March 2020 was surreal. And strange. And scary. I hope you are all doing OK and getting through. Especially thinking about those who are sick, working in healthcare, or out of work due to closed businesses. Sending everyone lots of love.
Needless to say, the things I enjoyed in March were mostly things I could do from home. And I figure it’s worth still sharing those things since other people might be looking for things to do from home as well. Plus, nearly everything on this list is uplifting/optimistic and good for getting your mind off the global pandemic for a little while.
MOVIES
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE
I was very glad to have a chance to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire right before all the movie theatres had to close. It is a beautifully filmed, feminist romance about a young woman with an arranged marriage in her future and the painter who is commissioned to secretly paint her portrait. Once the bride’s portrait is completed, it will be sent to the husband-to-be to secure the arrangement. While the two women spend time together walking the bluffs and beaches of a remote French island, they slowly fall in love. There’s more to the story than that, but I really enjoyed the way things slowly unfolded and don’t want to spoil that. It’s definitely the sort of film where things progress through quiet encounters and weighted looks from across the room. And, except for a couple of instances of diegetic, in-story songs and piano playing, there is no music in the film. So while it’s definitely not going to be for everyone, I found it really moving and lovely. And then the end made me cry a lot at the theatre and since we’re not supposed to touch our faces I was really in a jam.
PODCASTS
LORE
Over the first two weeks of March I listened to nearly three years worth of Lore podcast episodes. Apparently I only have two settings for consuming podcasts, either I can’t summon the attention span for a single episode or it’s the ONLY thing I listen to, full stop. I did this with the Chernobyl podcast as well. Each episode of Lore is one main story and some accompanying smaller, related stories, about folklore or dark historical events: lake monsters, ghost ships, spiritualists, haunted castles, the Seattle underground, etc. These types of stories have always interested me so Lore is absolutely my sort of content. Once everything got weird with the pandemic I sort of lost my drive to listen to dark stories, but I definitely plan to continue with this podcast in the future.
GAMES
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING
While I have always adored the characters and design of Zelda games, I have a weird aversion to actually playing them. For a long time this has been the case with most Nintento games in general and I do not understand why. I did manage to play Windwaker a number of years ago but had to have a friend complete a portion of it for me because I got stuck and angry and ready to quit. But for some reason, the stars aligned in March 2020 and I was overcome by a strong desire to play the Link’s Awakening remake now that I have a Nintendo Switch and I loved it. I literally played the entire thing in a day. I couldn’t put it down. So, big ole recommendation from me on that one. Who knew that the Zelda game that would really draw me in wasn’t the cinematic Breath of the Wild or Twilight Princess, but a remake of a 1993 Game Boy game.
ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS
Like so many other people around the world, I am completely obsessed with Animal Crossing: New Horizons at the moment. It’s sweet and calm (except for the animated swearing I do whenever I catch another dang sea bass) and a perfect escape from the world right now. The whole point of the game is just to live on a beautiful island, chat with cute animal neighbors, and pay off a mortgage to a business tanuki (aka a Japanese raccoon dog) by selling fish, bugs, and fruit. On paper it doesn’t seem like something you’d devote hours and hours to, but that is the magic of Animal Crossing. Being able to complete little goals like catching a certain fish or finding a rare fossil is a really comforting thing for a stressed brain. Plus I love the idea of being able to pay off a huge home loan in a single day by selling a whole bunch of oranges.
OVERCOOKED 2
I also got back into Overcooked 2 at the end of the month, since it was a very good time to revisit on-line co-op games. This ridiculous cooking simulator is lots of fun and very chaotic. It requires a lot of communication and brain power. My friend and I had tried to play it a while back but got stuck on an early level and decided that we probably couldn’t progress without more players. And yet when we picked it back up recently we managed to get our cooking communication and planning streamlined and actually finished the game. So, if you can handle the heat, I would recommend visiting the Overcooked 2 kitchen (I know, I KNOW, i’m sincerely sorry but once I wrote that it had to stay in).
BOOKS
THE RAVEN AND THE REINDEER (T. Kingfisher)
Yet another big ole T. Kingfisher recommendation from me. At this point it’s probably safe to assume that every favorites blog for the foreseeable future will include at least one T. Kingfisher book until I make it through her entire catalogue. The Raven and The Reindeer is a clever retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen fairytale, which follows Gerta, a young woman who sets out on a journey to save her friend Kay, who has been kidnapped by the aforementioned frosty royalty. Gerta’s journey takes her far from home and along the way she befriends a bandit girl and an incredible talking raven named The Sound of Mouse Bones Crunching Under The Hooves of God (Mousebones for short). He picked the name himself. The book includes some really creative, interesting uses of magic, a sweet, unexpected love story, and every scene with that bird made me smile.
HEARTSTOPPER: VOLUME 3 (Alice Oseman)
This is the third book in Alice Oseman’s lovely series of high-school romance graphic novels. Volume 3 follows Nick and Charlie as they continue to navigate their young romance, with particular focus on their fears about how and when to come out and tell their friends and family about their relationship. These insecurities are brought to the forefront when the entire class goes on a trip to Paris. Oseman’s art continues to be wonderfully simple yet highly expressive and she has a great talent for capturing the fears and elations of youth.
THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA (TJ Klune)
I have been a TJ Klune fan for quite a while, particularly his Green Creek and Tales from Verania series. With The House in the Cerulean Sea Klune ventures into more of a YA/general audiences sphere and does a wonderful job. Cerulean Sea is told from the point of view of Linus Baker, a case worker for the government department that oversees orphanages for magical children. His job is grey, isolated bureaucracy where no one thinks beyond the official rules and regulations and his home life is equally lonely. One day Linus is called on by the upper management to spend a month investigating a particular orphanage on an island by the sea. This assignment introduces a number of new people into his life: a gnome who loves to garden, a forest sprite, an island sprite, a shy shapeshifter, a cheerful green blob that dreams of being a bellhop, a wyvern who loves buttons, a 6-year-old antichrist, and Arthur Parnassus, the tall, mysterious man who teaches the children and runs the house. Over the course of the month Linus changes and is changed by those around him and learns about love, acceptance, and not being bound by societies expectations.
BRIARLEY (Aster Glenn Gray)
I had seen Briarley recommended by a couple of authors on twitter and it happened to be 99¢ last week so I figured, what the heck. I tend to read a lot of books this way, for better or worse. Luckily this one was for the better. A gay reenvisioning of Beauty and The Beast, Briarley sets the action in 1940s England, in the midst of WWII. A middle-aged parson stumbles upon a mysterious abandoned mansion while attending a meeting in a neighboring village and after taking shelter from a storm, makes the mistake of plucking a rose for his daughter as he heads home. You know the drill. The beast in this book is more dragon-y in nature which is fun, and the parson (who ends up being the love interest, not his daughter) is really logical and kind, suggesting, for example, that if the beast needs to learn how to love and be loved he should start by getting a puppy. The book also does away with my main problem in pretty much every version of B&tB: the “captive falling in love with their captor” trope. I hate that trope. But Briarley has the Parson (along with all previous visitors to the magic house) able to leave whenever he wants to, which, seriously, thank you.
ART
In anticipation of the release of Animal Crossing, I decided to make collages of some of my favorite characters from the games. I’m quite happy with how they turned out. The originals are all available for purchase here.
