October is probably my favorite month. That’s why it is a shame that it felt like it lasted a week.

It happens when I am distracted and not “here and now.” We get caught up in work, anxious thoughts, or struggle to keep up with the never-ending stream of ideas, tasks, and work events, and we never pause to feel that we are alive now.

There is also a paradox here. The more you think about living in the present, the more that thought pulls you out of the present moment. It is quite obvious if you think about it: if you have in your mind the intention “I have to live in the here and now,” then you don’t have in mind “the here and now.” It is like saying out loud, “I need silence” over and over; the statement itself blocks you from reaching the goal.

As usual, we come back to one of my favorite concepts: the wu wei, the “action without action,” the “effort without effort,” or, using the title of a great book, “Try Not to Try.” The point is that we need to live in the moment without trying to live in the moment.

In reality, though, the trying is necessary, at least at the beginning. A good life is like playing the piano. At the beginning, you painfully pay attention to where you put your fingers, but with mastery everything becomes automatic, muscle memory kicks in, and playing becomes effortless.

Sometimes I reach life mastery for brief moments, and it is great. But most of the time I just need to put in a bit of effort to get better.

Anyway, all my blabbing aside, it was a good October. This month I have for you: two books, two horror movies, a great AOR album, and my experience with Ghost of Yōtei.

Housekeeping

No housekeeping this month. It went by too fast. I am still catching up with September.

Reading

I am in the middle of two LARGE books (800 pages each), so you’ll pardon me if in October I only completed two books.

• The Butcher’s Masquerade by Matt Dinniman. This is book five of the Dungeon Crawler’s Carl series. After a fourth entry that wasn’t as exciting as the previous ones, we are back in full swing with the gory, over-the-top action of the series. The books are also starting to get “more real”; they are not shy about exploring the trauma of the silly premise of the story. What started as a completely bonkers, gaming-centered story is now exploring the tragedy and the moral landscape of making games with living beings.
• Dark Squares by Danny Rensch. I had no expectations for this book. Danny Rensch is one of the main personalities and the public face of Chess.com. I expected something closer to a PR stunt than a real book. But, oh boy, I was wrong. This book is real: you can feel it in the pages. Dark Squares is the crazy life story of Rensch, of his life as a chess child prodigy in the hands of a religious cult, of the many painful moments, but also of how he came out of it. It was a wild, unexpected ride.

Watchlist

Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

Zelda Williams’ feature directorial debut is definitely a weird one. The year is 1989 (Williams’ birth year, btw; coincidence?), and a teenager with a ridiculously tragic past has a crush on a guy who died in the 1800s and is buried in the local cemetery. Then something happens and the boy comes back to life. From then on, the two start a murderous journey to “complete” him by collecting missing body parts.

Lisa Frankenstein is a colorful, funny reinterpretation of the original Frankenstein novel. A perfect fit for a “funny horror” slot on Halloween night (you know, if you are not in the mood for a really disgusting or upsetting horror movie).

I personally had a really good time with it. It was entertaining, it has great visuals, and overall it was a blast.

I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

Remaining in the horror genre, as is customary in October, I finally watched what many consider the best movie of 2024: I Saw the TV Glow.

It is a psychological horror, and as such, trying to summarize it in a couple of paragraphs will not do it justice (and would spoil everything). The broad idea, though, is this: Owen is introduced by his classmate Maddy to a mysterious TV show. Over the years, the show begins to blend with reality. The question is: is their real life real, or is the real life the one in the show? Maddy is ready to tackle this question. What about Owen?

The story is completely allegorical. The “horror” part lies in the existential dread of the question, “What if I am wasting my life living something inauthentic? What if my true life was somewhere else?” The meaning of that becomes clear when you realize that both the director (Jane Schoenbrun) and Maddy (Jack Haven) are trans.

