Syllabus #246

I know Louis Gossett Jr. had a remarkable, century-spanning career, but I will always and forever remember him for this bizarre fever-dream of an anti-drug video that we viewed countless times in elementary school.  The movie could only have been made by people intimately experienced with all manner of illicit substances, because you would have to BE high to think this would make a kid anything but WILDY FASCINATED by drugs.  

Imagine it's 1995.  You walk into Mr. Potter's science class and see the AV cart at the front of the room.  You know the one, with the big ol' CRT television secured to the top with a nylon strap so it doesn't topple off and crush a child.  Are you watching a grainy VHS about seed germination, or the outer reaches of space?  Maybe.  Probably.  But if the stars align and it's your lucky day, it means you're in for the ride of your life:

---

I've read about this Barkley marathon before, and there's an astonishing kernel of hubris deep in my brain that says "I could do that" but truly, who am I kidding?  I run 4 miles on a hilly but paved trail and act like I deserve a medal...I'm not sure I could manage the ensuing 96 miles, through the woods, in the dark.

A partial solar eclipse is in store for us in Nashville, but perhaps a total eclipse of my heart, nonetheless.

This is just extremely cool.  What a generous gesture from Tommy Orange.  Still waiting for my hold on his new book to come in.

I don't agree with everything in this scathing takedown of Curb's 12th season, but I will concede that this isn't LD's finest work.  It's still funny, but it is fair to say the grievances on which the plots are built feel like more and more of a stretch, or overly contrived.  Honestly, I'm waiting for a spinoff about Susie, because she steals every scene.  Her wardrobe never disappoints and always gives "Spirit Halloween for Bergdorf's," while her vocabulary would make a longshoreman blush. 

I used to turn up my nose at Stephen King, but that was before I read any Stephen King.  Now I am a proud stan for this prolific, wildly talented sicko.  I'm sure he's actually a great guy in real life, but damn does he take you to some dark places on the page.

NGL I didn't read this article, I just find the 90-dog-salute of it all to be delightful.  I sure as shit don't want to be alive at 90, but maybe when I hit 60 or 70 I'll get me a cat salute that is commensurate with my years of experience.

Analog Reading:

Finished If It Bleeds, a Stephen King story collection.  The titular story involved Holly Gibney, so of course I liked it.  However, being a novella, it felt rushed.  The capitulating action seemed to happen too quickly and too neatly.  I see now that King's books are long for a reason.  With the exception of The Stand, which really had a lot of extraneous description in it, I think he needs that space for his plots and his character development.

Read Autobiography of a Face, by Lucy Grealy, an Irish-American writer who survived Ewing's sarcoma as a child and spent decades enduring dozens of reconstructive surgeries on her jaw.  What I thought was so peculiar about this excavation of her experiences was that she had a twin sister that she barely mentions.  I don't recall if they were identical, but it seems to me that if your face was suddenly severely disfigured, and there was someone else still bopping around with the previous version of your face, that would factor heavily into your self-perception.  

Read Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett, which is a memoir of her intense and perhaps codependent friendship with Lucy Grealy, spanning the entirety of their friendship, which began at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and lasted until Grealy's heroin-related death at age 39.

Devoured (if you'll allow me the distasteful pun) Louder Than Hunger by John Schu.  It's a YA/middle grade novel in verse, so I read it in an afternoon, and boy did he manage to squeeze out some emotions with that deft economy of words.  

Started State of Wonder, also by Ann Patchett, but this time a work of fiction.  I need a little palate cleanser before I go back to Stephen King's dark universe to finally read Holly.