long ago and far, far away

quarterfinals match 2:
7th Sea 2e vs Star Wars: Force and Destiny

if these two were movies or television shows, I would for sure pick 7th Sea. why? because oceans, rapier duels, and period costumes are just miles more to my taste than blasters, laser swords, and hyperspace. 

but these are not movies. they’re games: two fascinating RPGs that have beaten out their prior competitors by relatively slim margins. allow me to once again honorably mention Changeling and Cyberpunk RED as I marvel at the chances that have paired two strikingly different alternate/imaginary/far-far-away histories up against each other here. 

when I wrote about these two in the opening round, I noted that both have a pretty straightforward aesthetic of heroism and villainy, light side and dark side, goodness triumphing through even the thickest tangles of temptation. those aren't the only kinds of stories you'd be limited to telling in each system, but the game design lends itself to happy endings, mostly. both worlds ask for brave and impetuous, good-at-heart characters. both types of stories might be highly action oriented, or highly political, or most likely some of both. 

it's easier than anything to see a poetic resonance between the vibe of sailing ships into pirate-infested waters and that of piloting spacecraft through dangerous asteroid fields. and we absolutely must admit that the dashing, caped Lando Calrissian would fit gorgeously in either setting-- just swap those blasters for a pair of revolvers and we'd be set. 

since my earlier review of Star Wars: Force and Destiny we've acquired a brand new copy of Star Wars: Age of Rebellion and are waiting on Edge of the Empire to show up in the mail. then we'll have the whole trilogy of game books, ready for our in-person gaming group to use in the new year for a new collaborative story. so that’s something awesome to look forward to. I think I'll create and play as a human rebel this time... a refugee of Alderaan running headfirst into the difficult question of how far we should go in the fight against the empire...

in plain old down-to-earth reality, Star Wars is actually also a movie (okay, many movies, and shows, and, and, yes, yes, etc.)— but that and its relatively unique and pervasive cultural footprints are not why it's more likely to win this match. I wouldn't call myself a Star Wars fangirl by any means, though I do enjoy plenty of Star Wars media and find much of it quite touching in its way. recently, one of my new favorite podcasts released a really interesting in-depth materialist critique of the whole Star Wars franchise and (to a lesser extent) its fandoms. it's a great episode-- check it out if you have an hour to spare, or at least skim the transcript if you are at all curious and tolerant of such scholarly exuberance. the "behind the episode" bonus content is pretty neat too. there is a Star-Wars-y chart for us at the bottom, even. 

(materialist cultural critique is the coolest. and okay fine, I'll admit to being a hopeless Hannah McGregor fangirl if nothing else.)

SYSTEM	7th Sea 2e	Star Wars: Force and Destiny
back cover tagline =	"The roleplaying game of swashbuckling and intrigue."	"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."
publisher =	John Wick Presents / Chaosium Inc.	Fantasy Flight Games
pub. date =	2016	2015
original cost =	$59.99	$59.95
length =	9 chapters / 304 pages	13 chapters / 444 pages
my exp. level =	some	a bit more than some

---

Star Wars as an RPG has been a formative sort of game for me— it was one of the first really long and epic stories I got to be a part of with other really dedicated engaged roleplayers (big shoutouts here go to Kay and Shaun and Rhett; y'all were great players for Vampire and Star Wars and bits and pieces of other stuff too). playing as Yahla, being part of her whole story arc and seeing how she faced a dozen dark challenges that I can barely imagine facing in real life, was so cool. it was a chance to play and experience and really lean into what roleplaying games are all about. so it has to win.

7th Sea does deserve plenty of honorable mentions, so let that be known (shout outs to friend Chris and Alyssa for their parts in that campaign, too). Zetallia could've perhaps been something like what Yahla was, if she'd had more time to unfold. hmm... maybe an epilogue to this tournament could be a showdown among all the most formative player characters I've been a part of. that could be interesting.

but for now, may The Force be with us all. the penultimate quarterfinal match is going to be really, really difficult.

next match-up review: World of Darkness vs Vampire: the Masquerade 5e

sixteen of sixteen squared

in a mere four weeks, The Morning News will host an event the likes of which have never ever happened before in the history of books.

it will be a mega tournament of books. a Super-Rooster championship of previous tournament champions.

and while I could of course enjoy this event without having read all the contestants, as I usually do with the regular March tournaments, I decided I should try this time, since it's such a momentous occasion, to read all of them. or at least dip into the opening chapters of all of them.

of the 16, I happened to have already read 6 (mostly thanks to friend Patti sending along her copies once she'd read them) and given up on another. so that leaves 9 more. not that many. reading 9 books in 4 weeks or so is not impossible. I have the utmost faith in my reading speed.

once resolved upon this course of action, I used this handy list and put 8 of the books on hold at the downtown Prescott Public Library.

the ninth (Normal People) I remembered taste-testing as an audiobook on Libby, so I found it there again, downloaded it properly, and let my ears devour it while crafting and tidying a few weekends ago. it was quite an engaging little jaunt of a novel.

several of my requested books were available right away, and since my last library trip I've already finished Fever Dream. I'm in the middle of 4 others now. they are all already competing for points.

here, for the record, is the full list, delineated into past and present reading, with notes on either what I remember of the book or what I'm thinking about it now.

previously read (or attempted):

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
this is inarguably an impressive accomplishment of a book. I really liked it when I originally read friend Melanie's library copy back in 2013. eventually I watched the film, too, which is a less impressive piece of work, but still pretty neat. 

The Road. Cormac McCarthy.
I didn't get far with this, finding it literally unbelievable in its utter hopelessness. I don't feel like giving it a second chance so I'm not going to. life is too short. best wishes to Mr. McCarthy.

The Brief Wondrous Live of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz.
this book had the honor of being my very first free Audible download way back when. I may have chosen it because of its status in the 2008 tournament-- I don't remember. I do remember not loving the book much. it sat on pause in my Amazon account for years. once I finally finished it, I posted this rather curt review on goodreads:

"nothing at all about this Oscar fellow or his life or this story (allegedly about his life) struck me as wondrous or all that brief. what an odd and tedious book."

