Meida Round Up: Comfort and Textiles
Apr. 20th, 2025 11:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryI’m once again sharing my thoughts on my recent media consumption. But first some thoughts about my joyful reading project.
I spent several days making a deliberate effort to not read if I didn’t feel like reading or wasn’t excited by anything I had to read. I don’t think it really helped? I was kind of miserable but in a different way than when I read things because I don’t have anything better to do. (I need no screen low hand impact things to do right before bed) But I guess after I did that I did end up reading some things. So maybe it worked? But I would rather not do it again.
I went back to reading not because I was suddenly super excited but because I had a day where I was too sick to do much at all and ended up reading a long fic all day.Which was nice, maybe not joyful, but nice.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells—A lot of people I know are excited about the recent trailer for the Murderbot TV series. Maybe it's just that I’m a bit depressed but I don’t enjoy this as much as I remember. I see why Murderbot’s snarky voice is so popular but I prefer characters that admit to caring about things. And like there is quite a bit of violence and dystopia in here.
Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles byThomas T. Allsen—One of my friends was talking a lot about the Mongols and I was like “Maybe I should learn more about them” and remembered I had this book. It’s interesting, but also I don’t have quite enough context for it so I felt a bit lost in some places. There were a lot of proper nouns that were hard to keep track of. Before this I’d done some research on First Turkic Khaganate, a group of steppe nomads that existed in early Tang times for fanfic reasons, but the Mongols are about 600 years later, so the jump forward in time was a bit disorienting. But I do love to read about textiles and cultural exchange. I appreciated the way the author talks about the political role of fancy textiles.
The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacy Sivinski— Another recent cosy SFF (at least I think it’s cosy, but we all know cosy is confusing marketing category) It’s about three sisters who run a tearoom in handwavy turn of the century Chiago. I think, it was hard to tell the exact time period. The setting is all vibes rather than carefully researched historical details, which I don’t love. It was a sweet book, I liked it enough to finish it but I wanted it to be a better version of itself. I think my biggest complaint is that the sisters don’t interact with each other much on the page. The book does talk about how running a Tearoom is hard work, and the sisters are frequently described as being worn out, so it's doing better than a lot of the stories about small business that I’ve read, but the work at the Tearoom never really got in the way of things they wanted to do, nor was it very important to the plot.
The Flash Band ep 1-3.—it's been a bit since I watched a singing reality show!shadaras for reced this to me in response to my request for chill reality shows on my fanish wish list. It's a show where various musicians team up to form bands and then perform. The format is kinda confusing but I do love team ups.It’s fun to see different people working together!
(I’m also watching another crossdressing girl drama, but I’m only a few episodes from the end so I’ll save that for next time when I can talk about the whole thing.)
I spent several days making a deliberate effort to not read if I didn’t feel like reading or wasn’t excited by anything I had to read. I don’t think it really helped? I was kind of miserable but in a different way than when I read things because I don’t have anything better to do. (I need no screen low hand impact things to do right before bed) But I guess after I did that I did end up reading some things. So maybe it worked? But I would rather not do it again.
I went back to reading not because I was suddenly super excited but because I had a day where I was too sick to do much at all and ended up reading a long fic all day.Which was nice, maybe not joyful, but nice.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells—A lot of people I know are excited about the recent trailer for the Murderbot TV series. Maybe it's just that I’m a bit depressed but I don’t enjoy this as much as I remember. I see why Murderbot’s snarky voice is so popular but I prefer characters that admit to caring about things. And like there is quite a bit of violence and dystopia in here.
Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles byThomas T. Allsen—One of my friends was talking a lot about the Mongols and I was like “Maybe I should learn more about them” and remembered I had this book. It’s interesting, but also I don’t have quite enough context for it so I felt a bit lost in some places. There were a lot of proper nouns that were hard to keep track of. Before this I’d done some research on First Turkic Khaganate, a group of steppe nomads that existed in early Tang times for fanfic reasons, but the Mongols are about 600 years later, so the jump forward in time was a bit disorienting. But I do love to read about textiles and cultural exchange. I appreciated the way the author talks about the political role of fancy textiles.
The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacy Sivinski— Another recent cosy SFF (at least I think it’s cosy, but we all know cosy is confusing marketing category) It’s about three sisters who run a tearoom in handwavy turn of the century Chiago. I think, it was hard to tell the exact time period. The setting is all vibes rather than carefully researched historical details, which I don’t love. It was a sweet book, I liked it enough to finish it but I wanted it to be a better version of itself. I think my biggest complaint is that the sisters don’t interact with each other much on the page. The book does talk about how running a Tearoom is hard work, and the sisters are frequently described as being worn out, so it's doing better than a lot of the stories about small business that I’ve read, but the work at the Tearoom never really got in the way of things they wanted to do, nor was it very important to the plot.
The Flash Band ep 1-3.—it's been a bit since I watched a singing reality show!
shadaras for reced this to me in response to my request for chill reality shows on my fanish wish list. It's a show where various musicians team up to form bands and then perform. The format is kinda confusing but I do love team ups.It’s fun to see different people working together! (I’m also watching another crossdressing girl drama, but I’m only a few episodes from the end so I’ll save that for next time when I can talk about the whole thing.)
no subject
Date: 2025-04-20 06:08 pm (UTC)I haven't read Commodity and Exchange yet, but I've appreciated some of Allsen's other work and this one is definitely on my list :) I'm glad you enjoyed it.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-21 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-29 10:36 pm (UTC)"Population Movements in Mongol Eurasia," from the collection Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change: The Mongols and their Eurasian Predecessors, and I hope to read his monograph The Steppe and the Sea: Pearls in the Mongol Empire soon!
no subject
Date: 2025-05-03 04:25 pm (UTC)