Reading Watching Listening

  • Reading Watching Listening,  Recommendations,  RWL

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… What Happened by Hillary Clinton. It’s important. Watching… Good Girls Revolt. Fantastic writing. Kickass costumes. This show will make you want to stand up for something. And that is just about the most important thing these days. Listening… The The Is Us soundtrack. It’s so good. So. Good. For a show that makes me cry every single episode, the soundtrack makes me oddly happy. Plus, I’ve been waiting years for a new song from Mandy Moore, and she kills it on her cover of “Willin'”  

  • Reading Watching Listening,  Recommendations,  RWL

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… Wine. All the Time. by Marissa A. Ross. The book has blurbs from both Mindy Kaling and Leandra Medine, so OBVIOUSLY I was going to get it. And it’s great. I’m now swirling and smelling and sipping and taking tasting notes. I’ve learned A LOT. Plus Ross is hilarious and I kind of want to be her best friend. Watching… Fleabag. WHY DIDN’T I WATCH THIS SOONER!? Phoebe Waller-Bridge is brilliant. It’s dark. It’s twisted. It made me sob. Really sob. The pacing is so spot on. The comedic rhythm is just off kilter in a way that works so well. Breaking the fourth wall has never worked so…

  • Reading Watching Listening,  Recommendations,  RWL

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick. I would like to be best friends with Kendrick, please and thank you. This book is hilarious and smart.   Watching… Company. I’m am fully on board basically any time I can watch a filmed version of a stage musical. It’s as close as I get to Broadway. The cast in this production is phenomenal (though my deep love for Raúl Esparza may make me a touch biased…).   Listening… The soundtrack to Violet. It’s weird. It’s good. It’s Sutton Foster.

  • Reading Watching Listening,  Recommendations

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… Theory. Endless amounts of theory. But also this: Stephanie Bolster’s “Long Exposure“. I’m writing about it for the dissertation, which is why I am re-reading it now as I’m (hopelessly, inchingly, painfully) attempting to finish the proposal. But it’s good. It’s one of the texts in my dissertation that I’m almost scared to write about because I so don’t want to destroy it.   Watching… Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Obviously.   Listening… Hamilton Mixtape. Hamilton. Mixtape. All day every day. Especially Sia’s version of “Satisfied” because DAMN it is good.

  • Reading Watching Listening,  Recommendations

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… How To Ruin Everything by George Watsky. I 100% purchased this book for two reasons: it has an amazing title and there is a review from Lin-Manuel Miranda on the front cover. Turns out these were solid reasons. I’m reading this probably as slowly as a human being can read any book, only making it through a handful of pages in bed every few nights, but I’m seriously enjoying it.   Watching… Conviction. I have a handful of shows that I watch via network apps and this is one of them. The storylines are engaging, but what I am most enamoured with is Hayes Morrison, the lead character. She’s an…

  • Reading Watching Listening

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… Still nothing. Still drowning in work. At one point in my life, when I was young and naïve, I thought that going to graduate school would mean I got to read things I enjoyed. Not true. If anyone ever tries to convince you of this, they are lying.   Watching… Gilmore Girls. Always. Forever and always. I mean, I had to re-watch the series before the revival comes out at the end of November, right? Also, this is essential my comfort food of television shows. And when I can’t sleep because of insomnia, when I am having meltdowns, this is my favourite place to escape.   Listening… “Sorrow” by The…

  • Reading Watching Listening

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… Nothing. I’m in a serious writing/deadlines/meltdown phase at school and my time for entertaining reading is entirely non-existent.   Watching… While I don’t have a lot of free time, I do like to watch an episode or two of something while I get ready in the morning. Lately it’s been Supergirl, which I’m pretty much watching solely because Jermey Jordan is in it. Man is very very pretty. Now if only they could find an excuse to have him sing…   Listening… I’ve been in a weird music-free work mode lately. But I’ve been super into listening to Lady Gaga’s Joanne while I’m cleaning. I’ve seen mixed reactions to this album,…

  • Reading Watching Listening,  Recommendations

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan. I went to the NTLive broadcast of this play last week and it has been haunting me ever since. Achingly good.   Watching… Off Camera with Sam Jones. I’ve just been watching this in bits and pieces while getting ready or eating lunch. Jones isn’t necessarily the most articulate interviewer, but there is something about his approach and the format of these interviews that gets subjects to open up in really interesting ways about their professions. I love that Jones kind of circles around similar questions with a lot of his guests. I am really fascinated by the ways artists and performers approach…

  • Reading Watching Listening,  Recommendations

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… Carl Jung. It’s for the thesis, but I am finding it far more lucid than I recall it being last time I picked his work up in undergrad. This may simply be because a lot of the other things I’ve been reading have managed to give me headaches after only a sentence or two.   Watching… Season 2 of You’re the Worst. I know I wrote about this one in last week’s post, but season 2 deserves its own shout out. This season has the most compelling and realistic portrayal of clinical depression I think I have ever encountered on television. The writers knocked this one out of the park…

  • Reading Watching Listening,  Recommendations

    Reading Watching Listening

    Reading… I Know What I’m Doing and Other Lies I Tell Myself by Jen Kirkman. I’ve been on a personal essay collection kick lately, and I picked this one up because I enjoy Kirkman’s standup. It is less comedic than I expected. That’s not to say that it isn’t darkly funny. It’s funny in the way that I am often funny: through self-effacement and a recognition of both the absurdity and the disastrousness of life. I’ve been most struck, though, by Kirkman’s brutal honesty. It’s a resonating book for me, even though I’m not in the same life space she is, and sometimes those are the most gratifying resonances to…