Movie review: The Social Dilemma, dir Jeff Orlowski (2020)

This movie was talked about on Twitter when it first appeared but since then its messages haven’t made much noise in the public sphere. To criticise the business model of companies such as Instagram and Facebook you need to use the same sorts of complexity and sophistication that these companies use, and this probably accounts for the relative silence. Complex ideas aren’t much commented on on sites such as Twitter, simple responses that are expressed in an extreme fashion get all the “likes” and retweets. Certainly, people haven't responded to the movie by stopping using their apps.

To talk about how Facebook engineers the news feed, or how YouTube engineers recommendations is to get to the core of the way these sites work: by rewarding the evolved systems the human body has developed over millions of years of development and refinement. We’re just not designed to cope with the addictiveness of the modern news feed with its constant appeals to our sympathies, its neverending search for the next response – just one more “like”, just another comment, or even a “share”. The dopamine rush we get from being recognised as we post and comment is what brings us back to the screen time after time.

The movie uses interviews as well as fictionalised enactments to get its message across. The people in front of the camera are mostly former employees of the companies involved. Many of them are still in the IT business, but others are fronting nonprofits. There are also the usual sort of talking head that current affairs programs bring on-camera to give their expert view of things. The package is neat and concise and entertaining. Well worth the time need to watch.

Movie review: The Minimalists: Less is Now, dir Matt D’Avella (2021)

Last month I watched this documentary’s companion piece, from the same director but coming out six years earlier. Both are good, and I don’t have a preference either way but the two movies are different though the message is the same. The earlier movie is more of a coming-of-age story, charting the emergence of the two men who are the subjects of the pieces.

‘Less is Now’ tells the same story but with more detail. Here you learn more about the childhoods of Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Millburn, who are the Minimalists (they have a website you can visit for more information about their project). Millburn seems to have purchased a new Toyota to replace his old Toyota, which tells me that his idea has borne fruit in a material sense – though you don’t now get to see the outside of the car, the interior finishes are too new to go with the bodywork that was evident in the 2015 movie.

I watched the movie with friends, and the experience sparked controversy. This is a debate that we all must have even though, for many, the message of Nicodemus and Fields will be unnecessary. A point one of the interview subjects raised is that minimalism is really a first-world luxury. For recent migrants, the idea that you’d need to reduce the amount of belongings you own must seem like something strange, especially considering the fact that you might not have everything that you need to live life well. A spoiled society would find comfort from reducing the number of items owned and a struggling man might still need to buy his own vacuum cleaner or rice cooker.

The fact remains that we’re overtaxing the planet, the problem being that there’s no such thing as world government, so getting action on an issue as comprehensive as climate change is always going to cause us problems. Let the message of the Minimalists become more widespread and we might all have a common referent. I wonder how intrusive they really are, however. It seems to me that we’re more focused on the latest Netflix drama, the more recent Abba album, the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

Take two: The Life of Kingsley Amis, Zachary Leader

For a full review, see my Patreon. 

This book was bought in early 2007 at the Co-Op Bookshop. On the back cover is a sticker with the price ($6.75 marked down from RRP of $75) and the sticker has the date of January 2007 printed on it to indicate when the sale started. I’ve had this in my collection unread since those days.

TV review: Making the Cut, season 1 (2020)

This quirky Amazon Prime show has reality TV roots but is more serious than most of the genre because designers are being judged on their skills and creativity so it’s a bit more like ‘The Voice’ than ‘Survivor. Though I’m not a fashionista (I recently got 10 pairs of old outsized trousers taken in so they’d fit) I was able to identify with the creatives featured because they were trying to do something meaningful and because of the vulnerability the shooting reveals.

