piscesmars | Recent Entries

so. i suppose its been a while since ive been able to properly process my thoughts into sentences and words and letters im able to perceive with my own two eyes and breathe in and take them in as my own. i failed at my goal of keeping up a proper handwritten journal this year, kept it up for about 2 months and found that i wasnt able to keep writing pages about my days. not to mention i was grinding like crazy for college... but since then all the dust has settled down.
what inspired the return? it comes down to the whole shock of the wholly new structure of college. from the minutia and almost braindead curriculum that is the 2013 curriculum where i cruised on by with my As and Bs through cheating and copying down calculations from PhotoMath and calling it studying--to a kind of academic rigor that my major (International Relations, feel free to laugh) has demanded from me. reading, parsing, comprehending, reading, paraphrasing, WRITING, dissecting, discussing, discoursing, opining, reading, brainstorming, citing, quoting, WRITING. so much of it. its such an scary yet endlessly exciting form of learning that i always dreamt of in the """adult""" world of university as a kid.
its not just by virtue of being on my way to a political science degree--i've started interning for my faculty's student council, under the Kajian Strategis division. it boils down to analyzing and delving critically into anything the sociopolitical sphere, but far different from journalism since it doesn't have to be anything topical. gears more towards the the new yorker opinion section but obviously with citations and theory groundwork to boot. so there's more writing there on top of everything i'm doing in class and then there's this which i do for my own enjoyment. which also means there's more reading i do to write on top of everything i have to read for class and then there's reading i do for my own enjoyment. it's a lot it's a toll on the mind for sure but i'm pumped. being creatively challenged is something i seek out and i guess after years of diddling about i'm glad to be able to set forth.
i think there's much to be gained from bringing back this kind of long-form blogging. with the rise of Sex and the City especially in the twittersphere (and also my mom who's been mouthing along to "More, More, More" by Andrea True constantly) of all the wannabe Carrie Bradshaws as well as writers like rayne fisher-quann and hunter harris being keenly read, it's safe to say maybe blogs are back. with substack and medium on the rise, livejournal stays forgotten, let alone dreamwidth. but it's my little corner that i cradle dearly still... been here since 2019 and its not going anywhere. hope to write much much more. front lobe development's finally kickstarting and it's going to be Huge.

Current Mood: quixotic
Current Location: jogja, finally
Current Music: Berlin Without Return - Voxtrot

the piano teacher by elfriede jelinek

4.5-5 stars?
thoughts: ok god i know i talk a lot of shit about im so erika kohut vibes but this was so visceral and nauseating to read. my dalliance with malina definitely helped here since they both have this stream of consciousness and frenetic style that's both dizzying and arresting in the way it makes you feel like the prose is a living being breathing right down your neck. i liked the movie enough when i first watched it but i dived into the book with little expectations because as compelling as it is, i felt like i didn't "get" it. and lo and behold. erika kohut as a character is so Much in ways i can barely comprehend. sure something about her is pathological to a degree but she's so achingly human. she's a shifting whirlwind of contradictions with this small glimpse into her life and yet she's an iron wall and i cant seem to get through to her still. like jesus the way jelinek writes her is so batshit insane. and it being semi-autobiographical (IYKYK ANDRE MULLER INTERVIEWS) drives me up the wall a little i think we could get along really well (not)(she would despise me and call me a prematurely shriveled up prune in a thick viennese accent i think). anyway i cant decide between a 4.5 or 5 because idk if i can give it that honor but also is a hall of famer for one of the few books that made me so nauseous i cried. MWAH
selected quotes:
- "Erika's mother prefers inflicting injuries herself, then supervising the therapy."
- "She will prolong her life by the length of her story, even though time will wear on inexorably as she tells it, thus depriving her of the chance to have a new experience."
- "No art can possibly comfort HER then, even though art is credited as many things, especially as an ability to offer solace. Sometimes, of course, art creates the suffering in the first place."
- "Every child instinctively heads toward dirt and filth unless you pull it back."
- "Vice is basically the love of failure. And Erika has always been trained for success, although she has never managed to achieve it."
- "She seems to be deliberately racing toward her own destruction; it is her final, her friendliest destination. Erika gives up her will."
- "For Erika, the most profound evidence of love is failure."
- "Love points the way. Desire its ignorant advisor."

