From their list of the top 50 albums of the year:

It’s not a stretch to say that Taylor Swift’s Folklore may go down in history as the definitive quarantine album, and not just because of the record’s homespun, folksy presentation. Without the pressure of having to write radio hits or build up her usual prolonged album-release schedule — full of music videos, Easter eggs, and Good Morning — Swift shed the über-pop trappings of her previous album, Lover, for a project that put her once-in-a-generation songwriting talent front and center. Regardless of what you think of the album’s “indie” cred, with contributions from the National’s Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Folklore’s 16 tales of lost love, coming-of-age, and redemption provided us with solace and catharsis just when we needed it most. Songs like “August” and “Mirrorball” will persevere long after this pandemic is over — and so, evidently, will Taylor Swift.

Hard to argue with Rolling Stone.

“Greyhound” is a new Tom Hanks film about a Navy captain during World War 2 that debuted on Apple TV+ over the summer. It was originally destined for a theatrical debut, but that wasn’t a possibility given the COVID-19 pandemic, and Apple ended up securing the rights for an exclusive debut on Apple TV+.

I’m a fan of historical movies, especially ones centered around WW2, and I really enjoyed the film. Tom Hanks was great, story was gripping, and the effects were well done. Check it out.

Side note: I’m a big fan of special features and behind the scenes content — I’ve always really enjoyed seeing how movies and TV shows are made and how the creative processes come together to build something people find entertaining. Along a similar vein, director/producer/cast commentaries have always been really interesting to me. In the past several months, I’ve stumbled across a few shows and movies where the creators have gone on to host or guest host podcasts to talk about their work (one example being the HBO miniseries “Chernobyl”, which is also definitely worth your time). Delightfully, there’s a great podcast episode you can listen to which encapsulates a conversation between Tom Hanks and host Dan Carlin (of the podcast Hardcore History) that is a great accompaniment to the “Greyhound” film.

Taylor Swift’s surprise eighth album dropped July 24th. It came completely out of the blue, and not that anyone was expecting it to come so soon, but it’s certainly much different than what anyone expected TS8 to be. Let’s get into it.

First, my general feelings:

I like this album a lot. It’s very alternative and folky, not at all like the albums that preceded it. One of my biggest criticisms of “Lover” was that it wasn’t sonically cohesive, and that is certainly not the case this time around—this album knows exactly what it is. None of these songs are going to end up getting played to death by the radio stations the way songs like “End Game” or “I Knew You Were Trouble” were, but that’s okay: it isn’t Top 40 music and it doesn’t want to be.

As is supported by the fact that Taylor was nominated for several Grammys and won the Apple Music Award for songwriter of the year, the fact that she isn’t making pop music does not mean she’s not doing some of her best work. A lot of fans think this is her best work from a lyrical perspective since “Red”, which was an undeniable lyrical masterpiece. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, "Taylor Swift’s greatest strength is her ability to tell stories, and folklore is an album full of stories; her stories, fictional stories, historical stories, our stories.

Song by Song:

I’ve given each song two ratings out of ten, the first rating is how I felt about it after the first time I listened to it, the second is how I feel about it now, four months later and after dozens of listens.

“the 1”: 6.5/10, 6/10

An interesting way to open the album. It seems like a song that would’ve been a great slower moment on a more upbeat album, but was pretty much in line with the speed of the rest of this album, making it feel not all that exceptional.

“cardigan”: 5.5/10, 5/10

Centering this song around a cardigan was a choice. I hate that this song is the one that the radio stations are playing a little because it kinda drones on and I really don’t think it’s her best, and you need to have heard “betty” and “august” first to really get the most out of this track.

“the last great american dynasty”: 7/10, 8/10

This is one of my favorite songs. I love the history she incorporates, and the twist at the end where she brings it to current day and reveals that she bought Holiday House is a master stroke in lyrical revelations that hits you square in the chest. It transitions to being a song about her rather than about Rebekah Harkness, and it’s a much more eloquent and effective commentary on the modern and historical oppression of women than “The Man” ever hoped to be.

“exile” (feat. Bon Iver): 8.5/10, 7/10

One of the saddests song on the album, “exile” is a terrific example of how men and women have been trained by society to process their feelings. You see a woman express her feelings outwardly, and you see a man keep his feelings to himself and imploding as a result.

“my tears ricochet”: 7/10, 10/10

It’s kind of crazy that a bad business deal led Taylor to write one of her best songs, but that’s exactly what happened here. I hope Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun realize that the pain they inflicted on Taylor by effectively stealing the rights to her first six albums resulted in one of the best songs she’s ever written.

“mirrorball”: 6/10, 5/10

“mirrorball” is interesting. It’s very self conscious and sounds like something from the 80s. I can see why it may ben some people’s favorite, seriously, but it’s just a little slow for my taste and I don’t personally relate to it all too well.

“seven”: 6/10, 3/10

“seven” is just boring. I get that it’s about youth and innocence, which is a solid concept, but it feels like filler to me.

“august”: 5/10, 5/10

This is the second song in the trinity of “betty”, “august”, and “cardigan”, and I appreciate it for its role in telling that story, but otherwise, I don’t really love it. Its probably the most upbeat song on the album, but it just isn’t a bop.

“this is me trying”: 4/10, 2/10

This song is just… so slow and monotonous. I really don’t care for it at all.

“illicit affairs”: 9/10, 6/10

Originally one of my favorite songs on the album, “illicit affairs” just isn’t quite as great as I initially thought. It’s still a very potent story, but it’s extremely situational and not necessarily representative of a situation a ton of people have been in. It does illustrate a point Taylor made on the “folklore: the long pond studio sessions” film though, and that is that in a love triangle or other situation where someone leaves their partner to be with someone else, the person they leave for is rarely as much of a villain as society would have you believe. We’re all looking for the same things, and that’s usually not to sabotage someone else’s love life, it’s to find someone who completes our own and unfortunately we sometimes hurt others in that process. She said that in reference to “august”, saying that she wanted to show that the person on that side of a love triangle isn’t necessarily a bad person, but I think this song makes that point just as well.

“invisible string”: 6.5/10, 7.5/10

This track is very sweet, and it plays on the idea of destiny. As one of the more upbeat and happy songs, this may have been a good way to open the album and create a super smooth transition from “Lover”.

“mad woman”: 6/10, 5/10

Another commentary on how women are allowed to behave that’s better than “The Man”.

“epiphany”: 4/10, 5/10

Likely the slowest on the album, but not too bad. It tells modern stories and historical stories, and shines a spotlight on the despair and helplessness of some human experiences.

“betty”: 7.5/10, 8/10

First things first, I predicted the prominence of the harmonica on this track. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, this is one of the best songs on the album, and for the first several weeks, it was my favorite from this album. One of Taylor’s only songs (if not THE only song) from a male perspective, it’s the apology Taylor has been waiting for from all the men she’s written about before. It’s also the final song in the “betty”, “august”, “cardigan” trilogy, which when you look at it from a bird’s eye view, is on par with the complex, interwoven, easter egg-filled storytelling of J.K. Rowling. “betty” is told from the point of view of James, a seventeen year old boy who’s infidelity cost him a relationship he realized he valued after he lost it for a summer fling, told right after the end of that summer when he’s apologizing to his asking Betty and asking her for a second chance. “august” is told from the point of view of an unnamed character who remarks on the fleeting nature of her relationship with James, and this perspective is told a few months or years after the events took place. “cardigan” is told from Betty’s perspective, and expands on her process of dealing with the emotional hurdle of being cheated on and the wisdom she gained from it, and it’s told many years later. Tell me about another artist who writes all their own songs and is capable of telling stories like this that traverse multiple perspectives and time periods, I’ll wait.

“peace”: 5/10, 10/10

I think this is my favorite song on the album. This one is also very self conscious and emotionally raw. Like many of the other songs, it too is quite slow, but I love it.

“hoax”: 4/10, 5/10

“hoax”, on the other hand, is not my favorite. It has a few good lyrics but it’s a bit too slow and aimless at times.