The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitt
before I'd even read this one, I randomly predicted it to win the 2012 tournament, and I won a box of Field Notes prizes for guessing the judges' votes correctly. some time later I did read and love its enjoyable balance of silliness and poignance. there's a film of it now too, on Hulu. the film felt pretty different-- more solemn-- than I remember the book. but it was well done.

The Orphan Master's Son, Adam Johnson
I still think about this book on occasion, though the exact details are all swirled and blurry in my memory. it was impactful for me in a way I can't totally articulate now. past me did record a moment from it here in this post, for what that might be worth.

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel
this is a truly lovely novel and it deserved to win. I loved reading every last bit of it. possibly I shouldn't have given my second-hand copy away (who did I give it away to, anyway?). I also blogged about Station Eleven and its runner-up here. 

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
on goodreads, I reviewed this one with the sentiment that it "ended too soon (in a good way?)," and I remember it as a fun little story. I read it back to back with So Lucky (another contestant in the 2019 tournament), and they made for a potent contrast and interesting mix of tone.

 

very recently read, in progress, or soon-to-be:

Normal People, Salley Rooney
I liked this story-- the narrator was wonderful-- but I don't know exactly what is so sensational about it. perhaps watching the Hulu series based on it will unlock the grand layers of risque taboo etc. for me. who knows.  

Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin
so short. so ominous. there's a ghostly vibe to this book-- partly friendly, partly unreachable, holding your hand as you read along. I could see myself rereading it someday to see what else is really there.

The Accidental, by Ali Smith
I'm finding this one the most enjoyable of the previously unread contestants so far. now that I'm a little more than halfway through, the tension and ominousness are mounting. it feels like something darkly destructive is about to happen. 

The Sellout, Paul Beatty
I picked this one up directly after Fever Dream, and the differences gave me whiplash. Fever Dream is such a gently simmering story, and The Sellout so relatively manic, I almost doubted my ability to keep up with Beatty in any way whatsoever. I'm a decent way through this one, but set it down to finish The Accidental first.

The Good Lord Bird, James McBride
so far I've just tasted this one, too. the historical setting makes it an oddball in my current reading pile. I might not get back to it til I've finished all the others here. we'll see. 

A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
apparently I checked this out or borrowed it from somebody but never read it back in 2011. I tasted a few pages a few days ago, but haven't gotten properly into it yet. in my head I sometimes confuse this one with Where'd You Go Bernadette, for some reason. I need to read them both so I stop doing that. hopefully.

A Mercy, by Toni Morrison
a library copy has been acquired, but not opened yet. because the author is so revered, I am very much looking forward to this one.

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
again, copy acquired, but not opened yet. I feel like I should have read this years ago.

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
this one is going to be the hardest to get from the library on time, it looks like. Mantel's historical fiction is popular stuff. maybe I should just buy a copy? I'll give it a few weeks and see how far I get with this reading-intensive project anyway.

next tasks? read like mad, fill out a bracket, place some informal bets... and then prepare to keep up with the judges next month. who's with me?

steep

this is the sun-smeared peak of Thumb Butte, towering magnanimously above the Thumb Butte trail where we hiked today. thickly pine-scented, steep, and more mountainous than the other trails we've ventured on thus far. it is a popular trail so we weren't the only hikers, but nevertheless it was gloriously peaceful to be up there.
   

the steepness of the trail got me thinking about how I used to hate hiking. I hated being dragged on family excursions to the canyon or the wilderness. I hated the heat and dust and the blisters. I hated feeling slow and out of shape and generally less-cool than all the other girl scouts. I would have much rather been left behind to read books or make art under a tree or at a picnic table.

it was a superficial hate, though. why else did I keep agreeing to go on all these church-sponsored and/or girl-scout-badge-earning hikes?

I went because I find it pretty easy to prioritize novelty and being included over my own usually very individual, isolating interests. as introverted as I can be, I'm a social animal like all the rest of us humans.

so in 2006 when a group of very cool people organized a week of hiking in Zion National Park, I happily and luckily let myself be included. and that's the week when I realized I didn't actually hate hiking as much as I thought. the snow and sun and sandstone changed my mind.

I wrote a little about that week here. I don't have photographs (though some do exist in digital form now) of those hikes. just journal entries.

and I only have a few photographs of these Arizona hikes. a few seems like enough. for now.

here, looking out from Thumb Butte trail at some of the northwest expanse of Prescott National Forest.

and here, a post-rainstorm shot of Willow Lake.

vengeance vs. leverage

an old facebook friend of mine, a few days ago, shared this Martin Luther King Jr. quote about the inability of violence to bring peace.

I was tempted to respond in a comment, something like "I hope you're using this to denounce all the terrible police violence and other terrible racially-motivated violence in the world, rather than as a shallow move to discredit some or all of the protestors who are speaking out against that violence, just because their response makes you uncomfortable."

but I didn't.

I've only been to one protest event in my life. it was at the end of 2014, during Dr. Jenny Bay's grad seminar on gender, rhetoric, & the body. Dr. Bay suspended our class meeting that day for anyone who wanted to go march, and despite my general hesitance to be seen making any kind of fuss at all, I left my books in my office, joined my peers, and marched. chanted (not loudly). laid down in the street in my red winter coat. listened to others' impassioned speeches and pondered in my highly introspective way what all of it meant.

that was a long time ago. I don't remember everything about that cloudy Indiana winter day but I remember one of the chants:

no justice, no peace.

no justice, no peace.

if violence cannot bring any lasting peace, as MLK has said... well, neither does injustice.

if I ignore the violence and injustice that others experience, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

there are plenty of parallels between lyrics from Hamilton and the happenings of now. it's such a rich and tightly-woven work of art that you can look into it for insight and inspiration every morning for the rest of your days, never running out of reminders about what's difficult and crucial and powerful and beautiful about life. the closing number alone! "when my time is up, have I done enough?" it's gorgeous and it's full of heart-wrenching provocation like that.

yesterday we, along with the rest of the internet, watched the Disney+ release of the Hamilton film (thanks to friend Kay who shared her account info with us for the occasion).

these lines from "My Shot" stood out a little bit extra to me as I watched the protagonist take up a place on the soapbox and monologue:

And? If we win our independence?

