Hidden Bodies

I finished Hidden Bodies, the sequel to You by Caroline Kepnes. It was very disappointing. It made me realize how much I really loved You, how it was kind of perfect. You had the intense, disturbed, poetic energy on a romantic obsessive. This did not. This follows the protagonist as he heads to Los Angeles. It is no longer in the second person. There is no longer the driven obsession. It's just a story of someone who murders to get their way. Worse, so many wonderful preposterous things happen to him. He falls in love, reciprocally, with a beautiful, flawless, rich girt who loves to fuck and has zero personality. She is fantasy girl. Beck, in You, was actually a drawn character. Even as was seen through Joe's eyes, her individuality and complexity emerged. Not so with this chick. It was really very annoying.

Faberge: A Life of it's Own

There' a fascinating documentary on Amazon called Faberge: A Life of Its Own. It's about the Tsar's famous jeweler. The Tsar had his own jewelry makers and basically his own shop. A large part of the documentary concerns how beautiful, unique objects were created in the palace. Apparently the Tsar's family gave 1,000 gifts a year. The opulence of their life is staggering. It's beautiful: the intricacy, the colors, the craftsmanship, the attention to detail, the decorative flourishes. But this beauty is terrifying when juxtaposed with the starvation of the masses in pre-revolutionary Russia.

A Life of Its Own tells Faberge's own story but continues it after the Revolution, following the fate of the precious eggs -- Faberge's creations that were gifts to the Tsar's family. No two alike, each with a delightful surprise inside, each inspired by a different season or different event. They are amazing. The documentary follows them through the world up till the collector's today.

Waiting for Giovanni

Last year I saw Waiting for Giovanni at the Flea Theater. It is a play by Jewel Gomez about James Baldwin during the time that he was working on Giovanni's room, a novel that is openly about a gay relationship. The characters are his lover, his family and his agent (or publisher) and it is an exploration of what it means to be Black in America, a Black writer, a gay man, and a gay Black man. It is about what is expected of him by those around him and the different pressures he faces. It is about honesty and anger. it is a great play.

Like Life

Last summer I saw Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body at the Met Breuer. It was a fascinating energetic, busy, over-the-top show. Every where was something that grabbed my interest. It spanned over 700 years of works depicting the human body, from classical and renaissance to contemporary. Definitely one of the most engaging shows I've been to. Yes, it was overwhelming, but there was too much to like to be bothered by ways this or that may not have worked.

The exhibition was divided into themes: The Presumption of White; Desire for Life; Proxy Figures; Layered Realities; Figuring Flesh; and Between Life and Art. If I ever had the opportunity to see this show again I would.

Vice

Last year I saw Vice, the biopic about Dick Cheney. I really liked this. Yes, it's about a depraved torturer. The movie made him into a pure villain, and it was presented in an fast, inventive way that made his villainy entertaining. How can you laugh and enjoy this? It was the combination of the horror and the pure drive of his character that gave it a kind of momentum. Vice didn't explore any of the key scandals he was involved in in much depth, but drew them with broad strokes. I remember the Bush administration well enough that I could fill in the blanks. As history this is mediocre movie, but if you understand that and you are up for a colorful portrait of evil, this works pretty well.

Emma and Max

Last year I saw Emma and Max, a play by Todd Solondz, at the Flea Theater. It is a tight focused look at the life of a very privileged couple, and sort of an expose on on the labor and suffering of others that is the foundation of their comforts. It concerns their nanny, a black woman who has endured severe trauma and the rage that lies underneath her servile demeanor.

The script and the acting were all very good, and I loved the sets and the way they were moved by Brittany, the nanny, in a slow, defeated, labored way. The presentation of the couple's obliviousness and their narcissism was both funny and disturbing. At the same time, however, it was familiar and cliched, a well-worn trump in contemporary drama.

The Favourite

Earlier this year I saw The Favourite in the theater. I loved it. It's by the same director of The Lobster, and has a similar feel to it, even thought it's very different. It is weirdly comical, but also incredibly dark, about power games and distrust. The leads are three hard, ambitious women who are in command of themselves, and this is unusual to see in movies. Queen Anne is less in command of herself than the other two, but because she is the queen she holds all the power that everyone gravitates around. I very much liked this movie.

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital

In January I read Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, a short novel by Lorrie Moore. It is so good! I think her prose is intense and just crackles. It's very dynamic and sharp writing. Very well-observed. It's about two friends in high school in the 70s and the course their lives take. The narrator's personality emerges later in the book in a sad, uncomfortable, unpleasant way that kind of illuminates the whole thing.

You

I could not put down You by Caroline Kepnes. The prose is riveting, driven by a crazed momentum with some truly beautiful moments. The story is creepy, harrowing, but not essentially interesting. What makes this kind of amazing is the voice of the narrator, the second person rant/manifesto/confession/love letter. It's a great ride and I may read the sequel, just because I'm not ready to say goodbye to Joe.

Wine Country

I love Amy Poehler and all the actresses in Wine Country. As a GenXer I was really looking forward to this. There were a handful of truly funny moments, and it's good spirited. But in the end it was only meh. Formulaic, obvious, strained, and at times depressing.

A Colony in a Nation

A Colony in a Nation by Chris Hayes is an excellent long-form essay on race and policing in our era. It provides a historical analysis, making an analogy between how lower income urban communities of color are separated from the middle class mainstream and how this boundary is enforced by the government through order maintenance policing. In a relatively short book, Chris Hayes explores these problems with nuance and compassion. He makes what is at heart a moral argument without being heavy handed at all.

Conversations with Friends

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney is very good. It's about two young, college aged friends in Dublin. The narrator, Frances, is emotionally closed off in some ways but very observant and in some ways very self aware. It is about her relationship with a married man, and shifts in her friendship with Bobbi. Rooney does a great job describing different social dynamics and tensions in a way that made me uncomfortable but in a good way. I was surprisingly engrossed and read then novel quickly. I did have trouble with the very end and wish I could talk to someone about what they thought.