Travel hasn’t been lucky for me in the past year and a half. One time I had to cancel for a flood, one time I had to cancel because I got sick, another I lost my suitcase and got partially sick as well, and so on. For this reason, last month, I didn’t write about my at-the-time-upcoming vacation.

But now I am back! And I can say that my four days in Edinburgh went better than expected! Well… almost because Gioia got the damn COVID on the last day. (But overall, she will agree that it went well.)

Anyway. It was my second time in Edinburgh. I have already been there a couple of days while returning from the Dundee’s DiGRA-FDG conference in 2016. This time, though, we went there exclusively to visit the city and enjoying the Scottish vibes. It was a short (and expensive) vacation, but I enjoyed every single moment, from waiting at the airport, to the never-ending city wandering, to Ben’s Cookies, to watching Gioia take a billion photos of the castle.

Even it was a brief trip, it somehow captured my attention for most of the month. You need to organize things, think about the travel, and, for some reason, I postpone things after the trip. Do I really want to start XYZ two weeks before my trip? Nah. The pause will block the momentum anyway… better do it after.

And now it is after and I am future-me, and I have inherited ten thousand small and big things to do before the year end.

Yes, because August feels like the end of the year. My mental year starts in September, like school, like the academic year. So let’s see how it turned out!

Housekeeping

I finally published the article describing how I use Calibre to keep track of my physical real paper books. It is nothing revolutionary; but it serves me remarkably well.

I also shuffled things around in my blog’s theme. It feels a bit more polished now.

Reading

This is my proven behavior: when I travel, I read more during the travel itself, and I read almost nothing in the 10/15 days before. I can understand why I read more while traveling: in between airports and actual flight time, I have 10 guaranteed hours in which I have nothing better to do. But I don’t get why I dry up in the days before.

Whatever it is, the point is that I read two books, and I think it is a solid result.

• El Impostor (The Impostor) by Javier Cercas. This is a 2014 “novel without fiction” (I really don’t understand this definition, it is just a non-fiction book with a more nuanced style) about Enric Marco Batlle, a man that for a big part of his life convinced everyone that he was a holocaust survivor and anti-fascist fighter during the Spanish Franco’s dictatorship. It is an interesting story, but the book is a bit repetitive.
• Legend by David Gemmell (1984). I came to this book for two reasons. First, I was listening to the album Legend by Fellwarden, a sludge metal album inspired by this book. Second, I wanted some old school 80s pulp fiction fantasy. But what a surprise! It was great. The book sets very clear and hard stakes from the start and fills the story with a cast of vivid characters. After a slow start, I got glued to the pages. The only flaw is that the ending is a bit too much deus ex machina, but I can close an eye because it was a really cool journey.

Watchlist

Viridiana (1961)

The dumb discussion on the Olympic opening ceremony and the hypocritical outrage about the Last-Supper-parody-that-wasn’t-really the Last-Supper made me finally watch Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana. In fact, I knew the story that the Catholic Church and Franco’s Spain censored the movie for “blasphemy” citing (among the other things) the above parody of the Last Supper. Another proof that fascists, clergymen, and bigots are always the same.

Anyway, this is a splendid movie showcasing Buñuel’s cynicism and anti-clergy stances. In fact, Viridiana (a young girl on the verge of becoming a nun) ends up discovering that her being devoted and pious ends up attracting tragedies. A blunt analysis, I know, but I want to leave space for your interpretation.

El Angél Exterminador (1962)

Continuing my Buñuel exploration, I ended up watching this absolute gem: El Angél Exterminador (The Exterminating Angel). It made my head explode in awe.

In this extraordinary piece of surreal cinema, a group of upper-class individuals meet after attending a theatrical performance for a fancy dinner. Everything looks fine, but for some unexplained reasons, everyone avoids leaving the room and the guests sleep on the floor and on the couches. In the morning realize that they are unable to leave the room even if there is nothing blocking the way. There is no obstacle, but nobody can get out (and the outside rescuers cannot go in). The majordomo came to serve the breakfast, and he get trapped in this cursed room as well.

