Here are some more favorites from my Feedly plus some other things I came across this week that I thought were worth sharing:
- Rise of Phoenixes on Netflix. Don’t strap in for this one unless (a) you have about 70 hours to burn and (b) you really like brocade. But Chen Kun alone is worth the ride. This reminded me a lot of Yanxi Palace, which I dubbed “embroidery porn” because the plot of the first 18 episodes revolved around classical Chinese shu embroidery (no joke). Here the male lead is a brocade designer, complete with a historically accurate Song-era loom, but of course the loom is just a metaphor for our inability to escape patterns set by our families of origin. I thought about doing a full review, but kfangurl has said pretty much everything I would have, and she has more patience for screen caps.
- If you want to understand the fight scenes in Rise of Phoenixes, I highly recommend this visualization of kung-fu moves.
- Maybe a little outdated post-COVID, but this is the list I’m using the next time I head to Oakland.
- A very cool application of CT scans to read charred or otherwise fragile ancient manuscripts that can’t be unrolled anymore
- A really neat trick if you need some help with perspective drawing, like I do
- This is a fantastic list of non-Ghibli anime films. I’ve watched most of these at this point, and my favorites are Tokyo Godfathers, Tekkonkinkreet, and Redline.
- I love Jacques Pépin so much. He’s one of the PBS chefs I learned to cook from (along with Martin Yan and the Frugal Gourmet). I watched Cooking with Claudine religiously; I’ve read his memoir; and, I own his Complete Technique (though I still haven’t mastered a true French omelette). This video on the perils of slavishly following a recipe is so great, and I can’t wait to try to make those caramel roasted pears.
- From the delightful and important Public Domain Review, a travelogue for our current pandemic era…written in the 18th century: A Journey Round My Room.
- I really do want to try to cook my way through this one-week “quick and easy” menu from Serious Eats one of these weeks.
- This was an important flash fiction collection from Tor.com with some excellent contributions: Nevertheless, She Persisted.
The Rookery 