Monday Catch Up!
Hello friends!
These past weeks have been a lot. So much so that it’s still kinda kicking my ass and this is being released as a Monday newsletter. I hope wherever you are it’s seasonally appropriate weather, with sweaters and comfy socks, warm drinks and keen insights, and kindness. That’s all I can really hope for any of us.
One of my massive highlights from two weeks ago was a bucket list band. Last year one of my friends asked me what five musicians (living or dead) or concerts I wish I could see. At the time I’ve already seen 2/5 of the 5 in a capacity that I’m cool with. The two of course were the first time Linkin Park came here (it was one of their last first times coming to a city ever) at Sonic Boom, and Ghost in Airway Heights last year (though I would have loved to see Ghost with Chris Catalyst or Martin Persner as rhythm guitarist but whatever). I am so happy I’ve been able to see them at all in my lifetime. Plus two out of five is not bad at all.
My Friday bucket list band is Explosions in the Sky. I think I’ve spent at least 12 years waiting for them to come. The Earth is Not A Cold Dead Place has been a comfort album to me. I listen to it when I need to write academically, I listen to it when I’m having a hard time, I listen to it when I’m sad and I need to sit with myself. They’re one of the bands I am incredibly precious with and don’t loudly announce I am enthusiastic about because I don’t know why. Probably venerability or feeling vulnerable in letting people know something about me. I love their huge, atmospheric albums and how they make music.
My dear friends I did not expect any of what they did.
I did not expect to cry through First Breath After Coma.
I am still kind of in awe that I got to experience seeing one of my favourite bands and for their stage show to be enthralling. I just. I lack the words to properly convey how much seeing them meant to me, and I guess how much I kinda “needed” to see them.
I wish for all us a week that shows us things can be beautiful still. Especially on this Truth and Reconciliation Monday. Let’s figure out how to survive the Fall.
What I've Been Watching
Castlevania: Nocturne
It's beautiful. I love Powerhouse and most of what they make is simply amazing. This trailer has everything: Alucard, a Belmont, a big bad, and anxious vibes. I hope they get more episodes in season 2 than what they did in season 1.
Every bisexual dhampir needs a Belmont.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
My guilty pleasure in ‘unwinding’ after a stressful week is popping an edible and watching reality TV shows or documentaries about cults until I pass out. This fulfills both of those things and did not disappoint. One of the husbands looks like a knockoff Targaryen. I wish there was more name tags/cards in the show because for a really long time I kept getting the women confused. I want a second season the same way someone wants something terrible: I know it’s terrible but I hope if there is a second season there’s therapists or something for them.
I got so baked I thought three of them were the same person for longer than I'd like to admit.
Mickey 17
I am looking forward to this in January! It also reminds me of a different story about multiples and how their Dad hid them I think? (It was daughters, there were 7 of them and they all got a different day). The casting on this is unreal!
Does your Batman have multiples of himself that he might fight to the death?
What I've Been Reading
I’ve been slacking on reading. There’s been a bunch going on. Here are two pieces I think are appropriate for this holiday.
We keep secrets because we are ashamed or afraid; we tell them because we want an escape. We want to feel accepted, seen. Naturally, we share some secrets with our friends and partners, but sometimes those relationships are the source of a secret, so instead we seek out neutral interlocutors. A bartender in Las Vegas told me the same client came, week after week, to talk specifically with him about her anxiety and troubled dating life. A hairdresser in Salt Lake City told me that Mormons grappling with their faltering faith came to her, an ex-Mormon, to work through family conflict. A therapist I met in Arkansas observed that many of her clients were leaving Christianity and using therapy as their new religion, which she found “a little spooky.
Over at Hazlitt Meg Bernhard did a long form braided essay about Post Secret, Frank Warren, and her own upbringing. Part of Dark Matter is informed by both Warren and Bernhard’s experiences with religion growing up as well as how it influenced parts of their lives. I think this also kinda ties into The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives in a way as well.
Racism, for many people, seems to occupy space in much the same way as dark matter: it forms the skeleton of our world, yet remains ultimately invisible, undetectable. This is convenient, of course. If nothing is racism, then nothing needs to be done to address it. We can continue on as usual. Answer emails. Teach classes. Go to dinner with our families. Go to space centres. Continue our vacations, untroubled. We can keep our eyes shut inside this dark room we’ve created and pretend that, as long as we can’t see what’s around us, there’s nothing around us at all. After all, there’s no proof of it. If the man who coined the term “racism” can despise everything that makes me Indian and get away with it, why the hell can’t you?
Dark Matters is an oldie but a goodie from Alicia Elliot at Hazlitt (or in her collection of essays A Mind Spread Out on the Ground). This isn’t the harshest essay about the influence, the dark matter of anti Indigenous racism that’s interwoven into the Canadian, but it is one that resonates pretty hard. There's more I could say or write or implore you to do on Truth and Reconciliation Day but I'm tired. I trust you. You know what to do.
Small Mammal Update
Yaga had her dental and she did super well! Turns out the vet was wrong about why she lost teeth (and I was right) but now it's something I have to look out for. It turns out she's absorbed a bunch of teeth, and might continue to do so in the future. That is terrifying. It absolutely is haunting, and horrible, and I wish cats didn't do it but here we are.
Delphine has taken it upon herself to begin eating all of the plants. I don't know if she's doing it because she thinks we'll pay more attention to her like Yaga or if she's decided that plants have to pay for something but she's eating them. So now they're hanging from ceiling or clothing racks (like some kind of indoor version of hanging your food up when you camp) and I hope I will best her this time. Or I have to procure a bunch of sacrificial spider plants.
What I've Been Working On
School! Little freelance things! Trying to write this newsletter! More school!
I have come up with the skeleton for the Tealogian character class in Bergamot and Bygones.
I also owe you guys some extra content for what I've missed in September,so look out for that. I think I figured out how to trick myself into finishing projects.
As always, thank you for sticking around. It means a great deal that you read the Catch Up when I do manage to get it out.
- 14 more Catch Ups until the end of 2024!
- 2 posts about books I've read
- Liner notes post
- A working skeleton of Bergamot and Bygones
- A short story for the Brave Readers Club!
