Clash of Kings: OH HOW THE KINGS HAVE CLASHED

This post is not very spoilery at all.

So I'm really far behind everyone else in the Game of Thrones series (I KNOW IT'S CALLED A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE BUT THAT'S TOO LONG), and I just finished book 2, Clash of Kings. IS IT STILL GOOD? Yes. Yes, it is. And there are new characters! New characters that I like muchly. I ignored these books for a long time, partially because I assumed GRRM was gross and wanted to write about young girls having sex and being all medievaly submissive.

I mean, look at that guy

But NO. I am shocked -- SHOCKED -- by how generally badass his ladies are. But not in a "I'm a liberated woman character" sort of way, which is annoying in its own right. These books pass the Bechdel test with flying colors, despite having a ton of dudes (since it's basically medieval England and who runs the world? -- white dudes).

In this book, you meet Brienne of Tarth, Asha Gryejoy, and Meera Reed. Also Maege Mormont peripherally, who some people ship with Robb Stark, but as far as I've seen, she's only referred to? But when she's referred to, it's like "Lady Mormont just stole a whole bunch of cattle" and people are like "Damn, bro" and it's like "Yeah. 'Cause she's awesome." You might say "psh, cows," but HOW DO ARMIES EAT I ASK YOU. Through Lady Mormont and her cow-stealing, that's how.

There's also this thoughtful exchange between Brienne the knight and Catelyn, Lord Stark's wife:

"When you’re armored it’s hard for anyone to hurt you.” 

“Knights die in battle,” Catelyn reminded her. 

Brienne looked at her with those blue and beautiful eyes. “As ladies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them.”

Let's also not forget that GRRM can be funny sometimes, but because it's rare, it takes you off-guard. For example:

At Winterfell they had called her “Arya Horseface” and she’d thought nothing could be worse , but that was before the orphan boy Lommy Greenhands had named her “Lumpyhead.”

I was looking through my highlights of CoK, and most of what's highlighted is descriptions of food. I wish to pay someone to come over and make Game of Thrones food. And then someone will sing while playing a lute. But no for reals, look at this:

 There were great joints of aurochs roasted with leeks, venison pies chunky with carrots, bacon, and mushrooms, mutton chops sauced in honey and cloves, savory duck, peppered boar, goose, skewers of pigeon and capon, beef-and-barley stew[...]There was black bread and honeycakes and oaten biscuits ; there were turnips and pease and beets, beans and squash and huge red onions; there were baked apples and berry tarts and pears poached in strongwine. Wheels of white cheese were set at every table, above and below the salt, and flagons of hot spice wine and chilled autumn ale.

 I have a problem I really pompously thought I wouldn't have, which is keeping people straight. Years of Dickensian novels made me think I would be totally set in this area. "I WILL REMEMBER ALL THE PEOPLE," I thought. But when you have at least a hundred lords and they keep switching allegiances and some of their children fight for one king and some for another, NOPE. Not gonna happen. I have no idea whose side anyone is on. Except for Robb Stark. Pretty sure he's on the side of the Starks.

The relationship between Sansa and the Hound INTRIGUES me, but my friend Katie-Anne has pretty much quashed any thoughts of that becoming an interesting thing. Their dialogue of "You're awful" and "I'm honest. It's the world that's awful" had me going "Oooooooooh" because yeah, it's a little emo teenage boy, but it also informs Sansa she needs to stop thinking people who say the truth instead of just polite things are bad people.

I'm worried about Rickon. 

I want to marry Asha Greyjoy but visit Katie-Anne in the Stormlands all the time, where she shall be married to Beric Dondarrion, because FUCK living on the Iron Islands. But Asha Greyjoy, hello.

hey girl hey

I have been instructed I have to read the other three IMMEDIATELY (by Katie-Anne), but I feel like burnout is extremely possible? So while I've started Storm of Swords, I don't expect to zoom through, because finishing one of these books is like running a marathon (....I would assume) and I need to breathe for a while and maybe read some completely-un-fantasy-like bookage.

ONWARD. 

Caitlin Moran's How to Build a Girl Remains An Excellent Book That Should be Read By Probably Everyone

I remain a huge fan of this book. You should probably pre-order it. Maybe here since Amazon is the devil and independent bookstores are the future YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST (no you didn't).

Johanna's obsession with dudes remains nigh-incomprehensible to me, although it did make me flash back to age 12 when I was desperately in love with my brother's best friend (he looked like a teddy bear and gave me half a cookie once, which I was pretty sure meant we were definitely going to happen) and in what I deemed a subtle but cunning gesture, one day sat him down in my oldest brother's room (it had the only stereo in the house), put on the Hello Dolly new Broadway cast recording, and made him listen to me sing along to Irene Molloy's part of Dancing, which goes thusly:  

When there's someone you hardly know
And wish you were closer to
Remember that he can be near to you
While you're dancing
Though you've only just said hello
He's suddenly someone who can
Make all your daydreams appear to you
While you're dancing.