Is that a guarantee of freedom for our descendants?

Or will the blood we shed begin an endless

Cycle of vengeance and death with no defendants?

I don't think most of the protests going on today are about vengeance. thankfully. and thankfully most of them aren't violent protests either.

there's another thought-provoking line on independence later on at the end of Act I, too. the exchange between Burr and Hamilton before the latter goes on to write a large portion of The Federalist Papers:

Burr: The constitution’s a mess

Hamilton: So it needs amendments

Burr: It’s full of contradictions

Hamilton: So is independence.

and so it is. independence is a neat idea. but we're also all connected. we all depend on so much outside ourselves. what "justice" and "freedom" really mean is a whole other set of questions, I admit. but we have to start somewhere. admit that not everyone is treated so equally as our Declaration of Independence implies they should be. stop ignoring that inequality just because it mostly doesn't affect us. start somewhere. change your perspective. change the way things are.

or at least try.

{ some holiday reading/viewing: Frederick Douglass's 4th of July speech from 1852 + Douglass's desendants read and reflect on said speech. }

generosity and gratitude

basically we have one week left in this quaint little Louisiana town.

no, we haven't managed to sit ourselves down to watch Steel Magnolias yet. should we still try? (part of me does want to.)

one week!

and there is so much to do. food to use up from the fridge. piles of things-we-don't-need-anymore to organize and donate somehow. fragile dishes and art and knickknacks to wrap and stuff into boxes.

if times were even a tiny bit more normal than they are now, we'd have a goodbye party. we'd schedule in plenty of time to visit one last time all the friends we've made here. we'd go out to that Mexican place one last time. have another end-of-semester karaoke thing. 

but times are not very normal. so instead of all that... what will we do?

I'll distantly and carefully turn in my office keys next Monday morning, distantly contrive to drop off  a few spare houseplants and some spare yarn at a few dear colleague's doorsteps, and perhaps write short goodbye notes to leave in everyone's mailboxes on campus. I'll assume, for now, that campus will return to something like normal eventually.

right now, there are thirteen days until grades are due for Spring 2020. not long after that, my contract with NSULA will officially end. the summer will start to uncurl and stretch its scaly paws, and I'll have three months to play and write and daydream before my next job starts in August. will those three months go by as slowly and weirdly as the last eight weeks have gone by?

right now, I am lucky. my contract with the new institution was signed a few weeks before all of this happened. we've been able to find a new apartment and afford all the headachey moving expenses, so far. I can do my job remotely, for as long as I have to, without too much trouble.

we are lucky, so far. 

my students? most of them are hanging in there, keeping up with things despite everything. this semester has been the opposite of ideal in about a thousand ways. it's been seven weeks since normal classes in normal classrooms. some learning opportunities have worked out okay and many others have not worked out very okay at all. but by now we've adjusted our earlier definitions of "okay."

through all this uncertain weirdness, I've tried to be as generous and patient and responsive with all the students as possible, even moreso than usual. I don't know yet how that generosity is going to finally and concretely translate into course grades next week. I hope to still see evidence that learning about professional writing has been attempted by all the students, whatever else is happening. I hope to read some thoughtful and thorough reflection from everyone before the end. learning is more important than grades.

despite all the important considerations reflected in this recent post and this less-recent post, I'm not sure if all my students will pass or not. I'm not sure how far my responsibility to be generous right now extends in relationship to students' responsibilities both pre- and post-pandemic. maybe all of these things need their definitions adjusted, too.

I haven't read Kathleen Fitzpatrick's (who keeps a very nice blog) new book Generous Thinking yet, but I want to. the whole idea-- generosity, open collaborations, re-imagining our institutions so that they serve more people more equitably-- feels so lovely.

despite the loveliness, I can't help but ask questions. who can afford to be generous and in what ways? what are the little hidden costs of personal generosity? it seems so cynical to ask such things.

in terms of my students, I can definitely afford to be outrageously generous about their grades. I hope the students and their brains can afford it too.

in terms of everything else, I can probably afford more than I think I can.

right now, there's just enough time to ponder everything I'll be leaving behind next week. there's time to feel a few puddles of regret and a whole mountain range of gratitude. we haven't been here long, but friends and colleagues and students and neighbors have been very generous to us. lucky. grateful. and hopefully, in my own ways, just as generous.

decades and novelty

there were exactly ten other blogposts on this blog with the word decade in them, before I wrote this one. is that serendipitous and random, or what?

once it is published, this newest post will ruin the nice resonance, but ah well.

just before the year switched from 19 to 20 last month, friend Chris and I swapped book lists in honor of a new decade. ten books published any time at all, but that we'd encountered and loved at some point within the last ten years.

here are mine, with links to any previous mentions/reviews:
A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf (2017)
Americanah, Chimamada Adichie (2018)
Pastoralia, George Saunders
the Prospero Lost series, L. Jagi Lamplighter
Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (2013)
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (2015)
The Likeness, Tana French
After Method, John Law (2016)
Lines: A Brief History, Tim Ingold (2015)
Syllabus, Lynda Barry (2015)

and I may as well list a few close-ish runners-up too:
The Shape of Design, Frank Chimero (2015)
Spinster: Making a Life of Own's Own, Kate Bolick (2016)
Bats of the Republic, Zachary Thomas Dodson (2016)

all these books stand out against so many other books for usually a similar reason: novelty. 

sometimes, especially with the non-fiction, the novelty comes from an incredibly unique, expansive, and new-to-me set of ideas. more often it's channeled with a vibrant, undeniably rich and present voice--like with the Adichie and Saunders and French. with the Dodson book, it was quirky art and formatting.

if you are in need of good books to read, all these are awesome. (though the Law and Ingold are terribly academic. fair warning.)

sometime soon perhaps I'll blog about my current reading. bell hooks. Sarah Bakewell. the Tournament of Books is coming up soon, too...


in the meantime: may the decades ahead keep us all stocked up on delicious, expansive novelty, with just enough sameness underneath for us to stand on.

