Syllabus #137

Here in Nashville, we have had the snowiest January on record since 1985.  The world over, this is perhaps the longest January on record since the dawn of the Gregorian calendar.  By some estimates, today's date is January 637th.  Whatever the date, I wish you warmth and sanity, and an ample supply of rapid tests.

This is one trend of the Youngs that I can get on board with without having to confront my relative oldness vis a vis the fact that the 'trend' is a recycling of a fashion I wore 20 years ago.  Give me all the KF94 masks.  The N95s and KN95s look like a demented duck bill and the ear loops feel like punishment for something I did in a past life, or probably actually just something I did in this life.  I mean I did go outside last night and tell my dog he was being a fucking douchebag for barking so much when he was supposed to be pooping.  I said it in a gentle way so he really had no idea, but like, what kind of monster talks to a dog that way?

 This article in defense of new construction homes over the fetishization of old homes makes some persuasive points.  I saw the headline and was about to be all, "but they just don't build things like they used to...new construction homes that aren't built by a custom builder who does meticulous work are just shoddy matchboxes that will reveal a host of problems the longer you live in them!"  But apparently so were most older homes, and also you have lead paint and a whole host of safety and environmental hazards.  Point taken.  I grew up in a 150 year old house, and have since owned houses built in the 60's, 80's, and the 2010's.  By every possible measure, I have to say the 80's house was far and away the best one.  It could have used some aesthetic updates but it was solid and had been well maintained.  I still miss that house sometimes.  

So Sweardle is the 4-letter dirty word version of Wordle, and I wanted to love it but I'm not impressed.  You only get 4 tries, and I just squeaked by on my first try because the answer was CRAP.  I am solidly underwhelmed and can think of at least three dirtier 4 letter words that start with C.

The Newbery Medal turns 100, and some of y'alls faves are problematic.  

Biphasic sleep!  Have you heard of it?  It was all the rage up until like, the widespread availability of indoor lighting.  When we went to Portugal, the first couple nights our jet lag had us falling asleep around 8, sleeping for a few hours, and then waking up in the middle of the night, ready to roll.  It was kind of nice to have a couple hours to read until we got tired again, and then we could go back to sleep until it was a socially appropriate time to rise.  I could get down with biphasic sleep.  Was there a midnight meal, or did people just wake up and power through until the next sleep?  Were there snacks?  Biphasic sleep sounds even better if there are snacks.  Probably marshmallows would be the ideal - just little clouds for your dreams to float away on when you go back to sleep.  They had Jet-Puffed Marshmallows in pre-Industrial Europe, right?  

Analog Reading:

In my last post, I hopefully equated the completion of Alexandra Kleeman's Something New Under the Sun to the abatement of my period, and I might open a roadside fortune telling business because Madame Katie was right on the money.  Give or take a few days.  But still.  And I was glad when the book ended.  It wasn't not good, but the plot was stressing me out, and the ending was deliberately unsatisfying and ambiguous, which is fine because I was ready to move on.

Next, I read Silvia Moreno-Garcia's much-buzzed-about Mexican Gothic.  Boy howdy was that some weird shit.  This is a bit of a spoiler so if you plan to read it, avert your eyes.  I saw the mushrooms coming from a mile away but the intergenerational demon incest was a hard left turn into crazy town and I was not mad at it.  It was like a ride through a largely PG-13 version of Disney's Haunted Mansion, with a few twists and turns into some truly lurid X-rated realms.  

Today, I'm going to finish The Circle  by Dave Eggers.  I seem to keep encountering dystopian novels set in California (as was Something New) but this one feels far more plausible and immediate.  It's a very thinly veiled satire about the surveillance state that big tech and social media companies are constructing.  It's like staring into what you think is the bucket of truth but then you realize there's a hole in the bottom of the bucket and you're actually just looking at the real world and all your hope for the future of society is draining out of that hole the further you read.  But you can't put the book down.  It is unputdownable.  The prose isn't especially beautiful but it just flows in such a way that even when you reach a page break, you brain craves the next sentence.  I am glad there is a sequel, The Every, that I plan to read as soon as I plow through the remaining 3 expired library books I'm hoarding on my Kindle while it lurks in airplane mode.