Some vague ramblings, senseless and aimless as a colorless moth
Ahhh, September at last.
Fall is in the air, at least here in the Pacific Northwest. It’s not fully here yet, of course, but a couple weeks ago you could feel the shift. There was suddenly a slight chill in the wind, and it started getting about 10 degrees cooler at night. Survived another summer, wasn’t actually too too bad this year, didn’t have any heat waves or anything.
Continue reading “Reading/Watching: September 2026”Recently, I engaged with two works of popular, mainstream art that both carried with them a message of deep pessimism, which was somewhat unexpected.
One was a book, and the other a movie. One was focused on the leaders and the broad shape of society, and the other was much more grounded, focused on the individual experience. One was a murder mystery, and the other an epic adventure story. Both are very clearly relating to the specific experience of living in America in 2026. I’m talking, of course, about The Odyssey and A Trade of Blood.
Continue reading “Is Any of This Worth It Anymore?”Hoo boy, I’ve had kind of a rough time lately.
After I got back from my trip last month, I got sick with COVID before I even got back to work, which lead to me feeling like I got cheated out of half my vacation. Then, a couple weeks later, I got sick again! Just a regular cold this time, but still very annoying. I’m finally getting over that now, and the last month kind of feels like a blur. But I still had time to read and watch things! So let’s get into it.
Continue reading “Reading/Watching: June 2026”Uff da, it’s been a while. I meant to write some more posts in between this and the last check-in, but work has been so busy lately.
I’m trying to wrap up this project that I’ve been pecking away at for over two years now, and there’s just so many little things that still need to be fixed up. Most of the time it’s fine, but whenever there’s some big meeting or deadline I tend to get stressed about it. Thinking too much about work outside of work… like I’m doing right now! Let’s get into it.
Continue reading “Reading/Watching: May 2026”Jimmy Cameron back at it again!
Well, I suppose he never stopped, really. This movie has been in the works for the last two decades, give or take, using a lot of material shot ages and ages ago. And boy, it really shows, sometimes. I had a lot of fun writing about the last Avatar movie, and I’ve got a lot of thoughts about this one, so let’s get into it!
Continue reading “Avatar: Fire and Ash: Enter the Bad Indian”Man, where do you even begin?
Star Wars is many things to many people. It has changed genres many times as the series has gone on, drawing from many different points of inspiration. It used to be the very symbol of outsider auteurship succeeding in the face of Hollywood studios, and now it’s part of the great Disney media conglomerate. It is modern mythology, and has been interpreted and reinterpreted many times. Continue reading “A War among the Stars”
I have a hankering to dig deeper into an issue that came up in a recent Moby Dick post, but is an example of a larger issue in media.
In that post, I talked about theodicy, the practice of explaining why there is evil in the world when God is supposed to be both all-powerful and benevolent towards humanity. The one I talked about there was an ancient theodicy, from the book of Job. But today, I’d like to talk about the modern form this has taken, as best exemplified in the Stephen King novel/miniseries/film IT. Continue reading “IT and Modern Theodicy: The Big Black Blob Problem”
The Beige Moth 