Weekly Roundup February 10th
On Wednesday this week, it was in the 40s, and then on Thursday, we had a winter storm that closed campus, and I got to teach over Zoom. Oh, Iowa weather! To be honest, though, I love winter, and I’m glad my yard is covered in snow again. I don’t like the muddy mess between snowmelt and summer.
I had a migraine for four days last week, and read four books (via audiobooks from the library) because I couldn’t sit up or open my eyes much, and definitely couldn’t read, but I was bored, so I’m once again very grateful that audiobooks exist.
This is what I read:
The first and second books in Helen Hoang’s trilogy of interconnected romance novels, The Bride Test and The Heart Principle. Each book was better than the last, and I really appreciated the neurodiverse representation. I didn’t love The Kiss Quotient, the first book in the series, but I flew through these, and really liked the characters.
Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers is a dynamic queer romance about a burnt out woman who drunkenly marries a stranger while in Vegas celebrating getting her PhD. It’s beautifully written, and I loved the way Rogers plays with the trope, and her beautiful prose. I also loved this interview with the author. One thing I love about the book is that, while it centers queerness, the book isn’t focused on a character struggling with coming out, or other ways that make queerness a negative focus. The protagonist does face some discrimination over her sexuality, but it’s not the heart of the book. As someone currently working to heal from burn out myself, I really resonated with this book, though I’m significantly older than its characters. Rogers really nails that post-PhD struggle, though, and I’m so glad the library had this available just when I needed it most.
The Bassoon King: Art, Idiocy, and Other Sordid Tales From the Band Room by Rainn Wilson I really enjoyed the parts about Wilson in theater school and when he talks about his craft, as well as the moments when he delves into his spiritual journey and Bahá’í faith, but the book was riddled with totally unnecessary and crude fat jokes, that took me completely out of the book. I’m very glad this was rented from the library and not a purchase.
I’ve also been reading through a dozen cookbooks that have long sat dusty on my shelves. I famously hate cooking, and, honestly, it’s difficult to muster the desire to cook for just myself, but recently I’ve been into cooking more, so I’m trying to seize the moment. My current favorite is Faith Kramer’s 52 Shabbats: Friday Night Dinners Inspired by a Global Kitchen. The variety of recipes and flavors is wonderful to have in one book, and I’ve enjoyed making lots of warming soups and stews from the “Winter” section of the book.
Other links & things from this week:
Austin Kleon on why Going Through the Motions is vital to an artist, and how sometimes the way to keep going is to just keep going.
Also from Austin, a piece on the fascinating history of Roget’s Thesaurus.
This is an oldie but a goodie, “Do You Want to be Known For Your Writing Or Your Swift Email Responses” about the ways in which women are expected to be much more available and responsive than men are, and how important it is to value our own time and knowledge.
“Let’s face it—artists are always working, though they may not seem as if they are. They are like plants growing in winter. You can’t see the fruit, but it is taking root below the earth.” A letter from André Gregory to Richard Avedon. I love this quote so much. It’s exactly how I feel I work.
Nina Katchadourian has a new show at the Morgan that looks and sounds fascinating. It stages a conversation among works from throughout her career, artifacts of her family’s history, and objects drawn from every corner of the Morgan’s vaults. To enlist the taste, imagination, and expertise of others, Katchadourian asked Morgan staff members to explain favorite objects to her. She incorporated many of these into a sequence of clusters in which images and objects echo, contradict, or comment upon one another.
I re-discovered this banger poem by Josh Bell this week: “Some of Us Are Still Sleeping with Centaurs.”
This profile of Steven Soderberg is interesting. I loved this quote: “To me, it’s always front and center when I start thinking about the characters: What do they do, actually? What’s their job? Or if they don’t have a job, What’s that about? The place my mind always goes when I see a movie that’s set in a universe like Marvel’s is, Okay, are they getting paid? Does a check show up every Thursday? Who’s paying them? What does it cost to live on that ship?”
I made pizza with fresh tomatoes and za’atar seasoning, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. I’m not a good cook by any means, but sometimes grabbing random stuff from the cupboard works out in my favor, and I cannot keep this discovery to myself. (FWIW, the za’atar seasoning was from Trader Joe’s.)
There are attacks against trans kids happening in state legislatures around the country, and it’s pretty terrifying. It seems like Republicans are all for parental oversight until other parents want to do something they disagree with, and then they want government intervention to decrease individual liberties. And The New York Times is not helping things with their truly bizarre obsession with trans kids. Please just leave these children alone.
I enjoyed this portrait in The Washington Post about Nikole Hannah Jones, author of The 1619 Project. She’s from Iowa, which is pretty neat, though Iowa lawmakers have banned the teaching of her book in public schools, unwilling to be honest about the historical facts of America’s legacy of slavery. Disliking something doesn’t make it untrue. Sigh.
Speaking of which, if you’re curious what all the noise over banning African American studies is, this piece in The New Yorker is good.
Kindred by Octavia Butler is now a TV series. It’s such a fabulous novel, like every single thing Butler wrote, and this is a fascinating peek into why it took 43 years to make it to TV.
A new short story by writer Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ in Granta.
The author of the new novel Brotherless Night, V.V. Ganeshanathan, explains her unique take on first person perspective
Drawing lessons from 19th-century Japanese woodblock printmaker Katsushika Hokusai.
When so-called “rigor” targets disabled students
Not that you need more books, nor do I think you’re likely to do much baking BUT if you’re ever curious Maggie Glezer is one of the bread authors that wrote early in the new wave of artisan bread baking. IIRC she is Jewish and at one point out out the book A Blessing of Bread about Jewish bread traditions in different places. I used to own it, but it’s one that got culled when we landed in SD.