HE'LL NEVER FIGURE THAT ONE OUT, 12-YEAR-OLD SELF.

Basically exactly that

I'm completely over girls falling in love with boys who listen to The Smiths and quote Pablo Neruda and have crooked smiles, and I am DONE with them going on quirky escapades, and I love what Caitlin Moran does with Johanna and John Kite. Because sometimes you have nights like that. Where you meet someone who instantly gets you and you don't have to worry about being seen as weird and it's the most relaxing, wonderful thing in the world. And here you know that person for Johanna is the one who says "Broadly speaking, I never met a tree I didn't like — save the lime, which is an irredeemable cunt." 

 I love John Kite and want the fact that Johanna is 16 to be okay. She has a job! Like an adult person! She...yeah, I don't know how to make this right.

Moran also provided me with my first laugh of the day on Saturday. I'm a firm believer in laughing every day, only not in a "I should get this stitched on a pillow like a lame-o" kind of way. But I do believe it is important for your soul and for you not being a dick. Sometimes I forget how awesome laughing out loud is, and then I read something like this and remember:

The world below us has turned into a map. A real map! The woods look like the WOODLAND: DECIDUOUS markings of Ordnance Survey. It is just as they drew it! Who knew! Who knew you could put the whole world on paper, after all! The artists were right! This is so reassuring!

 I have split my one playlist into two, because one felt like it should be more samplery, and the other is more "These are the albums Dolly listened to to become who she wanted to be." So this is How to Build a Girl Complete Albums, and this is The Dolly Wilde Experience, which I have added to and it's more awesome now.

Not finishing this book in one fell stroke is really hard, but I am NOT DOING IT because readalong respect. Also I love Emily, who is hosting. So there's that to take into consideration as well.

I'm reading through the Bible and there's a lot of stabbing going on

I've been trying to read through the Bible in its entirety for forever, mainly because as a Christian I am EMBARRASSED that I cannot check it off those Books I've Read lists. No. Forget that noise.

Over the years, I've made it up to 2 Samuel, which is the tenth book of the Old Testament. NOT IMPRESSIVE, YOU SAY? Try reading the parts of Exodus that're like "Wait, let me give you exact sewing instructions; these are important for your spiritual growth."

You have to be interactive with the text, or it's impossible to get through. I posted here years ago about a bit in Exodus where Moses's brother Aaron's sons are killed by God because they "offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command," and when Moses basically says "Yeah, well, they should've been not doing that," Aaron says nothing. The text specifically points out he says nothing. Because yeah, God's justice, etc, and maybe Aaron's sons were tools, but we're still humans and we still love our families.

What I have to report about Joshua through 2 Samuel is there is SO MUCH ASSASSINATING. I'm totally going to do a post about Judges because it is probably the best book of the entire Bible and people need to know this (and it has the best assassination stories), but even in 2 Samuel, the commander of King David's army (who of course is Joab; who doesn't know Joab?) is all "Oh hey, I'm just talking to you in a normal way and being super-normal" to this other guy David had put in charge of his army and then Joab's all "STAB STAB" and "his intestines spilled out on the ground."

Most Protestants don't really...spend a lot of time on the Old Testament because it makes us feel weird and uncomfortable. There's a whole lot of stuff that seems completely contrary to how we're supposed to act, and MOST of it you can be like "Oh, that was the Israelites being dicks; it wasn't sanctioned by God" but then it's like "God commanded Saul to slay the Amalekites EVEN THEIR SHEEP because their sheep were assholes" and you're like

I'm pretty sure there's an explanation here, but that explanation is either buried 3000 years in the past, or that the Israelites said God told them to kill the Amalekites because they just really hated the Amalekites. There's a whole lot in the Old Testament about the importance of land ownership, and as someone who's rented her entire adult life, I'm super-not relating. Maybe it's like with the Puritans where they wanted to just do their Thing and everyone else was like "BOO YOUR THING" so they were like "We'll build our own country! With blackjack! And God."

But to get that country they had to kill a lot of people like we killed Native Americans oh hey look parallels. "Um, excuse me, but we need this land. For GOD. So you can just scoot or you can have this totally safe blanket that is not swarming with disease at all."

LOOK FORWARD TO JUDGES there are people slain with a donkey's jawbone in it.

Samantha Irby and Meaty: "Right now I am living in a post-breakup body"

Meaty took me by surprise, and not just because of its awesome chicken cover.

MARVEL AT MY BOOK, FELLOW EL RIDERS

I found out about it through a GoFundMe campaign for its author, Samantha Irby, who needed serious dental work like yesterday. Her blog, bitches gotta eat, led me to her book, which has chapter titles like 'I Want to Write Your Mom's Match.com Profile' and 'The Many Varieties of Hospital Broth' and 'I Should Have a Car With Power Windows By Now.' Also she lives in Chicago and we should do brunch I'm not kidding Samantha.

