The library + medieval teeth + The Barbie Movie
May I recommend
The Public Library
No one should be surprised about this recommendation - the library is flipping incredible and being into it is very much on brand for me.
Here’s the deal - the very concept of a library is super socialist and egalitarian and I love it so much. You are a very rich person who drives a Porsche and keeps bottled water in your fridge like some kind of Jennifer Aniston? At the library you’re getting the same copy of Educated with the weird green stain on page 233 that I got! You’re a super fancy smart person with a PhD in astrophysics and membership in Mensa? Guess what, egghead, you have to wait for the audio version of Where The Crawdads Sing like the rest of us dumdums.
Obviously, I also love the library because it’s free. It’s this wonderful service, that includes access to newspapers, magazines, movies, audiobooks let alone ALL THE BOOKS. It’s all free, free, free, but NOT in a smarmy, illegal download/Spotify way that rips off creators. The library has paid a fair price for that book, and will continue to pay for multiple copies if you ask for them.
PLUS in Canada and the UK, at least, authors get compensated every time you take a book of theirs out. How do libraries figure out who gets compensated for what? I don’t know — it’s a mystery the way fax machines can send pictures through the ether; or mail services around the world make money (like seriously, a big mail service like the US Postal service makes a lot of money by selling 300 million people stamps, but then how does a small mail service like Canada’s make money, when it’s only selling 30 million people stamps, but has to deliver mail from a lot of those 300 million people? How do they get compensated if more mail is coming in than going out?? I don’t understand the economics).
If you are grossed out by the library because — as one friend says — you never know who has been reading something on the toilet, you can borrow ebooks and audiobooks without ever setting foot in the place or touching something another person’s unwashed poo fingers has sullied.
Libraries! All the wonderful things and a big fat Fuck You to capitalism.
The most diabolical place in Pawnee…
A reminder that “anonymous” was usually a woman
Why a medieval woman had lapis lazuli in her teeth
I love stories like this that reveal something we didn’t know about history. I want to know how all the things worked! And really, this confirms my belief that if I lived in medievally times, I’d definitely want to be a nun… All that beekeeping and scribing -- mead and no men around to be horrible — seems like the best bet. Nun, or widow queen — only two good options.
Beach even came across a letter dated to the year 1168, in which a bookkeeper of a men’s monastery commissions sister “N” to produce a deluxe manuscript using luxury materials such as parchment, leather, and silk. The monastery where sister “N” lived is only 40 miles from Dalheim, where the teeth with lapis lazuli were found. Beach also identified a book using lapis lazuli that was written by a female scribe in Germany around a.d. 1200. The pigment would have traveled nearly 4,000 miles from Afghanistan to Europe via the Silk Road. All the evidence suggests that female scribes were indeed making books that used lapis lazuli pigment in the same area and around the same time this woman was alive.
What movies to watch this year
The 26 Most Anticipated Movies of 2023
I’m trying to get out and about more in 2023, I’m sick of cocooning in my house. Going to the movies is a low stakes way of being in the world and also, popcorn and Rolos (NOT the minis, though) are an incredible combination.
I want to see the Barbie movie and Are You There God, it’s Me Margaret and maybe that Indiana Jones movie (though Harrison Ford’s earring really sapped away a lot of my enthusiasm for him) Asteroid City might be good, and Poor Things is intriguing.
After the lavish success of The Favourite, a wild, kinky take on the life of Queen Anne, seen through a tireless fisheye lens, Yorgos Lanthimos is back. And, thankfully, he’s helming another film written by The Favourite scribe Tony McNamara, based on the novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray. The book is a kind of feminist riff on Frankenstein, revolving around a woman who is brought back to life with the brain of her unborn baby.
Book Stuff
The first trade review for Speak for the Dead came out and it was good! Such a relief because I do always worry that I am going to be publicly unmasked as a giant hack with every book I put out there.
The full review isn’t out yet, but here’s the excerpt from it my publisher has prepped:
“[A] strong sequel to 2022’s The Foulest Things . . . Tector smoothly balances her lead’s struggles with alcohol in the wake of her brother’s death with developments in this well-crafted mystery. Temperance Brennan fans will be pleased.” —Publishers Weekly
“Smoothly balanced” baby! Also, Temperance Brennan is the Bones TV Show lady, if people don’t know…
Also, I’m super delighted that The Globe and Mail picked The Foulest Things as one of the five great mysteries to start the new year with a thrill. Yay!
Buy my books!
TikTok
Go help me, I love the Reege
Kind of love this, am kind of scared of this?
Ha ha, Perfection WAS awful
Mocking babies is fun
People in my house DON’T REALLY LIKE POTATOES and it is hard
This made me laugh even after repeated viewings
I kind of love this and am filled with hope
Ann Egg
My level of gardening know how
TikTok is educating me
Music DOES make a difference
Oh dear, oh dear oh dear
Mannequins are tricky
Got to get my SOM content in
Cute dogs being cute
Annoying dog owners
Be a rapscallion
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