Media Consumed 2022

What things have I kept count of this year?

316 Books | 21 Cities Visited | 27 Comics | Two Concerts (ish) | 6 Conferences and Festivals | 77 Movies | 21 Museums and Cultural/Historic Sites | 15 Readings and Talks | 1 Sports Match | 6 Theatre Productions | 801 TV Episodes

2019 by the Numbers

Books Read: 190
Weirdly, Goodreads said I read 200 books, so just as last year, this may remain a mystery.
I'm listing the authors, for a bit of brevity.
Mia Marshall, Charlie N Holmberg, Paul Krueger, Caitlin Doughty, Zoraoida Corova, Nicole Ponseca & Miguel Trinidad, Valeria Luiselli, Kevin Kwan, Robert Jordan, Seanan McGuire, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Nicola Griffith, Louise Penny, Elaine Castillo, Ling Ma, Ben H Winters, Megan Whalen Turner, Tommy Orange, Robin McKinley, Tana French, Carlo Sernaglia and Julia Turshen, Sarah J Maas, Suzanne Goin with Teri Gelber, Malka Older, Anita Lo, George RR Martin, Diane Morgan, Justina Ireland, Nafkote Tamirat, Jenn Lyons, Uzodinma Iweala, Tom Rachman, Anna Burns, Heidi Sopinka, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Esi Edugyan, Richard Powers, Deborah Harkness, Laurie R King, Genevieve Cogman, Emily XR Pan, Tomi Adeyemi, Kelly Thompson, Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett, Malinda Lo, Donna Leon, Curtis C Chen et al, Sarah Perry, Dhonielle Clayton, Hannu Rajaniemi, Zen Cho, Mary Robinette Kowal, Elisabeth Cohen, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Joseph Fink, Marcela Valladolid, Elizabeth George, Jeff Parker, Caitlin Starling, Anissa Helou, Bill Willingham, Elizabeth Acevedo, Yoon Ha Lee, Brian Switek, Faith Erin Hicks, Neil Gaiman, Adam Johnson, G Willow Wilson, Blake Crouch, Holly Black, Christopher Kimball, Elizabeth McCracken, Lonely Planet, Will Hill, Naomi Novik, Sarah Porter, Pat Barker, Daniel Jose Older, Jon Ronson, Thi Bui, NK Jemisin, Fareed Zakaria, Amin Maalouf, Gabriela Camara, Rachel Khoo, SA Chakraborty, Leigh Bardugo, Mira Grant, Elisa Goldstein et al, Fonda Lee, Rachel Caine, Alastair Reynolds, Joakim Pamkvist, VE Schwab, Sarah Gailey, Edna Lewis, Margaret Owen, Erin A Chang, Charles Soule, Struan Stevenson, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Carla Lalli Music, Marie Lu, Susan Meissner, Michelle Ruiz Kell, Lisa A Nichols, Jennifer Nagel, Sady Doyle, Geraldine Brooks, Rebecca Traister, Maggie Stiefvater, Jennifer Givhan, Rakhee Yadav, Alana Kysar, Xuan Juliana Wang, LL McKinney, Philip Pullman, Harriet A Washington, Tom King et al, Ivan Orkin and Chris Ying, Mackenzi Lee, Becky Chambers, Sally Rooney, Namwali Serpell, Joseph Harris, Joel Spring Martin Morales, Neil Gaiman & P Craig Russell, Jenny Linford, VE Schwab, Laila Lalami, RF Kuang, Maria Gainza, Tea Obrecht, Claire Lombardo, Gail Simone, Rebecca Solnit, Paula Volksy, Elvia Wilk, Stacy M Perryman-Clark & Collin Lamont Craig, Sharon Kay Penman, Sally McKenny, Sue Burke, Joel Shepherd, Erik Larson, Anne Griffin, Amanda Cohen, Meghan Scott Molin.

You can read snippets from every book I've read this year here.

