Good Stuff for High Summer (Attempt 2)
It's been hot, I've been inside a lot!
Substack had a lot of glitches today, and disappeared my post. Apologies for second posting but it should now be live both in an outside your email!
TV: Big Mood (Tubi): I watched this new series purely because it stars Nicola Coughlan (Derry Girls, Bridgerton), who is the best, and was glad I did. This is a dramedy with the friendship and everyday challenges of these two best friends at the center - the switches from drama to comedy are seamless and fit within the broader issues of family, mental health, and economic struggles. As always with a good UK series, there are short episodes, good banter, and good friends going through it.
TV: My Lady Jane (Amazon Prime): I am totally surprised at how much I enjoyed this. It’s LOOSELY based on the real Lady Jane Grey, but just nothing to do with actual history. It’s based on a YA fantasy book, which is #NotMyGenre yet I enjoyed this series a lot! The actors are very good with many recognizable faces and new faces; there is chemistry amongst all of them, and “characters” you already know are everywhere including Mary and Elizabeth and the Dudleys and Norfolks and Seymours….just nothing based in real history except for the foundation! The soundtrack is enjoyable and the banter is great, and there are some inside jokes I caught about Princess Diana (deep cut) and even some jokes about the other movies the actors were in.
Book - Romance: Let the Games Begin by Rufaro Faith Mazarura: The Summer Olympics begin in a few weeks (it won’t shock you to know that I have a lot of opinions about the money, infrastructure, and removal of public space and housing to host an Olympics, let alone the sports institutions and corporate sponsors/governments that churn out athletes at any cost .. and I’m def watching swimming, diving, gymnastics and track & field). This contemporary romance based on a Olympics volunteer and Olympic athlete, is charming and fun, while also a realistic of what the two leads and other characters deal with in life. A fun read with medium level steam which randomly takes place in Athens instead of Paris for 2024!
Poet and Author: Meena Kandasamy: I came to know Indian poet and writer, Meena Kandasamy through her poetry and essays - which found me in late 2019 when India passed the Citizenship Amendment Act and during early pandemic days via social media. Her writing is rooted in fighting Hindu Nationalism, Caste Supremacy, and gender based violence. She is also a translator of works both ancient and contemporary and I’m starting to read those as well.
Fiction: When I Hit You: Or, a Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife: This is a brief but intense novel based on Kandasamy’s own experience of domestic violence and escape, and in particular
Essays: The Orders Were To Rape You: Tigresses in the Tamil Eelam Struggle: Kandasamy’s essays, interviews and personal reflections of the struggles and long time civil war in Sri Lanka, were quite intense but for me lots to learn about the connections and intersections between ethnicity, caste, religion and of course gender.
Poetry Collections: Ms. Militancy, #ThisPoemWillProvokeYou & Other Poems, and Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You are excellent collections and this is the poem that introduced me to her and hooked me in!
