Tag: Camp Zero

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs – 5/10/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles, and Happy Mother’s Day! 💐 My mom has done an immeasurable amount for me—introducing me to a good portion of the songs you see here is just the tip of the iceberg. I truly don’t know where I’d be without her support. 🩵

Since I’ve been gone for a few weeks, here are the graphics and songs from when I was taking a break:

4/19/26:

4/26/26:

5/3/26:

This week: In honor of Mother’s Day, the mothers are mothering. (Yes, I’m counting J Spaceman, I feel like if you make something as astounding as Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, he gets to be called “mother” this once.)

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/10/26

“Planting Tomatoes” – Lucy Dacus

Hot take of the day: Forever Is a Feeling would’ve been better if it had this track—and maybe “Losing”—on it. I get that “Losing” doesn’t exactly fit thematically, but sonically, it fits enough with the other tracks that it could’ve broken some of the monotony. Nobody asked, but my move would be to replace “Modigliani” with “Planting Tomatoes.” (But seriously, why was “Modigliani” the song that got the coveted Phoebe Bridgers feature?)

That’s the end of the hot take, but this might be another one: I feel like “Planting Tomatoes” might be one of Dacus’s best songs since Home Video. Forever Is a Feeling had some stunners, but composition and lyric-wise, “Planting Tomatoes” is truly something special. It takes her usual formula of stringing together perfectly-placed vignettes into something emotional. It’s more pop-forward, but in a way that feels natural to Dacus, and not trying to fit into a mold like some of Forever Is a Feeling‘s more forgettable tracks did. With reverb-drenched guitars that call back to her more indie rock days and tastefully echoing of her vocals, “Planting Tomatoes” is a breathless sprint through the realization that you’re living the life you once dreamed of—and everything that comes with it. There’s the starry-eyed ecstasy of being amongst friends and seeing the simple beauty in everything (tomatoes, holding hands with your friends, the view through a window screen).

Of course, it wouldn’t be Lucy Dacus without a trademark knife in the gut; that comes in the sparse bridge, but I think it captures something that comes along with trying to be more present: being present, but being distinctly aware of what you’ve lost while trying to be present. (“Livin’ in the moment/I can feel the moment passing.”) For Dacus, it’s the grief of losing someone that she wished she could experience the moment with; but her conclusion loops back to the chorus—the solution for all of these emotions, positive and negative, is this: “You’ve gotta live the life you’re fighting for/You’ve gotta live a life you would die for/But before then, I’ve got some ideas…” That hopeful ellipses of the chorus is where the joy of “Planting Tomatoes” lies: life is short, and yet, there is so much possibility in it.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Bánh Mì for Two – Trinity Nguyen – “Hearing my friends laughing in the distance/I can’t help but laugh along without knowing what the joke is/Can’t help thinking that I am gonna miss this/Living in the moment, I can feel the moment passing…”

“Desired Constellation” – Björk

I’ve been toying with the idea that Medúlla might be my favorite Björk album. I’m not 100% sure. With some of my favorite artists (Bowie, St. Vincent, etc.), it’s easy to pick a favorite. The thing about Björk is that her albums, as varying as they are in sound, are almost all at the same level of being consistently excellent. I like some more than others, but other than the two I haven’t listened to (Vulnicura and Utopia), I really can’t say if there’s a bad Björk album. Medúlla has some slight weaknesses, but after two more re-listens, I feel like even the songs that didn’t hook me as much on the first go around (see: “Submarine”) are still excellent in the ecosystem of the album as a whole. I’m firm in the belief that emotional attachment should never be ignored in choosing your favorite albums, and if that was the only criteria, Medúlla would easily slide up there—I’ve spoken about it a fair amount, but knowing the background and goal of this album was to evoke a sense of prehistoric, primal kinship connection of family and feminine lineages and storytelling as a whole makes every listen so powerful. It makes me feel in tune with that sense of being everything that your ancestors—especially the women in your family—dreamed of, but also a sort of nonlinear sense of connection across time and space. Something about it is innately human—the acapella format makes you hear every hiccup and falter in the vocals. You do feel like you’re around the fire, nestling for warmth in the presence of your kin.

But I think the best endorsement of Medúlla now is that, after a while spent dithering at the record store, I bought it on vinyl even though it was $43, but I immediately started crying after hearing “Pleasure Is All Mine,” so it was worth every penny. (Jeez, is that saying obsolete now? Wow. “Worth every dollar” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.)

When I first listened to Medúlla about a year ago, “Desired Constellation” was nearly one of the songs I talked about initially; it’s still one of the standouts from the album for me. At first, it sounds like it has some of the only non-vocal instrumentals, but I was fooled—the electronic backdrop was created by sampling Björk’s vocals from Vespertine, and adding layers of effects, giving it the delicate, sparkling effect that you hear; more relevant to the song’s subject matter, it’s specifically of this line from “Hidden Place”: “I’m not sure what to do with it.” It has some of my favorite Björk lyrics, hands down: “With a palm full of stars/I throw them like dice (Repeatedly)/On the table (Repeat, repeatedly)/I shake them like dice/And throw them on the table/Repeatedly (Repeatedly)/Until the desired constellation appears.” It’s an intimate, hard-hitting exploration of trying to make order out of chaos, of picking up the pieces until they resemble something you can make sense of.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Saltcrop – Yume Kitasei – “It’s slippery when/Your sense of justice/Murmurs underneath/And is asking you: ‘How am I going to make it right?'”

