Book review: If There Is Something to Desire; also a reading challenge update

I was sick during the beginning of February and felt very mentally lethargic, even more so than usual. So I got behind on my ideal schedule to accomplish my reading challenge for this year, which is to read at least one book per every letter of the alphabet. 

In order to complete the challenge within a year, I should read at least one book every two weeks, which works out to two books per month. Per the terms of the challenge, I decided that any book counts towards it as long as it's primarily text and written for an adult audience (so no picture books, like Goodnight Moon).

If There Is Something to Desire, by Vera Pavlova

I found out about this collection of poetry when I was looking for some contemporary Russian literature available in English translation. It was mentioned in the same list as The Hall of Singing Caryatids. I found this poetry overall very mediocre and didn't really want to finish the book, but I managed to push through because almost all of the 100 poems are very short (like 15 lines or fewer). 

I don't know if the mediocrity of the poetry is due to poor translation, or if they are similarly mediocre in the original Russian (if you can read and understand Russian). Apparently, this poet is pretty popular in Russia. The poetry was rather terse and bland. Sex was a recurring topic, and it wasn't done in an artful way. 

There was maybe about 20% (at most) of the poems or lines that I liked, but on the whole, I did not like this poetry. It mostly made me feel bored and a little exasperated because I didn't like it. Good poetry makes you feel intrigued and/or maybe emotionally moved in some (positive) way. And/or impressed by how good it is. 

In general, I prefer poetry that's more descriptive and involves more metaphor or other creative, unique use of language. Poetry that sets an interesting scene and layers it with some kind emotion. 

Progress of the reading challenge

So far, I've read 6 books this year, including the one I reviewed in this post. So actually, I'm back on schedule now due to recently finishing Mickey7 and If There Is Something to Desire. Both were pretty quick reads, so it still feels a little bit like I was slacking by not reading something more involved and dense. 

I've reviewed some of the books here, though there are others I did not end up posting a full review of. I might do brief reviews of those that do not warrant their own posts and compile it into a single post. Books I have read but not yet reviewed: Grapefruit, by Yoko Ono. I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman. They Were Soldiers by Ann Jones.   

Actors, like James D'Arcy

In the last few years, I haven't really kept up with the recent (or not so recent) work of various actors I proclaim to like. It takes time to watch movies and TV series and most of the time, it feels like I'm not in the right mindset to sit down and commit to watching a given movie or series that some actor has been in. 

The most recent thing I watched starring an actor I like was "Memory," for Peter Sarsgaard. It is actually a significant time and effort commitment to try and watch all or most of a given actor's (or director's) filmography, and I have to say I've not accomplished that goal for any actor or director. 

Yes, I'm slacking on my duties as a so-called fan of these actors. Because I was impressed with Robert Pattinson's performance in Mickey 17, I might try and take a look at his past work to see if anything looks interesting enough to watch. 

Anyways, in my recent review of Mickey 17, I mentioned some actors I think might have been better to cast in the role of the primary villain, the spaceship's commander. One of them was Peter Sarsgaard, and another was James D'Arcy, a British actor who is probably (?) lesser known than Peter Sarsgaard. It's been awhile since I've watched anything with him in it, but I seem to have the recollection that he tends to play characters that are a bit cold and icy, or at least that's what's most memorable to me. 

Interestingly, I just found out that James D'Arcy had some smaller role in the major film "Oppenheimer."* He's had a small role in some Marvel stuff too, but I don't care about superhero garbage. I think he plays someone's assistant, or something. 

Anyways, I wanted to see what he has been in over the last few years that I haven't been keeping up with that, so I was going to look at a fan website (jamesdarcy.net) I remembered looking at in the olden days. Unfortunately, it appears that fan website no longer exists, and the Facebook page for it has not been updated since spring of 2022. There are some archives of the site on the Wayback Machine, showing the site itself was last updated in 2020 and went down sometime between 2022 and 2023. 