{ in the mountains somewhere near Denver; I love how the sky almost looks like a pathway }

because poetry.

there's a scene in John Green's latest book, Turtles All The Way Down, where two teenagers sit next to an outdoor in-ground pool and the young man's simple bits of poetry, spoken off-the-cuff under the stars, seem to successfully unseat the young woman's (the protagonist's) spiraling, paralyzing anxiety.

it was a very lovely scene. and it made me think back to a headline I'd seen just a day or so earlier: "How Doctors Use Poetry."

upon first clicking that link to that headline, I read as far down as these few lines:

"...reciting poetry engages the primary reward circuitry in the brain, called the mesolimbic pathway. So does music—but, the researchers found, poetry elicited a unique response. While the mechanism is unclear, it’s been suggested that poetic, musical, and other nonpharmacologic adjuvant therapies can reduce pain..."

and then, a week or so later, I finally came back to read the whole thing. and eventually look up the cognitive neuroscience study the author references. I wanted to blog about this. because poetry.

because the idea of communication beyond the 'restricted' language of 'science' is interesting. because feelings and power and pathos and transformation feel important.

perhaps something about this time of year makes poetry feel especially necessary. seasons changing. colder, darker times pressing in upon us. stresses of the semester intensifying...

I often think I should read and savor more poetry more regularly. but sometimes it doesn't seem accessible or convenient. making space for poems isn't always easy.

our lovely local poets here at NSU have offered me an excuse for savoring plenty of poetry lately though. they're participating in a month-long poetry marathon to support a small indie non-profit literary press. one poem every day, for almost all of October. I like it. maybe there's something about knowing that poems have been written under a time constraint that makes them especially delicious and interesting.

almost all of these poems evoke some kind of emotion. some ask more patience of me than others. I like the ones that make me feel pried open, or guided dot by dot around a gallery of newness, or plunged into a deep ocean.

all the poems of the 30/30 poetry-fest are on one webpage, which makes it difficult to send you to the ones I like the most. you'll have to search a little bit for them. some of my favourites so far:

• A Study in Time and Space / by Rebecca Macijeski
• God owns a carwash in Iowa / by Ally Schwam
• Two Heads / by Karen Greenbaum-Maya
• Camelot’s Redemption / by Chad W. Lutz
• If I could make this easy / by Jen Stewart Fueston

and there are still 15 more days of poems to be written! if you're into it, you can donate to the press and incentivize our lovely local poets this month, here and/or here.

more poetries, previously:

• Emerson
• my littlest sister  
• Whitman
• Cummings, twice
• Kay
• Rilke 

also, all of this poetical literary mashup film by Yulin Huang is very cool.

if you ever are in Houston...

occasionally I still get emails from a little caribbean fusion restaurant in Houston, Texas. I haven't unsubscribed from those yet, for some reason. possibly it's because the owners were so gloriously nice to me last year when I was planning the reunion for our Purdue Rhetoric & Composition program. Heidi, the woman I spoke to about organizing our event at Calabash Island Eats, was the epitome of loveliness and accommodation. her venue was likewise lovely, and all the attendees at our reunion last spring seemed to enjoy the evening very much. the restaurant was close to the convention center, the weather and the space were as comfortable as anyone could imagine, there was plenty of food and drink, and we didn't go too much over our little budget.

just today (around 6pm EST, 3pm PST) I started calling around to potential reunion venues in Portland, Oregon. thanks (endless thanks!) to friend Ellery and his sister Bethany--both charming Portlanders--I had a great list of recommendations to work with. I'm slowly winnowing out the places that are too far from next year's convention center, places that look too small, places that don't seem to do private bookings, places that want more money than we can spend, and so on. there are 5 venues left on my potential venue list so far...

so this process is reminding me of all the phonecalls I made last year. all the harried restaurant managers and hospitality professionals who promised to call me back and didn't, or who never answered my emails, or who scoffed that I had waited until November to book this Wednesday night thing for April. Heidi at Calabash did none of those things, and made my job a thousand times less stressful. if you are ever in Houston, it is a place worth checking out.

things I liked about Stranger Things

everyone was talking about this Netflix series Stranger Things a few months ago. I'm not sure if it was the things that were being said or the people who were saying them that made me slightly less skeptical than usual of all the hype. actually, now that I think about it it was the gifs and screenshots that may have made the difference. especially Barb. she simply intrigued me.

anyway, over fall break Patti and I watched it while we knitted. I was prepared for creepy-ness and nostalgia. there was a good amount of both, but thankfully not so much of either that it felt over-saturated. the suspense and monsters were not too gory, heavy-handed, or in-anyone's-face. all the 80s-movies references were subtle enough to not feel stupid.

it lived up to some of the hype, but not all of it. there were plot holes and unexplained bits, and I was quite disappointed by the way things ended for our mysterious heroine. others have written more attentive, more detailed things about the show's treatment of its female characters and on the show's manic-pixie-dream-girl-itis.

those things I didn't like are pretty major. but the rest of my review here is gonna be a list of things I did like. here we go:

- there are only 8 episodes. short is good.

- all the characters we got to follow added variety--the kids had a plot, the teenagers had a plot, the grown-ups had a plot. and all the plots came together eventually, balanced nicely.

- it's set in rural Indiana, and I had fun recognizing the symbol from the Indiana flag on the police officers' sleeves.

- the overall vibe was well done, all chill, shadowy, autumnal, balancing haunted and homey. at times it felt more like a fairytale than an 80s-themed sci-fi suspense thing.

it was worth watching, and I have no regrets. thanks for watching it with me, friend Patti. 

other friends who may not have seen it yet: you'll probably like it too. 

wool

during fall break in October, Patti introduced me to the woman who spins the yarn that Patti so often sends me.  

we both ended up buying more yarn that day. 

I got two skeins of what the maker called Jupiter-Capricorn, if I remember correctly. it's a dark-pink, grey-blue, mottled handspun mix of Cashmire, Angora, Wool, Alpaca, and Silk.

I knitted a scarf out of it, just finished yesterday. 

it's not the softest, but it has lovely character. 

the $10 founding father without a father

I have two of the loveliest friends to thank for originally exposing me to Hamilton: friend Liz, who teaches high school English around here, and friend Patti, who is a fellow Purdue rhetoric & composition scholar. they are both kindred spirits of sorts-- fellow English major geeks and appreciators of much beautiful and random culture. Liz and I go see Shakespeare whenever we can, and if Patti lived closer we would be religiously watching Elementary every week.

