The month's already come to an end.. 😖 Finals are spread amongst the next 2 weeks for me along with some tests, and errrr, there's also 2 classes I'm hopelessly behind on homework in. I'll get through one of 'em this weekend at the least. Once that's all over though it's on to transferring schools and keeping my head on straight, getting things done on my Summer break.
One of those things will be the Entertainers album, which has admittedly slowed to a crawl this past month :P. Another thing is this solo release, unsure what form it'll take on, EP? Album? we'll see I suppose. There's this new song I put together recently (link), don't know if that'll go anywhere, I need to experiment with more sounds though, put that on the docket...
Oh yea! I got back into reading this month that's probably the biggest thing, I'll go from worst to best here:
Night Falls Fast was a dull read all 'round that left quite a bad taste in my mouth nearing the end, seeing how much was spoken as matter of fact despite the confounding and difficult to navigate reality of things. The author doesn't appear to see psychology as an incomplete science and takes so much of it at face value, you can tell she works in the field I guess. There's mention of how important a mix of talk/behavioral therapy is with drugs for a patients improvement, but the book only brings up drugs as the solution apart from this section?? I would've appreciated some mention of habits that are scientifically shown to work as some sort of treatment but instead it's the same old same old. When lithium is brought up there isn't a single negative word said against it, there's this stunning lack of nuance throughout the entire book really. The anecdotes of suicides here are never the standard, we're told exclusively of the famous and the extraordinary. It seems more alienating if anything, having so little of these peoples lives actually told in the book I could only imagine makes those who haven't been suicidal and are reading the book (with sub header "understanding suicide") believe that these people simply can't be understood, that they just ought to be doped up and sedated. On page 90 of this book there is this poem, said to be written by a 15 year old boy who went on to take his life 2 years after... In reality, this poem was written by Dr. Earl Reum and was notably retooled to fit in the book Perks of Being a Wallflower a year prior to this book's release. The citation for this made up story behind the poem comes from a Christmas Crackers book that itself has zero citation of where it got the poem (much less the notion that it was the work of a suicidal teen)! After digging into this particular thread w/r/t the book I came to the conclusion that I ought to cut my losses, that the entire sum total of knowledge I gained having read this could be summed up in a single paragraph which I'd need to take with perhaps more than a pinch of salt.
Everything Is Tuberculosis
Thoughts I jotted down on Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, shortly after finishing it (SPOILERS): it’s difficult to quite feel the weight of Heaven when it’s central characters pull me up and out of the environment and world. our narrator has an inner monologue so elementary in that first chapter that I almost dropped the book right there. upon further reading things got much better and, especially on that journey to the museum I could see the elegance in Mieko’s writing. coming to a close, however, those two speeches on the worldviews of Kojima and Minomia again rang out with a dull thud. though this time due to how eloquently they spoke rather than a lack of depth. I have no doubt you can come to ideas like Kojima’s, or get bits and pieces of Minomia’s ideology at 14, but to spill out these treatises off-hand is ludicrous. the conception of Heaven by these three characters was a wonder to see all come together though. Kojima has her own Heaven in the museum, in the titles and meaning she colors the world with, granting herself beauty and power in a world which sees her as anything but. Minomia calls the present a Heaven in that he continually takes what he wants with a disregard for most others, he finds contentment in this cruelty. while it’s never outright stated, I believe our narrator finds a heaven-like beauty in the world following his eye surgery, this newfound depth, the vibrance of leaves falling around will keep with him forever now... the painting of Heaven, this couple coming together and being one despite everything, is an ideal we fail to see in the lives of our characters. the narrator’s parents are getting divorced, Kojima’s parents split, and the main relationship of the book between our narrator and Kojima is cut off (“I never had a friend like her again”). it’s interesting how Kojima’s parents relationship ends similarly to Kojima and the narrator’s, with the shutting down and unresponsiveness. also important to note that Kojima only feels more powerful and confident (see: the bolder handwriting and smiling) as she becomes more frail and vulnerable.
Slaughterhouse Five - So it goes.
Tao Te Ching
I'm tired now, I just spilled out a bunch of words on this book I didn't like, then didn't have the energy to write on the ones I actually enjoyed, sorry y'all 😓. Here's to May, here's to eating graham crackers and walking outside just after the rainclouds cleared up, here's to getting out of bed and getting back into it.
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