One of the most life-changing teaching I got is when I learned that the only cause of our upheavals is our poor judgement. Therefore, in a month like this, where I navigated the ups and downs of my spirit, I always know who to blame: myself.

Finding the problem’s source, though, it is not enough. We need solutions. That’s why I always end up with the following question: “and so, what do you want to do about it?” And this is where I stop: on the realization that I do nothing. I somehow keep doing the same things, expecting that, miraculously, I would get different outcomes.

Of course, I don’t get different outcomes. I know which actions will (or could) make things better, but I am just too entrenched in my old comfortable patterns to do them. Or, at least, that’s what I think in the rare moments of apparent clarity.

Anyhow, sorry for this especially cryptic stream of consciousness. September has been… underwhelming. As I said, the wheel turned and all my actions left me in the same place. Not a terrible place, but oh boy, if it is a boring and unsatisfactory place.

Housekeeping

This September I forgot to September until my calendar told me it was time to write this post. Leaving this section empty is the most frustrating aspect of all.

Reading

At least, I apparently read a lot! Five books are a good number, pushing close to my yearly goal: only three more to go!

• La Meraviglia del Tutto (The Marvel of Everything) by Massimo Polidoro and Piero Angela. As you may remember, a couple of months ago I read another book by Piero Angela so there is no need to repeat myself. This book is more interesting, probably because the authors choose to write it as a dialogue, enabling them to delve into more intimate aspects of life.
• The Socratic Method by ‌Ward Farnsworth. There is one thing I like about Farnsworth’s books: the precision of the arguments. The books are laid out in a very methodical and precise way that, by itself, provides a lot of clarity on the topic. So what I can say about “precision of the arguments” applied to a book about arguments? It was a great read.
• Born Standing Up by Steve Martin. I am watching the fourth season of Only Murders in the Building and I am a Steve Martin fan. Therefore, it was a good time to read this famous autobiography. It focuses on Steve Martin’s early career, on how he became the most popular stand-up comedian of all time and how (and why) stopped doing stand up at the height of his success (roughly speaking, early 80s).
• Geniale (Brilliant) by Massimo Polidoro. Massimo Polidoro was one apprentice/student of the renowned magician and fraud buster, James Randi. This book, written just after Randi’s death in 2020, is a “memoir” of his time with him.
• How to do the Right Thing by Robert A. Kaster. Another entry of this beautiful series. This time, it is an anthology of Seneca’s passages on the topic of “doing the right thing.” Here, the format is different: instead of integral passages from which we derive a topic, here we have a salad of concepts from multiple works organized around a topic. I liked this less. It didn’t feel like reading the original material.

Watchlist

Laura (1944)

In the 40s of the last century, the noir genre was the Marvel Cinematic Universe of the time. It is no surprise then that in 1944 there are two wonderful noir movies. Laura is a beautiful mystery drama with everything you expect from the genre and a detective, Mark McPherson interpreted by Dana Andrews, that still echoes in modern crime movies. And Laura, the person, is such a beautiful and unusual character for the time. There is a brief scene in which Laura is in a meeting room full of men, possibly arguing about some marketing business proposal. It may have looked like science fiction in 1944.

The movie one-liner is “A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he’s investigating.” How can you not get interested in such an amazing premise?

The only problem with this movie is that it was overshadowed by Double Indemnity (that I watched on March 2024).

The Post (2017)

Steven Spielberg has such a distinctive directive style, and he is a master at creating tension. He can obviously do that with sharks and dinosaurs, but that’s easy. Much harder is creating tension on the apparently boring decision of “do we publish this news or not?”

And yet, he nailed it. The Post is the story of how The Washington Post became a national newspaper with the publication of the Pentagons Papers. It is a fascinating story, and a love letter to a kind of journalism that doesn’t exist anymore. This is not a value judgement: for bad or for good, the reporters’ job is very different now.

