A Sense of Doubt blog post #2350 - COMIC BOOK SUNDAY 2107.25 - WHAT I AM READING PT. 7

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2350 - COMIC BOOK SUNDAY 2107.25 - WHAT I AM READING PT. 7

Welcome to my Sunday feature of WHAT I AM READING and Comic Book Sunday.

Not as much comic book content today, and actually, a quickie. I will do more reviews of things later, but I have to get to work, and I am writing this on Monday morning.

I have been reading more because of long dog walks (for audio) and time in the hammock out back (traditional reading), and so I finished Michelle Zauner's amazing Crying in H Mart. I loved it. At times, it made me cry because, after all, it's about the death of her mother, among other things.

I am also very inspired by all the Asian-American content and the FOOD.

I was already a big fan of JAPANESE BREAKFAST, but now I am an even BIGGER fan.




Also, upon finishing Zauner's book, I moved on immediately to the new re-issue of Stephen King's Danse Macabre. I read some of this book (never all of it) off and on over the years since I bought it in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Like Zauner's book, it comes at the perfect time for things I am writing.

This feels like a happy coincidence, but not really. I am drawn to things because of their subject matter and that content is already in my work or will make it into my work.

So far, I am just getting into it, but this content (quoted here) struvk me:

"Which is to suggest that, although the uneasy dreams of the mass subconscious may change from decade to decade, the pipeline into that well of dreams remains constant and vital. This is the real danse macabre, I suspect: those remarkable moments when the creator of a horror story is able to unite the conscious and the subconscious mind with one potent idea" (King, Danse Macabre, pg. 17).

And then, as for comic books, (a graphic novel), lying in the hammock today, Sunday, I devoured this book:

It's fantastic!

But as I shared, I am just doing a quick skim of the surface of the pond today, and will elaborate later, probably next week.

Primarily, I want to write a little about this book, When the Beat Drops, pictured above, by Anna Hecker, who is the instructor for the workshop I am taking this summer at Sackett Street on the YA novel.

I read this book in a little over a week. It's captivating, vibrant, and fresh.

The plot is tight, the characters are compelling, the dialogue is real and spot on, and the story has all the highs and lows of a good music set. I found myself tear up near the end.

There's some great passages that I want to analyze, especially the one in which the title originates, but I will save this commentary for next time.

Lovers of YA will want to read this one.

AND this...

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/21/07/24/237226/virtual-comic-con-includes-trailers-for-blade-runner-series-dune-movie---and-nasa-panels

Virtual Comic-Con Includes Trailers For 'Blade Runner' Series, 'Dune' Movie - and NASA Panels (space.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday July 25, 2021 @07:34AM from the strange-new-worlds dept.

Comic-Con went virtual again in 2020. (San Diego businesses will miss the chance to profit from the 100,000 visitors the convention usually attracted.) And NPR reports the convention has gotten smaller in other ways:Both Marvel Studios and DC are staying away; as it did last year, DC is again directing its resources towards its own event, DC FanDome, set for mid-October. But fans of shows like Doctor Who, Dexter and Comic-Con stalwart The Walking Dead will have lots to look forward to.
Rotten Tomatoes and The Verge have gathered up the trailers that did premier. Some of the highlights:

• Blade Runner: Black Lotus , an upcoming anime television series set to premiere in late 2021 on Crunchyroll and Adult Swim (co-producing it with Alcon Television Group).
• The upcoming remake of Dune
• J.J. Abrams' new four-part Showtime documentary about UFOs.
• Season 2 of Star Trek: Lower Decks and the new Star Trek: Prodigy, a CGI-animated series about a group of aliens who escape captivity onboard the Enterprise.

