Spontaneous Musings

Choose books that have stayed with you or influenced you. (It was 20, but I couldn't choose just 20...sigh. Just put the covers, no explanation. It's probably a good idea to remember I was an English Lit Major, and studied Drama in college.)

It's supposed to be thumbnail pictures, but I can't figure out how to do that.

( too big and long - so beneath the cut )

1. While on Threads this week - I discovered...that apparently someone went after and attacked David Tennant.

Who would go after David Tennant? He's a sweetheart. Be like attacking a puppy dog? Seems insane.

So...I looked it up. David Tennant vs. well UK Conservative Transphobes

Sigh.

Tennant has a non-binary child. He's an actor who has a right to his opinion. He's not a politician making policy for others. And he's advocating for the rights of his child and others. I applaud him for that.
( Read more... )
2. Speaking of flawed humans specifically writers with huge fan followings, and unfortunately toxic behavior patterns, I did an online survey on Whedon's shows today via the Association of Buffy Studies. It kept asking me if I associated certain actors with Whedon shows - but alas was Dollhouse, Firefly and I think Nevers heavy on the actors - because I had no clue who a lot of them were. Who is Clark Gregg? He sounds familiar?
It also asked if Whedon's behavior influenced me in regards to his fictional content?

Yes and no. Or I don't have a simple response to that, any more than I do to Rowling's fictional content - that I read prior to discovering she's a transphobic bully.
( Read more... )
3. Hand feels better. Aloe Vera Gel is a miracle worker. Highly recommend. Blisters are pretty much non-existent now, and the redness has gone away. Aloe Vera and cold water - nothing else. (I'm kind of lucky I had nothing else, except for five different brands of Aloe Vera Gel. I got a lot of it to make my own hand sanitizer, also for sunburn.)

Also found a chai tumeric ginger latte tea mix that you just add hot water too. Helps greatly with digestion. Along with Physillium Husk and Miralax for IBS-C.

4. Television

Found two shows to watch:

* Acolyte -Disney + which reminds me a little of Andor. Like Andor - it takes place before Star Wars. This one takes place before Phantom Menace. Only drawback is it does rest on a rather cliche plot device - the evil twin. But I adore the lead actress in the role. And she's doing a good job of playing dual roles.

I'll probably like it better than most. I like the Star Wars world, and actually love the television series and films that have zip to do with the original three films or the Skywalker/Vader Legacy. My favorites are Andor, Rogue One, and Mandalorian...I've not tried Akoshka, or Rebels. And the Clone Wars - I watched the cartoon version, not the Lucas one.

* The Bear - Hulu (or Disney +) - which is a half-hour comedy (feels more like a Dramedy since I don't laugh during it) about a chef trying to create a fancy restaurant out of his family owned restaurant in Chicago.
It's a workplace comedy/drama. I love it. Season 3 just dropped.

***

Tried House of Dragon S2 - my difficulty with it is the subject matter, which is the same difficulty I have with Dune, which I outgrew about sixteen years ago? Just not in the mood for either.

5.) I'm flirting with horror. But I'm wise enough not to watch it at night before bed. I have enough difficulty sleeping as is, I do not need help. I have a love/hate relationship with horror films. Considering trying MidSommer, Hereditary, Talk to Me, and Babanook. Also, maybe, The Witch, which my brother loves and tried to show me once.

Oh, there are a few intriguing horror movies coming out...Longlegs...looks intriguing. It's kind of Silence of the Lambs meets the occult meets well puppetry?

6. The tower fan is actually keeping my apartment cool. Amazing that. I may not require a portable A/C in the living room, and just replacing the one in the bedroom will suffice. Also, I can just get another window A/C since this was PC Richards faulty A/C not the apartment or my fault.

7. Books

Saw a meme about memorable books off the top of your head. And I realized all mine were made into movies or television shows. Which means my memory is very visual? I'm sure I can think of a few memorable ones that haven't? Or have, and I've not seen the movie?

