tullycat

We are 26 days into July.

Books

• Sisters of the Lost Nation, by Nick Medina
  • I would not recommend the audiobook for this (non-linear timeline and did not vibe with the reader) but I liked this book overall! It's a thriller that blends the supernatural with very real issues that native people still face.
• Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America, by Conor Dougherty
  • I'll be honest I lost the plot of this by the 75% mark. I have read other books about housing that I enjoy more. The localization of the Bay Area was interesting as someone that used to live there but probably does not have a broad range of appeal to other readers.
• Ghost Forest, by Pik-Shuen Fung
  • A story (that felt like a memoir?) of someone who immigrated to the US with her mother while her father stayed behind, who is now dealing with her father's sickness and death. The beginning of the book felt like many other stories I've read before, but by the end I was struck by how grief and regrets all feel so universal even though my life experiences are different than that book.
• Black Water Sister, by Zen Cho
  • I think the specificity of the location was a real strength of this book, the setting felt very real to me. The plot was...fine, not the worst I've ever read but it's already fading from memory. It was entirely readable. My (maybe?) spoiler thought: oh my god the lesbian couple in this book should NOT get back together lol the main character didn't tell her the truth about anything...

Music

• Artists
  • Ateez (391)
  • Seventeen (196)
  • A.C.E (126)
  • Even (117)
  • Nayeon (71)
• Tracks
  • Blind, Ateez (66)
  • The next 5 are just the rest of the Ateez album lol
  • Last night, JxW (24)
  • Badder Love, Evnne (18)
  • Beautiful Monster, JxW (18)
  • Leftover, JxW (18)
• Albums
  • Golden Hour: Part.1, Ateez (361)
  • Ride or Die, Evnne (88)
  • NA, Nayeon (61)
  • JxW 1st Single Album 'This Man', JxW (60)
  • The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, Chappell Roan (44)

This is EMBARRASSING lmaooooo looking at these numbers like hey are you good? No....I am atiny. I fell in love with the new Evnne comeback as well and about half the plays on the Chappell Roan album are just from Pink Pony Club lol. On the other hand - I listened to Seventeen around 200 times and none of the tracks or albums show up here which means that was at least diversified across their discography.

Concerts:

• TXT
  • I finally got to see them! They were quite fun. I know all the members and I am pretty familiar with their discography but I'm not super intense about them so it was fun to just sit back and enjoy and have no idea what was coming. I had no idea The Killa was a unit song oops?? And Sugar Rush Ride was maybe my favorite concert version of a song ever???
• A.C.E
  • MY GUYS....they returned to me 🥺 I was at the first concert of the tour which was definitely emotional for them. Their mentions didn't seem 100% prepared because they definitely talked about other things throughout the tour, which mean that the first stop basically all they talked about was how worried they were that being away for 5 years (pandemic + enlistment) would end the group, and how grateful they were that we waited. I think this stop was also one of the least sold stops, which probably added to their fears a bit (I think they started to relax after a few stops). But the show itself was so enjoyable. They did a super barebones production - they never left the stage to change clothes, just changed out jackets, and had no cameras or VCR or backdrop. But they're such good performers that you really don't need anything else. They also had their new little brother group as their backup dancers, so everyone got a taste of baby Beat. My only complaint would be that some of the song selection was a little weird and didn't flow as well as you'd like....Byeongkwan tried hyping us up and then they immediately went into 3 slower songs in a row. But Choice are partly to blame, because they sent out a survey asking what we'd like to hear. So I guess everyone wanted to hear the fan songs. But overall would absolutely recommend seeing them...the LATAM and Europe tours are coming up so please go!!
• ITZY
  • I saw them in a (packed) theatre, but they really gave an arena performance. Live band, lots of back up dancers, full on props for their solos...I counted people on stage at one point and they definitely had 20. Their discography has its ups and downs for me but I think the live band helped smooth out a lot of the inconsistencies in their sound. Also it was so loud, thank god for earplugs. The people in front of us had to borrow some from their neighbors. The bummer of this show was that we were all the way on the side of the venue so everything behind a certain line on stage was not visible to us, and one of the girls spent 50% of her solo behind that line. I wish someone had checked the venue for sight lines because the solo would've been easy to just pull forward, but oh well.