(Last updated: 21/07/25)
On my bedside table pile right now:
If you're crazy and would like to stay updated on what I'm reading, you may enjoy my goodreads' rss feed. Saves me remembering to update this page quite so regularly :). You can also follow to only receive updates when I've reviewed books, with this feed. Also, I will note, there is nothing that I love more than recommending people books and I have a comprehensive categorisation system to help me with this, so please if you are ever unsure of what to read, let me know and I will try my best to find something good for you!
I am especially interested in bridging the gap between theoretical and real-world security from a cryptographic perspective, and exploration of the extent to which the two are actually correlated. I also have an interest in proof assistants and their applications to cryptography.
I recently read Rogaway's The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work which I also really enjoyed, and would love to read more papers of this variety.
Inspired (blatantly stolen) from my wonderful friend Anna, I am going to try my best to update my song of the week :) This list aims to collect songs that feel like they're going to kick their way out of my chest when I listen to them. If I also end up looking really stupid dancing to them at the bus stop because I literally cannot stop myself that is often a corollary.
For past songs of the week & my thoughts on them, check out the archive here: Song Archive
When I left off writing last week, I thought I'd come back this week and write more about songs featured in movies and discuss some of my favourites. And maybe I still will do this later, but this week I only want to talk about music from one movie. We're talking Mishima today.
Have I watched the film? No, don't be silly. How did this come into my head? Well, through Bob's Burgers and Northernlion. The normal ways. I heard our good friend NL mention Mishima earlier this week and thought, "Isn't that the Phillip Glass soundtrack that bangs?" and indeed, it was. GOD it's so good. I'm mostly referring specifically to the track MISHIMA/Closing, although the rest of the soundtrack is great too. I just keep putting the song on and then listening to it 5-25 times in a row. It's so good. It makes me feel like my heart is bursting out of my body. You HAVE to listen to it in headphones, please, to get the proper experience. The layering of the violins is just sooo exquisite and so beautiful, I love it so much.
Oh, yeah, the Bob's Burgers thing. My family are big Bob's Burgers watchers. It is relentlessly funny but also shockingly sweet. In last years' Christmas episode, Gene's class play an impossibly sophisticated xylophone piece, and it was so gorgeous it maybe made me cry. My dad, a big Phillip Glass fan, said surely it sounded just like a Phillip Glass song --- and he was right! What fun, to stumble across a wonderful arrangement of MISHIMA/Closing in my animated sitcom. This version of Mishima has additional layers, and my favourite feature --- briefly stopping the song and then starting it up again. I actually have cried again listening to it multiple times this week, which is probably only 50% related to the whole hormones thing. While both versions have their merits, I think I may well like this one better, so I'm making it my song of the week.
If you, too, enjoyed this song a lot and would like to listen to more Phillip Glass, I will share with you the playlist my dad made for me with his favourite tracks. He's such a fantastic composer which so much breadth, from the soaring and familiar piano melodies of Glassworks to the twisting and turning of ragas in Passages with Ravi Shankar. My favourite of these songs is Serra Pelada from Powaqqatsi. As my dad told me, it's not classic Glass, but it's so so much fun. I like the familiar sounds of samba music rolled into the track. My dad saw this performed live in the 80s, with the movie played over the top of it. He says this song, the opening, plays over a long scene of men working in a goldmine in Brasil, a big sweeping scene of men hauling dirt up the mountainside. So there you go, you can imagine that over the top.
I hope some lovely Glass is just what you needed, and I have thought about him and these songs a lot this week, so let me know if you like any and I have additional facts to share 😁.
Under construction. My top favourite tv shows are Interview with the Vampire, Riverdale and Bob's Burgers, and I mostly have a lot to say about the first two. Yes I am serious about Riverdale, I think it is a masterpiece, not even worth arguing about it. Will update this to add some essays, maybe.
Regarding movies I am actually so bad at watching them but the past month I've watched LOADS that are good and a couple that were really awful (which is also fun). You may view my opinions on letterboxd dot com. <- recently updated with my reviews of ALL star wars films, as well as everybody's favourite hit, Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper. Incredible stuff.
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