Films & TV
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1 & 2, Joss Whedon (1997-1998) ♥︎ 🗘 Rewatching for the first time since high school and damn this show is so fun!!! I've been showing it to my BF and it's his first time watching which has also added a lot of fun to it. (We're halfway through season 3 as of now). Some random thoughts: Giles is MY GUY!!! I love him so much. I forgot how much I fucking hate Xander, that guy seriously sucks. Now that I'm an adult, I really can't get around how fucking creepy Angel and Buffy's relationship is. Dude, get away from her! On the other hand, the messy, fucked-up polycule of Spike, Drusilla, and Angel never fails to entertain me. And also, everything about Buffy's story is so much more emotional to me now that I'm older. Like I'm watching it and I'm like "she's just a kid!" She's got so much responsibility and she never got to have her childhood and nobody understands her even when she tries to communicate... it's devastating. I think one of the strongest parts of the show is how its teen characters truly feel like how teens would feel and behave in these situations. Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy, especially, just punches me in the gut sometimes with how she portrays her youthfulness and anxieties. Anyway, yeah, this is a classic for a reason.
- The Fog, John Carpenter (1980) I'm not sure why I thought this would be more of a cosmic horror type deal where the fog itself was the evil entity... I was so surprised that it was about ghost sailors! I'm not complaining. The vibes are sooo strong with this one, some really great set pieces too (the lighthouse radio station? Ugh that lady is living my dream!) But the narrative structure itself felt very scattered and the resolution felt a bit too clean and straightforward. Still a fun time, I can see myself adding it to my October rotation.
- The Night of the Hunter, Charles Laughton (1955) ♥︎ Goddamn this movies looks so good. Seriously the pinnacle of American Gothic film. So many moments I can't get out of my head - the mother in her car under the water, the children in the boat at night, etc. Also reckons with the Great Depression, poverty, and the treatment of children in really interesting and penetrating ways. I want to watch this again.
- Nowhere, Gregg Araki (1997) ♥︎ 🗘 Got to see this at an indie theater this time and it was such a fun experience! I invited a friend along and I was nervous that she wouldn't like it but she definitely saw the vision. Just like the first time I watched this film, I ended up writing a long-winded and overly passionate review on Letterboxd which you can read here if you're interested.
- A Stable Marriage, Josephine Decker (2026) Random short film that our friend wanted us to watch from Walla Walla Movie Crush. Uhhh not sure what to say about it. I believe it did exactly what it set out to do. It would be hard to say it was an "enjoyable" experience but I guess it's memorable? And really well-made. Title is spot on.
- Superman, James Gunn (2025) It was serviceable I guess. Sorry, superhero movies are just fundamentally boring to me, I mostly just watch them with my BF because he's a comic book guy. Also I know a lot of people were really appreciative of the anti-war sentiment in this and I get it, so much military propaganda is made here and there's a lot of overlap with action films so it's always nice to at least have a surface-level anti-war/anti-imperialism message in one of these kinds of movies. But the inherent flaw to the superhero genre is, in my opinion, its loyalty to the "great man theory," which is just too frustrating to me. Maybe that makes me annoying. IDK. At least this was kinda cute. I like the dog.
- 12 short films!, 48 Hour Film Project, Portland, OR (Block B) Some of my friends made a really amazing short film that they submitted to this - Ghost Kitchen! This was such a fun event and I loved watching all of these movies. Besides Ghost Kitchen, some of my other favorites were Roomies 4 Life and The Creative - both extremely funny and felt like they were so fun to make. Support independent and local film!!!
"When music affects us to tears, seemingly causeless, we weep not [...] from 'excess of pleasure'; but through excess of an impatient, petulant sorrow that, as mere mortals, we are as yet in no condition to banquet upon those supernal ecstasies of which the music affords us merely a suggestive and indefinite glimpse."
- Edgar Allan Poe, "Music."
Articles & Whatnot
- "Dreaming of a ten-year computer," Alex Chan, alexwlchan (2026)
- "Jung's archetypes are a mirror that shows who and what we are," Hugh McGovern, Psyche (2026)
Books
- The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings, Edgar Allan Poe (1839) "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" are familiar and well-loved classics to me, of course. None of the other stories really stood out to me, though, except maybe "The Pit and the Pendulum."
- A Guest in the House, E.M. Carroll (2023) ♥︎ THIS IS SO FUCKING GOOD. Carroll captures such a strong sense of movement in their panels, I found myself perceiving it all as animated on the page. Beautiful artwork and a very affecting story. Highly recommend it.
- Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, vol. 13-14, Eiji Otsuka & Housui Yamazaki (2010) Losing steam a bit on this series. Only a few volumes left but very little attention paid to the over-arching plot threads introduced previously. Might take a small break before picking back up on these.