“the lakes”: 8/10, 7/10

This is the most folky song on the album, and it really captures the vibe of the album better than any other song. It’s got a very Walt Whitman-y vibe. As the most “folklore”-y song, it’s hard for me to imagine Taylor coming up with a great song to transition out of this genre for her next album. Maybe we’ll stay here for a while longer, or maybe she’ll make a hard turn back towards pop or to country again. Or who knows, maybe she goes somewhere new entirely; this whole album was certainly unpredicted.

folklore: the long pond studio sessions

“folklore: the long pond studio sessions” is a film on Disney+. I hate that it’s only available on Disney+, though. I don’t have such a hard on for princess movies that I feel the need to pay $7 a month to watch them, so I was a little annoyed that it wasn’t available on a more mainstream platform (or multiple platforms), and there was a bad taste in my mouth from the start. Further adding to my distaste, I stayed up until midnight to watch it when it was released, but due to some presumed technical fuck up, it wasn’t available. I waited up for about 45 minutes but eventually went to bed. I found out the next morning that it didn’t actually go up until about 3:15 AM, which frankly just isn’t acceptable.

The film features Taylor Swift and some of her collaborators and fellow singwriters, including Jack Antanoff, Aaron Dessner, and Justin Vernon, talking through the backstories of these songs and performing them. Most fans had guessed that fellow “folklore” songwriter William Bowery was a pseudonym for Taylor’s boyfriend of four years, Joe Alwyn, and while he wasn’t present in the film, Swift did confirm that he was the pseudonymous songwriter.

It did provide a lot of color and context for various songs, and it made me like one or two of them a bit more. In particular, the backstory behind “this is me trying” went a long way toward making me tolerate my least favorite track. Not my favorite of Taylor’s concert films, but not bad. At least we got to hear each song, unlike with “Lover” (I WILL be bitter until we get a live performance of “Cruel Summer”.)

Final Notes

Someone on twitter noted that this is Taylor’s first album where the album artwork doesn’t feature a close up photo of her, and that that imagery definitely mirrors this album’s tendency to focus less on Taylor’s life and more on the lives and stories of others. I think that’s spot on.

I’m not a huge fan of her bangs in this era, but to each their own—it does fit the vibe.

Whenever the next album comes, I wouldn't be surprised to see her return to country. She was a great country artist because her songs had substance and weren’t all about the common tropes of beer, titties, and trucks, and guns, so I’m sure she could revitalize the country music arena (which is in desperate need of a rejuvenation). That said, my favorite album is “1989” and it’s very solidly in the pop column, so I’m personally hoping she’ll blow us all away with another record full of timeless pop smashes.

About a week ago, Johnny Depp posted a memo on his Instagram account saying that Warner Brothers had asked him to step down from his role as Gellert Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, and that he had agreed to leave the role.

This news came on the heels of a British court’s decision in a libel case where Depp had tried to sue a British tabloid for libel, after they called him a “wife beater” in reference to Depp’s toxic marriage to actress Amber Heard. The court found that the tabloid’s assertion that Depp was a “wife beater” was backed up by the evidence, and Warner Brothers subsequently asked Depp to step down from the role. It’s worth acknowledging that this case was only concerning the libel charge, not the alleged abuse. The general consensus seems to be that it was a troubled and toxic relationship, in which both parties contributed plenty of vitriol.

Less than two weeks after Depp announced his departure, it sounds like Warner Brothers may have already found an actor to replace him. Reports seem to suggest that Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen is favored to play Grindelwald in the remaining films.

The filmmakers could go a few directions with this. They’ve already established that Grindelwald is a master of disguise, so they could theoretically explain away why he looks different in the upcoming films by throwing in a quick scene where you see him altering his appearance. However, Mads Mikkelsen actually does have physical similarities to Johnny Depp’s Grindelwald, so perhaps they can pull this off without a hitch and not even acknowledge it.

Even if they pull off the switch seamlessly, the Fantastic Beasts franchise is still a ship on fire. Hopefully they can put out the flames and correct course with the third film, which has now been pushed back until summer of 2022, despite originally being scheduled for release this month. Yeah, a four year gap for a spin off series where fans have no source material to keep them interested. We’ll see how the third movie does, but they’re going to have to make a greatly entertaining film that’s somehow consistent with the original Harry Potter canon while explaining away the seeming plot holes of the first two films in the franchise. I want them to succeed, but I’m not all that hopeful.

This award is well deserved.

Taylor Swift’s ability to tell viscerally specific yet widely applicable stories that anyone can relate to has always been her greatest strength, and her songwriting shines on “folklore”.

“The Comey Rule” was recommended to me by a friend in the days leading up to the election, and I’m very glad I took his recommendation seriously.

It’s a two part series that lays out the timeline of events that dragged the FBI into the political muck during the 2016 presidential campaign, including the scandal surrounding Hillary’s email servers, as well as the connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. It’s rather dense and you need to pay attention to the details, but I found the first half in particular to be absolutely gripping. It’s laid out so that part one covers the events leading up to the election, and part two covers the events after the election.

Though many of the characters make their political beliefs clear, I found it to have been produced in rather apolitical fashion. The show makers clearly wanted to lay out the documentable facts for the audience and help people understand what happened, and teasing out which “bombshell” headlines from that campaign season were actually of seismic importance, and which were just filler. It really impresses upon you the importance of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies remaining independent of the politics that consume the most of the federal government, and it demonstrates how our institutions can be fundamentally damaged when they kowtow to political pressure.

You can watch “The Comey Rule” on Showtime, but if you don’t have showtime, you can purchase it for seven bucks on iTunes or Amazon Prime.

I spoke to @vmagazine about why I’ll be voting for Joe Biden for president. So apt that it’s come out on the night of the VP debate. Gonna be watching and supporting @KamalaHarris by yelling at the tv a lot. And I also have custom cookies 🍪💪😘

📷 @inezandvinoodh pic.twitter.com/DByvIgKocr

— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) October 7, 2020

Taylor — Thanks for your support and for speaking out at this crucial moment in our nation’s history.

Election Day is right around the corner — are you ready for it? https://t.co/eoxT07d7QB https://t.co/TLHRYSjbTx

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 7, 2020

Voting never goes out of style. Thank you so much for your support Taylor.

P.S. Please share your cookie recipe.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 7, 2020

You love to see it.

The final episode of “Ted Lasso” was released last Friday, and it was a great conclusion to the season. If you haven’t heard of “Ted Lasso”, it’s a new TV+ show about an amateur American football coach hired as head coach of a premier league soccer team in Britain. It’s a terrific concept and it’s absolutely hilarious, but not quite like the trailer presents.

While it is extremely funny, it’s also dynamic and the plot doesn’t shy away from heavier topics affecting the characters. It celebrates open mindedness and healthy expressions of masculinity; it feels like a boys club, but an inclusive one that’s happy for you to a part of it.

“Ted Lasso” is my favorite TV+ show so far, and my favorite show of this year. Check it out.

Schitt’s Creek is an absolutely phenomenal show, and all of the awards they won were incredibly well-deserved.

Each of the four main actors won awards for their performances, and the show also won awards for outstanding writing, directing, casting, and costumes, as well as the category award for “Outstanding Comedy Series”. In total, they took home nine Emmys, more than any show in the comedy category has ever won for a single season.

From Dan Levy’s acceptance speech: “our show, at its core, is about the transformational effects of love and acceptance, and that is something that we need more of now than we’ve ever needed before.”

From the website for “Class Action Park,” a new documentary streaming on HBO Max:

Here's the gist: During its 1980s and 1990s heyday, New Jersey’s Action Park earned a reputation as the most insane — and possibly the most dangerous — amusement park that ever existed. 

It was known as a lawless land, ruled by drunk teenage employees and frequented by even drunker teenage guests. The rides were experimental and illogical, and seemed to ignore even the most basic notions of physics or common sense—not to mention safety. […]

Lying somewhere between Lord of the Flies and a Saw movie, Action Park is remembered as a place so insane and treacherous that, decades later, anybody who ever stepped foot in it is left wondering whether their memories could possibly be true. It became a nearly perfect breeding ground for urban legends and myths.

Do yourself a favor and watch this documentary.

Bruce Haring, reporting for Deadline:

Taylor Swift’s new folklore album has had a fabled sales beginning.

Since its Thursday release,  the album surpassed 1.3 million global sales in its first twenty-four hours, according to her Republic Records label.

Beyond that, folklore also dominated on the global streaming platforms. Spotify said Swift’s total of 79.4 million streams is a new record for an album by a female artist. Apple Music’s total of 35.47 million is a new high for a pop album.

That means the album will easily debut at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart, and will have the best showing since Swift’s Lover album came out in 2019.

Taylor Swift is an icon and that’s all there is to it.

---

A thorough ‘folklore’ review is forthcoming, but I do want to jot down a few quick thoughts.

1. At first I thought the songs all sounded a bit too similar, but the more you listen, the more distinct they really are. Plus, it was one in the morning the first time I listened to it, so I was a bit tired and not at my most aurally discerning.

2. The vibe of the album was much slower and more mellow than any of her previous albums, and it’s her first to be categorized as “alternative” instead of “country” or “pop”.

3. Each song has layers of rich detail that weave myth, reality, past, and present in a way that’s truly incredible. Not only that, but there are themes, story lines, and lyrics that recur throughout the album, almost like a puzzle or riddle waiting for listeners to parse together; Taylor is quickly becoming a lyrical J.K. Rowling. That said, as a history major and someone who really appreciates stories, this album feels like it was made for me. One song in particular felt remarkably specific to one of the most emotionally monumental events I’ve experienced this year, and it came a mere 18 hours after said event. Crazy.

4. I was right about the harmonica!

From Taylor Swift on Twitter:

Most of the things I had planned this summer didn’t end up happening, but there is something I hadn’t planned on that DID happen. And that thing is my 8th studio album, folklore. […]

Before this year I probably would’ve overthought when to release this music at the ‘perfect’ time, but the times we’re living in keep reminding me that nothing is guaranteed. My gut is telling me that if you make something you love, you should just put it out into the world. That’s the side of uncertainty I can get on board with.

Usually when Taylor Swift is gearing up to drop a new single, she always drops little breadcrumbs and Easter eggs for fans to collect and theorize about what they could mean and whether they’ll lead to new music, but this time, there was none of that. Not only were there no signs of a single, we’re getting an entire album. And we’re getting it at midnight TONIGHT. As a big Taylor Swift fan, it’s pretty safe to say I was blindsided but thrilled by this announcement.

I really like the aesthetic so far, the black and white forest vibes feels a bit more introspective and genuine than Lover, and generally less girly, which is cool. We’ll see how the music stacks up.

Lame, funny prediction just for the hell of it: my gut tells me at least one song will prominently feature a harmonica.

UPDATED: 7/23/20, 15:14

The final episode of “Defending Jacob”, one of the latest TV+ shows, was released a few weeks ago. If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, Apple describes it as follows:

[The] series unfolds around a shocking crime that rocks a small Massachusetts town and one family in particular, forcing an assistant district attorney to choose between his sworn duty to uphold justice and his unconditional love for his son.

I really enjoyed the show. I found it very engaging, and each week I found myself looking forward to the next episode being released. The story itself was well written, and the show was very well produced.

The cast was terrific. There’s absolutely nothing not to love about Chris Evans. I thought Jaeden Martell’s performance was particularly strong, and he really nailed portraying a likable but reserved character with depth and conviction (poor choice of words). Michelle Dockery’s character felt a little too scripted in the first episode, but her performance soon felt every bit as genuine as her co-stars. And Cherry Jones was brilliant, as usual.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I would definitely recommend you check it out.

Spoiler Warning ⚠️

I’m not a huge fan of ambiguous endings, but speculation can be fun. There are two characters who can be reasonably suspected of being the murderer. Jacob sort of confessed but he was clearly scared and arguably under duress, so who’s to say if he was telling the truth? Leonard Patz absolutely confessed, but he was absolutely under duress, so again, who’s to say he was telling the truth?

There’s plenty incriminating evidence to suggest that Jacob is guilty, most of all the story he posted on “The Cut Up Room”. But as Joanna points out, the story he wrote didn’t have any details that weren’t already public knowledge: you wouldn’t have to have been the murderer to write the story, just a bit twisted in the head, maybe as a result of having been bullied by the kid who was killed. I didn’t find the whole knife debacle incriminating — plenty of teenage boys have knives, in the south at least — but Jacob’s fingerprint on Ben’s sweater was a different story. It isn’t proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but it certainly doesn’t look good. There’s not too much left to discuss in Jacob’s case, because they devoted eight episodes to it.

However, there’s a lot of room for further speculation in the case of Leonard Patz. There is evidence to suggest that he killed Ben, and the fact that he himself was murdered doesn’t exculpate him. There’s no explanation of why he had photos of Ben on his phone. His proximity to the scene of the crime on the morning of Ben’s murder is also difficult to write off. Not to mention that there’s a record of Patz being attracted to adolescent guys who fit the same physical profile as Ben Rifkin. Of course, it could’ve been a coincidence that Ben was killed in the park where Leonard walks in the mornings, and there’s no record of Leonard being aggressive or dangerous towards Matt McGrath (Leonard’s only “victim”*). It’s also worth pointing out that the photos Leonard had of Ben weren’t crime scene photos — as with the story Jacob wrote, while it doesn’t look good, you wouldn’t have to have been the murderer to have those photos — they easily could’ve been images Ben had posted on social media. In all honesty, I felt bad for Leonard pretty much the entire time because I truly don’t think he killed Ben, and if that’s the case, then he was harassed, scapegoated, defamed, and brutally murdered because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, his only crime having been copping a feel of a consenting fifteen year old’s package through his shorts.

All in all, the story was certainly thought provoking. I don’t really see how there could be a second season, unless they want to pull Jacob out of his coma (yes, it literally ends with him in a coma; very soap opera-y) and do the whole thing again with a different murder victim (which they very nearly repeated in this season).

*I use quotes around the word “victim” in this sentence not because I question the legitimacy of Matt McGrath’s accusation against Leonard Patz, but because I don’t consider him a victim, and I don’t think he considers himself a victim, either. Matt was clearly sexually active and knew what was going on, and he solicited a transaction with Leonard. That doesn’t make it legal — the age of consent in Massachusetts is 16 and Matt was 15 at the time — but still, it’s hard for me to see Matt as a victim when he had the agency to make Leonard an offer in the first place.

Celebrating #Pride with the LGBTQ+ community and their allies this month and every month 🌈 ⁣
(🎨: by @ramzymasri) pic.twitter.com/pENmTaQB0h

— Nickelodeon (@Nickelodeon) June 13, 2020

This wasn’t really that surprising.

I’ve been meaning to finish this review for about two weeks now, but given the current climate, it got relegated to the back burner. Now that I’m finally wrapping it up, hopefully thinking about a fictional story can serve as a nice, lighthearted break from the many heavy articles (on CopyrightBro and other sites) about the distressing state of affairs in our country.

After waiting for about a year, the Hunger Games prequel we’ve been anticipating has finally arrived. A lot of people speculated that this would be a story about Mags’s games, but I didn’t think that was very likely nor a particularly exciting premise, so I was enthusiastic to learn that it was about a young Coriolanus Snow. Some easily-triggered fans considered that controversial because they didn’t want to “humanize a fascist dictator”. I want to address that before I talk about the actual story. My response is threefold:

1. This is fiction. You need to calm down.

2. Find a source of self worth that doesn’t require you to constantly exaggerate how oppressed and offended you feel all the time.

3. Don’t judge a book by its cover; this story does not make Snow out to be a perfect hero, it provides context and depth to an obviously flawed character. Nobody will walk away from this book feeling sorry for him.

Now, on to the fun part.

⚠️ Spoiler Warning

The Games

The games themselves are a bit different in this story than the ones we read about in the original series. While some differences could be reasonably expected, I was still surprised at how primitive and low-tech these games were. I suppose I didn’t think they would change much over the years because of the obsessive level of planning suggested by Katniss’s observation in Catching Fire. When the Quarter Quell announcement card is read after being picked from a box full of other Quarter Quell cards, Katniss remarks that the Capitol “had prepared for centuries of Hunger Games”.

The fact that they took place in a physical stadium wasn’t entirely surprising, but it does take a bit of the survival aspect out of it: Being able to start a fire or knowing what berries to pick wouldn't have helped the tributes in these games at all, and it’s interesting to speculate about how the games evolved from quick gladiator-style contests into a weeks-long AV production set in a custom-built, faux-natural arena where the tributes have to contend not only with one another, but also with Mother Nature, sponsors, and the Gamemakers throwing mutts into the mix.

The fact that the Capitol allowed the games to start with fewer than 24 tributes was also surprising; I expected that any tributes who died before they got to the arena would be replaced.

The Gamemakers are a bit less rigid and less concerned with fairness in these games (not that they didn’t have their hands in the later games as well, but they at least attempted to conceal their meddling). In these games, they allow (force) Coriolanus to enter the arena, where he smashes Bobbins’s head in with a plank. They also surprise the tributes when the games start by revealing that Marcus (aa tribute who escaped the Capitol’s custody) had been found, and as punishment for running, had been shackled to a metal bar high in the air with his teeth broken, waiting helplessly to eventually be murdered by one of the tributes. They make no effort to portray the games as a fair contest.

Characters

This book was full of Easter eggs, mainly in the form of names, from the original series. Surnames like Cardew, Flickerman, and Heavensbee are clear connections to the other books. In general, the characters in this story were quite as well fleshed out and three dimensional, but to be fair, this was one book compared to a whole trilogy.

Coriolanus

Coriolanus was initially a lot more likable than I expected. He had some problematic views in the beginning, but he also seemed open minded enough by the middle of the story that you think he may ultimately shed his more unjust beliefs. Obviously, his less pro-Capitol opinions don’t take hold in the long run: in the last third of the book when his life really seems to be falling apart, his experiences in District 12 have him teeter tottering between more progressive ideas and some even more Capitol-glorifying ideas than he had in the beginning. It isn’t that he lacks empathy, it’s just that he doesn’t have enough to counter balance his obsessive greed. The New York Times’ Sarah Lyall described his journey to finding his ultimate beliefs well:

His slide into evil seems the result of inertia and greed, not a specific come-to-Satan moment.

Towards the end, his obsession with his social status lead him to become quite annoying, and he whittles away any good faith he built up with the reader in the beginning.

One thing that isn’t explained is how Snow becomes president. It’s hinted at throughout the book that he could end up in that role, but there’s never any explanation of how or why that could happen. We don’t know enough about the Snow family’s position in the Capitol to assume that his name alone is enough to earn him the position, and we know it isn’t a dynasty: the current president is called Ravinstill. Was Snow elected by the citizens of the Capitol? Was he appointed? It just isn’t clear, and we’re forced to assume that he just works his way up via his ravenous ambition and newfound penchant for poisoning enemies.

Lucy Gray

I found Lucy Gray to be a bit boring. She’s extremely cunning and she likes music, but her personality felt a bit flat, otherwise. Her journey also felt too similar to Katniss’s: District 12 female tribute makes a splash at the reaping, captures everyone’s attention during the interviews, sings a song in the arena, and somehow wins the games against much stronger opponents. It felt a bit too familiar. Her presumptive death was also annoying to me. There was no explanation of how she knew Snow was going to leave her in the very end, and she disappears without any explanation, leading Coriolanus to go look for her. Had she not tried to run away, he wouldn’t have grown suspicious enough to try to kill her. For someone with a remarkable track record of self preservation, it didn’t make a lot of sense.

Sejanus

Sejanus was one of the purest, most well intentioned characters in the story. His death hit me like a ton of bricks. Coriolanus never treated him fairly, despite the fact that he cared deeply for Coriolanus.

Tigris

Assuming that this is the same Tigris from the original series, we never find out how she and Coriolanus came to their falling out. We didn’t even see any real hints at where fault lines could form in their relationship, aside from one brief moment of tension that’s quickly glossed over and never addressed again.

Dr. Gaul

Dr. Gaul seemed completely unhinged, to the point that it’s surprising she managed to actually accomplish anything. Given that the creator of the games only dreamt up the concept as a thought exercise and never intended to utilize it as an actual punishment, coupled with the fact that most of the citizens in the Capitol at this point weren’t totally sold on the games and were turned off by the brutality, the notion that she and a handful of accomplices managed to get them from an admittedly twisted homework assignment to a nationally televised form of retribution in just a few short years requires suspension of disbelief.

Dean Highbottom

The epilogue where you learn about Dean Highbottom’s past with Crassus Snow was one of the most interesting chapters in the book. It was fascinating to learn that while Highbottom was credited with the creation of the Hunger Games, they only actually came to fruition because of Coriolanus’s father.

The Covey

“The Covey” were very uninteresting. They’re more or less a band of musical misfits. They kinda travel but not really, and they've been in District 12 for years yet don’t want to label themselves as “district”. None of these characters added anything to the story, and I thought their chosen name was a bit dumb, even if it does mean “a small flock of birds”.

Unorganized Observations On Miscellaneous Story Elements

• The pacing for this book was a little off. It moved fairly quickly for a while, but it really slowed down in the second half after the games were over. It rambled about for a while without any clear direction, and there was a significant segment where I wondered what sort of conclusion it could possibly be building up to. Eventually, you do get a conclusion, but it felt rushed and too unclear to feel like a satisfactory ending.

• The Snow family’s poverty was unexpected. It made the story more dynamic.

