I moved! And then stopped updating this blog because I was flipping tired. I'm less tired now, theoretically, because instead of freelancing and hauling ass all over creation I have a proper grown-up office job that means I leave work at work instead of bringing it home and also I have weekends and time off and paid vacation days.
Is that what's bringing me out of my dry spell? you may ask. I mean, sure. In part. Mostly, though, it's the shitshow that was last Friday and the Kavanaugh hearings. It was a shitshow for a bunch of reasons, actually, and not all of them related to Kavanaugh. In my rage and frustration, I turned to my books (cheaper than therapy!) and pulled out Walden.
It's a book I've loved since high school, and there's always something comforting in going back to the books of your formative years. It's like a hug from a loving parent, or your favorite comfort food. But more than that I needed a reminder of what I miss from America, what I'm proud of, to reorient my inner compass.
"Reading" is always my favorite essay in the whole collection. It has precious little to do with anything I was upset about on Friday, but still, it helped. I might even commit the entire essay to memory, so soothing is the act of reading it. For now, two of my favorite quotes:
The oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the statue of the divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, since it was I in him that was then so bold, and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. No dust has settled on that robe; no time has elapsed since that divinity was revealed.
And this one, which struck me the first time I read it. I copied it on to the notebook cover for my English binder immediately after I read it for AP English in the summer before 11th grade; if I were the artsy type I would cross-stitch it or write it out in calligraphy, frame it, and hang it on the wall alongside my bookshelves.
A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.
What food, normally eaten cooked, do you prefer uncooked?
I don't know if it counts as "cooked," or if I would say "prefer," but I'm comfortable having my bagels untoasted.
What food, normally eaten uncooked, do you prefer cooked?
When I was a kid, all I could think about every time I made (or helped a parent make) cookies or brownies was how when I was an adult, I would make cookies or brownies and then just sit down and eat the whole thing raw.
Now that I'm actually an adult, I have zero desire to do that. Licking the spoon after I'm done scraping out the last of the batter for the cookie sheets or brownie pan is more than enough for me.
What food, normally eaten cold, do you prefer hot?
We only serve beer cold because the temperature dulls the taste of crappy beer. Anything good should probably be served at room temperature.
Also, have you heard the good news about pineapple on pizza?
What food, normally eaten hot, do you prefer cold?
Again, "prefer" is a strong word, but I can live without having my kladdkaka straight out of the oven or warmed up in the microwave. Especially in the summer.
What are your favorite dinner meals to have for breakfast and breakfast meals to have for dinner?
I don't like to have anything dinner-like for breakfast. I generally skip breakfast anyway, since I'm not hungry in the mornings, but anything like a dinner would be too much heavy food too early in the day. The closest I get would be dumplings, maybe, but that's it.
But I'm all about breakfast for dinner, though. Brinner. Pancakes? Omelettes? Waffles? Cereal? Yes. All of it. In my mouth.
I looked back at my Goodreads a couple days ago and realized I hadn't finished anything in June. I don't know what happened—a combination of the worldwide dumpster fire getting worse, reading too many books at once, getting ready to move—but I didn't like it. There's a pretty strong correlation between "not finishing books" and "not feeling well" when it comes to my mood, so it was a relief to finish up Proust and the Squid.
Also it was fucking delightful and a welcome distraction from said dumpster fire. There's a lot to despair of when it comes to humanity, but have you ever realized how incredible it is that we came up with written language and taught ourselves to read?
Image courtesy Icon Books, Limited
Wolf tackles the subject from three perspectives: the history of reading and written languages, what happens in the developing brain when it learns to read, and what goes wrong in some brains that makes reading hard (dyslexia and other reading disorders).
Wolf is a neuroscientist by trade, so Proust and the Squid draws heavily on her research and the research of her peers. However, she's also an engaging writer (perhaps unsurprising for someone who is also an avid reader) and presents the research with clarity, so that the non-neuroscientst layperson can also follow along. (Shout-out to the copyeditor who worked with her; I'm sure they contributed a great deal to this book's engaging readability!) I also appreciate her casually mentioning the titles of other interesting books as they pertained to the subject, because I could add them to my own reading list. (As if it weren't long enough...)
The one downside is that Proust and the Squid was published in 2007, which means it's over ten years old, and a lot of research can happen in that time! I don't know if there's an updated edition but I'd love to read one either way.
As I mentioned back in April, I finished my third 101 in 1001 list in March. I spent a few months thinking about my next list and finished it up in time for my birthday. I like to start on/a little after my birthday, just because I never got over a very childish obsession with birthdays.
My last list was noteworthy for being in progress when The Election happened. (And also for being the first one where I lived in the same place for the entire list.) This list will be noteworthy for carrying me through to the end of the current presidential term. Insert all the jokes here about the 2020 election and 20/20 vision and etc.
In a way, that's reassuring. I felt like my first three lists really flew by, so maybe this one will, too.
What kind of trouble are you getting yourself into?
I've been really bad at time management this summer. I'm on some long-term projects that don't have immediate deadlines, but nonetheless I should be further along than I am. I guess, if I were to be fair to myself, I would point out that I'm using this low period to invest in some professional development (aka reading up on translation theory).
There's an old saw about how work expands or contracts to fit the amount of time you have, and I'm finding that to be the case. I'm only as efficient as my workload is heavy.
What was your most recent car trouble?
Ages ago because Stockholm is a walkable, car-optional city!
What’s a rhyming phrase (such as “work jerk” or “poo shoe”) to describe something causing you problems lately?
Sun fun. As in, I want to have too much of it.
What’s something that needs loosening or unsticking?
I've straight up body checked the automatic doors at Gullmarsplan in between the bus stops and the subway station multiple times because they open so slooooooooooooowly.
What’s your favorite board game involving rolling dice?
I don't know if Munchkin counts, since it's a card game and not a board game. If not, then Settlers of Catan.
If you're not subscribed to Asymptote's newsletter or following their blog, you're missing out. Their staff are like magical book sprites who leave little gifts of international literature in your RSS feed or email inbox. Rien où poser sa tête was one of those little gifts.
Image courtesy Gallimard
Of course, Nowhere to Lay One's Head turned up in Asymptote thanks to Brigitte Manion's review of the English translation. But since I have a passing familiarity with French, and really should practice a little now and then to keep it up, I opted to read the French original rather than the English or Swedish translations.