What surprised me the most about Meaty was not Irby's writing style, which you can easily pick up from her blog, but rather the ease with which she transitions from tragedy to comedy. That shit takes skills.

Like this, but...with writing

One of the first chapters, Awkward First Date, starts with:

Oh, hi. This restaurant you picked intimidates me. I am not wearing the right footwear for a place this goddamned fancy, and I am probably too poor to eat here in real life so I am really hoping that you are a gentleman and that this $15 pasta is on you.

The actual first chapter, At 30, lets you know her current state, which is single, poor, sick, and parentless. But it doesn't say it in an Oliver Twist, let-me-emotionally-manipulate-you way. It's basically "Yep, here's the situation." It made me realize how rarely I read people writing about being actually poor instead of "Ugh, I had to cancel my Netflix subscription and start using my brother's password."

They usually use this gif too

The chapter about her mom hits you hard. 

She grew up with a mom with M.S. and an alcoholic dad who drifted in and out of the picture. When her mom's M.S. got bad, Irby was a teenager and had to take care of her while going to school:

There is no 'opt out' button on adolescence. I would divide myself into two people: the happy, smiling person who needed to make friends and appear to be having a well-adjusted childhood during the day, and my mother's mother and nursemaid and caretaker and friend at night.

I can't imagine dealing with what she's had to deal with. And then still being able to be damn funny. In the chapter The Terror of Love, she talks about some relationships or almost-relationships, and it's my favorite kind of writing: 

A few years ago I was taking classes at community college because I hadn't quite yet given up all hope. There was a tall African dude with a deep, melodious voice in the class, and he was sexy. He carried a briefcase to community college, people: DUDE WAS OBVIOUSLY A WINNER. I spent the entire semester wondering when this asshole was going to ask me out on a goddamned date. Not kidding. Two and a half legit months making sure my hoodies were clean and my flip flops weren't covered in street puke because I just knew that this dude was head over heels in love with me and was going to whisk me off to mid-level management associate degreed paradise.

There are few autobiographical essay books (and I've read a ton at this point) that I keep around because I know I'll want to read them again. Hell, I'm giving Bossypants away. But Meaty is something I'm going to read at least a couple times. And I want her second book like now. You can get her first one here for the low low price of $9.95.

How to Build a Girl: "I wish these cunts knew about Alexander Woollcott."

Caitlin Moran's debut novel How to Build a Girl continues in this delightful readalong hosted by Emily at As the Crowe Flies (and Reads). You should buy this book. Just fyi. It's the pants. And I have made a Spotify playlist for it: How to Build a Girl: The Dolly Wilde Experience. If you've been paying close attention to the book, you will appreciate the hell out of that list. Just saying.

So our heroine is now 16-years-old and a high school dropout, but whatever because she has an impressive job reviewing music and is already an excellent writer who calls the Smashing Pumpkins "the new Emperors of Mournful Grunge." I think we're all pretty positive this is just Caitlin Moran's life, but none of us care, because it is fantastically written.

Thanks, Caitlin, we know.

I don't think a book about teenagers has ever made me relive as much of that time of my life as How to Build a Girl. Shoving brothers off the chair that's used for the one computer? Oh right. I did that. Feeling an IRRESISTIBLE NEED TO EDUCATE PEOPLE because they are just wandering through life sadly ignorant of the joys that could be theirs if they would only listen/read/watch the thing you are trying to force them to like? Well. I mean. That still happens.

Since my mother ruled the house music-wise, though, I never got to listen to music beyond The King and I, and when I was angry at my parents I had only one album with electric guitars, so I would blast the original cast recording of Bat Boy at them. Take that, Mom and Dad. I hope this surrealist Off-Broadway satire makes you rethink not letting me go to the movies.

So I know basically no bands and have been on a quest since age 16 to not stare blankly when someone mentions...basically anyone.  The only song mentioned so far in How to Build a Girl that I've already known is Sixteen Going on Seventeen from Sound of Music. We didn't even watch Annie in my house. I trust Caitlin Moran in the whole rock music area since she was, of course, a music critic. Like her heroine. Who is her. So this book now becomes a fascinating look at early '90s British rock, as guided by a 16-year-old with a penchant for sexual thoughts about Blackadder's noble Lord Flashheart (something I still don't understand).

Maybe I understand it a little

I continue to recommend this book to people and it continues to be swell. Barring some weird left turn, I am completely behind it as a novel. Caitlin Moran should maybe probably write more right now so we can read it when we're done with this what else are we supposed to DO.

