Good morning beloved, and happy Soup Bean Thursday <3
February is approaching fast (you knowwwww how I feel about Galentine’s day!), but I am still pursuing the habit of taking things slow. So for today, let’s have a little coffee-catch-up–I’ll tell you all about my January, and you can email me (or text, you don’t have to be a grandma) to tell me about yours.
I watched four movies, two short films, and nooooo television shows (oops!) this month. Overall, the 2021 German dry-satire Bloodsuckers was my favorite–it’s hard to be super on-the-nose with a metaphor and still have it land in a way that feels clever, but this one nails it. I had a lot of fun laughing-out-loud with this one, so I definitely recommend.
But! If you haven’t seen Nosferatu, you gotta go!! I watched it in theaters with my friend Julie, and once the credits rolled, we both audibly said “blueghhh! Yucky!” (This is a good thing, I promise).
Kind of a fun note on Nosferatu: whoever was on sound design had every cat impeccably mic’d. You could hear the cats purr louder when the camera got closer to them, which made this atmospheric quality I normally only hear in video games. Not at all related to the plot of the movie, but still one of my favorite parts.
I have this thing where I won’t go and buy a new book until I finish the books I have at home. I’m not a collector of unread titles! That said, I am really trying to read what I have on hand right now because I miss my local favorite, Prismatic Pages.
My favorite that I’ve read so far has been Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress–I just thought the characters were really well done. I love messiness (in a book) (not in my kitchen!!!), and I was really impressed by Angress’s ability to create sympathy for characters who I normally wouldn’t find sympathy with.
But I’m also finishing Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg, and I only have good things to say there. Plus, it’s a book I’m reading so I can talk about it with Claire—mini book club!
This is a cry for help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I feel like everything sounds the same? I think I’m lost in the evils of algorithmically-generated music suggestions, and I’m feeling impossibly bored. It’s been so long since I’ve heard a song/artist/album that felt new and exciting, and I’m desperate to stumble into something refreshing for a change.
In an effort to curb my music fatigue, my top listens for the month are all throwbacks–I’m in the 60s and 70s. You can check out my playlist (not my best work, but it’s getting me through my mornings!), OR you can send me recommendations for something that will finally pull me out of the gutter of predictability (please) (I’m literally begging lol).
This month has been the month of the revered and respected, the one and only…
Sweet potato.
I love her sm. I have eaten sweet potatoes nearly every day, loaded down with toppings (my favorite is currently ground beef with taco seasoning and tomato paste, avocado, tomatoes, and a little sauce–trust).
Everyone I’ve talked to with about my loaded sweet potatoes either: (A) is initially grossed out because it kind of looks like dog food when you mix it together, but impressed by how yummy it actually is once it comes together, or (B) has already been doing this and is hooked. If you want all of your coworkers to stare at your lunch in confusion, go for this.
My dearest, darlingest Peri bought me this incredible Chai Latte mix (Fredsted Chai Latte Krydet) for my birthday, and I’ve been obsessed. I add a little water and a shot of espresso for a surprisingly good dirty chai, and it’s really perked up my mornings in the office!
But wait! There’s more!
Someone in my office clearly doesn’t agree with me on how good this stuff is, because they put out another box of it–a green tea version. And it’s DELICIOUS! Incredibly sweet (as in dessert sweet), so definitely not something you’ll reach for more than once.
But I’m hooked. In fact, I’m down to my last two, so now I have to go stock up (@Peri, WHERE did you get this???)
It was the month of the doodle! I’ve been drawing shapes and figures on all of my meeting notes, and I’ve made steady progress in a sketchbook. I have a distant dream of being able to paint–like, really paint–but I need to start from the absolute basics. This is my year of learning to draw.
I am bad at it :) But that’s okay! There are a lot of Youtube videos for understanding space and dimension a bit more, and many free tutorials online. My current enemy is shading–I never get it quite right. BUT! I am really excited to have a sketchbook I can look back on in a year to (hopefully!) see some improvement. And believe me, if you saw the state of what I’m currently doing? It can only go up from here!
If you don’t know (which, fair), I work in academia–specifically, with trying to curate research and create productive conversations about how higher education can approach the inevitability of generative AI in an ethical and effective way. I am excited about opportunities, like increased accessibility for those with learning disabilities or who people who learn in an acquired language! And I am also completely bummed out by the environmental concerns, the hoards of plagiarism, and the hits that human intelligence based resource centers have taken as a result of over-eager (and underskilled!) adaptation of GenAI. It’s a real mixed bag.
In a research article I finished on Tuesday, I read about a social studies teacher who had been disappointed to learn a student had cheated on an assignment by having ChatGPT write the entire text and copy-pasting the result. The assignment in question? A written response to the prompt, “What do you believe?”
I’ve worked with teenagers, so I’m not too keen to read into this. The number of students who would find any possible way to cheat on an assignment just because it bores them (or they don’t have the time to do it–another very real issue for kids who hold down jobs or play sports) is higher than you think. But this one in particular makes me sad, because I worry that we’re all headed in this direction. Do I know what I believe, or do I know what The Algorithm thinks I believe? If you’re on social media (I am not these days, thank god), you hopefully understand how insulated we all are. We are shown the content we are most likely to agree with (or, at the very least, engage with), and the rest is completely gone. I’m worried that we’re not connected with the people right next to us, because we can only see our own individualized curation of Interests. But if we don’t know our neighbors, do we actually know ourselves? How different would my style and aesthetic choices be if I needed to rely on finding inspiration in the lived world instead of the digital one? How many of my thoughts are paid advertisements????
A final rhetorical question, so I’m not leaving us on a low note: what can I do to find things offline and develop a sense of what I like, as opposed to what I’m being sold?
I attended a lecture yesterday, and I was blown away by a style of academic video essay I’d never seen before, courtesy of film professor Alan O’Leary from Aarhus University. VERY fascinated by the potential of an essay that is much more interpretive than the more-traditional essay form I know and love (nerd alert lol). One of the featured essays gave me actual chills, give it a watch: The Rhythms of Rage: From Silence to Solidarity.
There are typos in this one, and I am LEAVING THEM! Thanks!!!!!!!
I love posts like this so much omg and you're writing style reminds me of being on facetime with a long-distance friend who's giving me their monthly debrief