botwerks

movies dumb money (2023) - watched this on the plane. if you remember this time, it was bonkers and kind of beautiful at the same time. (4/5) the gentlemen (2019) - watched this in the plane, guy ritchie definitely has a style. fun, solid cast, a couple of novel twists. (3.5/5) please don’t destroy: the treasure of foggy mountain (2023) - watched this on peacock. i fell asleep through a chunk of it....

goal 30 books this year. let’s get crackin' books liberty’s daughter (naomi kritzer) what happens when you’re living on a libertarian sea-stead? this is a fun bit of world building where libertarian ideals are allowed to fester to their logical conclusions. the limitations of the invisible hand, the likely devolution into some form of slavery for those who aren’t wealthy and have problems. unregulated medical care, having to hire private security to just go about your day-to-day business, and all sorts of goodies....

a sand county almanac (aldo leopold) i just cracked this and damn… i’m sucked into the reverse chronological history of this dude recounting the events that a tree has survived as he works to fell it. i doubt it was set up to be so engrossing, but it’s some beautiful and surprisingly moving writing. whether this is planned or instinctual is something i’d love to know. the diversity leopold describes in wandering around his property in 1940s wisconsin has me reading this with wikipedia in the other hand....

the lost cause (cory doctorow) i always have to take the cory doctorow with a grain of salt. this was a DSA fever dream, and i say this as someone who leans heavily in that direction. the main character is a pretty flat charicature of a liberal kid that grew up in a MAGA household. gramps was a MAGA who died; leaving him the owner of a house that he opts to turn into a four-story walkup to house climate refugees....