So, given that the third in this irregular series has been hidden, I think I'm going to need to investigate options for separating this blog from Blogger — eg Wordpress. Which opens up the ability to finally acquire for myself a proper website, something which is long since overdue.
Reading
I'm going to shunt this off into its own post. (Maybe.)
Watching
For the past several months I and my partner have been watching and enjoying Game of Thrones. For me, it's a return to something I dropped off of after season seven. I started with the DVDs, and remember watching season four when it was fresh. I've been writing up thoughts on each season after we finish watching. After we finish, I'll probably go through it all, try and tighten it up, and perhaps post them here.
We also briefly diverted to watch Russell T. Davies' five-episode It's a Sin, which will surely go down as one of the best television productions of the decade. It's extremely emotionally intense and an incredible demonstration of just how good Davies is at television.
He has the remarkable ability to draw up a completely convincing three-dimensional character in just a couple of well-chosen shots and lines of dialogue. It's an astonishing skill. And of course, the whole thing is incredibly emotionally raw.
(As a digressionary thought, I briefly had the realization that Midnight Mass would've been better with Davies as the screenwriter, because while Flanagan is good at hitting similar emotional notes, he's much more longwinded. A Davies speech/monologue doesn't overstay its welcome.)
It makes me excited for him taking over Doctor Who. I fell off during series ten, even though I would stand by Capaldi being my favorite of the new Doctors. And I have not-wholly-fond memories of RTD's first run, so I'm thinking of rewatching and reassessing.
I and my partner have now moved to a different HBO drama about competing dynastic scions. This one's set in the twenty-first century, though.
Listening
I've been working my way through Murray Gold's Doctor Who music, because it really is spectacular, ever since it was announced that he was coming back. He's very good and it's a damn shame that there seems to be almost nothing worthwhile written on his composition style or his use of leitmotifs across the twelve years of music he wrote.
Composing
The newest episode of the Twelfth Doctor Fan Audios aired about a week ago. It's titled "The Disastrous Life of Jacob Fitzallen," and it's functionally a four-hander, frequently operating, scene-by-scene, as a two-hander. It's a domestic drama with a vague sci-fi subplot sprinkled in mostly for color.
The composing team approached it similarly to a period drama. For the scenes I scored, this meant a small orchestra, carefully augmented with piano, jazz guitar, and jazz drumkit. For one scene, a handful of synths were pulled out.
The next episode is a two-parter. It's the finale. It's gonna be big. The showrunner, Andrew, says that we want a traditional, Murray Gold-style finale. (So there's more than one reason Gold's been on my mind.)
Some Books I'm Looking Forward To
Anybody that knows me knows that Daniel Abraham is my single favorite author, and the next book (Blade of Dream) of his present fantasy project (the Kithamar trilogy [I preferred the series' original title, Aspects of Kithamar]) comes out in July, which means I'll be rereading Age of Ash.
Some other books I'm looking forward to:
- Seth Dickinson's space opera Exordia, originally announced back in 2018 and re-announced earlier this year, which will finally be coming out next year.
- Gretchen Felker-Martin's next novel, Cuckoo, which promises to be fantastic. (I've been following her medieval dinosaur fantasy Wyrm on Patreon, too. I think it may be my favorite thing of hers I've read so far.)
- The Woods All Black, by Lee Mandelo. I enjoyed Summer Sons and find that memory has rendered it even better.
- Werner Herzog has a memoir coming out! Titled, wonderfully, Every Man For Himself and God Against All. I don't love Herzog's movies, though I've enjoyed many of them, but I love the way his brain works. The Paul Cronin book of interviews w/ him was one of my favorite reads of 2020.
- Alan Moore's Long London. This is another case of liking the artist's brain's workings as much if not more than the artist's art, except that I have a very strong intellectual appreciation for Moore's work, too.
So this is probably going to be the last piece titled 'Old Leaf.' It's a bit of a silly title, and it's kind of feeling right now like a failed experiment. Somehow, in the face of writing a public blog post, a tongue which is prolix in excess falls silent.
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