The School for Good and Evil's awesome cover belies the unawesomeness within

When I first saw the cover for Soman Chainani's The School for Good and Evil, I got very excited because 1) I love books for 10 to 12 year olds; they are my jam, and 2) It looks like a Swan Queen high school AU.

For those of you somehow unaware, Swan Queen is the ship I have shipped for MULTIPLE YEARS NOW. It's Emma Swan and the Evil Queen (get it?) from Once Upon a Time. It's the worst and the best thing to ship, mainly because the OUAT writers are experts at queerbaiting, which is....just not ok, guys. But anyway. Swan Queen alternate universe.

(GIF by shipsnthenight)

The reason books for 10 to 12 year olds are my jam is because the most interesting plots usually come out of them. You don't have silly talk about boys, there isn't a need to be Literary that manifests itself in trying too hard ("the dusky ambrosial night swept across the meadow like a swift-wingèd starling"), and the author can just focus on plot and being occasionally funny.

Series that have excelled at this in the past decade or so:

A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Percy Jackson
The Mysterious Benedict Society
The Books of Beginning

I hoped this book would add to the list, as it is most definitely a series (the second book, A World Without Princes, is now out and a third will come after it), but I found myself primarily bewildered and dismayed by it.

It seems like the author wanted to go in about five directions with his characters, but finally said "Whatever" and just turned in the draft as written. "True love will exist between friends!...oh, but I want this one girl to fall in love with the guy." "The evil girl learns about friendship!...oh, until five seconds later when she decides she hates her friend again." Every time something changes, it's immediately reversed again and it ends up being a case of why bother.

The plot sounds awesome: There are two girls, one blonde and social and fairly selfish but knows what she wants, and the other black-haired, introverted, lives in a house next to a cemetery. Their village is surrounded by a forest, and everyone's scared of it because either every year or every four years (I read this a while ago), this figure comes out from it and takes two children. But where does it take them? TO THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL. And, as we learn, it's the school that trained Jack AND the Giant, Cinderella AND her stepmother, Little Red Riding Hood AND the wolf. 

So the blonde girl and the black-haired girl both get taken, but their schools get SWITCHED, meaning the blonde girl goes to the School for Evil and the dark-haired girl goes to the School for Good (still unclear if this was on purpose), and everyone's all "This has completely upended our way of being" because blonde girls are good and dark-haired girls are bad (and those of us in between get to pick and choose). One of the most frustrating things about this book is this concept could have been done so well. SO WELL. And instead I'm just over here like

This could have consisted of amazing world-building and complex characters, and instead everyone's changing their motivation every two seconds and first someone is good, then they're bad, then they want the boy, then they don't, then Friendship Conquers All, then Maybe Kissing Does -- I cannot do this. I cannot BELIEVE it has 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon or a 3.93 on Goodreads. 

Someone write this book better.

Neanderthals: Y'know, that entire species of human we maybe killed

I really love Neanderthals.

TELL ME MORE, COMPARISON CHART

This has been a slow-growing love, possibly owing its beginning to the Field Museum's exhibit on the cave paintings of Lascaux, which made me realize what a condescending dick I'd been to People of the Past. I was astounded to learn they had needles and thread and candles. This was almost 20,000 years ago. I'd assumed they just walked around grunting and hitting each other with rocks. But no! They had hats. I don't know why hats are a major sign of civilization, but they are.

I've discussed before how frustrating it is that all this took place in our prehistory. We barely know anything. And what we think we know is probably wrong. A book I have on Cro-Magnon man from like two years ago says modern humans and Neanderthals probably never interacted, and then we find out that basically everyone whose ancestors emigrated from Africa has 3-5% Neanderthal DNA, meaning our ancestors totally did it with Neanderthals.

It bugs me that how our civilization came to be this way is COMPLETELY SHROUDED IN MYSTERY and we're not talking about it. Probably because we can't know anything about it due to the shrouded-in-mystery part. Because People of the Past were apparently too lazy to write shit down. THANKS FOR THE BUFFALO DRAWINGS THOUGH THOSE'RE GREAT.

Thanks also for whatever the hell this is

At some point we decided to structure families the way we do now. At some point men suddenly had way, way more power than women. At some point this was decided. Maybe the women were super-pissed. Maybe they were just happy they were going to survive. We don't know and we will never know until we build a time machine come on people make this happen. Ugh, even if we DID build a time machine, we wouldn't be able to talk with them. We'd probably just get stabbed with spears.

Even in Illinois, we have this sort of infuriating thing. Cahokia Mounds in southern Illinois? Oh, just one of the largest cities of the 1200s. No, no one talks about it. Because we know like nothing about them.

Just disappeared

By the way, Cahokia is four and a half hours from Chicago and someone should drive there with me because there is a museum and MIDWEST HISTORY.