“Candelabra” – mary in the junkyard

We’re now two singles into Role Model Hermit, and I don’t want to jinx it, but it’s shaping up to be promising. “Candelabra” leans more towards their earlier acoustic work, but it fits just as snugly with the sweeping “Crash Landing.” As it turns out, it’s a holdover from frontwoman Clari Freeman-Taylor’s solo career, all the way back in 2021; it’s clear she’s gained so much more confidence since then, and despite “Candelabra” being a soft and wistful song, you can hear the leaps and bounds Freeman-Taylor and co. have made in the 5 years since. Whether acoustic or with a full band, this higher-quality production has done wonders for their sound, making it sound cleaner without sacrificing any of their eerie, vulnerable atmosphere. And vulnerability is something that “Candelabra” is ripe with, a meta, half-whispered confession about the confusion of songwriting and intimacy: “I want you to know me through my songs/They’re so much cleaner than anything I could say” is bookended with “Frantically I wrote you a letter/One I knew I never would send/Write fast, write deep, write better/Nothing I ever write will be enough.” This self-deprecation keeps this understated tune afloat.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

I Am the Ghost In Your House – Mar Romasco-Moore – “Don’t let me into your life baby/I hurt you enough as it is/Don’t let me under your skin baby/I’m full of false promises…”

“I Think I’m In Love” – Spiritualized

Musically, I might be reverting to a pandemic-era state. Normally, that’d be a cry for help, but by some miracle, the memories I have of listening to Spiritualized during the pandemic are actually very positive. They said it couldn’t be done…but also, I listened to Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space for the first time during the very early days of the pandemic, so that’s why the memories never soured. This was the part of the pandemic where I’d finished my highly modified AP tests and was waiting for my preordered copy of Aurora Burning to arrive in the mail. I hadn’t gotten burnt out and depressed…yet.

But I think Ladies and Gentlemen is one of those albums that no bad situation could sour. It’s just a masterpiece, through and through, a masterclass in creating and maintaining an atmosphere, of slow-burn tales that unfurl like you’re adrift in space, held to your spaceship by the thinnest tether, but never lost completely. The amount of layers in each song, whether 3 or 17 minutes, makes each one feel like an entire expanse of space that J. Spaceman has personally mapped out and condensed into sound waves. And if we’re talking about slow burns, then “I Think I’m In Love” is one of the key studies of it on Ladies and Gentlemen. Of course, the sun-blinded haze of this song comes from the monotony of heroin—something that comes up repeatedly on this album—but the way that it unfolds from this dissociative state back into a colder reality once the high wears off is one of J. Spaceman’s most memorable compositions on this album. For the first two minutes, his airy self-harmonization makes you feel like you’re waking up from a dream, still bleary-eyed, unsure of where you are. Every effect from the guitar pedals makes the song glimmer, but once the song gets curb-stomped back to Earth, the bleating saxophones and steady percussion only add to the atmosphere, as densely-packed with sound as a rainforest is with flora. And cynical as it is, the lyrics in the last 2/3rds of the song are so painfully self-effacing, but sardonically clever:

“I think I can hit the mark/Probably just aimin’/I think my name is on your lips/Probably complainin’/I think I have caught it bad/Probably contagious/I think that I’m a winner, baby/Probably Las Vegas.”

I mean…oof. And he’s got a whole four minutes full of these self-aimed barbs up his sleeve. But it really demonstrates the state he was in, musically and lyrically; the transition to drugged-out, blissful ignorance to astronomical levels of self-deprecation is just where he was at the time of the album, and honestly, with the rock bottom that he hit multiple times, it just makes me all the more grateful that we live in the timeline that he survived both of his near-death experiences, mostly due to complications with the drugs he was abusing throughout his life. And sure, we’ve got those debates about whether you need drugs to make an album as masterful as this, to which I say…dude, have you listened to Everything Was Beautiful lately? Sure, nothing can touch Ladies and Gentlemen, but it’s basically Ladies and Gentlemen with J Spaceman being clean and happy. Either way you look at it, “I Think I’m In Love” is a pitch-perfect study in Spaceman’s ability to make a song feel like an entire dimension in and of itself, a push-pull of dissociation and reality, like a slingshot firing in slow motion.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Embassytown – China Miéville – “I think I’m in love/Probably just hungry/I think I’m your friend/Probably just lonely…”

“Down” – St. Vincent

Daddy’s Home is approaching its 5 year anniversary, and…I feel so old. I know that’s dramatic. But it has such a specific, comfortingly nostalgic place in my heart; I specifically remembering finishing my AP exams after slogging through the mire of online school, and walking out of the building knowing that I had a new St. Vincent album as a reward. Especially coming off of the heels of the deeply disappointing MASSEDUCTION, it was like being bathed in rays of sunlight. Nearly 5 years later, it holds up as a sonically consistent and pure fun album, despite its subject matter. It’s a sly concentration of “if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry,” especially when looking back at circumstances more messed up than you could’ve predicted. (For Clark, it was her father getting arrested and finishing out his sentence around the time of the album’s release.) It’s difficult to think of an artist who’s channeled an aesthetic so clearly—this is straight up early ’70s, and nothing but; the only pitfall is that, past this era, it almost feels wrong to hear her play tracks from this album live without the intricately crafted aesthetic and campy blonde wig. But I guess that’s what you get for committing to a bit this hard.

