The ChangeLog – August 2026

For the first half of August I was on vacation. As I said last month, I spent my vacation at home. It was nice. Even without leaving home, having a different routine made a lot of difference. I went to the beach, I studied, read, and wrote. I also moved the needle on several side projects (the biggest one is described in the Housekeeping section).

Maybe it is because this month was split into two very different moods, habits, and routines that August felt very long and, in some sense, disconnected.

Anyway, I will keep this introduction short. We are all recovering from the vacation mood, and the last thing you need is me going off on a tangent. In the spirit of “September is when things get real again,” let’s go to the meat of this article: I am back reading philosophy books, my Hitchcock marathon hits the first true gem, a tribute to all the musicians who died in the last 30 days, and my experience with Splatoon Raiders.

Let’s go!

Housekeeping

The main news this month is that I completely rewrote my blog theme. If you go to the homepage, you will see it. I discussed the changes here, but the short version is that I wanted something more playful, more personal, and more suitable to showcase the different topics I write about.

I also wrote two articles. In the first, I explain why revising a novel feels so bad and how I am learning to push through. In the second, why using an ATProto service with a coding agent felt like living in the far future.

Reading

I am “currently reading” way too many books. I also stumbled into a book that I find very hard to read. This is slowing me down a bit. I only read two books this month. Underwhelming.

• Byzantine & Renaissance Philosophy by Peter Adamson. It’s been a year since I read the previous book in the Philosophy Without Any Gaps series. I told you last month that I wanted to start reading philosophy again, and there is no better place to (re)start. This book talks about Byzantine philosophy (that is very influential and yet ignored) and philosophy in the Italian Renaissance. I loved these crazy Renaissance guys. As usual, this book is fun and still deep. Highly recommended if you are interested in philosophy.
• Take Off Your Pants! by Libbie Hawker. This is a short book on writing and outlining that I read when I feared that I would end August with no books for this section. I was pleasantly surprised. This is a fun, brief booklet with a very simple and effective outlining plan. I would recommend it for people who want to start with that before, eventually, moving to the much more complicated (and time-consuming) outlining methods.

Watchlist

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

As you know from the last issue, I am doing a Hitchcock marathon (at least, starting from the 1930s). The first movies show the inexperience of the young filmmaker with Hitchcock stumbling a bit trying to find his stride and to nail a film from start to finish.

The Lady Vanishes, based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins, is the second to last Hitchcock movie of the English era (he would move to Hollywood right after Jamaica Inn (1939)) and it is also the first one that reminded me of what I like of his later movies.

There are all the elements you expect from a Hitchcock movie of that era: a dazzling mystery (an old woman that disappears on a train with no one remembering her but a young lady), spies, conspiracies and nazis.

The first part of the movie is quite slow (and probably unnecessarily so) but after it starts it is really entrancing. Like Hitchcock filmography so far.

The Shape of Water (2017)

Let’s be clear. I don’t want to talk about The Shape of Water, a movie that won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2018, as if it were some uncut gem I discovered in a dusty library and brought to the general public.

The Shape of Water is a beautiful movie; I don’t have to tell you that. I could tell you that it is a story filled with symbolism. The most obvious one is the Beauty-and-the-Beast inversion. Instead of a human–beast romance where the beast returns to humanity, here we see the beasts show the bestiality of the humans. Secondly, it is important to note that all the “good guys” fighting “the institutions” belong to marginalized groups: Elisa is mute, Zelda is Black, Giles is gay.

But all my analyzing will only get in the way of you enjoying the film.

All The Rest

• The Dink (2026). A fun comedy with Jake Jonson about a sport I have no idea how it works. Not bad for a streaming-only movie.
• Avatar Fire and Ash (2025). I liked the second one more. This really feels like the second one, but with the alien gal from the volcano.
• The 39 Steps (1935). Continuing my Hitchcock marathon. A man gets involved in a spy story. It has ups and downs but, overall, it is a good one.
• Pillion (2025). A movie about a homosexual BDSM relationship that, incredibly, left me with nothing of value.
• Superman (2025). I really liked this one. James Gunn strikes again. Thank God they spared us of another “origin story” and just made a very good Superman movie.
• Marty Supreme (2025). Great craft, great acting, amazing cinematography; I just wish I liked it.
• Sabotage (1936). Holy damn. There is no way I can comment on this without ruining it. If you watch it, you’ll know why my main comment is: WTF!
• Young and Innocent (1937). Another Hitchcock movie. This time, a young writer is falsely accused of homicide and saved by the daughter of a police constable. Not bad, not stellar.

