Media Roundup: August 2023

September 1, 2023

This is the first entry in something I’ve casually done for ages – share what I’ve read, watched, or listened to in the past month! I ended up writing so much this time that a FB post would not suffice, so I’m going to start a series over here and share them out to other channels.

Books

I’ve been working through some short story collections and a nonfiction book about ADHD that are still unfinished. I have a new streak record of over 40 consecutive days reading, though, which makes me happy. I often would read in bed after midnight and end up with a mess in Bookly, but I’ve been making a concerted effort to maintain it – and therefore trick myself into going to bed before midnight!!

The first image is from Bookmory, and the second is from Bookly, both apps you can use for free, although I have signed up for Bookly Pro. (If you sign up with my link, I get a discount, apparently!)

I want to get in the habit of sharing some reviews (even short, silly ones would be fun for me to remember later), but this month, there is a special circumstance which is my focus.

My mom has published a short book as an accompaniment and precursor to the longer manuscript she’s working on: Tom Kazo and Rhett: MP Sentry Dog in Vietnam. This is a focused look at a slice of my stepfather’s life, specifically his time in Vietnam working with a sentry dog named Rhett. Although Tom passed before I knew most of you, and only a few of my friends ever met him, I cannot recommend it enough to spend a relatively small amount of time to learn about this subject. There are still very few stories about canine soldiers that have even been shared, let alone become widely known. Telling this story has been very personal to my mom, and my sister, who assisted in editing as well as being a sounding board and voice of encouragement when the story seemed too painful to share. It’s difficult enough to piece together information from military records without the additional burden of emotional pain when reflecting on what Tom suffered in those years, when he was so young. I’m immensely proud of her for doing this work, and ensuring at least one story has been saved in the annals of history for as long as our civilization manages to keep it together.

I’m obviously biased, but I also think a book this short and about such a meaningful and overlooked topic is worth taking an hour or two of your time. I’m linking to the website rather than directly to the Amazon listing because there is additional information available here: https://wordsonwingspress.com/tom-kazo-and-rhett-mp-sentry-dog-in-vietnam/

Other books of this month:
I finished rereading Wuthering Heights for the first time since high school. Boy, what a hefty mountain of prose. I’ve rarely seen so many semicolons even among other classics! I read fast, and with a pretty good comprehension for dialects, but by the end of this I had to give up on Joseph’s raving altogether. There was even a footnote at one point where the editorial team apparently still didn’t know what word he was saying – some old, regional slang amidst a tirade of complaining. As for the rest – what can I say? An awful lot of terrible people making poor choices, although it still held my attention. I just think the writing is dense enough that it’s hard for me to rank this as high as I might hold some other ‘classics.’ I’m glad I read it again, though. I understand “emotional manipulation” a LOT better than I did at 17/18 years old!

The Devil Rides Out was on my list after we randomly chose to watch the Hammer film adaptation from 1968, starring Christopher Lee, and highly enjoyed it. The book was written in 1934, but is fast-paced and easy to read. The whole story takes place over only a couple of days, and it’s a nice mix of action and dialogue to paint the picture of the situation. Dennis Wheatly wrote a LOT of books and I wouldn’t mind trying some other stories, maybe about the Duc de Richeau as well. One thing I found especially interesting is that he authored this book after serving on the Front in WWI, and before the onset of WWII (where he went on to work in an important position again) and it actually mentions a few things about the Nazi party in regards to their antisemitism and perversion of the swastika (and I think the occult side maybe too but I could be misremembering since I know a fair amount about that already).

Movies

I watch so many movies, but August is the first month where I have been using Letterboxd to record them. I don’t often leave a review because I’m usually using mobile and it’s annoying to write that much, but I am a super weirdo about using tags. I only wish I had used this for longer so I could have filled out “walking on a compound fracture”, “who lit all these candles”, and “inexplicably falling out a window.” I’ve also completely missed the chance to tag the Giallo films I’ve watched and I’m not yet ready to re-watch those, but one day! (I did not hate them, in fact the opposite, but I’d rather keep watching new-to-me examples of the genre than go back just now.)

You are correctly seeing that I did not yet watch Barbie OR Oppenheimer. It has been a busy month for us with family obligations (and the less-important, but still evening-consuming Olde Town Taco Run which booked up several evenings with restaurant-hopping). I swear, I will get to them one of these days!

PS: If you know how to share Letterboxd diaries more beautifully than this, please let me know!

Podcasts, TV, misc other things

I’ve been catching up on “New Star Trek” and I’m almost to the end of season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery. I wish I could log each episode with tags, just for my own amusement – Star Trek is A Whole Thing for me – but I’m overall enjoying it a lot. I had a very long chat with my sister trying to explain how there was a GIANT TARDIGRADE and it was MY FAVORITE, only to discover that they had initially wanted it to JOIN THE CREW AND EVEN WEAR A UNIFORM.
.
.
.
I can’t. Just, wow. I wish. (Reference link)

I did previously finish Picard, but I waited to get into anything else for a time.

No new podcast obsessions; I’m keeping up with Crime Junkie, The Deck, and Park Predators, and slowly working through Anatomy of Murder.

Okay – that’s it for this month! I better leave time for myself to read tonight!