#it is so so funny how much being in my audiobook era makes me excited to do menial tasks or go on drives

[storybook-souls]

actually i'd like to take back any time i may have suggested that any book other than bllb is my favorite one in the raven cycle. this book has everything. the greenmantles. the gray man hanging out. bluesey pining midnight phone calls. the pinnacle of the adam/ronan dynamic. the cave scene. the church scene. the courtroom scene. the cave scene 2 (this time there's bones). adam at his most warlock. "cabeswater would not let him die, but it would let him get hurt." the "unknowable" throughline. "i'm alive because i bleed." blue having to deal with her mom vanishing. gwenllian. adam learning that gansey's on the death list. the dittley curse. the three sleepers. henry cheng. ronan and blue at the mirrored lake. "because it was noah, and no one else." adam and gansey trying so hard not to fight with each other. "i've dreamt him a box of epipens." and above all else roger mallory.

[gffa]

hi Lumi, your posting about star wars books made me want to start reading them, which ones would you recommend?

Hi! There are a lot of Star Wars books out there and there's a lot I enjoy about them! Sure, I'll give a warning that I'm picking out the best moments and a lot of the books are not always great in their entirety, especially depending on how much you want to stay 100% true to Lucas' story.

A lot is going to depend on what you're looking for--are you a prequels fan? Are you more interested in original trilogy books? Jedi-centric books? Bounty hunters or pilots instead? Etc. Generally, I assume if you're asking me, you're here for the prequels books, but I have a more generalized list of recommendations here or you can browse my novels recs tag.

But I always generally recommend starting with: - Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover isn't a perfect book, I could nitpick some details here and there, but the heart of this book remains unchallenged as the best SW book there is, imo. It elevates the story it's adapting (already a high bar for me, I love ROTS), Stover knows how to turn a phrase to dig deep into a character's motivations, and there's a reason why we're all constantly quoting that book. It adds so much to the story and it's a compelling tale on its own, it makes me love the characters and hurt for them all over again, and there's approximately a thousand lines in this story that you could write an entire essay on.

- Padawan by Kiersten White cannot dethrone the ROTS novelization, but I would say that I think it wound up being my favorite of the Disney era books, because it's such a straight shot to my id. It's definitely on the lighter side, it's a happier look at Obi-Wan's childhood (which I think fits his character better), he struggles and has a lot going on, but overall he's pretty well-adjusted and happy, plus there is an absolute ABUNDANCE OF CUTENESS in this book, it was so delightful and whimsical and adorable, it just made me happy.

- Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule if you're at all interested in The High Republic. This is still my favorite book of the entire series, I think it set the stage incredibly well, it had some absolutely banger lines for someone with prequels brainrot like me, and genuinely made me excited for the entire line-up.

- Dooku: Jedi Lost by Cavan Scott, which is an audiodrama but has a script version available if you're hoh or just don't like them. It's a solid look at Dooku's time as a youngling and why he left the Jedi Order and backstory with Sifo-Dyas that'll break your heart. I prefer the audio version here because the Asajj framing works so much better with the actress' voicework, it really digs into her feelings about all of this as well, making it a nice gut-punch of a story.

And now I would add Padawan's Pride by Brian Q. Miller (audiobook only, unfortunately) because it's a lovely, charming look at Anakin's time as an apprentice. It's very deliberately written as a lead-in to the Obi-Wan & Anakin comic (which I think you're supposed to be keeping in mind as you read, so I'd suggest reading in release order rather than chronological order), showing the conflict between Obi-Wan and Anakin, between Anakin the Jedi way of life, yet all the love that's growing there and the hope that they weren't wrong to hold onto. Just the right amount of crunch and sweet.

I recently read The Living Force by John Jackson Miller and, while I have a couple of issues with it (it was less spiritual than I'd like, some clunky "attachment" discourse moments that clash against Lucas' definitions, etc.), overall it was a book I loved. It was laugh out loud funny at several moments, it showed the Jedi as deeply caring, it gave time and page space to Jedi who don't usually get much focus, it had some knockout administrative worldbuilding details, and a genuinely fun experience of a story.

There are more that I personally loved (Force Collector was really good for me but not an easy one to recommend, The Legends of Luke Skywalker was very dear to me for being so in love with the galaxy far, far away, Obi-Wan & Anakin: Choose Your Destiny is a Choose Your Adventure style book that's not going to be for everyone but I adored and got so much out of, that's where Theater Nerd Mace Windu came from, the first and third From a Certain Point of View anthologies had 3-4 incredible stories in them each, the ESB one didn't impress me, etc.) and a lot of comics that I think are just as good to read if you haven't started on those, but I think this is a good starting place for prequels nerds.