This is an aspirational drama and part of what makes it so watchable is the awfulness of the values of the people involved, especially the judges. When Josh gets cut in episode three it’s partly because of the weakness of the designs he and Troy made for the collaboration, but it’s also partly because, when asked why he thought he should still be in the competition, he said, “I don’t think I should be here.” Troy, on the other hand, gave a desperate speech when asked the same question, and it was Naomi Campbell’s change of heart that kept him in the game. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

What struck me most about the show after watching about half of the first season is how the introvert (creative, a loner) is mixed with the extrovert (the fashion world with its celebrations). I was also struck by how this show compares to the dozens of cooking shows that are currently available to view on commercial TVs around the world. While cooking is something that most everybody does every day, making clothes is a specialised practice that requires a rarer type of skillset. But the makers of ‘Making the Cut’ have managed to make the drama of tailoring accessible by mixing segments in the workroom with more routine segments where the garments are paraded on the catwalk, so you get a melange of high and low, rarefied and workaday. Meanwhile the magic of individual personality combines with a bit of voyeurism – Paris highlights like the Moulin Rouge conspiratorially get time on-screen – to create compelling TV.

The other thing good about the show is its global relevance. Everyone’s seen news segments where the evils of disposable fashion are visible – the acres of cast-off first-world clothing that gets shipped to some out-of-the-way corner of Africa to be sorted and recycled – but fashion has a wide appeal because everyone wears clothes. Furthermore, the use of fashion to cement the borders of identity make it something that we all can get involved in. Even just the selection of a range of types of individual for this show – Ji Won is Korean-American, Troy is black, Esther is German – signals how important the claims of identity are for both the show’s makers and for people in the community who’ll watch it.

While the former take a risk by making the show, the latter get to indulge their own fantasies while consuming it, and while the voyeuristic tendencies of reality television are a bit overwhelming sometimes (Naomi Campbell is almost certain, every time she opens her mouth, to say something cutting) I felt relieved by the lightness that it made me feel when it happened, as though, when a contestant had the burden of drama to shoulder, my own problems were, as a result, somehow less onerous. Because reality TV is so common these days – and so popular – I often felt that I was part of a scene, which enabled me to feel included, to feel with-it, to feel capable. I’d forgotten how reality TV can affect the viewer, making them feel good because the weight of circumstance is temporarily transferred, within the spirals of the thinking mind, to someone else. When Sabato was cut at the end of episode five he said, “But I’m leaving as a winner because I felt so much love from everybody,” masking his pain with a bit of positivity (temptingly bordering on passive aggressiveness). The head-to-head between Megan and Jonny at the end of episode seven – held to establish the day’s winner – was cheap, as though the show’s makers thought that it needed something to beef it up, but I understood how this kind of shallow posturing can make for a solid deliverable.

I’d only myself ever watched reality TV far back in my past, in fact when I was living in Tokyo and would see ‘Iron Chef’ in the evenings after work on some nights during the week. Watching ‘Making the Cut’ I was struck by how differently the contestants saw the city, compared to my experience, their observations about the fashion of Tokyoites giving a new dimension to my own awareness while a resident there. I was able, now, to see the city with new eyes, helped by people who spend all their time thinking about and doing fashion. Not only am I the least fashionable person you’re likely to meet, but when the garments of young people seen in Harajuku were labelled “anti-fashion” I was intrigued, as though my own tastes were being commented on. In fact my own fashion style is conformist: I blend in with what is entirely mundane and run-of-the-mill, with what is expected. The young Harajuku natives are making a comment on fashion, but because they are trying to be provocative at least they are engaging in the process. My own comments are almost that fashion doesn’t exist, and so in a sense I’m more “anti-fashion” even than the youth of Harajuku.

How clothes look on the human form, an outfit seen as a person you don’t know is walking down the street in front of you, is the central drama of this engrossing show. To add piquancy, its makers have conscripted the cachet of influencers, fashion industry leaders, and brand representatives. This is a very modern show that not only touches on the sublime – how that suit of clothes looks when you see it – but that asks us to question who we are. For what is it that I care about so deeply that I would humble myself in order to be acclaimed a leading exponent of the art? How committed am I to my ideals? What lengths would I go to in order to achieve fame and fortune? The lineaments of desire are held within your grasp as you watch ‘Making the Cut’.

Grocery shopping list for August 2021

This post is the thirty-second in a series and the eleventh to chronicle diets. 