Cities Visited: 14
Memphis, TN
Pittsburgh, PA
Nashville, TN
Tampa, FL
East Lansing, MI
Bangkok, Thailand
Hong Kong
Baltimore, MD
Dallas, TX
Kansas City, MO
DeKalb, IL
Houston, TX
Lubbock, TX
Riverside, CA

Concerts/Performances Attended: 11
Kelly Clarkson, with Brynn Cartelli and Kelsea Ballerini supporting
Carrie Underwood, with Runaway Jane and Maddie & Tae supporting
Beale Street Music Festival (Everclear, Rodrigo y Gabriela, 6lack, Cardi B)
Amanda Palmer
Hannah Gadsby (comedy)
Hamilton (theatre)
Carly Rae Jepsen, with Phoebe Ryan supporting
Mary J Blige & Nas
Common, with Mumu Fresh supporting
Trevor Noah (comedy)
Switchfoot

Conferences Attended: 5
Association of Teachers of Technical Writing 2019 in Pittsburgh
Conference on College Composition and Communication 2019 in Pittsburgh
AP Language Reading in Tampa
Computers & Writing in East Lansing
Council of Writing Program Administrators in Baltimore

Festivals/Readings/Lectures: 5
Arkansas Literary Festival (Charles J Shields, Brantley Hargrove, Jericho Brown, Geffrey Davis, Elizabeth Minchilli, Dorie Greenspan, Arkady Martine, Marina Lostetter, Pitchaya Sudbanthad, Maurice Carlos Ruffin)
Thi Bui reading @ HSU
Emily Roberson reading @ Wordsworth Books
Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
Hillary Clinton & Chelsea Clinton reading @ University of Houston

Movies Watched: 129
Bird Box, Peppermint, Eight Grade, BelCanto, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse, Split, Blockers, Aquaman, Mary Poppins Returns, Roma, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Vice, On the Basis of Sex, Mary Queen of Scots, Antiquities, The Wife, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Front Runner, At Eternity's Gate, The Hate U Give, Bad Times at the El Royale, Green Book, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Sorry to Bother You, Minding the Gap, Of Fathers and Sons, Nobody's Fool, Shoplifters, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Hale County This Morning This Evening, Robin Hood, Fighting with My Family, What Men Want, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Mortal Engines, Operation Finale, A Private War, Instant Family, Free Solo, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse AU, The Mercy, The Runaways, Second Act, Gloria Bell, Bumblebee, Shazam!, Welcome to Marwen, The Kid Who Would Be King, Glass, Against the Clock, Hellboy, Avengers: Infinity War, Justice League vs the Fatal Five, Avengers: Endgame, The Quake, Miss Bala, Little, Breakthrough, Long Shot, Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, Aladdin, Fighting with My Family, Paddington, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Five Feet Apart, Captive State, Late Night, Hotel Mumbai, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Spiderman: Far From Home, Alita Battle Angel, Mission: Impossible, Batman Returns, Twenty-fifth Hour, Grave of the Fireflies, The Best of Enemies, Fantastic Four, Ratatouille, Dreamgirls, Little Woods, Toy Story 4, Men in Black: International, Yesterday, The Farewell, Always Be My Maybe, Tolkien, The Sun is Also a Star, The Hustle, Crazy Rich Asians, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Rocketman, Booksmart, Amazing Grace, The Biggest Little Farm, Dark Phoenix, Hustlers, Ad Astra, Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw, Shaft, Downton Abbey, Judy, China Love, Varda by Agnes, Well Groomed, Ernie & Joe: Crisis Cops, Nothing Fancy, Meeting Gorbachev, Pizza A Love Story, Made in Boise, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Terminator: Dark Fate, Harriet, Avengers: Endgame, Brian Banks, Charlie's Angels, Ford v Ferrari, Queen & Slim, Black Panther, Official Secrets, Blinded By the Light, Where'd You Go Bernadette?, The Goldfinch, Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Don't Let Go (Relive), Wit, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Topkapi, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi

You can see all the mini-reviews here.

TV
So I once again forgot to keep count of all the episodes I watched this year, but I CAN tell you which TV shows I binged from beginning to end.

• Game of Thrones (to prep for the last season, SIGH)
• The Magicians
• Criminal Minds and its two spin-offs
• Supernatural

And I'm about four seasons into Cold Case right now. NOTHING CAN STOP ME.

So, those are the numbers for 2019. Here's to 2020!

Media Consumed in 2017

So I've had this sitting in a text file for two months. Oops.

Academic Conferences: 4
ATTW, CCCC, C&W, CWPA

Books: 194
Though my Goodreads count is only slightly over 125, so I'm giving this count a bit of sideeye. How is Goodreads measuring these things? Have I been meeting my reading challenges all along, but been misinformed by the system? Ah, well.