So, below is a list of books that weren't made into films or I've not seen the films, but were memorable. In other words - if it was made into a film or television show - I didn't see it, or it wasn't made into one.
( books I've found memorable off the top of my head that either weren't made into films or I didn't see the film )
At the grocery store today - a young woman had a library book. She was in front of me at the checkout line. And there was this lovely library book sitting there on the conveyor book at Met Fresh, while she put down her food from the cart.

Me: I'm trying figure out what book you've got there? I'm curious?
Young Woman (she had a blond braid, blue eyes, fresh faced with freckles, no makeup, mid-late twenties, about average weight and height): It's about two people who develop a video game.
Me: Oh cool. Is it non-fiction.
YW: No, fictional. It's really good. I'm not that far - but so far I'm really enjoying it. And I really like having a real book in my hands.

Gives me hope for the future. E-books are slowly getting on my nerves, in that I have no idea how far I truly am in them and can't scan ahead to see if it gets better or flip back to figure something out. Or look at the cover. On the other hand? It's nice to read a book privately without someone seeing what you are reading - particularly on subways. Although, I've had some interesting conversations about books I was reading on the subway. I miss the days in which everyone was reading books, magazines and the paper as opposed to cell phones. I rarely even see an e-book. Just people on phones. It's sad.

Anyhow, found the book she had. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin - it was the 2022 winner of the Good Reads Choice Awards apparently.
( brief synopsis )

Kind of reminds me of Halt Catch Fire in a way.

I love books. I like books more than people. I think it's because they are easier to connect to? No rejection from a book. You can escape into their worlds. Be in another person's head. Rage. Feel. Whatever.

Everyone needs a safe space, I suppose. Mine has always been books.

41: Do you own a library card? How often do you use it?

Yes. And I rarely use it. I last used it to borrow an e-book, which are hard to get and find. Also they don't stay long.

I have acquired a love/hate relationship with libraries. It has to do with the fact that I worked in the industry, and got pissed off. (Similar to what happened with the book publishing industry. I put both on a high pedestal, thought they were amazing, only to discover that they were woefully human and deeply flawed. With lots of egos on display. Such is life.) It also has a lot to do with being a frustrated self-published writer, with a lot of family members, including a father, who are also independently published writers - who can't get books into libraries - because libraries cater exclusively to the "traditional" book publishing industry just like book stores do, and publishers buy their reviews and patronage. (I found this out when I was working in the industry, and when libraries refused to carry my Dad's books which are so much better than so many of the traditionally published lauded mysteries out there. So I haven't forgiven them for this oversight.) So, yes, I have a slight chip on my shoulder regarding libraries and publishers. But I support libraries thoroughly for the disadvantaged. Then again - it's not as if we don't have free books everywhere in NYC. I mean look:



Then again - I think libraries provide free internet, computers, and access to learning many can't get otherwise. Also, I admittedly lived in the library when I was a student and up through my twenties.

See? Love/hate relationship.

42: Which was the best book you had to read in school?

Hmmm. I loved to read, so this is hard. Also it was a long time ago. And I was an English Lit major - so I had a lot of books I had to read.

In High School? The Great Gatsby, I think. (I read Grapes of Wrath on my own.)

In College? James Joyce's Ulysses - I became obsessed with it. Wrote my thesis on it. I loved the Molly Bloom Chapter.

43: Are you the kind of person who reads several books at once or the kind of person who can only read one book at a time?

I vary. But at the moment I'm reading two at the same time. It goes without saying that I read and write for a living.

44: Do you like to listen to music when you read?

It depends. I'll listen while writing, and while studying, working, or reading dry material.

45: What is your favorite thing to eat when you read?

I don't eat and read at the same time.

46: What is your favorite thing to drink when you read?

Tea or water.

47: What do you do to get out of a reading slump?

Switch to audio books

48: Where is your favorite place to read?

Bed or armchair, although I also like reading on trains

49: When is your favorite time to read?

Before bed or on my commute (which has been kind of non-existent for a year now.)

50: Why do you love to read?

Escaping into others worlds and heads is a beautiful thing, plus the stories - I adore stories. I live for stories. Stories are the most important thing to me - and my greatest love. Everyone has one, and I want to hear all of them.