After several days, everything unravels. They fight for water, food, they eat paper, someone dies, other kills themself, they use closets as bathrooms and so on.

I’ll say no more, because it gets better and I don’t want to spoil, other than this is genuinely a great psychological horror movie.

Buñuel never discussed the meaning of the movie, but the general consensus is that the movie represents the Spanish elite under Franco dictatorship: for its greed, it got stuck isolated from the world and then descended into eating itself.

(Btw, how many times I read/watched things related to Franco’s dictatorship in August? I swear it was a coincidence.)

All the rest

I watched only a handful of movies in August because of travels and all the rest. Still, here it is the full list:

• The Monuments Men (2014). A movie inspired by the real Monuments Men. This is far from excellent. It has an excellent cast, sure, but it was unexpectedly boring. I think the pace was completely off.
• Dungeons & Dragons Honor Among Thieves (2023). Surprisingly funny. It was not high cinema, of course, but I’d watch it again. It is goofy, as only D&D can be.
• Free Guy (2021). I don’t think the people who made this movie ever played a videogame. It is a blander uninspired version of The Lego Movie.
• Arrival (2016). I liked a lot. It could have been an almost perfect sci-fi movie… but they had to add the “non-linear time” bullshit.
• Whiplash (2014). It is probably the most beautiful movie I didn’t like it.
• Catch Me If You Can (2002). A classic. It is a really moviey movie. Super recommended.
• Return of the Jedi (1983). I ended my original trilogy rewatch. And here I can see the seed of everything wrong with the more modern Star Wars movies.
• Per un Pugno di Dollari (1964). Another great classic. I have nothing to add here.
• The Bear - Season 3 (2024). It is okay, but I didn’t particularly liked it (other than some specific scenes). They got overboard with the fancy cinematography and editing and they forgot the story and the purpose and the sense of agency.
• The Mandalorian - Season 1 and 2 (2019-2020). I liked this a lot. I think they did better and more worldbuilding in the Star Wars universe with the first season of The Mandalorian than in all the movies combined (let’s forget about the games for a moment).

Music

I didn’t listen to a lot of music in August (once again: I don’t listen to music when I travel 🤷‍♂️). By looking at my Last.fm scrobbles, I listened to 1000 fewer tracks than on July (741 vs 1745).

Nevertheless, we got a lot of new music this month. A lot of new music I was expecting:

• Flight b741 by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Back to a boogie rock sound. It is not their best album but I kinda like it. Definitely one of their simplest album in recent time (unless I didn’t understand this album gimmick).
• Romance by Fontaines D.C.. I was waiting for this album since the first single. But it got released last week and I still need to listen to it more.
• FORVER by Charly Bliss. They transitioned their sound more into pop, but I can still have fun in life (contrary to some edgy comments) so I have to admit that I liked it quite a bit.

I am forgetting something for sure. I still have a severe case of post-travelling brain.

Gaming

No significant gaming activity this month.

Other Interesting Things

• 📻 Un millón de monedas (es) - Videogames can have real-world effects. That’s given. But what if I say that there is a real story involving Venezuela’s economy, the game Old School Runescape, and an in-game war where Venezuelans tried to defend their real-life source of incomes? This crazy story is discussed in Spanish in the podcast above, but you can find the English transcript here (or an Italian article here). Trust me: this is the best videogame story you will read/listen this month.

Conclusions

Last month I wished for physical and psychological rest. I got both (and, as I write this, I still have remaining vacation days to enjoy).

After, as I said, it is time to start the “New Year.” September is a month designed to use the energies, the ideas, and the inspiration got during the summer. As a student going back to school, I want to go buy some new pencils and some new notebooks and prepare myself for the best season of all: autumn.

I cannot wait.

See you next month.