Comics: 90 individual issues (I count graphic novels under books)

Concerts: 8
The Lumineers, Leslie Odom Jr, George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic, Shawn Mendes (w/ Charlie Puth supporting), Fall Out Boy (w/ Jaden Smith and Blackbear opening), Bruno Mars (w/ Jorja Smith opening), Regina Spektor, Lady Gaga

Cooking Classes/Demos: 21
Craft/Floral Classes: 8
I will miss Ames and Iowa State so much. So, so, so much.

Festivals: 2
Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival 2017, Riverside Festival of Lights 2017

Lectures and Readings: 13
Chuck D, Kekla Magoon, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Lee Mun Wah, Black Light Butterflies (entymology lecture), Keisha Blaine, John Darnielle, Curtis Chin, David Anthony Durham & Benjamin Percy, Taylor Broby, Anne Curzan, Toni Phinisey-Webber (re: Little Rock Central High School), Jon Ronson

Movies: 140
Last year I only watched 14 movies, so I vowed to watch more. And...yup. Totally did. Special shout-outs to AMC's annual Oscar nominee specials and the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.

Museums & Landmarks: 13
Brunnier Art Gallery, Octagon Gallery, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Mazza Museum of Children's Literature, Living History Farms, Tennessee Riverboat Cruise (Knoxville), Women's Basketball Hall of Fame (Knoxville), Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Nashville), ESSE Museum, Witt Stephens Jr Central Arkansas Nature Center, Arkansas Art Center, Saint Louis Art Museum, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

New Restaurants: 53
Thanks to conferences (Portland, Findlay, Knoxville), a wedding reception (Chicagoland), a few concerts/road trips (Minneapolis, Nashville, St Louis, Kansas City, Dallas), moving to another state (Arkadelphia, Little Rock, Hot Springs), and a couple of extra-long visits to California!

Theatre: 26
Messiah on the Frigidaire, Akeelah and the Bee, The Vagina Monologues, Newsies, Allegiance, Our Antigone, The Bee's Tease, The Importance of Being Earnest, Good Night Desdemona Good Morning Juliet, Citizen by Claudia Rankine, Little Women, Annie, Fun Home, Other Desert Cities, Trashion Show, Tempest, Happy Days, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, HIR, Greater Tuna, I Am Emily Doe, Circle Mirror Transformation, Night of the Iguana, The Mousetrap, HSU Directing Class Showcase, Corona Dance Academy Winter 2017 recitals

TV Episodes: 632
This is the first year I've kept track of how many episodes of television I've watched. This is a big number, but it's also probably way less than I've watched in previous years--my shift to watching more movies meant, obviously, that TV was edged out a bit. Oh, and for the record, I also watched a ton of The Daily Show (I love Trevor Noah deeply), Late Night with Seth Meyers, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, but since I generally skip the interview portions of the shows, I opted not to count those here.

And that's officially a wrap for 2017!

2015 By The Numbers

I used to keep better track of things, but for various reasons, it's been rather haphazard the past couple of years. Looking forward to a meticulous 2016!

• Books Read: 170
  
  
• Comic Books Read: 76
  
  
• Concerts Attended: 3
  
  
  1. Norah Jones (20151030)
     
  2. Katy Perry (20151024)
     
  3. k.flay, Des Moines, IA [20150701]
  
  
  
• Conferences/Conventions Attended: 11
  
  1. Iowa Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson Dinner (20151024)
     
  2. Iowa Hunger Summit (20151013)
     
  3. International Writing Centers Association Conference, Pittsburgh, PA (20151008-10)
     
  4. Womyn of Colour Network Retreat, Ogden, IA (9/18-9/19)
     
  5. Council of Writing Program Administrators, Boise, ID (7/15-7/19)
     
  6. AP Reading 2015, Kansas City, MO [20150611-15]
     
  7. Computers and Writing 2015, Menomonie, WI (5/28-5/31/15)
     
  8. Iowa Writing Center Consortium, March 27, 2015
  9. Conference on College Composition and Communication, March 19-21, 2015
     
  10. International Writing Centers Association Collaborative, March 18, 2015
      
  11. Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity, March 5-6, 2015
      
  
  
  
• Lectures/Readings Attended: 10
  
  1. Kai Davis (20151110)
     
  2. Alison Bechdel (20150409)
     
  3. Dan Barber (20150408)
     
  4. Rachel Williams (20150408)
     
  5. Ava Chin (20150406)
     
  6. John McWhorter, "The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language" (20150305)
     
  7. Dan Fagin, "Connecting the Dots Between Toms River and Beyond" (20150303)
     
  8. "The Underground Girls of Kabul," Jenny Nordberg (20150206)
     
