Author: Bryan G. Robinson

Blogger formerly known as Unfinished Person. Still an unfinished person...

September 2021: In the Rearview

So, looking back at the month that was September 2021…

I read five books (in order of favorite to least, although all were good):

  • Invisible Differences: A Story of Aspergers, Adulting, and Living A Life in Full Color by Julia Dachez (author) and Mademoiselle Caroline (illustrator)
  • Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry, collected and with an introduction by Joy Harjo, 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate
  • The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
  • Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman
  • Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry, also by Kemelman.

I think why I liked the graphic novel the best is because I (and my wife) think I’m probably on the spectrum somewhere. While I read one Goodreads review that said the resources offered at the end of the book were superficial, I thought it wasn’t meant to be exhaustive but an introduction. Personally I could relate to a lot of what Marguerite, the main character, experienced in her life. Even this morning, I found myself slightly overwhelmed by a neighbor’s barking dogs.

We watched seven TV shows (in alphabetical order, all are/were excellent):

  • Alice in Paris
  • Archer
  • Brooklyn Nine-Nine
  • Reservation Dogs
  • Schmigadoon
  • Ted Lasso
  • What We Do in the Shadows

Hard to pick up a favorite, but I will: Reservation Dogs. Seek it out.

I listened to a little bit of this:

A little bit of that:

And a lot of meditation exercises from meditation apps (not providing the links, because…Google):

  • Headspace
  • Shine
  • Wake Up/Wind Down (with Niall Breslin)

I also listened/watched folklore: the long pond sessions on Disney Plus, that really enhanced the album. I’ll leave you with my favorite song from the album:

While I know September actually has five days left, how was your September? Read, watch, listen to, do anything good in the last month? Please share in the comments.

In the interim…

So…

…while I was away “fishin'”…

I read:

  • Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry, collected and with an introduction by Joy Harjo, the 23rd and current Poet Laureate of the United States, to which I also listened with the poets reading their own works via The Library of Congress. I highly recommend listening to the poets and also reading the poems with the line breaks they intended as on the LOC website. I had the ebook version and reading the poems in PDFs was especially helpful.
  • Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman. I’ve always wanted to read this series, but never have. It’s good enough that I already have checkers out the second in the series.

I watched:

  • the final season of both CSI: Miami and Criminal Minds, with the latter being better if only for giving the viewers a better going-away party with the characters.
  • Idiocracy (with my wife).
  • a streaming video of a 2014 concert by Pearl Jam that  marked the 25th anniversary of their fourth album No Code on August 27. The October 17, 2014 show from Moline, IL saw the band perform the 1996 album from start to finish. That day also marked the 30th anniversary of their album Ten.

My wife and I also have started watching:

  • Only Murders in The Building with Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez, which has been brilliant thus far.
  • Alice in Paris, which, according to The New York Times, is “a show initially aired in two-minute episodes, but those have been repackaged as eight half-hour installments.” The shows are scripted, but feature real restaurants and cafes in Paris.
  • Britbox and Starz, through 99 cents a month specials on Prime Video.

As for what’s in the reading queue, I have several possibilities:

  • Network Effect by Martha Wells
  • Fugitive Telemetry, also by Wells
  • Growing Old: Notes on Aging with Something Like Grace by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
  • The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
  • How to Find Your Own Way in the Dark by Derek B. Miller
  • The Turnout by Megan Abbott
  • Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry by Harry Kemelman
  • Angelica’s Smile by Andrea Camilleri
  • The Essential Muriel Rukeyser, with a foreword by Natasha Trethewy.

And last night, I went to Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago…via a livestream. I’ll leave you with a song from Angel Olsen, one of the performers I saw there.

So, how y’all been doing in the past couple of weeks since I have been away? Reading, watching, listening to anything of note? Please share in the comments.

My Own Personal Sabbath #41

Almost every Sunday, sometime Saturday too, since mid-May 2020 with a few exceptions, I have been taking my own personal Sabbath, where I tune out of the news and social media and turn off my ringer and all notifications on my phone. Throughout the day, sometimes the day before, and/or sometimes the next day, I share what I am reading, listening to, or watching during my Sabbath.

This weekend, I’m digging into series, both in books and TV. On the literary front, I’m planning on continuing with The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. I have the fourth and fifth in the series lined up, Network Effect and Fugitive Telemetry, respectively. On the cinematic front, I am 13 episodes away from finishing the 10th and final season of CSI: Miami and five episodes away from the 15th and final season of Criminal Minds.

For some reason, I’m having a problem pulling the trigger on finishing off Criminal Minds, pun intended. It might because I looked ahead at the descriptions on Hulu of the next few episodes and it sounded like a pretty lame wrap-up of the show. I should be looking forward more to the end of this than CSI: Miami, but right now I am not. I think it’s that CSI: Miami is more of a popcorn show for me and right now I need popcorn, as I said last week “silly and stupid.” I don’t need anything too heavy, gentlemen (and ladies).

Peace, I’m out.

I told my wife this morning that I wouldn’t be going anywhere. Sometimes on weekends, I go on trips out of town, sometimes to a neighboring town or, as I did today, a neighboring state:

I got wine from a discount store for the Labor Day Weekend. Plus since I had two hours left on an audiobook I’ve been listening to on and off since the beginning of May, and the store is about an hour away from us, I was able to finish it. It wasn’t just the timing that was perfect, but the audiobook itself was perfect for me now, in that I needed it. The book was Broken by Jenny Lawson and was read by her.

After eating sushi and playing a couple of chapters of Broken for Kim before she left for work, I watched a few episodes of CSI: Miami and now I’m listening to this to end the evening:

Sunday: I didn’t read during the day today, but tonight I’m dipping into Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry, collected and with an introduction by Joy Harjo, the 23rd and current Poet Laureate of the United States.