Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time

'Millennia-spanning "last remnants of humanity" space opera sci-fi with intelligent giant spiders' hardly does it justice. Impressively gripping and plausible in working through its premises.

In Bruges

Rewatch. Still kind of fresh (as a movie, not in my memory). (last time)

George Saunders - Liberation Day

Four stories into Liberation Day, I was feeling pretty glum. For all of their characteristic close attention to the individuality of their protagonists, all of those first four are pretty much total downers in their focus on unredeemed bad systems ("Liberation Day"), people ("The Mom of Bold Action") and both ("A Thing at Work"), with "Love Letter", which I'd read before, the only partial exception and one of Saunders' weaker stories that I've read in its more or less overt Trump referencing and simplicity of polemic.

Then "Sparrow", which would've been a gift at any time, but especially after what came before it. I've read a lot of Saunders' thoughts on how he writes stories, and in "Sparrow" he turns that approach to what gradually reveals itself as a love story with a happy ending.

There's further range in the rest of the collection - notes of revolution ("Ghoul" and "Elliott Spencer") and emotional reckoning ("Mother's Day"), and the different-again tone of "My House". And through it all, that human-ness and sense of a gaze that, if not always forgiving exactly, is able to see people in some sense through their own eyes and as they might want to be seen, without forsaking the moral intelligence that always animates Saunders' writing. I doubt he'll ever touch Tenth of December - both for what it is and when I read it - but he sure is good and this latest is ample argument for that.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Continues the first one's riffs on colonialism while leaning further into the women and girls leading the action. A bit baggy and not as good, but still entertaining.

Elif Batuman - The Idiot

"Can't the American girl understand anything I'm saying?" he asked Rózsa as she got out the iodine.

"Nothing", said Rózsa.

"But I've heard her speak Hungarian."

"She imitates like a parrot."

"Parrot," I echoed.

Fábián's eyes widened. He lingered another moment, staring at me, then ran outside.

I don't have much to add from the first time I read this delightful, at once light and dense, coming-of-age (but not) novel. Still strikingly funny.

Zodiac

David Fincher, A-grade cast, sort of slow but also sort of involving.

2022: "Draw all your comparisons"

2022 soundtrack - on spotify.

1. Stay - Valerie June
The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers (Fantasy; 2021)

2. You And Me On The Rock - Brandi Carlile
In These Silent Days (Elektra; 2021)

3. Darkness Fades - Sharon Van Etten
We've Been Going About This All Wrong (Jagjaguwar; 2022)

4. Girl - Maren Morris
Girl (Columbia Nashville; 2019)

5. Time Escaping - Big Thief
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (4AD; 2022)

6. Good Will Hunting - Black Country, New Road
Ants From Up There (Ninja Tune; 2022)

7. Canola Fields - James McMurtry
The Horses And The Hounds (New West; 2021)

8. Merry Go 'Round - Kacey Musgraves
Same Trailer Different Park (Mercury Nashville; 2013)

9. Moon Meets The Sun - Our Native Daughters
Songs Of Our Native Daughters (Smithsonian Folkways; 2019)

10. All The Flowers - Angel Olsen
Big Time (Jagjaguwar; 2022)

11. Out Of My Head - First Aid Kit
Palomino (Columbia; 2022)

Sharon Van Etten. For me, Are We There and Remind Me Tomorrow are all-timers - two of the few to've been added to my personal canon in the last 10 or 15 years - and this year there was We've Been Going About This All Wrong, which more and more is feeling like three in a row. Murderously good.

Brandi Carlile. Consistent quality, more or less unadorned. Just great, timeless songs.

Kacey Musgraves. Back to her first major label album thanks to Her Country and its playlist, which was also the pathway to Maren Morris, Our Native Daughters and more.

First Aid Kit. Closer to my heart than just about any other band that might possibly be near its peak right now, and Palomino is as good as anything else they've done.

"Freedom of Movement: Contemporary Art and Design from the NGV Collection" (NGV International)

Small and well-curated selection of contemporary works from the collection, most of which I'd seen before and was happy to re-encounter.

nendo manga chairs (2015)

David Altmejd - "Mother 1 (Relatives)" (2018), soundtracked by Shilpa Gupta's "Untitled (Rock)" (2012-15) in the most gothic room I've visited in some time

Alex Prager - "Face in the Crowd" (2013) - an old friend and always welcome

Yamagami Yukihiro - "Shinjuku Calling" (2014) which is lovely for all the obvious reasons and no less so for the obviousness

The Hunger Games, Catching Fire & Mockingjay pts 1 & 2

Still feels righteous.

Previously: 1, again, 2, 3 (pt 1), 2 & 3 (pts 1 & 2)

"Rigg Design Prize 2022" (NGV Australia)

Eight advertising agencies invited to develop campaigns promoting the importance of creativity. They mostly didn't really jump out at me - maybe partly because of the 'gallery' setting where they were installed and partly because of the fuzziness of the concept to which they were responding.

(w/ R)

First Aid Kit - Palomino

As golden as ever. First Aid Kit keep on being wonderful, even if the songs on Palomino mostly don't leap out in the same way as the highlights of their older albums.

Bird Box

Pretty generic post-apocalyptic thriller.