The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2025, pt.7: Xian Mao

 

2025 Pleasures

by Xian Mao

 

 

Pleasure is a hard-won thing these days, especially as the conservative noose tightens around those it deems Other. Pleasure is something to be fought for, for the subaltern to declare their right not only to exist but also to thrive.

 And yet I feel a certain amount of guilt, knowing I am writing from a place of relative privilege and safety. I am fortunate to not be living in a place of famine or war. I am fortunate that, at this moment, I will not be disappeared by the fascist US government as others have. Still, I am afraid to fly. 

 Know that I did in fact experience joy this year, even if it is a joy with a long shadow. I had the pleasure of stumbling on Pádraig O’Tuama’s poem “In the Name of the Bee” at the beginning of the year, and its melancholy meditation has followed me these twelve months. 

 

In terms of books, Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar was by far the most memorable one I’ve read this year. It was challenging and poetic, and even though I foresaw the twist, it was still a beautiful, bittersweet tale. I am always drawn to multigenerational narratives, and Martyr! did not disappoint. The unfortunate thing is I haven’t had much time for reading this year, but I hope to rectify it next year. In truth, writing these year-end essays helps keep me accountable, even if I am terrible at keeping track of what I have read.

 Pleasure is so interesting in this way, isn’t it? So fleeting, something to be cultivated. So easily spoiled into either guilt or indulgence. 

This was a good year for movies. Sinners was excellent, and many others will probably expound on its excellence. As a Chinese American, I do have to praise its Chinese characters specifically and how much research went into the Chows’ portrayals as straddling the line between Blackness and Whiteness. I also really loved Frankenstein, even if Del Toro’s love of the Creature led to him being slightly defanged. As someone who also identifies heavily with monsters, I can forgive him his passion project. 

 

The movie I was the most excited to see this year was The Wedding Banquet. I have mixed feelings on the original directed by Ang Lee, his first foray into depicting homosexuality before Brokeback Mountain, though that may also be due to the person I was when I watched it: twenty years old and desperately looking for some sense of comfort in my identity. There is a tension of an outsider looking in throughout this movie, a hopelessness in the fragile liminal existence of the main lovers. This remake, directed by Andrew Ahn, is the movie I would have liked to have seen back then. Inside this movie is community and acceptance by both family and friends. I can feel the original film’s gaze, the outsider looking in; the remake surrounds me with people I recognize as my friends.

 

In terms of animation, The Summer Hikaru Died blows everything else out of the water for me this year. The beginning has a very specific depiction of grief that made it hard for me to watch multiple episodes in one sitting (this is meant to be praise). To my earlier point about monsters, there is something so deeply compelling about a story about loving a monster, especially with the show’s subtextual queerness. 

 

Nezha 2 was amazing, and as complicated as my relationship is with the PRC, I have identified with the deity since I was 3 years old running around in the courtyard of my grandparents’ apartment complex in Beijing. This character is special to me, and so I had to see the movie in theaters even if it meant watching it at 9pm on a weekday. 

 

The one medium with which I can trace this year’s progress is video games. I finally finished Outer Wilds, experienced ENA: Dream BBQ, and explored the mystery of Animal Well. Rift of the Necrodancer provided quick moments of challenge and concentration when I did not have the mental capacity to do more than hit buttons to catchy songs. Materially, Deltarune affected me the most this year, as it led me to buy a keyboard and play piano again. My partner and I revisited OFF, a game my friends and I discovered on forums in high school. Autumn was punctuated by the long-awaited Silksong and Hades II, both of which did not disappoint. As it is clear, my preference is for indie games, and in this moment where large language models and generative AI are threatening our perception of reality, I am holding onto the imperfections found in small projects, and the limitations that breed creativity. 

 

Last week, I went to a local art fair, and in three different conversations discussed the Muppets, sea slugs, and the artistic merits of gore. Things may seem dire with AI, but I remind myself of our innate desire for creation and connection. A shoutout to zines, murals, spoken word poetry, and burlesque shows, to the crows flying overhead and the squirrel I photographed today gathering leaves off the ground.

 

 

Xian Mao is a queer non-binary Chinese American writer and family medicine doctor whose work with Aqueduct Press include poetry in Climbing Lightly Through Forests, an anthology honoring Ursula K. Le Guin, and the novella Apollo Weeps, a 2024 finalist in the novella category for The Subjective Kind of Chaos Award. They also have short stories published in Undercities (Dirty Birds Press), Rattus Futura (Manawalker Press), and Nobody Left to Blame (Owl Canyon Press). Their short play "Fantasy Roadtrip," focused on the relationship between a young adult and her uncle with schizophrenia, was produced as a part of the 2017 DC Queer Theater Fest. Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, they have called the Northeast home for over ten years. In their (very limited) spare time, they enjoy knitting, making art, playing video games and spending time with their pets.