Author Archives: Bookreasons

The Reason To Close Out The Tab

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Filed under Books, Fiction

I am all kinds of sluggish right now. Do not feel sorry for me because I brought it on myself. If I don’t know by now that the second martini on a school night is a stupid idea, then I deserve exactly what I am getting. Still, it’s a bummer to know that there isn’t a good time to be had that doesn’t have some kind of payback. Scream your lungs out at a concert-lose your voice for a week. Enter a chili dog eating contest-get an upset stomach. Bingeread a fabulous book-ok, can’t think of a downside for that one. Indulgence demands balance, so at some point or another, everyone gets a hangover.

Ancient peoples could not account for the severity of their hangovers, attributing splitting headaches and the morning-after craving for ancient pancakes to angry gods. Now, after a big night out, you only have to go back 12 hours on your Instagram feed to find out what went down. There you are, in the backseat of your Uber, chugging Fireball. FIREBALL. What the hell were you thinking?  The night before, it’s all spontaneous musical numbers and high fives. It’s a magic bubble of invincibility, and since nothing can hurt you that fourth margarita is a good idea! And yes you can stay out until 4! You’ll be fine with 2 hours sleep! Of course you never are. The morning after brings the need for several extra strength Tylenol and a fountain Coke, and no small measure of gratitude that you woke up at home. As opposed to waking up covered in mud, blood, and body parts, because that is what happens when Donna Tartt is in charge.

First, a PSA: I am glad that Donna Tartt is a writer, because she writes my favorite books and I love having favorite books. Her novels are epic in scale, with her characters coming to terms with life events experienced at violent extremes. Some overcome, and some fail spectacularly, and it’s impossible to look away even when you can see what’s coming is not going to end well. The Secret History (Knopf, 1992) is a murder mystery reverse engineered from what is essentially a solved crime. The book opens with a confession to a murder, revealing that a cliquish group of six friends have killed one of their own, Bunny Corcoran, staging a hiking accident by pushing him down a ravine. The story then centers on the backstory of the motivation for Bunny’s death and the friends’ tangled and twisted relationships. Donna Tartt explores the way that the human desire turns into greed – greed for knowledge, greed for experience, greed for power – and how that greed turns cancerous.

Donna Tartt publishes one incredible book about every 10 years. I assume she could publish an incredible book anytime she wants to, but she is a badass who does not care how many books you think she should publish. The Secret History was her first book and it was an immediate bestseller, making her a literary star. This book shows how toxic hubris and arrogance are and movingly illustrates the beauty inherent in sacrificing for the ones you love. It also gives me perspective on my own wild nights, because there’s hangovers, and then there’s The Secret History hangovers.

My hangover: My head hurts and that light is too bright
Secret History hangover: Can anyone confirm or deny that we killed a dude last night

My hangover: Wow, I danced for several hours!
Secret History hangover: I drank myself into a fugue state

My hangover: I thought we’d never go home
Secret History hangover: I thought I was a deer

My hangover: I need greasy diner food
Secret History hangover: Breakfast is booze, cigarettes, and determining an alibi

My hangover: I’m taking a nap
Secret History hangover: Let’s invite Bunny to go on a hike

There’s always a price to be paid after a party is over, and if Donna Tartt is writing the hangover, payback isn’t just bitch. It’s a bitch with a baseball bat and access to all of your bank accounts. It makes me a little bit glad that I’m a book nerd with a love of down time. My “about last night” stories aren’t as flashy but then again I don’t have to budget for as much bail money. Still, some nights do go on longer than others. If you’ve got a hangover, please feel free to consult the handy chart below to triage your situation and determine the most efficient cure.

Symptoms: You have a limp from the 50-yard dash someone dared you to run. Your hair hurts and you require sunglasses to brush your teeth.
Hangover Level: Tore up from the floor up
Cure: Ketchup-based fast food and one whiny Facebook status post.

Symptoms: Right hand has three nightclub stamps on it. Left wrist has a medical id bracelet from a colonic clinic. You’re still dressed, but the bra you are wearing isn’t yours.
Hangover Level: Run over by a truck
Solution: Travel back in time and make new friends who won’t encourage you to qualify for Olympic Beer Pong. It isn’t even a real sport.

Symptoms: The good news is you’re awake and at home. The bad news is the dog woke you up because he’s hungry, but you don’t own a dog. Or the motorcycle in your living room.
Hangover Level: Football bat
Solution: Feed the dog. Change your name and move.
#notmydog

IMG_0220

I like your motorcycle.

Action Items
Watch The Philadelphia Story, the best movie about hangovers ever.

 

 

 

The Reason For Date Night

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Filed under Plays

Romance isn’t dead! Unless the romance in question is Romeo and Juliet in which case, yes, romance is unequivocally dead. If your version of a love story with a  happy ending is “deceased newlyweds and resolved grudges” then Romeo and Juliet is the play for you. Normally, I am completely down with a high drama forecast of 100% chance of accidental poisonings with intermittent stabbings. Who wouldn’t like that? Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare’s greatest hit, his most well-known work, and literature’s definitive tragic love story. The narrative around Romeo and Juliet is what sells-the instant love, the white-hot chemistry, the inevitability of their union and the tragic ending. I am not here for any of that, though. Nope. I do love this play, but not for why you think.
Romeo: what do you mean
Me: wait for it, damn
Romeo: tell me now
Me: ok  THIS is why you make me nuts

