auto immune disorders happen when the immune system ignores regulatory factors and begins attacking healthy bodily tissues, due to what scientists refer to as "sheer love of the game"
all i want for 2026 is that gigantic rancid AI bubble to finally burst in such a catastrophic way that the consequences will be so good and i'll never have to see another AI generated image ever again
My new thing is to listen to one new album, read one new book and watch one new movie every week.
This week's movie is The Death of Stalin (2017). Directed by Armando Iannucci. Starring Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Michael Palin, Jeffrey Tambor, Andrea Riseborough, and Jason Isaacs.
It was good fun.
I read Stalingrad by Vassily Grossman last year, so I was primed for General Zhukov to be the loudest and boldest, in dress and action, and Jason Isaacs really brings that.
You should watch the whole movie, even if you don't know anything about Russian history it's still very good (and it gets more relevant every day). But, if you don't want to do that, you can still give yourself a little treat and watch this cut of just the Zhukov bits.
My new thing is to listen to one new album, read one new book and watch one new movie every week.
This week's album is Coastal Grooves by Blood Orange (2011).
Blood Orange is Dev Hynes, or it's a project he works on. He does non-Blood Orange stuff as well. But Coastal Grooves by Blood Orange is the album I listened to.
Being from Aotearoa (and a citypop fan), I came in with a 'pacific breeze' idea of what a coastal groove is, but this isn't that. This is a New York album.
The first clue is the cover, it's a 1996 photo of Bianca “Exotica” Maldonado outside Sally’s Hideaway, the Times Square club where Paris is Burning (a documentary I have somehow seen), was filmed.
I didn't recognise it, but once I realised that the cover photo wasn't of Blood Orange themself, I was interested in who it was.
Bianca's niece, María José Maldonado, was a 2023 Research Fellow at Visual AIDS and researched her aunt. I found her essay is worth reading and adds loads of context to this photo, and the album.
Research Fellow María José Maldonado reflects on the legacy of her aunt, Bianca “Exotica” Maldonado, as an artist, muse, and family member.
I liked all the tracks on this album.
Give yourself a little treat and have a listen to Blood Orange performing Champagne Coast in 2026.
My new thing is to listen to one new album, read one new book and watch one new movie every week.
This week's book is Four Eids and a Funeral (2024) by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and Adiba Jaigirdar.
Recently my mother noted that all the books I read and enjoy are pretty bleak. That's a fair comment, I do tend towards desolation. But, not this one.
This is an 'idiots in love', coming of age, seeing your parents as their own people, saving the Islamic Centre (and the cat), story. And it's so good. My favourite type of love story is one where the main obstacle is the people involved themselves, just totally unable to figure themselves out. And this one has everything: cluelessness, feelings, family, murals, the aunties, baking, and an orange cat named Laddu! Delightful.
My new thing is to listen to one new album, read one new book and watch one new movie every week.
This week's movie is Pumping Iron (1977). Directed by George Butler. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno.
It's a documentary about Schwarzenegger and Ferrigno preparing for the 1975 Mr Olympia bodybuilding competition in South Africa.
I joined a new gym recently, and the algorithm must have seen me looking up the timetable because I have been inundated with videos warning me about the dangers of steroids and 'performance enhancing drugs'. (Full disclosure: I am a middle aged fat woman who swims daily and does yoga. Closest thing to being offered steroids was a colleague I bumped into after swimming buying me a coffee on the way back to work.)
Anyway, this came up and it was pretty good. Wholesome, even, compared to the teen influencer takes cattle steroids and has heart failure in his twenties stories I've been seeing.
Schwarzenegger was already acting when this was made, and his charisma is clear. Ferrigno became The Hulk the year after it came out, and I can see why that made sense, even though he seems very very much younger here (not helped by having his Dad with him).
the human body is an engineering marvel. I sneeze in bright light. if I dont get enough sunlight on my skin I get tired and sad and have to drink a lot of milk to fix it. standing too much hurts, but sitting too much also hurts. if I get a virus, my body will increase its temperature in an attempt to cook it, which also cooks my brain cells. toenails exist. I have to turn the radio down to see better when I drive. there are 17 genes dictating what my hair texture is, but it completely changes when the air is too humid. yawning is contagious. there are more species of bacteria living in my body than there are species of birds in the entire world. every few months I grievously injure my neck by "sleeping on it weird." it took seven million years of human evolution to form me, and now I'm afraid of phone calls.
My new thing is to listen to one new album, read one new book and watch one new movie every week.
This week's book is The Near Witch (2011) by V. E. Schwab
It was pretty good. Plot moved nicely, characters were good. And I liked that the 'villains' were motived by recognisable fear and ignorance. They are people in the village and not cartoon monsters twirling their moustaches. Which made them scarier, and raised the stakes.
The edition I read had the The Ash-Born Boy novella included. It was well written, but Cole wasn't really the character I wanted a pre-story on, he actually covered that off in the novel. I would have preferred something on one of the more minor characters who had a pivotal role, Otto or Matthew or even Helena. (Not Tyler, nothing interesting about that guy).
My new thing is to listen to one new album, read one new book and watch one new movie every week.
This week's album is The Wild Tchoupitoulas (1976) by The Wild Tchoupitoulas.
The Wild Tchoupitoulas were a group of Mardi Gras Indians - which is a subculture I didn't know anything about. I found this article from the Smithsonian which explains some of it.
For more than a century, New Orleans' Black residents have donned Native-inspired attire to celebrate Carnival
Unfortunately the 2010 article by Adrienne Keene on her blog Native Appropriations mentioned here doesn't seem to be available any more.
The Wild Tchoupitoulas only had one album, but they performed through Mardi Gras for years. The music is good, but would probably be better at a Mardi Gras.
dededos
2087
annaxmalina
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
