The Weeknd have been remixed by Slim K, their albums offered now in chopped & screwed form. Do I really need complete remixes of three albums I already love? Yes, yes I do. I'll probably write something up about these remixes at some point over the next few days, so if you're interested in (even more of) my thoughts on the Weeknd, stay tuned.
The most exciting thing to happen so far in 2012: my Xmas present to myself--a reward for a semester of hard work--arrived today.
I can't wait to start reading this. I picked it up in a bookstore a few years ago and read the chapter on Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (a totally underrated series of novels, especially the first book, Red Mars, which is an absolute classic--maybe they're not actually underrated, but I've never come across anyone talking about them). I didn't have the cash at the time (and buying a book like this in the bookstores around where I'm from is a rapid road to penury), so I'm glad to have finally tracked down a copy for a reasonable price. Jameson's writing on science fiction, which I encountered when I first started grad school and was exposed to theory as something other than a useless mass of pretentiousness to be avoided at all costs (not to say that none of it is that), was a pleasant surprise. That someone with a big name was writing about science fiction was particularly important to me because I'd been given the impression in undergrad that to do English Studies and to be at all serious (and taken seriously) one must avoid things like science fiction. Given that science fiction was a) just about the only thing I read from the age of about 7/8-18 and b) what got me interested in reading and talking about books, this was quite a blow. Since those dark times, though, I've come to (re)embrace my love of the things I wasn't supposed to talk and write about (like science fiction, music, cartoons, etc.). Huzzah!
This actually pairs quite well with a present from my parents:
I'd seen most of this season, but there were a couple of episodes I'd missed. Having a chance to sit down and watch them all in order, I think they made a slightly more favourable impression on me than they did on television. The season as a whole doesn't match the heights of the four movies between Season 4 and Season 5, but it also manages to avoid the lows of those movies. Overall, I'd say the quality is somewhere around the second half of Season 1 and the first half of Season 2. Considering that the second half of Season 2 is what I would consider the beginning of the Golden Era of the show, that's not too bad, and the animation has never looked so good. There were a few moments of absolute brilliance--"Lethal Inspection" provided an all too rare poignant moment for both Bender and Hermes, the middle act of "A Clockwork Origin" redeems an otherwise irritatingly didactic episode, and "The Prisoner of Benda" is nearly as much fun as "The Farnsworth Parabox" and its Professor-Zoidberg/Fry-Leela subplot provided one of the season's genuine belly laughs.
I missed a lot of the sixth season and need to catch up with the DVDs at some point, but I do think that the show is moving in a positive direction, even if it will never quite recapture the dizzying heights of Season 3 and Season 4, when nothing seemed out of reach of the show--the Fry and Leela dynamic has obviously shifted, and they can't quite recapture the sweetness that it added to episodes like "Time Keeps on Slipping," "The Why of Fry," and "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings." Some of the most distinctive writing voices are missing and their absence is felt, but when the show gets out of the way of itself and lets the characters provide the humour and pathos without the zaniness and gags, it can still shine. Speaking of shining, the packaging for the DVD is absolutely gorgeous.
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