theamericans | Member Posts

I’ve been a Karine Polwart fan for decades, which led me to her recent collaboration with Julie Fowlis and Mary Chapin Carpenter. "Looking for the Thread" mixes Scots Gaelic and US country and a little bit of rock’n’roll.

I was moved by this farewell from the POV of a dying satellite—can you tell me if this matches an actual satellite that circled our planet?

( Stream here on YouTube )

Or on SoundCloud or on Spotify.

( Lyrics in the cut )

dolorosa_12

What I have seen, essentially wall-to-wall across social media, for the past week:
-'Why is no one talking about [this atrocity]?'
-'Why are people talking about [this injustice and not that injustice]?' (Often two different posts by two different people, in quick succession, with said injustices reversed.)
-'What you are doing in response to [this injustice] is insufficient.'
-'If you haven't mentioned [this atrocity] on your social media, you're part of the problem.'
-'If you've mentioned [this injustice and not that injustice] on your social media, you're a hypocrite and part of the problem.'
-'You're protesting the wrong way.'
-'Protesting when it's permitted by the state isn't real protest.'
-'These protests are all a bit cringe, aren't they?'
-'You're condemning [this atrocity], but not in the right way.'
-'You're condemning [this atrocity], but far too late.' (This coming, without irony, from the same people I witnessed several years ago saying, 'it's never too late to find courage and speak out publicly against [this same atrocity].')

What I have seen, in much smaller numbers — a little fragment struggling to stay afloat in the deluge:
-'[This injustice] is an injustice for these specific reasons, and here is something concrete that anyone reading/viewing this post can do to help.'

Needless to say, whenever I witnessed the latter, I actually did the things suggested, and felt much more of a sense of agency and purpose, than when I saw the former.

(And obviously I recognise the irony of being irritated by people complaining about what they see/don't see on social media rather than trying to offer concrete solutions to the consequences of major (geo)political injustices ... and then writing a whole post complaining about what I see/don't see on social media. But I am just. so. tired.)

lovingboth

Extreme Circus

They've just finished their time in Lincoln. I'd picked up a discount flyer about a week before they opened. A combination of weather, them not doing Mon / Tues, and other things meant that I finally went on Saturday evening, while L and a couple of US friends plus someone else went to a singing concert at the cathedral.

It's very good - if you're anywhere near the rest of their 2025 tour, do go and see it. There was no act that wasn't at least fine.

Not everything on their website was on in Lincoln. I saw a sword swallower who adds an aerial aspect; two skaters spinning around on a circular table; a motorcyclist doing wheelies / balances; an acrobatic act with a couple of long swings being jumped from / between (good, possibly would have been even better seen from the side); and an aerial act that involved being dunked in a water tank several times, finally with it on fire*.

The second half was the better one: double wheel* (good); a solo high trapeze act involving using some rings to swing / walk between two trapezes and then jump between them without a safety net (very good); five people jumping on / off a transparent box between two trampolines (good, particularly when they're effectively shuffling themselves in order doing it); ending with a motorcycle 'globe of death' working up to four of them inside... before three other motorcyclists do leaps off a ramp over the globe into what must be an soft landing point at the back of the ring, then ride round the outside of the big top to do it again and again (good).

Between acts, there's a clown I've seen several times before and/or the live band (good) perform.

Sometimes, when everyone at a circus comes out for a final bow, I go 'Mmm, I thought there were plenty of people doing two (or more) acts'. Not this time: there are a lot of performers around the ring.

* Until the fire, I was thinking they missed a trick by not adding some bubble liquid to the water so that she would leave a trail of bubbles when back up in the air.

** Either I have seen the same act about ten times, or it got copied shamelessly after someone came up with it: two metal cylinders, large and wide enough to have someone inside, are joined together by bars and rotate around the middle point. At some point, as the whole thing rotates, someone goes around the cylinder that the person causing the ring to rotate isn't in and jumps / skips etc, especially at the high point of their rotation.

This one had two of these setups, one next to the other. I don't think I've seen that before.

dolorosa_12

This is going to be a fairly short catch up, in spite of all the things that have been going on. I don't think I've posted properly on Dreamwidth for several weeks — but I have been massively busy. This weekend is the first time in quite a while that I've felt relaxed and not as if I were lacking in huge quantities of sleep.