1: What book did you last finish? When was that?

A Gentlemen in Moscow by Amor Torres - it was last week or thereabouts. It was an audio book. Excellent character sketch, writing comforting and lovely. Worked very well as an audio book. About a Count under house arrest in a Moscow Hotel from 1930s to roughly 1950s.

Comic/graphic novel - finished reading a few X-men books, which have gotten rather interesting of late.

Romance novel - which I can't remember the name of, or what it was about. They kind of blend together, to be honest.

*Note I'm counting audio books.

2: What are you currently reading?

Rules of Civility by Amor Torres - it's about a bunch of legal secretaries in their 20s, tooling about NYC in the 1930s or thereabouts.

Dear Enemy by Kristin Cahill (sp?) - I think that's the author's name, I tend to forget their names. And I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment. It's a contemporary romance about a chef and a television star. They knew each other as kids, and he teased her ruthlessly, and was a bit mean to her as a kid, while dating her sister. Yet, apparently everything wasn't as it seemed. The writing is loose and frothy, but I like the twist on the enemies to friends to lovers bit, with the sociopathic/narcissitic hustler sister. [I got if for free via Kindle Unlimited.]

3: What book are you planning to read next?

Flirting with Battleground by Jim Butcher (last in the Dresden Files) or
Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices about her time as Secretary of State. Or
something by NJ Jeminsh. I'm moody, I don't tend to know until I get there.
( Read more... )

Today's prompt is...

A book that was originally written in a different language.

Well, this is easy. It's the one I wanted to do for my senior thesis in college, but they wouldn't let me because it was originally written in Spanish and I can't read Spanish. (I wanted to compare Ulysses to One Hundred Years of Solitude (which I adored), but alas no - I had to use Faulkner's Sound and the Fury instead (which I didn't like nearly as much) as a result I can remember Ulysses and Sound & the Fury, but have no memory whatsoever of One Hundred Years of Solitude which I devoured during the summer of my junior year in college, circa 1988.)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez.

This is one of the books that my brother introduced me to. He kind of thrust it at me - and said, "read this, now!" Which I did. And we agreed it was brilliant and the best thing evah. Love in the Time of Cholera wasn't quite as good. We were doing that quite a bit - he'd make mixed tapes for me, I'd send him chocolate chip cookies, I'd rec a book, he'd rec a book. We still do it. We have this crazy relationship that makes no sense to anyone but us - we don't appear to get along at all - rarely talk on the phone, but we'll occasionally text each other. And share the same morbid sense of humor.

We also both, for reasons, chose New York as our home state of residence - even though we were raised in Pennsylvania and Kansas City, and went to school in places like Colorado, San Franscisco, Nova Scotia, and Ohio.

And we both share our grandfather's dislike of authority.

Anyhow...the book is a wandering poetic prose novel about a family, with ghosts.

Here's Wiki's description:

As a metaphoric, critical interpretation of Colombian history, from foundation to contemporary nation, One Hundred Years of Solitude presents different national myths through the story of the Buendía family, whose spirit of adventure places them amidst the important actions of Colombian historical events, such as the Liberal political reformation of a colonial way of life, and the 19th-century arguments for and against it; the arrival of the railway to a mountainous country; the Thousand Days' War (Guerra de los Mil Días, 1899–1902); the corporate hegemony of the United Fruit Company ("American Fruit Company" in the story); the cinema; the automobile; and the military massacre of striking workers as government–labour relations policy.[

That's today's prompt for the seemingly endless book challenge.

My pick? Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky

I keep picking it up to read it - but never manage to. It's one of those books - I mean to read, but am either never in the mood or don't have the time or focus.

I know it's brilliant, although whether the translation that I happen to own is or not - is another issue entirely. That's the problem with literature published in a language other than one's own - you have to depend on a translation. It's either that or learn the language - and I don't foresee myself learning Russian any time soon - even if I live in a building with a bunch of people who apparently only speak Russian. Some speak Polish. I honestly can't hear the difference. I've tried. Moscow co-worker (he hails from Moscow) will correct me every once and a while.

