![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Three cultural things before bed...
Sep. 27th, 2024 10:15 pmA couple of things before bed...
1. Finished watching the first two episodes of FX's new Ryan Murphy series Grotesqueri - which stars Niecy Nash, Courtney B. Vance, Miceala Diamond, Nicholas A. Chavez, Raven Goodwin, and Lesley Mansville.
It's compelling and not what I expected. A police detective and a nun investigate a series of mass murders in a small town.
Mother: I thought you were burned out on serial killers?
ME: I am, but this is well done and about more than that?
Each of the murders is a commentary on Catholicism.
Wales: If Vance hears that - he'll get upset about it and want to shut it down.
Me: I doubt he knows it exists. We have so much content now, it's running under the radar.
Wales: True, we're drowned in content.
Specifically extreme Catholic and Religious devotion and practices. The police detective is struggling with her ex-husband, a philosophy professor who is trapped in a medical coma at a facility with a disreputable nurse who berates the detective for not spending more time with him. And her daughter - who's vice is over-eating, while the detective's vice is alcoholism. Murphy as always is a touch heavy on his metaphors. But less so here than in American Horror Story or Monsters. This one is a bit more understated in some respects.
The nun is a devotee of true crime, writes about crime, and is into serial killers. And the priest - flogs himself for his own desires and vices.
Yet, the performances, writing, and filmmaking are compelling and I couldn't look away. Also a creepy man in a hat walks around the detective's house at night - she can't quite see him, yet we do - his shadow in passing in another room, not quite in sight, almost out of the corner of our eye.
It's the creepiest thing.
2. Separation of Artist and Art
How do we handle art from people who have committed questionable acts?
But to pull away another layer? What if we were following the artist, maybe even a fan of the artist, and thought they were ethical, kind, and like-minded, only to find out in some way that they really aren't and we were wrong?
( Read more... )
3. Picked up another book via a Smart Bitches rec... The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
"Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.
Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.
But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds."
I got it for about $2.99 on Kindle.
I told Wales about the book. She gave me the side-eye. She doesn't like fantasy based solely on an ill-fated attempt to read CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. (I find it amusing that Chronicles of Narnia turned folks off of fantasy for life.)
ME: I bought it for $2 bucks.
Wales: Oh, okay, that's all I'd spend if that. Sounds dumb.
Sigh. I love Wales, but I really wish she'd broaden her cultural horizons. She doesn't like musicals, fantasy, science fiction (unless it's straight up horror same goes for fantasy) or comic books. At least she likes soap operas. She reminds me of my grandmother who was the same way. Mother likes fantasy, science fiction and musicals. And my brother likes fantasy and science fiction. So, I'm not bereft.
1. Finished watching the first two episodes of FX's new Ryan Murphy series Grotesqueri - which stars Niecy Nash, Courtney B. Vance, Miceala Diamond, Nicholas A. Chavez, Raven Goodwin, and Lesley Mansville.
It's compelling and not what I expected. A police detective and a nun investigate a series of mass murders in a small town.
Mother: I thought you were burned out on serial killers?
ME: I am, but this is well done and about more than that?
Each of the murders is a commentary on Catholicism.
Wales: If Vance hears that - he'll get upset about it and want to shut it down.
Me: I doubt he knows it exists. We have so much content now, it's running under the radar.
Wales: True, we're drowned in content.
Specifically extreme Catholic and Religious devotion and practices. The police detective is struggling with her ex-husband, a philosophy professor who is trapped in a medical coma at a facility with a disreputable nurse who berates the detective for not spending more time with him. And her daughter - who's vice is over-eating, while the detective's vice is alcoholism. Murphy as always is a touch heavy on his metaphors. But less so here than in American Horror Story or Monsters. This one is a bit more understated in some respects.
The nun is a devotee of true crime, writes about crime, and is into serial killers. And the priest - flogs himself for his own desires and vices.
Yet, the performances, writing, and filmmaking are compelling and I couldn't look away. Also a creepy man in a hat walks around the detective's house at night - she can't quite see him, yet we do - his shadow in passing in another room, not quite in sight, almost out of the corner of our eye.
It's the creepiest thing.
2. Separation of Artist and Art
How do we handle art from people who have committed questionable acts?
But to pull away another layer? What if we were following the artist, maybe even a fan of the artist, and thought they were ethical, kind, and like-minded, only to find out in some way that they really aren't and we were wrong?
( Read more... )
3. Picked up another book via a Smart Bitches rec... The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
"Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.
Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.
But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds."
I got it for about $2.99 on Kindle.
I told Wales about the book. She gave me the side-eye. She doesn't like fantasy based solely on an ill-fated attempt to read CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. (I find it amusing that Chronicles of Narnia turned folks off of fantasy for life.)
ME: I bought it for $2 bucks.
Wales: Oh, okay, that's all I'd spend if that. Sounds dumb.
Sigh. I love Wales, but I really wish she'd broaden her cultural horizons. She doesn't like musicals, fantasy, science fiction (unless it's straight up horror same goes for fantasy) or comic books. At least she likes soap operas. She reminds me of my grandmother who was the same way. Mother likes fantasy, science fiction and musicals. And my brother likes fantasy and science fiction. So, I'm not bereft.