It’s not terribly romantic to admit it, but I don’t crush on Romeo and Juliet’s romance.  I blame myself for lacking depth and an inability to relate to human emotion. My problem begins and ends with Romeo. We meet him pre-Juliet, hanging out with his friends and mooning over the beautiful and unattainable Rosalind. He goes on and ON about her. By the time he’s done extolling her virtues, he’s convinced me to date her.  His boyishness and impulsiveness are intended to charm but because I am mostly dead inside, he seems more sulky and capricious than anything. It’s not a case of active dislike. It’s just that Romeo is so relentlessly self-absorbed as we get aquainted with his character that I want to punch him. By the time Romeo dons his disguise, sneaks into the Capulet costume ball, spots Juliet and dumps Rosalind, I am done with him. Is Romeo really in love, or does he have the earliest dramatized version of ADHD? It’s hard to tell and as it turns out I don’t particularly care. Since I am not invested in Romeo, I’m not capable of working up the energy to swoon when he goes gaga over Juliet. I just wait patiently through all the Romeo and Juliet parts of Romeo and Juliet so I can enjoy the character it feels like Shakespeare created just for me.
Romeo: not cool
Me: omg did you hear that
Romeo: I’M RIGHT HERE

One of the timeless aspects of Romeo and Juliet is how Shakespeare captures the dynamics of adolescent male friendship. The comraderie, the dirty jokes, the restless energy –it’s all there and it’s perfect. It’s just like any modern group of high school students, with fewer codpieces.  I love the wordplay and the fights and the teasing, but make no mistake. I am here for Mercutio, Romeo’s best friend. Can I please get a Tiger Beat with him on the cover? Plus a bonus poster that I can hang over my bed? I also need him to have a spinoff series, endorse a line of activewear, and maybe host the Golden Globes next year. I JUST NEED HIM IN ALL THE THINGS. Mercutio is Team Montague, the solid, acerbic yin to Romeo’s boy toy yang. He is a dreamy combo of smart and smartass and I want to have all his iambic pentameter babies.
Romeo: but I’m ROMEO
Me: meh
Romeo: what do I have to do
Me: plot more stabbings?
Macbeth: totally on board with that

Mercutio is my first action hero, the guy who made brains and brawling an irresistible mix. He’s got Romeo’s back, challenging his friend’s moody ruminations on love with vulgarity and humor while trashtalking the rival Capulets whenever the opportunity presents itself. His quicksilver personality is alluring and his intelligence is just sexy. In the play’s climactic battle scene, the rival gangs from the houses of Montague and Capulet clash and Mercutio is mortally wounded. His death sets in motion the chain of events that get Romeo banished from Verona. Even while he’s bleeding to death, he’s snarky and joking, laying the groundwork for the dialogue in every single 80s action movie.
Romeo: i don’t understand what’s happening
Me: so…did Mercutio ask about me?
Romeo: what?
Me: tell him I said hi but just like, hi, not HI
Romeo: ffs

Mercutio might have stayed in the background, perennial Hot Boy #2, but for the amazingly silky Queen Mab speech. It’s just beautiful, one of my favorite things ever written. Hypnotic and foreboding, the Queen Mab speech is delivered right before Romeo enters the Capulet’s ball, meets Juliet, and changes his life forever. Using the story about the how Fairy Queen Mab delivers dreams, Mercutio ruminates on the many faces love wears. The language, the rhythms, are deceptive, seducing  while describing’s love’s worst possible outcomes. Mercutio shows his vulnerability and hints at the bad stuff coming and now I’m planning our wedding and I’m thinking bohemian with pastel colors.
Romeo: what was that sound
Me: everyone’s panties dropping
Romeo: for that?!?
Mercutio: happens every time

church flowers

These flowers will be the perfect detail at the ceremony

I’m always bummed when Mercutio dies halfway through the play, but I hang in there while everything spools out. In the perfect execution of a bad idea, Juliet fakes her death, and that’s all it takes to fool Romeo into thinking she’s really dead. One double suicide later, it’s time to flip back to page one and start over. Just let me fix my hair and lipstick first.
#introducemetoyourfriend

Action Items
For a coma lasting longer than four hours, consult your apothecary.

 

 

Image: http://www.freeimages.co.uk

The Reason Looks Are Deceiving

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Filed under Books, Fiction

My life is kind of eat up with Kardashian-level glamour. It’s never my intention to brag about it, so please forgive the anecdote that follows.

I was at the pet store getting twenty pounds of cat food and three tote buckets of cat litter when the nice woman standing near me in the aisle struck up a conversation about herpes. I’m not apt to casually discuss herpes with strangers, but the cat litter containers are the refillable kind, and I was elbow deep in a big vat of cat litter scooping and filling. I was in a fixed position and since I was not the one who started the interaction it wasn’t up to me to choose the topics. Anyway, the woman (who was killing time while her husband shopped) was relaying the origin story of every cat she had adopted in the last twenty years. She seemed really excited about her feline genealogy, and it was nice to have the diversion from my task.

She got to the payoff, which was about the time she adopted TWO kittens at one time. See, she went to get the one kitten? And it was really cute? And she found out the kitten had a brother? And it turned out both kittens were hard to adopt because they were sick? Suddenly, she interrupted her narrative and fixed me with a hard stare. “Do you know what herpes is?”, she asked me. I was so taken aback I froze mid-scoop. I thought I had misheard her, so I asked her to repeat the question. She carefully enunciated each word, keeping it simple since I was obviously a little slow. “Do…you…know…what…herpes..is?” I affirmed I did, and satisfied, she proceeded to tell me the kittens had herpes and she adopted both of them. At this point, her husband came and collected her and off they went.

I was a little dizzy from the cat litter fumes, so it took me a few minutes to process what had happened. The follow-up questions piled up: I look like a person who doesn’t know what herpes is? Am I blithely going about my business, day after day, projecting a herpes-ignorant vibe? Is it all viruses, or just herpes? Then I got super bummed because if I had told her “No”, how would she have explained herpes to me?!? Would I have been deserving of the two-cat adoption story?  Then I did what I always do when confronted with randomly absurd situations. I blamed John Irving.

Mona_Lisa,

Probably not thinking about herpes.