"I want someone to take this soul / I can't bear to keep it, I'd give it just to give / And all I will take are the consequences / Will somebody take this soul?"
- Mitski, "The Deal"
Albums
- Bootleg, The Garden (2026) ♥︎
I believe I listened to this in the ideal manner - in the passenger seat of a car driven by a friend on the highway on a summer night, windows rolled down, music BLARING. Some of my favorite work from The Garden thus far. It's the closest they've gotten to a "pure" punk album, though of course its still got all of their funky little idiosyncrasies - fun samples (Halloween ghost sounds? Soundbites from A Streetcar Named Desire? Yeah, sure, why not!), nonsensical lyrics, general playfulness. Can't wait to listen to this on repeat for a few months lol.
Favorite tracks: "5 Mile Ponytail," "The Mess," "Banned from Paradise" - Cry Baby, Vince Staples (2026) ♥︎
I was very pleasantly surprised by this! It's a different direction from anything Vince Staples has done before, a kinda post-punk-y rap rock blend that I found very enjoyable. I appreciate how direct the lyrics are, it's all a pretty apt response to the times we live in here in the U.S. This could have maybe benefitted from a little bit more variety but I didn't mind that too much.
Favorite tracks: "Blackberry Marmalade," "TV Guide," "The Big Bad Wolf" - The Lake / Wrong Flower, Fever Ray (2026) Y'know, I still haven't seen The Bride!, but gotta listen to new Fever Ray when it's available, of course. These two songs are fine.
- The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Mitski (2023)
Quite good! Portions of this bored me a little bit but there are some really strong high points in here. Brilliant lyrics throughout as can be expected from Mitski. I think "My Love Mine All Mine" had been too overplayed for me because that's the only song I disliked. Overall, I really like Mitski's take on a folksy Americana album which truly interacts with the landscape and puts that in dialogue with these vignettes of very fleshed-out characters whose perspectives these songs come from.
Favorite tracks: "I'm Your Man," "The Deal," "Buffalo Replaced" - Poem 1, Ana Roxanne (2026) ♥︎
OH. MY. GOD. Peaceful ambient tracks intermixed with sickeningly (complimentary) gutwrenching music of melancholy regret. Is this the distillation of what it sounds like to pretend to be peaceful while your stomach is turning over with existential pain? Perhaps. At certain points this sounds like it would be right at home in the soundtrack of a David Lynch film. Beautiful work.
Favorite tracks: "Untitled II," "Keepsake," "Berceuse in A-Flat Minor, Op. 45" - Question the Answers, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (1994) 🗘
Revisiting some oldies from my CD collection. Not my favorite of the Bosstones but still nice.
Favorite tracks: "Jump Through Hoops," "Kinder Words" - Theft World, Lip Critic (2026) ♥︎
Y'all this is everythinnnggg to me. So goddamn fun and chaotic. So many sounds that it should just be overwhelming, but it's all layered together so well, it's just... *chef's kiss*
Favorite tracks: "Jackpot," "Legs in a Snare," "Talon," "Shoplifting" - unlikely, maybe by Bruno Pernadas (2026) I've been trying to figure out what sets apart the jazz that I love from all other jazz, which I tend to never dislike but merely feel purely neutral about, with the sounds fading completely into the background even as I try to listen intently. Such is the case here. I think this album is good, but it didn't grab me and I don't remember it. Still trying to figure out what makes the difference.
- The Velvet Underground & Nico, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1966)
Yup, I can definitely see the influence this had on rock music. Glad I finally gave the whole thing a listen. "Venus in Furs" is still my main takeaway from the whole thing, though lol.
Favorite tracks: "Venus in Furs," "All Tomorrow's Parties," "Heroin"
Fragments
- I finally shared the manuscript of my novella with A., S., & O. to get their feedback. I was so nervous about it but it was so rewarding to watch as my talented and intelligent friends began debriefing about the narrative with each other in the Google Docs comments as if they were having a book club... all over something I'd written! They pointed out a lot of areas where I could make it stronger and I'm feeling very inspired to refine it even further. But I also already feel so accomplished at making something that appealed to people whose taste I respect and made them wonder what would happen next, have all sorts of ideas about the subtext, & so on. I'm so energized!!!
- Also with my friends - for the third year in a row, we went and picked berries and made our own jelly. I never have to buy jelly anymore because we always make enough to last me through the year.
- Another writing-life milestone: I mentioned last month that I got a poem published in an honest-to-God literary journal. This month, I read it out loud at the release party! Ahhh I can't believe I did that!! That's awesome!!
- A. invited me to a cyanotype workshop. I've done all sorts of printmaking but not cyanotype for whatever reason. It's so much fun! I'm definitely going to experiment more with this method at home. I've already got lots of ideas...