Daddy’s Home was anchored on a slew of excellent singles, and “Down” hasn’t lost its sheen nearly 5 years on. It’s got bite. Acerbic but righteous in its condemnation of a good-for-nothing abuser, every lyric is spit with triumphant venom. We’ve been inundated with vaguely feminist revenge stories in the past decade or so; It’s a real shame that a lot of stories about getting the upper hand on your abuser have become cliche, but I feel like it’s more the shallow idea of these revenge fantasies being labeled feminism by default that’s made a lot of mainstream stories ring hollow. Even Clark herself has said that “Down” is a revenge fantasy. However, I think the reason “Down” sets itself apart is the camp of it all—it realizes it’s playing into a cliche and a somewhat universal experience of wanting to get back at someone who’s wronged you, and Clark puts every ounce of performance into this character. Daddy’s Home is honestly a masterclass in tragic camp—it rarely takes itself entirely seriously, and that’s what gives it the edge. Plus, who could deny that guitar solo, delectable ’70s tone and all?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Camp Zero – Michelle Min Sterling – “Tell me who hurt you/No wait, I don’t care to/Hear an excuse why you think you can be cruel…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 3/15/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

This week: inside you, there are three wolves: one is only skin, one is only in my dreams, and the other is only you…

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 3/15/26

“Only Skin” – Joanna Newsom

This song’s a way-homer, but it’s a hell of a long way home. It’s difficult to pitch this song, because yeah, how do you convince somebody to willingly listen to a nearly 17-minute long song whose main instrument is the harp with a decidedly squeaky-voiced vocalist? I doubt it’d convince you further if I said that it took me at least two listens to really get it. But when I did, I got it. I don’t think I’ve ever been captivated by a song this long, or this proggy. I say “prog” because there’s an element of this that its detractors would probably dismiss as self-indulgent, artsy-fartsy bullshit, and that its defenders would call epic. Prog of any subgenre is hit or miss for me, but I think what’s valuable about it is that it emphasizes art for art’s sake—it’s not afraid to get sprawling in service of creating music that defies mainstream traditions. I doubt that there was anything else like the harp-dominated, esoteric folk of Joanna Newsom released in 2005. Most of the imagery surrounding it feels medieval, and there’s a certain bardlike quality to how Newsom presents herself (especially on the album cover of Ys). But to me, it strikes me as strangely Appalachian, more rooted in the pioneer times of the U.S. in the 19th century than anything—particularly in this song, it’s the more folky instrumentation, the mentions of somewhat modern war imagery (even if it’s in an in-song dream sequence), and, somewhat irrelevantly, the way that Newsom says “swimmin’ hole.”

But really, “Only Skin” has genuinely made me go a bit bananas. Admittedly, I was exposed to this song through separate TikTok trends, but frankly, it’s wild that a song as weird as this got any traction. But this song is downright captivating. At best, I feel like I’m picking it apart in the same way that I would some esoteric classic in my English classes; other times, I feel like the voice in my head is about to bust a vein, announcing different elements of the track like a WWE announcer: “AND THERE’S ANOTHER TEMPO CHANGE! FELLAS, WE’VE GOT ANOTHER TEMPO CHANGE—AND HERE COMES BILL CALLAHAN WITH THE STEEL CHAIR!” (And yeah, that was wild to find out too—he has a brief but prominent feature about 13 minutes into the song.) Newsom has this distinct voice that squeaks so much in the first few seconds of the song that I genuinely though it was studio feedback, but I love that nontraditional quality of it—she peeps and howls and mewls, defying all notions of how the feminine voice is supposed to sound. She has this kind of sprite-like quality about her that makes her already stunning lyricism even more like a fable or a fairytale—there’s whole handfuls of lyrics that stop me in my tracks: “Back on the patio/watching the bats bring night in,” “The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry,” “And I watched as the water was kneading so neatly/Gone treacly” are just a handful of the gems that Newsom has scattered through the rich earth of this track. I could probably go on for at least two paragraphs longer just picking apart all of the poetic devices scattered throughout, but this part of the post is already getting unwieldily long. But the real emotional oomph is the juxtaposition with the more devastatingly bare lines, things like the waver in her voice when she repeats the motif of “That’s an awfully real gun.” It all has a very Kate Bush quality about it, both in the vocal and lyrical styles—as well as her stories of women.

She breathes wonder and fear and devotion and snapped rage into every line—it’s so dense that I can only scrabble for certain meanings. As far as I can tell, Newsom is the kind of enigmatic artist who ostensibly does write true stories, but obfuscates them under at least seven layers of fiction so that they’re all but impenetrable. There’s hints of personal relationship turmoil, something that her ardent fans have been desperately trying to puzzle out in the 20 years since this album was released. In my mind, I can see some kind of 19th-century narrative of a desperate woman married to a man wracked by trauma. She breaks her back trying to provide for him, and he only responds with demanding more and more still of her, without any thought to what she’s going through. I don’t blame said TikTok trends for choosing the part that they did: the part beginning at 13:02 (yeah, sorry) is the most striking part of the song, the climax where the woman reaches her breaking point. You’ve heard me ramble about the watering-down of female rage…but if you want real, desperate, breaking-point female rage? Step right up. Holy shit. This part is the musical equivalent of the straw that broke the camel’s back, the final response of the protagonist as she confronts him about how much she sacrificed just to keep him happy: “All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone/Take my bones, I don’t need none.” I get goosebumps every time I listen to it. This is why it’s worth all 16 minutes and 53 seconds—even if you don’t appreciate the highs and lows of the journey itself, the payoff from that buildup is worth every note. Like Oingo Boingo’s “Change,” it goes through movements, but all in service of a staggeringly intricate musical narrative.

I think those reminders of Oingo Boingo and Kate Bush, at least in terms of their mindset if not in their musical style, is what makes “Only Skin” such a spectacular song to me. Art for art’s sake implies a kind of self-indulgent quality, but there’s nothing much more admirable to me than putting out art that’s nothing but the vision in your brain, removed from all sense of trend-chasing or conventionality. If not for the musical freaks of the world, we wouldn’t have art as singularly unique as this. Art needs not appeal to everybody—just you, in the end. And if it finds an anchor in somebody else, then all the better. But it’s got to be for you.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Crane Husband – Kelly Barnhill – “All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone/Take my bones, I don’t need none/Cold, cold, cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on/Suck all day on a cherry stone…”

“Only In My Dreams” – The Marías

What I appreciate about The Marías’s Tiny Desk Concert was that María Zardoya did what I love with a Tiny Desk Concert from an act that’s been around long enough to accumulate a larger discography; she called the setlist a “tasting menu” of their career, with selections spanning from their newest album to their earliest releases. It gave me the perfect jumping-off points for getting into their music. “Only In My Dreams” is off of their very first EP, Superclean, Vol. 1. It’s always so intriguing when you can see the nascent signs of a band’s sound beginning to solidify so early on. Sure, the lyrics aren’t as refined (and the music video veers on being corny), but already, their distinctive flavor of dream pop was right there, waiting to be chiseled away. If this track is proof of anything, it’s that when you have a clear vision of what’s you, it’ll always shine through in the music, and time will only expose it further—it certainly did so for The Marías.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them – Junauda Petrus – “You’re everything I need/To bare this fear/The demons in my bedThey’re always here/It’s only just a dream…”

“Savior Complex” – Phoebe Bridgers

“Savior Complex” was a favorite of mine when Punisher came out…what do you mean, almost 6 years ago? I remember watching that music video in December of 2020 and, as I did with everything in reach, looked at it with a very Fargo Season 4 lens, but to be fair, they have the commonality of a black and white vignette of a bloodied Irish man in a sketchy hotel with a dog that follows him everywhere. (Rabbi Milligan is everywhere for those with eyes to see him.) Listening back to this song is making me marvel at just how immersive Phoebe Bridgers’ atmospheres are. Her best songs feel like being inside of snow globes, but every snowflake feels just as real as one would in the outside world. There’s an ice-skating rink somewhere in that snow globe, somewhere in the middle of a city, where the flickering lights of the skyscrapers illuminate the ice. “Savior Complex” evokes the palate of the dead of night in December, with starry flourishes from the celeste, Rob Moose’s orchestral arrangements, and the understated murmur of Bridgers’s acoustic guitar. Like the album cover, it evokes the feeling of being absolutely alone, out in the middle of nowhere—lonely and liberating in equal measure. Yet Bridgers’s wintry whisper of a voice is what anchors “Savior Complex” in the end, with her stripped-to-the-bone lyrics: “I’m a bad liar/With a savior complex/All the skeletons you hide/Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.” As poisonous as the relationship sounds, every utterance of “show me yours, and I’ll show you mine,” feels like a secret you’re being let in on.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Camp Zero – Michelle Min Sterling – “Baby, you’re a vampire/You want blood and I promised/I’m a bad liar/With a savior complex…”

“Fourteen Black Paintings” – Peter Gabriel

Us is full of gems. I almost called them hidden gems, but most of them are pretty easy to identify as gems on the first listen. But amongst gems, some songs get overshadowed in the process. Practically every song on this album hits me like a train, so it’s exceedingly difficult to compete when about half of the album makes me feel like this after I listen to it. But I’ve found that in the three and a half years since I’ve listened to the album, there’s always another layer to peel back. “Fourteen Black Paintings” doesn’t necessarily have the gut punch of “Come Talk to Me” or “Secret World” or even the grooves of “Digging in the Dirt,” but to me, it thrives on simplicity. It’s one of the sparser songs on the album, but all of the lyrics speak for themselves, plain and simple:

“From the pain come the dream/From the dream come the vision/From the vision come the people/From the people come the power/From this power come the change.”

That’s it. That’s the entirety of the lyrics in this four and a half minute-long song, other than Gabriel’s hypnotic murmuring. It has the same, dense arrangements and international instrumentation (that haunting instrument you hear at the beginning is a duduk, an Armenian flute), and yet, it’s all so muted and subtle that it tends to relegate itself to the background. Yet it’s proof that even Gabriel’s most seemingly simple songs are anything but throwaways; though it doesn’t have the same striking emotional highs as some of the other tracks on the album, Gabriel’s soaring vocals make up for any need for them. In fact, it’s quite like the fourteen black paintings that Gabriel is referencing in the first place: fourteen black paintings by Rothko, all housed in the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas; though they seem like blocks of solid black to the casual observer, the brushstrokes within prove their deliberate and intricate construction. Quietly throbbing and pulsating, “Fourteen Black Paintings” remains an upfront declaration on the nature of power and resistance.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The King Must Die – Kemi Ashing-Giwa – “From the vision come the people/From the people come the power/From this power come the change.”