  9. Michelle Alexander, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" (20150129)
  10. Alison Hawthorne Deming, "Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit" (20150122)
      
  
  
• Movies Watched: 16
  21 Jump Street, Ant-Man, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Bring It On, Drumline, Fast Five, The Fault in Our Stars, Furious 7, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, Hook, Iron Man 3, Mad Max: Fury Road, A Night at the Museum, Sisters, Spy, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
  
  
• Museums Visited/Landmarks Visited/Tours Taken: 10
  
  1. Des Moines Art Center (second visit, 20151101)
     
  2. Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh)
     
  3. Boise Art Museum
     
  4. Des Moines Art Center
     
  5. Taste of Louisville tour
     
  6. Henry Doorly Zoo (20150704)
     
  7. Joslyn Art Museum (20150703)
     
  8. Mall of America (20150601)
     
  9. The American Swedish Institute (20150531)
     
  10. Florida Aquarium (Tampa, FL)
      
  11. Tampa Bay History Center (Tampa, FL)
  
  
• Theatre Attended: 2
  
  1. Love and Information, Caryl Churchill (20151206)
     
  2. The Vagina Monologues (20150213)
  
  
• TV Episodes Watched: 722
  

At least I kept busy?

2014 in Numbers

So in 2014, lots of important stuff happened. The top three: I finished my dissertation and successfully defended it, I moved to Iowa State to begin as Assistant Director of the Writing and Media Center, and I was awarded my Ph.D. in English: Rhetoric and Composition. Along the way, I survived the job market gauntlet, had lots of emotions, and did some crazy traveling.

I also consumed a lot of media, which is detailed below. As mentioned in my previous post, I read 101 books. I usually keep track of comics I've read, games I've played, and TV I've watched, too, but that sort of got away from me this summer. Ah, well. Let's just say it was a lot and leave it at that.

Concerts: 9

• HEAVning of Whimsy (talent show) [03 April 2014]
• Buddy [19 September 2014]
• Meiko [19 September 2014]
• Butch Walker [18 October 2014]
• Ryan Adams [18 October 2014]
• Jenny Scheinman [21 October 2014]
• Ani DiFranco [21 October 2014]
• Leslie DiNicola [14 November 2014]
• Anna Nalick [14 November 2014]

Conferences and Conventions: 7

• 129th Modern Language Association Convention, Chicago [9-12 January 2014]
• Association of Teachers of Technical Writing, Indianapolis [19 March 2014]
• Conference on College Composition and Communication, Indianapolis [20-23 March 2014]
• Advance Placement Scoring in Louisville, KY [9-15 June 2014]
• Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, Normal, IL [17-19 July 2014]
• International Writing Centers Association/National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, Orlando, FL [30 October - 01 November, 2014]
• National Council of Teachers of English 2014, Washington, DC [20-23 November 2014]

Festivals: 1

• International Food & Wine Festival @ Epcot Center [01 November 2014]

Lectures and Readings: 9

• Laverne Cox, hosted by Purdue's LGBTQ Center [26 March 2014]
• Zadie Smith at Purdue's Literary Awards [17 April 2014]
• Kelsey Timmerman, "WHERE Am I Wearing?" [02 September 2014]
• Michio Kaku, "How Science Will Revolutionize Business, Medicine, Jobs, and Life" [19 September 2014]
• "The Symbolism of the Sand Mandala," Monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery [23 September 2014]
• Juan Battle, "Closets are for Clothes: Being LGBT in Black America" [29 September 2014]
• Jane Smiley, "Writing About Iowa: A Conversation with Jane Smiley" [06 October 2014]
• Sanjaya Rajaram, "In the Footsteps of Normal Borlaug: The Golden Years of Wheat Production" [13 October 2014]
• Sam Taylor, "Politically Engaged Poetry for the 21st Century" [06 November 2014]

MOOCs Completed: 2

• Moralities of Everyday Life, Paul Bloom, Yale, Coursera
• The Art of Poetry, Robert Pinsky, Boston University, EdX

Movies: 28

• Pacific Rim (DVD)
• Her (theatre)
• Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (theatre)
• Vampire Academy (theatre)
• Much Ado About Nothing (DVD)
• Veronica Mars (streaming & theatre)
• Captain America 2: Winter Soldier (theatre)
• Edge of Tomorrow (theatre)
• Divergent (theatre, twice)
• Megashark vs. Octopus (DVD)
• Frozen (DVD)
• Godzilla (theatre)
• X-Men: Days of the Future Past (theatre, twice)
• Guardians of the Galaxy (theatre, thrice)
• Don Jon (streaming)
• The LEGO Movie (streaming)
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes (DVD)
• Lucy (theatre)
• The Giver (theatre)
• Snowpiercer (streaming)
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (theatre, twice)
• Annie (theatre)

Theatre: 4

• Hamlet, The Acting Company [29 March 2014]
• Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, The Acting Company [30 March 2014]
• West Side Story, Troika Entertainment [24 April 2014]
• "An Evening with Colin and Brad," Colin Mochrie & Brad Sherwood [26 October 2014]

Not a bad year.