But back to Neanderthals. They existed. A whole other species of human. Do you know what kinds of questions that raises. At the very least theologically, because the Bible doesn't talk about other types of humans. Not that it gets that specific when it's talking about something other than the length of an ephod, but where do other species of humans fall in this whole God-made-man thing? Neanderthals had souls, right? THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT.

You know what the Bible DOES talk about? Nephilim.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

THIS IS IN THE BOOK I HOLD FAIRLY SACRED. It's basically like "Oh hey, Greek heroes? Now you have an excuse to believe they were real. Also that Cú Chulainn guy. And maybe Paul Bunyan, but only if he lived way longer ago."

Basically I just want to go to the Rock of Gibraltar 30,000 years ago and fish with Neanderthals.

It'd probably look exactly like this 

How to Build a Girl, Part the Second: "Without explaining why, I break into a very impassioned impression of Scooby-Doo."

The How to Build a Girl readalong is hosted by Emily at As the Crowe Flies (and Reads) and you can pre-order the book at this place right here.

Okay, so I was unsure how this novel was going to go, and I just want to say

CAITLIN MORAN'S NEW BOOK IS SO GOOD OMG BUY IT WHEN IT COMES OUT I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING I WILL HARASS YOU IF YOU DO NOT

I started it Thursday while sitting in my friend Katie-Anne's cubicle, and the fifth time I laughed out loud she wheeled around and said "You are being SUPER-IRRITATING." But there was no stopping, because "When I start kissing, the world is going to know about it. My kissing is going to change everything. I'm going to be the Beatles of kissing."

Spending time with Johanna is completely delightful, mostly because she's so unabashed when talking about her life.

This feels like a Johanna sentiment

So our 14-year-old heroine comes from a large poor family that she's trying to help, lives in the north of England, writes, and masturbates a LOT. This last subject is very important to me and this is going to be a time of sharing sorry Mom and Dad.

Without getting into a big unwanted-by-all-but-the-pervier-of-you history lesson, lemme just tell you that masturbation was something I started doing early. And then at 13 I became a perhaps (definitely) overly zealous Christian and it was NOT OKAY TO DO THAT AT ALL ANYMORE, but I still did it. And then felt awful, terrible, guilt-wracked self-loathing. It was the worst. That and worrying about being gay were my teenage hell, because I didn't feel like I could talk about either to anyone. Getting to a "whatever" point with both of them was such a huge thing for my mental health, I cannot even tell you.

reflection of my inner self now

So to have Caitlin Moran making her character discuss this — from a GIRL'S perspective, which you so rarely get, as opposed to the ubiquitous Portnoy's Complaint situation — is just...it makes me very happy that she's making it Not a Big Deal.

Johanna's so weird and alone and it's so wonderful. I used to do things when I was sixteen years old like have Charlotte Brontë as an imaginary friend (I was pretty sure I had a special kinship with CB that other 16-year-old girls lacked) and having a novel where maybe that wouldn't seem so odd makes it more okay for girls to be weird and alone and maybe show a dead Victorian author around their family's bathroom and ask about their sex life.

I'm so glad this book is going to be published and available to current teens. Let's all get rid of our hangups about things that aren't actually bad, yes? Especially about masturbation. Not a big deal, world. Let's stop making kids cry about it. I'm pretty sure Caitlin Moran would say that is bullshit.

Her or Adele.

First 50 Pages, Installment Maybe the Third

I am yet again reading a stupid number of books because I have no focus or willpower and while starting books is my favorite, getting through the middle part usually blows. Let's make a fun thing out of it and talk about the First 50 Pages!

   
The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer. Yep. Still in 'The Knight's Tale.' And Palamon and Arcite are being RIDICULOUS. I thought the Tales would be people talking about their own lives, but so far the knight's like "GATHER ROUND, WHILE I TELL YOU A TALE OF ANCIENT GREECE" and then he's all "Here are some knights, because they totally had those in Ancient Greece." Both the knights act in an extremely silly manner. I have not yet found out what happens to them. I kind of hope they joust each other to death.

 

 
No One Else Can Have You, Kathleen Hale. The cover for this is delightful. And I like Kathleen Hale's online presence so much, there was almost no way I wasn't going to like her book. Basically: teenage girl gets murdered in a small Wisconsin town and narrator Kippy (her best friend) decides to solve it. Oh, I do enjoy small towns with dark secrets. MORE OF THOSE PLEASE. *writing community obliges in spades*

 

Bellman & Black, Diane Setterfield. No one seems to just LIKE The Thirteenth Tale; there's always a "but" when they talk about it. WELL GUESS WHAT I REALLY LIKED IT THE END. So this is Setterfield's second, and considering a lot of it takes place at a textile mill, it's really keeping my interest. Rooks (the bird, not the chess piece) also figure in pretty heavily. Something about them and death. Not sure what's going on yet. Pretty sure it all ties back to William Bellman killing a rook when he was a little kid, though, and then rooks haunt him the rest of his life. That doesn't seem very fair, does it? (no, because rooks are birds)

 

California, Edan Lepucki. I just got this from Little, Brown because I love the cover so much and it said something about post-apocalyptic AND a small community with dark secrets. Omg sign me up. So far, there's a main girl and the main guy and she's pregnant and they live by themselves in the forest because somethinggggg happened to Earth. Also there used to be people who lived near them and now those people are gone and I want to know WHY they are gone.

