culture consumed (September, 2025)

[hermionesviolin]

Combination of trying to distract myself from being upset during Abby visiting her LDR the beginning of September, and me getting sick near the end of September, I ended up watching a lot of movies and reading a lot of low-key books.

***

books

• [picturebook] Glenn Burke, Game Changer: The Man Who Invented the High Five written by Phil Bildner & illustrated by Daniel J. O'Brien (from the Lammys this year).
  This was darker than I was expecting, which makes sense given the facts of Burke's life (which I didn't know until reading this book)
  
  
• [Sept 28 OOYL book club] One of the Boys by Victoria Zeller (2025) -- trans-fem high school football player, YA
  This was, as advertised, quite good (I have not-yet-very-articulated thoughts about how this book and Emily St. James' Woodworking, also a 2025 release, feel like Trans 201 books).
  Frankie moved to Beehiiv around in time for me to upgrade to a paid subscription and register for the book club -- which the author was present for, and it was mostly Frankie asking the author questions (which was fine, to be clear, just not exactly what I had expected).
  
  
• A Shore Thing by Joanna Lowell (2024) -- Victorian romance with a cis woman and a trans man
  I enjoyed this.
  
  
• Simplicity by Mattie Lubchansky (2025) -- graphic novel
  Mattie's work continues to not particularly be for me.
  
  
• [September 29 online local-ish sff book club] Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis (2024)
  I enjoyed this.
  
  
• The Prospects by K.T. Hoffman (2024) -- baseball romance: gay trans man/cis man; the first/previous fiction book Out Of Your League book club did (June 2025)
  I also enjoyed this, though ugh, romances stress me out sometimes
  & then I listened to the Gender Reveal bonus episode
  
  
• [September 24 DEI book club -- Hispanic Heritage Month] Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez (2023, 304 pages) --graphic novel memoir about the author's childhood in Cuba under Castro and his family leaving as part of the Mariel boatlift in 1980
  This was heavier than I expected. I also had not realized it would include contemporary stuff about the rise of authoritarianism in the USA with Trump (the author being disturbed by how much the USA was coming to resemble the Cuba he had left).
  

films

• Superman (2025)
  
  
• KPop Demon Hunters (2025, Netflix) -- which I enjoyed, though I did not love it as much as some of the Internet
  
  
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) -- a Marvel movie I hadn't gotten around to watching before, which I enjoyed; alas that Xiran Jay Xhao's Twitter thread of Chinese culture references is no longer accessible
  
  
• Thunderbolts* (2025) -- a recent Marvel movie

live theatre

• [CST] Silent Sky w/ Cate [mobile program]

  1900. Cambridge. Enthralled by the night sky, Henrietta Leavitt joins the Harvard Computers, a sisterhood of scientists who chronicle the stars. Despite dismissal from her male supervisors, she records her own observations of Cepheid stars and changes the way we look at the universe forever. Sarah Shin (The Chinese Lady) returns to direct what the San Francisco Chronicle calls “sheer magic,” by the author of past favorites The Half-Life of Marie Curie and Emilie La Marquise du Chatalet Defends Her Life Tonight, Lauren Gunderson.

  We enjoyed it -- though in looking up more about Henrietta after the play, we were disappointed by how much the playwright made up for dramatic effect.
  
  
• [Ufot #6] The Ceremony w/ Cate and Sarah J+Sam

  When Abasiama and Disciple’s only son, Ekong asks Lumanthi Rathi to be his wife, they accept that their dream wedding might have to go on without either of their fathers present. But when Lumanti’s dad has a sudden change of heart, Ekong dares to attempt a reconciliation with his long-estranged father in order to make the ritual of their wedding ceremony truly whole. 
  
  A moving, multigenerational story that intertwines Nigerian and Nepali cultural traditions, The Ceremony is a joyous, tender reckoning of love and the rituals that bind us, brought to life by CHUANG Stage, in partnership with Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and Boston University School of Theatre, catalyzed by the Huntington.

  I was recovering from being sick, but the whole run was sold out (though there was a waitlist, with moderately good odds, for future performances) so I masked and Cate was able to drive me, and I'm glad I was able to make it.
  It was opening weekend, and we stayed for a conversation with the creatives afterward, and apparently not only was this a world premiere, but the playwright was making edits up until 2 days before opening night.
  
  
• [Emerson] Confederates w/ Bridget -- student actors, faculty director, I think (we were having dinner that night already, and Bridget invited me to join her for the show)

  By Dominique Morisseau
  Directed by Kimille Howard
  

  Confederates is a funny, smart and moving satire about the struggles and triumphs of two brilliant Black American women – an enslaved rebel and a professor at a contemporary university – having parallel experiences of institutional racism, though they live over a century apart.

  “CONFEDERATES” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc.