Snoop Dogg, supported by Janelle Monae [20 Oct 10]

• Janelle Monae put on a FANTASTIC show, but she was a bit hampered by the fact that our concert hall was nearly empty when she started. (The show was, alas, not sold out, and it seemed like everybody arrived when the show was about to start, not realizing they would need to go through security and such.) Before they started, they encouraged people to rush to the front for her act, which helped, but most people weren't there to see her anyway.
  
  I also feel like I should note that she didn't really address the crowd at all, aside from an off-hand comment nodding to our campus, which I thought was a poor way of building rapport with the crowd. And since they were essentially doing their show in front of the curtain, rather than with their preferred set-up, there was that weirdness as well.
  
  Her voice was, all showmanship consideration aside, totally spectacular, her dancing is just as good as in the videos, and she lost control of her hair a few times, which was both funny and awesome. I think in ideal conditions, her concerts must be phenomenal, but there also should have been more effort to overcome the problematic conditions.
  
  
• Some dude from Doggystyle Records did a few numbers prior to Snoop coming on stage. I guess he was okay? Mostly kind of nondescript and unremarkable. He tried to get people to buy his stuff on iTunes via their iPhones. Whatev.
  
  
• SNOOP WAS AMAZING. An awesome performer overall, with a good feel for the crowd. He has a laid-back sort of energy, anyway, but when he's performing, it's focused in a way that you wouldn't expect. (Like, it's Snoop, you know? One would expect him to wander off and on the stage with a bottle in hand, like Kanye West at an MTV awards ceremony.) By the time he took the stage, everybody who was planning to come had arrived (about three thousand, which isn't too shabby, despite not being sold out), and there was a lot of old school stuff mixed in with his newer numbers, and also everybody sang "Happy Birthday" to him, which was kind of sweet.
  
  There was a lot of dancing, and there was a lot of crowd-sing-along. There was a lot of w00ting, and at one point, a lot of jumping. It was a pretty awesome experience, overall.
  
  Though, um, Purdue? The answer to Snoop's question, "Are there any gangsters in the house?" is not yes. Come on, now. Let's be real.

Concert Conundrums

So tonight I was supposed to see Lady Gaga in concert and I have been, no joke, really, crazily excited about it. I snagged a ticket for myself in the first balcony, happened to sit amongst a group of similarly-situated folk, and saw Semi Precious Weapons and Jason Derülo do one set each. AND THEN a poor uni rep, accompanied by a security guard, came on stage and said Lady Gaga is rescheduling due to "sudden illness" and she will perform on January 26 instead.

So. Um. If she is truly ill, I hope she gets better soon? Though I admit, my sentiments are at least partly with the vast, pantsless crowd chanting mean things at the stage. Thankfully the new date (January 26) works for me, but I feel incredibly sad for the people who drove 5+ hours to be here. As well as the third of the audience that came in costume (aside from general pantslessness, there were wigs, feathered masks, little dresses of all sorts, and Misfit-style make-up).

Yikes.

ANYWAY. Semi Precious Weapons is a loud glam band, with a loud transvestite lead singer who very badly wants to be Iggy Pop, but I do have to give props to any band whose main swag happens to be bright yellow T-shirts with the slogan I can't pay the rent but I'm f*cking gorgeous. And while the lead singer did demand to see tits several times, he did also do us the favor of changing costumes on stage. So there is that.

Jason Derülo is very much like Roger Davis, in that he cannot write a song that doesn't remind us of Musetta's Waltz. Aside from "Whatchu Say," which is pretty much Imogen Heap with Derülo occasionally contributing a stanza, his songs also heavily sampled Daft Punk and some classical piece I cannot name at the moment. So, enjoyable, but so derivative it was actually kind of boggling. Also, he tore off his shirt in the last number, which means I am not allowed to take him seriously.

My ears are ringing now.