Syllabus #50

I just realized this is the 50th time I have pointlessly created one of these posts that I am certain will be read by 0-3 people.  If that's not a cause for celebration, then slap my ass and call me Sally.  What a milestone!

Cheers to 50 exercises in futility!

Let's see, what's good this week?  Is any of the below still relevant?  I start collecting links on Sunday or Monday, so some of this shit may have grown stale by now.  Take what you want and compost the rest.

This is heartbreaking and scary and makes me so angry for anyone who has to deal with this fear.  


Lois Lowry has a new book based on an insane coincidence in her own life.  In this article she muses on the renewed relevance of her Newbery-winning novel, The Giver - "Lowry is curious how they’ll teach a fictional dystopia during a real one."  Yep. 


What's in your bug-out bag?  I think I have a tampon that's been in there since 2017, a quarter for the cart at Aldi, and rusty bobby pin.  Wait, you're saying a purse doesn't count?  


This is a valid question that needs to be explored further, ideally by thoughtful people armed with robust data and not through knee-jerk reactions.


Have you Fiona Appled yet?  Of course you have by now.  This new album is so good.  It's rare for music to make we want to just lay down on the floor and let it wash over me, but this is that.

Andplusalso, I learned that the director of Fiona's video for Criminal drew inspiration from Larry Clark's Kids, which makes so much sense now in retrospect.


Speaking of music I either forgot or never knew I liked, I'm sad and mad and it's too bad that I never bothered to listen to John Prine and now he's dead.  I can't stop listening to this song, and even though I don't believe in an afterlife, I hope this is what he found:

Analog Reading:

Finished Isabel Allende's Long Petal of the Sea.  Highly recommend.

Almost finished Michelle Obama's Becoming.  I have tremendous admiration for her, but for reasons that have nothing to do with her story or her writing abilities, reading this book right now is an ordeal.  I miss the Obama administration, obviously, and it's just damn hard to read non-fiction about a world that now feels completely disconnected from our current one.  Not only that, but it's so easy to get carried away with wishing that we still had a president who would act like a fucking grown up and execute an organized, orderly, data-driven response to this crisis.