In January, I read two books: Ghost Bride<\/i> by Yangsze Choo and Annihilation<\/i> by Jeff VanderMeer. I read the first one for a book club I never actually attended, and the second one just because it was supposed to be good. It’s an unnerving book, almost certainly by design, but I’m currently reading Authority<\/i>, the second book in the “Southern Reach Trilogy,” so it’s probably safe to assume that I liked it. (Ghost Bride<\/i> was okay, too.)<\/p>\n
In January, I saw seven movies: The Trouble with Harry<\/i>, The Apartment<\/i>, Fiddler on the Roof<\/i>, The Sunshine Boys<\/i>, Our Man Flint<\/i>, That Guy…Who Was in That Thing<\/i>, and Obvious Child<\/i>. I think the last was my favorite, although Fiddler<\/i> has some wonderful moments, thanks largely to the central performance by Tevye, and Shirley MacLaine is a (surprising) radiant delight in both Harry<\/i> (which isn’t Hitchcock’s best) and Apartment<\/i> (which is great but takes a weird hard turn near the end). Flint<\/i> is often fun, but was probably better in the ’60s, when the Bond movies it parodies were new. That Guy<\/i>…well, it certainly has a lot of those guys in it. It’s not really a documentary, much less a compelling one, but it is overstocked with a lot of recognizable and talented character actors, so you can almost forget its lack of real depth for about ninety minutes. Sunshine Boys<\/i> was the most surprising, because I though I would enjoy it a lot more than I did. It felt fairly dated, and while Matthau and Burns give very good performances, the gist is often, “Hey, these two guys sure are old, huh?” (Burns weirdly reminded me a little of my own grandfather in a couple of scenes, which is not something that occurred to me when the two of them were both alive.)<\/p>\n
In January, I read about forty-two short stories. I say about<\/i> because one of them I actually listened to at an author reading, and because I’m reading stories for both my ongoing fiction class and my web zine, neither of which I’m tracking. I think these were my favorites of the ones I am:<\/p>\n In January, I went to a number of meet-ups and events, skipped out on a few more, saw The Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder<\/i> on Broadway, and attended a number of sessions of my online writing course. The course is going well, I think. We unexpectedly skipped last week, so it’s been a little while.<\/p>\n In January, I listened to some music:<\/p>\n\n