3 August

The effort required at the beginning of last month to make the shopping list for my blog exceeded the (admittedly not always very broad) limits of my patience, particularly because of all the rigmarole involved in locating files to include along with the text, and I decided to put a stop to the practice. I wrote in my end-of-year memorial for 2021 some words outlining my reasons for quitting the exercise I’d religiously kept up since December 2018 (with only May the next year missed because I was out of the country). You can read more of my reasoning when the time comes for that post to go up on the web.

The present blogpost will chronicle, for old times’ sake, highlights in my weight maintenance though I’m not really putting my heart and soul into it anymore; habit compels me to write each morning, so what you’re reading is like the final wriggles of a fish landed on a pier, its mortality escaping in futile change and turns, the thin air failing to sustain its quest for life, although a new idea might bring me to turn the direction I navigate for a route through the contravening currents in the shoals of obloquy.

4 August

After eating something early in the morning, before dawn, at a time when I’m usually up writing, I had an urge to update the app on my mobile phone in order to record what I’d just consumed, and was forced to check myself with a reminder – “I’m not doing that anymore.” The day before I’d also checked myself when I picked up the supermarket receipt as, by this point in time, it wasn’t necessary to snap a photo of these stray pieces of paper with their faint thermal traces that show the date of purchase, the name of each item bought, and the prices paid at the checkout. In the past I would load such images with their files to the cloud so that I could open them on my PC and store them in a folder ready for when, at the beginning of the new month, I would do the painstaking work needed to get everything uploaded so that it would be available for public scrutiny.

9 August

Went for milk today at the IGA, as well as other purchases, most of which I picked up because I knew at some point that I’d run out. Milk is probably the most important single purchase I make in any month, as, without morning coffee – I couldn’t possibly operate! 

Here’s a snapshot of my progress for the part of the month. I continue to record my morning weight using the scales and the Fat Secret app – the screen grab showing how it’s evident that 82.9kg was the lowest reading I’d ever seen. Even though 85kg was my target I’m tempted to sit just a little under that level in order to allow myself to be able to enjoy the occasional indulgence.

So for example you can see a spike on 2 August, as the first of the month saw me eating with friends and consequently putting on 900g overnight. When I’m alone I can regulate my weight – for example on 8 August I had, for my main meal, a serving of about half-a-kilo of chicken wings, and lost 700g overnight. A cheap alternative, chicken wings also reliably let you drop kilos (and I adore the crispy flavoursomeness of this wholesome treat).

Overall I was resting at a point that was reasonably static even given some unnerving peaks and satisfying troughs. In fact, just by eating an extra handful of cheese and one apple more I can put on half a kilo without even looking at any other item of food, a tendency that just goes to illustrate my susceptibility to weight gain. Some people are naturally liable to putting it on, while others can add any number of casual morsels to their daily intake without negative repercussions. I had a comment from a friend with whom, a generation ago, I worked at an automation company in Tokyo, who commented on a Facebook post that he’d never had occasion to even think about limiting carbohydrate intake and, despite that fact, had with age grown no bigger at his middle. Tim’s thoughts were a tonic for me, showing me how obesity isn’t necessarily universal though, as Dr Nanda, my general practitioner, noted when he spoke with me on more than one occasion, people who make up the population are heavier than they ought to be, and he blames Coca Cola for this trend. Like an old-time Presbyterian elder considered by coevals as one of the elect Tim is to be fair one of a lucky but small number.

13 August

Went to Woolies in Wolli Creek to do some shopping for a friend and at the same time picked up low-carb snacks and nuts. They have a good selection of nuts at this branch, including Brazil nuts and pecans – both of which I bought in separate packets.

15 August

I’d needed to order more medicated shampoo, so had earlier on called the pharmacy I use in Pyrmont and made a mental note to pick up the new bottle at the same time I went to meet with my psychiatrist. But due to the new lockdown regime I decided to do my psychiatrist’s appointment via Skype. I also placed an order on Sunday night at the Woolworths website (see below) where they actually have a low-carb bread option in the database, adding a number of other things to my shopping basket to fill up the order so that it would be worthwhile (the delivery charge is $15). 