I have no idea what happened there and why the site ceased to exist. It's disappointing to me, so this blog may have to also take up the mantle of a part-time unofficial James D'Arcy fan site too. I hope Peter Sarsgaard doesn't get jealous (I'm being sarcastic. No one even reads my blog, much less these actors. It's okay though, I still like them. I think it might be kind of embarrassing for them to read it, in any case). 

It also made me think of Kaitlyn Tiffany's now-defunct Jake Gyllenhaal newsletter, which was titled "Our Bodies Are Controlled by the Moon," which apparently was drawn from something Jake Gyllenhaal had said. It was published via Tinyletter and I thought maybe the archives would still be up even though she stopped writing it some years back, but Tinyletter shut down too, so no dice there. 

A belated goodbye to these figments of the old internet...       

* He posts sporadically on Instagram. Back when Oppenheimer was going to premiere, he posted an image of the poster with the caption "I can't believe they forgot to put my name at the top. In theatres 7/21/23. Or 21/7/23 if you like your dates the right way round." My impression from interviews and such is that James D'Arcy has a dry sense of humor. Maybe because he's British? 

10 year blogaversary!!

I was looking at how a recent post looks on my blog (instead of just the post editor) and saw the sidebar with the blog archive widget (I <3 old school web design, which is why this blog looks so outdated. It will remain so. Pry this theme from my cold, dead hands.). Looking at that, I realized that it's my 10 year blogaversary! Or rather, was in January, but it's still relatively early in the year, so close enough. 

It feels satisfying in a small way to have maintained a blog continuously for so long, even though at times the posts were extremely sporadic. Still, I posted at least a few times every year of this blog's existence. I'm sure there's plenty of stuff in the archives that's rather cringeworthy, but I'm keeping that all up for the sake of posterity. I hope to continue to make posts about "a... unique topic." 

It's actually rather strange to think about, the more I think about it. There's random stuff from the past 10 years that at some point I thought about and decided to make blog posts about. Isn't it strange to think about, having a blog that's been around since 2015? It feels like almost an entirely different era by now, and honestly, it kind of was. But this blog has been around all this time, chronicling (some) things I've thought about over the course of that time period. I have grown up and changed in some ways since then, but in other ways I think I'm relatively the same. 

I am/can be an extremely verbose person, which this blog allows me to have an outlet for even if no one reads it. If you do read it, whoever you are, thanks, I guess? I'm honestly not sure what anyone might get out of reading this blog, but that's the reader's prerogative. 

I <3 blogs. I wish blogging would make a comeback, just people writing blogs about all sorts of stuff (like this one!). General personal blogs, blogs about a specific interest, all kinds of blogs. Blogging feels like the anti-Instagram, the anti-Tiktok in this day and age. No algorithms, no filters, just words and sometimes photos. A vestige of the old internet. Blog like it's 2005, or 2010, or 2015. It's what newsletters are supposed to be. GTFO of here with long-form "newsletters" in my "inbox." Just make a blog, cowards.  

And since it's now the 14th, happy pi day! 3.14.25    

Movie review: Mickey 17

This is also partially a book review because I read the book prior to seeing the movie. I saw a poster for this movie in a theater lobby, which intrigued me enough that I looked into more information about it. I found out that it was based on a book, Mickey7. This review contains some spoilers for Mickey 17 and The Substance.

Mickey7, book

The book was a relatively quick read. It was published within the last few years, so it's fairly recent. I thought the premise was pretty interesting, although the execution by this author wasn't my favorite. I would've found it more interesting if a different author had written something with this premise, such as Murakami. 

Additionally, the book had a rather young-adult fiction writing style, which isn't my favorite. I prefer books that are a bit more literary in style, or at the very least, are not written in the style of YA, even if they're not high literature either. 

Still, I found it interesting enough to finish and the concepts it involves are interesting to think about, even if the author could have approached them in a more artful and skilled manner. For some reason I don't feel like I can remember much detail about the book, even though I read it within the last week or two. I think that I wished it had addressed the premise/themes in a deeper way somehow, rather than being more surface level.

