for whatever reason, I've always been interested in unique pairs, sets, series, etc. one of my more long-lasting interests here was siblings who are both famous but for different reasons, but that's not what this is about.
this is about sets that belong together but with unique ideas attached to them:
I did this in 2020 and since the end of 2024 have been trying to be more conscientious about how I participate in the technological oligarchy of our time. big yikes. I now have a bit more complicated relationship to tracking data via some mega-corp, but as we're entering into a world where a mega-corp runs everything, choosing which one gets my information feels like the dumbest, worst win possible. long-story-short, I am trying to avoid the big S streaming services and listening to the music I've owned on CD and have converted digitally over the course of many years.
2024 was the hardest year of my life in many ways that I won't go into here, and because of that I was listening to 2005 levels of Sufjan Stevens. his album The Age of Adz came out in 2010 but sucked the life out of me in a way I haven't experienced in some time. it was a warm blanket on a cold night.
Chappell Roan was probably the only thing from this year that I actually listened to (or at least cared about in some way).
Artificial Condition, The Murderbot Diaries #2, Martha Wells
The Future of Another Timeline, Annalee Newitz
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin
Light from Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki
A Minor Chorus, Billy-Ray Belcourt
America the Beautiful?, Blythe Roberson
All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks
The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
Yellowface, R.F. Kuang
as part of my effort to remove my participation from any commercial Amazon property, I migrated my reading list to The Storygraph. I was very excited about it this spring and summer and read a lot of books, but fell off at the end of the year. I feel like I should maintain a list myself, but these websites makes it much easier for me to keep track of what I want to read. maybe I need to embrace communicating with booksellers more and forgo the websites all together.
over the past handful of years, I've come to the realization that I don't want to be a maker of new things. I started having these thoughts specifically about digital products and how I approach jobs and working, but it's evolved into more. these days, I am more interested in fixing things that are broken or improving things that aren't quite working as I want them to. when buying something, I try to purchase at thrift stores, via eBay, Craigslist, or a buy-nothing group.
in 2024, I read Blythe Roberson's America the Beautiful? and was reminded of all this. while driving to a national parks that she's never been to, and running into the same folks in different parts of the country, she starts to question what the hell are we doing? even trying to enjoy the outdoors turns into a consumerism nightmare. so I guess I'm asking, how can we better do nothing? how do we change our thoughts on non-paying work that we consider chores or care taking?
I'm incredibly drawn to artists who have incorporated some of these anti-consumer ideals in the artwork: almost all of Mierle Laderman Ukeles work is about this, Agnes Denes' Wheatfields for Manhattan feels apt, and Tehching Hsieh's work is so anti-making anything that it goes beyond the idea of care taking and into questioning everything we do.
At the end of 2023, I went to the Seattle Art Museum to see the Alexander Calder exhibition Calder: In Motion and as expected, I really enjoyed myself. Seeing the work in motion is really something else.
One unexpected thing was seeing this photograph
First, I don't think I had ever seen a photograph of Calder before? I don't know what I was expecting, but it probably should have been this, and second I didn't know who Gordon Parks was, and I didn't really think about it.
But at the library a week or so later, I pulled out a book that I thought seemed interesting, and opened it up at random. And guess what, there he was again. Gordon Parks. Alexander Calder.
Life is a little funny. It wanted me to know Gordon Parks and now I do.
Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky #2), Rebecca Roanhorse
The Sophie Horowitz Story, Sarah Schulman
Girls, Visions and Everything, Sarah Schulman
Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh
Piranesi, Susanna Clarke
My Rock 'n' Roll Friend, Tracey Thorn
All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1), Martha Wells
Beverly, Nick Drnaso
The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3), N.K. Jemisin
Small Game, Blair Braverman
The Lying Life of Adults, Elena Ferrante
Severance, Ling Ma
Shadow & Claw, Gene Wolfe
Doomsday Book, Connie Willis
Second Place, Rachel Cusk
Sea of Tranquility, Emily St. John Mandel
Notes:
I really love Sarah Schulman's fictional work, and I keep reading it instead of her non-fiction. I've had Conflict is not Abuse on my to-read list for a long time, but I haven't felt the pull quite yet. Maybe 2024 is the year.
I started the Broken Earth trilogy in 2022 and finished it this year. While frustrating at times, I thought the world building was incredible and I picked up Shadow & Claw per recommendations to fill the void. The void still exists.
A couple of themes came up: love (romantic, platonic, self), pandemics, time-travel. I read more than one time-travel pandemic book this year which is odd, considering I had read zero before.
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
source