But interestingly, one of the more visibile presenters was: NASA. Current and former NASA officials made appearances on several different panels, according to Space.com, including one on modern space law, U.N. treaty-making, and how it all stacks up against the portrayal we get in our various future-space franchises. And NASA also touted its virtual simulation platform Ed-Tech, "where students can have access to the same tools that professionals use and in the case of space are given the opportunity to solve real problems related to missions to our Moon, Mars, and beyond... from piloting to terra-forming to creating habitats and spacecraft."

There was also a panel of four NASA engineers titled "No Tow Trucks Beyond Mars," on "how we go boldly where thereâ(TM)s no one around to fix it. Hear stories from the trenches of the heartbreaks, close calls, and adventures of real-life landing (and flying!) on Mars and our round-table discussion of what Netflix got right in their movie Stowaway."

Sunday's panels will include an astronomer, an astrobiologist, and a geologist/paleontologist discussing "The Science of Star Wars" with the concept designer for Star Wars episodes 7-9, Rogue One, and Solo.

And a bonus video because of Michelle Zauner...

Japanese Breakfast: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Nov 1, 2017

NPR Music

Oct. 25, 2017 | Marissa Lorusso -- As Japanese Breakfast, Michelle Zauner writes sparkling, opulent dream pop about grief and love (and, occasionally, robots). After releasing its debut album, Psychopomp last year, the band returned with this year's stunning Soft Sounds From Another Planet. Where Psychopomp, written in the immediate aftermath of the death of Zauner's mother, zeroed in on the experience of Zauner's grief, Soft Sounds widens her aperture, featuring paeans to her coping mechanisms, ruminations on crooked relationship dynamics and said sci-fi robot fantasy.

At its Tiny Desk concert, the band swapped out Soft Sound's gauzy, astral synths for acoustic guitar and piano, and was joined by members of Washington, D.C. string quartet Rogue Collective. Zauner had wanted to do something special for the performance, and was tipped off by Landlady's Adam Schatz that the Rogue Collective make pretty great Tiny Desk partners. The Collective practiced with Japanese Breakfast the day before the Tiny Desk, and was a featured guest later that night at the band's D.C. show.

The adaptation highlighted Zauner's strength as a songwriter, providing an even more direct line into the raw emotion at the heart of her songs. The string swells during "Boyish" lent gravity to the song's bittersweet desperation. During "Till Death," her ode to marriage, Zauner sang — as she often does — in a way that strains her voice to the crackling, taut edge of heartbreak. It's arresting on any stage, but particularly powerful in the stark midday light of NPR Music's office.

For its final song at the Tiny Desk, Japanese Breakfast performed "This House." Gone was the Rogue Collective, and indeed much of the band — just Zauner and pianist Craig Hendrix remained. The song describes moments in love that are more fearful labor than bliss, the hazy space where commitment, confusion and longing intersect. Like much of Japanese Breakfast's music, the performance shows Zauner looking unblinkingly at fear and pain, daring us to do the same.

Set List

"Boyish"

"Till Death"

"This House"

MUSICIANS

Michelle Zauner; Deven Craige, Craig Hendrix; Peter Bradley; Alexa Cantalupo; Kaitlin Moreno; Natalie Spehar

CREDITS

Creative Director: Bob Boilen; Producers: Bob Boilen, Morgan Noelle Smith; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Morgan Noelle Smith, Niki Walker, Bronson Arcuri, Colin Marshall; Photo: Christina Ascani/NPR

Singer-songwriter Japanese Breakfast opens up about her inspirations

Jun 5, 2021

CBS This Morning

Singer-songwriter Michelle Zauner has two studio albums to her credit and recently released a much-anticipated third collection in addition to being a best-selling author. Anthony Mason spoke to Zauner about her inspirations.

Each weekday morning, "CBS This Morning" co-hosts Gayle King, Anthony Mason and Tony Dokoupil deliver two hours of original reporting, breaking news and top-level newsmaker interviews in an engaging and informative format that challenges the norm in network morning news programs.

That's all for this week. Thanks for checking in!

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2107.25 - 10:10

- Days ago = 2214 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.