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cimoreneI saw a post somewhere, but I'm not sure what social network it was on, that did a great job of summing up that fatigue that makes it nearly impossible to process new fiction when there's too much stress and tragedy and fear in the real world around you.
My ability to do it has slowed down IMMENSELY since 2016. I do watch things of course, but there are huge swathes of weeks where I just can't bear to start watching a new tv show that has any sort of suspense, conflict, or drama in it, and sometimes it applies to new episodes of familiar ones too. Comedy is exempt, but over time I've mostly gone over to non-fiction. This Old House is the only reality tv I can watch, but YouTube has a variety of informational content, from stuff like SciShow and Extra History to more specialized things like film and music theory and art and fashion history to all the stuff about parrots and Finnish heavyweights Device Orchestra and Hydraulic Press Channel. I won't say I've watched everything all of my favorite channels have made necessarily, but probably most of it. There isn't new content coming from the ones I subscribe to at a speed that would keep me occupied for hours or days on end.
Now, even though I like British comedy about 100x more than American (and Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place are the only American sitcoms I can stand, while I like most British ones I've seen), I had never watched a British panel show because of how much I detest gameshows generally... until I saw those little bite-sized David Mitchell rants when my wife happened to be watching youtube without headphones on. I watched some, and then I watched some clip compilations of David Mitchell ranting on various panel shows - I do love watching people rant; that's an entire category of youtube channels I like (Tantacrul's rants are the absolute best IMO). Eventually I watched entire episodes of Would I Lie to You?, a gameshow based on one of my favorite parlor games (don't you love the term 'parlor game'?), and then QI. Of course, I knew that QI was a trivia show, but I was still expecting an American sort of gameshow format because that was the only type of gameshow I'd seen before. But actually I do like QI fine. I love trivia, but I like it a lot more when people are imparting it and discussing it casually than when people are tensely being tested on it, like in the quiz bowl team contests I briefly participated in in middle school.
Anyway, my current monomania is still lettering inspired by David Jones, as you can see in my last post; and that, like knitting, is an activity one has to do sitting down, but preferably with the tv on, or at least an audiobook or something. So in my feverish drawing over the last month and change I've got through so much QI, Would I Lie to You?, Big Fat Quiz, etc that I had a dream on the weekend with a university for magic-users with a Potteresque style of magic, and the professor was Sandi Toksvig and the TA was Jimmy Carr and the whole class was going on a time traveling expedition. A bit Magic School Bus meets The Magicians meets Connie Willis's Oxford Time Travel books.
The whole thing doesn't seem to affect Wax the same way - the existential threat and elevated stress levels and all that, I mean. She just consumes more fictional film, frequently quite bad stuff on purpose. She goes looking for bad Gerry Butler type thrillers or more bad horror shows the way I sometimes get a yen to just go through and read nearly every plebefic in a particular pairing. This problem I have with drama doesn't apply in the same degree to reading, although it affects my choices some I suppose, so I guess I can just imagine that film is like reading for Wax.
My ability to do it has slowed down IMMENSELY since 2016. I do watch things of course, but there are huge swathes of weeks where I just can't bear to start watching a new tv show that has any sort of suspense, conflict, or drama in it, and sometimes it applies to new episodes of familiar ones too. Comedy is exempt, but over time I've mostly gone over to non-fiction. This Old House is the only reality tv I can watch, but YouTube has a variety of informational content, from stuff like SciShow and Extra History to more specialized things like film and music theory and art and fashion history to all the stuff about parrots and Finnish heavyweights Device Orchestra and Hydraulic Press Channel. I won't say I've watched everything all of my favorite channels have made necessarily, but probably most of it. There isn't new content coming from the ones I subscribe to at a speed that would keep me occupied for hours or days on end.
Now, even though I like British comedy about 100x more than American (and Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place are the only American sitcoms I can stand, while I like most British ones I've seen), I had never watched a British panel show because of how much I detest gameshows generally... until I saw those little bite-sized David Mitchell rants when my wife happened to be watching youtube without headphones on. I watched some, and then I watched some clip compilations of David Mitchell ranting on various panel shows - I do love watching people rant; that's an entire category of youtube channels I like (Tantacrul's rants are the absolute best IMO). Eventually I watched entire episodes of Would I Lie to You?, a gameshow based on one of my favorite parlor games (don't you love the term 'parlor game'?), and then QI. Of course, I knew that QI was a trivia show, but I was still expecting an American sort of gameshow format because that was the only type of gameshow I'd seen before. But actually I do like QI fine. I love trivia, but I like it a lot more when people are imparting it and discussing it casually than when people are tensely being tested on it, like in the quiz bowl team contests I briefly participated in in middle school.
Anyway, my current monomania is still lettering inspired by David Jones, as you can see in my last post; and that, like knitting, is an activity one has to do sitting down, but preferably with the tv on, or at least an audiobook or something. So in my feverish drawing over the last month and change I've got through so much QI, Would I Lie to You?, Big Fat Quiz, etc that I had a dream on the weekend with a university for magic-users with a Potteresque style of magic, and the professor was Sandi Toksvig and the TA was Jimmy Carr and the whole class was going on a time traveling expedition. A bit Magic School Bus meets The Magicians meets Connie Willis's Oxford Time Travel books.
The whole thing doesn't seem to affect Wax the same way - the existential threat and elevated stress levels and all that, I mean. She just consumes more fictional film, frequently quite bad stuff on purpose. She goes looking for bad Gerry Butler type thrillers or more bad horror shows the way I sometimes get a yen to just go through and read nearly every plebefic in a particular pairing. This problem I have with drama doesn't apply in the same degree to reading, although it affects my choices some I suppose, so I guess I can just imagine that film is like reading for Wax.