My mum, and then sister #1 arrived to visit. Mum will be back (she's doing her usual multiple-month European summer holiday), but my sister just stayed for a few days. Currently the pair of them are in Italy, wandering around beautiful places (which I envy) in 35-degree heat (which I don't).

My sister's time in the UK coincided with Beyoncé's London concerts, and she asked if I wanted to go if she covered the costs (she's always wanted to see Beyoncé in concert and had never had the opportunity since she doesn't tour Australia any more) and dealt with all the palaver of sitting online refreshing the ticketing website when they went live. So now I can cross 'attend massive stadium concert' off my list of cultural experiences. The London weather did not cooperate (although fortunately our seats were under cover), but that didn't stop procedings: nine outfit changes, incredible band and dancers, lots of theatre and pyrotechnics, and of course music and stage presence enough to fill that vast space. I wouldn't say it's my favourite way to experience live music (I like gigs in weird little clubs with thirty other people), but I'm glad I went.

We only got home after midnight, and I then went out the next night to the silent disco ('90s music-themed this time) with Matthias, so I was completely exhausted.

Beyond that, my family's visit involved a lot of good food (my sister took me out for a meal at this place as a fortieth birthday present, she, Mum, Matthias and I went to this place for lunch, etc), some wandering around London, and a chance to see the excellent British Library exhibition on the history of gardening in the UK.

Unfortunately, my sister also brought her Australian germs with her, and I was then horrendously sick with a cold for most of last week, recovering just in time to head over to Worcester for a conference. Refreshingly, this was the first library or educational conference I've attended in several years that wasn't completely dominated by the topic of generative AI (indeed it didn't even get mentioned until one of the questions asked of the presenter of the final presentation), which was nice. I returned home on Friday, immediately cancelled my classes at the gym for Saturday, and collapsed in exhaustion.

My most recent reading (with the exception of Autocracy, Inc by Anne Applebaum) has been decidedly mediocre, and I think the combination of my low tolerance for a) poor editing and copyediting and b) 'cosy' fiction is going to lead me to be a lot more cautious in picking up any currently hyped SFF (especially fantasy) unless I am already familiar with the author. I came to the realisation after reading two such disappointing books in quick succession that although I love stories which involve a lot of domesticity, cosiness just does not work for me, since it seems to currently translate as no conflict (or the kinds of conflict that are easily resolved by a conversation, or a character spontaneously offering help with nothing previously building to that point). Hopefully I'll make better book choices after this previous run.

I think it's possibly fair to say that I want cosy cottagecore in my own life, and not in my fiction!

selenak

Proper Trailer for the third season of Foundation on Apple:

Watch on YouTube

So looking forward to this! (Not least because of all the other depressing cancellation news.)

Teaser traiiler of season 3 of The Diplomat, featuring the next West Wing alumnus:

Watch on YouTube

The Diplomat: more cynical than The West Wing, but still believing in the basic drive of people to actually work for what they see as their couintry's benefit in addition to themselves. Neither universe would allow for the poisonous cesspit currently governing not just the US.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Bamberg

merryghoul

Here is my table for this year. Probably will see if I can rescue some fics (no comments obs) I was planning to do for other tables and migrate them here.

a work posted in the past month	a fic that's under 1k	a work from your first fandom	art on AO3	a work posted in 2024
a work by someone who's given you a kudos or a comment	a work with an impressive/eye catching title	a fic that's over 20k	a work by someone you've come across recently	a work from an event from 2014
comic with no dialogue	a fic not on AO3	FREE SPACE	a work about your first 'ship	a fic with multiple chapters
a work posted in 2014	a work posted in 2025	coloured art	a work that made you sad	a fic you reread often
a work from a Big Bang	a work in a series	a oneshot	a fic with more than 5 additional tags	a work from your newest fandom

tinny

Tout Va Bien - English title: Everything Is Fine

It's a French 8-episode drama about a family whose child has leukemia - basically it's a study on how people deal with grief.

This show is amazingly well-written. I read a few interviews and it turns out that screen-writer and producer Camille de Castelnau's niece had leukemia, and that explains the incredible realism both concerning hospital routine and emotions.

It stars Virginie Efira, Sara Girardeau, and Nicole Garcia. (And Mehdi Nebbou.)

