And Notre Dame de Paris (which ads in the métro tell me is getting a revival). Actually I have thoughts on Notre Dame de Paris -- I know, dhampyresa having thoughts, that never happens. Forthcoming at one point, probably.

ANYWAY, I've done no Actual Reading over the past week, so even if I did read some fic, I'm going to talk about some stuff I read at some point last year.


Books read in English

Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman: I distinctly remember reading several of these short stories earlier (October in the Chair, for ex) but some seemed new, so I don't think this book was a re-read. Although it might be, looking back at the table of contents now. Anyway, these ranged mostly in the meh-to-okay range, with some I really didn't like (The Problem of Susan) and some that were great. My absolute favourite was the "Raining Blood" section of "Strange Little Girls":

Here: an exercise in choice. Your choice. One of these tales is true.

She lived through the war. In 1959 she came to America. She now lives in a condo in Miami, a tiny Frenchwoman with white hair, with a daughter and a granddaughter. She keeps herself to herself and smiles rarely, as if the weight of memory keeps her from finding joy.

Or that's a lie. Actually the Gestapo picked her up during a border crossing in 1943, and they left her in a meadow. First she dug her own grave, then a single bullet to the back of the skull.

Her last thought, before that bullet, was that she was four months' pregnant, and that if we do not fight to create a future there will be no future for any of us.

There is an old woman in Miami who wakes, confused, from a dream of the wind blowing the wildflowers in a meadow.

There are bones untouched beneath the warm French earth which dream of a daughter’s wedding. Good wine is drunk. The only tears shed are happy ones.

It's quite short, as you can see, but I cried so very very hard. And again now copying it for this entry. (I'm not saying it's good, necessarily, just that it punched me in the heart.)


And it's late and I should go to sleep. Magnus Chase and the Sword of Asgard, by Rick Riordan and The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan will have to wait for another time.

• Books read in French
  • Chats d'oeuvre
  • D'un monde à l'autre (La Quête d'Ewilan, tome 1)
  • Le Jardin des silences
• Comics read in English
  • Lucifer v1 (Vertigo comic)
  • Prince of Cats
  • Sandman Overture
  • Spider-Gwen v1
  • The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl v1
• Books read in English
  • Magnus Chase and the Sword of Asgard
  • The Red Pyramid
• Books about Ancient Dead People
  • Darkness Over Cannae
  • Le papyrus de César
  • Tumulte à Rome

And now, bed.

Comments

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

I'm behind on Supergirl, too. :P

Oh man, "The Problem of Susan" was one of the first Neil Gaiman things I ever read and I was so not prepared for sexually explicit Aslan/White Witch, so it was kind of a rough introduction.

[dhampyresa.livejournal.com]

*high-five of lateness*

I've read it before and I always find it super weird because what was the point of any of it?

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the part that deals directly with Susan makes sense, because of what happened to her in The Last Battle, but the gore and bestiality are just kind of...why?