I am in California, at my Parent's house
Wherein I talk about Breaking Bad, Night of The Kings, and Storytelling
Currently Reading: Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
How to Read Donald Duck by Dorfman & Mattelart
Currently Watching: Breaking Bad
I’ve been in California since Wednesday. I am “home” but not “home” my folks sold the house I grew up in and come Summer I’ll have a job elsewhere. As a result, I am between places right now. When I am not here, I mostly crash on my sister’s couch in Florida. It’s not bad as far as couches go and I get along with her so my situation could be a lot worse.
I stopped watching Mad Men (IDK if this is temporary or permanent), I get what it’s analyzing and pushing on, but ended up switching to Breaking Bad. It is another one of those incredibly popular shows I somehow did not watch. The world of crime makes more sense to me anyway so it’s easier to stomach in many ways. Funny how that works. Plus it has more Mexicans which is one of the things I check in any show to determine if I should give it a go. Will post more thoughts as I go.
Every time I sit down to write a post, I feel this need to say or write something profound or interesting and then get stuck not saying much, I don’t know if anyone else has this problem when sitting down to write but it seems to be a concern of mine. Being a person with few profound or interesting thoughts, this can be difficult. But I’ll do my best anyways. I haven’t finished the books I am reading so I’ll hold off on reviewing them. I will say that Donald Duck and Ring Shout are both excellent so far when I’m done I’ll post a longer thing about it.
I did see Night of The Kings (trailer here).
It’s a movie from the Ivory Coast and it tells the story of a young pickpocket who is imprisoned and designated the “storyteller” by the “King” of the prison. He is told when the story ends he will die, so he keeps having to continue the story in an effort to stave off his end. It’s a wonderfully inventive story that seems part surreal, part magical realism, part fable…so yeah it’s extremely my shit. It’s worth checking out if you have the time, it is available for digital purchase/rental here.
I found out about this movie a week or two ago. Coincidentally I was describing the 1001 Nights stories to my mom, the central plot idea and how it’s structured, and what sort of tales are in it, etc. It’s a monumental text that I don’t think we, (in the US) appreciate as much as we should. On Twitter, I suggested it’s more influential than Shakespeare, and granted nobody really pushed back on that idea, but it’s something to give more credence to. This is not a criticism on Shakespeare’s place in English and literature in general, but I think it’s something worth discussing as when you start reading it and start looking at how it snakes in and out of different languages and regions as an influence it gives you a much more global understanding of storytelling and the transmissions of stories.
I think the hardest part about our highly individualized worldview is the atomization of such things, we discuss storytelling but not really in terms of how we transmit ideas/values and understandings in stories we know to not be true…and still, it exists, the Tortoise and the Hare (I grew up with a Southwest version called The Tortoise and the Jackrabbit and now my nieces have a copy of that book). Storytelling is primarily viewed as a leisure activity lately and even though it’s quasi-valued in terms of entertainment the primary function seems still equipped to be about the transmission of values and other such things. To return to what I am reading, How to Read Donald Duck tackles this and illustrates this with Disney tales that are often thought to be “harmless” or “apolitical”. This is a topic I am preoccupied with almost all the time in relation to my own pursuits as a storyteller so I expect to say more of this as time goes on.
Thank you for reading this. I hope it was worth your time.
- Serg