What I personally loved about it is how calmly everything flows. The situation itself is so horrible, there's no need for added dramatics. The hospital routine, the facts, the medical details, it all speaks for itself. You can clearly see the cracks appearing in all the characters, but there's barely any shouting, there are barely any tears except for characters crying quietly when they're alone, there are no major fights. Everyone is high-strung and weighed down to their breaking point, but it's never exploited for shock value.

Is this a rec? Yes! Although there's one major thing I did not like.

Does it have a happy ending:

ending spoilers

I'm double-spoiler-cutting this. Unfortunately, yes. The show sets up this extremely painful and realistic family drama about a child dying, and then the child does not die at the end. This annoyed me very very much, because they completely robbed us of that well-earned katharsis of how life could have continued after Rose's death. Fuck Disney. Ymmv.

Where can I watch it? It's on hulu and Disney+.

non-spoilery character screencaps

Rose in the hospital, getting her blood transplant

Tout Va Bien - Marion and Stephane

Marion and Stephane - Rose's parents, struggling to cope

Tout Va Bien - Antonio and Claire

Claire, Marion's sister and Rose's aunt, with her boyfriend Antonio

Tout Va Bien - Lou and her mother

Antonio's ex-wife with their daughter Lou, about whom she's fighting a custody battle

Tout Va Bien - Vincent

Vincent - Rose's uncle (the youngesst of the three children) and steward for an airline

Tout Va Bien - Vincent hates hospitals

Vincent hates hospitals, but can't turn down the requests for his help

Tout Va Bien - Anne and Pascal

Anne, Rose's grandmother and famous author, always working, and her husband Pascal

Tout Va Bien - Louis

Louis, Marion's secret affair - yes that is Mehdi Nebbou and I watched the whole thing for him

Tout Va Bien - the psychologist

the hospital psychologist, one of my favorite characters, she gives the best advice

my comments (also non-spoilery)

* What makes this series so brilliant is that each character deals with the situation in their own way, and I found it realistic that even within one family, the approaches of every person would be different.

* Rose herself, despite being a young girl, is shown in a way that I could empathize with. She's not the unfortunate carrier that causes all the problems but is herself unaffected. She's afraid but cautiously optimistic, sometimes dead tired, sometimes annoying, sometimes happy. All very normal, I thought.

* The mother, Marion, strikes up an anonymous (mostly sexual) relationship with a man she meets in the parking lot of the hospital, just to get away from everything for a little while.

* The uncle, Vincent, has a phobia of hospitals and the whole situation gives him panic attacks. His life as a steward for an airline - complete with "a girl in every port" - slowly falls apart. He's probably the most cruelly affected by the story. <3

* The younger sister, Leonie, is acting up because her parents are focused mostly on her dying sister - and because she's losing her sister, of course.

* The father, Stephane, is probably the single underdeveloped character in the show. He only gets a few scenes with his wife and daughter, and one scene at work, and that's it. The women are by far better developd (and I can't say I minded).

* The grandmother, Anne, is a famous author of self-help books and tries to push her "helpful" attitude on everyone around her, including Rose.

* The aunt, Claire, tries to deal with the tragedy by taking on as many tasks as she can, to help in any way she can, neglecting everyone else in favor of Rose (and her sister Marion).

* Plus, a lot of the characters are grieving about more than one thing:

** Anne is confronted with the fact that her editor and long-time lover has been sexually abusing other clients of his and his image and company are imploding.

** Claire is dealing with the custody battle for her boyfriend Antonio's daughter, and struggling with her inability to connect with that girl, Lou. Lou herself also acts out sometimes due to the conflict between her divorced parents.

** The ex-wife of Antonio is mourning her failed relationship and tries to sabotage his new happiness in every way she can.

** The grandfather, Pascal, is mourning his own relationship (his wife cheating on him with her editor for years) and getting older and not being needed by anyone.

* All of this is marvellously interwoven and sometimes it's like watching a train-wreck in slow motion. Nobody knows how the cancer will progress/react, and everyone is caught in their own bubble, unable to escape.

* A minor nitpick is that some of the supporting characters are a little 'too supportive'. Louis, Marion's secret lover, doesn't seem to have his own goals and seemingly just exists to support Marion. Antonio, Claire's boyfriend, has an endless amount of patience for both Claire and his ex-wife. Alice, one of Vincent's girlfriends, becomes part of the family and gives him far more love than their casual relationship warrants.