As a student, I had a hard time connecting with the books we read about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Fortunately I'm not a psychopath and so I can understand, on an intellectual level, why these books are important. I could then, too. I just resented them for not being better, considering the topic matter. (No, I'm not going to name them, because then I'll get a bunch of HOW COULD YOU NOT LIKE XXXXX in the comments. :P) Now that we're apparently willing to give Nazis the benefit of the doubt, I've been wondering lately: what do I think students should read instead of what I read in school?
I'd argue that Rien où poser sa tête is a good candidate. Trying to convey the horror of what happened through the concentration camps can be a bit much to take in. (Not that it should be forgotten, either.) It's so horrible as to be unreal, unfathomable. But because Frenkel's memoirs handle the slow agony of daily life under the Nazi regime, with rations and visa applications and constant upheaval (including children ripped away from their parents, I wonder if that sounds familiar at all?), it becomes easier to understand how these things were able to come to pass, and how they could easily come to pass again and how they already are again holy fucking shit. Nowhere to Lay One's Head was saved from obscurity thanks to an incredible stroke of luck. I think we need to take advantage of that luck and get this in front of all of the eyeballs we can. Out of all of the books you're going to see reviewed on blogs and YouTube and wherever else this year, please make Nowhere to Lay One's Head the book you actually follow up on. Get it on Amazon, ask your library to order it, whatever. It's my birthday tomorrow; consider it your birthday present to me.
Around Christmas of 2013, soon after I moved to Sweden, I decided to incentivize working out on our exercise bike by cycling to Mordor. Except I hated that bike so much (the seat was way too hard and absolute murder on my ass) that I started to find excuses to do anything except go on it. Why wreck my ass when I could take a nice walk in the sunshine instead?
And then I made my fourth attempt at running and C25K, because maybe I was grown up enough to like running. And I was. And so I ended up biking, walking, running, and even a little bit of swimming/water jogging (yes, really!) with Sam and Frodo, all the way from the Shire to Mt. Doom. It took them six months; it took me four and a half years.
(I finished right after my 101 in 1001 list ended. I don't remember the exact date, but I remember that much.)
On the plus side, I got to keep all of my fingers!
One of the tasks on my next 101 in 1001 (which I'll be starting soon) will be to run the long trek back to the Shire. First stop, Minas Tirith for Aragorn's coronation!
I was also half expecting to have some Big Feelings about doing this thing, about committing to an exercise plan for hundreds of miles who knows how many hours, but honestly sitting here thinking about it is mostly underwhelming.
I suppose it's been overshadowed by something that feels like a much bigger accomplishment, namely the fact that I ran a 5K. And a 10K, even! My typical run is now around five kilometers, three days a week. Once the pollen subsides and the weather cools down, I'll see if I can push it a little further.
The second week I started running again this year (after taking it easy during the winter), or maybe the third, I felt awesome and ended up running a 10K, just to see if I could. (I could.) I haven't hit that sweet spot again, but the knowledge that I'm capable of it is reassuring.
Both of those things are bigger deals to me than escorting imaginary hobbits across an imaginary landscape, I have to admit. So I haven't been as excited about making it to Mordor as I would otherwise be. But still, I'd like to thank Sam and Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship for inspiring me to get out there and do the thing, back when not much else could inspire me.
I'm going to back away from that specific terminology because I'm not even remotely Native American (no, not even 1/64th Cherokee Princess). But as for an animal I relate to, black bears spring to mind. I just want to nose around the forest and eat fruit and berries all day (and as I get older, my "fur coat" only seems to get thicker and darker, sigh...). But I'm not nearly as dangerous as an actual black bear when provoked.
It's my birthday soon, which makes me a Cancer in the Western zodiac. According to the stereotype, Cancers have a hard, tough shell to protect their squishy and vulnerable insides. That sounds about right.
What’s your spirit tree?
I can't relate to any tree specifically, but my mortal enemy tree is pine trees. I have a pine (and fir) allergy, which means I'm allergic to Christmas and pesto sauce. Are there other trees that hate pine trees?
Given my stature, I'm not even really tree-like at all. I'm much more of a shrub. I'll go with juniper, I guess. We had a bunch of juniper bushes lining our driveway for years. Teacher Dad was actually planting them when Lawyer Mom went into labor with me. (Lawyer Mom: "My water just broke, we're having this baby." Teacher Dad: "Make some sandwiches while I finish getting this one in the ground and then we'll go to the hospital.") Those plants are no longer with us, but there are still a couple juniper shrubs (bushes?) elsewhere on their property, and they remind me of home.
What’s your spirit food or beverage?
"Bullsky," or equal parts Red Bull and whisky (the cheapest bottom shelf stuff you can find). This is not an actual cocktail you can (or should) order anywhere, or any kind of actual "thing" except with a couple members of my trivia team in the US. But it's an oddball, low-class combination with a distinct flavor that's not for everyone. Just like me!
What’s your spirit weather phenomenon?
Clear skies, bright sun, 28 *C temperatures, a touch of humidity. I'm a wilting tropical orchid.
What’s your spirit passenger vehicle?
I am absolutely an off-brand knock off Mini Cooper.
I'm planning on doing a buddy read of Ulysses this year, and much as I love and patronize libraries, some books are impossible to read unless you own them and have access to them at your leisure. (How many times did I try reading a library copy of The Second Sex, for example?) I spent the afternoon in town browsing The English Bookshop, and while I ended up having to special order Ulysses from their Uppsala store, the chance to browse the random selection led to me finding books I wouldn't have otherwise. 2023: A Trilogy was one of them.
A boy I had a crush on in high school thought the Illuminatus! trilogy was one of the best books ever written and so I devoted a summer to trying to read it. I made it halfway through and never finished, but it was enough that even years later I can recognize the countercultural significance of things like 23, 17, and fnords.
This is important because 2023 is full of Illuminatus! references (mixed in with nods to pop music and other literature). If I hadn't been able to call back to those particular references, I might well have been too lost to appreciate the book.
It's a fun read if you're either in the know or thirsty for meta, slightly experimental satirical science fiction. If you're not, then you're probably going to enjoy it as much as Jake Arnott.
Sweet baby Christ, has it really been over a month since anything except a Friday 5 went up here?
Guess so. Trying to figure out time management so I can spin approximately five? six? different plates is not working out.
Anyway, let's dive back into What's Going On In Katherine's Life with a peak at the citizenship ceremony I attended back on Nationaldagen!
Nationaldagen in Sweden is much more low-key than the American equivalent. It mostly just seems like an excuse to have a red day when the weather's nice.
Except.
For immigrants it means that you get invited to Blå hallen at Stadshuset for speeches and music.
