#might b the last part for lil bit bc school starts in two days for me

[beef-bakery]

The Lights Are On - Part 2

Rating: Luz x Amity - 2.8k words - SFW

Synopsis: wherein Amity confesses first; not without mishap, of course

Last Part / Next Part / Read on AO3 / Playlist

“Stop giggling,” Amity snapped, wiping away imaginary sweat.

“Settle down, Mittens,” Edric said, twirling a concealment stone between nimble fingers. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“No, it won't!” Amity began pacing back and forth. “Mom and Dad could find out—or Luz could be asleep—or even worse! That house demon could wake up everyone and ruin everything!” Amity stopped, crouched down, grabbed her knees, and tucked her head in between her arms. “Everything could get messed up so easily,” she mumbled.

“It’ll be okay,” Emira said, crouching down next to her and rubbing her back soothingly. “If anything bad happens, Ed and I will take care of it.”

“Hey!” Edric protested. “I never agreed to that—”

“No offense, guys, but I kinda want this to be special,” Amity turned her head to press her cheek into her forearm. “I know I asked you two to help prepare, but I want the moment to be private.”

“You’re breaking into her house,” Edric snorted. “How private can it be? As far as we know, the Owl Lady could hear you, think you’re an intruder, and then totally decimate you!”

“Yeah,” Emira agreed, “that’s why you’ll need us.”

Amity groaned, stretching her legs out in front of her and leaning back against the wall. “But more people are just gonna increase the pressure!”

“What pressure?” Edric argued. “We were there when you had your first poo. Nothing is more embarrassing than taking your first sh—”

“Edric’s right,” Emira interrupted, side-eyeing her brother, “for once.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Edric asked, offended.

Amity let out a sigh of exhaustion, slumping against the wall as the twins argued. She really wanted this to go perfectly, but hadn’t that ruined so many things for her already? The need for perfection?

Maybe she just needed to relax, just like Emira said. Being comfortable with mistakes meant that there would be nothing for her to get upset about. After all, if she had no expectations, that meant nothing could go wrong, which meant everything would be okay, right?

Amity took in another breath, steeling herself for another round of ridicule from the twins.

“Alright,” she said, finally standing up. “So here’s the plan…”

~

The warm summer air brushed through Amity’s lilac hair as she stood outside the Owl House, feeling like a total idiot. The moon was a poor source of light, and it didn't help that standing alone in the dark made her feel like a major creep. Regardless, Amity had finally conjured up a plan— with no help from the twins, who seemingly couldn't do anything but mess around—and while it had seemed cool in her head, now she couldn't help feeling uneasy.

Maybe it was just because she was lurking outside of her crush’s house in the dead of night. She had everything prepared: flowers in hand, a confession tucked in her back pocket, and three various backup plans in case something went awry.

So why did Amity feel like something was wrong?

It was probably just nerves. Emira had said there wouldn't be a shortage of them. Amity tried to shake the feeling off, inhaling deeply.

“Mittens!” A hushed voice could be heard from the nearby bush.

“What?” Amity hissed back, turning around only to find a thumbs up pop out between the green branches.

“Good luck!”

Amity rolled her eyes and waved them off, heading up to the house, nerves abuzz. The paper holding the flowers together crinkled with every step she took, and Amity couldn't help but wince at the sound.

The house demon—Hooty—was asleep, snoring loudly and rocking the house with every breath. Titan, Luz must be a saint if she could sleep through this.

Stopping short of the walkway to the door, Amity looked up to observe the windows. She had been in Luz’s house before, and could probably recognize Luz’s window if she could spot it. Amity began to walk the perimeter of the house, surveying each stained glass window to find the one clear pane.

That had been her first thought when she entered Luz’s room; her room was the only one without colorful panels letting in multicolored light sift through. Amity’s eyes widened as she zeroed in on the window.

She’d found it!

Looking around to make sure the house demon wasn't watching, Amity conjured an abomination.

“Abomination, rise,” Amity’s voice was hardly louder than a whisper. Soon enough the purple goo had solidified into an almost human figure, and Amity took advantage of it, calling upon it to lift her to the windowsill.

Amity pushed at the window, which, to her horror, refused to give. She gave it another push, and when that did nothing, she decided to take things a bit more seriously. Fitting the flowers into her mouth, she bit down while her—now free—arm helped shove against the window. Giving it another, harshershove, Amity found herself rocking dangerously against her abomination with the force she exerted.

Eyes widening, Amity gripped onto the vines wrapping around the old stone house, praying that the structural integrity of the Owl Lady’s house was enough to keep her from falling to her death.

Despite her fear, Amity concentrated on the abomination below her, steeling it enough for her to regain her footing.

Just as she let out a sigh of relief—which came out more as a whistle due to the flowers in between her teeth— and regained her balance, Amity nearly fell again at a sudden voice.

“Amity?” Luz rubbed the sleep from her eyes, having silently opened the window.

“Oh, Luz!” Amity said, wincing at the way her words came out under-pronounced due to the flowers hindering her speech.

“Need a hand?” Luz smiled, offering a hand.

“Yeah, that would be great,” Amity tried to smile, but found that the flowers were slipping. She wanted to reach up and adjust them, but that would mean letting go of the vines.

“Here, let me,” Luz reached out and took the flowers, not caring that there was probably spit along the stems. “Thanks for the gift,” Luz called out, turning her back to Amity and beginning to walk away. Before Amity could process what had just happened, Luz turned back with a half-hearted smile. “That was a joke,” she said, reaching out for Amity’s hand, “if you couldn't tell.”

“I could,” Amity took Luz’s hand and smiled, a real smile, not one between petals and leaves. If Amity wasn't mistaken, she could've sworn that she saw Luz blush ever so slightly.

“Oof,” Luz grunted, pulling her up. Amity would’ve been lying if she said she wasn't the slightest bit excited by the way Luz’shand felt in hers.

“Oh, good,” Luz said, rubbing the back of her head. As her fingertips met hair, she must’ve realized what her freshly-awake-brain forgot to remind her. “Oh crap, I probably have terrible bedhead!” Luz turned away before Amity could speak, combing through her hair with her fingers. “Okay, it’s better, right?” Luz turned back, her cheeks even pinker.

“It looks good,” Amity said, blushing in turn. “Not that it didn't look good before—I mean you always look good—I'm going to stop talking now.” Amity tried to cover her awkwardness with a laugh, which came out too loud. “Sorry.”

Luz laughed softly. “It’s okay, I know what you mean.So, what brings you here at this hour?”

“Oh, well.” Amity reached for her back pocket, only to find that her written confession was gone. Amity barked out a nervous laugh, “Excuse me for a second.” Amity darted over to the window, looking down to see if she could spot the paper bearing her entire heart on it.

To no avail, the paper was gone, and Amity felt her heart drop to her feet.

“Well,” Amity laughed again, nervousness bubbling up her throat like a bad cup of apple blood. “I appear to have lost—uh, my paper.”

“What was on it?” Luz asked.

“Um, it's kind of complicated,” Amity was stalling for time, feeling regretful that she even came here at all. “I mean, like I can't just explain it in a couple words.” Amity’s laughs were coming in more frequent bursts, and were appearing to get louder with each passing second.

“Well, can you try to describe it?” Luz asked patiently.

“Uh—” Amity snuck a look at the open window, wondering how badly she’d get hurt if she hurtled out of the second story of the Owl House.

“Hey,” Luz interrupted her spiraling thoughts, taking Amity’s hand in her own. “Take a few deep breaths, I can tell you’re getting nervous.” Luz breathed with Amity, counting on her free hand to visualize it for Amity.

Taking time to slow her heart, Amity slumped as she regained her senses. She had totally ruined this night. While Luz hadn't been asleep and the house demon hadn't interrupted anything, Amity had lost the paper and probably woke up half of Bonesborough with her crazed laugh.

And worst of all, Luz probably thought she was a crazy weirdo! After all, Amity had interrupted her sleep by showing up at her window in the middle of the night with spit-covered flowers.

“I—” Amity started. “I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking, sorry.” Amity turned to the window, shame causing heat to rise to her cheeks. She was no longer worried about jumping out the window; her abomination would probably break her fall, and if it didn't, well it wouldn't be such a bad idea to never have to face Luz again.

“You know, you could use the stairs,” Luz said, gesturing to the door behind her.

“Oh, right.” Amity turned back around, felt like a total idiot.

“Come on, I'll show you the way,” Luz said, grabbing the flowers and opening the door to the hallway.

The walk downstairs was silent, sans for the tapping of Amity’s shoes and Luz’s socks against the hardwood floor.

“So here we are,” Luz said, awkwardly. The two of them stood in silence once more, waiting for the other to say something. “Oh, right, here are your flowers.” As Luz held out the bouquet, Amity’s heart sank. This moment couldn't feel more like a death sentence.

Amity mumbled out a thanks, taking the flowers in one hand and turning the handle with the other. Shameful tears pricked the corner of her eyes as she pulled the door.

It didn't budge. Looking over at Luz, Amity hoped that she didn't see the tears glinting in the dim light.

“Oh, sorry,” Luz laughed awkwardly. “It's locked, just… here.”

Luz reached over her, and Amity found that she held her breath as Luz drew close.

“Thanks,” Amity whispered. Titan, she was such an idiot, thinking that she could ever declare her love without a written confession.

“I'll head back upstairs,” Luz said, pointing with a thumb back to her room. “Have a good night.”

In a normal situation, Amity would’ve taken her leave, accepted her loss with grace. But as Amity’s back straightened, she realized this wasn't over! Amity hadn't been rejected, by Titan, she hadn't even confessed!

“Actually, Luz,” Amity turned back around, flowers held out in front of her, “these flowers are for you.”

“Oh!” Luz was halfway up the stairs and Amity reddened during the awkward silence it took for Luz to get back to the ground floor. “Thanks!”

“They have a bit of spit on them but I think they’ll be okay, if you show me your kitchen, I can rinse it off and put them in water. I would’ve brought a vase but that would’ve been a lot to carry—” Amity blushed harder as she realized she’d been rambling.

“Yeah, sure,” Luz took the flowers from Amity. “The kitchen is this way.”

Once again, the silence stretched for what seemed like an eternity. But Amity was determined to get her point out—er, confession.

“I'm not actually sure where Eda keeps the vases,” Luz laughed, handing over the flowers as she hopped up on the counter.

“I'm sure you’re wondering what I'm doing here,” Amity said, turning to the sink to wash off the flowers. She was glad her back was to Luz. She didn't think she’d be able to handle Luz’s reactions to her painfully awkward confession, not to mention her watching Amity turn into a tomato.

“I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re a pretty cool person and I like talking to you,” Amity swallowed thickly. “But it's more than that. It doesn't even have to be me that you’re talking to, I could listen to you talk for hours,” Amity paused, hearing her words for the first time.

Maybe it was a good thing she had a tendency to rewrite her essays to the point of perfection; because if this was the sort of thing that came out without prior thought, she was in for a rude awakening.

“Titan, that sounds creepy. I don't mean like I want to listen to you talk to other people like a degenerate, I mean that l like being around you and I like your company.” Amity rambled as she dropped the towel she used to dry the flowers, keeping her back to Luz. “I just…” Amity turned around, eyes squeezed shut and flowers in hand. “I just really like you.”

The silence was unbearable but Amity couldn't bring herself to open her eyes. It was only when Amity felt her fingers being pried open did she open them. Luz was smiling bashfully, vase in hand.

“I didn't know you felt that way,” Luz said, her voice a hair above a whisper. “The same way I do, I mean.”

It took a while for Amity to register what she said, and it was only after the flowers were submerged in water did she finally process it.

“You like me,” Amity asked, awestruck, “too?”

Luz laughed, leaning against the sink. “Yeah, for a while, actually. To be honest, I was planning on asking you out tomorrow.”

“What?” Amity’s eyes widened.

“Yeah,” Luz tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, “I had this whole lights show set up and even convinced Willow to let me use the conservatory.” Luz smiled to herself, a soft thing, it almost made Amity want to ki—

Amity nearly smacked herself with how fast she shut that thought down. This was not the time to be thinking about that sort of thing. With that thought in mind, she’d soon be as red as the Owl Lady’s dress.

“Point is,” Luz continued, oblivious to Amity’s predicament, “I was going to ask you if you wanted to go on a date with me…” Luz looked at Amity nervously.

Amity could only gape, her mouth as wide as the abominations she controlled. “Yeah! Of course, I—I would like that. A lot.” Amity was flustered, and judging by the heat she felt in her cheeks, she was probably glowing red.

“That's amazing!” Luz beamed. “What would you wanna do? See a movie? Get brunch?”

Brunch? Movies? Amity had never heard of such things. As she opened her mouth to ask, there was a sudden crash from upstairs.

Luz and Amity’s gazes were captured by the Owl Lady, who appeared, disheveled at the top of the stairs. A sleep mask dangled from one ear, eyes fuzzy with sleep.

“Luz!” she shrieked. “There's an intruder!” She barrelled down the stairs, broom in one hand. Lilith followed behind, staff raised threateningly. “Oh, Luz, your…” Eda squinted at Amity without stopping her trek to the front door, “friend is here.”

“Yeah—” Luz started.

“Alright, Hooty,” Eda called, finally at the threshold, she planted her slippered feet in a fighting stance and readying the broom above her head. “Let ‘em in.”

A muffled hoot could be heard from beyond the wooden door before it was wretched open, the house demon’s head entering and depositing the twins. Amity wanted to smack herself.

“Blights,” Eda hissed, lifting her broom higher.

“Eda, no!” Lilith grabbed the broom, only to be lifted with it as Eda brought it down.

“I'm too young to die!” Edric yelped, lifting up his hands to shield himself. Shield himself from a blow that would never come; the broom was levitating, Lilith still hanging onto the end.

“Eda!” Luz looked incredulous as the thrum of magic vibrated between her fingertips and the glyph she held. “They’re kids, not intruders! We know them!”

“Kids?” Emira craned her neck to make eye contact with Luz.

“They’re still Blights,” Eda eyed the twins with distaste.

“Are you kidding me, Edric?” Amity asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You couldn't’ve used magic?”

“Magic?” Edric asked, dumbfounded. “Oh, right. Magic.”

“What are they doing here anyway?” Luz asked, turning to Amity.

“Oh! It’s a funny story, actually…” Amity giggled awkwardly, the weight of the gazes on her turning from confused to suspicious. “Yeah, it’s a funny story.”

[binniesthighs]

miss ro!!! ur jeongin fic was so cute that letter with all the misspellings made me cackle low-key - really can imagine 바보 빵 (fool bread(?) not sure how they render that nickname in english for him) writing it ���� him and mc were so cute no lie

so like i swear dpr ian used to have a soundcloud that i would listen to but for some reason i can’t track down the stuff anymore ?? but equally maybe i’m getting confused bc i listen to a lot of k-artists on soundcloud (i remember the day i discovered got7 jb’s music on there and completely lost my shit lmao but that’s a diff story) i’m honestly such a sucker for soundcloud artists why am i like this 💀💀 but he literally dropped off the grid apart from his insta after his idol group disbanded and his spotify is basically empty apart from zombie pop (which is p cute it’s in the dpr archives album) and his new album. i honestly love all the tracks on it bc have been listening to the singles since they dropped but nerves and scaredy cat are my faves i think of the new ones?? i low-key suck at song recs lmao bc usually I just queue the entire album start to finish / listen to ppl’s curated spotify playlists for like kr&b/indie&chill etc while i’m doing work so i usually hear stuff i like but don’t know the titles ?? last year i was heavy obsessed with dpr live’s album tho “is anybody out there” and also ph-1’s 2019 album “halo” is still one of my faves. i can try and dig through and find specific songs i saved tho if u want!

also i’m watching the making of the album documentary now and it’s honestly spectacular (and only 13mins it needs to be longer 😭😭😭) - he goes into the back story of each song and talks about his life too and there’s clips of him filming the MVs and laying down the tracks. it’s low-key getting me v emotional especially when he was talking about dope lovers and how he had some p bad relationships bc he tends to push ppl away when he’s going thru stuff and he was recording the lyric “it was all for a kiss” and then he said “was it for a kiss or was it from a kiss because honestly, i think a lot of shit happens after the kiss” and ooft that hurttttt

british insults are honestly the best - i love them bc they’re like super snarky/get to the point but they’re not actually like properly derogatory names? like i rly get uncomfy when ppl properly swear at someone even if I like hate them with a burning passion lmaoooo

omg snow day??? we haven’t had snow for a while now :(( my friend lives in mass tho and she said it was snowing yesterday too i’m jel :(( i thrive in the night too lmao but man my insomnia’s been kicking my ass lately 🥲🥲 i deadass live my life like chan and i rly thought this would stop after uni but i guess it’s just my state of being 😭😭

i love reading ur replies they rly brighten my day 🥺🥺 i get a bit in my head sometimes lmao gotta love that anxiety/depression mix 🤪🤪 and rly worry i’m being annoying/ saying too much / blocking up ur feed for other readers also 🥲🥲 i hope other ppl aren’t getting annoyed by how long my asks are 🥺🥺 mayb one day i’ll reveal myself n we can just msg instead or sth idk 😭😭

n e ways i’m gonna dip now but i hope you have a good day/night/week too, miss ro!! my life is spiralling low-key so might be gone for a bit but in the meantime i hope things go well for u!! and do lemme know what u think of MITO !! (and honestly check out the making doc if u have time!!) -😖

😖 awe heck, my responses make your day? 🥺 that makes me so so happy!! i know how ya feel, I tend to have hot and cold weeks, and my writing is what tends to keep it at bay :) as well as talking to all you cuties! You don’t annoy me at all sweets!! however ya feel like talking is fine with me!! ;) also don’t ya worry about dipping either! life gets crazy and I totally get ya! <3 

more under the cut! 

also thank you so much about my new jeongin fic!! writing his lil letter was my favorite part actually hahahah i was trying to channel my inner awkward teen boy for that one LOLLL to suit his character being super sweet and loveable and a lil shy on the side I knew that he would make some cute lil mistakes hehe 

I’ll def listen to your recs!! I really need to listen to more kr&b tho! I have like two or three playlists that i listen to allll the time and am in dire need of new music haha the other week I discovered Kali Uchis’ new album and that’s been on repeat for me like crazyyyy recently FRICK its so good haha so that is my recommendation hehe 

That sounds like a really interesting documentary tho!! I actually really like music documentaries! hahah I watch them with my dad sometimes about classic rock artists etc. it super cool to me to hear about everything that goes into an album as well as the creative process behind it too! like when skz do their little interviews and stuff before an album releases I lovvve that haha for the same reason I love hearing about why authors write what they did too! gahhh i’m ramblin but the creative process is so cool to me! I’d love to check it out! 

whats funny abt swearing is that (oddly) even at nearly 21 years of age I am still not allowed to swear around my parents hahaha but when I’m not around them??? i will say anything and everything lolll but never at people like ya said haha i remeber a while ago I heard “bucket of fucks” and I thought that was pretty funny haha, also yay for snow days!! its funny bc I’m currently not in the state where I go to school so the weather was just fine here but there was like two feet of snow on the actual campus haha i heard that the students got together to have a snowball fight on our soccer fields (i just hope they were safe ooP) 

[elviiez]

hello! my name is sam and i’m v excited to be here bc this rp seems so cool! without further ado, allow me to introduce zak bagans ryan bergara elvie croft! details are below the cut, so please lmk if you wanna plot!

elvin tupelo croft, known mostly by the nicknames elvie or el, was born on halloween day in salem, massachusetts and he’s actually related to one of the many folks who were executed for “practicing witchcraft” back in the day, so yeah...he was always gonna be a spooky nerd like he basically had no chance oops

anyway, he had a pretty typical silver spoon childhood. his mom is a rich accountant and his dad is a rich lawyer, so elvie grew up in a nice neighborhood with a huge house, attended a highly respected private school, always got anything he asked for, etc etc etc. he has a great relationship with his parents even though they were always a little absent from his life because they were working all the time. the only thing they could never quite agree on was that elvie always wanted a younger sibling but his parents always said no aw

elvie was only four or five years old when he first fell in love with the horror genre. his parents would go out on date nights every weekend leave him with some teenage babysitter who didn’t really give a shit what he did lmao SO. of course he stayed up hella late watching horror movies that terrified and excited him at the same time and of course he immediately fell in love with them. his interest quickly expanded from just movies and went to shows, cartoons, books, comic books, magazines...you name it, and if it’s horror-related then there’s a very good chance elvie LOVES it.

fast forward to the age of fifteen and elvie suddenly knows what he wants to do with his life! well, okay it wasn’t suddenly...he’d been watching ghost hunting shows for a while by that point but it wasn’t until then that it finally hit him...he wanted to be a paranormal investigator — chasing ghosts, demons, cryptids and the like. he asked for a video camera and evp recorder for his sixteenth birthday and the rest is history!

elvie would go on to start his youtube channel that very year and it would immediately BLOW UP. his channel is basically buzzfeed unsolved supernatural tbh. at first he stayed local, but once he got to college elvie began taking weekend road trips to do investigations of haunted locations suggested by his viewers. as of right now, his subscriber count is at about 10 million so he’s obviously put a lot of work and care into his channel over the last seven years. 

he attended college for business in order to please his parents and by that i mean...he went to harvard university akslfh. i can’t believe him! anyway, his parents are both alumni which probably helped him to get in, but elvie graduated valedictorian of his fancy private high school and while he definitely doesn’t seem like the type, he actually has a genius level iq, so that’s that on that! he honestly hated college & hated all of his classes because it always just felt like a waste of time to him, but went through with it for the sake of his parents because he loves them aw

he dipped the moment he was done with final exams though lmao. started to do his little road trip & investigation deal full time which is all his life has been for a little over a year now. he arrived in baltimore at the start of summer ‘18 and has been renting one of the bigger & more expensive units here in mulberry apts ever since! he’s been filming videos in the maryland/virginia area and has a few more planned before he plans to move on and go somewhere else, but lmao joke’s on him bc he’s clearly sticking around!

i think that’s enough of a backstory NOVEL, so let’s move onto personality & some extra fun facts!

he’s a very awkward horror-loving nerd who can be really bad at talking to people sometimes because he never really?? had friends growing up. he was the nerdy kid with braces and glasses who couldn’t play sports because he gets chronic nosebleeds and all he ever wants to talk about is how much he loves star wars and alfred hitchcock so he was the stereotypical nerdy kid who was getting his ass kicked by the football team every day

can get easily annoyed at which point he's obnoxiously sarcastic but for the most part he’s a total sweetheart. he’s a space cadet so he might zone out or go off into his own little world from time to time, but he’s an extrovert who genuinely loves talking to people so just give him a little nudge

doesn’t flaunt his intelligence at all and in fact, most people probably don’t even realize how smart he really is because a) he’s not exactly waving that harvard degree in anybody’s face and b) despite being very smart, elvie usually comes across as a total fucking hyperactive scatterbrained chaotic dumbass which negl he absolutely is like! he loses shit all the time, talks to himself, trips over everything, brews his coffee with monster instead of water and drinks that radioactive shit until he’s basically fuckin vibrating from how much gd coffee he’s inhaled...a Mess™, truly

survives on junk food, his personal faves being licorice, pizza, and anything else that’s loaded with sugar

loves horror movies and scifi so fucking much like...he literally has a dvd collection that is so big it’s actually overflowing from his multiple shelves at this point

he also has two pets named freddy and jason and they’re...tarantulas which is fucking horrifying so fyi on that! esp to anyone who lives on the seventh floor bc elvie doesn’t really keep track of the lil guys all that well oops?

flaunts his money a little bit but not really on purpose it’s just that...okay look he’s a rich youtuber from a wealthy neighborhood so he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it most of the time.

that being said...he’s got three cars. all black, all rolls royce. he got the ghost for his sixteenth birthday, the phantom when he got into harvard, and the wraith when he graduated from harvard asklfh. what a spoiled brat! anyway. you’ll usually catch him driving the wraith but he loves the ghost & phantom and invites you to stare at them enviously as you walk through the building’s parking lot lmao. i’m kidding fr fr if you want a ride just let him know and he’s gotchu.

his hometown is close enough to boston that he’s got a bit of an accent but doesn’t realize it and would not know what you’re talking about if you tried to point it out to him. that being said, he can also be SUCH A TYPICAL BOSTON DUDE™ SOMETIMES...except for the fact that he knows absolutely nothing about sports! he’s too nerdy for that shit lmao

seems pretty fuckin fearless and honestly he can be...like he’d deadass summon a demon for kicks oH and also he’s obsessed with halloween and there’s a good chance he’s already jumped out of nowhere with a michael myers mask on to scare the shit out of half the people in this building and i apologize for that truly!

okay that’s enough from me! i’m like 10000% sure no one read this far into it and that’s valid! 

[sweetlysilent]

Figment (Ch. Three)

Requested By: Nobody

Pairing: Richie Tozier x Reader

Warnings: Traumatic Memories, Fear, Swearing, Symptoms of Anxiety, Mention of Pennywise, etc.

Summary:

When is a door not a door? Most people tend to always overthink the question, over processing what the answer could be, when in reality it’s right in front of your face. When it’s ajar. This is a riddle that is constantly in the back of your mind.

Just like your greatest fear, it lurks between the space of the door, showing it’s form like a shadow, always creeping behind you. But you convince yourself it’s just a figment of your imagination, that it’s all in your head, that you’re just seeing things. But, what happens when the Loser’s Club end up seeing it too?

A/N: So, I don’t know how many people enjoy this lil blurb mini series but I really like it so I’m going to continue writing it bc it makes me happy. If you like it too then by all means go ahead and read it and if you don’t then don’t read it :)) I post other content too.

PSA: Since I’m still having issues with saving/editing text posts I’m unable to update my Masterlist, therefore, if you want to keep up with my more recent writings I will be tagging my fics with ’#masterlist’ so if you want to find them you’ll be able to. If you’re on mobile you can go up to the little search icon in the right hand corner and simply search ‘masterlist’ and my fics (and my masterlist) will show up!

This isn’t exactly based off the movie or the book, I’m just kind of free handing it and I might use bits and pieces from the movie, but besides that I’m basically just flowing with it. Another thing, feel free to send a comment in my ask or below on what you thought of this part! I’d love to see everyone’s reactions, it helps keep me motivated.

Also, comment below or send me an ask if you’d like to be tagged!

“Hi honey, how’d you sleep last night?” Your mother spoke softly, glancing over at you as you stared at the table in front of you while you waited for your breakfast.

“It was.. Okay.” You spoke quietly, shifting slightly in your chair at the thought of your nightmare.

“You’re a waste of space Y/N.” Stan would spit at you.

“We only let you join our club because we felt sorry for you.” Eddie would chime in.

“Nobody even likes you.” Bill added on, not stuttering once.

“You’re nothing.” Richie spoke last, breaking your heart.

“Mom, I should get going, I’m going to be late to school.” You quickly spoke up, snapping out of your thoughts, grabbing a piece of toast and an apple before heading towards the door.

“Y/N! Wait! Don’t forget your anxiety medication! Dr. Martin told me you should take two pills each day so you’ll be more relaxed!” Your mother called down the hallway, making you sigh and stop, grabbing the orange bottle off the counter before leaving your house.

Could life get any worse?

You then spent a good twenty minutes walking to the school, you ate your toast first, and then your apple along the way, finishing it once you arrived at the school.

You threw the rest of the apple into the trash, before entering the building, you were early, earlier than most students got to the school, but you couldn’t stand being at home any longer with your mother constantly on your back about how you were doing.

As much as you loved her and how much she cared about you, you could only handle so much smothering.

You then made your way to the cafeteria to grab a plastic cup, before heading to the girls bathroom where you could secretly take your medication.

You walked inside, expecting it to be empty, but you were wrong, so, so, wrong.

“Y/N! Just who I was hoping to see, you got a minute to talk?” Beverly smiled, her arms crossed as she stood in front of you.

“I- Uhm- I have to.. Uh.. Go..” You stammered, before turning around quickly, rushing out of the bathroom, only to be met by the rest of the Loser’s Club.

“Hey Y/N, in a rush to go somewhere?” Stan questioned, raising an eyebrow at you as you shifted uncomfortably under everyone’s stare.

“Actually, yeah I do, so..” You trailed off, avoiding eye contact as you tried shoving your way through them, which wasn’t an easy task.

You managed to wiggle your way through them though, before sprinting down the hallway, their footsteps hitting the floor loudly behind you as they chased after you.

“Y/N you can’t avoid us forever!”

“We know you’re hiding something!”

“You’re not leaving till you tell us!”

“Alright split up! Don’t let Y/N get away!”

Your heart was beating rapidly, this couldn’t be happening, not now, you had yet to take your medication, thus making the situation ten times worse than what it could be.

And yet, you were still running, turning down different hallways, trying to find a place to hide, but each turn you made you ran into one of them.

“Y/N there’s no way out of this! Stop running!” You heard one of them shout as you rounded a corner, before hiding in a classroom.

You were breathing heavy as you maneuvered through the desks, hoping to hide behind something so they couldn’t find you.

“Shit! Where did Y/N go?” You heard someone shout, which you soon figured out was Richie, him and his trashmouth.

“They couldn’t have gone far, we were on almost every hallway, they must have gone into a classroom.” You heard another one of them say, which turned out to be Eddie.

You then heard the doorknob to the classroom door open, the creaking of the door sending chills up your spine.

You shut your eyes tightly, hiding behind one of the desks, praying they wouldn’t see you, but when were you ever that lucky?

You heard someone clear their throat, making your crack one of your eyes open, only to see the entire Loser’s Club once again before you.