 

The Crimson Petal and the White, Michel Faber. This is kind of amazing? It starts in second person, which can go badly SO EASILY, but Michel Faber is A Writer and makes it work. He's all "You expect to just meet the fancy people immediately, but go check your privilege; you have to start with a prostitute and work your way up." So on board with this book. We meet Sugar pretty early on, and I think that's the main character because I think that's who Romola Garai plays in the miniseries? But it's entirely possible I am totally wrong about all this. 


 


The Truth Is..., Melissa Etheridge. Yeah, I'm reading Melissa Etheridge's book. It's happening. So far, she has left Kansas and is now in Los Angeles where she is being SO GAY and also making music. But people keep trying to manage her sound, man, and Melissa Etheridge's sound cannot be managed. It must break free like a herd of beautiful wild ponies.



There're like four others (Chicago Poisoner, The Witches of East End, Eat Your Heart Out, The Freedom in American Songs), but those can wait. So much to say about Witches of East End, though. Which can be summed up in saying that it is Not That Great, but not terrible. Mmm, standards.

Netflix Adventures Abound in Chicago

I enjoy the 4th of July the same way I enjoy Labor Day. There's no especial pull to go outside or associate with family members, and you're pretty much allowed to celebrate however you want (people give you shit about Halloween, I'm just saying).

True, I ventured outside my apartment on occasion, going on a not-date with a girl and her pregnant friend, seeing Snowpiercer (excellent except for the stupid, stupid ending) and doing up the Renfair with my roommate. HOWEVER. There was also a lot of Netflix.

Documentaries are excellent to have on while cleaning, as they do not require as much attention. I needed to clean my room, so I put on Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony and quickly STOPPED cleaning, because holy shit, Bronies. I cried four times during that documentary. I'm not sure it merited it, but it happened. Fandoms are a weakness of mine (OBVIOUSLY) and I'm easily reduced to a weepy mess when people start talking about the support and joy that happens within them.

EVERYTHING'S FINE DON'T LOOK AT ME

Something the otherwise actually quite excellently-done documentary leaves out is the NEGATIVE side of the fandom. I haven't explored it, because why, but every fandom has a shitty side. I'm sure some Bronies are dicks. I'm sure some Bronies are MRAs. But overall (according to the documentary), it's a group for guys who are remarkably fine being excited about a show that praises friendship and loyalty and that's...that's just really nice. Even if it also causes this:

YOU CANNOT UNSEE IT

So after an hour of my life spent watching a documentary about a show I hadn't seen, I figured I should maybe see the show? So I did. I watched the pilot. And it was cute. 'Cause. Y'know. It's My Little Pony.

I'd probably watch more. Mainly because I LOVE BEING EXCITED ABOUT THINGS and people get so excited about this show. Also, I'm not gonna be the only one who doesn't know who the hell Pinkie Pie is.

SO THEN, I noticed that The Witches of East End was a thing and the cover picture had all ladies and when do I not pay attention to that sort of thing never unless it's something like The Real Housewives of Splarfy Foo so I casually put on the first episode and then IMMEDIATELY started livetexting it to Jenny from Reading the End because she puts up with that sort of thing and also watches some terrible tv shows.

That basically sums up ten hours of my weekend. Aside from the pony thing. That's another three. Witches of East End is awesome (DON'T WORRY I'M READING/REVIEWING THE BOOK) because the mom is Guinevere from First Knight and her sister is Shelley from Twin Peaks and eventually Shelley makes out with Freddie Prinze Jr from She's All That, so basically it's a '90s reunion show that also has some young people, but we ignore them.

NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR CLICHED LOVE TRIANGLE

Now please excuse me as I search for the perfect balance of TV watching to no-of-course-I'm-not-wasting-my-life-ness. Might take a while.

How to Build a Girl Introductory Post, which is full of wonderful things you probably want to read

Acclaimed (in England mostly) lady Caitlin Moran has a novel coming out. A NOVEL. Where before she has primarily stuck to essays. Curious as we obviously were about this, I and a group of bloggers are having a READALONG of said novel, probably rife with spoilers (maybe they don't really matter for this book, though, so you should totally still read my posts). This is all hosted/cared for/lovingly nursed to health by Emily at As the Crowe Flies (and Reads) because she has a lovely fancy job at an actual bookshop (Odyssey Books, where you can in fact pre-order this book and then feel delightful about yourself for helping an independent store). Emily and I have negotiated the wonders of Sri Lankan cuisine and wandered the Javits Center together. Would that I could drink with her more often than I have.