All the Rest

• Jackpot! (2024) A random movie I got from Netflix’s suggestions. I have to say that, given the stupid premise, I expected nothing. Instead, I got something. Awkwafina and John Cena are great in it, so I give this the best award I can give to these silly b-movies: I don’t regret the time I spent watching it.
• Ford v Ferrari (2019) Recommended. I like that, in a movie portraying how Ford got the best on Ferrari, the Ford executives constantly look like idiots while Enzo Ferrari remains a classy man.
• Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). I rewatched Blade Runner so that I could finally watch Blade Runner 2049. It was a fantastic movie, but a part of me really missed the noir theme. It became a bit too “generic sci-fi.” Ah, and Jared Leto was totally useless.
• All the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. J.J. Abrams directed two out of three movies and his two are absolutely piece of crap. The middle one (Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi) it is surprisingly great. I finally felt a movie that was moving the franchise into a cool new direction… before J.J. Abrams pulled all the “surprise reveals,” removing all the interesting parts and producing the last gigantic pile of crap called ‌The Rise of Skywalker.
• Beetlejuice (1988). I never watched Beetlejuice, probably because in Italy was killed by an idiotic translation. Very Tim Burton. Now, though, I can see the sequel.
• Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). I have to admit, albeit reluctantly, that I liked it a lot. Yes, the first hours I would have killed myself and there is no reason this thing is over 3 hours long. But the second half got me.
• Jurassic World (2015). What the f…
• Rebel Ridge (2024). Wow. A solid movie buried in the Netflix mediocre catalogue. The ending didn’t convince me, but this “non-lethal Reacher” is worth watching.
• Lost in Translation (2003). I like this “mostly vibes” movies. But they grew on me with time.
• The Karate Kid Part III (1989). A mistake of a movie. But now I can watch Cobra Kai.
• Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019). Had low expectations and I was mostly right. The first one was surprisingly not terrible, a good example of the “dumb fun” genre. The second was unnecessary.
• Drive (2011). The movie that inspired hundreds, if not thousands, of synthwave albums and media and games.

Music

After I binged on August’s many new releases, September slowed down. I listened to more music in September, but I focused on older works; continuing my exploration of genres and musical rabbit holes.

This month’s trend was progressive music in the broadest sense of the word. Maybe because I discovered AwesomeProg, a great website to explore and annotate progressive (but not only) releases. There are so many things to click, so many tags to add, so many customization options, that it became a game.

Yet, the album that resonated with me the most is Solemn by the In Vain. A progressive melodic death metal album that does a terrific job in mixing different and unusual instruments, clean and growl vocals and a general variety in the composition.

And probably its gloomy atmospheric vibes helped to match with my gloomy atmospheric September mood.

Gaming

While I am writing, I am waiting for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom to be delivered. It will be the game of next month, guaranteed.

Yet, I played some interesting games in September. First, I got the Castlevania Dominus Collection. It is a great remake of three 3DS Castlevania games: Castlevania Order of Ecclesia, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. Of those, for now I completed only the first one. I’ve appreciated the “accessibility” features. I don’t have a lot of time for grinding and it was useful to use save states to tune down the difficulty and frustration level.

Second recommendation: Shogun Showdown. I love roguelike-deckbuilder games and this game blends the genre with a great turn-based combat system. I love how each battle becomes a little chess-like puzzle in which you need to look several moves ahead to build your perfect moves. Of course, my worst enemy is my hurry in selecting the actions.

Other Interesting Things

• 📝 Why I still blog after 15 years by Jonas Hietala. Blogging is fun and blogs are the last sane place on the Internet. Whenever a fellow blogger writes why he finds value in this craft, I am delighted.

Conclusions

And that’s the end of another month. I am glad for this monthly recap that forces me to stop and review the previous 30 days, otherwise everything will slip through my fingers. More than it already does.

Let’s hope that October will be what September ought to have been. But, as I said, it ultimately depends on me. Regardless of how October will be, at least I want to know i tried.

See y’all next month.