Jason Brown: men's figure skating

Reading: still making my way through The Emperor of Maladies by Siddhartha Mukerjee. (2010). Next up: Alison Bechdel's memoir Are You My Mother?

Watching: finished kdrama Bulgasal (not as good as it started out to be) and started a new one, Tracer, but the subs are really poor so I'm having to wait for better fan subs and they are only up to episode 3 so far.  I tried watching with the bad subs but they consistently get the wrong pronouns so it's anyone's guess who is doing what to whom. My Korean is not good enough to listen AND read bad subs at the same time, and not good enough to follow a drama about tax evasion without subs. Have to say that it is actually making tax evasion dramatic and emotional, so it's worth the wait.

Also watched: first season of Bosch, a police show with Titus Welliver and the guy who played Marol in The Wire, also the guy who placed Cedric Daniels in yet another police chief role. I'm ready for the second season. 

In the queue: the next episode of The Gilded Age. No surprises as to plot for anyone who has read Henry James or Edith Wharton, but what a sumptuous spectacle

Excitedly watching: the men's figure skating singles short program. Lots of drama as the fan favorite and two-time gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyo popped a quad and is now in 8th place while Nathan Chen leads over the other two Japanese competitors, who I liked more than him: Shoma Uno (in third place) and Yuma Kagiyama (in second). Also skating a fabulous program but without the  quads of other competitors was Jason Brown. He was far and away my favorite as to interpretation of the music and the exciting choreography but I don't know enough about skating to tell whether his step sequence or jumps or spins were more technically difficult that the others. According to many fans, the new scoring system rewards jumps over the technicalities of the rest of the skating elements, and while he is technically superior in many aspects of his skating, you have to do quads now to win the biggest competitions. Yuzuru Hanyu was very poetic in his program, but I preferred the energy of Kagiyama in his. The free skate program will be held tomorrow, and I'm able to watch it live without commentary on peacock, although I still have such a hard time navigating the stupid menu. I should be glad it's included in my Comcast service and be grateful. In other figure skating news, the medal ceremony for the team competition, which the Russians won, has been postponed due to "legal issues" and rumors are that they were caught doping again. It may even be that the fifteen-year-old competitor who is the first woman to hit all those quads in competition is the victim of crooked coaching. The Russians had already been penalized for doping by being forced to compete as the ROC--Russian Olympic Committee. The drama is being commented on live over on reddit. What a shame if the team is penalized because of one competitor's violation.

Here is a sweet and thoughtful piece about Jason Brown's path to achieving a balance in his state of mind. His joy in his performance was wonderful to see!