The World's Common Tater

I had a more productive week in all categories this week.

Movies

I watched Pig. It stars Nicolas Cage as a reclusive truffle hunter who must return to his past in Oregon when his foraging pig is stolen.

I’m not sure how I feel about this one Cage is great in the movie. It is an interesting story. I got distracted a lot while watching it. That might be due to me watching it in the afternoon. It was a very dark movie and my TV is not in a good location to watch dark movies in the daylight hours. I had no choice, though, because my wife wouldn’t watch the movie with me.

TV

We mostly spent the week catching up on shows on the DVR. We are now current with New Amsterdam and Chicago Fire.

The ice storm story ended with all happy endings on 911: Lone Star. Too many of these shows constantly put characters in extreme danger and then force a happy ending.

We watched Resident Alien. My wife loves it even though she normally hates shows like it.

I watched Euphoria and Righteous Gemstones.

I think they should warn us when the Jeopardy host is changing. Ken left with no mention it would be Mayim this week. Or, perhaps, they can just pick one host.

Books

I finished two books this week.

Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans – Rachel Held Evans started this book before her tragic death in 2019. With the help of her friend and fellow writer, Jeff Chu, that start has been woven together with some of her other writing from her blog and other unpublished writing into this book. It is a collection of essays looking at the stories and lessons we’ve been told from another angle.

I don’t read a lot of non-fiction in general and I generally only read religion books for church stuff. Evans was the one writer who always got me to read religious books away from the church. She writes for those like her. People who have doubts, who have questions, who have been hurt by the church but still want to believe. I’m sad this is the last writing we will get from her.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo – Set in Chinatown in San Francisco in 1954 it tells the story of Lilly Hu. Lilly lives in Chinatown with her parents at the time of McCarthy and Red Scare paranoia. Lilly is also dealing with feelings she can’t quite grasp until she goes to the Telegraph Club, a lesbian bar, with her friend Kath.

I picked this one up after it won multiple awards at the ALA Youth Media Awards. It is a very good book. It was interesting to see what life would be like for Chinese Americans in the McCarthy era and how much harder it would be for a gay Chinese American. I was happy that the ending felt realistic and wasn’t a full-on Hollywood Happy ending. It was a bit long.

On Deck

I think this week will be a mixture of the Olympics and shows we have on the DVR when we tire of the games.

I am reading The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris.