Welcome to the 20s, old sports! Yes, I am going to be this insufferable until I get used to saying 20 freaking 20 (terrifying).
So it’s that time of year again, this shiny, brand new year, when resolutions are made and goals are set. I, for one, love resolutions. Time is undoubtedly a construct, but hey, it’s out construct, and even if the first day of the first month of the first year of this new decade is an arbitrary designation, at least the illusion serves a function in representing a chance to change our ways and try to improve. Right? Right??
Anyway. So here are my goals and resolutions and what have you.
Read at least 125 books this year (or roughly 2.5 books a week). I hit 155 in 2019, so I think that’s a pretty reasonable goal.
Finish reading all of the books I’ve marked “Currently Reading” (lies) on Goodreads. I use that feature to earmark books I want to read in the near future, but it’s gotten way out of hand. I think improving my usage of Goodreads overall is something I need to work on.
Make a dent in the TBR pile by reading at least one book a week that I already own. I get distracted by all of the new library books I get every day, and the books I actually own usually get put off. The one downside to working at the library – books everywhere.
Buy fewer books, both print and digital. I mean, we all know that’s not going to happen (sorry, G) but like, at least I can say I tried.
Use OverDrive for e-audiobooks. I hate audiobooks with a fiery burning passion, but I think I might be able to get into them for nonfiction reads. We shall see.
When the urge to scroll through social media hits, reach for a book instead. NO. MORE. SCROLLING. Trying to cap my phone time at an hour a day, because phones are evil and I miss the days when I was forbidden to own one. I got so much more reading done (and writing, but let’s not talk about that mmmmmkay).
Read EVERYWHERE – waiting in line, during solo meals, on work breaks. Which brings me to the next point…
Resurrect the ingenious EMERGENCY BOOK strategy of my youth – basically, never ever EVER be without a book. Bring one with you everywhere you go, all the time. Insert jaws-boat.gif – we’re gonna need a bigger bag.
Improve my reading space. Since moving in with my husband, I haven’t really had a chance to build a comfy little nook. So the goal is to move into our new house and design the perfect cozy reading space -that means a bright light, tons of massive blankets, and a big-bellied cat.
Read things that I enjoy, and in the same vein, stop reading things I don’t enjoy. I started doing this last year, and I think that’s the main reason I was able to read more books than I have since I was in high school and shirking all homework to tear through the western canon and also all of Anne Rice’s collected works. Life is too short to read books you don’t like. Yolo. Read what you want.
Exactly.
That’s all for today, folks. Here’s to a bright new year, filled with books galore.
Oi oi, it’s page 364 of the year, so I guess that means it’s time for the annual ROBYN’S YEAR IN READING WRAP-UP EXTRAVAGANZAAAAA post.
2019 was a motherfucking BANNER year for books, kiddos. I was actually hesitant to do a wrap-up because, let’s be honest, there are still like 30 hours left of this year, I can finish 2 more books AT LEAST. But at this moment, I am sitting pretty at 155 books read this year, the most, I think, since I started tracking numbers. According to my trusty book-stats bitch, Goodreads, that means I read 48,859 pages, and I rated my read books an average of 3 out of 5 stars (a solid meh, which is pretty on point).
Today, though, I wanna recap my 4 and 5 star reads, because frankly, I can’t remember what the hell I read last week, let alone last January.
January
A solid start to the year. Also, hey, King of Scars, miss you, babe 😘
February
Faeries, haunted corsets, and bleak Soviet history – I am nothing if not predictable.
March
MURDER! BOOKS! BEYONCE! WEDDING PLANNING!!!
April
I see a trend, and I am not upset about it.
May
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS Vasya x Morozko = tru luv 4eva
June
The honeymoon reads – Chernobyl, pure horror, librarian literary fic, and good ole’ alien-lovin’ Cottonwood smut.
July
Domestic witchery and professional head-bitchery.
August
Two of my top reads of the year – Someone Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I am crying just thinking about them.
September
Nada! It was an insane month, and though I read quite a few books, none of them cracked 4 stars.
October
Sobbing. Just sobbing.
November
The most 4 & 5 star reads in one month, and I think the most books read in one month, which also happened to be NaNoWriMo month – coincidence? No, no it was not.
December
Last month, and the best book I read this year – Elif Shafak, TEACH ME YOUR WAYS.
SOME THOUGHTS
I really liked taking a look back at this year’s reads. I read (and re-read) some really amazing books this year. I definitely read more nonfiction this year, especially about Chernobyl, which I was desperate to know more about after watching the HBO series. Fantasy and horror are always my top genres (with a bit of science fiction thrown in there as well). I read fewer romances this year, maybe because I’m busy living my own romance novel these days (hey G ).
My most pleasurable reading experience was tearing through the Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden. I’m kicking myself for not reading these sooner (hello, Russian historical fantasy, WHY DID YOU DENY YOURSELF THIS, PAST ROBYN??) but in a way, it was nice to experience that rare feeling of racing through a completed series, knowing the ending is right there in your hands rather than two years away.
My top 3 reads were:
3. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman,
2. Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, and
1. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak.
To my own surprise, shame, and feckless-book-reviewer’s-horror, I didn’t actually review any of these books on the blog. I will remedy that, but for now, listen to me when I say that you must GET THESE BOOKS FROM YOUR CLOSEST LIBRARY / INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE AS SOON AS MOTHER-FLIPPIN POSSIBLE AND READ THEM AND KNOW THAT THERE IS HOPE YET FOR THIS BLEAK AND BROKEN AND BURNING WORLD, FOR SUCH BOOKS AS THESE EXIST, FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN FOR YOU, DEAR READER, TO READ AND TO BE CHANGED BY, IN BEAUTIFUL, INDESCRIBABLE WAYS.
Anyway. That was 2019. It was a big year for me, personally and professionally and bookishly. Thank you sticking around these blogosphere parts if you did, so long bish if you didn’t… and if you’re new to these parts, welcome, prepare for chaos, hope you’re ready for some bookish bullshit, shenanigans and general hooliganry.
2020, let’s do this.
– xo, R
P.S. THERE’S STILL LIKE 29 HOURS LEFT, GO READ A BOOK!
Hallo, poppinjays! Busy busy fortnight and a half here in Helheim. Slowly recovering from a severe case of ABH (Awesome Book Hangover) – the books in question being Stacia Kane’s Chess Putnam books, of course. Got a few books in the queue to very soon review (accidental rhyme, make a wish!) but today, I think I’m going to switch my usual villainess trousers for a pair of ranty-pants and step onto my soapbox. Don’t worry, it will be brief (not like the great e-reader rant of 2011).
Last night, I was finishing up the lovely Siege and Storm, the second in Leigh Bardugo’s wunderbar Grisha trilogy, when I realized that it and its predecessor featured that rarest of rarities, the gender-neutral cover. Behold, and be amazed:
Gorgeous, and inclusive!
Now, I realized I am a bit late to the gendered book cover discussion. Way back in May, YA author Maureen Johnson raised the issue on her Twitter, and wrote about it on the Huffington Post – which also featured a truly eye-opening gallery of cover-flips (check it out if you haven’t already seen it!). It’s not just a YA issue either – the reissue of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar caused quite an uproar a couple of months ago, and any stroll through the bookstore reveals some distressingly conspicuous design trends.
It’s ridiculous, of course, but it’s also upsetting. Gendering book covers is a feminist issue because, as the Guardian notes, female authors are the ones most likely to be negatively affected by covers featuring loopy type and a picture of a headless chick’s naked back. The unhappy truth is that some dudes just won’t read a book with a girly cover. They are yet to realize that a guy holding a book – ANY book – automatically becomes the most beautiful guy in the… room (in the whole wide room), even if the book looks like this…
Actually, that would be pretty hot. I would totally buy that guy a kebab.
Anyway. The point is, whatever the reasons, gendered book covers are a thing and that sucks. I should mention that white-washed book covers are also a thing and that sucks even harder, but since I promised a short rant and really don’t fancy giving myself an embolism this afternoon, I’m not even going to touch that one. And damn it, there’s yet another problem in the form of genre cover tropes, which Chuck Wendig recently discussed. It’s bad enough that I read romances, but damn it, do they all have to have the same naked man’s torso on the front of them, advertising not only my low-brow tastes in ‘literature’ but my inherent, inconvenient, and utterly calamitous romanticism? Ugh.
Of course, it’s not all bad. There are some phenomenal covers out there, too. You’ve all had to endure my hero-worship of Joey Hi-Fi, designer of the drool-worthy covers of Wendig’s Miriam Black novels. Libba Bray’s The Diviners, the adult covers of the Harry Potter series, and basically every John Green novel are some examples of books whose covers are gender-neutral. We just need more like these, where the cover actually reflects the story being told within, and has nothing at all to do with the perceived and/or desired readership based – probably arbitrarily – on the flawed calculations of the publisher’s penny-pinchers.
Another cause for hope is the Recovering the Classics project, which is a “crowdsourced collection of original covers for 50 of the greatest books in the public domain.” And it is off the hizook. There are some bloody gorgeous covers (and you can order them as prints!). While there isn’t a large representation of female authors, and okay, yes, the few covers that have been submitted for books like Pride and Prejudice and Little Women are pretty stereotypically girly, I think the idea of crowd-sourcing covers is a great tactic for ending the deluge of covers featuring cupcakes and teapots and six-packs (manly ones, not beer-y ones).
My suggestion is a lot less imaginative and, yeah, maybe a little Orwellian. I propose a return to the extreme simplicity of the classic Penguin covers:
The cons: uniformity, of course, an undeniable absence of visual engagement, and a maybe a touch of authoritarianism.
The pros: sleek. So very, very sleek. Also, the use of uniform covers would obviously remove any gendering or white-washing or tired genre tropes, and would force readers to select books based on the synopsis alone. We would have to be… cover-blind (sorry, couldn’t resist). And on a more personal note, these covers would also put an end to my endless quest to own every different edition of Wuthering Heights. My bookshelf and my wallet would be very grateful.
There’s a happy medium lurking in between these two extremes, probably. Perhaps, in the place of that delightfully quizzical bird, each book could feature a small illustration, so that the book cover designers don’t find themselves as unemployed as me.
And on that note – Book Cat!
Oh no, Librarian, please, keep taking pictures and DON’T worry about rescuing me from being crushed by a precariously leaning tower of library books. (Rolls eyes, attacks.)
Cranky, cranky. Note to self: don’t interrupt Book Cat’s slumber to take 347 pictures with fancy new phone.
Happy New Year, everybody. Here’s hoping this one’s better than the last. I’m trying to suppress my natural inclination toward pessimism and be cheerful (ugh). It is, unsurprisingly, rather difficult. Do you remember that scene in 28 Days Later, when Jim tells Selena that “it’s not all shit” and his voice is all hoarse and Irish because he’s just been running and killing zombies and is also Irish, and his shirt is off and he’s so sexy despite being covered in zombie gore? And he holds her shoulders after she’s just almost chopped his head off, and he convinces her that life is worth living after all, even if merry old England has become a pseudo-zombie-ridden post-apocalyptic wasteland? Yeah, of course you remember. Anyway, I really need Jim to give me a little shake and a wee bit of encouragement. (Gods above, Cillian Murphy is hot, though, isn’t he? I’d fight zombies with him, if you know what I mean…)
Here’s some Eugene to keep our chins up:
So here’s to 2013. May it be full of good books, great ideas, finished manuscripts, more laughter than tears (unless they’re laughing tears, which is okay), a steady job, and sexy, sexy men. Who are also tall. And maybe also mute. Or Irish. ANYWAY.