* I personally loved the hospital psychologist - a family therapist who gets to say a lot of the best lines.

* In general, there are quite a few amazing lines of dialogue. Like when the grandmother says (about herself) "it's so hard to watch your daughter suffer and not being able to help" - like, no shit, Anne, you selfish ass! Or when Louis says "the palliative care unit is no place for clowns" and Marion answers, "it's no place for children." Or the editor, explaining to Anne why he never assaulted her, "because I never needed to." Or when Marion says to her husband that "without her hair, she looks even more like you." There are so many good lines of dialogue in this, those are just the ones that I remember off the top of my head.

* Last but not least, I would never have watched this if Mehdi Nebbou wasn't in it. He has a much bigger role than I'd expected - probably the biggest non-family-member role in the show - and it was very very much worth watching it for him. But I ended up loving the show for its amazing writing, and I can absolutely rec it on its own merits, Mehdi or no.

selenak

About a month ago, I bought the Big Finish episodes around the War Doctor in which the late John Hurt reprises his role. They're basically three episode storyarcs - "Only the Monstrous", "Infernal Devices", "Agents of Chaos" and "Casualties of War" - all set during the Time War. Now, because of the setting, the usual Doctor-Companion combinations are out, though the Doctor meets a likeable idealistic person in each of these three episode adventures (and can save some though not all). But the great charm of any Doctor Who tale are those relationships. So what did Big Finish do? It had the inspired idea of pairing up John Hurt with Jacqueline Pearce, playing, no, not Servalan, but a ruthless female politiician nonetheless, a member of the Gallifreyan War Council named Cardinal Ollista. She and the Doctor are the sole characters in all the four story arcs I've listened to, and the way their relationship develops was probably my favourite aspect in these stories.

Because this is the Time War, and this regeneration of the Doctor specifically is on a self loathing maximum while fighting it, Ollista is initially a good foil because she, who really does only prioritize Gallifrey and initially sees everyone not a Time Lord as expendable, shows that despite what he's telling himself, he is still the Doctor, he still has ethics and lines he won't cross and will fight for and have another way. But Ollista isn't simply an Evil McEvil megalomaniac, either, hence me saying "Gallifrey" and not "her personal power", and so the Doctor in the course of those stories develops a grudging respect for her while she while denying she does so finds herself defending, in the last story arc, precisely the kind of (non-Gallifreyan) people she in the first story arc would have dismissed as necessary casualties of war. Whether they argue or work together, all the Doctor-Ollista scenes are golden, and with both John Hurt and Jacqueline Pearce now gone, I am really glad they had the chance to work together near the end of their lives and create two more remarkable characters for us to appreciate.

Current Mood: impressed
Current Location: Bamberg

selenak

Which I would have watched on the big screen if I could have, but a brief showing time and my tight schedule did not allow it. Anyway: this is the movie in which Natalie Portman plays a (tv) actress, Elizabeth, who wants to play Gracie (Julianne Moore) in a movie based on events taking place about two decades plus earlier than the film's setting, which is 2015. (Though the film itself premiered in 2023.) Said events consisted of Gracie, at age 36, having had a "relationship" with a thirteen years old boy, Joe ,whom she after some years in prison for statuary rape married; he's currently 36 (as is Elizabeth), the same age she was back then, and played by Charles Melton, who I osmosed before this movie was mostly famous for playing a jock type in Riverdale but who is absolutely stunning in this film (and should at least have gotten an Oscar nomination), which given he's working with Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman at their best, is truly saying something. There are also kids (the one Gracie was pregnant with when she got caught is now in college, and thn there are twins about to graduate), as well as Gracie's offspring from her earlier marriage, with her son Georgie being the same age as Joe. The movie is directed by Todd Haynes, and dives right into how incredibly messed up a story this is.