 

However, in some ways, the book did delve a bit deeper than the movie did. The ship of Theseus idea is specifically discussed in the book, and Mickey ends up using his spare time to read about what caused the success or failures of other space colonies, wondering what implications that might have for the planet he has traveled to. There's also some more depth in what's going on with the strange worm-like creatures inhabiting the planet. 

Mickey 17, movie

This movie was directed by Bong Joon Ho and starred Robert Pattinson as the eponymous character, Mickey 17. I was curious about what the adaptation would be like. I have not watched any other work by Bong Joon Ho, or Robert Pattinson (aside from maybe some of the Twilight series, years ago. I was somewhat interested in the series around the ages of 10 - 13, which is when it was really popular). 

The movie differs rather substantially from the book. Although there are similarities in some of the broader elements, much of the details were changed, including some of the plot. I was hoping that the movie would take a deeper approach to some of the ideas in the book, but this wasn't really the case. The movie went in a different direction than the book, and the themes and/or emphasis were changed. 

Thematically and tonally, the movie was somewhat disjointed. There were a lot of different elements that just didn't get explored too deeply. Robert Pattinson's acting was very superb and he really managed to embody the two versions of his character. There's a certain intensity (and depth?) to his performance that reminds me of Peter Sarsgaard a bit. 

I thought that Robert Pattinson didn't really look like I expected him to for some reason. My mental image of him is more like a vague recollection of what he looked like in the Twilight series, which is different enough than what he looks like in this movie and maybe in real life too. In this movie, his hair was darker and not as curly or tousled looking. In Twilight/etc, I think his hair was more coppery (lighter in color, I guess from highlights of some sort) and had a slightly curly texture. He also had vampire makeup for that series to make him appear very pale and sparkly. He was rather pale in Mickey 17 too, but not sparkly. He appeared very hairless (regarding body hair) in this movie, which I'm not sure if that's how he naturally is, or whether he was shaved and/or waxed to look like that. In any case, he's an attractive man. 

Pattinson played his character rather straight and seriously, which is in extreme contrast to the caricatured performance that Mark Ruffalo gave as the movie's primary villain, the commander/caption of the space expedition. I found this juxtaposition rather disjointed and Ruffalo's performance and character seemed out of place with how the rest of the characters were portrayed. 

I would have preferred to see a more subtle and sinister or ominous portrayal of the villain, instead of a bombastic, over-the-top demagogue. Although the movie was originally filmed a couple of years ago, Ruffalo's character is like a strange Trump-Musk amalgamation. I could actually see Peter Sarsgaard playing this role how I envision it, or maybe Jeff Goldblum? Perhaps even James D'Arcy. I'm not familiar with Ruffalo's other work so I can't really say whether he's generally a mediocre actor, or it's just this performance that wasn't great. 

I also possibly would have liked if the movie had a different director, someone who'd emphasize the more surreal and deeper ideas/elements rather than trying to incorporate a significant campy, satiri-comical tone. Maybe someone like Darren Aronofsky? 

The ending of the movie (which is a little similar to the book, but also has significant changes) was a bit contrived too. Ultimately, I don't think it necessarily benefited from the plot and other changes that were made in the adaptation, particularly the way the commander character was built into something rather different than the analogous character from the book, and the impact of that on the plot. 

In an interview I read prior to seeing the movie, Pattinson did mention that he was surprised about how the director adapted the source material. It might be more enjoyable to watch this movie without having read the book first, because it doesn't feel like a highly satisfying adaptation of the source material. In some ways, the source material is rather corrupted in the adaptation. 

I wish the movie had been more of a character study (of Mickey) since it would be an interesting way to explore the premise. It also would've benefited from more development of Mickey and Nasha's relationship, as well as the other woman that sort of almost gets involved in a love triangle. The book does this at least somewhat better, if I recall correctly. 

