Below you can find a list of books, videos, movies, music, video games… anything that I’ve found interesting or enjoyable, in no particular order. Some things I’ve finished, others I haven’t. It’s a very personal list, not something I intend to be authoritative or prescriptive. It is always prone to updating and retconning. Look above for the “Updated” field on this post to see when I last added/changed something.
* = Currently reading. ** = May finish someday or intend to finish. *** = Did not finish but still found interesting.
Books
History, Politics, Sociology, Philosophy
- The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengro*
- Debt: The First 5000 Years, by David Graeber**
- You and Your Profile, by Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio
- Exploration of modes of identity formation and interaction. For me, it offered some insight into how we portray ourselves as musicians and artists.
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire**
- The Guru Papers, by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad**
- The Prophet and the Bodhisattva, by Charles R. Strain***
- First half is great. I burned out on the second half, which is much dryer.
- Manufacturing Happy Citizens, by Edgar Cabanas and Eva Illouz***
Spirituality
I don’t super love that word (spirituality) at the time of writing. This mostly has to do with personal experiences in “spiritual spaces” in recent years that I’ve found distasteful in retrospect. Nonetheless, I can’t think of a better term for how I’d categorize these reads—literally concerning human spirit.
- This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom, by Martin Hägglund
- Hard to decide whether to include this one in the political/philosophical category or the spiritual one, but I think it ultimately belongs here. Currently my favored starting point for a broad worldview.
- A Trackless Path, by Ken McLeod and Jigme Lingpa
Science
- Biology Under the Influence, by Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin***
- How Physics Makes Us Free, by Jenann Ismael**
- Burnout, by Amelia Nagoski and Emily Nagoski
Art, Music, Performance, Etc.
- Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening, by Christopher Small
- The book that radicalized me, or at least started the process. I don’t agree with everything in it these days, but he’s the first one that got to consider that the questions might sometimes be more important than the answers.
- The Storm of Creativity, by Kyna Leski
- Physical Expression and the Performing Artist, by Jerald C. Schwiebert
- On Poetry, by Glyn Maxwell**
Fiction and Other Prose
- The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
- Anything by Brandon Sanderson
Miscellaneous
Websites
- Meaningness & Vividness
- Sometimes I don’t love Chapman’s stance towards certain subjects, but his material has been a really good jumping-off point for me in a lot of areas. Meaningness also helped me out of a bad bout of nihilism in 2017 or so.
Videos
Video Essays/Essayists
Movies and Television
- Suspiria (2018)
- My favorite film of all time.
- The Witch
- Saint Maud
- Arcane
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Music and Musical Artists
Under Construction…
Visual and Other Artists
- Bruce Connor
- First encountered his work in the SFMOMA and was immediately enchanted. He did film, painting, photography, sculpture… it almost feels easier counting the kinds of things he didn’t make.
Video Games
- Guild Wars 2
- All From Software Titles
Software
- Obsidian
- Ableton Live
Currently between video applications. Used to use Premiere and After Effects but I’m sick of Adobe’s sales and price model. Will likely be using Blender and DaVinci Resolve for any video projects in the future.