A Brief List of Media I Would Like to Binge

One of the things I miss about my life before kids was being able to, say, read a book in one sitting, or binge watch a TV show over a couple of sick days, or maybe, dare I say it, watch an entire movie! Without thinking too much about it, here are a few things I would like to lose a number of hours absorbing:

  1. The Mirror and the Light — I had never before preordered a book, but I preordered the last volume of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy and expected to devour it when it appeared in my Kindle app in March. Almost nine months (and a full dang pandemic) later, I have only made it 19% through the book. If I ever finish, I also want to rewatch the Wolf Hall miniseries.
  2. Battlestar Galactica — N and I have watched the entire show together twice, most recently finishing it while in the hospital with the small kid. I love it unabashedly. I would take Caprica as a consolation prize.
  3. Fringe — I love this show so much and think of it often, especially since a number of its character actors often show up in other shows and in ways that are jarring given their roles on Fringe.
  4. Ologies is absolutely delightful and I learn something new every time I listen. I binged about two years of the show while doing a lot of rote data work over the summer, but can’t do it justice while actually focusing on anything else.
  5. The stack of Flow magazines on the credenza from my grandparents’ house.

Quarantine Moment #1

Classical Baby was on in the background while I made dinner (BBQ tempeh, red cabbage, corn bread) last night. My kids love the show, one seemingly mostly for the music, the other seemingly mostly for the animation. A study in contrasts, those two.

I found myself unexpectedly a little teary during Appalachian Spring and couldn’t immediately put my finger on why as I’m not the biggest fan of classical music in general or of Copland specifically – until I remembered that viral Toronto Symphony Orchestra at home video from the early, early moments of All Of This.

Listening to the song – and, now, watching the performance again after so many months – I found myself grateful to be reminded what it felt like at the beginning, when we could hope for a quick resolution, that if we all just pulled together, we could make it through.