Open Tabs #34
08.10.25 -- reading, watching, listening, googling
Welcome to this week’s edition of Open Tabs, where I share my recent reads, current obsessions, and media consumptions every Sunday!
Hello, it’s been a mentally-exhausting week. A lot of work and a lot of trying to figure out what I want in life. But I feel like I’ve gotten back into a pretty good, consistent journaling routine, which brings a lot of mental relief. I have also been focused on catching up with my digital reading journal (I use Notion), and that has made me feel a lot better too. I read a lot, and I don’t want to just breeze through books without retaining anything. So keeping up with my notes and reflections is important to me.
Speaking of which: I sent my most recent issue of Notes, Quotes, and Reflections a few days ago.
Daughter by Claudia Dey
Welcome to Notes, Quotes, and Reflections, aka a look inside my reading journal. This week I’m logging Daughter by Claudia Dey.
Reading [Books]
I don’t feel like I’ve had much time to read and yet—
Farewell, Ghosts by Nadia Terranova
This translated work follows a 30-something woman as she returns home to help her mother discard old items and fix up the house. In the process, she confronts a fractured mother-daughter relationship, which began after her father disappeared decades ago. This novel touches on memory, grief, identity…all the usual themes I love to read about!
For an Ecology of Images by Peter Szendy
An essay about the transformational nature of the image—in its creation, its circulation, and its impact.
“[N]ot only does the same image exist within different digital formats, but once these images are uploaded and put into circulation from one end of the world to the other, through fiberoptic cables or electromagnetic waves, they are also dissected into discrete packets of data: pieces precede other pieces of themselves down the pathways and networks that make up our contemporary infrastructure of the visible. These images in transit, or transimages (passing not just from one screen to another but also from one state of being into another), are in the process of becoming the images that they are: they condense and coagulate and take shape, but they are also always unmaking themselves.”
Psychopolitics by Byung-Chul Han
An essay illuminating the chokehold neoliberalism has on the psyche, thereby generating the self-exploiting subject. Neoliberalism is an insidious form of domination that cloaks itself in desire and freedom. De-psychologize! De-subjectivize! etc. etc.
The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake (audiobook)
This is the second book in the Atlas Six trilogy. It took me months to listen to the first one, but I flew through this one in a couple of weeks. I’ll be honest: I’m only half-listening while performing other tasks, and am certain I miss out on a lot of plot points, character dynamics, etc…but I am enjoying listening nonetheless.
Reading [Online]
Lately, I’ve been browsing (obsessively) through: Asterisk Mag’s website (the print issues are really fun, but all stories are available free online too, and on Substack); Strange Hymnal (another very fun lit mag and website); and Pioneer Works Broadcast (thanks to the recommendation from Adrienne).
Watching [YouTube]
I really enjoy all of Anna’s videos/podcast episodes. I’ve been trying to catch up recently, and landed on this one this week.
you NEED a commonplace book (job’s journal)
I know everyone has a video about commonplacing now. This one is more of a video essay format, about how/why the commonplace book has become popularized in the journaling community.
Listening [Music]
“The Chant” by Duke Dumont
[Save the Open Tabs rotating playlist]
Listening [Podcast]
The Jazz Musician’s Guide to the Universe (The Gray Area)
The Psychic Question (Search Engine)
Googling
[google searches, without context]
ayin
Immanence theology
concordance
the fool’s journey
prophetic perfect tense
Books on my Radar [TBR]
Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian
Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino (pdf)
Last Week…
Open Tabs #33
Welcome to this week’s edition of Open Tabs, where I share my recent reads, current obsessions, and media consumptions every Sunday!
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