Three Things for Your Weekend

#22: December 20th, 2024

Welcome to this week’s roundup of three things I’ve been enjoying!

📕 Land of Milk and Honey* - C Pam Zhang. (*Amazon affiliate link) This is a novel set in a near future where unchecked environmental damages have led to repeated crop failures, to an extent where the global food chain has unravelled and life is unrecognisable. Our main character, a chef, is understandably unhappy, and then gets an offer to go to live and work in a mountaintop ‘scientific community’ - and what follows is both an incredibly incisive look at climate, inequality, and class and a total page-turner of a story.

Because of the way the story is framed, you know from the start that our main character (who I don’t think is ever named?) doesn’t stay in the ‘land of milk and honey’ forever, and that the world starts to look a bit different by the end of the story (in a good way!). I found that section, towards the end of the book, incredibly hope-inspiring. Highly recommend.

🖌️ Painting. As an end-of-term treat for myself, I bought the Artful Watercolour box and I’ve been playing with paints and colours. Proper ‘school holiday’ vibes. This video from Katie Cosmo Art shows you a bit more about the colours. I loved using watercolours at school but completely fell out of love with art as a teenager; I never thought I was good enough at it to spend time doing it. But one of the things I’ve learnt as an adult is that it doesn’t matter if I’m rubbish if I enjoy it! And it’s lovely to spend a few hours doing something screen-free.

✨ Wicked. I finally saw the Wicked film this Monday (again, school holiday energy over here…) and, my gosh, it was incredible. I left feeling high (as if I could… defy gravity… if you like). My expectations for part two (which contains most of my favourite songs) are even higher than they were before, and I’m just in love with this film. Being picky, there were some aspects of the lighting that I didn’t love (some scenes looked a bit… flat?) and, like many others, I found the fragility of how Ariana Grande looks as Glinda quite… confronting? Both of those were things I suspected beforehand, from the trailers and the preview clips, and I worried they might take away from my enjoyment of the film - but I’m relieved that they didn’t!

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