16 August

My weight chart as it stood this morning:

If you spend a moment looking at this image you can see a low point of 82.9kg that fell a week prior and, on subsequent days, eating a bit too much – without being egregiously silly – I disappointingly gained weight. Minor lapses, I assure you! Nothing as dramatic as, say, a trip to a Thai restaurant for a plate of pad see ew (which I love but which my diet proscribes) though it was possibly due to the fact that I’d stopped charting consumption on the FatSecret app, or maybe because I’d stopped using the kitchen scales (on the 15th I put them away with the teapot and the toaster). Whatever the cause of the increase, a week of concerted effort was required to get me back to my “new normal”.

17 August

Just before midday an email had arrived from Woolworths notifying me that the swedes I’d ordered weren’t in stock. As a result of this discrepancy as well as a few others, the final charge would be revised downwards, the email saying “The pending charge on your credit card used for payment will be reduced by $6.10 prior to payment finalisation”. 

At 1.40pm the delivery happened, a young woman leaving the three bags next to the front door and skedaddling quick. She’d arrived in a regular, dark blue hatchback, unlike in the old days back at Pyrmont when a uniformed driver would come in a badged two-tonne truck. Shortly after this occurred I went to IGA with my houseguest to buy more food (including a swede) and especially to get kitchen paper towels, which were in short supply and which I’d forgotten to order on the weekend at the website.

18 August

I’d seen a charge on my credit card and thought that, because of this fact, I’d expect a refund, and when nothing came through, hoping for clarification, this morning I got onto the website and started a chat with someone at Woolies. I gave my order number and was told that a downwards revision had already been applied to the charge, so I signed off and went back to my usual browsing and my social graph. 

22 August

Drove to Pyrmont to pick up the medicated shampoo as my panic attacks had, with the use of antidepressants, fallen away. While out that way I stopped at Coles in Broadway Shopping Centre to buy some food, including chicken wings, meat, and low-carb snacks. The purchase total was about $143. I also bought a loaf of low-carb bread while I was in the store as most retailers don’t stock it, for example Woolies in Wolli Creek (which is closer to my home).

23 August

My house guest bought milk on this day as the 1-litre bottle I’d bought a few days earlier had almost run out. I messaged him to get some while he was getting his Covid inoculation. On this day my weight chart looked like this:

29 August

Went to buy milk from a bread shop as I had houseguests. My weight loss chart looked like this:

TV review: Agatha Christie’s Poirot, series 3 episode 9, ‘The Theft of the Royal Ruby’ (1991)

This is a formidable franchise and because it’s screened in Sydney on a Nine Entertainment digital channel (Monday nights, 7.30pm) I have been able to sample some episodes, such as this one. I wasn’t entirely happy with the characterisation of the young prince (played by Antony Zaki) but the remainder of the scripting was fine.

The story is, as usual, quite simple even though some of the subterfuges Poirot (David Suchet) takes are complicated and there are slow scenes where the detective can be seen watching what other people do, in this case spying on the inhabitants of the house where he is a guest while standing on a balcony. This is Poirot’s metier: to be aware of things that go on around him, to sample, like the chocolates in the craft confectionary store he’s inside when the episode opens, a rare bonbon. It’s when he comes out of the shop that the game begins, as, walking across the road, he’s accosted by two men who usher him into a car in order to take him to see Mr Jesmond (David Howey), who works for the police. There, he’s told of the circumstances of the crime – a young lady had stolen a rare ruby while having dinner with the prince – and proceeds to scoff and remonstrate. Unknown to Poirot, the prince is standing behind him!

The scene then changes to a country estate in a Modernist house, a rare treat for viewers. Here, Poirot is forced to not only find the ruby that has been stolen but, when he does, furthermore uncover the identities of the thieves. He’d come across the ruby since it had been serendipitously stowed inside a Christmas pudding. Having brought it to the prince and Jesmond, the former demands to know the identity of those who had stolen it, so Poirot takes hold of the gem again and reluctantly returns to the house.