“You aren’t getting away this time, so you better start talking.” Beverly spoke up, her arms crossed as she watched Bill and Ben help you off the ground.

You rolled your eyes, refusing to speak as you sat on a desk, your feet dangling.

“Shit Y/N, just tell us what the fuck is going on.” Richie blurted out, annoyance in his voice.

“Nothing is going on.” You mumbled, messing with the plastic cup in your hands.

“B-Bu-Bullshit.” Bill stuttered out, his brows furrowed at you.

“If nothing was going on, why did you run?” Ben questioned, watching you curiously as you ignored his question.

“Why do you have a plastic cup?” Mike looked at you, his brows also furrowed as he tried to figure you out.

“I needed it. Not that you needed to know that.” You replied, sending a small glare towards them before taking a deep breath.

“Can I go?” You sighed, your body growing tired, as you looked at them with a bored expression.

“No.” Stan simply stated, giving you a stern look.

The room went silent for a few minutes, before you noticed Richie’s eyes dart over to your backpack.

“What is that orange bottle in your backpack?” Richie pointed out, making your eyes widen slightly.

“Nothing! Nothing.” You replied all too quickly, earning suspicious glances from the group, as Eddie lunged for the bottle.

“No! Give it back!” You shouted, trying to grab the bottle back, but Richie and Stan held your arms.

“What the fuck? Since when did you take anxiety medication?” Eddie read the label, before looking at you.

“I just got prescribed it.” You sighed, yanking your arms free of Richie and Stan before retrieving your bottle.

“Why do you need anxiety medication?” Beverly questioned, a sad expression on her face, something you hated receiving.

It was the pity look.

The look your mother always gave you.

“The same reason I need sleeping pills now.” You muttered, grabbing your cup as you filled it up with some water from the sink in the classroom, finally taking your medication.

“You need sleeping pills?” Richie repeated you, making you roll your eyes in annoyance.

“Yeah, my therapist told me I needed them, and that I needed to talk to you guys.” You shrugged your shoulders, waving your hands around.

“You’re seeing a therapist?” Richie repeated once again, louder this time, making something snap within you.

“Yes, Richie! A therapist! Because all I ever see is this fucking clown with a red balloon along with this little boy in a yellow raincoat whose name is Georgie by the way, but isn’t really who he says he is because he turned into this fucking creature!” You shouted, breathing heavy as your eyes watered, your hands shaking as you grabbed fistfuls of your hair.

You sounded crazy. You felt crazy.

Everyone was silent, so silent you could hear a pin drop.

“Y-You s-s-saw G-Georgie?” Bill whispered, his own eyes starting to water as he stepped closer to you.

“Do you know who he is?” You whispered, looking at Bill, your eyes widening slightly, someone else saw him too, it wasn’t just you.

“H-He’s m-m-my little bro-brother.” Bill choked out, making your expression drop instantly, your mouth opening and closing, unable to form words.

“Georgie went missing about a week ago.” Eddie whispered, giving you a sad look, but all you could focus on was Bill.

His brother was dead.

“Bill.. I-I.. I am so.. so sorry..” You whispered, a tear slipping down your cheek.

“N-No don’t s-say that! He isn’t.. H-He isn’t d-dead! Georgie isn’t d-d-dead!” Bill shouted, his own tears falling down his face.

You looked at the rest of the group, their faces full of sorrow, they knew that Georgie was dead, they knew from the moment he was taken and was never found, but Bill, Bill had hope, he had hope he was still alive.

The room soon filled with the sounds of Bill’s uncontrollable sobs, a sight that broke everyone’s heart, he just wanted his brother back.

Beverly ended up pulling Bill into a comforting hug with Stan and Eddie, trying to comfort his broken heart once again, while Richie walked over to you quietly.

Something you’d never seen before, Richie Tozier, the trashmouth, quiet.

You thought for a minute he would break character and make a stupid joke, but he didn’t, instead, he wrapped his arms around you, still not saying a word, instead he just waited until he felt your arms wrap around him.

You felt your body calm slightly, just before your own tears started to flow, your body once again shaking from your sobs, but Richie never let go, he just held you.

That day in the empty classroom was the day the Loser’s Club found out your secrets, the day you exploited your crazy sightings of a clown, a red balloon, and Georgie.

But now a lingering question hung over the Loser’s Club, did they believe you, or did they too think it was just a figment of your imagination?

 Tags: @the-crime-fighting-spider @f-b-a-w-t-f-t-2 @mishamgos @winter-fire-and-january-embers @hey-its-bean @theotherschuyler @o-starshine

[musicdork]

thank u for letting me keep my anonymity for the time being v much appreciated😌 altho wheres that rattling coming from?? keeps getting louder but ohhhh wellll ,🧎🏽 pppsshhhhh dont worry about making long answers i LOVE RWADING ALL OF IT. its like getting a handwritten letter from someone exciting and its just not long enough!!! :,) plus like...i went on a chipotle tangent for like 1/3 of that last message i sent u.....so its ok dont worry about anything being too long bc i do long-ass messages+if anything long messages r the best

also holy SMOKES kakyoin as a streamer???? u bet ur ass id have notifs ON for his account😫 but SHHHH SHUHSH SHUSH OK the modern au means egypt=streaming hiatus, nothing more, no dying no injuries😭😭 also omg..if u start reblogging more bruno and kakyoin fanart i am going to be L O O K I N G maybe just a little bit disrespectfully.(maybe ill reblog more josuke fanart👀✌🏼)

ok so—it is jusabout one in the morning for me(probably 2 for u) and i have three assignments left before my semester is OVER WITH!!! whats ur major? how long have u been in school? also have u seen all parts of jojo anime? i would love to know. i have and im trying to read but i only finished part two. i also worry deeply if i am going to pass college : ) ok now GO TO SLEEP(tbh im lowkey telling myself this too), get that sleep schedule back on track!!!💨💨 i am going to be doing a bootyload of painting and moving tomorrow which i think overall is going 2 b very fun :^) i hope u have a nice day filled with fun things and yummy food!!

—u already know who it is ;) the stealthy healthy ;) anonymous anon ;)

[ u just sent in the ask about what i posted and im gLAD U SAW IT HAHAHA!! it’s such a good meme bro, hell yeah to you for being able to recite the whole thing. i mix up the words sometimes h ]

oo, im gonna timestamp. it’s 2:57 am hehe

very glad you don’t mind the long messages, that makes me feel better :’)) depending on how awake i am my replies will be either pretty long or short,, tired,,

aNYWAY!! i will lure you Out if i have to but respectfully >:] also i would Die if you reblogged more josuke art im,, i’d have to hunt down the Good Stuff(tm) for you my dude. we love our pretty men,, also might just reblog crack stuff too bc that shit’s funny hehe u bet ur Ass i will be lookin at josuke a lil disrespectfully hehe he’s,, pwetty im,,, wanna know what i like about kakyoin? his eyes... they are such a pretty purple,, brb sobbing

i have Given Up on my sleep schedule and just try to get things done when i can srkjefskj but doing school work is,, hard hhh. this is my freshman year!! so i just finished my first semester like,, on wednesday lmaoo exams are done but Not my assignments ahaha. need.. to do that >:( but for now i’m thinking of majoring in psychology + social justice with a possible minor in business hehe

what’s your major? :0 has this semester been difficult for you? it has for me tbh not the content itself but,, finding motivation to do work, you know? it’s weirdd. OH ELFEKFEKL I ALSO WORRY- about passing college,, ion know man idk how,,, i’m gonna survive next semester hhh i hope we both survive with good grades aaaa. 

i’ve seen all the parts of the anime!! i’m rewatching diu in sub and vento aeuro (?? i can’t italian im sorry) in dub!! diu is kinda a comfort part bc josuke,, and i wanted to get to know the p5 characters better bc it felt like i cruised through the season without paying much attention to the characters themselves. i commend you on reading the manga sldrfkrk all the way back to the first part,, to the second!! i started reading part 6 but i’m not very far in it haha. i got to the.. tenth chapter? ye. i think,,

i will try to sleep after the obligatory scroll through tumblr haha please sleep too! it looks like you have a big day ahead of you. please hydrate or die, eat what you can, snuggle kakyoin n bruno, they wanna snuggle you too don’t worry. i hope you have a good day tomorrow!! <3 [ 3:27 am, i spaced out a lot,, ]

OH IF YOU HAVE SPOTIFY, HERE’S A KAKYOIN PLAYLIST IT’S GREAT SLFMEKLS

[estuarries]

baby’s first liveshow commentary

hello lads i have decided to attempt doing @nihilist-toothpaste​ inspired video commentary/write up/review thingies!!!! welcome to ramble-y fun time

phil’s liveshow on august 10, 2017

his smile in the first minute makes my heart so happy i love him so much

i love the eye-tongue-eye emoji stop being mean to it

he’s a bit late bc he just finished filming a new ap vid!!! it took him longer than he thought it would to finish filming bc he was rambling. this is a #relatable brain thing

“i just said goodbye and now i’m saying hello again!” wrt filing and then doing a liveshow makes me rly happy bc i wouldn’t have thought abt it that way. i love phil’s brain

new vid clues: paper bag(?) and bubble wrap. amazingphil asmr part ii??

dan’s not joining the liveshow bc he has a headache but phil’s gonna hop into dan’s next one

closed eyes and happy gesticulation whilst telling sleepy-morning “unexpected window cleaning man frightened me” story

phil’s fight/flight/freeze response is freeze

“imagine if i had decided to make breakfast naked! ...if i was that kind of person…” its okay m8 we know u like to make nakey bro brunches w danyul

are the emoji pants the only pair of graphic pj pants he has now ??? why are they being featured so prominently lately ???? phil IS an emoji is the only phnnie conspiracy i can support now

in the ap vid phil did SCIENCE and REACTED TO THINGS (chemistry . reaction . hehe :3)

he’s out of tv shows to watch ….he and dan have watched so many series together over the years ..... i am emotional

phil hasnt watched in a heartbeat EITHER !! BLASPHEMOUS BOYES!!!

re: rick and morty. i strongly agree and it makes me so nervous that rick burps all the time i cannot focus on whats happening in the show bc rick gives me so much anxiety

he misses the cherry blossom tree in thehowlter’s front yard and they are hopefully going to put it in when they have money

“you’re all like dan! not everything has to be symmetrical!” thank u for these affirmations that not everything has to be perfect thank u for being chill. a chill phil. 

“i dont mind a little bit of wonkiness!” “i’m at a bit of a wonk!” “is the entire house wonky?” the only real phil branding is ~WOnKy~

phils hands are so beautiful???? i love them?????? @ 8:50ish

him trying to figure out his best side and saying “one? or two?” as options like at the optometrist when ur getting ur eyes checked. 

someone in the chat: “both!” phil’s cheeky grin/”don’t flatter me!!!” response

someone in the chat: “side three!” i snort laughed along w phil this is truly Good Content. dark!phil RISE

phil doesn’t think he really has a bad side and his easy neutrality wrt his physical appearance is dreamy. i love him and i love that he’s comfy w himself like this

phil had an eye infection and this is the first day he’s been without glasses…… why does he glasses-bait us like this …..

it’s really hard for him to concentrate with dilated pupils so that’s why he was being a wee bit wonky in the last liveshow

his eye is no longer infected and is “white and ready to see!”. the tone of his voice, his accent, and the phrasingof that reminded me so much of my british grandma who i havent seen in a few years and now i want to call her i miss her

wicked was “as the kids say...Wicked.” I SNORTED AKLHFAEIHKF

also i cannot believe that he and dan used the same silly phrasewhen talking about their opinions of wicked. is it still #copyrightinfringement if its your bf blatantly enterprising ur intellectual property?

phil was feeling a bit meh going into wicked but now he’s converted and a fan

he loved defying gravity :(

phil: every audience is important! me: crying

phil loves coming-of-age/college/highschool aus … Me Too

phil remix: the top fans to the tune of mad world “all around me are familiar faces...lillyphanstuff, joteleena…”

he’s had “mad world” and also that fuckin. ditty song stuck in his head

“...is one thicc bih - NO!” is the best thing ive ever heard

im so sad that phil hasnt experienced the joys of ditty. apparently he doesn’t have it downloaded and doesn’t really know what it is

14:07 is my new ringtone (he sang the ditty tune in “doot doot doot”s)

“bandicussy” IM DEAD

phil thought it was a good family activity to see dunkirk but it made his parents very emotional bc his maternal grandad was in the war

making your entire family cry is apparently the phil way to entertain

neither he nor dan understood the timelines of dunkirk upon first watch

after filming his ap vid he sanitized using vanilla cupcake hand sanitizer

he watches zoe’s bath and bodyworks candle/lotion hauls??????? ME TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

apparently b&bw has some ~priiiicey~ candles. phil is the coupon clipping, consumer reports reading dad

he said that livestreaming games on dapg would be “dope”. i am reminded for the millionth time that he is a 30 year old white man. i am moderately uncomfortable.

jk it was someone in the chat who said it he was just reading the comment

“hi to the ‘phan’s moving boxes’ group chat”

facterino according to the nature man on tv: in england nature has decided that it’s autumn already. this is evidenced by blackberries coming out in august. because fall isstartingso early they’re expected to have a harsh winter but its fine bc he is excited for snow!

some climate change discourse

he’s not a big doctor who fan but his fav doctor is david tennant

he’s excited for the “lady doctor” and i’m uh. not a huge fan of that wording

23:02 pre-sneeze noises and hand motions are Delightful

apparently it’s southern england peeps who pronounce scone with a hard o (scOHne) and northerners pronounce it with a soft o (scAWn). phillu doesn’t know which pronunciation he uses

my mom grew up in cornwall (and moved to america when she was a teen. i’m american btw!) and pronounces it the northern way. we’ve had the scohne vs scawn debate!! lots of #britishfamilythings in this liveshow

philly homework motivation song @ 24:52

his first response to ppl being sad about school starting in a week is to calculate how many seconds are in a week so they can re-frame their time left in a way that feels more plentiful. i love this ???

i also really love how he tries to read premium messages from different people every time. idk that’s just really thoughtful and as a fan i really appreciate it

he knows that black makes him look good …. GOodBYe

today is world lion day!

phil is the one who puts the funny/random holidays on the dnp calendars. of course it was but im still so happily surprised  

doinganap’s sicth/sixth discourse

he’s reading people from the chat’s bdays and telling them what funny holidays are on their birthdays! i love how he finds different ways to get ppl in the chat involved every liveshow. i appreciate him so much !like yeah i know its a marketing thing but let me pretend its solely phil’s care for us

he wants to go back to japan

he can’t read or edit and listen to music at the same time! me neither

someone asked what a good pet would be and phil went on a lil tangent about how it’s important to have enough time to take care of the pet you choose!! dont get an exotic pet or a breed of non-exotict pet that requires a lot of time, money, or energy to care for it if you’re not at a point in your life where u can take care of it to the best of your ability! <3

hedgehogs are one of the most common animals in the uk??? what the heck?

he can’t remember whether or not he’s seen a hedgehog irl so he texts mum lester to ask <3 why is this the sweetest thing in the world . like seeing a hedgehog irl would be an experience that his family facilitated or even if he was moved out when it happened it would have been so exciting that he def would have told kath about it. so any way it happened she would know about it. my heart is Warm.

he’s not a huge summer candle burner but as soon as it’s september he’ll be on the pumpkin spice train

mum lester texted back and apparently his grandparents had a family of hedgehogs in their garage and his granddad built them a little hedgehog house to hibernate in :( wow!

phil might play shelter 2 … with dan. No Thank You. let us have some phil-only time plz 

shelter 2 is more of an autumnal game so he might do it later when he can cozy up with some cocoa and herd the badger babies

he feels a coffee buzz after five (5) chocolate-covered coffee beans. r u sure u even drink coffee phil????

rye bread is worse (in phil’s opinion) than regular bread and is ”claggy”. i busted out laughing and texted my mom IMMEDIATELY bca LOOOONG time ago we were at a family christmas party with my dad’s extended family and all of the Adults were playing scrabble. my mom ended up spelling claggy and everyone else was like THATS A MADE UP WORD WHAT THE FUCK!!!! and my mom was like ???? no its not? my dad’s family is from the eastern us and had never heard the word claggy before and i remember my dad giving my mom shit about it for YEARS afterward because she caused such an uproar. idk if it was a regional thing or if americans just don’t say claggy but REGARDLESS. my mom and i had a good laugh over this description of rye bread and we both love phil

he’s nervous abt what dalien is going to look like and become as he grows up. phil’s general reaction to dalien has been one of caution and nervousness and idk ?? someone more thoughtful analyze that please

his advice for making the most of the last bits of summer: do something you haven’t done before! immediately after bestowing upon us this Wise Advice he giggles and becomes self aware of his parental tone. Our Dad Is Becoming Self Aware

he doesnt swear around his parents?????? my mom says fuck all the time :0

2018 calendar and season two pastel plushies are in the works!

he’s singing another song to list the top fans. suggestions include toxic, the ditty tune, and the tetris theme. he goes with the ditty song and starts laughing in the middle of it so makes a seamless musical transition to toxic

if everything recorded properly with his new vid we should see it in the next few days!

he hopes that we have a lovely weekend and that whatever we end up doing brings us a bit of happiness :( i love him thank u phil

tiny little bonus song after he covers up the camera. schrodingers phil.

all in all i love phil’s liveshows and this has been the highlight of my day. thank u for reading!

[lakeblue1]

HSC Advanced English Tips (’17)

Here’s a guide to the train wreck that is Advanced English. I came 8th in a cohort of 112, but I got the 2nd highest mark in trials. Trust my advice at your own discretion.

Here are some of my study tips for English:

General Essay Stuff

I’m really lazy so for my HSC I ended up memorising an essay plan (for more information see this guy: https://atarnotes.com/dealing-with-english-for-maths-students/) and honestly it worked out for me this year. It’s pretty solid most of the time, so if you do use it, use it at your own discretion and try and have backups

Try and know some ~fancy~ technique names bc teachers love that stuff and it makes you sound smarter. Don’t be afraid to use semicolons and colons and dashes, I don’t think they actually care and it signals to them “WAIT! I’M NOT DONE WITH THIS IDEA YET!”.

Okay so on the topic of water and bathroom in the middle of the exam: I’m against it. It’s only 2 or 3 hours, and you could be spending it writing those few extra words that mean all the difference when you’ve got 1 min left-- Of course, if you get really anxious or panicky then a bathroom break is important if it’ll help you calm down quickly. Take care of yourself, and be honest when you need a breather

I’ve been told I’m really good at introductions and conclusions but tbh they just follow the same format:

Introduction: This is my thesis, usually some derivative of the question or a unique thesis if I feel up to it; this is an optional sentence elaborating on my thesis if there’s a “yes, but” component, or if I couldn’t express my whole thesis in a grammatically correct way. This introduces my first text, with name, title, year, and general summary of how it relates to the thesis. This introduces my second text, see format in last sentence. This is a third text if I’m a baller. This is a sentence that links all two/three texts in terms of purpose, technique, effect on responder, or whatever. This sentence summarises my thesis, occasionally omitted if it’s Module A or C.

Conclusion: This is a summary of my thesis, with a pretty transition word at the beginning (I tend towards As such, Overall, or Thus). This summarises how my first text relates to the thesis, as explained in my body paragraphs. This summarises my second text, and so on. This is an optional summary sentence linking all the texts again. This is an imperative philosophical ending, usually about how bad things help us grow as a person, bad people will eventually get retribution, or how with enough perseverance society will start to change for the better.

