June was a big month: I went to Porto & Lisbon, and had a lot of life stuff happen. I'll get into the trip once I get my rolls of film developed. Three rolls at a new photo developing place: fingers crossed!
Reading
I finished reading Intermezzo (of the bag) and it was fantastic. I've always liked Sally Rooney's books but this was the one where the writing style really clicked.
Also, The Vegan. Meh.
I read Patricia Lockwood's 'A Tradcath Wedding' via Perfect Sentences but found an additional sentence to be perfect:
Whenever they rang the chimes, which seemed to be every four seconds or so, a toddler screamed ‘WOW A BELL!’ to the visible displeasure of the celebrants – though isn’t the entire point of the ritual that you’re supposed to be that awestruck every time?
Patricia Lockwood is the funniest writer I've read.
You cannot grow a pumpkin, but you can improve the odds.
Taylor's 'You Cannot Grow a Pumpkin' is a fantastic little prose poem of sorts.
Watching
I'm always trying to find a 'romp' when it comes to movies. Something lighthearted, pretty easy to watch, so on. We watched The Pink Panther this month and it is a perfect example of the genre. The inspiration for the watch came from the hamburger scene:
But there's so much more of this kind of thing in the movie, little bits and physical comedy.
Oh, and I also watched The Departed, which everyone says is good and is good.
Elsewhere
I wrote Accidental Anonymity on the micro blog, and it stirred up some discussion on Bluesky as well as at least one blog response.
It was kind of an angry piece, as I said at the start. I will keep trying to stay out of the trap of writing about that topic all the time.
Listening
The only album I bought this month was Songs of Her's by Her's, which is fine. I wish I had something more profound to say about it given how the band met an unbelievably tragic end.
Maybe more influential than that was Know Your Enemy's recent podcasts, especially this one about the pope's encyclical. I've really grown to love that podcast, and it has been part of me intellectually reconnecting with, but not readopting, Catholicism.
Art
Here's some art I really liked this month:
This Hockney piece called 'Picture Emphasizing Stillness' from 1962 was at the MAC/CCB museum in Lisbon.
Via Tim Babb, I enjoyed finding Tomás Sánchez's work.