Overheard…

In the post office:

Elderly woman, complaining to post officer: “You cant just shove things that say “don’t bend” into a mailbox. I practically broke my fingers.”

Post officer: <mumble mumble, unintelligible behind glass>

Elderly woman: “Stop spouting your bubbaloo to my face. You’re a professional worker. That’s the problem with this post office–everyone just does whatever they want.”

Post officer: “I wasn’t the person who put that mail in your mailbox, ma’am.”

Elderly woman: “I’m not complaining about you. I’m complaining AT you. I’ve had it. Period. Amen.”

At a “gentle” yoga class:

60-something woman 1: “He’s not really that handsome, though, Ryan Gosling. He’s just cute.”

60-something woman 2: “They’re all puffy now. I don’t know if it’s fillers or what.”

Woman 1: “And they’re all tiny.”

Woman 2: “You know who I saw the other day? Who’s the guy…who’s the guy who goes around tasting food?”

Woman 1: “I saw Wolfgang Puck at a sample sale.”

Woman 2:  “What were they selling?”

Woman 1: “You know, those placemats.”

Woman 2: “Food is one of my least interests.”

Woman 1: “I hate going downtown to restaurants. It’s all about the PR, you know. And I don’t mean the prime rib.”

In an elevator:

One guy talking to two other guys: “My New Year’s Resolution was to not drink…heavily…for a week.”

In the presence of children:

Ten-ish-year-old boy to his mom: “You know what’s so unfair? Dad says I can’t have media this weekend.”

Dad to child waiting for the F train: “Matthew. We do NOT chase pigeons on the platform.”

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White Nights in Split Town City, by Annie Dewitt: By a friend and former classmate–this is brief, horrifying, mesmerizing, and wonderfully written.

The Assistants, by Camille Perri: I am not sure I understand the fervor over this. Actually, I’m sure I do not.

The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware: This is really cleverly plotted, a fast read, and completely enjoyable.

A Child Called It, by Dave Pelzer: When I finished this (it’s very short), having had it sort of lodged in the back of my mind as a cultural touchstone type of thing…my only thought was what the $&#& did I just read?

You Will Know Me, by Megan Abbott: I absolutely loved The Fever, also really liked The End of Everything, did not like Dare Me at all, and felt pretty eh about this one (which was disappointing because I also love gymnastics…)

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, by Bryan Lee O’Malley: My roommate lent me this. How do people tell characters apart in comics?? They all looked so alike!

The Gene: An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee: This is excellent. It’s not quite Emperor of All Maladies, but a gene is much less reaching than cancer. My only caveat is that there are some terrible dad jokes throughout the text. Editor!

The Poisoner’s Handbook, by Deborah Blum: Extremely interesting, entertaining, morbid.

Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart: Believe it or not, this was the first Shteyngart I’ve ever read. He’s fantastic; the writing has masses and masses of energy. Also, I understand that these things are all in the zeitgeist, but I was impressed by the fact that this is from 2010 and predicts a fair number of things that come up in Black Mirror.

Juniper: The Girl Who Was Born Too Soon, by Kelley and Thomas French: Knowing that both of the authors are journalists, I was hoping this would be–not less memoir, but more research and exploration of the development of our abilities to keep very premature babies alive via dramatic intervention, what it means that we’re now able to do this for babies born sooner and sooner, when life begins–all of the big questions. There’s a little bit of that, but I wanted more history.

Mischling, by Affinity Konar:

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I am lazy with my annotations, or I have less to say about these…but comments on a few of them:

The Argonauts, by Maggie Nelson

Virus Hunter, by CJ Peters

The Lightkeepers, by Abby Geni

Hunting the 1918 Flu, by Kirsty Duncan

The City of Mirrors, by Justin Cronin: This was a behemoth but went very fast, as you might imagine.

Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, by Laurie Jarrett: This was also a behemoth and went extremely slowly (not in a bad way, but I think I renewed it 9 times). The only disappointing element was that it’s from 2000 and in 16 years, so much changes in epidemiology and public health.

Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens, by Steve Olson

Last Last Chance, by Fiona Maazel: Love this. It’s from I think 2008 and thus precedes the wave of epidemic/apocalypse books. And while many current books of the genre use the epidemic as a lens for viewing humanity, this one does more so than most–the disease is primarily the backdrop, not the plot. It’s also incredibly written and really intensely smart, but the fact that the author is clearly brilliant doesn’t take away from the writing at all (the way I felt it did in Gold Fame Citrus).

Yellow Dirt, by Judy Pasternak

The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins

Land of Enchantment, by Leigh Stein: Leigh is my dear friend and this is a beautiful book. I read it far too late into the night after I started it.