What follows is a typically ornate sting, during which Poirot conscripts the youngsters living there to orchestrate a fake murder, in the process of uncovering which he stashes the ruby in the outflung hand of a girl who’s pretending to have been stabbed. The stone is then found by the villain, Desmond Lee-Wortley (Nigel Le Vaillant), who makes a dash for the airfield where he has his plane ready for escape. On the airfield, the police cut off its careen down the runway by driving their cars onto the field and Lee-Wortley and his “sister” (Robyn Moore) are nabbed by the cops with the prince petulantly exchanging insults with the latter.

A more contemporary script might have dealt with the prince differently; this one has him appear unappealing and churlish though the portrait is tempered with some humour. As usual there is also a touch of scripted xenophobia, in this case Colonel Lacey (Frederick Treves) alludes to Poirot’s being, perhaps, French, during a short scene in his bedroom while he is talking with his wife (Stephanie Cole). Scripting choices will have analogues in Christie’s text, I do not doubt, though not having ever read one of her novels or short stories I cannot confidently pass judgement on the author.

The neatness and economy of a Poirot episode are a delight, everything being performed along with the main character’s old-world elegance and charm. The little head-bows, the small words to compliment his interlocutor, the calm exterior with its machine-like moustache hovering like a hummingbird above his upper lip, all of the paraphernalia of yesteryear – old-fashioned even at the time the books were written, and designed to critique modernity as much as greed or cupidity – made ‘Poirot’ one of my mother’s favourite shows. I, too, have been seduced.

Movie review: Val, dirs Ting Poo and Leo Scott (2021)

This gentle and elegiac Amazon original production poses certain questions about identity and how to live a good life by examining that of Val Kilmer, the movie actor. Not too long ago Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer and after an operation he was able to retain his existence but his ability to speak – something that, for an actor, is of cardinal importance – was curtailed. To speak now Kilmer must use his finger to close a hole in his throat while he moves his lips and tongue and expels air through his mouth. Even if he does all these things in concert, however, his voice is hard to understand and his diction is cramped.

Kilmer’s financial situation is precarious. He underwrote some of his father’s property speculations so lost a good deal of money that way. Then there was his divorce. Because he declined a second ‘Batman’ movie he never entered the lists of mega-rich movie stars, and the culmination of the years has left the man with two children who love him (he lives next-door to his daughter) and a warehouse full of video tapes.

Here the directors had a treasure trove of material to draw on as they constructed a portrait of the man, and they took advantage of all of it when putting together this movie. What’s most decisive about it is the man himself, a kind of resigned jester who ekes out a living signing autographs at Comic Con and similar events held around the United States from time to time. These gatherings take their toll on a frail body and the pathos of Kilmer is striking, like Mickey Rourke in 2008’s ‘The Wrestler’, which chronicles the life of an ageing fighter. A singular difference divides the two portraits because Kilmer is close to his children whereas Randy "The Ram" Robinson doesn’t get along with his daughter. 

Kilmer’s son voiced the narration for Poo and Scott’s film, which I strongly recommend for your viewing hours. It runs to just over 90 minutes.

Movie review: Minimalism, dir Matt D’Avella (2015)

This is a quiet and discriminating Netflix documentary that charts some of the lives of two men who decided to give up – in the manner of the hero of ‘Fight Club’ – the trappings of success (high salaries, possessions) and to live their lives more simply. It’s a welcome antidote to the unceasing appeals to our cupidity screened every second on commercial TV, the endless ads for dishwashing liquid, jewellery, and car insurance that offer lures to a basic human need as, the makers of this film tell us, we are hard wired to want more.

The day before this show appeared on my TV downstairs in the living room (the TV upstairs in my bedroom isn’t digital) I watched a YouTube video a friend selected that showed electronic waste recycling in Ghana. A hellish scenario and one that ‘Minimalism’ might help us to better understand. Thinking about the contrast between the aspirational tone of this documentary compared to the journalistic grit of the YouTube video I am struck by the cognitive dissonance and I wonder how much change Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus can actually bring about with their measured approach to a problem that is so obvious once you look into it for even a day or so: that we produce and throw away more “stuff” than the environment can cope with.

