It’s a shame that we can only really know if someone had the most perfect stomach or liver once they’re dead. Thinking about bodybuilding again. We can control, to an extent, how much muscle we put on and where. We can also control, to an extent, how much fat we put on (but not where). But if someone ate the most amazing-est diet with optimal hydration and kept their large intestine absolutely pristine, we can’t really pull it out and admire it :( Or if someone fell and broke their shin bone and then got bone spurs growing out of the healed area, if those spurs had a cool structure, we can’t really know without operating (or taking a ton of expensive imaging).
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No Other Choice
After going to a doctor’s appointment and then getting lunch at KazuNori, I was able to catch a showing of this at the Time Square AMC. It felt so familiar to be in that area with my MoviePass card. A coworker told me to watch this and described it as a black comedy that escalates quickly.
I thought a lot of it was so beautiful. The striking yellow colors of those trees when Mansu visits Beom-mo’s house for the first time. The comedic beats. Honestly the way the mom and dad had such different approaches to helping keep the family afloat was too real too, like. Got our ass.
...It’s actually so jarring how when I look up and see the moon, it seizes me so wholly and immediately. Like walking home from the train at night and being like, “Wait why is it so bright right now?” and looking up and boom, clear sky, blueish half moon. Even just now, I was just opening my window and there’s this weird luminous presence above me so I look up and boom. Moon. It is so bright and seriously there.
...Solaris
A rare occurrence where I wish I had not read the source material prior to watching the adaptation.
I started reading Solaris by Stanislaw Lem in early 2025. I heard about this writer because I had read The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer and I was looking for similar books. A lot of people mentioned Solaris but often mentioned that it was a departure from Lem’s other works. So I read The Futurological Congress (the third book in a trilogy… why did I do that) in order to prepare myself for this writer’s style. I hated it. But because Solaris was supposed to be different, I decided to give it a chance.
...I want to go outside and look for bugs but 1) it is not bug season and 2) there are spiders everywhere in my home for those with eyes to see.
Anyway, a few weeks ago while I was checking out at the grocery store, this old man complimented my baggu with an elephant pattern on it. He said, “I feel bad for them, y’know. Sorry, I like them a lot so I love your bag. It says something, shows that you care.”
...I finished Pluribus and I’m about to finish There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm and I have many thoughts, and I want to articulate them. However, I need to express my immense disappointment in the direction that both stories take with the ‘other’ that, I guess, exposes my desire for a story about the ‘other’ where it is not diametrically opposed to the question of humanity. God!!! Something is seriously bothering me about it!!! I mean. I guess art did its job, it made me feel, and what it made me feel IS ANNOYED!
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