I feel like we could get to this point, Emily

INTRODUCTION-wise (I might've tipped back a little something this evening, thus the constant asides), I am Alice. I enjoy the Pleistocene era of megafauna and drinking Shirley Temples. I am, to be honest, slightly dubious about this book, but am looking forward to having my worries DISPELLED. 

Like that, but maybe a little more forcefully

I thought Moranthology was the bee's knees, but the problem is she's very into rock music and I know ZERO about rock music, so she would be like "OMG AND THEN I INTERVIEWED WHOSY FROM THE ROLLING STONES" and I was like "I cannot name a single one of their songs because when other kids were learning about them, I was making up dances to songs from Brigadoon and discussing with my friend which of the brothers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers we wanted to marry" (unsurprisingly, I chose the one who basically never spoke). 

But her OTHER essays were delightful, and I probably learned something about that guy whose name I've forgotten. I've also begun How to Be a Woman and it is similarly great, only I got distracted as I do and have forgotten to finish it. But I will. Probably after this novel thing.

ONWARD!

Hanne Blank's "Virgin": The book that's awkward to be seen with in your workplace's lunchroom

"The more we look and the deeper we see, the more we realize that over the course of the millennia we have recognized virginity to exist, it has never been static or unitary. Answering the question of what exactly virginity is, for once and for all, is probably an impossibility. Even if we could, we would still be left with an even deeper problem: the question of why we care about virginity in the first place."

Ever since I read Hanne Blank's Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality, I've been meaning to read Virgin: The Untouched History. I was tremendously impressed with her research and conclusions in Straight and thought she would do a good job synthesizing information on a topic that tends to arouse strong opinions.  Almost everyone has an emotional reaction to the topic of virginity. Maybe not on the surface, but it's a subject that is so wrapped up in our overall outlook on life, or related to issues from our past that it's nigh impossible to be objective.

That was way harsh, Tai.

I was particularly interested in Virgin because I was so militant on the topic for so long. The most important moral decision you could make in your life, to my mind, was not to have sex before marriage. You could be a fine person in all other aspects, but if you started having sex, you were making a terrible life choice and therefore reduced in my eyes. This is such a difficult mentality to escape. Going into this book, I wanted to know why I thought this way (meaning why my Christian high school thought this way), what virginity technically was (I thought I knew, but the moment you start asking questions, it becomes a deeply murky grey area), and could I develop a more informed opinion on my current position, a position which does not require abstinence in a Christian relationship?

Blank starts her book with "Virginology," saying "By any material reckoning, virginity does not exist." And we're off and running. She goes on to talk about how, like philanthropy, virginity is an invented concept: "We have fixed it as an integral part of how we experience our own bodies and selves. And we have done all this without actually being able to define it consistently, identify it accurately, or explain how or why it works."

She discusses the history of it, including how the male body has almost never been labeled virginal, so it is a female concern (and one which, as is popularly known, was primarily used to ensure a male's dynastic line). Upon thinking more carefully about virginity, I've become the most concerned about why has it become the end-all, be-all of our moral selves. Why is a girl's worth so predicated on her sexual experience rather than on something like her character? It's because of an accumulation of millennia of cultural values, and I hate that. I hate that my brain has been so influenced by the world in which I live that I would look at someone who is a lovely person, find out they were having sex in a non-legally bound sense, and think less of them (and most definitely judge their male counterpart less harshly).

I'm not saying that the overemphasized value of virginity in culture negates the abstinence argument (that argument's for another time), but the fact that virginity still means so much to our culture and the fact that it is that way because of men's ideas of property — it's beyond reason.

A lot of it comes down to a desire to control, and the "ick" factor — the same reasons that lie at the heart of why so many people rally against homosexuality. Are people reacting this way to divorce? No. Are they reacting this way to usury? No. It's the sexual "sins" — the ones that make us feel powerless and icky when we think about them. The second the thought pattern goes from "Oh gross, you're doing that with another dude," to "Oh, it's none of my business and I probably have my own shit to deal with," we all get a little better. This needs to happen with women and their sexual lives in our culture.

The chapter that's stuck with me the most is Hymenology. WHY IS THE HYMEN SO MYSTERIOUS. I honestly thought what apparently most people think (thank God, because I felt really dumb about this), that "the hymen actually covers the entirety of the vaginal opening with an unbroken expanse of skin, like the paper-covered hoop through which the circus lion tamer makes his charges leap." Apparently that sort of hymen exists, but it's very rare and considered a birth defect. What I hadn't thought through was periods and how THOSE would work in that situation. But again, when it comes to virginity, people seem to not think things through a lot.