“I’m Only You” – Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians

Consider this the millionth post where the gist just ends up being “Jesus, can Robyn Hitchcock leave some of that top-tier songwriting for the rest of us?” Predictably, I’m still stuck on the show I saw him at back in February, and I was delighted to learn that pretty much every other member of my family got as knocked off their feet as I was after hearing the line “I’m a house that burns down every night for you.” There’s a line that’ll stick in your head forever. Here’s the real kicker about “I’m Only You,” though: I’d say at least 95% of the lines are like that. “I’m a policeman working in an empty house?” “I’m a snow-covered mountain in an empty room?” “I’m a liquid you’re dissolving in?”

There’s so much in here about empty structures and becoming a vessel just to hold somebody else, but I found an interesting dichotomy with the lyrics: they’re all either about being said vessel (“I’m a liquid you’re dissolving in”) or being built for a purpose, but being abandoned (“I’m a distant steeple on a long-deserted plain”). It’s such a striking contrast between becoming empty or being surrounded by emptiness—and what a stunning metaphor for being devoted to somebody to the point of total self-sacrifice, only to find that you’re only a shell without them there.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Nothing Burns as Bright as You – Ashley Woodfolk – “I’m a mirror cracked from side to side/I’m a snow-covered mountain in an empty room/I’m a house that burns down every night for you…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Books

The Bookish Mutant’s Books for AAPI Heritage Month (2025 Edition)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Monday, bibliophiles! I’m not fully back on schedule yet (still in the process of cleaning up my dorm), but I figured I would put out this post for the occasion.

Here in the U.S., May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! Among the many histories that America has been attempting to erase is that of the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community, even though they are a critical part of our country’s history. We’re so quick to dismiss the discrimination of Chinese immigrant laborers in the late 1800’s, the Japanese internment camps, and the bigotry faced by South Asian Americans, whether or not they were Muslim, as part of the rampant Islamophobia post-9/11. This history may not be in the spotlight as far as discrimination targets, but just because it’s getting less press doesn’t mean it’s there. Just look at Maggie Tokuda-Hall, who received requests from her publisher to remove specific mentions of racism from the author’s note of her picture book, Love in the Library, which takes place in the Japanese internment camps. (Good on her for not taking the licensing deal. Another reason to love Tokuda-Hall, who appears on this list!) Erasing the horrors of discrimination and racism from our shelves only serves to raise an uneducated, uncritical generation—the opposite of what we need right now.

Looking back on my previous lists, I noticed something. I’ve neglected the PI in AAPI, and that’s a mistake on my part. Books by Pacific Islanders rarely seem to get the spotlight, even during AAPI Heritage month, but that still doesn’t excuse me overlooking that part of the acronym—and the world. This is the first year that I actually do have a few great recommendations from Pacific Islander authors, but please let me know if you have any more recommendations! I’m on the lookout.

For my past lists, click below: 

Let’s begin, shall we?

THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR AAPI HERITAGE MONTH (2025 EDITION)

FANTASY:

FICTION:

SCIENCE FICTION:

NONFICTION:

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of the books on this list, and if so, what did you think of them? What are some of your favorite books by AAPI authors?

Today’s song:

That’s it for this list! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Books

The Bookish Mutant’s Feminist Books for Women’s History Month 🚺 (2025 Edition)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Here in the U.S., March is Women’s History Month! Every year, I find myself repeating the same horrors about the attacks on women’s rights in the past five years. This year is no different, save for the fact that with Trump’s presidency, so many men have felt emboldened to let their misogyny run rampant—and our society seems to encourage it, time after time. Every year, we fight to make sure that misogyny, sexism, and rape culture become impermissible again. Though it seems like an uphill climb with no discernible light at the end of the tunnel, there will always be a constant: we will keep fighting for all women. For women of color, for immigrant women, for queer and trans women (especially trans women, because feminism wouldn’t be possible without them), for disabled women, for survivors. They keep pushing against them, so we’ll keep fighting—and keep reading. The good news is that literature is rife with heroines fighting against the system, and as long as these stories are told and spread, someone will be inspired to fight. So as with all the other year, I’ve compiled even more books of women fighting against oppression from a variety of perspectives, age ranges, and genres.

NOTE: once again, I’ve switched these posts to books for several age ranges, too lazy to change the header, etc. etc.

For my previous lists, click below: 

2021

2022

2023

2024

Let’s begin, shall we?

🚺THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH🚺

SCIENCE FICTION:

FANTASY:

REALISTIC FICTION:

NONFICTION:

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and if so, what did you think of them? What are your favorite feminist books? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s song:

How Women Made Music brought me here…

That’s it for this year’s Women’s History Month list! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Monthly Wrap-Ups

May 2024 Wrap-Up ⌨️

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Friday, bibliophiles!

Finally summer! Finally, more time to read…and most of what I’ve read this month has been good, I’d say.

Let’s begin, shall we?

