Book completed

Stoking the Fire: Nationhood in Cherokee Writing, 1907-1970, by Kirby Brown. Kirby's a professor in the English department at our university, and his wife was a long-time co-worker of J's. I bought the book soon after it was published and read a part of it, then set it aside in favor of recreational reading with a less academic style. He's giving a talk tomorrow, though, which I treated as a deadline to finish reading it.

It's great! He profiles four Cherokee writers - a novelist, a biographer, a playwright, and an administrator. I especially enjoyed the detailed analysis of the play "Cherokee Night" by Rollie Lynn Riggs, who also wrote the play from which the musical Oklahoma! was adapted.

"Weathering With You"

Today we saw the latest film by Shinkai Makoto, who also did Your Name and Children Who Chase Lost Voices (as well as a few others we haven't seen). He does beautiful, beautiful work - his films are a lot like Miyazaki's but slightly darker, for a more mature audience. That is, I'd recommend them to families with pre-teens but not smaller children.

This one's about climate change and Tokyo's urban landscapes, with an element of Shinto mythology. The plot ends up echoing that from Your Name, but I didn't mind.

Oh, and there was one thing about the movie that impressed me tremendously. There are a few times where the perspective swirls through the clouds, or up a rather rickety-looking spiral staircase, and Shinkai managed to do that without making me the least motion-sick. Considering I get motion-sick from scrolling on a tablet or sitting at a traffic light facing a busy street, that's saying something.