hermionesviolin | culture consumed (December, 2018) (Reply)

books

54 picture books
- including the remaining 9 categories from Minh Lê‏'s "Best Picture Books of 2017" [I powered through to get through this before the year was out -- and will not be repeating this exercise in 2019, since the ratio of "books I really liked" to "books on this list" was low.]
5 non-picturebooks
- The Stars Are Legion by Cameron Hurley (local sci-fi bookclub)
- Magical Princess Harriet: Chessed: World of Compassion by Leiah Moser -- a Jewish kid entering 7th grade learns they're a princess & nephilim are trying to take over their town. Their best friend is an autistic girl, and they make friends with a goth boy. #TagYourself
- How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
- Vergil's The Aeneid (Sarah Ruden's translation) and Ursula K. Le Guin's Lavinia (feminist sci-fi/fantasy book club)

live music

Handel and Haydn Society's Messiah with my mom -- I again lamented missing Quorum Boston's campy Messiah

live theatre

broadcast of National Theatre's Antony and Cleopatra (starring Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo) -- I continue to struggle with this play, because Cleopatra was a great ruler, but the text of this play presents her as so little able to govern in the face of her obsessive love/lust for Antony (like Dido in The Aeneid, it occurs to me #PatriarchalAuthors)
New Rep's 1776 with reflectedeve -- mixed-race and mixed-gender cast (Richard Henry Lee was hott!); I knew this musical romanticized Jefferson, but I had forgotten that he pushes for the abolition of slavery in this :/ Honestly, the slavery stuff was heart-breaking ("Mark me, Franklin, if we give in on this issue, posterity will never forgive us." -- yup, we shouldn't forgive you for that). Especially knowing Great Britain abolished slavery before the USA did (1833), I wondered whether we shouldn't have waited for independence until such time as we could abolish slavery as well -- though yes I know historical what-ifs are super-complicated.
The Christmas Revels: A Nordic Celebration of the Winter Solstice with my mom

movies

Five Fingers for Marseilles at the Brattle -- a South African spaghetti Western, which I was moderately interested in after seeing it in the Brattle newsletter and much more interested in after reading this WBUR review the Brattle RTed

It was not as dialogue-less as A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, but definitely not what I'm used to. Going in I thought I would be comparing it a lot to Son of Man (the only other South African film I've seen), but in going through films I've seen this year, I was reminded that I also saw the Zambian film I Am Not a Witch, which had a similar low-dialogue feel to it.
Die Hard -- fannish movie night
The Favourite (which la_dissonance billed as "drama lesbians")
Tangerine -- which is also a Christmas (Eve) movie, ftr
I felt like I've been to a lot of films at the Brattle this year and wondered if maybe I should get a membership next year and then I ran the numbers and apparently I've been to 12 movies and "Regular Membership $90 (for individuals) 12 free passes, plus the common items at top". (Yes, 4/12 of the films I saw were part of the Heroic!: Women Who Inspire repertory series, but who's to say something like that won't happen next year?)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Venom -- for the literal third time, for bonus fannish movie night

art

the MFA with my mom
- "Ansel Adams in Our Time"
- "Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic"
- part of "Making Modern" -- primarily "The Lane Collection: O’Keeffe, Sheeler, Dove" and "Kahlo and her Circle" -- which reminds me that I still need to email the MFA about why there was no Tina Modotti
- "Collecting Stories: Native American Art" as well as the regular collection a few floors down (I actually liked the latter better)

podcasts

burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness