December Recommendations, part 2

[lirazel]

Dec 12:

I realized I hadn't done one today, so I'm adapting another post into a rec!

Tam Lin by Pamela Dean is a unique fantasy novel.

The title leads you to think it's going to be a retelling of the ballad, and it...kind of is, at the end, anyway. But most of the book is just about a bunch of undergrad literature/Classics majors running around a small liberal arts college in the 1970s while vaguely supernatural things happen around them. It's a very odd book but I love it lots.

Dec 13:

If you ever found yourself going, "Wtf was going on in D.C. on January 6, 2021???" then have I got the podcast series for you.

Straight White American Jesus did a series called Charismatic Revival Fury that focuses on the New Apostolic Reformation, a contemporary US religious movement that does not get much attention but that is HUGELY influential on US politics.

It's 8 episodes long and gives you all the background you need to understand this very weird, very scary, very powerful strain of white American Christianity.

Dec 14:

I am super excited that Onew's Circle (link goes to the whole album on YouTube) got named the best Kpop album of the year by Billboard. Because it is and also because I love seeing my faves acknowledged.

I am Ron Swanson: "I think all awards are stupid, but they'd be less stupid if they went to the right people."

It's one of the world's great injustices that it took this long for SM to finally let him release a full album, but it was worth the wait. It's so perfect and whether we ever get another one after this, I am just glad we got this one.

Thanks, Jinki!

Dec 15:

White Christmas is an 8-episode Korean drama that aired on KBS in 2011. For those of you for whom this means something: it was written by Park Yeon-seon who also wrote another of my favorite kdramas Age of Youth (streaming on Netflix as Hello, My Twenties).

But this show is tonally nothing like Age of Youth. It's a psychological thriller and not a slice-of-life drama, but I love it as much as I love Age of Youth.

The premise: It's Christmas break for Susin High, an elite private school--so elite, in fact, that only the top 1% of students in the country can get in. Susin is already a place of cut-throat competition and a bad environment for anyone who cares about mental health. But things are about to get a lot worse.

In the days leading up to Christmas break, seven students receive black envelopes containing a threatening and ominous message, asking them to stay behind at the school over break.

So when everyone else packs up and leaves for the holiday, those seven students and one teacher/chaperone are left in this glass labyrinth of building in the mountains, miles away from the nearest town. A stranded stranger survives a car wreck nearby and stumbles to the school to ask for shelter.

And then, of course, there's a snowfall, trapping them there until New Year's Day.

And people start dying...

The characters are (almost) all damaged teenagers who have tons of baggage--the school bully, the school prankster, the model student, the school sweetheart who's turned into a bad girl, the neurodivergent kid, etc. All of them are interesting and compelling and all of them are really hurting. They're smart, smart enough that sometimes you forget how young they're supposed to be, and then they'll do or say something that reminds you, "Oh, yeah, these are just kids." I love to make jokes about my murder babies, but I sincerely love all of them. (Me earlier that day: I never cared for Mooyul.)

And the modus operandi of the villain (if this show can be said to have something as conventional as a villain) is to use each kid's trauma against them. They're trapped in this labyrinth with their own pain and with the question that hangs over everything: are monsters born or made?

The plot is twisty, in a "look what human beings will do" kind of way. The suspense comes mostly from asking what people are willing to do to survive. It's an ensemble and each character gets a moment to shine, but it's got the benefit of being short, especially for a kdrama.

The downsides: This show skews WAY more male than it really needs to. There are two female characters, both of whom are very cool (for certain values of the word "cool"), but I really don't understand why it's so boy-heavy since it doesn't seem to be saying all that much about gender (except that, you know what? It really sucks being the girl that everyone has a crush on. It really does).

It's also dark. Not that dark--it's not graphic, there's no real sexual violence, the trauma that the kids are carrying around is more alluded to than explored deeply. But it does contain themes of suicide and self-harm and there is some blood, so it's definitely not one you should watch in a fragile moment.

The final episode has some plot holes...but they're just plot. The ending is (to my mind) incredibly emotionally satisfying despite them.

Warnings for: Suicide, self-harm, drug abuse, medium-intensity violence.

Dec 16:

A movie this time!

The Vast of Night is an indie scifi film from 2019. Set in New Mexico in the 1950s, it's about a series of UFO sightings and it is SO GOOD.

Per wikipedia: "The film follows young switchboard operator Fay Crocker and radio disc jockey Everett Sloan as they discover a mysterious audio frequency that could be extraterrestrial in origin."

There's so many things I like about this film--the characterization, the ten-minute-long tracking shots, the plot + worldbuilding that are rooted in the American myth of UFOs in a way that feels familiar but not stale, the Twilight Zone homage of it all.

This movie all the proof you need that budget size isn't what matters: it's all about the passion and talent of the people making the film. I truly can't wait to see what the writer/director Andrew Patterson does next!

Dec 17:

I've been trying to stick with things that might get overlooked or that aren't super popular. So here's a book I wish more people would read because I think they'd really enjoy it.

The Steel Seraglio by Mike Carey, Linda Carey, and Louise Carey is a unique fantasy novel.

From GoodReads: "The sultan Bokhari Al-Bokhari of Bessa has 365 concubines - until a violent coup puts the city in the hands of the religious zealot Hakkim Mehdad. Hakkim has no use for the pleasures of the flesh: he condemns the women first to exile - and then to death. Cast into the desert, the concubines must rely on themselves and each other to escape from the new sultan's fanatical pursuit. But their goals go beyond mere survival: with the aid of the champions who emerge from among them, they intend to topple the usurper and retake Bessa from the repressive power that now controls it."

This book is SO MANY WOMEN! Different kinds of women! Who care about each other!

Dec 18:

So let's do #DecRecs and I will recommend another book!

The Dazzle of Day is a science fiction novel by Molly Gloss (who happened to be a close friend of Ursula K. Le Guin).

It's a generation ship story that explores the time before the ship, during the ship, and after the ship through a variety of characters.

What makes it different than most science fiction is a) the more "literary" writing and b) the fact that this particular group of spacefarers are Quakers and Gloss is ACTUALLY INTERESTED in the specifics of how their religion would manifest in their community-building, mostly through the process of consensus-making.

I am quite sure a lot of people would find this book boring or slow, but I love it. It's so rare to find any kind of good [religion]-in-space fiction, and this one also has a believable approach to how people would react upon reaching a planet after living their whole lives on a spaceship.

Dec 19:

If you miss a day of a meme or writing or any other project...just don't worry about it. That's my rec.

Dec 20:

Actually, you know what? I'm reccing it for #DecRecs

It's a Wonderful Life has a reputation for being saccharine, but that's a shame. It's actually a film about the importance of small lives lived decently & with love & generosity.

It actually becomes very dark at times--it doesn't flinch away from the darker parts of life & the heartbreak of broken dreams. There is a content warning for a suicidal character, though suicide does not happen.

It's also an anticapitalist film in a very explicit way. The villain of the film is the ultimate capitalist and he's depicted as selfish, greedy, & grasping.

It's so cathartic--I always end up SOBBING at the end, but in the best way. Roger Ebert used to say that it isn't sadness that made him cry in movies, but goodness. I'm the same way, and this movie is about goodness that is earned and worked for. It's one of my favorite movies of all time.

Don't let its reputation as a Christmas film scare you away--it really isn't. It's for any time.

Dec 21:

Another podcast I enjoy that I think is very underrated: Mobituaries, hosted by Mo Rocca. whom I know from writing Wishbone, being a talking head on various VH1 "I Love the [Decade]" shows, and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

Each episode is a medium-dive into a figure or phenomenon in American life told with his characteristic mixture of humor and sincerity.

Some favorite episodes include the ones on John Denver, Soccer the Dog (aka Wishbone), Laura Branigan, Anna May Wong, the Gros Michel banana, and Jim Thorpe. The one about the end of the "miscegenation ban" in the US made me cry. But all of them are worth listening to.

I love a host who genuinely finds people so interesting and is so compassionate towards them. Mo never sacrifices accuracy for humor either. I really don't understand why this podcast doesn't have a bigger following than it does!

Comments

[pauraque]

So, I have heard of White Christmas, but I guess I skimmed past any details because I had the idea that it was something in the vein of this White Christmas, and now that I have read what it actually is, I am very amused by my misconception!

Is it streaming somewhere? I'm having trouble convincing Google that I don't want the movie.