The music at the American version would be a bunch of old standards: some Sousa, maybe "God Bless America" or "America the Beautiful" or something similar, and of course the national anthem. Sweden opts for a selection from a musical written by half of ABBA and a schlager hit from 1979's Melodifestivalen (in addition, of course, to "Du gamla du fria"). This is a kind of patriotism I can get behind!
Fika (one (1) kanelbulle and one (1) tiny cup of coffee or lingonberry juice) came after the speeches and the music, up in the "Golden Hall," so called because every single inch of wall and ceiling space is covered in gold (gold-colored anyway) Medieval-style mosaics. I couldn't get many good pictures, but this is the best one:
As in, the best picture I got and but also as in, features one of my favorite figures from Swedish history, Drottning Kristina. She was a bug-eyed weirdo super-smart lesbian (?) with wild hair who spoke eight languages, never married and after a couple years of ruling as queen regent, converted to Catholicism and peaced out to Vatican city, abdicating the throne to her cousin. A royal fit for pride month!
Here's some from Wikipedia that are much better:
They had organ music for the post-ceremony fika. I didn't pay too much attention to it until we were on our way out, when something about the tune struck me as familiar. It hit me and Lord Xenu at the same moment and we looked at each other. He was the first to say it:
"Isn't this...'I Will Survive'?"
Yes, the renowned Swedish diva Gloria Gaynor!
On the way out I got an envelope with free tickets to Skansen and a gift bag from the economics and law student union that had some brochures and a basil plant. There's no way I'll ever be a member of the economics and law student union, but the fresh basil was lovely in the salad I made for dinner later that week.
Part of me was anxious the whole time; it's an election year here in Sweden and everyone's real upset about immigration, so it would have been a whole room full of sitting ducks for some kind of giant terrorist THING to make some kind of point or other, and security was essentially non-existent. But a bunch of cops and metal detectors would have ruined the atmosphere. Dålig stämning. That would be very un-Swedish. I guess it's very un-Swedish (and very American) of me to think that way. Sigh.
I'm going to back away from that specific terminology because I'm not even remotely Native American (no, not even 1/64th Cherokee Princess). But as for an animal I relate to, black bears spring to mind. I just want to nose around the forest and eat fruit and berries all day (and as I get older, my "fur coat" only seems to get thicker and darker, sigh...). But I'm not nearly as dangerous as an actual black bear when provoked.
It's my birthday at the end of this month, which makes me a Cancer in the Western zodiac. According to the stereotype, Cancers have a hard, tough shell to protect their squishy and vulnerable insides. That sounds about right.
What’s your spirit tree?
I can't relate to any tree specifically, but my mortal enemy tree is pine trees. I have a pine (and fir) allergy, which means I'm allergic to Christmas and pesto sauce. Are there other trees that hate pine trees?
Given my stature, I'm not even really tree-like at all. I'm much more of a shrub. I'll go with juniper, I guess. We had a bunch of juniper bushes lining our driveway for years. My dad was actually planting them when my mom went into labor with me. (Mom: "My water just broke, we're having this baby." Dad: "Make some sandwiches while I finish getting this one in the ground and then we'll go to the hospital.") Those plants are no longer with us, but there are still a couple juniper shrubs (bushes?) elsewhere on their property, and they remind me of home.
What’s your spirit food or beverage?
"Bullsky," or equal parts Red Bull and whisky (the cheapest bottom shelf stuff you can find). This is not an actual cocktail you can (or should) order anywhere, or any kind of actual "thing" except with a couple members of my trivia team in the US. But it's an oddball, low-class combination with a distinct flavor that's not for everyone. Just like me!
What’s your spirit weather phenomenon?
Clear skies, bright sun, 28 *C temperatures, a touch of humidity. I'm a wilting tropical orchid.
What’s your spirit passenger vehicle?
I am absolutely an off-brand knock off Mini Cooper.
Years ago. I had a whiskey glass from the tour I took of the Jameson distillery when I visited during spring break in 2008. It survived decorating my college dorm, but when I came home it slipped out of my hand and didn't survive its meeting with the concrete garage floor.
The friend I had visited in Dublin gifted me his later to make up for it. Friendship goals!
When did you last break something ceramic?
I don't know that I ever have, actually.
When did you last break something electronic?
After really good luck with smartphones for years, I finally dropped and cracked the screen on my smartphone last year.
When did you last break a non-traffic-related law?
I've definitely had more than my allotted amount of liquids on a flight.
When did you last break a promise?
I promised one of my students I would bring Dixit around for our next lesson and then didn't. I'm not usually that forgetful...!
When did you last punch someone? Alternate question: When did someone last punch you?
I suspect it was when I was drunk. Drunk Katherine gets a little punchy. (Not seriously. Just friendly shoulder jabs.) I suspect the people I drink with aren't inclined to return the sentiment because they're not into hitting women, which is an admirable sentiment.
How many of those frequent (whatever) stampcards/punchcards do you have, and which are you most likely to fill and redeem?
I have one to Details, a bra and lingerie store in Stockholm. I cheap out on everything else I wear, almost, but I will plunk down good money for a bra and you better believe that I'll take any discount I can get on those purchases.
I also have one for SF Bokhandeln, but I rarely spend enough on one purchase to warrant a stamp, and the resulting discount isn't really that much, so trying to fill it up would be a false economy. (Especially since any given card expires after a year.) The English Bookshop offers a slightly better deal (and I tend to buy more books there anyway) and the card never expires, so I actually fill it up now and then.
When have you had a really good fruit punch?
Does the smoothie I'm drinking right now count? Supercharged black tea (read as: I let it steep for hours, and then chill) plus mango plus bananas. When you need that caffeine hit but it's too hot for warm drinks!
What are your thoughts on boxing?
At this point, it seems more humane (and like the participants are taking a more informed risk) than in other public and popularly sanctioned sports in the US (what up, football).
When do you usually punch in and punch out?
Freelancers are never not working or thinking about work. Or maybe that's just me.
What’s something you remember about your high school graduation?
That it happened, mainly.
If you were asked to speak at a commencement ceremony this year, what would be the theme of your message?
Live deliberately. Do the things you want to do; want to do the things you do.
What items in your possession are marked with the name or logo of your high school or college?
Well, my college diploma is in a drawer in the kitchen, and the school cane is boxed up and ready to ship from my parents' house. (My alma mater is a bit odd in that, in addition to being presented with a diploma, you also get a wooden ornamental cane upon graduating. I have no idea why.) I don't have any school spirit clothing or tchotchkes, otherwise.
What do you expect will be your next rite of passage?
Completing KPU at Stockholms universitet? Turning 40?
What’s a good movie with a graduation scene, or a good movie with a graduation theme?