Now, if you start the film knot knowing what it's about, then the first few minutes might let you assume it's a black comedy about suburbia; Gracie, Joe and their children live in the proverbial idyllic white fenced area somewhere in South Carolina, with Gracie (who runs a small scale bakery) coming across as somewhat high strung but popular among her neighbours - and then Elizabeth arrives, only to find an anonymous package at the couple's front door which contains feces. There are some comedy beats throughout the remaining movie, but actually I would classify it as emotional horror. Gracie is still absolutely incapable of admitting she ever did anything wrong, and we get an early taste of her ability to manipulate and achieve emotional control when she comments on her daughter's choice of prom dress: "You're so brave to show your arms! I wouldn't have dared", with the result that of course the poor girl doesn't buy that dress but the one Gracie likes. Elizabeth isn't the film's heroine, either, though in the first half her investigation provides the audience bit by bit with the backstory from various povs via the characters Elizabeth talks to; the movie goes full throttle about what a disturbing and ruthlessly exploitative process an actor working on a role can be if that role isn't a fictional character but a real person. (BTW, of course Portman and Moore don't look much alike, but that only helps enhancing the sense of disquiet as Elizabeth adopts more and more of Gracie's mannerisms, with the scene where Gracie gives Elizabeth a makeover with her own makeup and lipstick being a showcase in point.)

Meanwhile, Joe starts out on a quiet background note when compared to the two women, and then the story shows more and more how messed up not just the start of his relationship with Gracie was but how messed up their present day relationship still is. More than one review described Joe as a thirteen years old still locked in the body of an adult man, and before watching the film I assumed this meant Joe would be characterized as a manchild, but no, that's not what was meant at all. If anything, he's the most reasonably and responsibly acting adult in this film. But emotionally, it becomes clear he's never had the chance to process what happened, not least because his entire life is still built around keeping Gracie happy. He became a father years and years before growing up, and the scene where due to his teenage son for the first time sharing pot with him his quiet and calm facade finally cracks and some of that repressed emotion breaks through is incredibly good and heartbreaking.

Incidentally: making a movie which deals with an adult grooming a kid without getting voyeuristic with a young actor sounds near impossible - but May-December by showing us the aftermath and the long term effect everything had on Joe decades later proves it can be done. At the same time, we do get a visual reminder of just how young he was when Elizabeth gets sent video clips of teenagers auditioning to play Joe. (The audition clips don't show more than them introducing themselves with their name and age.) Elizabeth looks appalled, and the audience might think it's because it hits her how young thirteen really is.... and then a few scenes later, she's on the phone with her producer and tells him these guys are just wrong because they don't look sexy enough. Which tells you something about Elizabeth.

Despite how good this film is - with script, acting and cinematography all outstanding - , I'm not surprised it wasn't a box office success (while getting deservedly criticial praise.) It's hardly a subject lending itself to relaxation, and despite its three leads all being very attractive people, any sexual activity is basically the opposite of fanservice - like I said, it's an emotional horror show. Not something I'll rewatch any time soon, though I am glad I watched it once, and am full of admiration for what it achieves.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: Bamberg

tinny

Movies

Not much... I saw a documentary called Ice Grave at the theater, at a festival. It's (another) version of the famous Swedish North Pole expedition in a hydrogen balloon in 1897. I can't honestly recommend it, but it was well done and pretty immersive, put together mostly from the photographs taken by one of the three expedition members. It has an absolutely beautiful saxophone score by Bendik Giske, who was there at the showing, and explained that he recorded it in one go, as one long piece through the whole movie. O_O His style is unique, here's a concert of his: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OQfk5HUN-Q. I couldn't find any more information on it online anywhere, and the version we saw looked kind of unfinished. I don't think it has an international release yet.

TV ongoing

HPI season 5!!!! This fandom is my whole world at the moment and I'm loving it. I've made a French friend with whom to talk about it, and I've managed to rope two friends into the show, and both are on their way through season one and love it so far. \o/

The first three episodes aired in May. My new friend and I agreed to follow the weekly French airing schedule instead of watching all four episodes at once, to really be able to dig into each episode separately. So I've seen the first three and they are brilliant! Half of it is excitement about a new season - premieres tend to do that to me - and half of it is that the end of the first episode is just so very good omg. I'm very happy that I have the means to watch it at all and don't have to wait for months for a German release. (It will be on Disney+ in June, so that's something.) My rewatch is now in season 4, and I suspect if we want to keep going with that, I will have to translate the subs myself. At least I've found French subs by now, so it's less work than it could have been. The first episode was quite a trial for me, watching it without any subs at all. I think I watched it at least five times, and there were still scenes where I didn't get everything.