Discovery

Section I

Honestly there’s not much you can do to ‘study’ for it, but you should be familiar with literary and visual techniques (though they haven’t given a visual in two years *grumble grumble* we got a mango poem instead…)

Get your literary devices here! http://literary-devices.com/

Section II

HAHAHA what is creative writing. Here’s your chance to write the cutest happy lil things or the most dark and depressing story (I’ve got both)

CLICHES MY TEACHER SAYS NOT TO DO: tears/crying, school setting, exam setting, meta-stories about the marker marking your story about the marker marking your work about…

I know some people have said they memorise and adapt a full story, or just go into the exam with a character and some plot ideas, but I can’t work that flexibly, so what I do is I write Vignettes. Little snippets of a story that you can piece together in many different ways to show different things about discovery.

For me, my character is a sailor in the 17th century, so vignettes I’ve written include: the death of his parents, his recruitment into a pirate crew, learning about how to be a sailor, his first time killing a person, first time trying alcohol, etc.

Trust me, it makes it so much easier to adapt your story. And you remember more or less the same amount of words

Pick a topic you ACTUALLY LIKE. No brainer. They’re not gonna take this last bit of freedom from us without a fight. I watched Pirates of the Caribbean for the first time a few months before we started Discovery, so my creative was about pirates and the 17th century Age of Sail (still can’t believe I did that…)

And then RESEARCH. Research the heck outta that time period, or that sport, or that music, or whatever. It’s gonna take time, but if you like it enough it’s soooo worth it. And it builds verisimilitude (authenticity)

Plus you learn some cool stuff! Did you know middle names weren’t popular until the mid-1700’s? Or the Age of Piracy happened because nations stopped fighting and sacked all of their sailors, who became pirates, and then they recruited those pirates back into the Navy to fight the growing number of pirates. Idiots, them.

Section III 

Probably the part you’re most familiar with. Essays! Yay....

Really really really make sure you know your rubric. Cuz when you do, you can quote whatever the hell you want out of the rubric and kinda tweak the question/thesis a bit to include the part of the rubric that you want (*cough* memorised..)

If they ask for two RTs, USE YOUR MODULES ONE! It’s better than nothing, and chances are you know your analysis better than the unseen texts

Same goes for Modules, use your Discovery RT if you’re hardpressed for 2

Modules

Module A-- King Richard III and Looking for Richard

Okay so I actually didn’t understand LFR at all when I first watched it (like wth is this old dude going on about Shakespeare and there’s so many random cuts and whatnot)

They can really ask any part of either text so be prepared. Know your stuff for the main values (power, providentialism, female frailty, morality, etc) and the more obscure stuff you can usually adapt a pre-written response

Module B-- Speeches

THIS IS MY STRENGTH SO IF YOU GOT QUESTIONS HIT ME UP

I didn’t know this until two days before the HSC but if they prescribe a text that you are NOT prepared to talk about, you only have to mention 2 or 3 quotes and its analysis and then link it to a speech that you actually know

So your paragraphs goes a bit like: 1. Speech you like, w/ two quotes from the prescribed 2. Another speech you like

And unless they say “MAKE DETAILED REFERENCE TO”, you’ll be fine honestly.

So just memorise 3 quotes from each speech and know a few of them in depth

But only if you’re desperate. Try and know analysis for most of them

Different from the other modules, you CAN (perhaps should) talk about the entire speech in one paragraph and then the other speech in another paragraph, as opposed to integrating it

Just make sure to link it by topic sentences-- e.g. “Similar to Sadat, Keating also attempts to address concerns he sees in society, but on a much smaller scale.”

For this reason, you can memorise analysis for a speech to put in a paragraph, cuz it either answers the question or it doesn’t. Just tweak the topic and summary sentences.

Tbh doing 3 speeches should not be scary-- it might even be easier! Cuz you don’t have to go into as much detail for each speech!!

Honestly, each speech in a 2-speech essay has 450 words, while each speech in a 3-speech essay has 300 words.

Module C-- Brave New World

Ok People and Politics is interesting but I hated BNW-- and rightly so, cuz I think Huxley meant for us to hate the people so that we can better criticise aspects of the World State (hence satire = promoting change)

I talk a lot about context, because it goes a lot into representation-- if you read my essay plan for Mod C, most of it is about Huxley v changes in society that he disapproves of

English is actually a tolerable subject when you’re not cramming it for an exam. Any questions send em here and I’ll do my best to answer and give feedback <3

Good luck!

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – October 31

October 31, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

It drove his critics crazy that Obama was the coolest president we ever had and his summer 2019 playlist on Spotify simply confirms that reality. It has been on repeat for me. From Drake to Lizzo (God I love her) to Steely Dan to Raphael Saadiq to Sinatra (who I skip every time – I’m not buying the nostalgia), his carefully curated list reflects not only his infinite coolness, but the breadth of his interests and generosity of taste. I love the music, but I love even more the image of Michelle and him rocking out somewhere far from Washington’s madness, as much as I miss them both.

What I’m reading: 

I struggled with Christy Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo for the first 50 pages, worried that she’d drag out every tired trope of Mid-Eastern society, but I fell for her main characters and their journey as refugees from Syria to England. Parts of this book were hard to read and very dark, because that is the plight of so many refugees and she doesn’t shy away from those realities and the enormous toll they take on displaced people. It’s a hard read, but there is light too – in resilience, in love, in friendships, the small tender gestures of people tossed together in a heartless world. Lefteri volunteered in Greek refugee programs, spent a lot of interviewing people, and the book feels true, and importantly, heartfelt.

What I’m watching:

Soap opera meets Shakespeare, deliciously malevolent and operatic, Succession has been our favorite series this season. Loosely based on the Murdochs and their media empire (don’t believe the denials), this was our must watch television on Sunday nights, filling the void left by Game of Thrones. The acting is over-the-top good, the frequent comedy dark, the writing brilliant, and the music superb. We found ourselves quoting lines after every episode. Like the hilarious; “You don’t hear much about syphilis these days. Very much the Myspace of STDs.” Watch it so we can talk about that season 2 finale.

Archive 

August 30, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but the New York Times new 1619 podcast is just terrific, as is the whole project, which observes the sale of the first enslaved human beings on our shores 400 years ago. The first episode, “The Fight for a True Democracy” is a remarkable overview (in a mere 44 minutes) of the centrality of racism and slavery in the American story over those 400 years. It should be mandatory listening in every high school in the country. I’m eager for the next episodes. Side note: I am addicted to The Daily podcast, which gives more color and detail to the NY Times stories I read in print (yes, print), and reminds me of how smart and thoughtful are those journalists who give us real news. We need them now more than ever.

What I’m reading: 

Colson Whitehead has done it again. The Nickel Boys, his new novel, is a worthy successor to his masterpiece The Underground Railroad, and because it is closer to our time, based on the real-life horrors of a Florida reform school, and written a time of resurgent White Supremacy, it hits even harder and with more urgency than its predecessor. Maybe because we can read Underground Railroad with a sense of “that was history,” but one can’t read Nickel Boys without the lurking feeling that such horrors persist today and the monsters that perpetrate such horrors walk among us. They often hold press conferences.

What I’m watching:

Queer Eye, the Netflix remake of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy some ten years later, is wondrously entertaining, but it also feels adroitly aligned with our dysfunctional times. Episode three has a conversation with Karamo Brown, one of the fab five, and a Georgia small town cop (and Trump supporter) that feels unscripted and unexpected and reminds us of how little actual conversation seems to be taking place in our divided country. Oh, for more car rides such as the one they take in that moment, when a chasm is bridged, if only for a few minutes. Set in the South, it is often a refreshing and affirming response to what it means to be male at a time of toxic masculinity and the overdue catharsis and pain of the #MeToo movement. Did I mention? It’s really fun.

July 1, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

The National remains my favorite band and probably 50% of my listening time is a National album or playlist. Their new album I Am Easy To Find feels like a turning point record for the band, going from the moody, outsider introspection and doubt of lead singer Matt Berninger to something that feels more adult, sophisticated, and wiser. I might have titled it Women Help The Band Grow Up. Matt is no longer the center of The National’s universe and he frequently cedes the mic to the many women who accompany and often lead on the long, their longest, album. They include Gail Ann Dorsey (who sang with Bowie for a long time), who is amazing, and a number of the songs were written by Carin Besser, Berninger’s wife. I especially love the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the arrangements, and the sheer complexity and coherence of the work. It still amazes me when I meet someone who does not know The National. My heart breaks for them just a little.

What I’m reading: 

Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad through the lens of a captive Trojan queen, Briseis. As a reviewer in The Atlantic writes, it answers the question “What does war mean to women?” We know the answer and it has always been true, whether it is the casual and assumed rape of captive women in this ancient war story or the use of rape in modern day Congo, Syria, or any other conflict zone. Yet literature almost never gives voice to the women – almost always minor characters at best — and their unspeakable suffering. Barker does it here for Briseis, for Hector’s wife Andromache, and for the other women who understand that the death of their men is tragedy, but what they then endure is worse. Think of it ancient literature having its own #MeToo moment. The NY Times’ Geraldine Brooks did not much like the novel. I did. Very much.

What I’m watching: 

The BBC-HBO limited series Years and Years is breathtaking, scary, and absolutely familiar. It’s as if Black Mirrorand Children of Men had a baby and it precisely captures the zeitgeist, the current sense that the world is spinning out of control and things are coming at us too fast. It is a near future (Trump has been re-elected and Brexit has occurred finally)…not dystopia exactly, but damn close. The closing scene of last week’s first episode (there are 6 episodes and it’s on every Monday) shows nuclear war breaking out between China and the U.S. Yikes! The scope of this show is wide and there is a big, baggy feel to it – but I love the ambition even if I’m not looking forward to the nightmares.

May 19, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but I was really moved by this podcast of a Davis Brooks talk at the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/david-brooks-quest-moral-life.  While I have long found myself distant from his political stance, he has come through a dark night of the soul and emerged with a wonderful clarity about calling, community, and not happiness (that most superficial of goals), but fulfillment and meaning, found in community and human kinship of many kinds. I immediately sent it to my kids.