I have no idea if it's in the movie, but Enid and Becky's attitude towards graduation in the original graphic novel version of Ghost World mirrored my own.
What’s one of your language-related (that is, something people say or write) pet peeves?
Editors are supposed to have an endless list of these, right? So the stereotype goes. We are the gatekeepers of language and so on and so forth. And I guess we all do, probably. But if you look at the layperson's language pet peeves ("they're/there/their"! "your/you're"!) and the editor's pet peeves, the overlap would probably be quite small.
What’s one of your dining-out-related pet peeves?
It's nobody's fault, but somehow the waiter always comes over to check on you just when your mouth is full of food. Or maybe they do this deliberately so as to avoid getting sucked into an actual conversation with someone who wants to nit pick the seasoning of the vegetables.
What’s one of your technology-related pet peeves?
Windows updates.
What’s one of your television-watching pet peeves?
Romance. Any time a show (or book or movie, for that matter) features a close friendship or even working relationship between a man and a woman, romance almost inevitably gets shoehorned in. If not outright romance, then something like Will They Won't They. It chafes for a lot of reasons (lazy way to add tension, heteronormativity, implying that the only possible relationship between men and women is romantic/sexual) but I think this one hits me personally because most of my inner circle are men. (Not for "women are just too much drama!" reasons; it just seems to have happened.) The close friendships I have with women are also way different than how they're portrayed in media (much more random weirdness, much less obsessing over shoes and sex) but at least they're not wholly misrepresented as some kind of waiting room for romance.
This is, incidentally, why I love Elementary so much. Sherlock and Joan are #FriendshipGoals to the extreme. Of course, now that I've said that, I've cursed the show to fall victim to exactly this trap. Sigh.
What’s something you do that you know peeves others?
Swedish has an expression: tidsoptimist. This is someone who lacks a solid grasp of how long it takes to get to places and (the implication is) is usually late.
I've been here for five years and I'm still a tidsoptimist. I still operate by American car-owning convenience and fail to take into account that I'm not leaving whenever I like, but according to public transportation's time table. I'm stricter about this with clients, or with traveling, but socially? All bets are off. I get there when I get there. (Maybe this is why I don't have many Swedish friends?)
What did you last place into a file folder?
Physically? Some hard copies of comments and revisions I got back from a critique group member. I have an accordion file folder for this project (I've been working on it since 2014) and each slot is feedback from a different reader. I should probably go through and clean it out. Some comments are about revisions I've since made, others are on sections that have since been discarded. It's not really worth it to keep that much of a record around.
What do you know how to fold a piece of paper into?
Not much. A paper airplane? And I could probably make a cootie catcher, still.
What’s your laundry-folding procedure like?
I don't fold laundry.
When do you next expect to invite someone into your fold?
Making friends in Sweden is hard. Maybe I haven't met the right Swedes, just, but all of the new friends I've made (if the word "friend" can even be applied) have been other immigrants and expats. I think this moment is coming soon, though; I have quite a few acquaintances on the periphery that I'm ready to befriend.
When have you slept on a foldaway bed?
Probably not since high school. One of my friends had a fold-out couch in her rec room and if I slept over, it was on that bed.
The June selection for my Facebook book club was The Spider King's Daughter, the debut novel by Chibundo Onuzo. I went in hoping that it would pull me out of the book slump brought on by Radiance, How I Became A North Korean,Gena/Finn, and the middle grade books I previewed for some of my students. The Facebook book club has the best hit/miss ratio out of all three that I'm in, after all.
Onuzo is an engaging writer and I hope she continues down that path. (Her second book, Welcome to Lagos, came out last year. Hurrah!) This was engaging at a time when nothing else I was reading could capture my interest and Onuzo deserves a lot of praise just for that.
My favorite parts of the book all involve spoilers. I will say this: what starts as a meet cute adolescent love story takes on an unexpectedly darker tone. Or maybe I should have been expecting that, considering that the book opens with Abike telling us about how her father had her beloved dog deliberately run over.
Most of the reveals were more or less obvious, but the book doesn't rely on the shock of those reveals for impact. I think, even, Onuzo expects readers to already know the truth from the very beginning. It's how the characters react to these reveals that's engaging and unexpected.
The book switches between Abike and Runner G's perspectives, with Abike's in italics. Reading extended passages in italics is straining, at best, but Onuzo's prose (and the short paragraphs) make it much easier than in other books (James Agee's posthumous A Death in the Family, for example). At the book's climax, when we switch between Abike's and Runner G's perspectives rapidly—at every line, for a short while—this typesetting choice proves very necessary.
The Spider King's Daughter was engaging, it was readable, it was a diverting and fun read. I didn't love it, but I'm glad I read it. It certainly was a bad book combo breaker, and for that I'm grateful.
What’s a food that tastes completely unlike anything else you can think of?
This one is taking a lot of thought. I mean, lots of things have a relatively distinct taste, right? Even if everything also tastes like chicken.
I imagine surströmming is singular in its taste. (I say that having never tried it. I don't dig on fish.) I also have a hard time with the artificial sweetener Splenda: it leaves a distinctly coppery aftertaste that ruins anything it touches.
What’s a movie that’s completely unlike any movie you can think of? Russian Arkis a weird but surprisingly enjoyable artsy look at the history of the St. Petersburg Hermitage that's all one long 90-ish minute shot.
Who’s a musician or band you consider completely unoriginal but whom you still like?
I think it's a given that most popular top 40 bands and artists cleave to the lowest common denominator instead of doing anything groundbreaking, but most of the music on my phone is popular top 40 bops (and obscure international indie bands) because it's good workout music.
Who or what are two people or things you keep mixing up with one another?
To this day I still confuse Silent Hill and Resident Evil (the video games, not the movies). No doubt there are countless celebrities that I mix up as well, because I'm not good at keeping track of famous names and faces.
What’s something you’ll do this weekend that’s different from your normal weekend activity?
Not much, really. I might do a little more enthusiastic cleaning than I would normally. The apartment isn't in an awful state yet, but an ounce of prevention and all of that.
This was a selection for Feminist Science Fiction Book Club. I picked it up on a whim from SF Bokhandeln when I was out during Kulturnatt because I'm weak (and because it was constantly checked out of the library).
This gif is turning up in a lot of my reviews recently.
If I had to pick one word to describe Radiance, it would be "overindulgent." The structure Valente chooses (or rather, the lack of structure) does nothing to contain this tendency towards overblown wordiness or direct us to an understanding either of events or character.