John Irving has broken my heart, made me cringe, and played with my emotions. He has bitchslapped me up and down the page, but more than anything, he has shaped my sense of the ridiculous. The Irving universe is filled with the eccentric, the unusual, characters for whom boundaries don’t apply because they are already more evolved than the rest of us. The formidable Jenny Fields. Gentle, stubborn Homer Larch. The survivor Ruth Cole. John Irving takes these larger-than-life characters and has them speak to what it means to be human by placing them in the most absurd situations. Their reactions are little sloppy, a little violent, a little offensive, and always a little unexpected.

If you would like to witness some spirited, heated conversation, and possibly a fistfight, here is what you do. Get a half dozen people together, sit ‘em down at a table, and ask them what their favorite John Irving novel is. Safety tip: back away after you ask, because you pulled the pin on a literary grenade.  John Irving has been publishing marvelous fiction since 1968 and as is the way of passionately told stories, people connect to them passionately. There will be lots of A Prayer For Owen Meany people. Someone will talk about Hotel New Hampshire. (Keep your eye on that person.) There will be love for A Widow For One Year. No matter what book is being advocated, it’s the funny, rambunctious, surreal scenes that will be brought up and described with delight. Like how Jenny Fields gets pregnant in The World According To Garp. Or the car castration in The World According To Garp. Or Garp disguising himself to attend his mother’s funeral in The World According To Garp. Okay, a lot of weird stuff happens in Garp, but you get the idea.

I know what you’re thinking right now: “What if I don’t look like I know what herpes is?” Don’t be upset! You probably do. But just in case you needed more proof that we are all living in a John Irving novel, here you go:

I got a bottle of fruity-smelling body oil in a gift basket during the holidays. The bottle has just been migrating from surface to surface while I work up the effort to throw it away. Recently, in a frenzy of straightening, I tossed the bottle in my nightstand drawer. The drawer is full of the usual: pens, a couple of notepads, five thousand ponytail holders, and a big loose wad of cash. A couple of days later, I opened the drawer to grab a pen and instead of finding a writing instrument with which to record my brilliant thoughts, I shoved my hand into what was essentially a pile of lube-covered one dollar bills. I had managed to knock the bottle open and it had slowly poured out, saturated the cash, and coated the bottom of the drawer. I emptied an entire box baking soda into the drawer to soak up all of the oil, then washed the bills out with soap and water. I then spread the money out over every available flat space so it could dry off.

The sum John Irving total:
My bedroom looks like someone made it rain at the world’s only OCD strip club.
#catherpes

Action Items
My favorite John Irving book is The Cider House Rules. FIGHT ME.

 

 

 

 

 

The Reason To Bring A Diva

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Filed under Books, Non-Fiction, True Crime

Books are radioactive. They must be, because apparently I glow in the dark when I open one. There is something about sitting down with a book that makes me visible. From space. Look! You can’t miss me. I’m the one who went off by herself into a room, closed the door, and is trying to read. At least–that’s what I thought I was trying to do. To everyone in my vicinity that knows me, a book is a Bat Signal, frantically begging for rescue from reading the book that I purposely picked up to go read. Knowing I’m likely to be interrupted will often keep me from picking up the big books, the ones that are gonna need me to pay attention. When I really need the time and space to fall into a book, I have to find the perfect place to hide in plain sight. For this, I crave the company of strangers. And for that, I need an airport.

bat_signal

GAH just let me finish this chapter

I really love airports. I realize I am the president, founder, and only member of that club. I know everyone else hates them, because I can hear everyone articulating all their hate while I am standing next to them at the airport. People standing in the line for security complain about the line for security. People not in first class complain about not getting their first class upgrade. People getting their luggage searched because they packed a scimitar cushioned by fireworks complain about getting their luggage searched. I don’t understand these people. I love the energy and purpose in an airport, that sense of suspended animation that comes from being in a parallel world that’s part aggressively overpriced jewelry kiosks, part cutting-edge art exhibits, and part uninhibited daydrinking. But what I love most about airporting is the sustained reading time it affords. Of course, this only works when I am traveling solo.
You: what do you want for your birthday
Me: a roundtrip ticket to Newark
You: you want to go to Newark?
Me: no! I just want to fly there
Orville Wright: those bastards took my scimitar

Packing books for travel in a car is easy. Just fill up the trunk (and camper top) with every book you own and you’re done. Flying is tricky though, because you have limited packing space converging with an ever-present threat of delays. The thought of being stuck without anything to read is enough to make me rashy. This anxiety drove me to prepare for any flight with ridiculous overpacking of reading material, hauling one or two Main Books along with three or four objectively ranked Backup Books. (Then I’d buy a paperback when I got to the airport. Just in case I didn’t look obsessed enough.) I could barely fit my nonessential items like money and underwear in my bag. Musculoskeletally speaking, I wasn’t doing myself any favors. 
Doctor: you’re developing what we call Book Hump
Me: oh no
Doctor: yeah we usually only see it in successful, pretty people
Me: thanks?
Doctor: here’s some cream for your rash

Books have personalities. Some books don’t mind if you stop and start them a million times. They are the mellow morning deejays of your reading list, happy to let you grab a few words whenever you have the opportunity. That’s not what you want at the airport. You need a book that will boss you around from the second you crack the cover, demand you bring it a latte and some coconut water, and completely take over your entertainment schedule. In short, you need a diva. I figured this out one cross-country flight when I picked up my #3 Backup Book, In Cold Blood, instead of my #2 Main Book. In Cold Blood had been sitting around my bookshelf forever, but I’d been avoiding it because it had that “required reading” aura. Once I was buckled in and had paid close attention to the safety presentation, I idly flipped it open to the first page to prove to myself it wasn’t worth starting, and that was it. I was mesmerized. I could have been sitting next to the Rockettes doing their Christmas show on that plane and I would not have known it. Next thing I knew, I was on the last page and the plane was landing.
Me: aviation is miraculous
Wright Bros: you think we invented flying so you could read
Me: yes
Wright Bros: you are bad at epiphanies