You knew it was coming

Blank's research again impressed me, as she goes from a 2nd century physician named Galen, who scrupulously identifies every part of the genitals but leaves out the hymen, to 18th century author Nicholas Venette and his advice on how to counterfeit virginity, to that very special episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Angel, nooooo!).

Finally, like in Straight with her discussion of doxa, a concept I still bring up whenever I can, she makes some broader points about society, pointing out regarding the attractiveness of virgins that "We learn to desire these attributes because we learn that within the context of our culture, they are valued and desired," and blowing my doesn't-usually-think-about-why-things-are mind with ideas like the following:

Every taboo, every law, and every rule serves at least two functions. On an immediate level they exist to control behavior, to keep people from doing things that their culture considers inappropriate, unethical, or wrong. But on a larger level, rules and taboos exist as representations of the abstract concepts that a culture depends upon to help make sense of human experience. A rule like 'thou shalt not steal' enjoins people not to steal the belongings of others. But it also conveys the message that the concept of 'private property' plays an important role in the culture. Additionally, it presumes that there is something of a consensus within the society about what 'private property' is and what 'stealing' is, and that the people who live within this culture are aware of these ideas and what they mean.

Hanne Blank, I will read a book on any topic you decide to research. Especially if it explains hymens some more. (SO MYSTERIOUS)

Definitely gonna bow out on this metaphor

If You Don't Read These Books You Probably Hate America

IT'S 4TH OF JULY WEEKEND which in all probability will involve me sitting on my couch all weekend, eating spaghetti and watching The X-Files. *waves flag*

TRUFAX

Let's get down to an arbitarily chosen and inflammatory list of books that IF YOU HAVE NOT OR DO NOT READ make you not an American. So....if you're not from America, I guess you're all set.

NINE NOT TEN BOOKS ON THIS LIST America doesn't use the metric system.


The Cat in the Hat

Right, like you can be an American and NEVER have read The Cat in the Hat. Yeah, I trust your citizenship. Right after you prove yourself by juggling fireworks on a red, white and blue unicycle. AMERICA.


East of Eden

JAMES DEAN IS AMERICA

East of Eden is the quintessential American novel I will fight you on this don't think you'll win I'm scrappy. It's Steinbeck's (AND AMERICA'S) best book. Aww yeah, talkin' about a dynastic line of brothers and the changing of America and themselves. What? The immigrant experience is covered too? And there are complex ladies? IS THIS PERFECT YES IT IS AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN APPLE PIE TINY AMERICAN FLAGS


Calvin & Hobbes

Reading Calvin & Hobbes is one of the best ways of not becoming a terrible American/human. Calvin should be on our flag. SO SAY WE ALL (or should until that happens).


The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

I'm not sure how great it is that America seems best represented as an adolescent boy (OH WAIT SUPER GREAT O SAY CAN YOU SEE BY THE DAWN'S--) but the comparison keeps working. If you haven't read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I don't know what you've been doing with your life. Probably building a secret shrine to Canada. THEIR TAXATION RATE IS RIDICULOUS and also they only have one liquor store. Think again, my friend. Think again.


Roots

Yes, ROOTS, made into a miniseries starring LeVar Burton. I found out about the book through the Disney Channel Original Movie The Color of Friendship, about an African-American family that takes in an exchange student from South Africa who issssss -- white! Oh, the misunderstandings and eventual understandings that ensue. Roots figured largely in the plot somehow and I decided to read it and basically it's a multi-generational look at one family in America, starting with their abduction from Africa. It is really good. And hey, African-Americans make up like 13% of this country LET'S COVER SOME OF THEIR EXPERIENCES wooooooooooo.


Garfield

Doug named Garfield and I name that choice hilarious. AND ACCURATE. #garfieldamericaOTP

The Scarlet Letter

What better way to celebrate our country than to reflect on its Puritan beginnings (which are still with us today! nostalgia!). The Scarlet Letter is short, it's amazingly written, and it's fuuuuullllll of guilt, which we're all about. Murica.


Little Women

WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM, JO

Little Women should be read by everyone. The Marches are everything you should be. It also contains one of the greatest miscarriages of Love Justice known to man, and if you are not indignant about it, you probably hate America and also love.


Fahrenheit 451

NO THE OPENING LINES ARE SO GOOD

Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books that keep us on our toes. It's what happens when authors stop and say "WAIT DON'T" to the world. The Handmaid's Tale falls into this category too [AND WAS APPARENTLY WRITTEN BY A CANADIAN FINE], but Fahrenheit 451 speaks to the part of America that wants to censor and control and do what it thinks is best for its people instead of letting them make decisions for themselves. America wants to be a parent so bad. But only about its kids' moral fiber, because otherwise capitalism do it on your own you'll thank me when you're older. Fahrenheit 451 keeps us vigilant about staying active in the world and not becoming passive Mildred Montag with her screen walls, and it reminds us that as Americans we have the right to push back against what we disagree with.