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Books Read in 2016 – Part 1

Infested, by Brooke Borel: I put this on hold at the library after seeing it in the Morbid Anatomy Museum gift shop. Having had bed bugs, it was hard to see the book’s jacket (which is very…realistic, and almost trompe l’oeil with its critters) on top of my covers.

The Only Ones, by Carola Dibbell: One of my favorites of the year and of the literary-post-apocalypse genre (and I’ve read pretty much ALL of those). The voice is amazing.

In a Dark, Dark Wood, by Ruth Ware: I like the cover of this. Very fractal. She’s very good at plotting, but the other Ruth Ware I read this year was much more interesting, and both made me long for the new Tana French (I am on hold! So many people, so few copies).

Voices From Chernobyl, by Svetlana Alexievich: I wanted to include the most affecting statement from this oral history, but then I didn’t want to ruin it. One of the best books I read this year.

The Folded Clock, by Heidi Julavits: I really enjoyed this. Somewhat reminiscent of one of my favorite books from last year (The Department of Speculation), though that is purportedly fiction and this is nonfiction. Sometimes juxtaposition as a narrative strategy is lazy, but not here.

Gold Fame Citrus, by Claire Vaye Watkins: She’s a brilliant writer and extremely smart, but somehow those got in the way of both the writing and the narrative for me. (This is also literary post-apocalypic in genre, though without the disease component that most of the others share.)

The Country of Ice Cream Star, by Sandra Newman: Hm. There are a number of ways in which this was extremely gripping and epic, others in which it was ultimately disappointing (though it’s 700 pages long and I read all of it, so that says something, I suppose). There are also the problematic elements of the way race and language are used/appropriated.

In a Different Key: The Story of Autism, by Caren Zucker and John Donvan: I wish this had been more in depth–something like The Emperor of all Maladies.

Looking for Alaska, by John Greene: What did I learn about John Greene recently? I think that someone I know writes for his history podcast? Not sure.

Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel: I’ll stick with The Only Ones as my favorite but this is also a fantastic entry to post-apocalyptic literature. The weaving together of stories is very deft but the amazing grimness of the titular image is what pierced me the most.

Code Orange, by Caroline B. Cooney: This was…odd. I kept wondering if the main character’s name was an allusion to Walter Mitty.

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Spanish Duolingo is a different experience than Russian Duolingo–since it was one of the first languages available when the app was created, it has graphics with every sentence. They don’t always…quite fit the message, though.

So cheerful!

At least this guy has the decency to look ashamed.

Sometimes, a sinister narrative emerges:

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I’ve been using the app Duolingo to learn Russian and to review Spanish for the past year or so. Spanish was one of the first languages available (along with French, German, and I think Italian); Russian was added in 2015. I’m still holding out for Thai (they have Vietnamese, so they haven’t shied away from tonal languages), Mandarin, and Latin.

It’s interesting to see the differences in the more beta-version Russian, which is a little more bare bones in terms of graphics and types of lessons (primarily, there’s no “speak this into the microphone in Russia” and no conversation with bots, the way there is with the Spanish program). During the Spanish course, pretty much every question/phrase is accompanied by a giant-mouthed smiling cartoon. The Russian course has graphics, too, but they are a little more stock-photo. Both yield intermittently hilarious results. Below, a narrative of sorts.

Previously, I had gotten practice sentences in Russian that included statements such as “My girlfriend can’t cook, but she eats a lot” and “Big Brother is watching.” Then I reached a unit on the body…

Oh dear.

But on a cheerier note…

This was the best picture they could find for “eye”??

I mean, there was at least one other available photo of eyes…

So many questions…

And statements….

and eventual levity.

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It’s a weird time to be binge-watching The Americans, which is what I’m currently doing since I have a one-month trial of Amazon Prime.

What else is in this world? Oil spills, civil war, the murder of civilians, a terrifying president-elect and a possibly more terrifying cabinet. Other things, too, of course. Many more hopeful and cheering, but damn.

It’s hard to compare right now to earlier times–when we didn’t have the ability to know every terrible thing that was happening in the world, or the confusion that comes with a vast glut of often conflicting information, or the feeling of impotence at being unsure of what you can do to make any difference, other than protest and throw money at problems–but compared to recent times alone, right now feels pretty rock-bottom.

Given that it feels like we’re living in a Black Mirror episode, two plotfinders: Both of these are Black Mirror-esque, but are definitely not Black Mirror. I’ve seen them all (not the whole third season, but the shows I’m trying to find are from before season three came out).

SPOILERS will be included eventually, because, well, I’m trying to *find* these episodes/shows/whatever they are, not recommend them to people. But I’ll put them in white so you don’t have to see.

1. This was the more Black Mirror-like of the two. It’s about a young woman (I believe British) who keeps getting terrifying emails that show a video of someone wearing a hoodie murdering someone. The implication is that she’s next. The woman is very timid and when she goes to work her coworker tries to talk to her but she’s afraid.

SPOILER below (highlight to read):

**It’s her. She’s the murderer. She puts on her hoodie and murders people in an elevator.

2. This was less like Black Mirror but had the same sort of uncanny horror feel. It’s about a guy who opens a portal in his house that lets him trade places with an alternate-universe sort of version of himself. There’s some weirdness with his alternate-universe wife, who looks like his regular wife but seems to have some kind of shoe fetish or murder fetish (I may have been sleep while watching this).

SPOILER:

The alternate universe version of the protagonist doesn’t want to go back to the alternate universe and traps the protagonist there by sealing the portal or whatever. I think.

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Blah.

I needed a month off after that. Mostly because every time I thought about writing, it started with me not knowing what to say and ended with me having too much to say and never stopping. Also, this blog is generally trivial. The election of a racist, misogynist, hotheaded reality TV star with no political experience is the opposite.

Whenever I try to put my thoughts down I find myself spiraling deeper and deeper into disclaimers. Disclaimers like: I voted for Clinton and it was an obvious choice for me. But that said–I’m not a fan of Clinton. Or of politically dynastic families/partnerships in generally. But THAT said–she was by far the most qualified person and for me it was definitely not just “the lesser of two evils.” It was “someone who has many policies I disagree with” versus “ABJECT HORROR.” But that said…in a different election without such stark possible results–living in a state that was always going to go Democrat–if there had been a third-party candidate that I felt strongly about (there wasn’t), I would have voted third party. I never felt like I wanted to say “I’m with her.” But that said…I understand that the office of president involves making excruciatingly difficult decisions. It’s not something I could do.

I have recursive disclaimer disease. It’s a retrovirus.

I wish that America did not have a de facto two-party system and that our political system was more of a proportionate representation.

I don’t know the answers (or all of the questions). For now I’m reading, listening, donating to the ACLU and environmental organizations and others TBA, peacefully protesting, and trying to balance acknowledging the fact that everything is different now with the equal fact that all other aspects of our lives must continue (disclaimer: this is easy for me to say, not being in anywhere near as dire a situation as someone who isn’t white, who isn’t straight, who’s an immigrant, etc), even with a radically different backdrop.

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Discussing the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine:

Student: So TR offered Columbia 10 million dollars. But Colombia said no. So then he offered more money, and more money, but they wouldn’t take it!

Me: Well–he offered them 10 million and didn’t want to offer more; that’s why he went to the Panamanian government. He didn’t ever offer more than 10 million.

Student: Oh, I just added that part for dramatic effect.

Discussing an analogy (“A hammer is to a nail…”) whose answer was “as a screwdriver is to a screw”:

Me: Good–why is the answer “as a screwdriver is to a screw” and not “as an axe is to a board”?

Student: Because with a screwdriver, you can only use it on a screw, but you can either use an axe on a board or you can use it to kill someone.

Discussing an excerpt about a man, John Podgers, whose main pastimes are eating and sleeping:

Me: What’s the main idea of this passage?

Student: Well, to me the main idea is…

Me: <encouraging face>

Student: To me the main idea is that John Podgers is living every man’s dream.

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Over the weekend I was trying to remember every costume I’ve ever worn for Halloweens past. For some reason not being able to remember what I did on a specific holiday in a given year (I see you, 4th of July 2007…or, actually, I do not) really bothers me (rough life, I know).

I don’t think my parents dressed me up when I was 6 months, 1.5, or 2.5…but I bet they will let me know in the comments if I’m wrong!

After that I was – in chronological order but with some years that I can’t remember and some when I had multiple costumes: a monarch butterfly, a fairy (I remember being confused that people kept asking me if I was a fairy princess…I was a regular fairy, okay?!) a queen (or I might be confusing costumes with what I wanted to be when I grew up), a stoplight, a television set, a goose with butterfly wings, a wizard, my friend Maya as a child, my dad from the 1970s, dressed up (sometimes you have a dress that’s too fancy for any other occasion), the grand canyon, a prairie bride, outer space p0rnography (graduate school…graduate school), a video game space invader, the tooth fairy, Rainbow Brite, Vanna White, the viral Youtube video “double rainbow,” a peacock, a stained-glass window, a zebra, a bloody zebra, a traffic cone, a thunderstorm, BMO (from Adventure Time), black swan.

I would say what I really WANTED to be this year but…I have to keep it in the pipe for next year. It was just too unwieldy to wear to a concert.

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