(I stuck mostly to Disney continuity, it's what I'm more familiar with, and the only Legends books I fully recommend are Revenge of the Sith novelization and Dark Rendezvous, not even my beloved Wild Space comes without a bunch of caveats, but if you're interested in Legends, let me know!)

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I was slightly disappointed to get to the August 2017 episodes of the Elis and John radio show, and find that they took a couple of weeks off at that point, so we only got two episodes with John broadcasting from Edinburgh. Which is entirely understandable and he was very busy doing an award-winning hour full of jokes and the cynical inclusion of emotional heft, but still, I wanted to know what it was like. I enjoyed the little audio diary he gave us every week during the 2015 Edinburgh Festival, and enjoyed the two weeks we got from 2017 even though we didn't hear from the end. I enjoy it when a radio show becomes an audio diary from the Edinburgh Festival. Howard and Richardson in 2007. Lee and Herring in 1994. Bit of history.

My interest in that particular type of history is why I very much need to thank @oxymoronish for alerting me to the fact that the internet still has archives of something that could not be more perfectly tailored to my interests. Edinburgh history. Specifically, Chocolate Milk Gang-era Edinburgh history. Festival diaries. John Robins being young and pointlessly intense and a bit annoying but also full of youthful earnest wonder that's borderline sweet. Apparently during the 2007 Edinburgh Festival, John Robins wrote a blog for Chortle. I have been told that this blog once included video clips, including video of the knife he kept next to his bed, and I am of course furious that I have been denied video footage of 25-year-old John Robins showing us the knife he kept next to his bed to ward off Scottish intruders, but it's all right because there are so many textual diary entries to be getting on with. I have of course saved the PDFs.

Opens with a story about losing So You Think You're Funny in 2005, getting drunk with the other competitors and getting glared at by Dara O'Brien for quoting Father Ted too loudly, tells this story as though it's one of when he was an obnoxious kid and he's glad he's now more mature and not like that, even though this is only two years later and he then goes on to describe himself being similarly annoying throughout the 2007 festival as well. Goes into a story about how he'd planned to not drink all month but that lasted 13 hours. Then how he came up two days early to save nine pounds but the extra two days ended up costing him a lot more than that, and then a story about buying a human skeleton on eBay as a gift for his girlfriend. Classic Robins.

Two references to fantasy novels (a mention of listening to the Lord of the Rings audiobooks, and comparing hanging out with older comedians in Edinburgh to getting sorted into Gryffindor). Several instances of that thing John Robins like doing on the radio, slipping quickly into character when he complains about something and then right back out of it, which it turns out works less well in text where we can't hear the voice change. A running thread of obsession with the TV show 24. Complaining that Brook's Bar, which he misspelled, is overrated and the only redeeming part of it is you can stare at Simon Amstell. Quite a lot of spelling mistakes, on this blog that he published on Chortle, coming from a guy who, on his radio show, occasionally makes fun of Steve Bennett's inability to spell. Which I enjoy, because I am also amazed that Steve Bennett gets away with running a professional website while not knowing how to write, but it does make it more hypocritical when it turns out that John Robins has contributed spelling errors to Chortle (I am not a hypocrite because no one pays me for my Tumblr blog so it's fine to spell things wrong on that).

One account of how he got to chat to Tom Binns and was very excited about that, so I'm just going to pretend that's not there, like I do every time on the radio show that John and Elis plug Russell Brand's radio work (that one's objectively worse, as no one knew about Tom Bins in 2007 but I think people knew about Russell Brand in 2017, though obviously John and Elis were just told by Radio X that they had to cross-promote). Anyway, the Binns story does lead to John saying: "I never saw stand up as an option until I was 21, but new I had to be involved in comedy, and that was because of Bottom, Lee and Herring and Armando Iannucci et al." Which I found interesting - I mean I knew he was a huge Partridge fan, but it's interesting to hear him specifically mention Stewart Lee as a person he liked, back in 2007.

Selected my walk on music etc today, which is all very minor yet exciting. I'm increasingly aware that my preparation for Edinburgh this year has been more financial than artistic. Unfortunately due to the nature of gigs in July it was easier to make nice money than play nice gigs. June/July is a hard time if you're A. unsigned and B. not doing a solo show, as there are no uni gigs, a lot of places just do previews for hour shows and you've no lovely agent to sort you out weekends at nice clubs. But such is life. At least i can eat like a king if i perform like a cockend.

I don't know why I'm so fascinated by the logistics of Edinburgh performing, but I am and I like how many little bits like this are in there to let us know how that works. Older and wiser John Robins does sometimes tell stories about his early comedy years, and said stories make it sound like it involved a lot of picking music and being bitter about not having an agent, so this tracks.

There's one part where he gets somehow locked into his bedroom while drunk, can't get out when hungover the next morning, pees in a bin due to not having bathroom access, goes on a brief and entirely unnecessary tangent about whether the Scottish accent is sexually appealing, and then it escalates very quickly to sleeping with a knife beside his bed in case whatever intruder locked him in his bedroom comes back to murder him. Classic Robins.

There are multiple parts where he mentions that he's going to slow down on the drinking because the festival is too long to be doing too much drinking, always immediately followed by more stories about drinking a lot. Classic Robins.

A whole lot of complaining about places being too loud and too crowded and too busy. Used the word "schmoozing" to describe a thing he does not like to do. Classic Robins.

Oh, at one point, during the first week of the festival, he suddenly tells an absolutely insane story of a fellow comic (whom he goes out of his way to not name) got much too drunk, made an idiot of himself at the bar, went outside, yelled some anti-Scottish abuse at some locals, and then story escalates very quickly to where the locals start beating him up and John and some friends intervene and pull him out of there covered in blood. What the fuck? How have I not heard John tell that story before?

It’s the kind of thing you only imagine doing when you’re brain won’t sit still at night; “God, imagine if I shouted ‘Fuck you all’ at a funeral, or went to a Millwall game and called them all fags”. It’s not just social suicide, but increasingly physical suicide that I am watching. As the punches and kicks are thrown we wade in to stop the trouble, in the slightly awkward position of being totally sympathetic with the people who are kicking the shit out of him. One minute they were buying chips, the next being called “foreign cunts” and being told to “speak English” in their own country. He didn’t mean these things, but says them to achieve the desired effect: self destruction. As Burgess said, and never truer than now, “destruction’s our ode to joy”. As we break it up, and shelter our colleague away from the gathering crowd, tears fall from his battered face, and now I properly see myself in his little boy lost eyes. I know that burning need to feel something, anything, other than what you’re feeling inside. In a former life I’d have put my fist through a door, or smashed a bottle or jumped through a shop window, something more controlled than letting half a dozen drunk Scots administer the punishment. “We need to get on top of this”, I say to him, and beating in my head is that statement, like a fucking beacon; “the law of love says ‘you are enough’” to be honest this guy is more than enough. But somehow I need to show him that like Phil suggests, he himself, is all he needs to do whatever he wants. That release, the blessed release that comes from being half killed by an angry mob can be found inside you, the law of love says so.

I was about to post the "What are you two fucking talking about?" reaction image here, but that would be disingenuous, as I fully understand what he's talking about here, I understand it extremely well (though I'd like to be clear, I have never yelled "foreign cunts" at people just for eating chips). The difference is that I wouldn't admit that (not on a blog with my real name attached, anyway), while dramatically quoting poetic language used by Anthony Burgess and Phil Kay. What the fuck, John?

Phil Kay was on his mind due to a story from earlier in the post of how he'd been to see Phil Kay's show that night, which is absolutely classic Robins:

It does begin, however, with some of the most beautiful prose I’ve heard in a comedy show. So much so that I have to take out my notebook to write down the statement “the law of love says ‘you are enough’”. Unfortunately Phil sees me do this and takes me for a reviewer. “He might be a journalist” I look up “bang, you’ve missed a bit of the show” he says. I’m wearing headphones round my neck and he riffs on that for a while then moves on. But by now my face is burning and I become his point of focus after delivering set pieces. I feel terrible for the pressure he now seems to think he’s under when there is no need, “I’m not a reviewer Phil! I’m a fan! I’m a worshipper!” but I stay quiet, sit back, and enjoy his remarkable talent.

Older and wiser John Robins is still awkwardly pretentious at times, but I don't think he could ever reach the heights of the earnest absolute mess of pretension that was younger John Robins. Pulled out his notebook to copy down a particularly deep quote during a comedy show, then repeated it back in dramatic fashion while rescuing a guy who was getting beaten up for abhorrent behaviour. Good God.

There's a lot of gushing about how great Pappy's is, mentioning Matthew Crosby in particular, and quite a bit about how great Jon Richardson is. Including relaying a comment from Daniel Kitson about Jon making good comedy, which is odd because I realized as I read that that I'd assumed Daniel Kitson did not like Jon Richardson's comedy, though I have absolutely no idea where that assumption came from and it is probably incorrect so I'll get rid of it. He might have made some comment or other on some old radio show and the sentiment stuck in my mind even if the quote didn't, but it is probably not representative.