I would have liked to see more reflection from both/either Mickey and Nasha about the strange situation with there being two of him and what they thought about it. In the movie, Nasha is eager to have a threesome with the twin Mickeys (the threesome also occurs in the book) and does notice the difference in their personalities. She describes 17 as mild Mickey and 18 as habanero Mickey, but doesn't end up addressing these differences further. 

I thought it was interesting that there's a tenuous connection to the premise of The Substance, but Mickey 17 takes a very different approach to it. 

The common premise in these two movies is the idea of having two bodies, which are two versions of yourself that are both technically supposed to be you, but they're at odds with each other in some way, and are different from each other in some way(s). 

In Mickey 17, he ends up with two versions of himself unintentionally and is part of a larger crew of people in a space colony, whereas in The Substance, Elisabeth voluntarily takes a substance to create a better version of herself and is rather isolated personally. The Substance, overall, was much more expertly executed in terms of the direction and plot. I also enjoyed its allusions to Requiem for a Dream and some of Kubrick's work.  

In both, it was interesting to see how the different bodies/versions of the character were foils for each other. Since the context and premise of the movies are pretty different, this foil effect plays out in distinct ways. Both Mickeys are physically the same, but differ somewhat in personality. Mickey 18 is more diabolical than the hapless and nervous Mickey 17. 

Elisabeth is using the different, younger body of Sue to live vicariously, trying to relive Elisabeth's former glory. Her desire to continue living as Sue instead of Elisabeth ultimately leads to Elisabeth's destruction. Mickey 18 holds a bit of disdain and disregard for 17, and for some reason is more diabolical than his previous version. The reasons for him being more diabolical are never directly explained. Perhaps it's just a reaction to being confronted with a duplicate version of himself, putting them both at risk in the context of the ship's regulations?       

   

Overall, I did like the movie and would probably watch it again at some point, it's just that are there some aspects of it I have criticism of and think should have been done differently. It was somewhat underwhelming relative to what I think/wish it could have been. I like this review on Reddit that also discusses the differences between the movie and book.

I took a look at AO3 to see what fan fiction about the movie exists, though it seems like the majority of it involves clone sex because I guess people just wanted to get their freak on and write about that. Personally, I think that's one of the more uninteresting ideas that could be explored in fan fiction for this movie. 

Movie review: The Substance

I just now finished watching this movie [at the time of starting to write this review]. It is a newer movie that premiered in theaters in September 2024 [it was originally shown at Cannes Film Festival earlier that year] and I think it may be up for an Oscar in some category or other [it is nominated in five categories: Demi Moore for leading actress, Coralie Fargeat for director, makeup and hairstyling, Best Picture, and writing for original screenplay]. I don't remember hearing about this movie when it was originally in theaters, only within the last couple of days, which probably had something to do with the Oscars. 

I watched the trailer and was intrigued. In order to thoroughly discuss the movie, this review will contain spoilers. The premise involves an aging celebrity who is offered a chance to take a Substance that will create a better, more perfect version of herself. This movie is a drama with body horror. It's also somewhat meta, about fame and celebrity and the entertainment industry's focus on beauty and youth. 

The way the Substance works is that it creates a second body for the person who takes it. The new body contains the same mind/consciousness as the original body, just in a better exterior package. Each body can be inhabited for seven days in a row, and then they are supposed to be switched out. The person is reminded repeatedly that both bodies are still them, rather than two completely separate people. While one body is not being inhabited, it exists in some kind of stasis (eyes open) and is fed intravenously. 

The Substance is something that is injected and is a neon yellow liquid. This causes the new body, the Other Self, to emerge from an opening down the spine of the old body, as if the old body were a cocoon. While inhabiting the Other Self/new body, the person is supposed to inject themselves daily with a Stabilizer fluid that is withdrawn from the old body (while it is in stasis). 

Things begin to go wrong when the main character tries to extend her time in the Other Self body beyond the specified seven days at a time. 