I clearly recall the day last spring-ish when Liz mentioned the fact that someone had made a hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton and asked if I wanted to hear some of it. we had crafts in our laps and the soundtrack on her phone, hooked up to bluetooth speakers.

it's intense, this music. relentless, rushing, and deep. and smashed-full of intricate lyrics. if you haven't listened, you must. go listen.

Patti and I binged on Hamilton the whole drive to and from New York last summer. I remember being so excited to see the two-disc album in her sack of CDs. reading the liner notes while she drove gave me such headaches, but it was worth it as the price to pay for familiarizing myself with all the layers and nuance of Lin-Manuel Miranda's wordsmithery.

some months ago, on our trip back from the beaches of northern Michigan, I forced dear Jeremiah to listen to the whole soundtrack. he had been skeptical, and as a human who is often quite skeptical of the celebrated and the hyped, I cannot blame him for that.

luckily, once he heard the masterpiece he was in love with it too.

we decided to get tickets to see the show in Chicago. they were not cheap, but life is short, right?

there was quite the countdown from the moment of that decision to the night of the show. in the meantime I spent too much time reading through annotated lyrics. I discovered this ridiculously amazing tribute of a podcast series all about Hamilton (thanks friend Beth for that tip). and Liz and I got together to watch the Tony awards, to see the cast and crew and producers of Hamilton win lots of prizes.

and then there was also a PBS documentary about the making of the show, and about Hamilton himself, and about America. it was beautiful, and you can watch it online up til November 18th.

last weekend, the day arrived at last. we took the train into the city, dined at the oldest Italian restaurant in Chicago, took selfies in front of the marquee, and climbed a lot of stairs up to the balcony of the theatre. 

there were of course piles of merchandise for sale: totes, hoodies, program books.

what will I put in this tote bag? maybe it will be the tote bag I take to the library, for books and audiobooks and such.


right now all it has in it is the fancy program book and the less-fancy playbill. fancy glossy perfect-bound program book has excellent photo arrangements of the original Broadway cast. it's gorgeous.

the Chicago show was also gorgeous. being so familiar with the soundtrack already made for a very interesting and layered entertainment experience. the Chicago actors are not the Broadway actors, so they all put their own little garnishes on their parts. there was so much motion and energy in the performance--a visual-kinetic counterpart to the rhythms and dynamics of the recorded music by itself. I found myself drinking in all the lighting decisions, the ambiance of the whole stage. at almost any time, no matter where the spotlights fell or who was monologuing, we could see silent actors at the corners of the action, in the background, walking past or sitting patiently. they didn't always have parts to sing or back-up vocals to add, but they were very there, as watchers.

I could probably write a lot about each scene, each song. but I'll spare you too much gushing and touch on my favourite bits from each half. the favourite moment from Act I came in a trios of songs: "Guns and Ships," "History Has its Eyes On You," and "Yorktown." this is how the Revolutionary War was won. this is where we establish the theme of history watching from an unreachably far, high place. that theme haunts the rest of the show, touching each character in very different ways. the whole sequence was simply masterfully orchestrated-- bodies, music, voices, lines, colors, contrast, tension-- and then the Brits surrender and it all dissipates into relief, crystalizes into jubilation.

it's harder to pick favourites in Act II. the whole character of Jefferson is delightful in his unflinching high-mindedness. I loved the stark, tenuous feeling of Hamilton's impending mistakes in "Say No to This." and I trembled and cried a bit at the very end of "It's Quiet Uptown."

I feel very lucky to have been in that theatre, with the beautiful, pathos-infused results of so many fellow-humans' creative work. how lucky we all are, to be alive to see such stories crafted and told so marvelously.

all the sushi

I might love it if somebody decided to pay me to review all the sushi ever. what a daunting and delicious task that would be. 

alas, today I am only able to review some of the sushi. particularly, some of the sushi served at Maru Sushi in West Lafayette, Indiana.  

the first time I sat down to sushi at this place was with friend Sherri, I think. that seems like a long time ago now. since then, I've been there quite often with friends and dates and colleagues. next time any of you dear readers wants to go out for sushi, call me up and let's go. 

Maru's new location (across the street from its old location) is gorgeous: much bigger, less cramped, with nice booths and lovely big windows on one side. friend Sam and I went there today and ordered a quartet of rolls to share while we talked about all the dissertation prospectus thinking we've been trying to do lately. it was so lovely and good--as sushi usually always is. 

here's what we ordered and how I liked it:

Rainbow roll (California roll topped with avocado, tuna, salmon, tilapia, and white tuna) 

I'll never not love the Rainbow roll. it's beautiful. it comes with variety built into its stripes. so good.

Sunday Morning roll (Deep-fried roll with salmon and cream cheese topped with teriyaki sauce and spicy mayo)

I was brave with the spicy mayo on this one. it was worth it. not my most favourite, but good.

White Night roll (Crab salad, salmon, and cucumber inside topped with white tuna, flying fish egg)

another beautifully constructed thing, this one. it was probably my favourite of the four. 

Yam Yam roll (Deep-fried sweet potato inside topped with teriyaki sauce)

the best vegetarian roll I can remember ever having. it's simple, but I love it. 

reviews previews

a few weeks back, friend Patti (who is, for your information, the most talented twitter-ist I have had ever the pleasure to follow on twitter) mentioned to me this alternative to National Novel Writing Month: one review of something for every day of November.

and so in a gush of bloggerly excitement, she and I decided to do it. I enjoyed the challenge of blogging every day for a month back in April 2015, and reviews are a thing I occasionally do here anyway. it shouldn't be too difficult.

so I made a list, to make sure I would have enough things to review. 30 whole things. some were very easy to think of, and some took more pondering. stay tuned-- I shall be reviewing shows (both stage and television), places, books, audiobooks, podcasts, food, recipes, restaurants, activities, and maybe some art. every day will be a little slice of something this Amelia has experienced relatively lately.

if I try, I may reach the heights of reviewing skill to which friend Melanie long ago ascended. Melanie's insightful pieces on film and literature always teach me something and urge me toward new interests and new stories. Melanie, you should join in our November review-a-thon blogging challenge too!

I'm kind of cheating today, writing a preview of the month and not technically reviewing anything specific yet (unless we want to count my mini-review of Melanie's reviews? that might count). but anyway, I've got to start somewhere. so here goes. happy November.

soaking-in and stirring-up

friend Patti and I have driven miles and miles and miles in the last week. across all the states between Indiana and upstate New York. up and around to Toronto, and back, and across and through and along. I'll put up photos eventually. there has been ice cream and yoga and wonderful views and confusing traffic and much adventure.

who was it who told me about David Antin?

{ this is a photograph of northwest Missouri from ten years ago. random, I know. }

it was someone at the Digital Humanities Symposium I went to during finals week, earlier this month. someone was talking about genre and medium and sound recordings. it was someone making a point about what poetry is, and as they did so I wrote down a mis-spelled version of the poet's name on my hand.

reading David Antin poems in pdf does not seem very fun. I will have to consult the library.

in the meantime, when Patti and I are not on our way from here to there in a car, and when I have not been writing article drafts and planning my summer teaching adventures, I have been reading various other things. books I picked up at publishers' exhibit halls, books Patti passed on to me after she read them for the tournament of books, and books that stowed away in Patti's trunk when we left the states.

a list:

Gold, Fame, Citrus (irritating in spots, otherwise good)
So You've Been Publicly Shamed (rambly yet thought-provoking enough)
Between the World and Me (I want my dad to read this)
Go Ahead & Like It (lovely, evocative, simple)
The New World (bewildering and sudden)
Our Souls at Night (sweet. poignant, even)
Bats of the Republic (a puzzle)
Information Doesn't Want to be Free (inspiration-sparking)
The Mermaid's Sister (tedious, vague, bleh)
The Blue Hour (poetry snippets, dark, tattered)

only two of those are non-fiction, everyone. and only one of them can at all be considered research/dissertation-related. but don't worry. I spent three and a half days at a marvelous Computers & Writing conference. I learned so much, took so many notes, resolved to do so many things, and have plenty of whirring ideas caged up for later use. research/dissertation-land will not be abandoned.

this David Antin fellow does not 'write' his poetry. he talks it. oral poetical rambling, recorded and transcribed, and then published.

that sort of poetry is not a thing. it is an event, a production.

but how dare we trap any piece of writing in nouns?

processes. hows, not whats. and I have so many questions about how. why? how? those are where my questioning mind goes. why speak your poetry instead of write, type, paint it?

well, why not?

I was about to wish for my summer to have just as much writing and creating in it as reading and consuming. but how would I measure that, when the reading and soaking-in is part of the writing and building? how would it make sense to compare? I could force it to, I suppose... but it might be more interesting not to.

for now, I have picked up Seanan McGuire's Every Heart a Doorway, another stowaway book from Patti's trunk. its book jacket promises fairy-tale twists in an aloof and mysterious vein, and its first section title seems to be "The Golden Afternoons." I hope it is good.

one picture, two

the day is ending with gratitude, somewhat diluted. I am trying not to think so much of myself this weekend.

there was something on the radio this afternoon--something ranty and sermonizing, which tone I didn't like so much, but despite that the something still wriggled into my head with enough weight to feel worthwhile anyway--about how many humans these days seem to forget about their own capacity to create and give. why are we so busy seeking, consuming, winding distractions around ourselves? we could be so much happier-busier in making and working.

it's not so easy, of course. a life cannot be all giving. to create we must also consume. constant see-sawing between input, output. read, write. watch, do.

today I really wanted to make some things. so I got out the typewriter friend Sam gave me years ago, and I threaded in its new spools of ribbon, and I stuck in a little blank notepage, and I mashed its keys for a while, trial-and-erroring until it worked as I imagine it was meant to.

I made a card. tomorrow perhaps I will type a letter to somebody. I have stamps. I have a whole box of stationery-esque materials. this month is even National Letter Writing Month.

letters are not pictures, technically, even if they're a thousand words long.

{ gift shop display case - Museum of Fine Art - Houston }

but typing letters and scribbling pictures both count as production. making, creating, tracing after springtime and the new.

I am trying not to think so much of my self this weekend. this month. maybe I'll send you a letter. or some art. or both.

the rest of the stories

the very oldest old draft in my blogger file of draft blogposts was last edited sometime in 2011. only that is no longer true-- I am editing it now. and by the time you see these words, the draft will no longer be a draft at all, and my editing will have been and will be very past.

before I reopened it today, this draft had two very short lines in it.

1. a link to an old post on a blog that sadly no longer gets updated: http://missnemesis.blogspot.com/2009/08/commemorating-one-year-of-thermostat.html

2. the words the survey.

a third thing, the thing I wanted to blog about today, is something newer. something my dear clever sister linked me to the other day: a deep, detailed slideshow summary of a book called How to Have Crucial Conversations.

can this amelia girl create any insightful or meaningful link between all three of these snippets? I think she can. you'll have to let me know if it works, or what.

dear friend Elsie, many years back, was the one who first linked me to the Miss Nemsis blog. I binged on the archives for a while--those days being the golden age of blogging--and found myself drawn to this librarian woman who had lived in England once upon a time and who held fascinating opinions about books and who daydreamed in grand, romantic directions. her lively comments section was once a thing of envy. for example, see here.

and now her blog is covered in dust (or at least has been since two autumns ago), but mine is not. yet.

the Miss Nemesis post from 2009, "Commemorating One Year of the Thermostat War," must have spun to the top of my mind when I began working on the survey. The Survey. my survey. an informal, random, semi-widely distributed survey, it was. despite all my digging around in old google docs, not a single shred of this project has turned up. but I know it began in 2011 and that it consisted of a single question--

what's the hardest/worst part of being married?