What I’m reading: 

Susan Orlean’s wonderful The Library Book, a love song to libraries told through the story of the LA Central Library.  It brought back cherished memories of my many hours in beloved libraries — as a kid in the Waltham Public Library, a high schooler in the Farber Library at Brandeis (Lil Farber years later became a mentor of mine), and the cathedral-like Bapst Library at BC when I was a graduate student. Yes, I was a nerd. This is a love song to books certainly, but a reminder that libraries are so, so much more.  It is a reminder that libraries are less about a place or being a repository of information and, like America at its best, an idea and ideal. By the way, oh to write like her.

What I’m watching: 

What else? Game of Thrones, like any sensible human being. This last season is disappointing in many ways and the drop off in the writing post George R.R. Martin is as clear as was the drop off in the post-Sorkin West Wing. I would be willing to bet that if Martin has been writing the last season, Sansa and Tyrion would have committed suicide in the crypt. That said, we fans are deeply invested and even the flaws are giving us so much to discuss and debate. In that sense, the real gift of this last season is the enjoyment between episodes, like the old pre-streaming days when we all arrived at work after the latest episode of the Sopranos to discuss what we had all seen the night before. I will say this, the last two episodes — full of battle and gore – have been visually stunning. Whether the torches of the Dothraki being extinguished in the distance or Arya riding through rubble and flame on a white horse, rarely has the series ascended to such visual grandeur.

March 28, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

There is a lovely piece played in a scene from A Place Called Home that I tracked down. It’s Erik Satie’s 3 Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, played by the wonderful pianist Klára Körmendi. Satie composed this piece in 1888 and it was considered avant-garde and anti-Romantic. It’s minimalism and bit of dissonance sound fresh and contemporary to my ears and while not a huge Classical music fan, I’ve fallen in love with the Körmendi playlist on Spotify. When you need an alternative to hours of Cardi B.

What I’m reading: 

Just finished Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel Washington Black. Starting on a slave plantation in Barbados, it is a picaresque novel that has elements of Jules Verne, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Yes, it strains credulity and there are moments of “huh?”, but I loved it (disclosure: I was in the minority among my fellow book club members) and the first third is a searing depiction of slavery. It’s audacious, sprawling (from Barbados to the Arctic to London to Africa), and the writing, especially about nature, luminous. 

What I’m watching: 

A soap opera. Yes, I’d like to pretend it’s something else, but we are 31 episodes into the Australian drama A Place Called Home and we are so, so addicted. Like “It’s  AM, but can’t we watch just one more episode?” addicted. Despite all the secrets, cliff hangers, intrigue, and “did that just happen?” moments, the core ingredients of any good soap opera, APCH has superb acting, real heft in terms of subject matter (including homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, and class), touches of our beloved Downton Abbey, and great cars. Beware. If you start, you won’t stop.

February 11, 2019

What I’m listening to:

Raphael Saadiq has been around for quite a while, as a musician, writer, and producer. He’s new to me and I love his old school R&B sound. Like Leon Bridges, he brings a contemporary freshness to the genre, sounding like a young Stevie Wonder (listen to “You’re The One That I Like”). Rock and Roll may be largely dead, but R&B persists – maybe because the former was derivative of the latter and never as good (and I say that as a Rock and Roll fan). I’m embarrassed to only have discovered Saadiq so late in his career, but it’s a delight to have done so.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Home, part of her trilogy that includes the Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, Gilead, and the book after Home, Lila. Robinson is often described as a Christian writer, but not in a conventional sense. In this case, she gives us a modern version of the prodigal son and tells the story of what comes after he is welcomed back home. It’s not pretty. Robinson is a self-described Calvinist, thus character begets fate in Robinson’s world view and redemption is at best a question. There is something of Faulkner in her work (I am much taken with his famous “The past is never past” quote after a week in the deep South), her style is masterful, and like Faulkner, she builds with these three novels a whole universe in the small town of Gilead. Start with Gilead to better enjoy Home.

What I’m watching:

Sex Education was the most fun series we’ve seen in ages and we binged watched it on Netflix. A British homage to John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, it feels like a mash up of American and British high schools. Focusing on the relationship of Maeve, the smart bad girl, and Otis, the virginal and awkward son of a sex therapist (played with brilliance by Gillian Anderson), it is laugh aloud funny and also evolves into more substance and depth (the abortion episode is genius). The sex scenes are somehow raunchy and charming and inoffensive at the same time and while ostensibly about teenagers (it feels like it is explaining contemporary teens to adults in many ways), the adults are compelling in their good and bad ways. It has been renewed for a second season, which is a gift.

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also rereadbooks I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star.  The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018 

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks — August 30, 2019

August 30, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but the New York Times new 1619 podcast is just terrific, as is the whole project, which observes the sale of the first enslaved human beings on our shores 400 years ago. The first episode, “The Fight for a True Democracy” is a remarkable overview (in a mere 44 minutes) of the centrality of racism and slavery in the American story over those 400 years. It should be mandatory listening in every high school in the country. I’m eager for the next episodes. Side note: I am addicted to The Daily podcast, which gives more color and detail to the NY Times stories I read in print (yes, print), and reminds me of how smart and thoughtful are those journalists who give us real news. We need them now more than ever.

What I’m reading: 

Colson Whitehead has done it again. The Nickel Boys, his new novel, is a worthy successor to his masterpiece The Underground Railroad, and because it is closer to our time, based on the real-life horrors of a Florida reform school, and written a time of resurgent White Supremacy, it hits even harder and with more urgency than its predecessor. Maybe because we can read Underground Railroad with a sense of “that was history,” but one can’t read Nickel Boys without the lurking feeling that such horrors persist today and the monsters that perpetrate such horrors walk among us. They often hold press conferences.

What I’m watching:

Queer Eye, the Netflix remake of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy some ten years later, is wondrously entertaining, but it also feels adroitly aligned with our dysfunctional times. Episode three has a conversation with Karamo Brown, one of the fab five, and a Georgia small town cop (and Trump supporter) that feels unscripted and unexpected and reminds us of how little actual conversation seems to be taking place in our divided country. Oh, for more car rides such as the one they take in that moment, when a chasm is bridged, if only for a few minutes. Set in the South, it is often a refreshing and affirming response to what it means to be male at a time of toxic masculinity and the overdue catharsis and pain of the #MeToo movement. Did I mention? It’s really fun.

Archive 

July 1, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

The National remains my favorite band and probably 50% of my listening time is a National album or playlist. Their new album I Am Easy To Find feels like a turning point record for the band, going from the moody, outsider introspection and doubt of lead singer Matt Berninger to something that feels more adult, sophisticated, and wiser. I might have titled it Women Help The Band Grow Up. Matt is no longer the center of The National’s universe and he frequently cedes the mic to the many women who accompany and often lead on the long, their longest, album. They include Gail Ann Dorsey (who sang with Bowie for a long time), who is amazing, and a number of the songs were written by Carin Besser, Berninger’s wife. I especially love the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the arrangements, and the sheer complexity and coherence of the work. It still amazes me when I meet someone who does not know The National. My heart breaks for them just a little.

What I’m reading: 

Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad through the lens of a captive Trojan queen, Briseis. As a reviewer in The Atlantic writes, it answers the question “What does war mean to women?” We know the answer and it has always been true, whether it is the casual and assumed rape of captive women in this ancient war story or the use of rape in modern day Congo, Syria, or any other conflict zone. Yet literature almost never gives voice to the women – almost always minor characters at best — and their unspeakable suffering. Barker does it here for Briseis, for Hector’s wife Andromache, and for the other women who understand that the death of their men is tragedy, but what they then endure is worse. Think of it ancient literature having its own #MeToo moment. The NY Times’ Geraldine Brooks did not much like the novel. I did. Very much.

What I’m watching: 

The BBC-HBO limited series Years and Years is breathtaking, scary, and absolutely familiar. It’s as if Black Mirrorand Children of Men had a baby and it precisely captures the zeitgeist, the current sense that the world is spinning out of control and things are coming at us too fast. It is a near future (Trump has been re-elected and Brexit has occurred finally)…not dystopia exactly, but damn close. The closing scene of last week’s first episode (there are 6 episodes and it’s on every Monday) shows nuclear war breaking out between China and the U.S. Yikes! The scope of this show is wide and there is a big, baggy feel to it – but I love the ambition even if I’m not looking forward to the nightmares.

May 19, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but I was really moved by this podcast of a Davis Brooks talk at the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/david-brooks-quest-moral-life.  While I have long found myself distant from his political stance, he has come through a dark night of the soul and emerged with a wonderful clarity about calling, community, and not happiness (that most superficial of goals), but fulfillment and meaning, found in community and human kinship of many kinds. I immediately sent it to my kids.

What I’m reading: 

Susan Orlean’s wonderful The Library Book, a love song to libraries told through the story of the LA Central Library.  It brought back cherished memories of my many hours in beloved libraries — as a kid in the Waltham Public Library, a high schooler in the Farber Library at Brandeis (Lil Farber years later became a mentor of mine), and the cathedral-like Bapst Library at BC when I was a graduate student. Yes, I was a nerd. This is a love song to books certainly, but a reminder that libraries are so, so much more.  It is a reminder that libraries are less about a place or being a repository of information and, like America at its best, an idea and ideal. By the way, oh to write like her.

What I’m watching: 

What else? Game of Thrones, like any sensible human being. This last season is disappointing in many ways and the drop off in the writing post George R.R. Martin is as clear as was the drop off in the post-Sorkin West Wing. I would be willing to bet that if Martin has been writing the last season, Sansa and Tyrion would have committed suicide in the crypt. That said, we fans are deeply invested and even the flaws are giving us so much to discuss and debate. In that sense, the real gift of this last season is the enjoyment between episodes, like the old pre-streaming days when we all arrived at work after the latest episode of the Sopranos to discuss what we had all seen the night before. I will say this, the last two episodes — full of battle and gore – have been visually stunning. Whether the torches of the Dothraki being extinguished in the distance or Arya riding through rubble and flame on a white horse, rarely has the series ascended to such visual grandeur.