jesus thats a lot sawri

piercing by ryu murakami

4 stars
thoughts: rec'd to me by oomf gin youreinthehouse shoutout<3 first knew about it due to the mia wasikowska/chris abbott movie but put it off so i can read this... also very perfect timing on the universe's part because i was looking for a brand new copy and found a secondhand for slightly cheaper YAS. i brought this everyday to school for the like 6 days i went in and it has this cartoon girl on the cover so im hoping either a) my classmates just assumed it's some manga or b) they googled it on their phones and now think im insane which both slays to me. read this over 3 days on the train and oh its amazing. i love what little of japanese literature i've read because the flow/rhythm of the prose feel so lyrical and concise while conveying so much in its eloquence. anyway excellent pacing and some toe-curling gore but maybe im just a pussy when it comes to reading horror idk. also the rumors are true it IS very romantic to my twisted brain <3 when you and bae are both delusional and driven to varying extreme impulses of self-destruction due to past childhood trauma. will give the movie a go even though i've heard it's bad
selected quotes:
- "Everyone's running around comparing wounds, like bodybuilders showing off their muscles. And what's really unbelievable is that they really believe they can heal the wounds like that, just by putting them on display."
- "Children would struggle desperately to feel love for their parents. Rather than hate a parent, in fact, they'd choose to hate themselves. Love and violence became so intertwined for them that when they grew up and got into relationships, only hysteria could set their hearts at ease."

CURRENTLY READING

slaughterhouse five
the jakarta method
close to the knives
menguak duniaku

UP NEXT?

pachinko
spring snow
power of the dog
the great believers (waiting for my copy hehe)

Current Mood: psychosexual ok not rly

hello dearly beloved mutuals and anyone else who might stumble into my little corner of the Online.. unfortunately the urge to go back to the dreamwidth posting of yore (mid to late 2019) has bubbled up once again and after the disastrous failure of my 2021 reading wrap up (cursing dreamwidth draft system and my busted laptop and NO i will not be using gdocs or word) i've decided to start fully fresh. by fully fresh i mean completely dropping my 2021 in review entirely and setting out to do monthly blog posts in lieu of goodreads and storygraph reviews (despite having accounts and being active on both). not that the format would be vastly different by any means, but i fully 100% believe in oomf's vision of bringing back longform blogging in the 2020s and i'd love to play my part as a uhh representative of the youth. or something. we'll be having fun here i promise. i know <i> will!

first & foremost trying to lay down some kind of groundwork for my reading plans this year, definitely will not be like the mostly rigid structure and scheduling i followed for about a year with letterboxd. with letterboxd i was doing challenges (52 films by women + criterion challenge for example) and setting up monthly watchlists that would require 2-3 movies a day, which looking back is kind of insane? getting out of the cinephile mindset will do that to you. as much as it was hugely rewarding as a way for me to branch out of my tastes in le cinema, it gradually made moviewatching a complete chore and decreased my attention span so bad its almost unreal. trying to remedy that right now by cutting down my watchlist by a LONG shot (1,562 -> 160 in my priority watchlist) and shifting my media focus from movies to: you guessed it, books.

2021 was actually veryyy productive for me reading wise if you ignore the last 2 weeks of 2021 where i read 7 novellas, but i'm really trying to shift from numbers/quantity to what i genuinely enjoy from them. which is why i'm being insanelyyy picky with media consumption rn and with books it's especially difficult wrt curation. definitely don't want to go the mainstream route and read like whatever's popular on booktok right now. it's not as easy as just going to a bookstore and pick whatever catches my eye (okay bookstores don't have good titles, great bookstores have insane prices)(i'll make a separate post about the insane battlefield that is indonesian preloved bookselling), same goes with a library (a real rarity these days), so recently i've been mostly relying on word of mouth for recs and making do with whatever shitty copy i could find besides the obvious route of pdfs & epubs.

(the one book challenge im doing though is 12 books recommended by 12 friends which i'm v v excited about because nothing motivates me to finish a piece of media more than a rec from a friend i think... a mini list before i go into my plans + priority list)

piercing by ryu murakami / multiple choice by alejandro zambea - rec'd by gin
the great believers by rebecca makkai / the incendiaries by r.o. kwon - rec'd by vee
the unwanted by kien ngyuen - rec'd by lanh
this is how you lose the time war by max gladstone - rec'd by emma
night film by marisha pessl - rec'd by sol
station eleven by emily st. john mandel - rec'd by nat
the two faces of january by patricia highsmith - rec'd by brooke
pachinko by min jin lee / the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay by michael chabon - rec'd by caz
the buddha in the attic by julie otsuka / on earth we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong - rec'd by alfie
the hours by michael cunningham - rec'd by julia
schoolgirl by osamu dazai / tin man by sarah winman - rec'd by sarah
the sympathizer by viet thanh nguyen - rec'd by sasha

honestly with books i'm a little iffy on if i will be hitting all of these but hopefully a good baseline for when im looking for what to read next. since i have no set reading goal for this year this would be v loose but what i'm hoping to do:

read more essay collections and memoirs: really enjoyed the small excerpts of joan didion that were shared around in honor of her passing, looking into getting a copy of slouching towards bethlehem soon
get into russian lit: this is a really corny bookstagram esque goal i think but ive heard nothing but how worth it delving into russian lit is so im hoping to read at least one of the staples.. saw a copy of a bulgakov novel in one of my usual stores so will check it out
reread a childhood fav: ever since my move i discovered a treasure trove of old cherished books so i definitely will be rereading for old times sake... its only fitting!
read more books about my "identities": i dont know how to phrase that exactly but i've realized i've barely read books about say trans or muslim identity which i'm hoping to fix. i know it may seem a little corny to seek out books that relate to your identity specifically but im hoping i can find some truths in the fiction or any kind of insight in the biographical.
complete a book series - also realized i haven't read a series or any non-standalone since.. whatever year the blood of olympus dropped . anything that has a sequel or a prequel would work , i've missed expansive fictional universes and lore so much after my year long abstinence and subsequent return (with jjk).
read more theory + left wing work: the most obvious one as a communist but looking to more full length books this time instead of shorter manifestos or readers. specifically looking into anything surrounding us interventionism, neo-colonialism, communism in the third world, the global domestic labor industry and global us imperialist propaganda.

++ some authors/thinkers im thinking of jumping off the diving board for:

james baldwin
thomas sankara
yukio mishima
raymond chandler
judith butler
david wojnarowicz
toni morrison
elif batuman
j. g. ballard
bell hooks
dennis cooper
kwame nkrumah
edward said
thomas pynchon
eka kurniawan

finally, my loose priority reads that i'm not going to hold myself to. not expecting to finish all of these, more of selected firstpicks for f i'm ever in the mood

the neapolitan novels (elena ferrante)
little children (tom perrotta)
eileen (ottessa moshfegh)
never let me go (kazuo ishiguro)
cigarettes are sublime (richard klein)
we both laughed in pleasure (lou sullivan)
pedagogy of the oppressed (paulo freire)
the piano teacher (elfriede jelinek)
radical happiness: moments of collective joy (lynne segal)
we have always been here: a queer muslim memoir (samra habib)
apple and knife (intan paramditha)
the cranberry hush (ben monopoli)
drive your plow over the bones of the dead (olga tokaczuk)
pornography: men possessing women (andrea dworkin)

anddd that just about wraps up my 2022 reading plans. follow up with my january reads coming soon and stay tuned for the next year of me reading and complaining and raving and crying and writing and all that. ok byeeeeeeeee

and oomf if you're reading this im still not reading your 795k word bl novels.

Current Mood: excited

this is probably going to be a jumbled mess & thoroughly UNedited/indulgent/etc im so sorry LMAO

i think it's pretty much impossible to even speak on naomi watts' filmography and career trajectory without mentioning her big break/best role as betty elms/diane selwyn in mulholland drive (2001) first and foremost. it's very safe to say that mulholland drive was the game changer for her. her performance in it was seismic and she definitely should've gotten at least nominated by the academy (and could've had it not been her big break). she could've gotten an ingeneue nomination but back then it wasn't as ubiquitous as it is today, save for foreign language nominations (fernanda montenegro anda catalina sandino moreno) and child actresses (keisha castle-hughes, anna paquin). to this day i'm still surprised she didn't win anything major, even in festivals except for the national society of film critics.