The movie is directly about the horror of not accepting our true selves and not having the courage to face the truth. And while they probably frame that as the issue of gender dysphoria, it can easily be extended to similar cases. We’ve all had that feeling that maybe we aren’t true to ourselves: whether it’s about gender, our job, our purpose in life, or a relationship.

In any case, the movie also features a lot of great singers and artists: from Lindsey Jordan (a.k.a. Snail Mail), Phoebe Bridges, Sloppy Jane, and Kristina Esfandiari (a.k.a. King Woman). The musical sections of this movie are 10/10.

All the Rest

Only four more movies for this list.

• Lethal Weapon 2 (1989). I continue to think that I don’t like Lethal Weapon movies, mostly because Mel Gibson is an idiot.
• Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023). It popped up on Netflix, and I had to watch it. It is worse than the first one (which was already terrible), and I don’t understand how a 2023 movie can look so bad and cheap.
• The Naked Gun (2025). Only time will tell if this will be remembered with the same fondness as the originals, but it was not bad. I appreciate the commitment to having a joke every 20 seconds. I can see that snowman being the most memorable part of the movie.
• Dr. No (1962). Am I rewatching all the James Bond movies? Yep. Starting from the one that set the tone for decades.

Only Murders in the Building season 5 is over. I think the plot is way too convoluted and clunky, yet it remains enjoyable. Just don’t be a stickler for perfectly woven plots.

Music

October was a month with a lot of interesting new music. You probably heard of Geese’s Getting Killed, one of the most celebrated albums of the year on several music websites and newsletters. But there are many interesting works that passed under the radar, such as An Abstract Illusion’s The Sleeping City or Chasing the Dragon by Helms Deep.

But the album that most got stuck in my head this month was a silly AOR album from 2024.

The album is Ignition and the band is Streetlight, a band from Jonkoping, Sweden composed by Johannes Häger (vocals, guitar), Filip Stenlund (guitar), John Svensson (keyboards), Johan Tjernström (bass) and Erik Nilsson (drums).

The style is pure Modern AOR: smooth, energetic, 80s rock sounds. Contrary to other albums of this genre, the lyrics are less car/sci-fi/space/action-related and more intimate. They are never particularly complex (it is probably forbidden by the AOR police), but they are much more similar to actual 80s bands: they talk about love.

Sometimes an album doesn’t need to be perfect; it just needs to be perfect for you at a particular moment in life. This month Ignition was perfect when I drove my car at night under light rain. Why? I have no idea. But music is great for this reason.

Everywhere I go, you′re with me all along the way From here on now I will say All I have and all I am, I give to you my heart Back where it belonged from the very start

• Spotify
• Apple Music
• Qobuz

Gaming

Ghost of Tsushima was one of my favorite games of 2020. It was stunning to be in that world. It was meditative. The gameplay was nothing original, sure, but it was masterfully done. It was one of those rare games that I didn’t want to end (and I 100% did because of this).

Five years later, Ghost of Yōtei filled the same void. I sank 45 hours of my October into it and have no regrets.

Set hundreds of years later (it should be set around 1600, as it references the Battle of Sekigahara), the story is independent of the first one. While the first focused on the Mongol invasion of the island of Tsushima, this one is a story of personal revenge and of the cost of revenge.

I found the story moving, and the environment and settings are as beautiful as ever. Riding through Ezo (modern Hokkaido) was a beautiful journey, as ever.

Other Interesting Things

• 📝 Have we passed peak social media? (Financial Times). – Finally, we reach the peak of social media. Data show that the use of social media is declining for all age groups, with the exception of those over 60. The trend is global, with the notable exception of the United States. And honestly, it shows.
• 📝 inessential: Why NetNewsWire Is Not a Web App – The developers of NetNewsWire, a popular RSS reader app, show their frustration with Apple’s idiotic lock on its mobile platforms. Moreover, they explain why there is no web app for the application. I think these are good points that every developer should keep in mind as trade-offs.

Conclusions

Not much more to add this month. I am already late with this issue, so let’s keep it short.

I wish you a great November! See you in a month.