Millburn and Nicodemus are prone to ending their conversations with a hug, and this is how the show leaves you feeling: as though you’ve been embraced by an emotion that only success can make. But this is confusing because we normally equate success in a certain way and these men are asking us to understand it differently. The two bags that Millburn packed for their nine-month trip around the US in an early-model Toyota sedan emblematise a desire but the growing sense that the men are gradually cutting through the noise in the public sphere offers its own kind of plenitude. Of course, once that peak is reached another issue comes along to divert the population, to engross its viewers, and to take precedence on the TV screens dotted around the United States like gems.

Movie review: Made You Look, dir Barry Avrich (2020)

This Netflix documentary chronicles the case of fake art made by a Chinese painter who masterfully copied the styles of leading American abstract expressionists (eg Pollock, Rothko). The art was sold by a reputable New York gallery for a total of $80 million, starting in the late 1990s. The FBI finally took the dealer to court but the gallerist who offloaded the works was only forced to retire.

The show is engrossing for anyone, like me, who is interested in art, because it makes you think about the value we place on this form of human expression. The object is therefore privileged, and ‘Made You Look’ asks us to question how it is that one production from one artist is worth so much when the work of another artist is relegated to obscurity.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this show. It was one of two shows I watched on the same day when, after about a year away from Netflix, I finally returned to sample what’s on offer to subscribers.

Take two: Grotesque, Natsuo Kirino

For a full review, see my Patreon. 

I’ve had this in my collection for a good while and it was bought at some point in time for a discount price at the Co-Op Bookshop, though I don’t know which one. The book was originally published in English in 2007 and in paperback in 2008, so it’s likely that I bought the volume at the store at Sydney University as my office at the time was located just around the corner from the swimming pool.

Take two: The Rings of Saturn, WG Sebald

For a full review, see my Patreon. 

I had this book from dad, who probably bought it in the 90s. The publication date (in English) is 1998. Wikipedia says this is a novel but it’s not: it’s a memoir. I took the photo shown above in front of two photographs in my collection. The top one is by my cousin Rob, and shows a Chinese window. The bottom one is by a man named Terry Broadford and is titled ‘Station Control’. It shows a Jpaanese railway employee, which is appropriate as Sebald uses trains in his book as a kind of magical device that lies in the region between his routine existence and a life free of bad memories he dreams of living.

Take two: The Mountain, Drusilla Modjeska

For a full review, see my Patreon. 

I bought this volume at a Lifeline sale recently when the city was still relatively open for business. Under current restrictions it’d be impossible for the charity to hold the event, or for bibliophiles like me to find cheap entertainment. God knows though we need more of it! The photograph in the image above is apposite as in Modjeska’s book the central character, Rika, is a photographer. It’s also suitable as the person who took this photo is Polish.

Take two: Sodom and Gomorrah, Marcel Proust

For a full review, see my Patreon. 

I bought this, as mentioned last month, in June 2013 at Folio Books in Brisbane. I was living in the Sunshine Coast at the time and missed things to do with the big city, as my familiars up there, rather than old university friends, were mostly bush turkeys and bananabirds.

Conversations with taxi drivers: Eighteen

This is the eighteenth in a series of posts relaying conversations I have had with taxi drivers. The first of these posts appeared on 6 June 2018. 

5 August

I had a car service today, though when 8.30am came by I only just realised I was already late for the appointment due to a scam phone call that alerted me to the existence of my phone. I found the place and then talked with a man for about 20 minutes about batteries and E10 fuel, then called a cab on the 13 CABS app. The driver when asked told me to pay at the end of the trip – the app usually does this transaction for you – and I took a receipt just in case I was double charged. I ate some lunch after they called me to let me know the car was ready to pick up, then when the food was finished I summoned another cab.

The driver was chatty. I told him I was getting my RAV4 serviced for the first time and he said he was trading in his Camry for a RAV4 when it arrived in the country. The service staff had told me there’s an 8-month wait at present; my wait last year was 6 months. The driver estimated that it’d take two weeks to take delivery of the vehicle, which would be a Cruiser (like mine) as Silver Service, which would be badging the car, only took that model on. 