There's one part where he gets upset because he lost an "Alan Partridge rap-off" to Matt Forde. He does not explain what a rap-off is, but from context, I think it's a trivia contest of some sort. Or possibly a battle of impressions. Though I don't see why he'd expect to beat Matt Forde at the latter.

And so to the Dome for a drink with Jon Richardson, Sinha, Alex Horne and Rob Deering. If you can name four nicer people to spend your time with then I want to know.

Aww.

The blog posts follow a basic, expected trajectory of starting out exited, getting tired and worn down as it goes along, ending up slightly sick and bitter, then at the very end, rallying back to positivity and getting a bit sappy and sentimental about how great it was and how he's sad he'll never get to perform with those same Comedy Zone partners (Joe Wilkinson, Carl Donnelly, Barry Dodds) again. Ends on:

Here are my top five fringe things: 1. Being told that Matt Crosby had described the ‘Lost Vagueness’ launch party as “a total cunt museum” 2. Doing ‘On Heat’ with Russell, Mark and Jon. Just like old times. 3. Dan Atkinson ending his show by saying “ladies and gentlemen, outside there is someone collecting for an AIDS charity, so PLEASE… don’t give him any money” 4. Pappy’s 5. Richardson getting nominated. 6. Oh yes, and telling a drunk woman heckler who tried to chat me up that "I'd rather fuck a window"

At one point he gets absolutely furious at some people who did an improv performance art piece.

How can you be so vomitously earnest in the face of overwhelming evidence that 'contact improvisation' is, in fact, merely a misspelling of 'look at us, our personalities are made of toilets'? Twelve hours!? TWELVE FUCKING HOURS. You should get the if.commedies panel prize for having the gall not to take your own lives.

The above quote is about 20% of the full rant.

In terms of Classic Robins pointless intensity, nothing is going to beat quoting a poetic Phil Kay line to a man who's just behaved abhorrently and then been beaten up. But I'd like to enter in the "pointless intensity" collection the way he described the time he had a good gig, got too excited about it while drunk after the gig, and then felt bad the next morning for getting too excited:

I didn’t go round telling everyone I was awesome, I was just far too confident in banter to people I don’t know well enough. What a tool. What’s annoying is I like to think I have quite a wise comedy head, in terms of the theory and dealing with the ups and downs, but alcohol, adrenaline and relief are a dangerous combination. It’s just hard to expect people to see that any cockiness only exists in my words, not in my eyes.

What a line. I'm going to start going around telling people that cockiness only exists in my words, not in my eyes.

There are lots of little stories about hanging out with other comedians and watching other people's shows and performing with other people, and I did notice, at some point, that not a single female comedian is referenced in any of the blogs. I'm not saying that as a mark against John Robins or anything, I don't think he was intentionally avoiding them. Just an interesting sign of how much the comedy industry has changed, because I don't think you could write a story about comedy at the Edinburgh Festival today without mentioning any female comedians (not unless you were intentionally avoiding them, anyway). There weren't nearly as many of them back then. Though there were definitely some. You'd think at least once John might have watched Josie Long or something. I think the only women he mentions are his stage manager and some agents at one point.

To be fair, I guess we don't know the makeup of whatever group was doing the performance art piece that made John Robins say "I know deep down there is a nagging feeling you can't quite put your finger on, it's been bugging you for years but you can't get to the bottom of it. Well it took me exactly four seconds to recognise that feeling as being one of total and utter self loathing for carrying on with the charade that you are not a total and utter quim-rag-mouthed charlatan." (I have now quoted more of the rant, but that's still not all of it.) It's possible that there could have been women in that performance art group, so it's not fair to assume he didn't mention any female performers.

John does also mention getting angry and doing rude hand gestures at some comedians for doing rape jokes, so that's nice.

There are a bunch of interesting stories about the comedy itself, performing on/compering a mixed-bill gig instead of doing his own show (Comedy Zone), the ups and downs and figuring out the right rhythms on different nights. The wild fluctuations in crowd numbers and how that affects things. How to know if an environment is better for crowd work or material. One interesting bit, I thought, where he tries some more structured stuff that he thought he could turn into a full hour for the next year, and then realized that you can't do that at a club-style gig where no one wants it.

The whole thing is just so very very relevant to my interests, thank you again for sending it to me, @oxymoronish. Thank God for the internet archive.