Take, for example, Where'd You Go, Bernadette?(Did I only read that in January? Jesus, it feels like ages ago. The political climate really is aging us in dog years.) There is a whole bunch of documentation (rather than narration), but it all works to move the story forward. Could everything in the documentation have been written as narrative? Yes, probably, but the documentation is actually a pretty efficient way to set up the later events of the story. Conversely: every single scrap in there contributes something to the story.
I'll be real: I think I skipped about half of Radiance and yet that did not affect my understanding of what actually happened. Life is too short to keep reading books you don't enjoy; I find skimming to be an acceptable compromise when you want to know what happens but don't want to sift through a bunch of nonsense. I quickly sorted out the bits of Radiance that were most likely to move the plot along, read those, skipped the rest. At least the book is well labeled, which makes for easy skimming.
The other thing that makes Radiance overindulgent is the style. Valente's writing is, as another reviewer put it, "high-octane purple prose." It's overwrought, it's too much, and while I get it's supposed to be an art deco gothic and therefore can be expected to be a bit much, it's a bit much everywhere. Most tedious of all were the screenplays. Take, for example, the first extract from the "White Pages" section of the book (that is, very early on); the following quotes are taken from what's given as the "action" portion of any given screenplay.
Open on the pristine streets of sunny Moscow, lined with popsicle-carts, jugglers, dazzled tourists. The streetlamps are garlanded with lime-blossoms, sunflowers, carnations. The joyful throng crowds in fierce and thick; the camera follows as they burst into Red Square. The splendid ice-cream towers of the Kremlin beam down benignly. The elderly TSAR NICHOLAS II, his still-lovely wife, and their five children, hale in their glittering sashes, wave down at the cannoneers standing at attention on the firing pad at the 1944 Worlds' Fair. The launch site is festooned with crepe and swinging summer lanterns, framed by banners wishing luck and safe travel in English, Russian, Chinese, German, Spanish, and Arabic.
So far so good, right? But then it continues.
SEVERIN UNCK and her CREW wave jerkily as confetti sticks to their sleek skullcaps and glistening breathing apparatuses. Her smile is immaculate, practiced, the smile of the honest young woman of the hopeful future. Her copper-finned helmet gleams at her feet. SEVERIN wears feminine clothing with visible discomfort and only for this shot, which she intends, in the final edit, to be ironic and wry: She is performing herself, not performing herself in order to tell a story about something else entirely. The curl of her lip betrays, to anyone who knows her, her utter disdain of the bizarre, flare-skirted, swimming-cum-trapeze-artist costume that so titillates the crowd. The wind flutters the black silk around her hips. She tucks a mahogany case—which surely must contain George, her favorite camera—smartly under one arm. All of her crewmen strap canisters of film, a few steamer trunks of food, oxygen tanks, and other minor accouterments to their broad backs. The real meat of the expedition, supplies and matériel meticulously planned, acquired, logged, and collected, was loaded into the cargo bays overnight. What Severin and her crew carry, they carry for the camera, for the film being shot of this film being shot.
It's hard to imagine 90% of this being included in any actual screenplay. Take, for example, The Matrix:
INT. CHASE HOTEL - NIGHT
The hotel was abandoned after a fire licked its way across
the polyester carpeting, destroying several rooms as it
spooled soot up the walls and ceiling, leaving patterns of
permanent shadow.
We FOLLOW four armed POLICE OFFICERS using flashlights as
they creep down the blackened hall and ready themselves on
either side of Room 303.
The biggest of them violently kicks in the door --
The other cops pour in behind him, guns thrust before
them.
BIG COP Police! Freeze!
The room is almost devoid of furniture. There is a fold-
up table and chair with a phone, a modem, and a Powerbook
computer. The only light in the room is the glow of the
computer.
Sitting there, her hands still on the keyboard, is
TRINITY; a woman in black leather.
BIG COP Hands behind your head! Now! Do it!
She slowly puts her hands behind her head...
The Big Cop flicks out his cuffs, the other cops holding a
bead. They've done this a hundred times, they know
they've got her, until the Big Cop reaches with the cuffs
and Trinity moves --
It almost doesn't register, so smooth and fast, inhumanly
fast.
The eye blinks and Trinity's palm snaps up and his nose
explodes, blood erupting. Her leg kicks with the force of
a wrecking ball and he flies back, a two-hundred-fifty
pound sack of limp meat and bone that slams into the cop
farthest from her.
Trinity moves again, BULLETS RAKING the WALLS, flashlights
sweeping with panic as the remaining cops try to stop a
leather-clad ghost.
A GUN still in the cop's hand is snatched, twisted and
FIRED. There is a final violent exchange of GUNFIRE and
when it's over, Trinity is the only one standing.
A flashlight rocks slowly to a stop.
Is Valente deliberately writing something narrative-like in the guise of a screenplay as a means to play with form? Or does she think she's writing a good screenplay? It's impossible to tell! On the one hand, Valente should know the difference, if her biography is any indication; she says straight up in the acknowledgments that her father was a filmmaker. Yet as the book continues, it's clear that Valente really only has one writing mode, or is choosing only one mode for this story, and that is overwrought. It works in some situations (gossip columns, a few personal diaries) and falls flat in others (transcripts of conversations: actual human beings don't talk like that). So many people write breathlessly about Valente's amazing prose in reviews that I can't tell if I don't know what's good anymore, or if people are just confusing wordiness and faux-profundity with good writing. Maybe both?
There's another layer to Radiance, or at least there's supposed to be, about how the narratives of our lives and celebrity lives are constructed and so on and so forth, but it was just really hard to care because the writing and presentation is so distant from what it's conveying that it's impossible to care about any of the characters.
Valente is clearly a competent, if not talented, writer, but in Radiance she gets caught up in her own hype and it feels like no one around her told her no.
With which Looney Tunes character do you have the most in common?
I didn't care much for Looney Tunes as a kid. The physical humor that's inherent in the genre has never been my cup of tea. I'll cheat and say Shirley the Loon from Tiny Toons.
Who or what are your metaphorical Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote?
I don't think I have a Wile E. Coyote (I hope not!). But we all have a Road Runner, don't we? Mine is a totally stress-free vacation. One day...
What’s up, doc?
That's all, folks!
When did you last hear some opera music?
I listen to a lot of classical music while I edit and translate. That doesn't usually include opera, since I find vocals distracting, but the Fidelio overture came up in my playlist yesterday.
What’s a good life lesson you learned from Looney Tunes?
You can't always get what you want, and often when you do, it's not as good as you hoped it would be.
