This and that

This week, I read a couple of harrowing books, both fiction and non-fiction, and in between watched Soul, the Disney movie reccomended to me, which turned out to be delightful - both visually (it's amazing was Pixar does here) and in terms of characterisation. Our hero is Joe Gardner, a music teacher wishing he could be full time jazz pianist, voiced by Jamie Foxx, and early on I thought the story would go for another rerun of the basic It's a wonderful life premise, but no, the story goes into another direction. His sidekick-slash-co-lead whom he acquires later on is called 22, voiced by Tina Fey, and we get Angela Bassett voicing jazz saxophonist Dorothy Williams in a supporting role. As Disney/Pixar heroes go, Joe is endearing yet flawed, and believable as a passionate musician to me, which isn't always the case when films depict artists (yet avoid giving more than a nod to the type of art that's supposed to be essential to their lives). You can tell where the broad story is going, but there were some great twists and turns in between, and I really enjoyed watching this in between creeped out by some 18th century people.

I also would have enjoyed the Borgias rewatch I had planned, but alas it turned out my DVDs, which I had not watched in years, possibly since a year after the show ended, are of a terrible quality. One episode was barely watchable, and the next dissolved into blackness. This does not make me happy panda.

Much more importantly: no sooner was I happy that my parents had been vaccinated that Astra Zeneca (first shot) , which they were vaccinated with, was no longer allowed to be used in Germany. So you might say I had a very mixed week so far.