I had the crazy idea to make a comm for it (

hpi_tv) and posted all my icons to it so far. I'm thinking of adding ep discussion posts, and articles/photos, but haven't gotten there yet.

I finished The Pitt in one big rush. Phew! So good! I still maintain that the one-day format detracts from my enjoyment of character development, but they did a really good job letting us get to know the characters despite that restriction. I liked all of them in the end, even Langdon. I think my faves were the abrasive women, Santos and McKay. I was happy (not happy) to have predicted what was going to happen in the evening eps, as I'm usually not good at picking up on foreshadowing. I blame it on them being very very obvious. :D I quickly scanned the fic that's there about the show, but nothing snagged me so I've basically put the show behind me. It was good.

Doctor Odyssey finished airing, and the thing I had been afraid of happening did happen, so I'm likely out of there. I don't think they'll get a second season anyway, but... yeah. I might change my mind by September, but I am pretty miffed at where they took it in the end. It was very good in the middle there. The fandom suspects network interference, which probably explains the lack of a renewal. Moving on.

Having been ill for a bit this month, I opted for watching something random and landed on Remington Steele. Oh my, it only holds up part of the time. It's quite funny in places, but a lot of the jokes are more misogynistic than they should be, considering the premise of the show, and Pierce Brosnan's acting is still cringe. (I love him anyway.)

TV new

Murderbot! I watched the first ep, and then started rereading the novella, because I'd forgotten most of it. I finished that (and two more novellas) before I continued with episodes 2 and 3. Definitely a good decision, because I can now relatively confidently tell what follows the book and what they changed. Fwiw, I don't like the fact that murderbot sounds and looks so decidedly male, but I liked it despite that. It's really well done, great visuals, fun book-accurate narration. I think all of it is really close to the book, except for some sex/romance/pining that wasn't in the book. Which confuses me, because Murderbot explicitly says it doesn't care for sex, so why did they think they had to add that? To annoy Murderbot (and its fans) more? I guess it's a valid trade-off between the existing Murderbot fans (who are going to watch it anyway, lets not kid ourselves) and trying to attract new fans by adding more sex. Anyway, that's a minor complaint. I like it so far.

I tried two eps of Etoile, and while I adore the pervasive bilingualism - every character speaks both English and French and some of them codeswitch wonderfully - I actually don't like a single one of the characters. Some of them actively annoy me to a point I never want to see them again. A pity.

Through the whole "where do I get HPI from" stress, I've found more French tv streaming sites and got my hands on more Mehdi Nebbou things:

Another Mehdi Nebbou thing! Tout Va Bien (2023) (English title "Everything is Fine"). It's a French drama about a family whose child has leukemia - basically it's a study on how people deal with grief. I'd originally intended to watch this over the summer, but then it sucked me in and I watched all eight eps this week. (I knew if I stopped, I wouldn't finish it, because the subject matter is so dark.) I only watched this because Mehdi Nebbou is in it (and he's cute and dead sexy in it so totally worth all the tears), and I liked 90% of it very much and have many thoughts about it, so I'll write up a review. It's on hulu.

Aaaaand another Mehdi Nebbou thing! Mann|Frau, a German 2014 webseries of 40 5-minute eps. The title implies that it's about differences between men and women, but that's not at all it. It's just a cute, quirky, slice-of-life, growing-up thing told from two povs, where the protagonists turn into a group of friends/lovers. By the end, I very much loved all the main characters. I never noticed that none of them have names, until I watched an interview with producer Christian Ulmen at the end. :D There's lots of casual drinking and casual drug use (not my thing), and lots of sex and funny dialogue and surprise polyamory (very much my thing!). It's a quick watch, I recommend it. Youtube playlist here (only German, no subs).

jesse_the_k

99pi.org/adapt

Kurt Kohlstedt has spent ten years creating audio and print stories for the design podcast, 99% Invisible. He also co-authored the 99% Invisible City book.

Last year, 99pi’s Kurt Kohlstedt suffered a severe injury that incapacitated his right arm and dominant hand. In the aftermath, new everyday challenges led him to research, test, and evolve accessible design solutions. These experiences set the stage for Adapt or Design, a twelve-part project of 99% Invisible in three acts, available at the short link 99pi.org/adapt

The Adapt or Design series includes many groan-worthy puns related to hands; six essays exploring assistive designs for people with one functional hand; three design hacks and mods that helped Kurt manage long-term rehabilitation; and three final essays diving deep into adaptive writing technologies including a free one-handed "mirror keyboard" for Windows PowerToys.

