robertrivasplata's Reviews (631)

Supernatural occult thriller about showbiz & film in particular, set in 90s Mexico City. An exciting page-turner that is a great example of fiction that can teach you some real stuff; in this case, all about the titular cellulose nitrate film stock. There is also a fair amount about Mexico City, Mexico Christmas season, 20th century German occultists, & film audio. Exciting & sometimes spooky, but not really scary. I still think Mexican Gothic is Moreno-Garcia's best novel I've read. The writing in Silver Nitrate is clunky at times. The interspersing of explication of characters' background & their dialogue could have been more seamless. Character interactions, especially between the two main characters, sometimes doesn't feel natural. Not sure what to make of the recurring flashbacks of jumping into huge piles of grain, & the feel of swimming through the grain (Scrooge McDuck style?). It made me wonder if there were also great piles of dried legumes these kids could have dived into. Could have done without some of the “not like other girls”-ness of the main character. These are minor issues, though. Even though I predicted many plot points, I was still invested to the end, & the cheesy ending didn't detract. I'd still recommend this book to any professor of Latinx film studies with whom I happen to talk at the holiday potluck, & it will make for some good book club discussion. 

Firsthand accounts & personal interviews from Ukraine 2010-2023. The journalistic writing style is very readable. I prefer the firsthand approach to Luke Harding's Invasion. Not really a comprehensive history. Many of the stories take place in Eastern Ukraine. I like Miller's stories of his time in Bakhmut back when it was known as Artemivsk, before the war. The connection Miller forms with Artemivsk over the course of the book takes the reader inside the experience of watching from afar a place one knows & loves being destroyed by war. Miller's accounts of the confusion, bitterness, & disinformation of the 2014 secessions of Crimea & Donbas & ensuing war remind me of Andrey Kurkov's Grey Bees. Also similar to Grey Bees, Miller mostly portrays secessionist & pro-Russian Ukrainians as having some real reasons for mistrusting their government, but also being mostly dupes, & deluded. The depiction of the pre-2013 Donbas separatist types reminds me a little of Northern California's “State of Jefferson” people you see sometimes, which I guess illustrates the ways in which harmless fringe types can become weaponized. One of the “themes” of the early 21st century has been how the disaffected & seemingly apathetic masses of the neoliberal democracies contain different groups of people who are waiting to be activated in one way or another. 

Collection of nine short stories. At least three can be described as dystopian (more, if you count our moment in history as currently dystopian). All are first person narratives, with the possible exception of “Sparrow”. “Sparrow” is probably the most upbeat of these stories, & the only one that is not super disturbing. Social control seems to be a theme of all of these stories, & with “Liberation Day” & “Elliott Spencer” two of the most extreme manifestations. “Liberation Day” & “Ghoul” both revolve around bizarre & sadistic “entertainments”. “Liberation Day” is probably the best story to be first in this collection, as it combines various dystopian & bizarre elements in a way that feels very true to life & to our moment in history. I like the references in “Liberation Day” to audiobook romance novels, modular synthesizers, & American history fetishism. The ending story “My House” is almost like a Poe story in reverse. 

Collection of stories inspired by Ursula K LeGuin (to varying degrees) by Portland writers. Some stories are more LeGuin-ish (Night Bazaar..., Wake, Prothalamion, Ib & Nib, Let it Die, Wenonah's Gift) than others, but even the less Ursuline of them (e.g. Old Souls, The Ones Who Don't Walk Away) are really good. Other stand-out stories include Finding Joan, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Mr. Uncle, Hard Choices, & JoyBe's Last Dance. Makes me want to read City of Weird: 30 Otherworldly Portland Tales, which features stories by at least a couple of these writers. 

Collection of essays by queer writers about what various horror movies mean to them, with queer-oriented analysis or interpretations of the featured works. The essays combine elements of memoir, queer cinema analysis, & love letter, & range from serious to tongue in cheek. Some of the essays are more conceptual than others. The Nightmare on Elm Street essay attributes some of its plot holes to the script changing Freddie from a molester to a murderer (to be more palatable??), but not changing anything else to reflect that. All of these essays make me want to watch or re-watch the movies they discuss. Bishakh Som's art in the section breaks is really good too. Makes me wonder what it says about me that I was never a horror fan as a kid. 