I sent this question to almost all the married facebook friends I had. I sent out very random emails to any relatives and acquaintances I thought might not mind my nosiness. I brought it up in dozens of conversations, and still do occasionally, when I think of it. in 2011 I began compiling answers in Google Notebook, which even moreso than Miss Nemesis's blog, is now no longer a thing. I vaguely remember transferring them all to a document somewhere, and formatting them nicely with introductory commentary and everything--but it seems to have been lost. or perhaps I cannot remember what to search for, or where.

someday, hopefully I'll find the thing.

it took me multiple days to click through all 244 slides of Mattan Griffel's summary of How to Have Crucial Conversations. it must be a pretty hefty book. I wonder if I'll ever read the thing, or if those 244 slides covered it all well enough.

some sections of it seem like marvelous principles to teach a class of would-be technical communicators. maybe in this century, even if it is no longer the golden age of blogging, all of us are technical communicators at least some of the time. not many of us live outside of technology anymore, if we ever did.

one of the sections that poked at me with the greatest effect was all about how powerful stories can be, and how much attention they deserve.

I was chasing more than a single story with that survey question, five years ago. up to that point there had been mainly fairytales and rose-tinted spectacles, thin and sparkling. marriage is like this; relationships should be like that. flowers and birdsong, pastels and sugar. those can be lovely stories, of course, but they aren't enough. no single story every can be enough, no matter how awesome or detailed or long or meandering it might be. the more stories, the better. I guess I'm still trying to cram as many of them into my life as I can.

food inspiration

spring break is nearly over, which is a little bit sad, but overall this break has been one of the most chock-full and rewarding spring breaks I can remember. for five straight days I have had my brain and hands in fun new cooking experiments. I have had new people in my little apartment. I have shared recipes and food and grand times with some lovely and generous people. 

in no particular order, here are some of the photographs taken during the spring break cooking extravaganza that concluded today. 

gnocchi and brussel sprouts

a lovely top-secret-recipe paneer dish.

homemade tortillas, frying so peacefully.

and classic margherita pizza, using this rather famous crust.

the best part of it all was having an accomplice in attempting recipes I have never attempted before. there were many more recipes we wanted to try but did not have time for. cooking vacation round 2 might be something that needs planning... 

what we did cook was quite glorious, though. and I learned so many little things. did you know pickling vegetables was so easy? had you ever even heard of fregola before? I cannot wait to try some of these recipes again and get more familiar with them. that pizza crust, definitely. and the gnocchi. and paneer. all of it. good thing none of us ever grow out of needing to eat, eh? 

not pictured here, but possibly pictured over on instagram:  ∙ pickled onions (sweet and spicy) and cabbage ∙ orzo pasta salad ∙ fregola brocolli salad ∙ tofu and smashed plantains ∙ chocolate creme brulee ∙ bananas foster ∙ more pizzas ∙ peach blueberry pie ∙ two chocolate peanut butter tarts ∙ pumpkin roll ∙ various taco fillings ∙ challah french toast ∙ pretzel bites ∙ irish soda bread ∙ potato-cheese perogi ∙ veggie dumplings ∙ fancy chocolate bundt cake ∙ and a million (okay, seven or eight dozen, give or take) wonderful kinds of cookies

Blue Apron: reflections

back in November, which feels far more distant in timespace than it really is, a conversation began:

@plaidsicle It looks like there's a link for a free box or something. I'll try it if you will!

— Patti Poblete (@voleuseCK) November 19, 2015

I mentioned a while back that Patti and I have been discussing food just for kicks, over in a messy google doc where I have too many distracted half-formed blabberings. it is fun though. we both love food and cooking, in our non-professional yet notably dedicated ways. so this fun idea to test out a meal subscription service fell right in line with the way brain was so increasingly fascinated by the things. they seem to be so popular, so talked-about. what does it mean?

this, "Is Blue Apron the Future of Home Cooking in America?" was one of the slightly more thoughtful, slightly (only slightly) less buzz-wordy pieces I came across. Jamie Weibe asks whether these sorts of mail-order services are "the future of home-cooked food" or simply "a mindless extravagance for wealthy Americans?"

do they have to be one or the other? likely not.

Patti and I scheduled our deliveries to come the same week, so that we could virtually cook together via Skype and talk through the one recipe our boxes had in common. she has a great write-up of her experience here. I have been slow about reporting back on my end, but I did take pictures!

they sent a little card with an apron-shaped bit of seedpaper. it's basil, it says. where shall I plant this thing? in a pot out by the back steps next spring? or in a shoe on my windowsill tomorrow?

the giant box I received had ingredients for three recipes, each one with a longer, fancier title than the one before. they are all in Blue Apron's online cookbook, so I've included direct links in case you are curious.

Tamarind-Glazed Cod with Lime Rice and Cucumber Relish (this is the one Patti also got to cook)

I had not heard of putting lime zest in rice before, but it was pretty delicious. that relish was great, too, but it made Way Too Much for the two pieces of cod and the little bit of rice. easier to precisely portion out fish and grain than whole cucumbers and jicama, I guess. 

it was fun cooking this one simultaneously as Patti did the same in her kitchen. there was a bunch of multitasking involved, and I remember we both did things in different sequences, slightly (I get very scatterbrained when I cook, sometimes, leaving things half-done and disorderly). I recorded our whole Skype conversation, in case I ever want to go back and look at it again for researchy purposes or anything. 

Beet and Barley Risotto with Swiss Chard and Goat Cheese (my favourite of the three)

this stuff was so good. but it took a good three times longer than the recipe told me it would. which knowing a thing or two about risotto, I suspected might be the case. perhaps it tasted so wonderful because I was so hungry by the time it finished cooking. strangely, my box had 3 whole beets instead of the 1 that was listed on the recipe card. not sure what that means, but I love beetroot so I will not complain.

I am determined to gather the ingredients for this one myself sometime, and make it again. perhaps I'll come back and do a price comparison when I do.

Roasted Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Pizza with Béchamel Sauce, Fontina Cheese and Arugula Salad

I quite enjoyed this pizza, and I could see myself recreating it on my own as well. at the end of it all, I had too much sauce for it--even though I stretched the dough pretty thin. in fact, I think there is still a tupperware thing of extra sauce doing nothing in my fridge. ah well. 