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Save for the first week of the month, May has been the first month where I’ve been able to relax somewhat! Finals were over and I’d moved out of my dorm before I knew it. Straight A’s and finally being free of my STEM requirements isn’t too shabby, I’d say! I’m so proud of what I’ve accomplished this year—and I’m so glad that I can have some downtime. And I’ve made good use of it so far—May has been my best month in terms of amount of books read (although the quality of…some of said books is another story), and I’ve definitely benefitted from the time spent reading! I’ve also been trying to focus more on art this summer, and consciously taking a slice out of each day to draw has been an adventure so far. I had a solid week where I had three or four blog posts all on the back burner simultaneously, so I unintentionally made a loose schedule for blogging every day as well, so I’m getting some writing in while I recover from writing two short stories and a 20,000 word novella all in one semester. I’ve also been pruning my Goodreads TBR…I’ve managed to cut it down from around 770 to around 720, so I’d say that’s been a success?

Other than that, I’ve just been cleaning things out of the dorm and bringing them back to my house, sleeping, watching Abbott Elementary (THEY FINALLY DID IT!!! THEY FINALLY LET THEM KISS!!!), Taskmaster, and Hacks (we love Jean Smart in this house), and relishing in the warm weather and the beginning of summer. I feel like every time I’m in the car with my family, I just pass the hills and feel the need to comment on how much I love that shade of green that summertime brings. But it’s so beautiful. Every single time. It never gets old. Thank you, shades of summer green.

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 19 books this month! I’ve been oscillating between both ends of the spectrum this month, for sure—I read one of the worst books I’ve read this year, but also two of the very best. Somehow, it’s pretty evenly split as far as ratings go when I’ve lined them all up that way, but it’s been up and down all month, but on a track towards betterment midway through. I focused on AAPI books for May, and I found some fantastic books as a result from both familiar and new-to-me authors!

1 – 1.75 stars:

Dear Wendy

2 – 2.75 stars:

The Emperor and the Endless Palace

3 – 3.75 stars:

Camp Zero

4 – 4.75 stars:

This Book Won’t Burn

5 stars:

The Travelling Cat Chronicles

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH – Squire – 5 stars

POSTS I’M PROUD OF:

POSTS FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAT I ENJOYED:

SONGS/ALBUMS I’VE BEEN ENJOYING:

strong contender for album of the year!!!
why did I put off listening to this album for so long??
affirmations: I have listened to this song a healthy amount of times
this show was…insane?? idk if I’m built for punk shows but IDLES knocked it out of the park
lovely new album!!
got hooked on this band after seeing them open for IDLES!! fantastic stuff
such a wonderful album!!

Today’s song:

That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 5/26/24

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: we go back to that house, like we do sometimes.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/26/24

“All I Got” – Santigold

The only good part of 2016 was, without a doubt, the music. Blackstar remains unlistened-to just because I know that listening to it all in one sitting will destroy me (I’m only delaying the inevitable), but nothing will top that, I’m sure. Everything else, though. Teens of Denial? A Moon-Shaped Pool, which I also haven’t listened to all the way because it will similarly put me in the fetal position? Something was in the air, that’s for sure. Chances are that said something was the incomprehensibly crushing weight of grief and existential dread, but my sad bastards make do.

Santigold, thankfully, never got that memo, and saved 2016 early on with 99 Cents, full of gleeful odes to self-love and living to fight another day. It’s hard to think of people that really are cooler than her—if her music wasn’t enough to convince you, then consider her episode of What’s In My Bag, in which she’s wearing a Bauhaus shirt, casually mentions that she’s on a first-name basis with Mos Def, and talks about channeling Kate Bush all in one video. Even without all that, both the music she makes and the energy that she radiates is nothing but positivity, and not the shallow kind that denies some of the darker truths of life, but the positivity cultivated by a truly good and kind spirit that wants nothing but to share some of her goodness with the world. I’ve had bad luck trying to see her live (a 16 and older venue when I was 15, a canceled tour, and bad weather, in order), but part of why I thought last time wouldn’t happen was her posting before the concert that she had a broken leg. Wouldn’t you know it, she was bouncing around onstage with her leg in a cast. That’s just the kind of person she is. She’s a creator that makes odes to the joy of creativity, and her indomitable spirit never seems to let up, even in the face of adversity. And yet, she humanly recognizes the real-time taxes of the music industry—that canceled tour I mentioned was so that she could spend time with her kids. She’s really a rare kind of musician: her authenticity comes not just from her attitude, but her willingness to be true and kind to herself.

Even when she’s being critical, it still sounds as cheerful as ever. “All I Got” is practically covered in multicolored party streamers, the kind of thing you’d hear blasting at a pride parade (anybody wanna start Queers for Santigold with me?). But it’s delightfully petty—I’m almost embarrassed at how many of the lyrics I mixed up before l looked them up, but what I found was even better than what I thought she was singing. “All I Got” is the auditory equivalent of watching somebody dressed in the puffiest, brightest neon clothes and the sparkliest makeup promptly flip you off before gleefully running off into the sunset surrounded by a gaggle of similarly dressed friends. Santigold openly throws darts at the kind of figures that have spread like wildfire in the 1% of society—those who have the most, but barely worked for what they have: “I should ask but don’t want to know/How you get something for nothing at all/Build an empire for yourself/Don’t take this personal: go to hell.” Oh, it’s very personal, I’d argue. Whether that “something” is fame, acclaim, or money, it’s a smiling takedown of people who have never worked a day in their lives and yet earn more than the creative people who get less than the recognition that they deserve—somebody like Santigold, I’d argue, who has the kind of sound that should theoretically have been topping the charts since 2008, but most of her recent acclaim in mainstream culture was born and died with a namedrop from Beyoncé. Maybe modern pop can’t take more than one genuinely kind person with the creativity to match before the industry just implodes. She’s simply too powerful for them. Her talent is best spent on whatever she sees fit, recognition or not. And that’s exactly what “All I Got” declares—she’s blazing a path of her own, straight through the undeserving.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Your Plantation Prom is Not Okay – Kelly McWilliams – a story of one girl’s relentless determination in the face of small-minded, oblivious tradition.

“Take A Bite” – beabadoobee

beabadoobee recently announced a new album, This Is How Tomorrow Moves, out in mid-August! Is it promising? Yes. How about the album cover? Eh…compared to the cover for the single, it just looks like an outtake? Like they just snapped a picture while she was mid-sentence, put a nice filter on it and just called it a day? Welp…you win some, you lose some.

Either way, “Take A Bite” mostly makes up for the lack of a good album cover. It seems like a return to form—at least, of one of the forms she seems to have taken over the years. Thankfully, it’s the form I’ve liked best—the ’90s alternative-informed rock, with a dollop of slick vocals and production made for pop. “Take A Bite” oozes with tired dissatisfaction, with a minor key glossed to a sparkling shine, a coat of wine-red nail polish with a glittering overcoat. Kristi takes boredom and the dregs of an old flame with a sultry, heart-sore twist, drifting through her own imagination to make up for the color drained away by a breakup: “Indulging in situations that are fabricated imaginations/Moments that cease to exist/Only want to fix it with a kiss on the lips/But I think I might take a bite.” I suppose after “the way things go” (which I reviewed back in July), she’s moved from denial, dipped her toes in anger, and barreled straight into bargaining, making deals with her own mind to pull her out of this earthly plane. Her only sustenance is in her own head, and as she twists further inside, the instrumentals appropriately intensify, the background noise bleeding through the sheet of the background of sharp guitars as the unreal seeps into the real—or vice versa? The imagery in the music video isn’t exactly subtle, but either way, I love the shift between the bland, harsh daytime and the softer, sultrier nighttime worlds that Kristi straddles with a simple step through the alleyway. It’s sour and brittle, especially in the last, sore-throated mumbling of “do it all over again,” but like the skin of a cherry, it’s so smooth that you can’t resist at least one bite of the forbidden fruit.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

While You Were Dreaming – Alisha Rai – when a fabricated image and reputation falls apart, it takes the truest form of yourself to mend the pieces.

“Sugar” – Masters of Reality

Babe, wake up, NEW MASTERS OF REALITY JUST DROPPED?? MASTERS OF REALITY? For the first time since 2009? Wow. That wasn’t on my hypothetical 2024 bingo card.

Either way, they returned from their 15 year extended hiatus with “Sugar” in early May, much to the surprise of…well, everyone. I haven’t followed them closely, but I thought that they’d all but disappeared from the face of the music scene. In the YouTube description, it’s followed up with a promise of a new album (?) but they haven’t revealed much else save for that and some ongoing European tour dates this summer. According to an interview with Louder, Chris Goss said that “Sugar” has been forming since the late ’90s, and it came into being out a desire to “become less esoteric and more directly personal.” Which…okay. Again, I’m not terribly familiar with the band beyond Sunrise on the Sufferbus (now that’s a top 10 album title right there), but “esoteric” is not among the words I’d use to describe the Masters of Reality. Musically? Not necessarily. It’s not the kind of music I’d expect for a pretentious music bro to go “you just don’t get it” to—a lot of standard blues rhythms, and not the kind of odd time signatures or chord combinations that might sound esoteric. And the lyrics? Does a song about a bitey but lovable cat really scream “esoteric?” It’s great! I’d even call it the perfect theme song for my cat. But esoteric it is not. I’m not Chris Goss, but I can’t help but be confused. Either way, I applaud the desire to be more personal for his music—it never hurts to write from the heart. Good on you, man.

Neither complex lyrics nor complex music are things I’d put as hallmarks for the band’s sound, but they do have an uncanny ability to make their music sound so neatly consuming. “100 Years (Of Tears To The Wind)” (another top 10 song title) feels like a wave curling into itself, with instrumentals that don’t just circle, but drown you as they do so—it’s a neat rhythm, but one made to swallow you, not unlike the soundscapes of Spiritualized. When my dad reintroduced us to this song to my brother and I a few years back, we all kept marveling about even though every aspect of this song was so simplistic, it was just so wholly effective in what it does. How does a song with lyrics like “I move, like syrup slow/I move, I didn’t know” feel as powerful as a full orchestra? No matter the personal changes that Goss has vowed to make in his music, I’m glad he stuck that quality; though “Sugar” has a slow, steady build, but by the time the chorus hits you, you’re caught in a swirling riptide of distorted guitars, strings, and chimes, building like a tornado in slow motion around you as your feet remain planted on the ground. The lyrics themselves still feel simple: “Sugar ain’t happy, Sugar ain’t sad/But Sugar got something, and something ain’t bad.” And yet, the shift is easy to see—even if the word choice is more simplistic than not, there’s a clear story, and one that makes a compelling song. Although it’s unclear whether the character of Sugar is drawn from Goss’ personal life or simply fictional, Goss said this about the lyrics: “[It reflects] on intelligent women trying to find their place somewhere in the mess…a real picture of what real people feel. The inner emotional reality of one life and its relevance to many lives.” And that ubiquity is what makes the narrative work: it’s a story that conjures up images of a woman dead-set on paving her own path, however winding it may be. My mind goes to images of a woman alone with her car, filling up the gas tank as the sun sets, her mind wandering about where she’s been as she contemplates where her journey will take her next. That journey will be difficult, but “my Sugar don’t care.” There’s beauty to be found in Goss’ sparse lyricism—it reinforces that your word choice doesn’t have to be eloquent to tell a story worth telling or conjure vivid imagery. All that matters is the heart that you put to page—or song.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Camp Zero – Michelle Min Sterling – “Sugar got born, Sugar got raised/Left her hometown, got lost in a maze/Met lots of men, none of them worked/To just find a place where happiness lurked…”