He said he normally gets 130,000km a year for regular cab use, but due to Covid it was about 85,000 to 90,000km. A new battery costs about $2000 because the car maker gives you a trade in for the old battery. He said a person he knows who just bought a RAV4 for cab use paid $45,000 (mine was $52,000) and the different prices reflected the fact, he averred, that for cabbies there’s less tax and no registration charge. I was surprised by the price differential and said I should’ve told Toyota I was a cab driver – but he said I’d need taxi plates (he also said they drop the car off at the depot, rather than it being picked up from the showroom).

He himself drives a 2015 Lexus but he’s only done about 22,000km on it because it only gets used on Sundays – he normally drives his cab for six days a week.

This time the app charged me via my credit card. The Toyota charge was $215 for the service, and also involved driving down a ramp to the street! I felt quite proud due to working out how to get down the ramp – even how to approach it! But just to prove how impractical I am at the exit I went "out" the "in" gate.

Take two: The Shortest History of China, Linda Jaivin

For a full review, see my Patreon. 

This book came from Dymocks in Broadway Shopping Centre, where I went while doing grocery shopping during lockdown. Most bookshops in Sydney are closed for browsing, so I went to the best option available. The sales clerk said he wanted to read this book, having seen it discussed on a Tv program. I said that I’d tried a different history of China and had found it wanting, and that I hoped Jaivin’s book would avoid the usual way of chronicling the various tiresome dynasties. 

Take two: The Guermantes Way, Marcel Proust

For a full review, see my Patreon. 

I started reading this series of novels a couple of years ago though I had the set in my collection when I was living in southeast Queensland. The full set was bought at Folio Books in that city. At that time I bought Proust’s novels hoping to conjure up the mettle needed to read them, but when I finally did some years later it turned out to be a source of intense pleasure. This is the third in the series and the series has seven novels in it.

Tweeting better stories, episode eight: July 2021

Wanting to find a lighter-hearted way I offer readers this eighth post in a series.

This rather incomprehensible tweet appeared at 6.47am on 15 July:

I was left scratching my head also when I read this (it appeared at 9.17pm on 19 July):

More strangeness appeared in a tweet at 6.26pm on 29 July:

More oddness with regard to Harry coming in at 8.30am on 30 July:

Horror

At 5.29pm on 1 July I saw this tweet in my feed:

At 3.21am on 2 July I saw this:

At 6.21pm on 19 July this tweet appeared:

This appeared at 4.47am on 28 July:

Weather

At 5.22pm on 3 July I saw this tweet:

It came with a photograph that I liked (see below).

At 10.37am on 27 July these two posts appeared in my feed:

At 4.43pm on 31 July this appeared to comfort me (and due to its theme it really did provide comfort when I was feeling especially vulnerable):

The body

At 5.23pm on 3 July I saw this:

This strange tweet (which appeared at 5.20pm on 5 July) came from an account that is often busy with odd messages, so I shouldn’t have been surprised!

At 5.12am on 9 July this tweet (which appeared to me to be making a lot of sense):

And on 11 July at 5.42pm this one appeared (it seemed to refer to the previous one):

Plants and animals

At 6.23am on 6 July this appeared:

At 3.15am on 12 July this rather dry (but interesting) tweet appeared in my feed:

On 14 July at 1.01pm the following appeared:

At 2.41am on 15 July the following two tweets appeared:

The full poem about the loons is, as follows:

At 4.46am on 18 July this appeared in my feed:

This appeared at 8.03am on 20 July:

At 1.21pm on 29 July this appeared:

Progeny

At 4.57am on 7 July this appeared in my feed (two tweets right next to one another):

At 5.30am on 16 July the following appeared:

The reader

I enjoyed this pair of tweets that appeared at 5.48am on 13 July:

The Italian in the first one reads:

Sounds and resounds the far sea.

This is a door.

Here I love you.

(‘Here I love you’ by Pablo Neruda.)

At 6.42pm on 23 July this tweet appeared:

A succinct guide for readers was presented to me at 6.14pm on 24 July:

At 7.28am on 26 July this was visible to me:

Love

At 6.21am on 21 July this appeared:

And the next day at 7.24am this appeared:

At 10.39am on 25 July this appeared:

Tokyo

This strange and quite beautiful tweet appeared at 12.49pm on 17 July: