One of Everything: August

We’ve had literally perfect weather in New York this week and I can’t wish for anything more. I am feeling a continued tendency, as I mentioned last month, to dive head-first into self-soothing through uncomplex media (mostly YouTube) and I think that’s just where I’m at at the moment. However, here are the things worth discussing (for the most part, anyway) from this month.

Book

Still Born

I saw two different people in one day carrying this on the subway, and decided to read it then. A very short novel about two women who make a pact never to have children, and then one of them does. This book tries to get into the head of someone going through a traumatic experience, which then turns into a different, still-traumatic experience, with all the emotional complication and even bitterness going along with it. I found the main narrative character, Laura, the most relatable, but Nettel’s treatment of Alina is why I think this book has won awards. Alina is removed from Laura’s and our direct understanding, something that causes Laura a lot of pain, and we get information about her emotional state through flat, but not passionless, description, making us build up a best guess of who she is and how she’ll react to something. In other words, despite being her own person Laura is a reader standin, and Alina is not. While some of the opinions the book lands on I don’t agree with, I find its craft very worth it.

Game

Whisper of the House

Sometimes I play something and think “This is going to be the next X.” Fields of Mistria: the next Harvest Moon. Blue Prince: the next Obra Dinn. It’s reductive, but I thought about a lot of nexts when playing Whisper of the House, which I purchased not just because I liked the demo but because I wanted something to play before Silksong launched. Don’t do yourself such a disservice: Whisper of the House deserves its own space. A house decorating game a la Unpacking, but with guest requests and a sillier story. I’m not in love with the (no money involved) gacha mechanic for getting furniture, it’s quite repetitive.

Trails in the Sky FC demo

Do you ever play a good demo and think “I’m not buying this?” That’s how the Trails in the Sky FC remake made me feel. Don’t get me wrong: this is a very polished version of the original game and the combat is a lot more fun. But playing through the prologue again just made me glad I’d played the original on the PSP (which, if you’re going to play this one, just do yourself a favor and purchase SC in advance.) It is magical to see the 2D world become 3D space, but I don’t think I like that enough to play through the story again so soon (two years) after I played it for the first time. I look forward to watching people stream it though.

Show

Love Is Blind UK Season 2, Episodes 1 and 2

Do I just not like these shows anymore? First I thought it was the Minnesota season— everyone was boring or cartoonishly evil. But watching the second season of LIB UK, the first season of which was way more charming than the pinky finger of LIB US, and which contains neither an imbalance of evil nor a conflictless wasteland, I don’t think I can do it. It’s not the expose about conditions on Season 7, although maybe it should have been. Maybe the love experiment has run its course. Love is Blind doesn't believe in its central premise, certainly, but I don’t think it thinks its viewers do anymore, either. I think it thinks, correctly, that the audience is here to watch the ritual of Love is Blind. I can sympathize with wanting to know the contours of something in advance, but it fell off for me somewhere along the way.

Gastronauts

Finally, a TV show I like! This cooking competition on Dropout reminds me of the Next Food Network Star, a competition show I used to watch with my mom. The host Jordan’s cooking knowledge is kind of overpowered by the need for this to be a comedy show, but I love seeing what the chefs do with the challenges and I love Jordan’s outfits.

Comic

Hirayasumi

I read and wrote very little this month because I defended my dissertation!!! I am a doctor now!