March 28, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

There is a lovely piece played in a scene from A Place Called Home that I tracked down. It’s Erik Satie’s 3 Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, played by the wonderful pianist Klára Körmendi. Satie composed this piece in 1888 and it was considered avant-garde and anti-Romantic. It’s minimalism and bit of dissonance sound fresh and contemporary to my ears and while not a huge Classical music fan, I’ve fallen in love with the Körmendi playlist on Spotify. When you need an alternative to hours of Cardi B.

What I’m reading: 

Just finished Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel Washington Black. Starting on a slave plantation in Barbados, it is a picaresque novel that has elements of Jules Verne, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Yes, it strains credulity and there are moments of “huh?”, but I loved it (disclosure: I was in the minority among my fellow book club members) and the first third is a searing depiction of slavery. It’s audacious, sprawling (from Barbados to the Arctic to London to Africa), and the writing, especially about nature, luminous. 

What I’m watching: 

A soap opera. Yes, I’d like to pretend it’s something else, but we are 31 episodes into the Australian drama A Place Called Home and we are so, so addicted. Like “It’s  AM, but can’t we watch just one more episode?” addicted. Despite all the secrets, cliff hangers, intrigue, and “did that just happen?” moments, the core ingredients of any good soap opera, APCH has superb acting, real heft in terms of subject matter (including homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, and class), touches of our beloved Downton Abbey, and great cars. Beware. If you start, you won’t stop.

February 11, 2019

What I’m listening to:

Raphael Saadiq has been around for quite a while, as a musician, writer, and producer. He’s new to me and I love his old school R&B sound. Like Leon Bridges, he brings a contemporary freshness to the genre, sounding like a young Stevie Wonder (listen to “You’re The One That I Like”). Rock and Roll may be largely dead, but R&B persists – maybe because the former was derivative of the latter and never as good (and I say that as a Rock and Roll fan). I’m embarrassed to only have discovered Saadiq so late in his career, but it’s a delight to have done so.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Home, part of her trilogy that includes the Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, Gilead, and the book after Home, Lila. Robinson is often described as a Christian writer, but not in a conventional sense. In this case, she gives us a modern version of the prodigal son and tells the story of what comes after he is welcomed back home. It’s not pretty. Robinson is a self-described Calvinist, thus character begets fate in Robinson’s world view and redemption is at best a question. There is something of Faulkner in her work (I am much taken with his famous “The past is never past” quote after a week in the deep South), her style is masterful, and like Faulkner, she builds with these three novels a whole universe in the small town of Gilead. Start with Gilead to better enjoy Home.

What I’m watching:

Sex Education was the most fun series we’ve seen in ages and we binged watched it on Netflix. A British homage to John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, it feels like a mash up of American and British high schools. Focusing on the relationship of Maeve, the smart bad girl, and Otis, the virginal and awkward son of a sex therapist (played with brilliance by Gillian Anderson), it is laugh aloud funny and also evolves into more substance and depth (the abortion episode is genius). The sex scenes are somehow raunchy and charming and inoffensive at the same time and while ostensibly about teenagers (it feels like it is explaining contemporary teens to adults in many ways), the adults are compelling in their good and bad ways. It has been renewed for a second season, which is a gift.

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also rereadbooks I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star.  The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018 

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks — July 1, 2019

July 1, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

The National remains my favorite band and probably 50% of my listening time is a National album or playlist. Their new album I Am Easy To Find feels like a turning point record for the band, going from the moody, outsider introspection and doubt of lead singer Matt Berninger to something that feels more adult, sophisticated, and wiser. I might have titled it Women Help The Band Grow Up. Matt is no longer the center of The National’s universe and he frequently cedes the mic to the many women who accompany and often lead on the long, their longest, album. They include Gail Ann Dorsey (who sang with Bowie for a long time), who is amazing, and a number of the songs were written by Carin Besser, Berninger’s wife. I especially love the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the arrangements, and the sheer complexity and coherence of the work. It still amazes me when I meet someone who does not know The National. My heart breaks for them just a little.

What I’m reading: 

Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad through the lens of a captive Trojan queen, Briseis. As a reviewer in The Atlantic writes, it answers the question “What does war mean to women?” We know the answer and it has always been true, whether it is the casual and assumed rape of captive women in this ancient war story or the use of rape in modern day Congo, Syria, or any other conflict zone. Yet literature almost never gives voice to the women – almost always minor characters at best — and their unspeakable suffering. Barker does it here for Briseis, for Hector’s wife Andromache, and for the other women who understand that the death of their men is tragedy, but what they then endure is worse. Think of it ancient literature having its own #MeToo moment. The NY Times’ Geraldine Brooks did not much like the novel. I did. Very much.

What I’m watching: 

The BBC-HBO limited series Years and Years is breathtaking, scary, and absolutely familiar. It’s as if Black Mirror and Children of Men had a baby and it precisely captures the zeitgeist, the current sense that the world is spinning out of control and things are coming at us too fast. It is a near future (Trump has been re-elected and Brexit has occurred finally)…not dystopia exactly, but damn close. The closing scene of last week’s first episode (there are 6 episodes and it’s on every Monday) shows nuclear war breaking out between China and the U.S. Yikes! The scope of this show is wide and there is a big, baggy feel to it – but I love the ambition even if I’m not looking forward to the nightmares.

Archive 

May 19, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but I was really moved by this podcast of a Davis Brooks talk at the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/david-brooks-quest-moral-life.  While I have long found myself distant from his political stance, he has come through a dark night of the soul and emerged with a wonderful clarity about calling, community, and not happiness (that most superficial of goals), but fulfillment and meaning, found in community and human kinship of many kinds. I immediately sent it to my kids.

What I’m reading: 

Susan Orlean’s wonderful The Library Book, a love song to libraries told through the story of the LA Central Library.  It brought back cherished memories of my many hours in beloved libraries — as a kid in the Waltham Public Library, a high schooler in the Farber Library at Brandeis (Lil Farber years later became a mentor of mine), and the cathedral-like Bapst Library at BC when I was a graduate student. Yes, I was a nerd. This is a love song to books certainly, but a reminder that libraries are so, so much more.  It is a reminder that libraries are less about a place or being a repository of information and, like America at its best, an idea and ideal. By the way, oh to write like her.

What I’m watching: 

What else? Game of Thrones, like any sensible human being. This last season is disappointing in many ways and the drop off in the writing post George R.R. Martin is as clear as was the drop off in the post-Sorkin West Wing. I would be willing to bet that if Martin has been writing the last season, Sansa and Tyrion would have committed suicide in the crypt. That said, we fans are deeply invested and even the flaws are giving us so much to discuss and debate. In that sense, the real gift of this last season is the enjoyment between episodes, like the old pre-streaming days when we all arrived at work after the latest episode of the Sopranos to discuss what we had all seen the night before. I will say this, the last two episodes — full of battle and gore – have been visually stunning. Whether the torches of the Dothraki being extinguished in the distance or Arya riding through rubble and flame on a white horse, rarely has the series ascended to such visual grandeur.

March 28, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

There is a lovely piece played in a scene from A Place Called Home that I tracked down. It’s Erik Satie’s 3 Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, played by the wonderful pianist Klára Körmendi. Satie composed this piece in 1888 and it was considered avant-garde and anti-Romantic. It’s minimalism and bit of dissonance sound fresh and contemporary to my ears and while not a huge Classical music fan, I’ve fallen in love with the Körmendi playlist on Spotify. When you need an alternative to hours of Cardi B.

What I’m reading: 

Just finished Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel Washington Black. Starting on a slave plantation in Barbados, it is a picaresque novel that has elements of Jules Verne, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Yes, it strains credulity and there are moments of “huh?”, but I loved it (disclosure: I was in the minority among my fellow book club members) and the first third is a searing depiction of slavery. It’s audacious, sprawling (from Barbados to the Arctic to London to Africa), and the writing, especially about nature, luminous. 

What I’m watching: 

A soap opera. Yes, I’d like to pretend it’s something else, but we are 31 episodes into the Australian drama A Place Called Home and we are so, so addicted. Like “It’s  AM, but can’t we watch just one more episode?” addicted. Despite all the secrets, cliff hangers, intrigue, and “did that just happen?” moments, the core ingredients of any good soap opera, APCH has superb acting, real heft in terms of subject matter (including homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, and class), touches of our beloved Downton Abbey, and great cars. Beware. If you start, you won’t stop.

February 11, 2019

What I’m listening to:

Raphael Saadiq has been around for quite a while, as a musician, writer, and producer. He’s new to me and I love his old school R&B sound. Like Leon Bridges, he brings a contemporary freshness to the genre, sounding like a young Stevie Wonder (listen to “You’re The One That I Like”). Rock and Roll may be largely dead, but R&B persists – maybe because the former was derivative of the latter and never as good (and I say that as a Rock and Roll fan). I’m embarrassed to only have discovered Saadiq so late in his career, but it’s a delight to have done so.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Home, part of her trilogy that includes the Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, Gilead, and the book after Home, Lila. Robinson is often described as a Christian writer, but not in a conventional sense. In this case, she gives us a modern version of the prodigal son and tells the story of what comes after he is welcomed back home. It’s not pretty. Robinson is a self-described Calvinist, thus character begets fate in Robinson’s world view and redemption is at best a question. There is something of Faulkner in her work (I am much taken with his famous “The past is never past” quote after a week in the deep South), her style is masterful, and like Faulkner, she builds with these three novels a whole universe in the small town of Gilead. Start with Gilead to better enjoy Home.

What I’m watching:

Sex Education was the most fun series we’ve seen in ages and we binged watched it on Netflix. A British homage to John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, it feels like a mash up of American and British high schools. Focusing on the relationship of Maeve, the smart bad girl, and Otis, the virginal and awkward son of a sex therapist (played with brilliance by Gillian Anderson), it is laugh aloud funny and also evolves into more substance and depth (the abortion episode is genius). The sex scenes are somehow raunchy and charming and inoffensive at the same time and while ostensibly about teenagers (it feels like it is explaining contemporary teens to adults in many ways), the adults are compelling in their good and bad ways. It has been renewed for a second season, which is a gift.

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also rereadbooks I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star.  The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018 

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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