Here’s another two-month combo blog because I was a ball of pre-election stress and enuii for most of October and didn’t feel like writing.
MOVIES and TV
Over the Garden Wall
I had been meaning to watch this for ages and finally got around to doing so on Halloween. It’s a bit hard to describe, but the basic plot is that two young brothers find themselves lost in an unknown forest and encounter all sorts strange creatures and mysteries as they try to make their way home. The animation is great and the story goes all sorts of directions, from weird to creepy to funny to heartbreaking. Honestly, watching it for the first time is a bit of an adventure in itself and i’m glad I didn’t know too much about it beforehand.
The Personal History of David Copperfield
While it definitely feels like a Cliff’s Notes version of the lengthy Charles Dickens novel, I still quite liked The Personal History of David Copperfield. The diverse cast, lead by Dev Patel, is charming and the production design is lovely, which helped make up for some of the rushed and underdeveloped story elements. Also, Rosalind Eleazar deserves a special mention - she stole every scene she was in and should have gotten way more screen time.
GAMES
Mario’s Super Picross
Weirdly, the game I played the most in November was Super Mario’s Picross, which came out in 1995 for the Super Nintendo. It popped up on the Nintendo Switch’s online game library and I’ve been kind of obsessed with it. The whole game is in Japanese and features a collection of increasingly difficult picross puzzles which have nothing to do with Mario but still feature him (and Wario) in the menu screens.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales
A very good follow-up to 2018’s Spider-Man, this installment lets you play as new Spider-Man Miles Morales as he works to protect New York from a mysterious gang and a nefarious tech company. Miles Morales has great characters, an interesting story, and fun new missions and gameplay that take advantage of Miles’ electricity and invisibility powers. *thumbs up*
Observation
This short, atmospheric game puts the player in control of “SAM”, the AI computer on a space station that has recently suffered a mysterious accident. SAM moves around through the station’s camera feeds (and later as a little robot ball), solving puzzles and collecting data to try and help the remaining astronaut uncover what happened. Most of Observation’s story is told through the environment and various logs you find around the station, and while the plot is occasionally confusing (I googled “Observation ending explained” as soon as the credits started), I enjoyed my time exploring this creepy game.
BOOKS
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Latinx teen Yadriel grew up in a community of ghost hunters and magical healers. When his very traditional family has trouble accepting Yadriel’s gender and refuses to let him participate in the traditional coming-of-age ceremony, he decides to do it himself. But during the ritual, Yadriel accidentally summons the wrong ghost and is pulled into a quest to help the spirit solve the mystery of his death and tie up loose ends. Author Aiden Thomas creates a vivid, original world in Cemetery Boys, combining Latinx mythology and Los Angeles culture, and introduces a wonderfully realized trans main character trying to cope with an impulsive ghost and conflicting feelings about his family and heritage. (Young Adult)
My Life as a Goddess by Guy Branum
This funny and hopeful collection of autobiographical essays by Guy Branum tells about his childhood growing up gay and inquisitive in a small California farming town, his unusual path to becoming a comedian, how Greek mythology helped him find self-acceptance, the ways society diminishes and erases fat people, and deep-dives into the influential effects of Pop Culture. I listened to the audiobook for this one, which I think was a good choice - I really like hearing memoirs in the the author’s own voice. (Memoir)
The Mysterious and Amazing Blue Billings by Lily Morton
The Mysterious and Amazing Blue Billings is a paranormal romance and surprisingly creepy ghost story. I am extremely susceptible to being spooked by books/movies/shows about haunted houses and I slept with the light on two nights in a row because of this one. Illustrator Levi inherits a beautiful old house from a distant relative (like you do), but when he moves in things start to get spooky because it is 100% full of ghosts. Levi turns to a local ghost tour leader named Blue for help, and the two begin to investigate the grisly history of the building (and fall in love, obviously). I really liked the chemistry between the characters and the way the dots connected to solve the mystery. This is definitely a fun book to pick up if you’re in the mood for something that combines smooching and spooking. (Romance/Ghost Story)
ART
Yay new art! I made a fun Addams Family house for Halloween and some little flowers and a saintly groundhog for the Holiday Show at Gallery 9. If you want to see some behind-the-scenes stuff, I filmed an assembly time lapse for one of the flower collages, which is available for my Patreon patrons.