rewinding back before mulholland drive, watts was, well, a ginormous flop. after starring in flirting (1991) with noah taylor, thandie newton and nicole kidman as well as the miniseries brides of christ (1991) with russell crowe, she struggled a lot when she tried to transition to hollywood acting roles. and by a lot i mean over a decade of very little acting work whereas her former australian peers had garnered acclaim with golden globes and oscars. some notable roles: jet girl in tank girl (1995) with lori petty and malcolm mcdowell which she auditioned seven times (when it later turned into a massive flop) and children of the corn iv: the gathering (1996) with karen black.

i think this early flop era is a contributing factor to why she's having the exact same flop era right now. sorry to keep on comparing her to her bestie nicole kidman but had she gotten any kind of good roles in her 20s like nicole she definitely get the kind of recognition she has now. i don't mean to sound misogynistic or ageist but her having her breakthrough role at 34 is definitely NOT ideal by hollywood standards with how they view women and aging. she basically got pigeonholed into playing moms for the rest of her career without any room to play roles that aren't inextricably tied to a maternal nature.

to quote wikipedia, "Watts is particularly known for her work in remakes and independent productions with dark or tragic themes, as well as portrayals of characters that endure loss or suffering." that sounds great until you see the movies she plays. speaking of the aforementioned mom roles, despite how most of said characters go through losses and suffering tied to her children (21 grams, eastern promises, funny games), she still plays them excellently, adding a stunning humanity and emotional depth to them.

bearing the title of "queen of remakes" isn't doing her any favors either. admittedly some of them have been great box office draws (with mixed to average reviews) like the ring and king kong but somehow she isn't the one selling tickets either. her scream queen performances in them are fine but she's not given much to chew on. i'd guess that's the fault of the writing rather than her not giving sufficient life to the typically one-dimensional characters of the time. not all of her remake/reboot work are particularly awful though, ellie parker (2005), the painted veil (2006) and funny games (2007) actually gives her queen of remakes title some kind of credible weight. the painted veil and funny games have pretty lackluster reviews critically but had at least some kind of oscar buzz or cult status which isn't too bad, depends on who you're asking.

i also wanted to drop an observation that oomf vee pointed out a couple months ago was how she HAS worked with multiple acclaimed directors (jean marc-vallee, noah baumbach, davd o. russell, michael haneke, gus van sant etc.), it's just that she just had the very huge misfortune to be in the absolutely worst or generally critically & commercially frowned upon. literally almost all of them turned out to be flops or the worst entry in said director's work. it's actually kind of comedic in a very sad way how it all works out. her perpetual flop era that seems to be almost self-aware in a way that leads to the meta bulk of her career.

other recurring tropes, and my favorite ones, in her career is notably playing distressed, struggling actresses. the so-called 'naomi watts struggling actresss trilogy' of mulholland drive, ellie parker and birdman (2014) makes up some of my most beloved works of her filmography. the parallels between the three are eerie, with themes of disappointing to borderline abusive relationships with men, threads of surreality and the disillusion with the acting world. it's actually quite fascinating with how mulholland drive permeates her filmography with the amount of characters named diane she plays and how many brunette women she kisses. my guess is that her directors and scriptwriters are just cheeky. i'm not complaining though!

i still think about a comment on a youtube clip of a behind-the-scenes look on her nonverbal dinner scene as diane selwyn in mulholland drive. and i quote:

"She almost always acts as such that we observe her acting, though she appears to believe she has immersed herself realistically in the character. [Mulholland Drive] is the only movie to utilize this in service of [her] character(s)."

in a way, that's what's been missing from the characters that she plays and precisely why she particularly excels at playing performers. there's a certain meta layer to the aformentioned struggling actress trilogy that mirrors her in the 90s. in mulholland drive it's a subversion of the very message of the movie (hollywood bad -> naomi gets her start in hollywood thanks to the movie), in ellie parker it's a cheeky bittersweet goodbye to that time of her life, in birdman it's a pretentious meta-reference to both her mulholland drive character AND her actual self (similarly done with edward norton and michael keaton's characters). even in i heart huckabees (2004) playing the bimbo model as a face of a department store (which she's hilarious in by the way, and LEAGUES ahead from her SAG-nominated role in st. vincent (2014)), it referenced mulholland drive by literally giving her lines from the movie (wake up pretty girl!). in addition to as her cameo voicework in bojack horseman, where she complains about being tired of playing complex women and plays a character named diane. so the meta levels here is legitimately fucking insane, but i digress.