 

overall, I had fun with this. having a box of food to cook just show up on your doorstep is somewhat exciting, and it gives you every excuse to make a dish you've never made before. it is expensive though, as Patti's post mentions. she also pointed out just recently this breakdown comparison of Blue Apron's costs vs. other similar services. there are also the concerns about waste and carbon footprints; you can't not wonder about the environmental costs of shipping and of a thousand tiny plastic bottles, no matter how recyclable they are. 

the existence of Blue Apron and all the rest of these new companies raises plenty of questions besides those of cost, too. what gets me wondering most of all is what doesn't show up in the box, and what kinds of assumptions are being demonstrated by those decisions. how do all these lines get drawn? why is it assumed I will have salt and pepper and oil, but not oregano or ginger or a tablespoon of flour? who figured that out? why do the recipes leave me to chop and peel so many, many vegetables, but send me pre-mixed, plastic-wrapped pizza dough? chopping vegetables is counted more convenient than mixing up dough? maybe most people would agree, but it's still interesting to think about the factors behind that piece of the whole puzzle.

I may try out one more box of Blue Apron eventually, depending on what kinds of recipes show up in rotation this semester. it seems like a special-occasion sort of thing, to me. a reward or an escape from the mundane. new recipes, no need for shopping. no need to decide on which restaurant you want to eat at. an excuse to invite someone over for dinner. too bad Patti lives so far away now, or we could share Blue Apron in real life. that would be awesome.

give

ah, Thanksgiving. this calm little pod of a holiday to interrupt the gathering stress-storms of a soon-to-be-over semester.

I should be reading right now. How Forests Think, by Eduardo Kohn. 200 pages more to go til I'm ready to discuss the book's theories in posthumanism class on Monday.

this afternoon, there was the traditional Thanksgiving dinner-time "go around the table and announce what you are thankful for" ritual. friend Liz's dear family and friends gathered inbetween the turkey-eating and the pie-eating to make a collaborative gratitude-flavored list. it was so kind of them all to include me. I was glad to be there with such good people and such lovely hosts.

on one hand, to list all the million luxuries and privileges I am grateful for seems selfishly performative. boastful might be the best word, really. oh, look at all my abundance here. look look. it's too obvious that not everyone has so much.

so I don't want to go on and on. but I have been thinking about all the things I have learned and the people I have learned them from. family and roommates and colleagues and mentors--so many people who have shared their own skills and experience, whether in reading or baking or sewing or shopping or crafting or budgeting or art... writing... cleaning... saving... riding a bike... thinking... questioning...

those are the things I rambled about at the dinner table today as Liz's mother served me pie.

less important than all that awesome stuff is the chocolate, nice weather, blank paper, warm blankets, and washing machines. so many things. most of it shareable--especially the skills and experiences. and that is very worth being thankful for, too.

taste testing

from time to time I run out of podcasts that I feel eager to listen to, and let the ones I'm not so eager to listen to pile up in the little podcast app on my phone. I save those for times when I need a voice to fall asleep to. the Longform podcast guys have become falling-asleep podcasts, at this point. should I feel guilty about that? just a few years ago they were inspiring the journalistic fraction of my brain. hmm. ah well.

when I feel I have run out of all my staying-awake-and-actually-listening podcasts, I'll sometimes switch to music, but that's usually less interesting. so instead, I'll search for new podcasts. there are a ton. surely a few are worth filling my wakeful hours with. at least for an episode or two, right? to see what they're all about. give them a chance to grab me.

the other day I searched for rhetoric-related podcasts. for the sake of cramming even more relevant-to-my-degree stuff into my daily leisure time, of course. I found this one, was intrigued a bit by the way its title mirrors the well-known and longstanding NPR radio show in a rather ambitious sort of way, and tasted a few episodes. I unfortunately wasn't very into it. not sure why not. does it deserve a second chance?

more recently, this one showed up in my search results, and so far it seems more useful. shorter episodes usually = more likely to immediately entice, so that's cool. the bite-size overviews of one rhetoric-related thing at a time make it very straightforward. I've listened to three or four of these Mere Rhetoric episodes, and I think I'll keep at it. they're a good way to review stuff I learned in fundamental core classes in years gone by.

as I poked around collecting links for this post, I came across first the twitter account of Mere Rhetoric, and then via that, this article about even more rhetoric/composition podcasts. perhaps I will dip into those other two on Jen Michaels's list. I bet they are worth a try.

yet another rhetoric-focused podcast flew in with my email this week: Masters of Text. the show's most recent episode includes a segment that I myself am part of-- extra exciting! the organizers of this year's Feminisms and Rhetorics conference forwarded a message about the show from Ames Hawkins, its co-host. Ames included a bunch of us fem/rhet attendees in a piece about the conference and about making. go listen to the episode--"Vox Fabri, Vox Dea"--and see if you recognize my voice gushing about the carpentry demonstration I'd just attended.

the theme of the whole conference was making, and indeed much making of many kinds was showcased and discussed and accomplished over those four days. that carpentry demo, for instance, which was run by Maria Klemperer-Johnson, a contractor and entrepreneur from Hammerstone School: Carpentry for Women and Barbara George of Kent State University. we learned about measuring tapes and building conventions and how to drill holes in blocks of wood. power drills, at an academic conference! pretty awesome.



I don't know what I will do with this little double-knobbed board, but I made it. I'll let you know when I find a way to make it useful for hanging things on.

Maria came to my yoga panel, too-- she in her contractor's uniform and colleague/friend Jackie and I in our yoga outfits. we presented an interactive yoga-discussion, which went really well. some of the attendees were familiar with yoga, some were not, but we all talked a bit about crow pose and self-talk and the representativeness (or lack thereof) of #yogagirl, and the embodied, meditative, empowering aspects of writing and moving.

friend Jackie is working on a yoga-running-writing dissertation. it sounds like really great and interesting work. I'm really glad I got to work with her on the panel we put together. where she goes next with it will be way cool to watch.

I am not a runner. and I like yoga plenty but do not feel so very comfortable talking about it as one would probably want to be before writing a massive dissertation about it.

what I keep circling back to is food. food seems so central, so communal and yet so dividing at times. so universal and so personal all at once. maybe I should start looking into good podcasts about food. friend Patti and I have a ongoing messy google doc conversation about food and cooking going on at the moment, which despite its messy randomness is providing some really useful momentum for me. so thank you for that, Patti. I think it will be cool to watch where and how all my food-related thoughts go from here.