Hey friends and other human beings! This week, I am back with another edition of Five Things Friday. This is a list of five things that have been buzzing around in my head this week — be they podcasts, books, news articles, hobbies, games, whatever.
It's been awhile since the last edition of FTF. I'm always quick with excuses but I have been feeling particularly torn on what to throw my free time energies into, with lots of possibilities for writing, photography and the need to just rest and be refreshed. Oh, and I got married last week, too!
This is the first week in a long time I've felt I've actually had enough space and enough thoughts in my head to produce a new FTF, so here it is. Thanks, as always, for reading and joining me on the journey!
Without further ado, here are five things for this Friday:
1. What "It" is
A friend of mine recently shared he'd finished his first summer reads: "It" by Stephen King. If you don't know, I think it is a seminal work of horror and storytelling. It's also probably one of my favorite books ever written.
My friend also was good enough to point to this brilliant review from the LA Times in 2016, the book's 30th anniversary. It dives into the broader horrors present in "It" beyond just a terrifying clown that inhabits the sewers.
Reader beware: the book is absolutely more scary than the movie adaptation. Personally, "The Shining" gave me more trouble getting to sleep but "It" is still up there.
I enjoyed both the book and Adrian Daub's review of it, though both are quite thorough in their own ways.
2. The Truth vs. Alex Jones
This week, the students who survived the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., graduated from high school. I've been thinking a lot about where I was when I heard the news that young school children had been massacred in a school shooting by an AR-15-style rifle, what I was doing, how it felt. And worse, how it felt when our political leaders witnessed the grief and suffering wrought by the murder of children and still chose to do nothing.
I realized that if there's one thing that broke the U.S. in the last 15 years, it was this, in my opinion. It certainly broke me.
On the other side of this horror, and another symptom of that same brokenness, was a monster named Alex Jones. Jones sowed conspiracy theories in the wake of the shooting, skyrocketing in popularity and laying the groundwork for the "everything is a conspiracy" mentality that is now commonplace. He also profited off of it greatly.
It's difficult to watch, especially the first half, but I can't stop thinking about the tragedy this week and what has happened since.
3. Game of Thrones, a decade late
What's a bandwagon you jumped on a decade later, only to become obsessed with it? I'll go first.
For the past couple of months, I've been making my way through George R. R. Martin's masterful work of fantasy, "Game of Thrones." It's fantastic.
It's ironic, I think, that one of my chief complaints about "Dune" was all the court drama because GOT is ENTIRELY about the court drama. But I'm here for it.
After the first three seasons, I tried to force myself to stop watching the show in order to read the books. I'm still reading the books but I just couldn't resist and blasted through the next four seasons. (I'm still on Book 1 and put a hard stop at the end of Season 7 so no spoilers!)
By the by, I think the premise of a world facing a catastrophic threat but too caught up in its own infighting and power grabbing to deal with it is all too real, even if this realm is filled with dragons, witches and undead armies.
Also, no, I don't share Pete Holmes' disdain for fantasy realms.
4. Song of the week: Carry You by the Teskey Brothers
5. Words of the week:
big secret to happiness is just liking stuff. finding more stuff to like. finding ways to like stuff you didn't before. recognizing what it feels like to like something and doubling down on that. what feels frivolous is actually the whole ballgame
-Lauren Wilford