The one hundred and seventeenth comic: #809 Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Boulevard of Broken Dreams is an interesting graphic novel. While telling the story of Waldo the Cat, his animator and other people surrounding it, we get it told through several viewpoints, each iteration explaining more details of what happened and exploring it further. At the same time, it's a look into and commentary on the world of animation as well as covering mental health. It's an engaging story, with the revelations that happen not just revealing a mystery, but deepening the story and situation. It's different, sure, but that's what makes it worth it.

The seven hundred and thirty-ninth album: #739 Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen

Against the optimism of the nineties, the darker tones of the grunge movement and other bands that derive from it really stand out. Gentlemen builds on that darkness while moving beyond musically, telling a darker, tortured tale of a troubled man, a tone that has a self awareness of what's wrong and comments on it while portraying the feeling of being trapped in these cycles. It's a challenging listen, one that maintains that dark impact for a sound that really stood out as something different.

The two hundred and sixty-third classical recording: #803 Igor Stravinsky - Concerto in E flat, "Dumbarton Oaks"

Short, not too complicated, but high energy and engaging - this concerto may not have anything too special to offer, but it sounds really good and has a lot of energy to it that makes it seem strong throughout the piece. I thought it flew by, even faster than listed, and it's a burst of life that you really need.

The two hundred and fifty-second TV show: #59 Danger Man

After I got deep into The Prisoner, I was wondering what the show that made Patrick McGoohan was like. Sure, it wasn't going to be simpler and more straight forward. It's really watchable in that sense, a good action series that explores some interesting storylines at times, with a high enough budget to be convincing and trying to be quite clever in what it does, less repetitive than others in this time frame might be. Charming, and a show I want to play more of.

The one hundred and thirty-fourth book: #455 I, Robot - Isaac Asimov

While I'm on the record as enjoying the works of Isaac Asimov anyway, reading I, Robot in the modern day has an added dimension in its foresight. While the basic stories about the three laws of robotics - a fictional device so powerful that people assume it's real and applies to current machines - are interesting puzzles, it's the later stories in this anthology that hit a real chord with me. With machines effectively running politics and the world, the needed processing capacity becomes large enough that as humans, we struggle to understand its reasoning. This feels really familiar in our current use of AI, where we can't verify what it's saying or why it does so, to troubling effect. There's a lot to be learned here, even if it feels like an idealised society compared to the one we live in now, and for a work that's 75 years old, there's a lot that still resonates.

The seven hundred and thirty-eighth album: #738 Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville

We've been getting more indie rock in this latest batch, which has been working in my favour. Liz Phair's is quite stripped down, which underlines her focus in her debut album. The album starts with a clear feminist message on its opening track and while not everything ends up quite as in your face, its singer-songwriter sound means it never gets pushed into the background. It's quite a strong sound and the album tells a lot of good stories.

The seven hundred and thirty-seventh album: #737 The Auteurs - New Wave

This is such a chill indie rock album that drifts by you as you listen. It's an uncomplicated, simple album that feels close to life and seems happy to just sit there. It's a pretty sweet album to listen to, fading a bit but letting you sit there in the comfortable sound.

The seven hundred and thirty-sixth album: #736 The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

Siamese Dream is a heavily directed piece of music, a large rock album that builds on a simple, dark base but builds its soundscape towards a bigger sound. It's an accessible sound that can build on its complexity and has it add to the sound, but doesn't need it, a balance that feels well maintained. The grunge feel suits the sound, giving a rock album that might feel like it references a younger age, but also has an emotional core that still resonates.

The two hundred and sixty-second classical recording: #265 Felix Mendelssohn - The Hebrides, "Fingal's Cave"

Branded as an overture, there's no work that follows it. How I chose to interpret it instead is as an overture to a visit, an impression of the cave in the Hebrides that has been visited, and a set up for any sort of exploration. It's grandiose and impressive, interesting in its complexity while being accessible. It's short, but the effectiveness and focus only help it with that.

The seven hundred and thirty-fifth album: #735 Paul Weller - Wild Wood

While we've seen rock explode in many different directions, Wild Wood throws back to the old days, wearing its blues roots on its sleeves and taking on a simple, at times one man folk rock feeling. It's not grandiose, but stays classic in a way that not many artists do at this point in time. The instrumental tracks stand out most, featuring more experimentation and looping in its sounds and revealing this is a newer album than its basic sound might imply and giving more to go on. Its strength is in its timelessness, fitting in a modern time while throwing back to the past.

The one hundred and thirty-third book: #511 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

This isn't the first time I've read this classic, but it's been long enough that rereading the classic fantasy novel brings a lot of new insights. I read the book for the first time before the movie, but it's impossible not to have your reading be coloured by it - the visuals, for sure, with a lot of the actors standing in for the roles they appeared in. With that said, the book is a different, deeper work, and while I can't blame the film makers for the changes made - after all, we're talking about a different medium, a different runtime, and a book that is best enjoyed in an amount of time that exceeds the runtime of the movie. Having immersed myself in the world further - having read the Silmarillion and other words since my last read, and of course having read the Hobbit again for this blog - the richness of it speaks to me even more.

What makes it that magical though? Probably the first thing that draws you in is the slow build up. Just before I started reading, I read about the push and pull in the first book, alternating between peril and safety until the group reaches Rivendell. The movies feel like they jettison a bunch of these moments, leading to expanded action sequences instead (Tolkien, clearly not a fan of fighting battles, has his point of view character black out for one more than once). Here, they explore the Hobbits' mindset, build the threat, and move from the jovial adventure of the Hobbit to one that feels more dangerous and epic-spanning. Bilbo's development in the first two books, when we see him, show as much - the darkness slipping in and exhaustion that shows, paid off by the end by his complete exhaustion. Frodo moving house as a cover - but also a place to settle - is another example of that, while Tom Bombadil's appearance doesn't matter for the story, but again sets the tone for the book while showing there's much more to this world that you only scratch the surface of. While it's entertaining to read about them separately, Tolkien also knows that you don't need to read too much about them for the work to make sense. Instead, the mysterious nature of the world adds to it and sets you up to expect anything that happens.

As that disappears, however, starting with Frodo's wound on Weathertop, our perspective on the world changes. The Shire might be their safe place, keeping out the nastiness of the rest of the world, but it's their burden to help the world. It's why the Scourging of the Shire is such an important part in the book - the darkness infiltrates everywhere, but our heroes' perspective has also changed to see it and they see how it's their duty to help out. They've gone from having an adventure thrust on them to having to take charge, a lesson each of them learns in a different way. It layers on many more things, while feeling suitably epic, but while it's long, if you're willing to immerse yourself in the world, it has a momentum that gets you through if you're willing to see the world and experience its history while making a point about standing up for yourself. Even if you've seen the movie, there's much more depth to discover in here that really elevates it beyond just a fantasy story, in a way not all later fantasy writers trying to imitate Tolkien realise.