While the first article posted in April, I just heard about it via the 99% Invisible podcast 630, where Kurt and Roman talk about all these things.

selenak

I think now I must have read all the published work of the estimable Ms Tesh. In reverse order, as she published these two novel(la)s first, and once more demonstrating her bandwidth, being different yet again from both Some Desperate Glory and The Incandescent. (Not solely because in this duology, the two main characters are male, though there are very memorable female supporting characters.) What it reminded me of was fanfiction to some earlier canon, though I could not say which canon, in the way it focused on the central m/m romance. Which isn't to say said romance - which is thoroughly charming - is all it has going for itself, by far not. The books do a wonderful job with its vaguely 19th century AU England which has Wild Men in the woods, dryads, some (not many) fairies, folklore-studying researchers and female vampire hunters. In all her books, Tesh proves she can create beings that feel guinely different, not like humans in costumes, be they demons or aliens or fae, and the while the heart of the duology is in the romance between stoic and brawny Wild Man Tobias Finch and geeky and cheerful gentleman scholar Henry Silver, it's by far not the only interesting relationship going on. There's also Henry's mother, Mrs. Silver the enterprising non-nonsense ~~slayer~~ hunter, with the way she and Tobias come to relate to each other being a welcome surprise, in the first novel Tobias' creepy ex of centuries past and in the second Maud Linderhurst, ( who is something spoilery ).

One can nitpick (for example, it's not clear to me what the difference between what Bramble the Dyrad is by the end of the duology and what the fairy servant is, to put it as unspoilery as possible), but nothing that takes away from this thoroughly enjoyable duology of stories. And given the daily news horror, they were very welcome distractions indeed.

Speaking of entertaining distractions: Sirens on Netflix is a five episodes miniseries based on a play, both written by Molly Brown Metzler,), which strikes me as unusual (plays usually ending up as movies), though some googling after watching the series which brought me to reviews of the originial play (titled Elemeno Pea), I found the review descriptions of the play made it clear there were enough differences for the play now to feel like a first draft. The miniseries stars Meghann Fahy, Milly Alcock and Julianne Moore, and a lot of gorgeous costumes. (Also Kevin Bacon as Julianne Moore's husband.) At first I thought it would be another entry in the "eat the rich" genre, but no, not really. The premise: Our heroine and central character is Devon (Fahy), who is overwhelmed with work, an alcoholic father in the early stages of dementia, and her own past alcoholism (she's barely six months sober), and when after an SOS all she gets from younger sister Simone is an basket full of fruits, she impulsviely goes to the island for the superrich where Simone now works as PA for Michaela (Moore) to have it out with her sister. However, once she's there her anger is soon distracted by the fact Michaela/Kiki (as Simone is allowed to call her) comes across like a cult leader to her, and Simone's relationship with her boss has zero boundaries. The general narrative tone of the entire miniseries is black comedy, though as the Michaela and the audience discover both Simone and Devon have horroundous backstory trauma in their childhood and youth, said backstory trauma isn't played for laughs. The three main performances are terrific, with Julianne Moore having a ball coming across as intensely charismatic and creepy without technically doing anything wrong (so you get both why Devon is weirded out and why Simone seems to worship her), while Milly Alcock, whom I had previously only seen as young Rhaenyra in House of Dragon, also excells both as Simone in Devoted Lieutenant mode and with what's underneath showing up more and more. Meghann Fahy I hadn't seen in anything previously but she's wonderful here, no matter whether chewing someone out or trying to hold it together while things around her get ever more bizarre. Of the supporting cast, the most standout is Felix Solis as Jose, the house manager and general factotum. The fact that the staff hates Simone (who hands down Michaela's orders and is therefore loathed as the taskmaster) is a running gag through the series and gets an ironic pay off at the end, though again, this is not another entry in the "eat the rich" genre. Most of all it strikes me as a comedy of manners, and of course the setting - the island which in the play is Martha's Vineyard but in the miniseries has a fictional name - allows for some great landscaping in addition to everyone dressed up gorgeously. All in all, not something that will change your life, but immensely entertaining to watch, and everyone's fates at the end feel narratively earned.

Current Mood: bouncy

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