An Introduction of Four More, But Different

Last week over on Twitter (there he goes, deadnaming again), there was a post from Andrew Gilmour (Slain: Back from Hell, Valfaris) with one of those "post four things about yourself" posts.  Kind of similar to the #Gamestruck post that I turned into an article. . . checks notes. . . six goddamn years ago!?  Why is that still banging around in my memory banks!?  Anyway, there wasn't a catchy hashtag with this one, just a prologue of "Introduce yourself with" and then the prompt of:

One Show

One Movie

One Album

One Book

and the person would just list a picture of each of these, presumably their favorite from each topic.  

Now, this initially intrigued me because I took the screenshot at 12:43 am when I was not sleeping, but then I thought that 12 years into this little experiment in democracy, I didn't think that I needed to introduce myself as there are nearly 1,000 semi-helpful ways to know who I am based on my interests.  You're still here after all.  So rather than do my top/favorite/most influential show/movie/album/book, I decided to be oh-so-clever and just list the last thing from each of those four categories that I consumed.

So!

The Last Show I Watched (in its entirety): Star Wars: The Acolyte

I talked a bit about The Acolyte back when it was still going through its episodes, right as incels were shitting themselves about the age of Ki-Adi-Mundi (that week, to say nothing about anything they decided to hate on: fire is space, writing, 47 years of consistent never-changing lore, a black woman, lesbian space witches, dialogue for eight-year-olds, not having a cis-white male lead, not involving anyone from the Skywalker clan, etc, take your pick).  I liked that show for a lot of the reasons that I previously mentioned.  I liked the characters (including the fact that these were all new characters), I liked the storytelling, I liked the world-building, and I enjoyed how they handled the often implied infallibleness of the Jedi.  I was greatly saddened when it was announced that Disney was not going to renew The Acolyte for a second season.

The Last Movie I Watched: Star Wars

I may not have watched the movie in a single sitting during a single day, but I did finish showing the movie to The Squire back on Sunday (September 8th).  We had started the movie twice before and the furthest we got was Luke and Obi-Wan finding the Sandcrawler shot up by stormtroopers, then we officially lost The Squire's attention; he is only four after all.  But then on Saturday, we watched from Luke meeting Obi-Wan (where we had last left off) until Luke/Han/Chewy/Leia fled from the Death Star.  Finally, on Sunday morning, we finished watching the movie.  There were times when The Squire was very much distracted and was more focused on either picking up my feet or trying to somersault off of the futon, but I still think I can say that we were there for the entire movie, and now we can watch The Empire Strikes Back because we have to watch that movie before we get to the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi.

And because it bears mentioning, I did show him the 1977 version too, so there was no "Episode IV: A New Hope" in the opening crawl, there was no Jaba (human or slug), Han shot first, and everything else that has been updated/changed/altered since the movie first came out.  I made this decision not for any high-falootin'/gatekeeping reason, I just wanted him to see this version first, in the same way that I wanted him to see A New Hope before he sees Empire Strikes Back.  This is also why I haven't shown him anything from The Clone Wars animated series beyond the pilot/movie.

Last Album I Listened To: Jurassic Park - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Earlier this month, I started taking The Squire to preschool whereas last school year, it was Conklederp who ran the shuttle service.  I knew that on the first day, there might be some hard feelings on the Squire's part what with me now being the one taking him along with taking a new route because we were going to a new preschool.  I have a selection of CDs in our car (because my formidable growing-up years was in the 90s), but the one that I thought would allow for the smoothest ride was this soundtrack.  I had played it before, so The Squire already knew some of the music, but I needed to keep the music going for the whole 15-20 drive.  So I started on track 16, "End Credits" because it's just a reprise of the "Journey to the Island" fanfare and the "Theme from Jurassic Park."  Then I let the soundtrack look back to "Opening Titles" and play through "Theme from Jurassic Park", and "Incident at Ilsa Nublar", and we get anywhere between four to eight minutes into "Journey to the Island."  This is all really just a greatest hits of the entire album, minus some of the more intense pieces, although there is "Remembering Petticoat Lane" and "My Friend, the Brachiosaurus", but those are dab smack in the middle.  But it's great, every morning for the past two weeks has been spent listening to this soundtrack and it's great to hear The Squire singing along in the back.

Last Book I Read: The Hobbit: Or There And Back Again, A Hobbit's Holiday

Again, The Squire has influenced this list.  For the last six months or so I have been reading The Hobbit to him as he goes to bed at night.  Some nights we would read eight pages, while others I would get halfway down the first page before he fell asleep.  Don't bother asking him for a synopsis about anything that happened apart from that Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf were there.  And maybe Thorin and Bombur.  But the important thing is that I read him the entire book and he would actually request that I read The Hobbit to him, so it didn't end up being a forced thing on my part.  After reading two of his own books, we would then turn off the lights and I would read from my backlit Kindle.

Getting real time.

There were a handful of passages where I actually teared up and found it difficult to read.  When the Dwarves are singing, Gandalf and Bilbo are talking about how the song makes Bilbo feel.  How he pictures the wide world outside of the Shire, how he sees himself carrying a sword instead of a walking stick.  I can't really explain fully why that hit me so hard, but it just did.  I felt it in my eyes first, then in my chest, and found it hard to finish the sentence.  Then again at the end of the book when Bilbo is escorted to see Thorin in his tent after the final battle, I knew that I was going to have trouble reading Bilbo's goodbye to Thorin and Thorin's apology to Bilbo.  This fucking part when Thorin tells Bilbo:

"There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West.  Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure.  If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now.  Farewell!"

Then Bilbo turned away, and he went by himself, and sat alone wrapped in a blanket, and, whether you believe it or not, he wept until his eyes were red and his voice was hoarse.

Really that entire interaction destroyed me while I was trying to read it to The Squire, and even typing it out was difficult to accomplish.  And then it happened again when Bilbo bids farewell to the Dwarves, inviting them to tea and letting them know that they're always welcome; I lose it every time watching Martin Freeman's performance as Bilbo during this scene.  And then again when the Elves of Rivendell welcome back Bilbo and Gandalf with a reprise of their first song.  And then again when Bilbo sings "The Road Goes Ever On."  And then again when Gandalf and Balin talk to Bilbo about prophesy.  (Even now as I'm attempting to proofread).

I imagine some of this emotional response comes with having a kid that I'm reading The Hobbit to, but that's only a small part of it.  I think another part of it is the love I have for these books and the impact that this one author has had on my life in ways that aren't always clear or obvious.  I don't have any first-edition copies, but I do have copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that my Grandma bought me decades ago.  And now being able to share these works with my own child, something that I had imagined since Conklederp said she was pregnant.  And also the love of friendship that permeates all of Tolkien's books.  I could go on for a while more, but that would end up turning into its own article, so we'll end it here.

So those are the last things in each of the above categories that I've finished.  Now that I think of it, I probably could have added the last video game I finished, but I've already written about both Umbral (which I did finish) and DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia (which I didn't technically finish, but I did get at least one good ending).  We'll probably do another like-minded list in the coming future when I find another one after midnight that sounds intriguing, or maybe we'll just have to wait another six years.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental