#valis

week 1

okayyy so i decided this year will be my year of attempting to catch up on my watchlist and reading list + expand my artistic horizons + catch up on all the classics that ive missed in my life and to do that i have a goal of watching one movie a week that i havent seen before, finishing one book a week that i already own, and listening to five new albums and i think i will start doing weekly recaps on here just to keep me accountable and also to subject all of you to my opinions :) the albums are all being randomly selected from the 1001 albums generator and im tryingggg to not buy any new books but! i am open to movie suggestions! i cant guarantee i will watch it but like if any of you have movies you think the whole world should see lmk what it is! anyways heres my week 1 recap

movie: secretary (2002)

so i definitely shouldve checked the tws on this before watching and thats totally my bad but! i did still end up enjoying this, the cinematography felt a lil wacky and creative which kept it fresh and i lovedddd the design of the office in particular and the little jokes and references that are scattered throughout the movie in the design and costuming were v fun (i literally giggled when mr gray came onscreen in the red turtleneck), and for all that people called it sexy/kinky i honestly just found it lowkey sweet in a freak4freak way. idk if i feel the urge to rewatch but i am glad i finally saw it

fav stills:

book: valis - philip k dick (1981)

this book is literally incomprehensible from start to finish, there was never a single point that i understood what was going on or what was about to come next and i genuinely enjoyed every second of it, this is the second of his books that ive read and he has such strong themes in his work that i feel like reading this actually added to my understanding of his other work despite them having nothing to do with each other. theres a twist at the end that genuinely made me gasp and im stilllll thinking about it and think i will be for a while which is v fun. also v much a case of the authors barely disguised hatred for richard nixon which was extremely entertaining. overall very very interesting treatise on life and death and religion and the meaning of faith vs reality from the perspective of an extremely high man so def recommend in that regard

fav quote:

albums:

aja - steely dan (1977)

i was really expecting to like this so i v much surprised myself by not really caring for it. i think to me its just the kind of music that should be heard live and not through my lil headphones at work

play - moby (1999)

opposite of aja, i wasnt expecting to like this as much as i did, i had only ever seen moby memes before so this was my first exposure to his music and it was not at all what i thought it would sound like but in a v good way

ellington at newport - duke ellington & his orchestra (1956)

cant go wrong w sir duke!! i did enjoy this a lot and it was v fitting because i went to a jazz club the day after listening to this. i do think it is still music i would enjoy a lot more live but as is its still very fun to listen to

the rolling stones - the rolling stones (1964)

(beatles fans/rolling stones fans pls dont kill me) i feel somewhat lied to bc i feel like my whole life ive been hearing beef abt whether the beatles or the rolling stones are better and so many contrasting opinions abt the two of them and frankly guys im ngl i listened to this and went oh its the same. they make the same music. it was okay, not hugely my thing. i think they fall into the issue where they were the first to do many things but they werent the last and ive heard so many things inspired by them that now going back to the og its like oh ive heard this before

who's next - the who (1971)