i'll keep the pre-text down now and in the future, you know why i'm writing to you; i still love it here, but it is definitely a lot to have this kind of recap and still try to focus on writing more real, in-depth pieces on art instead of the snippets that sit in these. but we'll see how it shakes out :>

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even though i've said it a few times now, i've continued with death note and middlemarch a tad each, and have tried my hand at madness and civilization by michel foucault and am realizing how annoyingly dense and referential it is. like i already have the thesis, of leprosy transmuting to social perceptions of madness and its fallout(s), but.. come onn, i'm not going to look into it all so deeply. i fear i may pause progress on it very soon.

i did also read and reviewed in two days females by andrea long-chu :D my thoughts there are about all that there is to say, i think. love it, even if i wish it had more connective tissue pointing to and from other sources.

and fortunately, apart from not listening to any podcasts in may, i think i did a good job of rekindling something of an ability to focus on engaging with more games and tv. i played the tiniest bit of the nubby's number factory demo and the same amount more of enter the gungeon, lots and lots of picture cross, one office game of cs2, and a little chinatown wars too. but most importantly, i (re-)started grand theft auto v and half-life again, since i either haven't ever finished both or it's been so long since finishing half-life that i feel the need to play it again. at least before jumping into half-life 2 again as well, which i hope can be a fun task for june :)

and besides rewatching the force awakens back in april, i watched all of the main star wars movies (incl. rogue one and solo) all in may. it was a lot, but because i had already seen them before and essentially just needed a refresher to more confidently place them here and in my head, it was a fun little time. also rewatched american psycho and realized how wonderfully short and insanely fun it is as a horrific satire; i'm not sure what movie i'll next review, but that and my current movie of the year so far are close contenders.

i did watch a lott of movies in may, more than is typical for me, and i'm very happy i went back to the theatres more, this past month for sinners (foty) and friendship. and while i think i'd like to reserve greater judgement upon do the right thing, gender troublemakers, moonlight, and mulholland drive because they all deserve it, i do feel comfortable saying that bone tomahawk is far and away the worst movie i have seen (..yet). there's something about its disgusting combinations of imagery and caricature, alongside its sterile, pointless, unmoving plot that makes it genuinely the worst piece of art i've seen since starting this sight. maybe one day i'll acknowledge with more detail the whys of that reaction, but.. i don't care to give it space at all right now.

oh but lost highway was pretty good, too straight though. and cutting moments was.. nevermind. could've been better articulated, but i get it. kinda.

happy i made up too for last month's pretty meager music listened-to, but i do still hope i can keep getting thru more/most of my watchlist, but at least i got a good start in may :)

• fête de la vanille – lucy bedroque
• changed my life <3
• pirouette – model/actriz
• a bit less varied and manic than what came from dogsbody, but still a completely over-the-top mashing of raw expression and instrumental luxury. beautiful, really
• against all logic – nicolás jaar
• i don't want to say it's better than the album under the a.a.l. name he released right after, but.. it is pretty amazing.
• fancy that – pinkpantheress
• even if i'm a little torn, and i wish that there was a pink album that truly hit me from start to finish, this is the closest i've gotten from her; nineteen & break it off on to hell with it along with mosquito and capable of love on heaven knows might still hold a dearer place to me, but tonight and stateside are completely wonderful.
• smokin – randomer
• it does stay in place more than the title suggests, really a bit smothered by the end, but the title track more than lives up to the potential easily heard in this super-fun, indelibly catchy style of techno.
• father – jim legxacy
• far and away the most creative and heartfelt jerk song (so far; i have high confidence that his upcoming work will reach even further)
• total euphoria – caroline
• what a monument. the most expressive and creatively new post-rock-ish song i've heard since discovering what it was all about. wondrous and huge.
• godstained – quadeca
• i still hope that someday i understand the outsized excitement and love people have for quadeca, but for now i can take solace in knowing that this song is pretty special.
• aired out – kmoe
• even if kmoe's past works haven't hit upon something great for me (well, until now), i've always known that the kinds of expressive, starry pulses of light present here have been in his arsenal for a while. wonderful, hope i only have to wait until june 6th for even more~
• impossible light – uboa
• somehow even more paralyzingly feverish, bleak, yet the slightest bit reassuring compared to her last. i hope to see that light, and i hope that xandra is okay.
• serpentine gallery – switchblade symphony
• goth classic, sounds like 👻💅
• unmusique – lucy bedroque
• i'm so happy that they've essentially never locked themselves into going down the same avenue for too long. their one album, one (main) ep, and now this one mixtape are some of the most creatively divergent but cohesively expressive art that i've ever heard. one of today's best artists, no doubt in my mind.
• mambo nassau – lizzy mercier descloux
• if this was a more influential piece of weird, all-over-the-place disco, maybe disco as a whole would have a better reputation and creative outbursts today.
• éons – neptunian maximalism
• "rightt, sure" for >2hrs (extremely positive, but it's so much)
• virgins – tim hecker
• most expressive "ambient" album of all time; the resolute explosion at the end, on stab variation, is as cathartic as a bullet.
• stay true forever – kuru
• it is everywhere, and it never decides where to stay long enough for it to ever sound like it had any idea of what it had in mind in the first place, but that expressive spirit and the bow it ties off upon itself with the last track makes it all so obviously worth it.
• slipknot – slipknot
• whoever never recommended this to be growing up definitely hated me, this is incredible. and even if it's meat-headed, i kinda get it here; it helps send it into the stratosphere (or, rather, some kind of purgatory).
• she reaches out to she reaches out to she – chelsea wolfe
• all the more reason to look through the rest of her discography; it may not have the two perfect tracks that started off abyss, but it's incredibly consistent and a testament to knowing that you don't always need a great explosion to cause this much emotional fallout.

also relistened to juju and f*ck u skrillex too, and for the latter i don't think there's been a long stretch of time since it came out where i haven't relistened to the entire album; it's that infectious and wonderfully arranged. oh and juju is obv a classic.

though just to wrap up a bit more quickly, i continued with a bit of adventure time season six, and i have mixed thoughts for essentially binge-watching dexter from seasons three to most of the way through six. the former has more wonderful little narrative puzzle pieces, and the latter has stretches of genuine tact wrapped in a package that, as it continues on, gets intensely repetitive and near-mindless. don't get me wrong, seasons four and five are good good, but of seasons two, three, and six.. it's not giving anything.

but one of the most vital pieces of art from what i saw in may is one i have unintentionally saved for last: adolescence. i cannot tell often whether television is simply a medium i can't as easily connect to/with, but that feeling was completely stripped away during those four episodes. up to this point, it is the most engaging and heartrending tv i have ever seen, and some of the best artistic retellings of how textured and unknowable countless aspects of life are, of the unknowables in what leads us to exhibit evil, of patriarchal flaws not easily stripped from what happens in the show.. there is so, so much, and i cannot begin to describe how it made me feel.. yet. astonishing.

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and now we have a newer, darker black sheep. i'm happy ab it :)

also i think in the future i might end up commenting on media i've purchased and concerts/theatres/etc. that i've been to. i missed saying that for the d0llywood1, dazegxd & jane remover show i went to on apr 27 in columbus, but i saw underscores b2b w/ umru in chicago last friday and had a wonderful time !

ttyl <3

written 2 jun 2025