  This was really good.

other

• After watching The Ceremony, I finally started listening to the runboyrun podcast (Ufot #3, but while the 2-night live reading was in March of this year, the podcast wasn't actually up until June-July of this year).  There are 3 episodes, each of which has an accompanying bonus episode that's an interview with involved/affilliated people. I have so far listened to the first 2 regular+bonus episodes.
  
  It was kind of serendipitous timing to listen to this right after The Ceremony, because Disciple is increasingly absent in the cycle but re-emerges in The Ceremony (and is the center of runboyrun).

***

Currently Reading:

[bff book club] Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction by Shira Hassan (with Foreword by adrienne maree brown & Introduction by Tourmaline) (2022) -- a couple weeks in September we didn't get to the week's chapter because we were catching up on other stuff (though then one week we read 2 chapters because they were quite short and thematically connected), and we'll miss a couple weeks in October while ze is on honeymoon, but we have only about 10 "chapters" left, so the end is arguably in sight?  (It's a long book, and most of the chapters are quite short, so it has kind of felt like we'd be reading it low-key forever.)

[Sept 10 climate change book club] What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (2024) -- I ended up having a conflict for the meeting, but did end up starting to read the book and was into it more than I was expecting ... though I have also had a lot else going on, and it's a long book, so I'm currently less than halfway through

[Oct 8 climate change book club] Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins (2015) -- as predicted, I was not super into this; I got about 1/4 of the way through and have put it aside with expectation to DNF, though possibly bookclub discussion will convince me to try it again.

Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders (2025) -- I had gotten this from the library as part of my "lighter reading" and it is not quite.
I sometimes wonder if it's trying to do too much -- though I increasingly see how these various threads are weaving together (I'm about 60% of the way through rn).

Reading Next:

As usual, my predictions are primarily book club books, and also I don't expect to read all all of my October book club books.

October book club book overview:

[Oct 7 Read the Rainbow] The Hours by Michael Cunningham (1998) -- I read this in college (in a Tellings and Retellings class along with Mrs. Dalloway) and am not that interested in reading it again, though I did get both books out from the library.

[Oct 18 Indian Food, Indian Fiction] Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan (2020) -- mystery set in Bombay on the eve of 1950, with a female detective
I have never actually made it to this MeetUp book club, but I sometimes read the book (only sometimes, since Indian novels tend to be hella long); amusingly, the last book I read for this book club was also a mystery: A Disappearance in Fiji by Nilima Rao (2023), set in colonial Fiji in 1914 (for July 2024).

[Oct 29 DEI book club] Horse Barbie: A Memoir of Reclamation by Geena Rocero (2024)

October is both Filipino American History Month & LGBT History Month, and getting people to pick a theme for October's book club was challenging.

There aren't a lot of LGBT Filipino American books (especially ones that are actually available at local libraries), but I did find some options:

• Flamer by Mike Curato (2020, 366 pages) -- YA graphic novel, fiction but based on the gay Filipino-American author's own experiences
• Horse Barbie: A Memoir of Reclamation by Geena Rocero (2024, 336 pages) -- memoir by a trans woman who moves from Manila to the U.S.
  
• Fairest: A Memoir by Meredith Talusan (2020, 310 pages) -- Filipina trans woman with albinism who immigrates to the U.S. as a teenager
  
• America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo (2018, 408 pages) -- novel by Filipino-American writer, one character is queer, "Three generations of women from one immigrant family trying to reconcile the home they left behind with the life they're building in America. [...] Illuminating the violent political history of the Philippines in the 1980s and 1990s and the insular immigrant communities that spring up in the suburban United States"

After I had posted a StrawPoll of LGBT Filipino American books I dug up myself because no one had expressed a preference between the two themes or nominated any books themselves, A. (who started the book club) posted in the Slack: "thank you for being the foundation of this group haha"

Then we had a tie between the first 2 books -- but someone did cast a tie-breaking vote.  And I've been thinking about reading Horse Barbie for a while (I suggested it for Read the Rainbow book club this year -- though I always have a whole list of suggestions, so I dunno if the facilitator will end up including this book on this year's list; right now we only have books scheduled through November).

[Oct 31 work book club] Strange Houses by Uketsu
This book got picked at the Sept 26 meeting (which I skipped); I put in a library hold about as soon as I got the invite, and was 17/17 on the hold list. So who knows if I'll even get a copy. (Though I'm already down to 11/13 on the hold list, so it seems to be moving fairly quickly.) It's a horror mystery thriller something for Halloween, and idk if I'll even wanna read it, but.

[Edit: Oct 22 this book was In Transit to me.  I swear I had looked a day or maybe two before and I was "5 of 17."  It came in for me on Oct 24, but I was moving the next day and didn't pick it up until Oct 27.  It was a 2-week loan, which helps explain why a copy came in for me so quickly.  I was reading other stuff for early November book clubs and had limited brain for reading (I had just moved *and* just broken up), so did not read it.  I considered going to the book club meeting anyway, but was very tired that day and skipped.]

Comments

[lunabee34]

I just watched Superman too and really liked it.