I've been interested in Korean politics ever since I lived and taught there in 2009/2011/2012. It's an "automatic read" category of literature and books for me, which is why How I Became a North Korean was my first impulse library book in over three years. That made it all the more frustrating when it turned out to be another dud!
The book summary promises a "found family" sort of story, which is one of my favorite tropes. The story doesn't really deliver on that promise, however. The three main characters don't interact all that much and their connection to each other, emotionally as well as story-wise, is tenuous at best. Nor does Lee really find a strong voice for each perspective, meaning that the different parts of the story and the different characters begin to blend together.
There is also the question of how much of a foreign language to include when you're writing, in English, a story where no one speaks English. Some choices were the same as I would make, but some felt a little unnecessary. Of course, Lee is bilingual and I'm not—I really only know "just enough to be dangerous," as the expression goes—so maybe her Korean/English bilingual readers would disagree with me.
Ultimately, the story moves along at a good clip and Lee's writing style is fluid, so it's a quick read. But at the end of it, I felt like I would have rather read an account of all of her research rather than the novel I had just finished.
I say "19.5" because with a flight out of the country in the evening, this wasn't exactly a whole day in Boston. I spent a smidge over 24 hours in town, so should that count as two days?
I woke up a little before Diana's alarm and futzed around a bit on my phone. She showered and got ready for work, and I got dressed in my lazy bum traveling clothes and we were off.
My morning wasn't too eventful. I dumped my travel bag at the station, and then spent the rest of the time I had until burritos with Diana and Walter writing in Boston Common and then wandering through the botanical gardens.
Much State. Very Legislature. Wow. So Government.
I appreciate the bird photobombing but not dude in the fannypack.
It was SO. HOT. that day and I very much wanted to jump in any and every body of water I saw. Fountains, duck pond, the little kid wading pool...all of them.
All of this was right after Nazi demonstrations and protests and tiki torches and all of that good stuff. (I picked a helluva time to be back in the US!) It was a topic of discussion when we were at dinner in Old Orchard Beach. Seth (Walter's boyfriend) was amazed that Nazis would even dare to turn up and show their faces in Boston, of all places—the city is so progressive and liberal and etc.
I shook my head. "Nah man, what I've heard from non-white friends of mine who live there...it's a different experience."
There were leftovers of protests and rumbles on the Common.
The text spraypainted on the ground reads "Racism will not win." We can only hope. =/
And on this monument to I guess the Pilgrims? "$ IS POWER XFREEDOM I$ RESISTANCE." I don't know if I hold entirely with that logic, protest artist. The first half, yes. But I don't know it's connected to resisting or freedom. Maybe "resistance is freedom"? Otherwise you're maybe putting the cart before the horse.
Civil War memorial to "white officers" and "black rank and file." It feels like a lukewarm attempt at Black History TM by throwing them in with the white officers but on the other hand if they fought together, shouldn't they be memorialized together?
I finished my writing and my photo-taking and wandered in the direction of the public gardens, because I guess that's what I do on vacations now?
Overheard in Boston:
"The flowers are dyin' 'cause they don't water 'em."
"They do water 'em, every day."
"Why are they dyin', then?"
"'Cause of the sun."
More overheard in Boston:
"MOM! A duck bit my thumb!"
There were a couple buskers out in the park. An elderly Asian man playing what I think was an erhu, and then a hip young white dude with a tenor sax: "Careless Whispers," "What A Wonderful World," etc.
I wandered over to the burrito place to meet and Walter. It was a take-out place for nearby young professionals, and since I was eating with young professionals, that meant there was no place to really sit or any time to really talk.
We said our goodbyes and I walked around the city a bit, despite it being SO. HOT., because I figured if I'm going to say that I visited Boston, I should have at least seen some of it? The other times I've been in Boston, I've been sequestered away indoors at anime conventions so I wanted to say that I had actually been in Boston. Or whatever.
I was due to meet another friend, Amy, at a marketplace in the afternoon, though I turned up quite a bit early so I could browse around a bit and enjoy the air conditioning. I bought some yarn for one of my knitter friends back home, and picked up a business card from American Stonecraft. I love rocks, and I love New England, and this is exactly the kind of thing that my mother-in-law loves, so I'll probably buy something online for her birthday or Christmas present. (Probably a coaster or two.)
Once in a green time a flower
Oh, fell in love with the sun.
The passion lasted for an hour
And then she wilted from her loved one.
I appreciated the tip jar humor but was fresh out of any cash at all by this point. Nor did I feel like buying some nuts, even as the guy behind the counter was really friendly and offered me some free samples. Womp womp.
Amy did the very smart thing and brought GAMES because two people with low-key (and sometimes not so low-key) social anxiety need all the help interacting they can get! Or at least I do, even if meeting Internet friends is always less fraught than I expect it because it's not like I don't know them at all or anything. Although I was still a bit of a traveling mess—piecey hair, clothes chosen for comfort rather than fashion, indescribably sweaty—so props to and everyone else that day for spending time with my unattractive self!
After we got chocolate and chatted a bit and I saw some Andy pictures I hadn't before (ATTACK OF THE FIFTY-FOOT TODDLER!), we played a couple rounds of Hanabi, which I sucked at but enjoyed nonetheless and have since added to our small roster of games (Munchkin, Dixit, Magic: The Gathering).
After that it was off to the station to pick up my bag, which I had to pay some extra for by all of ten? fifteen? minutes. Ugh. Nonetheless, it was worth the convenience. I had a hell of a time finding the bus to Logan, and then the check-in line for Norwegian was FOREVER LONG. It wasn't as stressful as it would be if it were my flight going in—I had no pressing plans back in Sweden that would suffer if I got bumped back a few hours or even a day—but it still made me anxious. The family behind me, on the other hand, realized they had the wrong passports, and it was a rush of phonecalls and sending out teenage son to meet dad and etc. to fix it. So someone was having an even more stressful wait than I was!
We boarded on time, though, and everything went smoothly. My layover in Copenhagen was slightly shorter this time around, so I didn't try to do any more exploring. I just hung out at one of the terminals, charging my phone and letting my boyfriend know that I would be at Arlanda in a couple of hours.
I don't know about scariest as such, but the most unpleasant movie I've ever had to watch is a Japanese one called Blood and Bones. Every trigger warning ever for that movie; I actually had to hit pause a couple of times and take a break for something more pleasant.
In the same vein, Pan's Labyrinth also messed me up. I went to see it with a bunch of friends on a Friday night, and afterwards the plan was to have a Dungeons and Dragons and beers session. Instead I just curled up in a ball on the couch without drinking or talking to anyone for the rest of the night.