This movie was pleasingly surreal in the way that I like, which I describe as light surrealism. To specify further, I like surrealism that has some dystopian or unsettling/darker element to it as well. 

I feel like there's possibly some Greek myth allusion here but I can't think of which one. In various different ways, the movie reminded me of the conceptual video artwork Safe Conduct, Cinderella, The Picture of Dorian Grey and Requiem for a Dream. (Requiem for a Dream and Safe Conduct are some of my favorite things). 

It has the surreal body horror elements like Safe Conduct, the changing states of Cinderella, a changing version of oneself that's kind of metaphorical like The Picture of Dorian Grey [please note I haven't actually read that, I just have a vague idea of its premise], and some cinematography that's similar to Requiem for a Dream (repeated motifs, closeups of eyes, injections, also a manic scene). Also, Demi Moore resembles Jennifer Connelly quite a bit. I would also say there are cinematographic similarities to some of Stanley Kubrick's work, like The Shining or A Clockwork Orange (in that some scenes in The Substance seem to allude to scenes in those Kubrick movies, and perhaps some more distant thematic similarities too). 

It was left vague as to when exactly the movie was supposed to take place. It has a bit of a 1980s aesthetic, including the fact that the main character Elisabeth and her younger version Sue are stars of a dance-exercise television show and wear 80s-inspired dance leotards and legwarmers. Additionally, the interiors of various buildings/rooms have a 1980s-esque look too. However, a smartphone is featured occasionally in the movie, as well as a modern-day flat screen TV and a flash drive. These are the only things that hint at it taking place in the 2010s, at least. 

I thought it was a very thought-provoking movie and I'm almost a little surprised that it was a more mainstream movie, since it seems a bit out there. I'm not really sure what the overall/prevailing opinion of it is (among professional movie critics as well as the general public), although it seems like the kind of thing that not everyone would find appealing or interesting.

It makes me ponder about whether I would choose to take the Substance that could create a more perfect version of myself. Whether I would take it right now in my life, or perhaps at some future point when I'm older (like Elisabeth's age in the movie). The idea of being able to intermittently inhabit a more perfect version of oneself is quite interesting to think about in the theoretical sense. 

In the movie, it seems that the Substance is primarily intended to create a more perfect physical version of the person, rather than substantially altering their inner personality and mind. However, Elisabeth-Sue behaves differently depending on which body she is inhabiting at a given time, even though it's emphasized that the person in each body is one and the same. But I'm not necessarily sure if this was the Substance creating a new/different personality for Sue's body, or if it was more like some sort of 'physical determinism' -- the fact that she was living in Sue's perfect body caused her to act differently than she did in Elisabeth's older, less perfect body, and vice versa. 

Personally, when I think of taking a Substance that creates a more perfect version of myself, there are a few physical things that would change to become more "perfect," but there are also a number of personality/mental changes that I also think of as being part of a "more perfect" version of myself. If anything, the personality/mental changes take precedence in my mind over the physical aspect of a Substance-induced better version of myself. I don't know if everyone else would think the same way in terms of what changes a more perfect version of themselves entails. 

If I were able to take a Substance that creates a "better" version of myself, would I begin to resent the original, inferior version of myself and/or the "better" version as well?

Some themes or concepts this movie addresses are vanity, beauty, self-esteem and body image, hedonism, and trade offs. What is beauty (and youth) worth? What would you do in order to become more beautiful, more perfect? What would you be willing to trade? 

If you were sapping life out of your old body (and making it increasingly more decrepit) in order to sustain the more perfect Other Self, would you find that an acceptable trade off to make? If you did take the Substance like in the movie, would you be able to stick to the schedule of seven days in each body, or would you become tempted to extend your time as the Other Self at the expense of your original body? 

A potential takeaway from this movie is that it's better to be happy or at peace with your existing body instead of trying to make loaded trade offs in exchange for a more perfect body. 

Further reading: an interview with the costume designer for the movie. The leotards and yellow coat were custom-made for the movie. 