No book review for today. I’m wallowing a bit. I feel all melancholy and gloomy. The reviews will come next time, when this new year feels less like a new pair of underwear. So you get a belated Christmas Book Cat pic:
I’m only allowing this because Christmas Sharpe has put me in a good mood.
And a bonus Book Cat with costume change!
In the words of that dithering idiot Hamlet, “O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.” Yeah. So sleep with one eye open, librarian.
And because it’s Christmas (or it was, anyway), and I need cheering up, and maybe you do,too, here’s Sharpe:
Richard Sharpe, hottest hottie in all the hot land.
Damn, Sharpe. That’s some first-class smoulder right there. I salute you, sir. Also, marry me.
Happy Halloween! Also, sweet Samhain, if that’s more your thing. Dear readers, my personal life may be going up in flames as I write this, and there is a really good chance that I’ll start November literally living under a bridge like a really well-read troll (serves me right, I guess, after all those hobo jokes… c’mon, it’s a funny word!), but if nothing else is left to me, at least I have today. At least we all have today. The economy is shite, violent conflicts are waging across far too much of this planet, and the weather is alarmingly reminiscent of a History Channel documentary about the coming Mayan apocolypse, but today, my friends, today, life is good.
Yes, Boromir. Yes, it is.
Because today is Halloween. And it is physically impossible to be unhappy today. Here in the hellish suburb in which I currently reside, the skies are dark grey, the rain-slicked pavement is as pretty as the jet stone in a Victorian widow’s brooch, and everywhere rotting leaves, oddly beautiful in their fiery hues, serve the dual purpose of being festive reminders of the season and also making any attempt at walking in heels an utter nightmare. It’s Halloween, the time of year when we are not only allowed to embrace the dark and grim and horrifying things in life, to dress up and pretend to be someone else, to wander the world beneath that lovely old moon and demand candy from strangers who will ACTUALLY THEN GIVE US CANDY – hell, we are expected to do these things. And that is just awesome. I don’t care if you’re five, fifteen, fifty, or a hundred years old, today, just be happy. I’m going to try, anyway.
Enough yammering on, let’s get to the book, shall we? I know that’s what you’re waiting for. Today, it’s Libba Bray’s The Diviners.
The Story: It’s 1926 – what more do I need to say? It’s the heart of the Jazz Age, Prohibition’s in full swing, and the bright young things rule the world. Every Sheik and Sheba is living life to the fullest with a drink in her hand, Fitzgerald’s scribbling away, and the Harlem Renaissance is challenging established cultural hegemony with its dazzling explosion of African-American literature, music, art and philosophy. There’s also women’s suffrage, the fight for workers’ rights, and the Ziegfield follies. In the thick of it all is Evie, sent from small-town Ohio to the bright lights of New York City to escape an awkward situation, and loving every minute of her supposed banishment. While she might not get along perfectly with her aloof Uncle Will, curator of the Museum of American Folkore, Superstition and the Occult, she adores living in the same building as her bestie buddy Mabel, and soon finds a new pair of pals in Theta, a true-blue flapper, and Hen, a brilliant pianist, both as glamorous as they are mysterious. Even the irritating pickpocket Sam and Will’s solemn assistant Jericho can’t bring Evie down – until a girl is found brutally murdered, beginning a series of gruesome killings that rock New York. When Will is called in to advise police on the odd occult symbols found at the murder scenes, Evie realizes that she might have to acknowledge the secret talent that got her sent away from home in the first place. Evie can read objects; she can hold a button and know what its owner had for breakfast, and a whole lot more. And Evie’s not the only one with a trick or two up her sleeve. Harlem numbers runner Memphis is struggling with his own gifts, trying to keep his younger brother safe and figure out why there’s a crow dogging his footsteps and why his dead mother keeps appearing in his dreams with words of warning…
Whoah. So, first of all, apologies for that monster of a plot summary. This book is freaking massive, and there are dozens of seemingly disparate storylines (that eventually converge in a brilliant finale, I might add), so a pithy summation is difficult, but I did try. Also, I’m… kind of speechless. I absolutely, positively, straight up LOVE it. This will probably come as a surprise to no one but me – as far as I can tell, everyone in the world loves Libba Bray, including ALA and YALSA. I don’t know how I missed that memo, especially because I am kind of a librarian. AWKWARD. But anyway.
Confession: I am mildly obsessed with the Roaring Twenties. This is my decade, the one I would time-travel back to if I wandered into Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (God, Hemingway was hot in that movie). As far as I’m concerned, I was born in the wrong era of history. I want to be a flapper, with rebellious shorn locks and scandalously short dresses and a talent for dancing, drinking, and dazzling the gents.
Oh, I’m meant to be reviewing this book, aren’t I? Okay, here goes: THIS BOOK IS AMAZING. READ IT. NOW.
There. Done.
No, but seriously. The story is impeccable. Flawless. I can’t think of a single thing I might have improved. The use of the supernatural felt truly fresh, when for a while it seemed that YA was to be inundated with the same old vampires and werewolves forever and ever, amen. Add to this the time and setting, which I felt was truly innovative – please more supernatural historical-fiction! – and a perfectly paced, truly suspenseful plot full of genuine surprises, thrills, and quite a few chills (I sometimes couldn’t read this book before bed, because I am that much of a baby), and you have what I like to call a perfect storm of awesomeness.
The characters are, in the words of Coffee Talk’s Linda Richman, LIKE BUTTAH. Flawed, fascinating, utterly charming, each of them felt real, complex, and vulnerable (except for the villain, who was scary bananas). Bray is a master of shifting point of views. The transitions were effortless, and each character’s perspective was distinct from the others’.
And don’t even get me started on the writing itself. Sweet baby Thor, this is what you call WRITING. The incorporation of ’20s slang was ingenious, elegantly done, and hilarious. Oh, and Libba Bray is a FREAKING POET, a queen among wordsmiths. This is prose at its best, the kind of writing that makes you stop and re-read passages and shake your head in awe and envy, the kind of writing you insist on reading aloud to everyone in the vicinity, even if they have no idea what you’re going on about because it’s the end of the world and no one has time for YA. The kind of writing that makes you want to rage at a world where books are relegated to arbitrary categories based on age when really everyone should just read everything.
Damn. And sigh.
Please please please read this book. It will make you happy. And then I will be happy.
Best line(s): The wind part of the prologue. You’ll see. Okay, here’s a bit: “The wind swoops over the tenements on Orchard Street, where some of those starry-eyed dreams have died and yet other dreams are being born into squalor and poverty, an uphill climb.” (p. 6). Man, this is GOLD.
Rating: Five out of five bob-and-shingle haircuts. Which I got. Because of this book. That’s how much I love this book. It does not look good on me, what with my Angelica Huston-esque handsome bones, but hey, I’m so happy anticipating the next book in this series that I don’t even care.
Autumn demands gothic romances with dark, brooding, inscrutable heroes. So I’m taking refuge in Jane Eyre (even though I kind of hate it and much much much prefer Wuthering Heights) and taking lots of moody walks through the woods behind my old elementary school. I may or may not be taking these walks in long, billowing skirts and chunky knits, with my hair all coiled up on my head in Victorian-style braids. Okay, I am. Whatevs. I BELIEVE IN MAGIC.
Now, Book Cat has some thoughts on Jane Eyre. I note he appears to have misplaced his usual elegance and wit, though he does make a good point…
HOW CAN ANYONE PREFER A DUDE WHO IS A MASSIVE JERK – OH, AND LOCKS UP HIS CRAZY WIFE IN THE ATTTIC – TO HEATHCLIFF? HOW? HAS THE WORLD GONE MAD??? TEAM HEATHCLIFF 4EVERRRR!!!
You know, while I usually detest the film adaptations of classic novels that I love, I think that in this instance, the movies perfectly illustrate the dilemma posed by great Brontë debate, and indeed, its resolution.
Because, c’mon. I mean, I think I’ve made it clear that I love me some of this:
So hot.
But even the great Fassbender cannot compete with this:
HOT! BURNING! SCALDING!!! OW OW OW–
Even Scarlett O’Hara swooned over him… sigh.
P.S. One day, my friends, we will have a legit, mature, intelligent, academic, fancy-pants literati-style discussion about this, I promise you. For now, though, just enjoy the hotties.
This cat is not Book Cat. With his freaky extra fingers (claws?), Book Cat would pwn this cat. Believe it, bruv.
God, I suck at blogging, right? WRONG. The mind-numbing mundanities of my drearily monotonous existence have conspired to keep me ridiculously preoccupied. First there was the small matter of grad school to deal with–which, by the way, I’m pleased to say is finally finished (yay, me)–and then I made the questionable decision to return to the family seat, a.k.a. Helheim, for a week. Mostly because I went to see Of Monsters and Men at the Phoenix (a-freakin-mazing!) but also because I hate fake London and paying for my own groceries. Once the high of seeing those Icelandic indie rock gods had worn off, though, I quickly remembered why the pink elephant in White-by is called Helheim, and even thoughts of Arnar banging on his drums like a Viking god of kynlíf weren’t enough to distract me from the madness of megalomaniacs, rageaholics, and sociopaths.
And then my step-father went to work and everything was cool. JOKES–he didn’t go to work, he’s a total bum. Lol. Silly you.
But seriously you guys, it’s been crazy. I’ve been back in Lundun packing up my shizz and let me tell you, thank the gods for my e-reader. I have more boxes of books that everything else in my tiny flat combined. Which would normally make me feel all uber-nerdy and self-righteous and cause me to strut around crowing “I’m a librarian!”… except tomorrow I have to carry these boxes of books down six flights of stairs because this apartment’s elevators are demonically possessed. So, a bit of cold water on that one.
So that’s what’s been going on. I have been reading, lots and lots and lots, and as soon as I’ve moved out of Crap City and back to the House of Horrors, I’ll be blogging about the books I lurved and the books I loathed, and also the books who are just going to be casual, no funny business-type friends.
But for now, here’s Book Cat, getting more writing done than me, the bumptious little bastard. Rub it in, T. Rub it in.
‘Sup, blogosphere. Been a while. Guess I can’t put off starting the new year any longer. Since we’re nine days in. Still, I couldn’t just rip the 2011 Mad Men calendar off my wall until Ukrainian Christmas, with all of its belated and desultory holiday gluttony, had finally trudged past, could I? (I’m telling you, one person should not be able to devour as many pickled beets and mushroom-stuffed pyrogys in a single sitting as I did. It was truly disturbing. And impressive.)
So I took a bit of a break from the interwebs over the Chrimbo hols. Got all ‘disconnected’ so I could ‘re-connect’ with people…yeah, right!
Yeah, right. And I'm the Elf Queen of Mirkwood.
What a holiday. Helheim wasn’t as hellish as usual, with step-Satan away on a visit to his homeland, the fiery, demon-populated pits of the Judeo-Christian concept of a punishing afterlife. Little half-brother, Idiot-Bra, is now a helpless, bed-ridden cripple due to a few months of hauling the slaughtered carcasses of innocent cows (what a puss. Shoulda chosen tofu, muthf-kka). Idiot-Bra only emerged from his cave of gleeful, Skyrim-filled convalescence to sate his unquenchable appetite for grilled cheese and chocolate milk. It was truly a Festivus miracle. (That he stayed away, not that he came down, I mean.)
So for most of the holidays, it was just me, Marmee, and Book Cat. A fortnight of secular Christmas revelry: traditional Christmas smashing of bitter-memory-laden Christmas miniature houses (with festive Christmas hammer), a cruelty-free Chrimbo feast (for the animals, at least, ha ha), watching A Christmas Story for the billionth time and still laughing like a loon, a couple of pagan bonfires, and a Yule goat quest. Then there was the rest of it: all of the revenge missions, kickin it in the T-dot (shut up, that’s what I call it), knitting hubris, knee-crushing running, feline sartorial madness, endless TV and movie marathons (this shall forever be remembered as the Degrassi High Christmas), seeing a version of The Nutcracker that somehow misplaced its effin trepak (um, what the eff, National Ballet of Canada?), absolutely no writing at all (despite dragging every single one of my research books home in a weirdly literal example of “the road to hell” thing), and the only thing really relevant to this blog, so much reading my eyes turned into this:
The eyes of Robyn, reading
It was awesome. It was brilliant. It was the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER! (And I didn’t even mention New Year’s… holla NYC!)
So I’ll post what I read over the hols tomorrow. Which brings me to the purpose of this post, which, as usual, I have taken a zillion years to get to. The class for which this blog was created is, sadly, over (tear!). However, I find that this blog has become a part of me, as the great Garth Algar foretold it would. And while I may have cast off the sullied tatters of the old year in which it was spawned and shuffled into this pristine, shiny, and brand spankin new year with an eye to forget most of icky and accursed 2011, I will not abandon this blog. No, my friends, I fully intend to continue on with this blogging mission…quest….thing. So I’ll carry on, with only a few slight alterations. I’ll be blogging about books and book-related stuff, and reviewing and musing on what I’ve read, am reading, and plan to read – same old, except the books won’t be exclusively YA, as they were when this was a school-related blog, and there will be significantly less self-censorship. Which means more nerdiness, more weirdness, and more Book Cat. And more of whatever the hell I want. Boo-yah!
You can’t see me, but I am totally doing my much-practised evil genius grin and accompanying evil genius laugh. If only Book Cat were here so I could do the evil genius stroking equally evil feline side-kick in lap thing. Sigh.
There. Business taken care of.
And now, in summation, here is a list of Things I Learned Over the Chrimbo Hols:
It’s really bad luck to wind up with Old Scratch for a step-father, but it’s slightly better luck when he cloven-hoofs it back to the netherworld.
Grete Samsa probably had a kick-ass Christmas while Gregor was upstairs whinging and freaking out.
You can never make too many “Christmas is coming” jokes while re-watching the entire first season of Game of Thrones.
Some people just don’t understand the need to spend hours building a bonfire on the smelly shores of Lake Ontario and then take less than a minute to jump over this bonfire. Once. Why do I even have to explain this?
Chocolate hedgehogs taste better than real hedgehogs (hedgehogs agree).
Not even the shards of a hundred thousand miniature Christmas village houses will satisfy your thirst for grandparenticide.
Christmas revenge is the sweetest revenge of all.
Toronto kicks fake London’s ass, but crumbles beneath the mightiness of true London.
Undoing days worth of knitting will reveal terrible, wonderful, frightening depths of profanity you never imagined you possessed.
A cat will only put up with so many photoshoots when he’s forced to dress up like a reindeer.
There is absolutely nothing in heaven or earth better than watching all three Lord of the Rings movies, back to back, in the most epic movie marathon of all, to ring in the new year. And then starting to re-read the books. For the eighteenth time.
The National Ballet of Canada will take a lot of your hard-won (read: scammed from Beelzebub) money and then stamp on your beloved Christmas traditions and spit on your desire for authentic and established ballet choreography. Not that I’m mad or anything.
It is easier to play Vikings while wearing your hipster-y faux-fur vest and waving your umbrella sword than it is to write about Vikings.
Reading is more fun when you don’t have to do it for library school.
Well, that’s all for today, folks.
…
P.S.
I did take down my Mad Men calendar. And you know what? All I could think was, KINSEY!!!
Paul Kinsey, where are you? Come back, I miss you! I would totally go for Ukrainian food with you, and then we could listen to jazz, smoke some Mary Jane and quote Eliot at each other!
It’s American Thanksgiving today. I think I prefer the American date; Canadian Thanksgiving is too early in the season. It’s not even really fall yet. Today was definitely an autumn day. Plus, American Thanksgiving is like a shot fired from a starting pistol, signalling the beginning of the most wonderful time of the year, Christmas. (Oh, Christmas, how I love you!)
Aside from making me feel all Matrix-y with Thanksgiving deja vu, the internet has totally made me crave my ideal Thanksgiving dinner: tofurkey slathered in mushroom gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes, candied carrots, homemade perogis stuffed with sauerkraut and mushrooms, my mom’s terrible from-the-box stuffing (I’ll take my mom’s terrible stuffing over the proper stuff any time)… and pumpkin pie. Dear god, the pumpkin pie. The funny thing is… I don’t even really like it all that much. Once I’m two bites in, I have to force myself to finish it. Like Turkish delight and candy canes, the idea of pumpkin pie is far tastier than the actual dessert. In my mind, though, I always think of pumpkin pie as the most mouth-wateringly delicious food ever baked in a flaky pastry shell. Whatever the reality may be.
I’m also feeling a trifle maudlin, with all of the sweet, sentimental, and hilarious tributes to things people are thankful for today. There no such things as too much gratitude, right? Therefore, in honour of American Thanksgiving, I thought I’d write about something I’m (American) thankful for. What has America given me that I appreciate enough to honour with a blog post when I should be sleeping, reading, or actually doing homework?
I thought. I pondered. I puzzled. I watched some YouTube videos and then read another chapter of The Hammer and the Cross. I almost gave up. And then it hit me.
Eugene Hutz, Gypsy Punk (or as I like to call him, the Music Tzar)
Eugene. Of course. I cannot have a blog and not devote at least one post to Eugene.
So today, on American Thanksgiving, I am (American) thankful for Eugene Hutz, lead singer of Gogol Bordello and King of the Gypsy Punks. Now, I hear a chorus of haters clamouring to point out that Eugene is a Ukrainian dude with Roma ancestry. Quiet, haters. America welcomed Eugene and his family into her flawed and complex embrace when they left Ukraine following the Chernobyl disaster, and Gogol Bordello might never have existed without the great city of New York to incubate and inspire its quick-witted, philosophical, brilliant and bacchant frontman.
And, wait for it – I can connect this to YA! I found Gogol when I was a young adult (there – connected!), and its impact on me was immeasurable. It’s hard being a half-Roma half-breed kid in the suburbs of White-by. Eugene was a hero, a role model (seriously), an inspiration, and damn fine to boot. His seemingly desultory catchphrase “Party!” is really a deliberate, meaningful exhortation to celebrate every moment in life, to be active rather than passive, to be the one to throw the party (and the after-party) instead of waiting for it to start.
The rest of the band is awesome. Especially Sergey (you’re brilliant and my violin idol), Yuri (you’re a doll), Tommy (sing more often, man), and Oren (you’re a man of mystery). But Eugene stands above them all. Eugene is, after all, the WonderLust King.
Thanks, Eugene. Thanks for making the greatest music being made today, quite literally the soundtrack of my life; for expecting people to be aware what’s going on in the world; for wearing the best outfits since David Bowie got classy; for having a mustache way before it was cool, because it’s a Roma cultural tradition (Eugene is the one who made it cool, believe it, bruv). Thanks for being a flippin’ awesome actor, too (is there anything you can’t do?); for giving me an excuse to shout “party!” fourteen times (followed by a bonus “after-party”); for hugging me, not once, but twice (twice!) on one of the greatest nights of my life (after-party!). Thanks for helping me become undestructable; for being a fire-brand rock-god poet rebel maniac; for inspiring me to pick up the violin at the ripe old age of 23. Oh, yeah, and thanks for introducing me to Gogol – Nikolai, that is, and his Overcoat, among others.
Thanks for nights like this:
Every GB concert is a transcendent experience, but that one was special. And man, that was a pit.
Happy American Thanksgiving. Wheel of Morality time (turn turn turn). Let’s appreciate how good we have it here in the true North strong and free, and spread the love.
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The Reading Robyn 