We made it to week two! Thanks to all of you who clicked on the subscribe link and wound up finding this post in your mail. So to speak. | I have been following a few artists/writers on Instagram for several years, especially since I jumped ship from Twitter. Folks like Brian K. Vaughan, Jeff Lemire, Stephen King, and Pia Guerra. Pia has been doing editorial cartooning for over fifteen years now, contributing to The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and the occasional MAD Magazine issue. She is better known though for her breakout work on Y: The Last Man, collaborating with Brian K. Vaughan. | Y was the first comic series that I ever read from start to finish, and has stayed a firm favorite. So, when Pia announced a year-end clearance sale of some of her pages, I couldn't resist. I got in touch with her, paid for a page after consulting with Satya, and carefully unwrapped it yesterday. I don't usually collect comic art, but this felt special. |  | The published & the original |
| Alright, on to this week's books and binges! | A book | | Karen Hao's Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI covers pretty much what it says on the tin. It's incredibly well-researched, diving deep into the environmental costs of AI as well as the human element. I hadn't fully considered the colonialism aspect she highlights, specifically the labor and economic impacts on the Global South, which was an eye-opener. It reads like a book written by an engineer-turned-journalist (which is exactly what she is). The tech is interesting, as are the machinations behind closed doors. Highly recommended, no matter where you stand on AI and its implications. | A movie | | I've always tiptoed around Terrence Malick's work, worried it might be a bit too slow or dense for me. That changed last September when I watched Days of Heaven and was completely blown away. I probably should have moved on to Badlands or The Tree of Life, but I'd recently snagged the Criterion edition of The New World, so I settled in for that instead. | It features a stellar cast, with Christopher Plummer, Colin Farrell, Christian Bale, and Q'orianka Kilcher. The movie is gorgeously shot - just astounding, poetic in its appeal. It's also... a bit plodding? Parts of it actually reminded me of Indian films like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam or Mani Ratnam's Mouna Ragam. Even with the slow pace, I'd recommend it for the visuals alone; it's basically poetry on film. | A show | | It's a truth universally acknowledged that if you're the son of a pathologist and married to another, you're going to end up watching a lot of crime procedurals. Luckily, the genre has produced some of the best TV ever made. I don't know if Blue Lights is quite at the very top of that list, but it's pretty damn close. | Set in Belfast, it follows a group of rookie cops dealing with organized (and disorganized) crime. The characters are well-defined, the plot is highly engaging, and it never insults your intelligence. I've watched all the three seasons that have been released so far, and cannot wait for the next. It might be hard to find on your favorite streaming service unless you are in the UK, but it's absolutely worth the search. I wouldn't have stumbled across it if Mujib hadn't mentioned it. Highly recommended. | Coming Up | | | | Have a great week! |
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