I think the last movie thing that genuinely terrified me, though, were the TV commercials for Bram Stoker's Dracula back in the 90s. I had nightmares about vampires for a solid week after catching a glimpse of that ad.
What most recently startled you?
I guess my alarm?
What’s something in your residence that’s frightening?
I have a postcard with art that I guess someone might find frightening but I just really like. It's original art by a friend of mine, an altered photo she took of Buddhist statuary in Japan.
What kinds of social settings cause you anxiety?
Social settings where I'm not in charge of something or running something but where I just have to open-endedly interact with other human beings. So you know, most of them.
What’s something you are no longer afraid of?
I've 99% conquered my fear of getting hit by a car. As a kid I was terrified of blacktop pavement because I was afraid that cars lurked around every corner, waiting for me to step on the road just so they could run me over. (One summer when I was maybe 6 years old or so, I just straight up exposure therapy'd myself by running back and forth across the street in front of our house, as if proving to myself SEE NOTHING HAPPENED IT'S FINE.) I still get nervous crossing the street, but you don't have to carry me across parking lots anymore!
Okay, so here's the cool part: Abdel Kader Haidara, after years of careful negotiations and curation, managed to assemble a peerless collection of ancient Malian manuscripts, both Islamic and secular. But when Al Qaeda took over Timbuktu, the manuscripts—works of art in themselves that also advocated for religious tolerance and scientific curiosity, even in the 13th century CE—became a target of Islamic extremists. Haidara and other archivists worked hard to smuggle these literary treasures to a safety.
And the book starts off with a satisfying and easy to follow history of Timbuktu and its cultural heritage in the larger Islamic world, as well as a brief history of Haidara's work hunting down and negotiating with families, convincing them to entrust these priceless artifacts with him so that they could be preserved and studied.
And of course you get snatches of Haidara and his helpers smuggling books out of Timbuktu and into safety.
But.
In reality, the focus (at least in the middle and end of the book) is more on the sectarian violence in Mali in the early 2010s. An extraordinary amount of detail about developments and actors in the political situation is provided when a simple summary would have sufficed. I suspect that these lefthand turns are the reason that I kept falling out of the book and why it took me several months to finish. Maybe even years? I remember reading it in an airport on the way back from a wedding, but I can't say for sure if it was Aaron's wedding in 2017 or my brother's wedding in 2016. Either way: it doesn't usually take me that long to finish your stand popular journalism kind of book. (Reading an ebook version probably didn't help, either.)
The job I worked at in the US has a picnic grove attached to it. It's a tourist trap (I say that in the most affectionate and loving way possible; I love tourist traps) in a small town, so naturally it has a bit of extra property with space for visitors to relax and plan their next stop (or for visiting school groups to eat their lunch). The trash cans in that picnic grove were some of the foulest things I've smelled in my life, especially during the summer or after a tour of 120 school kids with bagged lunches. They usually required two people to empty, too, since they were big, heavy-duty things, and the picnic grove was downhill and across the street from our dumpster.
I get nostalgic for that job a lot, but not for that part of it.
How are you about deleting emails?
I think the oldest email in my inbox is from 2006. It's weird to think I have emails that are older than some (most) of my students, but there you have it. I should maybe be better about deleting them, though. In case I want to run for President. BUT HER EMAILS
What do you treasure that someone else considers trash?
One of my best sources for beads is old jewelry no one wants anymore.
What’s the litter like in your neighborhood?
Not too bad. And the Nazis have stopped putting up posters as well!
I had really personal reasons for being interested in Gena/Finn and for recommending it for my Discord book club and then it fucking disappointed me.
Most of my friends in high school were of the Internet variety, out of a group of fans of a particular TV show. Even though I was never really active in "fandom" as such (I don't write or read fanfiction, I don't hoard fanart, I'm not really interested in making the things I like the be-all, end-all of my identity...I just wanted to find the rest of the episodes online that I hadn't already seen), the way those friendships formed online were really important to how I grew up and where I ended up in life. I don't think there are many books that really tackle the importance (and also weirdness) of online friendships; the last time I'd read about that sort of thing was in Pattern Recognition of all things, and that was just a brief aside in what was otherwise a cyberpunk thriller.
I was expecting a story that chronicled the kind of awkward budding friendships I was cultivating in front of the computer screen in high school, and what I got was something else. Those were the bits Moskowitz and Helgeson skipped right over in favor of the kind of melodrama that could happen between any two friends, regardless of where or how they met, but with a sprinkling of unrealistic lefthand turn plot points for good measure (former child actors! shoehorned romance! tragic deaths!).
And the nail in the coffin for me was reading the book summary after I had read the book.
Gena (short for Genevieve) and Finn (short for Stephanie) have little in common. Book-smart Gena is preparing to leave her posh boarding school for college; down-to-earth Finn is a twenty-something struggling to make ends meet in the big city.
If I've read the book and I still need the GoodReads book description to tell me that Gena and Finn have nothing in common, and that one is "book-smart" while the other is "down-to-earth," then you've failed in your writing. In the book they come across as quite samey, except that one of them has a history of mental health issues.
Anything more specific than that will veer into spoiler territory so I'll save those complaints for book club where I know that people will either have read it or not care about it.
As of the end of March, I finished up my third 101 in 1001 list. The final count is currently available on my 101 in 1001 page, but since that will be scrubbed in a few months, I'm memorializing it here, after the jump because it's a bit long. First, the commentary.
Proudest Moments
Out of all three lists, this one feels the most accomplished so far. I cleared around 60 goals completely, and I attempted a fair amount more. I'm not sure how that compares to past lists, since I don't feel like going back and comparing at the moment, but I did power through two pretty significant items:
1. I finished my modified TIME Top 100 novels list, a goal I've had since I first started this in 2009 (!).
2. I ran a goddamn 5K. I ran multiple 5Ks. This was a goal I'd set for myself on previous lists, then invariably take off the list in favor of something else because it felt too ambitious. And then I accomplished it by accident? Life is weird.
Moments of Reflection
1. I like the old-school Dr. Who, I really do, but we got up to the French Revolution story line and Lord Xenu kind of lost interest in it so we stopped watching. I don't really watch much TV or movies on my own, either, so if he doesn't want to watch something, I just won't watch it. (On the other hand, he's often quite keen to watch MST3K.) I'm torn between A) still including this because I like Dr. Who, or B) not including it because I'll probably fail at it again. I might just compromise and scale down the attempt (like, just finishing the French Revolution story line from the first series, or just finishing the first series, rather than the first two Doctors).