Me: Alex (the vendor) is Russian -
Moscow: No Polish.
Me: Peter is Russian -
Moscow: No, Polish.

Moscow knows three languages - Russian, Polish, and English, also a little bit of Spanish. I forgive him his issues with English - because honestly he has three - four languages. I only know one well, and have some broken third grade level French to play around with.

The prompt is name a graphic novel.

Persepolis- the story of a childhood by Marjane Satrapi .

It's a semi-autobiographical coming of age tale about the author's childhood in Iran and subsequent flee to the West.

Movie adaptation can be found below:

The prompt is ... A book that made you cry

Sigh.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I bawled at the end of that book. And I rarely cry in books. It takes a lot to move me to tears in books. Television - not so much, books yep.

I read the book because - it was rec'd to me by someone I trust, and it really does an excellent job of describing fandom or becoming obsessed with a story - as a way of coping with life's pain and getting through it.

It was rec'd to me because of how it depicts fandom or becoming fannish about something.

I don't recommend the movie. Some of the fannishness is lost in the film.

I'm behind, I know.

The prompt is.. A book set in high school

Because I despised high school, I tended to avoid books set there.

However, I was forced to read a few here and there for school.

Vision Quest by Terry Davies it was assigned for everyone to read in one of our classes in high school or junior high - can't remember.

I only remember the book because I saw the movie soon after. The book is better.

Vision Quest is a young adult novel by Terry Davis, published in 1979.[1] In first-person, present-tense narrative, it tells the story of a few months in the life of Louden Swain, a high school wrestler in Spokane, Washington who is cutting weight and working toward the state championships. The book takes its title from the vision quest ritual of some Native American Indian tribes, of going into the wilderness alone to 'discover who you are and who your people are and how you fit into the circle of birth and growth and death and rebirth.'[2] John Irving called it "the truest novel about growing up since The Catcher in the Rye."[3]

Vision Quest was made into a 1985 movie of the same title, starring Matthew Modine and Linda Fiorentino, with a cameo appearance from Madonna as a night-club singer.

Mathew Modine was kind of miscast, I'd have cast Lou Diamond Phillips. And they kind of dropped the vision quest elements.

Here's the review by Siskel and Ebert of the movie, which again isn't like the book at all.



My favorite book that takes place in a high school is a weird dystopian one..that few have heard of..

The Girl Who Owned a City - the city in the title is the local high school.

The prompt, I don't like and can't really do - it's name a book with a love triangle. Here's my problem - I don't like love triangles, so don't read books with love triangles. I don't really understand them being monogamous. If I found out someone loved me and another person, I'd most likely just get out of the way and say - take them, I'm gone. Bye, now.

This may explain why I'm still single. I don't compete with people for other people. It always ends badly. I don't like competition. It requires hurting someone, which I'd prefer not to do, if I can help it.

Also, for the individual who can't choose? Why?

Like I said, this is a trope that irritates me and doesn't really work well for me. I put up with them on television serials, but reluctantly. (They are kind of impossible to avoid on television serials.)

So instead of that, although you can do it if you want to, I'm creating my own prompt.

Name a book that features an LGBT romance by an LGBT writer.

I wanted to name one by Poppy Z Brite, which I read in the 1990s and loved, but I can't remember the title of the book.

So, I'm going with Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

I read it in high school - and it was among the first books that I read that featured a lesbian romance at its center. And it was written by a woman who was openly in love and involved with another woman in the 1990s.

Even now, “The Color Purple” is the only Pulitzer-winning novel to feature a lesbian protagonist and also be written by a woman. While Walker has never openly conformed to any one label under the “women-loving-woman” umbrella, she was openly and romantically involved with the singer Tracy Chapman in the 1990s, telling the Guardian, “(It) was delicious and lovely and wonderful and I totally enjoyed it and I was completely in love with her but it was not anybody’s business but ours.”

The Color Purple - a Sublime Portrayal of Lesbianism ahead of its time

This was adapted into a musical and a film.






I adored this book. It had been rec'd to me by my drama teacher in high school. It's told in letter format, or epistolary style, which I was enamored with at the time.