Truman Capote knew a thing or two about divas. He was already a famous writer and literary personality when he published In Cold Blood in 1966. The book’s combination of curated journalism and fiction-style prose was a sensation and it’s considered a classic today. In Cold Blood documents the murder of the Clutter family in rural Western Kansas in 1959.  It opens with the last day of the Clutters’ lives and ends with the executions of their killers. The meticulously researched motivations and machinations of everyone involved with the crime give the book the gravity of truth while Truman Capote’s shifting narrations and ruthlessly apt descriptions lift the story into something larger. It examines the capriciousness of the American dream and the banality of evil, and it won’t tolerate being in the same stack as all those cheap paperbacks you brought, because it’s a STAR. I’m still mad I can’t read it again for the first time.

When I am at the airport by myself with a diva book, I don’t care how long anything takes. Truman Capote taught me the art of the long game. I’ll get there when I get there and I’ve got good company. Hell, if the book is really good, I want to sit at the gate. It’s sick. I KNOW. But for sure, it’s not such an obsession that I carry around a plane-shaped voodoo doll that I stick pins in to cause minor mechanical delays. HAHAHA! Because that would be crazy! Even if it does buy me an extra hour of uninterrupted reading time! Of course, pulling out a plane-shaped voodoo doll can cause some misunderstandings.
Orville: that woman over there is jabbing pins in a vibrator
Wilbur: maybe she’s mad at it
Orville: I don’t even want to know what it did
Wilbur: flying to Newark just gets weirder
Orville: how long you think before i get my scimitar back
#fetchmylatte

Action Items
Truman Capote has a very diva cameo in the supremely silly movie Murder By Death.
I avoided The Sun Also Rises forever, too. I was also wrong about that.

 

 

 

 

The Reason For Neutral Corners

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Filed under Books, Fiction, mythology

Greek mythology has always been my favorite body of stories. As a kid, I obsessively read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, and I could not get enough of those ancient babes and beasties amusing themselves at the expense of mortals. I love the endless bargaining, the jockeying for advantage, the punishments and retributions and the petty pranks. My favorite stories, though, are the ones about Zeus and Hera. Hera, the goddess of marriage and home, and Zeus, the god of the sky and thunder, are the rulers of Mount Olympus, the dysfunctional, bickering parents in the divine Greek family tree. (They are also siblings. I mention this so we can all have a collective “UGH YUCK” and move on.)
Hera: so I’m in charge of literally every meaningful human relationship
Zeus: yup
Hera: and you’re basically in charge of making loud noise
Zeus: yup
Hera: seems fair

I could not help but think about Zeus and Hera’s lively married life as I read the amazing Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (Riverhead Books, 2015). I can’t be the first person to tell you to read Fates and Furies – it’s SO good- but I am probably the nerdiest about Greek mythology. Mathilde and Lotto meet in college and marry within weeks after setting eyes on each other for the first time.  The scope of their married life is big, Greek tragedy big, with the story structured across and filtered through the mythologic ideas of the Fates, divine beings who ruled that which is given and gifted in life, and the Furies, righteous goddesses tasked with finding sinners and delivering justice. Their marriage is earthy and elemental, a series of seismic events that incrementally fuse these two individuals into one landscape.  As perfectly as this grand structure serves the story, it’s the voyeuristic honesty scaled to the quiet, intimate moments between Mathilde and Lotto that are so shattering.  It is utterly absorbing watching these characters claw out a unique space to inhabit together and find that shared identity that is particular within commitment. Groff understands that in learning to be together, you have to learn to someone’s emotional vocabulary. You have to sometimes learn to find regard where you only feel contempt. But in the most revered of the Mount Olympus traditions, you also have to learn to fight. Hard. Let’s bring in our experts.

Drama is relative. Your version of normal might be another person’s version of unbearable tension, an idea that Groff examines with passion and precision in Fates and Furies. That is, unless you are dealing with the inhabitants of Mount Olympus. That neighborhood is all drama, all the time, by anyone’s standard. But even in a crowd that routinely turned people into trees or cursed them with snakes for hair, Zeus and Hera set the bar for fighting. Zeus and Hera are that boundaries-free couple nobody wants to be in public with because of all the screaming and name-calling. I guess they might be forgiven a bit for their histrionics when you consider that they’ve been married for thousands of years. If your idea of a great marriage is tons of infidelity, death, and transforming into animals, then this is the couple for you.

Vienna-Photo-Post-Fountain-1

Prom pic.

You Can’t Hide Your Lying Eyes Apparently, the easiest way to score with ancient Greek chicks was to turn yourself into an animal. This was Zeus’ go-to move anyway. Every time Hera turned her back, he was transforming into a swan or a bull or an eagle so he could cheat on his wife with the latest object of his affection. It’s more than a little creepy but it’s not like he could transform himself into someone more handsome or successful. He was ZEUS. That is the top of any social ladder. Still, you’d think word would get around that if a bull showed up in your room and tried to make out with you, it was probably Zeus. Then there was the reverse animal trick, when Zeus turned his crush Io into a heifer to protect her from Hera. Because, when Zeus panics, he panics dumb.
Zeus: hey cutie
Io: no thanks lightning boy
Zeus: crap! my wife! i’ll turn you into a heifer to hide you
Io: because cows are invisible?!? idiot
Taylor Swift: i am so writing a song about this

Always Go To Bed Mad Hera has a 7th degree black belt in grudge holding. If Zeus liked you, and she found out about it, your life as you knew it was over. Hera was all about punishing Zeus’ crushes, but never punishing Zeus. I question this weird passive-aggressive strategy, because her shenanigans never kept Zeus from picking out his next wildlife disguise, but I have to applaud her creativity. In Io’s case-because it wasn’t sucky enough to be capriciously transformed into a cow-Hera decides to give Io her own personal biting horsefly.
Hera: sorry you got turned into a heifer
Io: uh-huh
Hera: nbd but now i am going to have this fly bite you a lot
Io: well this day can’t get any worse
Taylor Swift: squad goals!

