Slanted Rays

Image of a painted sign reading "Changing Hands" with a large golden "45" banner below it. Books are painted around the sign, both lined up and falling towards the ground. On each side of the sign, there are physical bookshelves lined with books. Hello! It has been awhile since my last media round-up, so I am writing up another one to share what media things I have been consuming and enjoying. TV Shows I just finished watching the fourth season of Queer Eye . Queer Eye falls pretty firmly into the "probably problematic media that I enjoy" category, and I'm often frustrated by how the heroes' problems are predominantly solved by money . Still, I am captivated by the show. I like seeing all of the minute changes that make a big difference in people's lives (well, mostly in the way they look), and wondering how my own life could improve. Podcasts I've been keeping up with many podcasts recently. Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Mein...

A photograph of the cover of Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton against a black cloth with white polka dots. On the cover, a portrait of Hamilton with white hair pulled into a braid and a decorative collar is featured prominently.  I have been in a slight bit of a rut. I don’t have a clear direction as to what I should be doing for my post-camp administrative work, so I end up procrastinating and not getting much work done at all. I have been a bit more of an insomniac than usual, and I feel as though I am perpetually trapped in the first day of a cold. While I have been keeping my daily blog posts up, I often start them later in the evening than I should, which does not help me to get to sleep on time. In the midst of this productivity nightmare, I have been reading Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton, a man who was tremendously and prolifically productive. The conflict between people deemed urban elites and farmers began in the post-Revolutionary...

A man wearing a gray suit jacket over a white shirt with minute red dots on it. He has a red and blue hankerchief in his breast pocket, and his right hand is holding his blue and gray patterned tie. He is wearing a very fancy-looking analog watch. Image is from  https://www.pexels.com/photo/man-in-formal-suit-jacket-holding-his-necktie-1342609/ . Hello! The topic that I initially wrote down for this blog post is "I Strongly Dislike Political Memoirs". However, between writing down this topic last night and drafting this blog post tonight, I have decided that a more accurate reflection of my opinion would be "Political Memoirs are a Very Strange Type of Book". Let's consider a standard goals of a standard, everyday memoir written by a not-exactly-famous person. These goals would likely include: performing investigative journalism on one's own life. keeping the audience amused with engaging anecdotes. In the case of a celebrity memoir, the autho...

Image of four precarious piles of books lined up on top of a bed. I took this picture while I was preparing to Konmari my books. When I was younger, I didn't understand why people talked about wanting to read more. I read all the time , ceaselessly. In fact, if you were a reader of my old blog, you may remember this very judgemental blog post that I wrote on the subject of reading. On other subjects, I was able to empathize and equivocate, but, on this subject, I was an enormous jerk. Then, much to my surprise, I went to college and virtually stopped reading altogether. What happened? Well, from my observations after the fact: My entire place-of-residence and daily routine changed, which made it take longer for me to realize that I hadn't read in a long time. I did not enjoy the vibes of my college's library (stressful, academic) or the local community library (stuffy, too overtaken by glaring strangers). By the second semester of my freshman year, I had become ...

This picture of a raging bonfire perfectly captures my emotional state while reading this book. (from Wikimedia Commons ) Hello, and welcome to Hate-Read with Lydia. In this installment, we will be reading  She: Understanding Feminine Psychology  by Jungian psychologist  Robert A. Johnson .  The prequel to this blog post discusses how I discovered this book, and the process that I used in order to write a blog post about it.  She: Understanding Feminine Psychology  revolves around the myth of Eros and Psyche. If you are not familiar with this myth, I would recommend brushing up on the  Wikipedia synopsis  before we jump into a few of the most outrageous quotes from the text. A paperback copy of She: Understanding Feminine Psychology by Robert A. Johnson sits on top of a black-and-white polka dot cloth. The edge of the book is lined with a total of 30 blue, pink, purple, and yellow sticky tabs. Psyche and Aphrodite Psyche b...