• As the title would imply, music plays a large role in this book. I was delighted to find out that Lucy Gray was the songwriter behind “The Hanging Tree”, but otherwise, the music part of the story was a bit boring and not incredibly useful for the plot. It does help Lucy Gray stand out and gain more sponsors than any of the other tributes, but given how cunning she was and the simplicity of her plan, she easily still could’ve won the games with an average number of sponsors.

• Speaking of Lucy Gray winning the games, it wasn’t terribly difficult to predict. Though, I will say that her use of poison was an interesting plot point and I can only assume something of a genesis for Snow’s preferred method of murder.

• The notion that the arena would have lax enough security that someone could sneak in seems far fetched. The idea that the Capitol would send another Capitol child into the arena to rescue the one who snuck in is preposterous.

Overall, I would give The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes 3.5 out of 5 stars. I’m glad I read it and it provides useful context for the original series, even though some elements of the story didn’t knock my socks off. This is a good example of how to properly expand a series: I wish the Harry Potter people would take some notes. I am excited for the alleged movie to come out.

Yesterday, Stephenie Meyer announced that “Midnight Sun” will be released later this year. If you’re unfamiliar with “Midnight Sun” it is essentially a version of “Twilight” from Edward’s point of view instead of Bella’s. Meyer announced that she was working on this project a decade ago, but after a manuscript getting leaked and years without any mention of it, most people who knew what it was assumed the project scrapped.

I’ll be honest and say that I did read the Twilight books (I agree the movies are terrible), and a enjoyed them a lot. While this new version isn’t going to be groundbreaking from a plot perspective, it is at least an interesting exercise and a neat look into another character’s head.

I’m getting plenty of reading done these days, so this will be a fun addition to the stack of bookings I’m working through during quarantine.

Niall Horan’s first solo album, ”Flicker”, is probably one of my favorite albums, so I was really excited for his second to drop.

Said second album, titled “Heartbreak Weather”, was released a few weeks ago, and I’m not at all disappointed. The whole album is really solid, with a few tracks that really stand out (my favorites are “Black And White”, “Dear Patience”, and “San Francisco”).

Give it a listen.

I’m typically not a fan of songs with strong political undertones, but this release was impeccably well timed. 10/10.

See also: Taylor’s new documentary “Miss Americana” on Netflix. It had several very powerful moments, and it demonstrated the genuine nature of Taylor’s decision to finally voice her political opinions when she threw her support to Phil Bredesen in the 2018 midterms.

I’m not a fan of cancel culture, I’m not saying we should “cancel” him. But how many times can one dude swing and miss before he decides to lay the bat down? Justin Bieber’s new song “Yummy” sucks, and the promotional ploys accompanying it have ranged from outright creepy to wildly desperate.

The song is repetitive and unintelligent. Sonically, it’s okay — it would be fine if the lyrics weren’t so lame and immature. Somehow, it took him and four other songwriters to create this nonsense. I’d be fine if I never heard it again. Better than fine, actually, I’d be quite pleased.

Throughout the song, the word “yummy” is used as a euphemism for sex. For some reason, Justin decided to promote the song by flooding his Instagram page with photos of babies, each accompanied solely by the hashtag #yummy. Inside joke? Pedophilia? Who knows, who cares. It’s weird.

Following that perturbing promotional choice, he felt the need to shove “Yummy” down everyone’s throat in an apparent effort to convince himself he’s still relevant by getting the single to the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. He encouraged fans to purchase the song multiple times, create Spotify playlists that only contain the song and play them on repeat at a low volume without pause, and even suggested that international fans install Virtual Private Networks to reroute their IP address’s locations through U.S. destinations so that their streaming the song would to contribute to his domestic numbers.

I’ve.. never seen anyone so desperate in my life pic.twitter.com/NoCo2NndTZ

— cody (@codyspearz) January 10, 2020

Like. Jesus, dude. Get a grip. For better or for worse, you’re never going to top “Baby”, and your legacy will forever be one of a thirteen year old with a squeaky voice. But hell, is that worse than one of a seemingly strung out (sure, blame it on Lyme disease) twenty-something with pink hair and a face tattoo?

It’s been a long time since Taylor Swift put out a Christmas song, and none of them were terribly memorable. While “Christmas Tree Farm” is better than 65% of the songs on Lover, it may not have a ton of staying power either; only time will tell.

However, it is a really cute song and it could very well be the best original Christmas song of 2019. It certainly beats John Legend and Kelly Clarkson’s #metoo era rendition of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”.