“Sick in the Head” – Indigo De Souza

So. I Love My Mom. I only put off listening to it because of my tradition of drawing album covers on the whiteboard on my door at school. I know, it’s college, nobody cares, but I would’ve felt weird having skeleton tiddies on display on my door for two weeks, and I doubt it would’ve gone over well with the RA. So there you have it. But now, I am free of such shackles, listening to skeleton tiddy music at my behest.

But lord, what an album. Not only does it feed both my sad bastard and occasionally raw and shouty sensibilities, but Indigo De Souza is seriously a poet. The lyrics on almost every track jumped out at me like cartoon eyes, with that slack-jawed ba-zooooooooing as the reality sets in while I scrubbed my bathroom sink. School really is a better environment for me to process albums, because leaning over to scrub some leftover gunk from the mirror was not the ideal position to let “And there was no one home in that plastic box/In that widow’s womb with the childproof locks” set in. “What Are We Gonna Do Now,” which I reviewed back in March, is still the highlight of I Love My Mom for me, but “Sick in the Head” displays some of De Souza’s most bitingly vibrant poetry. Like…doesn’t “And now that house is gone/There’s a golden lawn/And there’s a silver spoon/Someone’s been choking on” hit you like a sucker punch? But beyond that, I’m so glad that I found this song when I did, because the lyrics resonate at this age. “Sick in the Head” feels to me like a journey through the bramble back to the past, but not necessarily of the painful memories, but the childhood ethos that’s been lost and found again: “Since then our bodies have warped and bent/And now we are gray/I go back to that house sometimes/To say what I need to say.” Whew, preach. It left me wondering how old De Souza was when they wrote this song, and…turns out they were around my age, at least when I Love My Mom came out. Oh. Wow. So I’ve never had an original experience in my life, huh? But I love the imagery of this space being an empty house, and going through some sort of thorny, vine-choked gauntlet to find the part of you that now retreats in a corner, ready to be received when what is right needs to be remembered. And the quest is set off by this essential problem of growing up: “We’re going cause we’re too damn old/And nothing’s making sense anymore.” Sometimes, it’s not the wisdom of age that needs to be consulted to put yourself back on the path: it’s the little kid in you, the one that didn’t yet know that they were being perceived, and just did what they wanted to. And it’s true. My art is truest when I ask myself what my younger self would have wanted to see. It’s so easy to dismiss the stuff that your child self pointed at and said declared cool as childish and the product of an unrefined mind; Sometimes, that might be the case, but too often, we overlook the merit of how much joy that reconnecting with that urge produces. I’m working on being less critical of my writing and art, but I try to think of how little Madeline would’ve thought of how cool current Madeline’s achievements are. There may be nobody home, but there is something beyond a body that lingers in that empty house: the essence of youth and love, that, if nurtured, will guide you to the light.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Thirty Names of Night – Zeyn Joukhadar – “And now we are gray/I go back to that house sometimes/To say what I need to say…”

“Oswald Opening Theme” (from Oswald) – Evan Lurie

I’m too scared to fully go into any kind of mommy blogging discourse just from the horrific baby names that it’s spawned, but sometimes that’s what Instagram spits out for me…for whatever reason. But in the age of iPad kids and Cocomelon, it’s comforting to see that some of the shows of my childhood are having a resurgence among new parents, particularly because of their low stimulation. In an age where kids are rapidly being fed…well, crap, basically, at incomprehensible speeds, and some parents have moved from using the TV as a babysitter to just getting their children an iPad fresh out of the womb (surely that won’t affect them 10 years down the line), some parents are reverting back to the lower-stimulation shows of yesteryear. Sure, not every single show in my childhood and beyond was angelic and perfect, and not every show now is ultra-high stimulation (I’ve heard Bluey has become gen alpha’s Blue Dog to Guide the Generations, taking the torch from Blue’s Clues), but I’m glad that the low-stimulation comfort that my parents raised me on, as well as some of the shows like Sesame Street that they were raised on, are helping kids this far down the line.

I’ve only seen Oswald come up in very few of these discussions, but I just remembered it the other day, and how quiet it was. It’s just so pure to me. Sure, Blue’s Clues and Zoboomafoo topped it, but there’s something to be said for how gentle and quaint it was. Comforting character design. Evan Lurie’s soft piano theme. Two British eggs who say “yeeees, yeeeeees” like some character that Blur parodied on Parklife. A little dachshund that looks like a hot dog. It’s just so…gentle. Thanks, Dan Yaccarino.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Good Night, Mr. Night – Dan Yaccarino – speaking of throwbacks…this one was a classic in my household.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!