Book review: The Hall of Singing Caryatids

I have made a goal of reading at least one book per each letter of the alphabet this year. It remains to be seen whether I'll accomplish this goal, but making it in the first place is the first step. The list of books already exists but I won't publish that in full, as it's more suspenseful to reveal it one by one as I finish and review a given book. 

The first book I'm reviewing here is a novella by Victor Pelevin, originally published in Russian. I wanted to see what contemporary Russian fiction (available in an English translation) existed out there and this is one of the first books I came across. The original Russian version was published in 2008, and the English version was published in 2011 (translated by Andrew Bromfield). 

Apparently the author is very popular in Russia. I had never heard of him before this week, so he isn't particularly well known in the US. In fact, I can only think of two contemporary authors (21st century, let's say) whose translated works became very popular in the US: Haruki Murakami (1Q84) and Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and subsequent books; originally published in Swedish with a different title). And even those aren't all that recent. 

I didn't know much about what I was getting into with this book at the start. I was aware of the basic premise: the main character, along with a number of other women, are recruited to become singing models ("caryatids") in a secret underground club for Russian oligarchs. It is about that, but it also has a surreal element that was a bit of a surprise to me. I don't think I realized it would be surreal until I read far enough into the book where the surreal things begin to appear. 

I don't want to spoil how it's surreal, but I did find the surrealism quite intriguing. I wasn't expecting it to have the type of surrealism I enjoy, but it did. It reminded me a bit of how Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 is surreal. It also reminded me a bit of the music video for the song Lights by the band Interpol.

It ends in a bit of an abrupt way, which isn't my favorite, but it does come to a neat climax with the ending. I'd be interested in reading more books like this one and/or by this author, if there are any others available in translation. Personally, I quite enjoyed this novella although I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to everyone, since it is somewhat bizarre in its surreal elements. If you like surreal things, such as 1Q84, I would recommend this novella. 

On a mildly related and tangential note, I read something interesting the other day about the current state of the Russian publishing industry and censorship of authors who write about topics the Russian government doesn't approve of: ‘The number of words you can say keeps shrinking’ Meduza investigates how wartime censorship has (and hasn’t) reshaped Russia’s book industry

Museum exhibition review?

I might start trying to do these? It will add a new dimension to the content of this blog. It seems a bit more difficult to write museum exhibition reviews since it's not as common to see other examples of for reference. I'm not entirely sure what kinds of things are typically touched upon in such reviews.

This attempt at a review is about the Impressionist painting exhibit that is currently on view in the National Gallery of Art, west building. It is available until 19 January 2025 and I intend to go see it again at least once. 

It contains primarily Impressionist paintings, although a decent portion of the paintings are not strictly impressionist. Those are include for contrast, demonstrating the more conventional style of the time. I didn't find these as interesting. There are also some works in other mediums, like etchings, watercolor, pastels. 

The exhibition is pretty dense and contains a substantial amount of artwork. It took 2 hours for me to look at the entire thing, perusing most of the artwork pretty closely. The time spent in this exhibition depends on how long you want to contemplate each work, and how many you just look at very briefly. 

On the whole, it was a lot for me to process, taking it all in. By the time I finished looking at this exhibition, I felt I had more or less reached my threshold for the amount of artwork I had the ability to process in-depth for the day. 

Representative artwork (even if it is loose and impressionistic) entails a different way of thinking about it than conceptual artwork does. I don't know if I have a higher threshold for the amount of conceptual artwork I can process per day. 

It was also pretty crowded in the exhibition because it was very popular. There was a line at the entrance, but the wait wasn't too long (on a Wednesday, shortly after the museum opened). There were a lot of old people viewing the artwork at the time I was there. But I suppose that's the primary demographic of people who have free time in the middle of a Wednesday to go to museums. 

The entire NGA is pretty expansive, and there were many gallery rooms of the permanent collection that I did not get a chance to look at. I don't think it's possible to thoroughly look at everything in the museum in a single day. It might take closer to a week or something like that.