Ookings of d00m

Okay so.

This.

This.

Wizards & Spaceships season 3 begins with this banger:

Didactic Fiction ft. Vajra Chandrasekera, Samantha Mills, and Gregory A. Wilson

Drop what you're doing and go listen.

This one was a financial crime one, so you know I'm into it. I don't know why I'm like this either.


( The Winning Bid )

Another fairly meh episode, and not referencing a particular case as far as I'm aware. Which, given some of the things they've done with real cases, is maybe a blessing.

We do get some quality UofT though!

( Whole Lotta Love )

This one is. Uh. It's mediocre as a plot but absolutely horrific and irresponsible in the context of the case it's based on. Worse, it knows that and hangs a lampshade on it. But it also has some redeeming qualities, so read on if you can deal with the real case involving the murder of a child.

( Up To Snuff )

Just finished: Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story Of the Jewish Bund by Molly Crabapple. God this is amazing. I don't know what to add; I think iI get a similar thrill with the sense of political and cultural recognition that other people get when they see a character like themselves in fiction for the first time (who knew representation was important???). This is one of those "read this book if you want to better understand me" type things for me. Obviously it's not just therapy for curmudgeonly anti-Zionist anarch-ish middle-aged Jewish women—the history is important, knowing about the strategy and failures are important, the narrative of fighting in the face of defeat is important. But it also helped reset some of my despair.

BTW it's a long slog but about halfway through when they hit the end of WWII I was like, huh, half the book is left??? half the book is footnotes.

Wake Up! (Seasons, Book Winter) by Ryszard I. Merey. Ah, let's read something short after the big, detailed history book—oh no this one is fairly brutal too. This is the third book in the Seasons project (the first two are a + e 4ever and Read and then Burn This, which I also highly recommend), all of which have to do with toxic relationships and gender fuckery, if you like that kind of thing. I do. This is about Tian, a down-on-her-luck tattoo artist. Her fiancée has left her after she's come out as trans, and she's left with an apartment she can't afford. Al, a man she rescues one night, has rent money, but that's because he's a high-stakes mahjong player in deep with some sketchy characters. It's a hallucinogenic fever dream with an unreliable narrator and a shifting, capricious timeline. Beautifully written, absolutely tragic, and if you want you can get a special German edition on sparkly paper that's tiny.

Currently reading: Nothing, starting Five Points On an Invisible Line by Su J Sokol next.