The Sugar-Coated Review

And now, a summer project.

This summer, I have decided to learn about jazz, by listening to ONE THOUSAND JAZZ ALBUMS.

I am not even kidding, you guys. This is the list I'll be using.

Having made my way down the list all the way to numero 4, my favorite so far is Moanin'.

 

Terry Prachett's Discworld: some books that I love.

This isn't going to be a proper review, because I'm not going to go into the particulars of any of the three and a half books I've read (because I'm line editing my thesis again again again before I hand it in this week), but I wanted to write them up anyway, because the series is so fantastical and I need a break from deleting commas. Why do I use SO MANY COMMAS?

One funny thing about me and I think about a lot of other people is that we don't always read / watch movies / listen to music to experience something completely new as much as to be able to recapture the feeling of discovering something we already love. That's why our tastes are pretty predictable. I'm always chasing the feeling described in that horrible song, "I Knew I Loved You Before I Met You". I am always wishing I could read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" or Ursula Le Guinn's "A Wizard of Earthsea" over again for the first time. Like everything I already love, but also totally different and new: that's what I want sometimes. That's what Discworld totally is.

The Discworld books are parodies of the fantasy genre. The books I've read feature some standard fantasy characters (dragons, trolls, dwarves, undead people), but rather than, I dunno, fighting for the Iron Throne of Mordor or whatever, they live in an extremely dirty, capitalistic city-state called Ankh-Morpork, which owes more than a little to Medieval Florence (complete with its very own Lorenzo de Medici), and their concerns are totally normal, human ones. There's many dive bars and a lot of bad coffee. The characters are the sort that you talk about with other readers as if they were real people you both know. You should really, really read these books. You're going to feel so good about this decision.

Just like I'm going to feel good about my decision to tango with Mr. Thesis again, right? Right.

Finally, someone agrees with me that Middlemarch is the worst.

I mean, Salman Rushdie, that's pretty legit.

Hot New Trax.

This is what you come here for, right?

 

When I saw this, I wondered: didn't it use to be Santogold? Am I crazy? Yes, and no (well, not when it comes to this). She changed it.

A little bit of Charleston.

Recently I spend a really wonderful weekend in Charleston. I didn't take any pictures (AGAIN) because I was too busy relaxing my face off and eating everything. Anyway, can I just tell you? I had a roast duck club at Bull St. Gourmet that changed my life and this steak at Husk that makes me want to cry from joy even now and pimento cheese grits at SNOB that were basically just the ne plus ultra of cheese grits.

And it was SO pretty.

Charleston is a perfect weekend trip that everyone should take. When I got home on Sunday, I refused to fall asleep until way late, just so I could hold on to that perfect-weekend feeling a little longer. Go there if you get the chance!

I love Awkward Black Girl so much.

"Did I die and go to simple bitch hell?"

 

For my writing friends...

I have only recently started submitting my short stories for publication in a systematic way, and yesterday I found this great website (that you probably already know about, but I'm going to share it anyway): duotrope.

It lets you search for suitable lit mags with all sorts of different criteria (like acceptance ratio...whether they pay...how long your story/poem/whatever is), and you can track your submissions. I am still using my little excel spreadsheet that I made a few months ago for that, but anyway, it's pretty awesome.

It's like the Novel and Short Story Writer's Market, but less professional, and a lot more...desperate, I think is the word I'm looking for.

Edit: well, the link is working now. I need to stop throwing up posts in a hurry.

Check yo head.

Today I had this thought: "Boy, I am so excited to go expend some of this anxious energy at the gym."

What?!

I suspect a brain slug.

 

Recent Acquisitions

I should really finish a book sometime, but instead I got two new ones on my kindle:

I actually got "A Heart So White" in Spanish...google reminded me that this is a line from ol' Macbeth. Lady Macbeth says: "My hands are of your color, but I shame/ To wear a heart so white." The more you know...

This was a pretty strange, nice, busy weekend. I fiiiiinally put the finishing touches on my craft essay. I am not so impressed with myself, as far as that goes, but it was helpful in terms of my own writing, and thinking about writing a little historical novel. Ye historye, you guys.

So excited about seeing Don Hertzfeldt tonight!

You've seen Rejected, right? He's here in Clt to screen his new movie...

 

Bonus: