#absurdist tragicomedy with demons

[vermiculated]

nonsense 2022

Holiday by Candlelight Laurel Greer

In Service of Love Laurel Greer

The Twelve Dogs of Christmas Lizzie Shane

The Christmas Egg Mary Kelly

The Owl Service Alan Garner

Get In Trouble Kelly Link

Envious Casca Georgette Heyer

From A Certain Point of View Renee Ahdieh et al

Home Martha Wells

The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories Martin Edwards ed

The Mystery of the Meanest Teacher Ryan North and Derek Charm

An Iliad Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare

John Winchester/God:

Guilt is for everyone else. What are its constituent parts. Where does love come from, or honor. Understanding it doesn't help matters, not more than being able to wind a clock explains Duhem-Quine. Every last shred of existence is contingent upon his choices: stromatolites, hot water gushing in, pray to him in supplication exactly as does Julie Bernstein, embarrassed about telling her husband that she doesn't know how to change a tire. One-two-three-four-five, he speaks to them both.

Dean Winchester/choices he is not aware of making:

She and Dean meet, somewhat unbelievably, on the internet: Dean really did turn out pretty well for forty-two, since after all he had stayed out of the sun, mostly killing monsters at night, and had never taken up smoking in any serious way, and maybe his emails really killed with a certain type of woman, because Dean was pretty clearly going on a lot of dates and mentioned Zazie's house with the fifteen foot tall sunflowers, Ana's apartment with the mirror on the ceiling, and eventually, --

"Benny," Sam had repeated, like Dean habitually gave him anything other than exactly what he wanted to give.

"Beni."

Nolan Sorrento/her dead wife:

Nolan stages it so she's gracious, irrefutable, holy, killing floor blues. Halliday would have occupied the prow if she was still alive, but she's not, so. Suck cock about it, you absolute fucking bitch. Nolan smiles kindly at Zach.

"Mona would have loved this," Zach confesses, hands a little tight on the jackline for someone who claims to have attended Trinity. Nolan doesn't think he's made it up, she's good with the truth; some people are bad on boats. Yachts. Halliday is ridiculous. His hair curls around his ears and his jaw is sort of implausibly sharp, and he's wearing a silk tie. Nolan's always had a weakness for a nice silk tie, especially since nobody else on board is wearing one.

The Locked Tomb where instead of flirtatiously killing one another, they're like, really mean:

Cynthia tips her forehead forward; briefly, Owen thinks she's been shot. "Technically true," she concedes.

Owen tries not to feel grimy, salty, beleaguered. Over and done with it. They should have sent a marginally-talented diplomat, someone who could be unexpectedly competent in the moment and have nothing ever to live up to, who could be good at this part and nothing else. He is a class-A fake and the only reason he made it all the way here is that his templar has not, to date, thrown a wardrobe at him the way he had everyone else who tried it on.

Dick, Jason, Kyle, Clark, and Billy go undercover with Deadshot to take down General Zod and Vandal Savage. Bruce is also there:

"His life does suck," Jason says.

"He didn't get abducted because his life sucks," Dick says, with a really kind of inappropriate emphasis given that Billy's in the room. Dick's always harped on about how everyone grows up too fast these days, except guess who they have here, the literal man-child who won't ever grow up because they're all going to get murdered on an island.

Although. Where else is there to go. Their temporary prison -- Lawton's reliable in this, if only this -- is foam-lined, radiation-absorbent, screened for sound, and if it weren't so exclusively oriented to neutralizing Kyle, Jason would almost find it endearing. They're definitely going to die.

The Fast and the Furious in 1892:

It's dark in the stables and it's not something Dom really comprehends. He respects horses, he believes they can be understood, and he'll trust them at the races, but he doesn't. Love them. Affection is an opened window, a touch under an eye, the narrowing of Spilner's back into his trousers when Mia looks out from her visor and bothers to notice. She would be a dozen times better in this moment, Dom is aware, yet she is not, safely home, while Dom is here. Hands clenched around nothing, empty heart, the new fellow looking at him like he has answers. What's the next step after breaking into the Trans' stables and talking to the horses? The one nearest, and Dom doesn't even guess, maybe it breeds true, maybe it's a gelding, perhaps what lives in the night doesn't come out, bleached black, what a thought, his breath catches.

"That a Thoroughbred?"

[vermiculated]

Sun and Steel includes virtually no concrete autobiographical details, but can nevertheless be read as an elliptical bildungsroman in which an artsy wimp transforms himself into a jacked-up warrior. Or, depending on your political views, it can be read as an austerely creepy horror story in which an intelligent and thoughtful young man wrestles with the existential temptations of fascism and loses.

Elizabeth Schambelan, In the Fascist Weightroom

[vermiculated]

Another refuge is the water. On a recent morning, they swam for an hour in an Arizona State pool. Hackett and Phelps regularly raced in front of standing-room-only crowds. On this day, their audience consisted of a lifeguard.

Once they swam for medals and records, for a place in history. In retirement they swim to free their minds, to commune with the water. What used to be a high-stress profession has morphed into a peaceful interlude.

Still, old habits die hard.

At the end of a 2,000-yard workout, Phelps called for a timed sprint from a dive.

“We didn’t come here to screw around,” he said.

Hackett muttered, “I kind of did.”

K Crouse, “Michael Phelps: A Golden Shoulder to Lean On” The New York Times, September 21 2017.