Graphic narrative of life & lives lived under the apartheid regime in Palestine. Walls, barred windows, & cages are everywhere. Very stylized, similar to the 1920s “wordless novels” (though very much not wordless) or the 1920s woodcut revival graphic novels. In that way Power Born of Dreams reminded me a little bit of Stigmata. The prison regime combined with a bird friend reminds me of some of the vignettes from Guantanamo Voices. 

Finally read the now classic criticism of American/European urban planning written all the way back in 1961. So many of Jacobs's criticisms of urban planning were so prescient so long ago that they almost seem cliche today. Jacobs hated parking lots in cities before it was cool to hate parking lots in cities. The style is very conversational, so it's easy to imagine Jacobs talking my ear off on these topics on the sidewalk outside my house. I can totally imagine her talking with some of my “public character” neighbors. Jacobs's style is a great example of 1961 East Coast English. One of the striking things about Death & Life of American Cities is how many of the urban planning dysfunctions from 1961 are pretty much unchanged today, to the point that it's easy to forget how long ago Jacobs was writing this. At the time of writing, North America's scrapped streetcar systems were still a recent memory! & now were are in the position where Jacobs's ideas are accepted & current but we now have 62 years' worth of car-centric development piled on top of the old problems she was writing about. I like her recommendation that a sidewalk needs to be 30ft wide & have shade trees between the sidewalk & the street, & that the 30 ft figure comes from the amount of room needed to accommodate both a game of double dutch, & passerby. The discussion of different uses on a residential street, including mortuaries, is going to make me see Bob's Burgers (especially the setting of the titular burger joint & it's street) in a whole new light. Her discussion of districts & use of the term “districts” perversely makes me think of the latest installment in the Civilization computer game series, which has a conception of urban planning pretty much the opposite of Jacobs's, with different city functions explicitly separated. I wonder how much the level of community organizing has changed in major cities of the U.S. since Jacobs's time. The economic relationships between the ages of properties & affordability of rents were considerably changed by the early 2000s if not earlier. I wish the old-ass buildings in my neighborhood had cheaper rents! 

I love hearing the family lore, but often when I'm thinking about, or talking about, or even talking to a relative, I'll realize that I can't remember just how they're related to me, or to anyone else in my family. I'll often confuse which ancestor a story in the old country (or countries) is about. Of course this goes doubly for other people's families (who I also like to hear about). If only there was a book featuring a family tree which collected it all. That's the sort of book Vietnamerica is. As it was, I often had to turn back to different chapters & to the cast of family characters on the endpages. I really like the art, especially the stern depiction of GB Tran's father, Tri Huu, & also GB's measured use of spiral eyes. Tran's depiction of himself as initially disinterested in his family history kind of reminded me of the Art Spiegelman character in Maus, who similarly starts off less interested in his father's old stories. 

Graphic novel about Thelonious Sphere Monk, & his relationship with his friend & patron, Nica the Baroness of Jazz. Less a biography than a portrait of Monk's vibe & personality. Before reading Monk!, I didn't know much about Thelonious Monk apart from his playing style, & I'd always thought his reputation as an oddball was mostly invented by critics & adoring hipsters, but this book seems to indicate that he really was really out there. I'll have to look up some further reading about both him and Baroness Pannonica, since this is not exactly an exhaustive history. Monk! also illustrates the milieu of the New York bop scene of the 40s-50s. In addition to really making me want to listen to some (more) Monk, I really want to hear some Dizzy Gillespie now. I'd read Daoudi's graphical treatments of the lives of any other Jazz cats. 

History of Pinball going back to its (possible) ancient Greek origins through to the pinball Twitch streamers of the present day. Explains how pinball machines work, & how they have evolved since the 1930s when the game acquired the form we would recognize as pinball. Explains in detail how the garish art & elaborate effects of Pinball machines interact with the gameplay itself. Makes the case that pinball is an example of “an incredible intersection of all different art & design fields” which is a term I hope to apply to many different objects & situations going forward. The art is great, featuring lots of mushroom clouds emanating from minds being blown, & pinball grawlix. As with any good non-fiction “History of...” graphic novel, this one leaves me with a lot to look up & investigate on my own. My biggest question is about the world of Pinball repairmen. Is it like the dying world of typewriter repairmen? Or more like classic car hobbyists? Or are they more like IT folks with more of an “junk it -- cheaper to buy a new one” attitude?