10 for Tuesday – Impactful Stories 2022
In an attempt to get more content and traffic to my website as I look at revving up my career post-grad school, I’m going to be doing this thing on Tuesdays where I make a list of 10 things. Like so many other things in the last two years, this has been on my to-do list (see what I did there?) for a while. I’m finally shedding some of the lethargy of the world during Covid and getting my motivations back. So, for the 2nd day of Gallowmas, here are 10 stories that mean something to me in 2022. (In no particular order.)
Andor – Like many people, I almost gave up on this one at episode 3 or 4. It had some interesting stuff, but the burn was a little too slow for me. Thanks to some good friends, I gave it a second try. Glad I did. I understand not everyone is going to like the politics-heavy Star Wars story; however, this solidified a growing desire in me that started with Rogue One and grew during The Mandalorian… I want more Star Wars stories without Skywalkers.
Vurt, by Jeff Noon – What a weird fuckin book. It’s what you would get if a clone made with DNA pulled from Phillip K Dick, William Gibson, and Neil Gaiman wrote a novel. Vurt is a drug. It’s also a place, sort of. It’s a street-level psycho-punk story that pretends to go for the throat but kidney punches you instead. We had such a good time with this one in Reading as a Contact Sport.
The Bloodline in WWE – I’m not going to shy away from being a wrestling fan. When done right, professional wrestling can tell deep, layered, and nuanced stories. It’s also a great way for writers to learn how to tell micro-stories through their action scenes and how to handle character arcs. The Bloodline story, especially with the addition of Sami Zane, brought me back to WWE. Everyone is playing their parts so well. It’s going to be tragic and amazing once this all falls apart.
Everything Everywhere All at Once – This is the multiversal saga we need and deserve. I love this movie so much. I wept. I wept hard. I don’t know if I wept from joy or from sorrow or pity. It went straight for the heart. It brought Short Round / Data back to us, and he hasn’t lost a beat. Michelle Yoh is one of the most under-appreciated actors in the history of cinema. See this. If you don’t like it, you and I will go find whoever it was who hurt your soul and hug them until you are both better.
Aubrey – Maturim series – This one is a little bit of a cheat. I’m listening to it on Audible, again. Still, I feel it deserves mention. Historical fiction. They made an okay movie of it staring Russel Crowe and Paul Bettany. The books are sooo much better because the author, Patrick O’Brien, has room to take his time and explore the lives of this ship captain and ship’s surgeon during the Napoleonic wars. I predict that this will be on my list for 2023. The series is like 20 books long. I’m on book 4. Last time through the series, I made it to somewhere in the mid-teens. I’m going the distance this time. Oh, and if you do the audio editions, listen to the Patrick Tull versions. The other guy is flat and boring. Tull is amazing.
The Balad of Black Tom, by Victor Levalle – This is a retelling of an old H.P. Lovecraft story. I didn’t know that when I picked it up on a whim browsing in a bookstore. It’s a novella set in New York during prohibition. It’s creepy and eldritch like Lovecraft stories are. However, it flips the racism of Lovecraft on its head. Steady, solid prose and storytelling carry the reader through the weirdness up until the end, answering the questions we need answered and leaving us wondering about the bits that are most impactful to make the story linger in the mind. This book helps prove Robert Silverberg’s claim that the novella is speculative fiction’s perfect form.
Today in the Taxi, by Sean Singer – This is the only poetry book included. These are poems about a guy driving a taxi that starts with, “Today in the Taxi.” It’s not a story in the traditional sense of prose or cinema. However, layer through the poems, one can get the sense of an ongoing narrative. This is one I feel I’m going to go back to again and again.
MJF in AEW – Another wrestling storyline. At first, this was going to be the CM PUNK vs MJF feud, but I realized that was only one small cog in a bigger story. One of MJF’s catchphrases is, “I’m a generational talent.” He’s right. Dude is just good at everything. The slow arc across this year where he finally becomes the AEW champion is pure storytelling gold. It has twists and turns, he helps get over other wrestlers. Go watch his promos against Punk. You know it’s good wrestling when other wrestlers start questioning whether or not things are crossing the boundary into reality. Word in the wrestling world is that MJF makes people wonder that all the time.
Dahlgren, by Samuel R Delany – OOF. This is a book. It’s a tome. We read it for Reading as a Contact Sport, and I didn’t realize how hefty it was before I assigned it. OOF. But man, what a book. The prose is luscious. The story is a slow wandering exploration of a fictional city somewhere in an America that’s given up on this city. It’s surreal, wonderful, mind-bogglingly brilliant.
HADESTOWN – When my friend Annie heard I was going to New York City, she told me I needed to see this musical, and that it would become my favorite musical. I scoffed, being a Hamilton guy. By the end of the first number, sitting in the front row, I was weeping and thinking, “This is the greatest thing I have ever seen. It’s a retelling of the Orpheus – Eridiuce myth set in the dust bowl of the Great Depression. The music is all jazz, blues, and gospel. The sets and choreography hit perfectly with the music, and it offers hints at why we keep being drawn to sad stories over and over again. I’m going to listen to it again today.
Well, that’s it for this 10 for Tuesday. Let me know what other list of 10 I can put together. I’m sure I’ll need help coming up with them at some point.