2. There were a lot of political things that got tacked on this list because The Election happened midway through. But I did a bad job counting them and an even worse job being consistent. I might scale it back, or figure out how to find my rhythm.
3. How much do I really care about that IMDB list? I don't know. But even though I failed pretty spectacularly on foreign movies and documentaries this time around, I do care about those, so that goal will definitely continue to stay on.
4. Now that running is a well-established habit, the next thing to tackle is strength training. I like yoga, but it's not the most efficient strength training route. The RCAF 5BX (or rather the adapted version here) seems like it might be a better option. I might also incorporate a planking challenge as an item? I don't know.
For the Next List
1. The reading goal is shaping up to be a combination of this Modern Library list and some books recommended in this post.
2. I might have to up my Swedish reading game, since I'm no longer in Swedish class. (Lord Xenu uses English with me so it's not like I get that much practice at home.)
3. I have some hard travel choices I'm going to have to make. After being invited to vend at last year's WorldCon (in Helsinki), it occurred to me that...I might do really well at WorldCon? It'll be in August 2019, which is sneaking up already. In addition to bulking up my Etsy stock, I would have to get a proper show table and display ready. On the plus side, one of my best friends (founding member of the Austin Feminist Science Fiction Book Club) got in touch with me about attending WorldCon in Dublin, fond as he is of the city (and, I hope, of me...!). The other horn of the travel dilemma is a wedding in Seoul, South Korea in March, which is less than a year away! Neither my sanity nor my budget can afford both (probably), so...
What physical trait are you (or have you been) self-conscious about?
Hi guys, I could write a whole novel on being fat! But so many other writers handle it better, so rather than go into it myself I'll just post links to two writers whose perspectives helped me get right with Fat Jesus.
Even though I've gotten right with Fat Jesus, small things remain. Mostly my nose. I don't hate it enough to go under the knife, and my human brain recognizes that it's a perfectly normal nose, but my lizard brain can't stop comparing it to adorable ski jump button noses. Even actresses who are constantly put on "quirky beauties" or "big noses" or whatever lists don't have the same kind of nose I do.
When did you last do something risking injury?
I guess going for a run always risks injury, right? So depending on when this post goes up, either Wednesday or today.
Why do critics and the general movie-going public never seem to agree?
I'd say the operative word is "seem." I suspect most of the time critical opinions and the public's opinions are generally in line. Otherwise I imagine that the contributing factor is that movie critics are a self-selecting group of people who gravitate towards the arts and appreciate, even crave, novelty in the form and as a result they're generally more appreciate of movies that are subtle or unusual. Most people watch movies for comfort or entertainment rather than critical engagement, and so they're more drawn towards predictable (or surprising-within-predictable-schemas) and comforting rather than challenging or difficult.
How do you feel about Hugh Jackman as an actor?
#NotMyWolverine
Who is the best singer you’ve seen in live performance?
I don't really go to live music performances that often. (Aside from the odd years where I can make it to Musikfest.) I guess two come to mind:
Ssingssing, with lead singer Lee Hee-moon
Black Masala, with singer Kristen Long (though my memory of their Musikfest performance seems to have a different singer?)
I decided that I'm no longer bound by space and time when it comes to book club reads. In other words, I don't have to wait for a respective book's month, or even read them in order! Which is why I dug into My Real Children last week, even though it's not on the Austin Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club docket until June.
Image courtesy Tor
My Real Children takes a very personal, intimate look at history and chaos theory. Walton gives us two (alternate?) lives of Patricia Cowan, with different spouses and different struggles and different triumphs.
Of course, it's not just Patricia's life that's different between the two. History also takes two different tracks (though both are different from history as it tracked in our world). Walton sets up a delicious little tension there that's never entirely resolved: did Patricia's choices in any way affect larger world events? Or did those larger world events have any effect on her? Another author might have been tempted to draw a line between Patricia's choices and world events (like Charles Wallace body-hopping through different people in A Swiftly Tilting Planet), but Walton just leaves those differences there.
While My Real Children is put out by Tor, an imprint famous for fantasy and science fiction, I wouldn't classify it as science fiction myself. (I was actually surprised to see it was a Tor book!) But maybe that's because I already comfortably half-accept the idea of there being alternate reality versions of myself leading different versions of my life. There's no attempt to explain why those lifetimes are converging in Patricia's memory, or why she's drifting between two timelines. It's most certainly not a metaphor for dementia; she has dementia in both lifetimes, unrelated to the timelines crossing. The dual lives are simply a narrative device that shows how differently things can turn out on the micro- and macro-scale.
On a really personal level, I read this either at exactly the wrong point in my life or exactly the right point. (I'm not entirely sure which, yet.) Some days I'm cool with the idea of those alternate versions of myself being out there, hopefully living their best lives while I'm trying to live my best life in this timeline; some days I hate and regret everything and want nothing more than to tour through the different timelines and pick one where things are going a little (okay, a lot) better for me. I might have texted Austin Feminist Sci Fi Book Club Co-Founder Friend in tears over that. (Spoiler: I did.)
There's a moment where Patricia contemplates the differences in her two worlds: not in her life choices, but in the history. The lifetime where she had a long and happy marriage was in a world marred by multiple exchanges of nuclear warheads and the ensuing radioactive fallout; the lifetime where she had a shorter but deeply unhappy marriage was much more peaceful on the global scale. And there's an element of bitterness (why did cancer and violence have to wreck her storybook life?) there's also an element of hope (the sacrifices she made, even unknowingly, perhaps tilted the scales towards world peace). And at the end of the day, you can choose: bitterness or hope? This is the importance of stories: I can choose a story for myself where my struggles and my choices make the world a better place. Whether or not it's true is secondary (how could I possibly empirically test or measure that?); the fact that it's possible is what counts. It's perhaps hackneyed to quote David Foster Wallace at this point, but he hit the nail on the head:
But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line—maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Department who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible—it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important—if you want to operate on your default-setting—then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars—compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't.
And since it rankles, a bit, to close a review of a book deliberately chosen for a feminist book club with a quote by a man (who has, unfairly, become the catch-all representative of obnoxious litbros everywhere), I'll actually close this review with a quote from A Tale for the Time Being, which is still one of my favorite books that I've read recently, and that feels very relevant to this act of choosing:
Do not think that time simply flies away. Do not understand “flying” as the only function of time. If time simply flew away, a separation would exist between you and time. So if you understand time as only passing, then you do not understand the time being. To grasp this truly, every being that exists in the entire world is linked together as moments in time, and at the same time they exist as individual moments of time. Because all moments are the time being, they are your time being.