it's not to say that her supposed meta-theatrical style only works with roles that has to do with performing, i'm sure there's dimensions to be explored. it's not my job though so i'll leave it up for any seasoned screenwriters. maybe if she pulled a nicole kidman and produce an adaptation she'll have a worthwhile role for a while in recent years. her productions has been busts due to controversy (3 generations) or just dullness (the painted veil), and i desperately hope for penguin bloom to not be what rumor tells to be inspiration porn. :/

a rising trend seen recently for any (mostly hollywood, former or current) a-lister or acclaimed actor is of course, the tv or miniseries route. you can see this with naomi's best friend nicole kidman (big little lies, the undoing), reese witherspoon (the morning show, little fires everywhere), amy adams (sharp objects), winona ryder (show me a hero, stranger things), viola davis (how to get away with murder), laura dern (twin peaks, enlightened) and angela bassett/jessica lange/kathy bates (american horror story) just to name a few of the actresses who switched to the silver screen with much acclaim. this case is true with naomi watts as well, who produced and starred in the short-lived netflix series gypsy as well as supporting roles in the miniseries twin peaks: the return and the loudest voice. gypsy was, well, another flop that suffered from incoherent writing and direction, while showtime campaigned some emmy for-your-consideration campaignes for her roles in twin peaks: the return and the loudest voice, it didn't bear much fruit except for some moderate critical praise.

it's hard to think of roles you'd think naomi watts would fit in. that's not necessarily an indictment of her versatility or her kind of acting range, but more of proof how little variety she really does get with her projects. she's just very rarely the first person that comes to mind when castiing a blond white middle-aged woman in hollywood, although she is popular with weird auteurs for whatever reason (lynch, haneke, cronenberg, herzog). she could definitely work that to her advantage and play roles in foreign movies like isabelle huppert did with claire's camera or ingrid bergman did with stromboli. it's gotten tiring of over a decade and a half of playing victims/mothers/a half-heroines with little written complexity, so i'd love to see her break out of her pigeonhole to play something more akin to her roles in the wolf hour, st. vincent, sunlight jr, etc. what'd be interesting to me is her playing a paddington villain-esque character, leading work in a miniseries (like her hbo miniseries with sophia lillis that's been in development hell), some big-budget stuff for the $$, supporting work in a sitcom, a kaufman character, and another lesbian just for fun (maybe a chodolenko movie?). maybe even a full out tv series with showtime could be possible, something akin to kirsten dunst in on becoming a god in central florida. most of these are wishful thinking so i'm aware these aren't realistic, but it's fun to think on.

so where does that leave us? analyzing her career and projects hopefully had shed a little bit of light regarding her flop era and her flop era 2: the re-up. i certainly hope she could still have a great career well into her 70s even and she'll be remembered as a genuinely wonderful actress who didn't earn the credit or projects she deserves. i wish nothing but the best for her professionally and i patiently await her major critical and commercial career revival, because the wattsnaissance is long overdue at this point! until then, i'll keep rewatching mulholland drive to kill the time.

Current Location: mulholland drive

hey:) i thought i'd make a dreamwidth since i <3 rambling soo much on privig and dreamwidth seems perfect for that. im too ashamed to have thoughts besides lesbian and doyoung on twitter, rambling on notes feels too much like yelling in the void, and instagram has the obvious word limit/people not liking it makes me anxious + rambling to other people 1 on 1..... yeah no. i dont know what to post on here, just mostly what ever the fuck goes in in my tiny brain.
mostly maybe um

dream logs
psychoanalyzing my own damn self
tenderhearting ((cancer venus))
various hagendas/tinhats
odd patterns about my life ive noticed!

thats about it.... i dont even know if ill even be sharing this dreamwidth but its nice to feel like im not screaming into the void and not suppressing my need to externalize every thought and emotion <3 much love

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: jkt