Pick Your Battles Hera knew how to go big or go home, so when she got tired of the one-offs of sending bothersome insects after enchanted livestock, she started the Trojan War over losing a golden apple she wanted to Aphrodite. Because the best way to express your disappointment at not getting that golden apple you had your heart set on is to start a war.  Also, make sure it lasts about ten years, so that your husband knows you are completely serious when you tell him you wanted that damn golden apple for your damn self, and he better think twice next time when he takes the golden apple you wanted and lets that hussy Aphrodite waltz off with it. THAT WAS YOUR SHINY APPLE.
Zeus: couldn’t you just send another fly
Hera: i can’t hear you over the sound of not having my apple
Taylor Swift: the song I wrote is already #1!
Zeus: someone turn her into a heifer
Hera: i’m on it
#marriedtoit
Action Items
I need a nap because I wore myself out not spoiling all the good stuff in Fates and Furies. This was my first Lauren Groff book, and I’ve added all her earlier works to my TBR list.

 

The Reason To Look The Other Way

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Filed under Books

If there is a universal truth that unites anything and everything on earth, it is the fact that aging is inevitable. The cycle is everywhere you look. There are ways upon ways that nature marks the passage of time. The concentric rings in trees. The layers of strata visible in a canyon wall. A 16-point set of antlers on a mature red deer. And of course, the most accepted, scientifically sound way of determining age in humans: measuring reactions to the plot points in The Boxcar Children.

It’s hard to get much more classic-American-children’s-book than The Boxcar Children. Originally published in 1924, it was written by Gertrude Chandler Warner, a first grade teacher who first entered a classroom as part of the need for teachers during World War I. The story of four intrepid orphaned siblings who take their chances living independently in an abandoned boxcar rather than moving in with a grandparent who is a stranger, The Boxcar Children is one of those books that often ends up as a new reader’s first chapter book. As Warner wrote the book, she read it aloud to her classes, essentially workshopping it with the audience that would make it famous. I feel like this method would have been valuable to the brothers Grimm. If you are writing a children’s story about orphans who are having to make their own way in the woods, you are probably 100% less likely to include deliberate abandonment, cannibalism, and death by roasting if you are vetting it with actual children.
Grimms: thanks for attending our Work In Progress seminar
Children: no problem
Grimms: so any feedback on Hansel & Gretel
Children: we feel terrified, was that your objective
Grimms: omg NO like it’s supposed to be whimsical
Children: maybe dial back all the attempted murders

Cottage

Mysterious cottage. Make yourself at home. What could possibly go wrong?

Adulthood ruins a lot of stuff, and it’s so unfair that the first thing it is likely to ruin is anything that entertained you as a child. It’s because of critical thinking. Critical thinking is helpful, because it probably keeps you from doing stupid things like buying magic beans or ordering chili on your onion rings, but it also straight up sucks joy air out of your joy balloon. Critical thinking demands that you reconcile inconsistencies and points out gaps and it’s basically the reason I can’t enjoy action movies made before 2003 because the special effects are so primitive (I’m looking at you, all Roger Moore as James Bond movies). It also makes it difficult to revisit a lot of beloved children’s books, because once your inner adult voice starts talking, it’s really hard to get it to shut up.

Origin Story In the opening pages of The Boxcar Children, we meet the four orphaned Alden children as they stand in front of a bakery, debating but ultimately wisely deciding to purchase bread instead of cake for their dinner. In exchange for a place to sleep in the bakery, the children agree to work for the baker and his wife, but have to run away when they overhear the baker’s plan to take the youngest of the siblings to the Children’s Home the next day. It’s an action-and-exposition packed first chapter that utterly fails to explain how these kids were orphaned. It just doesn’t come up, ever, anywhere in the book. Because why would it? It’s totally not relevant to Young Me AND NOT KNOWING ISN’T DRIVING OLD ME CRAZY OR ANYTHING.
Young Me: I would want cake too!
Old Me: so they just wandered away from a double funeral?
Young Me: Always ask an adult for help!
Old Me: WTF these people didn’t call 911 to report 4 unsupervised kids
Grimms: the baker wants to eat the kids right

Love It Or List It After sneaking away from the baker, the four children hide in the woods where they come upon an abandoned boxcar which they immediately identify as a perfect dwelling (as well as the ideal marketing and branding opportunity). It’s warm, dry, and move-in ready. Young Me was relieved and happy that the orphans found shelter and managed to stay together against odds. Old Me can’t even with wondering if everyone is up to date on their tetanus shots as they start crawling through what is clearly a rusty deathtrap.
Young Me: hideouts are cool
Old Me: is that a nest of black widows in the corner
Grimms: the witch lives here?
Young Me: no Grimms it’s not an enchanted boxcar
Old Me: it’s either a pile of spiders or a badger either way get out

Dinner Bell Once they’ve commandeered the boxcar, the Alden kids meet the challenge of establishing their meal supply chain head on. A quick walk to town for some groceries, a quick forage in the woods for some berries, and dinner is on. Due to convenient topographical features, there is a small stream running right in front of the boxcar which provides drinking water, facilitates cleanliness, and in a clever little detail, allows for refrigeration when the children store the glass bottles of milk they buy in town in the cold running water. I always loved that element of how the kids play house in the woods, although personally, I don’t really like milk when I am camping. My favorite camping food is brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts.
Young Me: I like cold milk too
Old Me: those bottles are probably coated in giardia
Young Me: let’s all have a picnic!
Grimms: so does everyone turn into geese or what
Old Me: damn, Grimms, chill out

Okay, Old Me. You just need to stand down. Not everything needs to make sense. In fact, the Alden siblings might be on to the tip of a whole lifestyle iceberg. I think there is a market for a chain of Boxcar Children-themed health spas and retreats, featuring Reject Authority Power Yoga, Decorate Your Small Space classes, and Hunt And Gather juice cleanses. Get Healthy The Boxcar Way! (Meet me at my room later. I snuck in a whole case of Pop-Tarts.)
#orphaninglikeachamp

Action Items
You probably are wondering if there is a list that ranks Pop-Tart flavors. Yes, there is.

The Reason To Make A Racket

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Filed under Autobiography

It’s kind of startling how much Andre Agassi and I have in common. Andre Agassi is a world-class athlete, a tennis player who dominated the courts in the 1990s with a powerful serve and a powerful personality.  An eight-time Grand Slam champion, he was the first male player to win four Australian Opens, and in his spare time won an Olympic Gold Medal in tennis. He retired in 2006 and published his autobiography Open in 2009. I read the book and I am writing this thing about tennis so we’re practically twins, obvs. The resemblance is uncanny.

Open is a completely unsentimental recounting of what it cost Andre Agassi to become Andre Agassi. It’s riveting. Andre Agassi practiced and perfected his game in a brutal fishbowl, where mistakes were not tolerated and judgment was harsh. It’s not easy to grasp how truly difficult it is to become as good at anything as Andre Agassi is at tennis. You have to live and breathe it. You have to have a network around you that is as dedicated to your goal as you are. It’s relentless, grinding sacrifice. Andre Agassi’s story is one of success in elite athletic circles, but it’s also the larger story of finding out how to be who you are when stripped of the only thing you have ever done. Its humanity, vulnerability, and startling honesty puts Open it in a different class than standard glossy celebrity memoir.

As a sports fan, I am functionally enthusiastic. I don’t keep season tickets to anything, but I can hold my own when I go to a game. I know to never punt on first down and I fully understand the infield fly rule. If I’m watching a sport I’m not familiar with, I figure out how to enjoy what I am watching because I can figure out the basic scoring rules. I don’t get all the rules or nuance of play, but in most cases, there’s a kind of mathiness that makes itself evident and voila! Scoring!
And then…there’s tennis.

At first glance, there is nothing to suggest that tennis scoring is an unfathomable black hole devoid of logic and hope. It’s two people, sometimes four, a ball, a net, some rectangles. How complicated can it be? Well, I’d like to answer that without breaking down into frustrated gargling noises, but I can’t. I just don’t get tennis. I have tried. I really have, but like a greased pig at the county fair, the concepts evade me. I mean, I get the “people are hitting a ball back and forth” part. Past that, I have no idea what is happening. Tennis scoring is like, mermaids count backwards to Pi in an isolation tank with electrodes attached to their knuckles. Then, put on a Pilgrim costume, use invisible ink to write the answer down in Sanskrit, then set the paper on fire. Tennis is not that linear, though.

Tennis people, I know what you are thinking: “I can so explain tennis so you can understand it!” I appreciate your effort but I just have to stop you right there. My mental block is solid. It’s like trying to explain how to meow to an alligator. You can bring a flow chart laying out the correct vocal technique. You can play a recording to offer audio support. You can meow yourself to demonstrate. And when you are all done with all that, the alligator is just going to bite your arm off because it’s a fucking alligator. Then you have an alligator that doesn’t meow and you’re missing an arm. What I’m really saying here is, I don’t understand tennis, and I’m scared of alligators.

Tennis

This is a metaphor.

I was excited about reading Open because I was sure I was finally going to overcome my netblindness. Andre Agassi would help me solve my tennis problem the way I solve all my problems: with books. I mean, with Andre Agassi as my coach, how could I miss?  There was no way I could read a whole book about this particular sport written by someone who knows the game in his very bones and not come out the other side with an understanding of how to tennis. Right?!?

Love Is The Loneliest Number You know how a lot of times in competitive sports, scores are predicated on accepted concepts of basic addition using whole numbers?  Then there’s tennis, where you can score “love”. Because tennis uses that other kind of addition where numbers are random words that have no actual connection to numbers?  To compound the fun, “love” is actually zero points. So it’s a word representing a score that actually means somebody didn’t score. As Euclid said, “That is some insane fuckery.”
Me: whatcha watching
You: football
Me: what’s the score
You: it’s lugnut-ponytail in the 4th quarter
Me: oooh close game

Deuce Morals In a tennis game, a score tied at 3 points each is called a deuce. This is a special rule in abstract wordmath, which is a real field of mathematics that I just made up. This special abstract wordmath rule states “scores tied at three are communicated by representing three with a number word that is actually related to the real number two. This is cool because we never use the number three anyway, we say FORTY to mean three, but don’t tell anyone that forty actually means three because it’s really funny watching people try to figure out what the hell the score is.”  This is more commonly known as the “Who’s On First” Paradox.
Me: is it still lugnut-ponytail?
You: no it’s tied at baker’s dozen
Me: 21-21, wow
Euclid: none of this is okay

Light A Match Tennis is made up of sets, which make up games, which make up a match. If you win the most sets, you win the most games, so you win the match. Except, of course, when you win the most sets and games and don’t win the match, which is a real thing in tennis and omg I give up.
Me: game over?
You: yeah, final score was Packers 28-Vikings 21
Euclid: Packers won, cool
Me: what? HAHAHAHA Oilers, duh
Euclid: i hate it here

I counted on you, Andre-Ag Kenobi. You were my only hope. Tennis is not the sport I was looking for. The double-fault is entirely mine. It’s time to take my alligator and go.
#brokenserve

Action Items
J.R. Moehringer collaborated with Andre Agassi on Open. Moehringer’s own memoir, The Tender Bar, is a gorgeous book.

The Reason For A Team Meeting

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Filed under Books, Memoir, Plays

I am not exactly a model of discipline or moderation or even a consistent laundry schedule, so the standard ‘Time To Make A Resolution’ does not hold a lot of appeal. It’s just not realistic. For starters, making resolutions involves making a list, and then keeping resolutions involves finding the damn list after immediately misplacing it, so we can all agree this is a system that is riddled with opportunities for failure. Besides, when focusing on my shortcomings, mere resolutions don’t begin to address what needs addressing. I need the kind of motivation that involves someone blowing a whistle in my face at 5AM and calling me a maggot. I am absolutely not going to let anyone do that, because anyone who does that is getting punched, and that judge told me the next time I punch someone I “risk incarceration”. I need solutions that don’t involve having to locate lost objects or put innocent drill sergeants in harm’s way.

I really do dream of getting my shit together, though, and what with resolutions being boring and/or violent, I need alternative inspiration avenues. When it comes time to make life improvements, it’s a better idea to look around to find people who are good at life. Why reinvent the wheel when you can mimic the best? I want iconic trendsetters, people who know how to get it done with style and panache. Like all my problems, I am solving this with books, and with those criteria, it was pretty easy to come up with a short list of candidates and choose my life coaches. Noël Coward and Shonda Rhimes, congratulations. You can start immediately.
You: two feels like overkill
Me: one to coach me
You: ok
Me: and one to look for my lost resolutions list

Noël Coward (1899-1973) was a brilliant playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, and cabaret performer. You know, because well-rounded. His sly wit and deft wordplay largely defined British theater in the period between the world wars. Blithe Spirit, Hay Fever, Design For Living-Coward’s plays are about grownups doing provocative things. In his personal life, Coward was was an enthusiastic and prolific letter writer and The Letters Of Noël Coward, edited by Barry Day, captures Coward’s correspondence in all its intimate, bitchy, blisteringly smart style. His letters are endlessly entertaining, gossipy, and loaded with Coward’s razor-sharp humor, and they give the impression that Coward was always on his way from having a great time on his way to have another great time.  In fact, he is such a good salesman that after reading this book I have a longing to be British in the 1920s. As a runner up, I would take being British in the 1890s too, but I would not want to be British in the 1980s because my hair never would have done that Princess-Diana-Simon-LeBon bang swoop that was so critical to social success.
Me: I would like to be British
England: Qualifications?
Me: I can pronounce Worchestershire sauce
England: Anything else?
Me: I’ve been drunk at Heathrow
England: pass

Shonda Rhimes creates, writes, and produces some of the most compelling television you’re probably watching. Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder, Private Practice—at some point listing all her shows out loud in one sentence became too exhausting for everyone so now her creative genius is collectively referred to as ShondaLand. In the middle of kicking ass all over Thursday night network TV, she published Year of Yes: How To Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person (2015). Wildly successful in her writing and show development, Rhimes found herself retreating by inches to hide behind her work, essentially disappearing from her own life. Year of Yes describes her epiphany about her invisibility and recounts how she methodically overcomes her inhibitions. Using the word yes as her password, she completely renegotiates how she interacts with the world. The book’s rapid-fire, staccato style captures Rhimes’ joy as she opens up and finds her place in the sun. I want to be Rhimesish almost as much as I want to be British.
Me: I would like to be Rhimesish
Shondaland: Qualifications?
Me: I know how to spell anatomy
ShondaLand: Anything else?
Me: my favorite color is grey
ShondaLand: pass

duran_duran_1

The bang game is strong.

When I get right down to it, I have gravity problems. That’s right-my issues are scientific. I will dig a rut, fall into it, and whine myself into a state of slug-izontal. Random resolutions don’t have enough in the tractor beam to break me out of my self-induced inertia. My big ideas begin with figuring out how I can sleep late and end with figuring out how I can justify cheese fries for lunch. Giving myself a pep talk doesn’t get results because I can easily buy myself off with more cheese fries. What really fires my rockets?  Cadging someone else’s gumption. It’s ultimately a question of perspective. Imagining trying to justify my slothy ass to Team Coward-Rhimes, cheese fries suddenly lose their luster.
Cheese fries: was it something I said
Me: it’s not you, it’s me
Cheese fries: I can add chili
Me: I hope we can be friends

My favorite Noël Coward play is Private Lives (1930). Private Lives is a comedy of manners about Amanda Prynne and Elyot Chase, a divorced couple married to new people and struggling with infidelity. Well, the kind of infidelity that occurs when you find yourself on your honeymoon with your new spouse in a suite next door to your old spouse who is with HIS new spouse and then you realize you really still want your old spouse so you ditch the new spouses and pull a spouseappearing act. The characters are British hot messes who suffer through their collective crises impeccably dressed and with perfect comic timing.  Amanda Prynne knows there will be fallout when she re-elopes with her first hushand on her second honeymoon, but she’s going for it. Shonda Rhimes chronicles the same philosophy (non-fiction version with 100% fewer extra spouses) in Year of Yes. You don’t get an option to stop the clock, so you might as well get off the couch, fling on a classy outfit and enjoy the ride. OOOOH and speak in a British accent while you are at it.
England: NO
Me: just a little one?
England: accent appropriation not approved
Me: English alliteration is excellent

I’m not making a list of resolutions, but I am resolute. I’ll try new stuff and try to be better at my old stuff, and when I need a good shove I’ll look to my Dream Role Model Team. I’ll read Noel Coward’s letters detailing how he worked as a British intelligence agent during WWII. (Yeah—in addition to all the other stuff, he took up intelligence work. WELL-ROUNDED). When I’m working up my nerve to do something that’s a little scary, I’ll conjure my best Shonda Rhimes-making-a-speech attitude, and suddenly I’ll start tossing my hair and screaming ‘BRING IT ON’. It’s not that I want to be my role models–I just need to borrow their brilliance every once in while. I promise to return it in original pristine condition.
#teamhellyes

Action Items
Here is a round-up of all things Noël Coward, including a link to a performance of Private Lives
Here is a round-up of all the ways you can read Year of Yes

The Reason For All The Formats

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Filed under Books, Ghost Story, Mystery

If you are an author who sets your books in Victorian London and your first name is Charles, I have a special section on my bookshelf just for you. Granted, it’s a niche genre, but it’s not that crowded yet so now is the time to make your move if you’ve been considering a name change and a literary specialty. If that isn’t enough to entice you, maybe I should tell you a little bit about the company you’d be keeping. Take a close look at my cool authors shelf, population Charles Dickens and Charles Finch. (On Wednesdays, they wear pink.)

Victorian London is a wonderfully elastic world in which to set a book- by turns atmospheric and grand, violent and sexy. The tension that results from the convergence of Industrial Age modernity and monarchical rigidity is a forceful backdrop. Plus, the wardrobes are on point.
Victorian London: what is it about me that’s so awesome
Colonial America: maybe the top hats
Victorian London: i serve steamed suet for dessert
Colonial America: it’s definitely the top hats

Charles Dickens’ poignant ghost story A Christmas Carol has Victorian London street cred. Dickens drew on his own life experience in his writing, having been a poor child who worked in a blacking factory. As a successful author, his storytelling served as a platform for him to articulate his arguments about the impact of crippling poverty, class injustice, and the need for social reform. He self-published A Christmas Carol in 1843 and the rest is past, present and future. “Bah, Humbug” entered the English language and Scrooge achieved the kind of one-word name recognition that would one day be shared by Beyoncé and Liberace.
Charles Dickens: Goals: codify the meaning of Christmas for generations in one short book
Charles Dickens: (publishes A Christmas Carol)
Charles Dickens: nailed it

Over there on the shelf, to the right of the multiple copies of A Christmas Carol, are the books in the Charles Lenox historical mystery series by Charles Finch. A Beautiful Blue Death introduces Charles Lenox, amateur gentleman detective, wealthy enough to pursue his passion as a hobby but also wealthy enough for his passion to be tolerated by his social circle. (Oh, Victorian London, you and your insufferable class snobbery.) Lenox is sharply intelligent and remarkably intuitive, and his determination and drive are the core of the appeal of the books.
Charles Finch: Goals: publish an award-nominated debut historical mystery novel
Charles Finch: (publishes A Beautiful Blue Death)
Charles Finch: nailed it

According to every car commercial aired between 12/1-12/31 and all 4,324 Christmas movies on Lifetime, the month of December guarantees joys are magnified, memories are made, and problems are solved with a quick application of some Magic Of The Season. Sometimes, that is real life, but December has a way of magnifying all the opposites too. Losses are more resonant. Endings are more heartbreaking. The boomerang between the highs and the lows tuckers me out. Inevitably, there comes a moment in December when I need to shake off all the heightened, frantic expectations and when that moment comes, I’m selecting a favorite from the Charleses shelf for a solid re-reading chill session.  I never get tired of Ebenezer Scrooge throwing off the weight of a lifetime of grief. I never get tired of Charles Lenox’s clever perserverance. I never get tired of imagining myself navigating the streets of Victorian London in a top hat.
Victorian London: seriously?
Colonial America: told you
Victorian London: what about sewage? got lots of that
Colonial America: sticking with the hats

QV in a top hat

Queen Victoria in a top hat. Aesthetic: monarch meta.

If you’ve ever asked me for book recommendation, you’ve heard me talk about the Charleses. (Charleseses? Charlesi.) Also, if you’ve ever asked me for a book recommendation, I am so sorry, and I hope you have recovered. You were unprepared to be utterly swamped by a tsunami of pure booknerd glee. I should have warned you that I am positively evangelical about books I like. If you ask me for recommendations while you are in my undecorated house, I am going to take the book I want you to read off my shelf and press it into your hands while I describe in detail why I love it so much. You poor thing. Just nod and take it; I really can’t help myself. It’s because of my lack of bibliophilic boundaries that I buy the same books over and over again. When I need to spend some time re-reading, I’ll hit up my shelf only to find that the book I want isn’t there. Buying the same books every 18-24 months will really throw off Amazon’s recommendation algorithm.
Amazon: Did you enjoy A Beautiful Blue Death
Me: Yes!
Amazon: Then we recommend A Beautiful Blue Death
Me: I’ll take it

I’ve laid in some emergency formats for the inevitable days that my shelf presents a Charleses (Charlsises. Charlers?) gap. I picked up A Christmas Carol on audiobook this year to go with my hardback illustrated special edition and paperback. I own A Beautiful Blue Death in  paperback and digital and just replaced the hardback (for the third time). When I’m ready to enjoy a favorite, I want to enjoy it however how I can in the moment I have available. Sometimes, that’s e-reading in a waiting room. Sometimes it’s a hardback on a lazy morning or an audiobook on a long drive. And sometimes, I want to enjoy it by pressing a copy into someone else’s hands.

On December days when the edges are ragged and the strings are strung tight, I am comforted by Charleses and the vision of top hats on a busy Victorian London street. Scrooge forgives the world that took his beloved sister. Charles Lenox tracks down West End thugs and Hyde Park racketeers. Souls are saved before it’s too late. There’s redemption and there’s justice. I’m reading something that has an ending I know, because all the endings I don’t know are looming a little too large. Maybe, when you asked me what you should read, I really heard you ask for a good ending. I get it. Here’s a Charles.
#chuckwagon

Action Items
Charles Finch just published the ninth book in the Lenox series, Home By Nightfall. 
Patrick Stewart’s audio version of A Christmas Carol is marvelous.