We open on Dream paging through a book labeled “Rose Walker.” In a flashback, a boy and a girl are packing to leave for New Jersey, but then their mom comes in to say that their (clearly abusive) father refuses to let the boy, Jed, go with them. The girl, Rose, will go with her mom to New Jersey and then send for Jed to join them later. Ugh. Desire, played very sexily by Mason Alexander Park, summons their sister Despair to talk with them about their plans for Dream. This is my least favorite thing: As in the comics,…
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This is a clearinghouse for all glossing of book references, memes, etc., for Harrow the Ninth. Please comment to add things — I know I missed stuff. And I am very sorry that this exists. I was home sick one day and it was one of those days where I was casting my mind about for something to do that would feel productive but be moderately insane, and this is what I plumped on. There are going to be oblique and explicit spoilers in this post, so do not read it if you mind being spoiled! Also, please hop into…
1 CommentThis is a transcript of a conversation between KM Szpara, author of Docile, and NK Jemisin, author of numerous books but most recently The City We Became. Video of the interview can be found here. I am posting the transcript on behalf of the friend who made it (who wishes to remain anonymous), because it’s the only place I’ve really seen where anyone involved in this book has addressed its racial issues in any capacity. Docile is set in a near-future alt-America where, according to its author, racism does not exist. It is about debt slavery in the city of…
Leave a CommentSo my dear friend and podcast soulmate, Whiskey Jenny, recently made casual reference to “the TS Eliot batshittery,” and when we asked for more details, she sent a link that I will share with you shortly. First, some context: TS Eliot once had an… affair? with a woman named Emily Hale, over the course of which he exchanged many, many letters with her. He destroyed all her letters to him. She saved all his letters to her, and she donated them to Princeton with the stipulation that they should not be opened until 2020. I learned about this many years…
Leave a Comment2019 has been a no-good very-bad year, but the creativity and work of many brilliant people has gotten me through it. As this stupid thankless year draws to a close, I’m writing thank-you notes to some of the people who made things that brought me joy in a dark time. Dear Pru and Waldorph, Thank you for making the Ride or Die podcast. One of my weird I’m-in-this-now-and-I’m-going-to-stick-to-it projects for 2019 was to finish shows that I’d begun and then wandered away from,1 including the absolute fucking idiocy that is Supernatural. (I should stipulate that I never intended to watch…
Leave a Comment2019 has been a no-good very-bad year, but the creativity and work of many brilliant people has gotten me through it. As this stupid thankless year draws to a close, I’m writing thank-you notes to some of the people who made things that brought me joy in a dark time. Dear Yoon Ha Lee, Thank you for the matchless gift of Kel Cheris and Shuos Jedao. They are the quintessential match-up of stern stoicism and absolute ferality, and I fucking live for their uneasy alliance/?friend?ship? (Would we call them friends? I cannot decide. Uneasy allies, anyway!) I often find it…
Leave a CommentKnives Out is the best movie of 2019, according to me, a person who has seen no other movies in 2019 and also remembers nothing that happened longer than two weeks ago. (For instance, it has been alleged that Captain Marvel came out this year, and that simply cannot be. Captain Marvel came out at least three years ago. It is strange and cruel of the internet to insist on this fiction that Captain Marvel came out in 2019.) Knives Out begins with the housekeeper finding the body of wealthy crime writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), then skips forward to…
Leave a CommentI hope everyone had a good Fourth of July! I spent mine reacquainting myself with Howard Zinn, which is an extremely patriotic use of a patriotic holiday. If you haven’t read his A People’s History of the United States, (you should and) the thrust of his argument is that it’s the people who have driven change and progress in this country. The powerful have tried for stasis, and over and over again, the people haven’t let them get away with it. Laborers formed unions; former slaves kept talking and fighting until people listened; women organized and marched and starved themselves…
Leave a CommentI hope all you Game of Thrones fans are doing okay! Based on brief glances at Twitter last night, things were not looking too good vis-a-vis y’all enjoying the end of y’all’s show. I peaced out of a while ago and have just been consuming it via recaps to check that the Stark women were hanging in there. Let’s distract ourselves by talking about what we’ve been reading! “It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?” is hosted by Kathryn from Book Date. What I Read Last Week: A bunch of stuff! Several of my books were threatening to fall due at…
Leave a CommentIt’s Monday and I lost an hour of sleep and it isn’t kicking my ass this year like it did last year but I DO NOT LOVE IT. Hopefully y’all are in less crabby spirits than I am. Stop by Book Date to see what other folks are reading this dark and crabby Monday morning. What I Read Last Week: One of my reading resolutions for this year was to read fifteen of my own damn books, of which ten were to be nonfiction. I am killing it so far! In the past week, I finished reading Joan Aiken’s The…
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