Then, this month there are a lot of series I am catching up on. We have season 4 of Ted Lasso and season 4 of Reacher (always a good series, especially if you enjoy big men smashing bad guys). Stuart Fails to Save the World, a completely weird Big Bang Theory spin-off, is surprisingly well done. And I am watching Silo season 3.

A couple of words on this last one. I hate, hate, REALLY HATE, that they put the “origin story flashback.” First, because it is just a mediocre and boring “political-spy-conspiracy drama” plot that continually brings me out of the interesting parts. Second, because that flashback breaks the “environmental storytelling” I adored about the first two seasons. Still, I am only halfway and the series holds up even with that terrible flaw. I can live with it. You’ll probably get my full opinion next month.

Music

Last month, we lost a staggering number of musicians. Sometimes it feels as if the universe has a particular theme in mind for its actions. In reality, I know that it only feels that way. Still, in the last 30 days many artists in my playlists played their last songs. So I decided that, in this issue, I will not present new music; instead, we will remember them.

Let’s start with Kavinsky, the French DJ who bootstrapped the entire Outrun genre and contributed to the iconic mood of Drive (2011) (briefly mentioned in September 2024). He was found dead in his home in Paris on July 28.

Then, the day after, July 29, Glen Hansard – Irish folk singer and great gentleman – died in a motorcycle accident returning from a music session with friends. In 2008, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for Falling Slowly, but his other works are probably even better.

Less international news: on August 6, we lost Francesco Guccini. Guccini was an Italian singer-songwriter whose strong suit was his absolutely poetic lyrics. It is hard to explain how much he influenced me even when writing fiction (and, of course, he wrote fiction too).

On August 17, Frank Beard – longtime drummer of the blues-rock band ZZ Top – died as well. I was not the most knowledgeable ZZ Top listener, but I bought two albums when I was a teenager and they are still periodically in my rotation.

Finally, on August 25, just in time for this issue, Dolly Parton died. I admit that I know her more for her philanthropic activity than for her discography, but it still counts for this section.

So, what can I say? There is nothing better than remembering great artists by listening to their music. Let’s enjoy the time we shared with them in this world and all the emotions they will keep giving us.

Gaming

There were two gaming news items in August. First, we got the first expansion of Pokémon Pokopia. I know, I know, I already talked too much about it. This new expansion adds a new big area to “terraform,” the ability to go underwater (finally!), and some other quality-of-life improvements. I am following the usual pattern of “I play a tiny bit from time to time,” and I am glad the game still supports this sporadic playstyle.

Second, I got Splatoon Raiders. I have always liked everything about Splatoon: the soundtrack, the colorful graphics, the game mechanics, the variety of builds, the crazy characters. However, I had a big problem with it: it is a multiplayer-first game and I suck/don’t have the time for multiplayer games.

Splatoon Raiders solves this problem by being the first single-player player-versus-environment (PvE) game of the series. The game keeps its FPS soul, and you keep tackling wave after wave of enemies and creative bosses, farming resources to improve your base and equipment, leveling up, and so on. A bit like if Diablo were an FPS.

It is a fun game! The missions and the levels can be repetitive sometimes. So far, though, I am glad I can enjoy Splatoon (and be extra bad at it) in private.

Other Interesting Things

Being on vacation also meant checking my RSS feed less. Therefore, this section is empty.

Conclusions

And so we are in September. The last stretch of 2026 is opening in front of us. You already know this: September is the real start of the new year. A month when we open a new season, we recollect ourselves after resting in the scorching hot summer, when we start “going out again.” It is also the prelude to autumn, the season when we harvest all the crops and plan for the future one.

So, whatever your September will be, I wish you a plentiful one. May this new start not go to waste.

See you next month.