Blood Colony and My Soul to Take

Listen. Look. I know. What am I doing with my life and time? Reading, barely functioning, and just not writing. If I wasn’t physically down from the illness and plagues that the kids dragged in from the outside, I was mentally down because of all the obvious reasons. I have a lot of writing to catch up on.

I finished a couple of series, the one I most proud of finishing is the African Immortals by Tananarive Due. So far there are four titles, with the last two being Blood Colony and My Soul to Take. 

The series starts with the story of Jessica, a young black journalist who is marred to an older charming and respected professor of Jazz, David, and the secret he is keeping from her about his past. The second book is about the consequences his lies and withholding had on their family, and is focused on how Jessica can live with the trauma of becoming an immortal like David. It explains more of the brotherhood while also giving a counter approach to the blood gift - Jessica and her sister want to help those in need with the only true miracle their world has ever known - healing blood.

These last two books focuses on the child that Jessica and David conceive in their immortal blood state. (I am trying to not give any real spoilers!) Fana is special, unique, and powerful, but by the end of the story you can see how she is also a product of her parents and the people who raised her. 

As someone terrified of death and aging, any vampire story is enticing, but what I like most about this series is that is a unique take on immortality. While Blood Colony focuses on the healing aspect of blood, you will not find that this group is feasting or craving it. The lore of “who was the first” and “how did they gain immortality” is important because it should make us question what is true and how much is this about the powerful writing out the fate of the other characters involved.

It uses Christian stories to explain the magic in the universe, and plays on the idea of who is chosen and how much of that is a blessing or a curse. If you can’t tell, I love when stories incorporate any type of Christian mythology within it to humanize or give perspective, so seeing more of these elements in the last two novels was perfect.

As the story shifts in tone to the religious and the occult, the social commentary about race, health, inequality, and wealth disparity (within context to their blood) is not diminished. It has grown to say something about both the illegal drug and legal pharmaceutical industries and gives us a brandname for the blood “Glow”.

Both books keep up the globetrotting thriller tone that I have to expect with this series, and have introduced some new locations like Mexico. This becomes important for the last book, Fana has some loose ends to tie up after the promises she makes in Blood Colony. Since it ended as a cliff hanger, I felt compelled to read My Soul to Take as soon as I felt up for it so I could see how she would deal with the position she was in.

The new element in the last book is Fana’s love for a musician name Phoenix. We get a taste of a pop icon and what her music could do when combined with Fans’s abilities. Ever since Anne Rice opened me up to the idea that a made up character could be in a made up band and that could be important for the made up story, I have respected anyone else who makes use of their imagination and attempts this.

For my complaints, I would say why did this story have to end?! And if these are just cliff hangers, as I hope with the last book, then why did she have to right such good ones because I need to know what is going on next with Johnny, Fana, and Michel. I also have the usual complaint against Fana for some of the choices that were made, but that has more to do with me thinking I know better and that I would make better choices in the same circumstances (delusional or just regular old Virgo energy?). I know those are not real complaints, they are made up ones in attempt to say this series is perfect the way it is. Unless it is complete, in which case one more book please?!

Modelland by Tyra Banks

I read a lot of amazing books this month that reminded me what a talented writer could say and do with science fiction, and I also read Modelland. A fictional novel that is a tie in to Tyra Bank’s branding empire when it was at its peak (nearly 20 years ago - oh my god am I fucking old). I managed to snag a first edition copy and read it. 

Just my luck, or a sign that this book never ran past its initial first printing?

Another question a more discriminate reader may want to ask themselves is, why is it so easy to find a reasonable priced first edition for resale online? But not me, this is a fucking treasure to be hoarded and never given up.

Right now the youths and cool BookTok(ers) are telling me that beautiful editions with gilded edges are all the rage. While Modelland doesn’t have that, it does entail a creepy close up of a dramatic eye on the book jacket and a packed splattering of insane images pulled from the story as the first and last pages for the book. Tyra Banks has always been one step ahead of commercial aesthetic trends, damn she is good.

As she brings up several times in her acknowledgments, Tyra went to Harvard (or only attended one class or is just name dropping an honorary degree). This story was not going to be the run of the mill celebrity cash grab. Her attempt at writing was to pin down her epic fantasy of her already fantastical life. She asks, what if supermodels were really super?

It is the stuff of nightmares. If you haven’t read it, but do recall the episode they used as an excuse to talk about the book and have a photoshoot as a tie in, and thought “that sounds bonkers”, well that would be a fair assessment. 

At first, I was not even hate reading, I was “what the fuck?” reading. I was compelled to describe scene by scene what was going on to my husband and friends while reading it, and as the horror on their face grew so did my understanding. You know what they say: learn it then teach it, I feel bold enough to claim I am a Modelland expert (you may call me a Dr. AJ Whitaker). 

Even if I did not get to gush about this story with those trapped by my ravings, I think I would have progressed past bewilderment to love. While Tyra would like to take all the credit, and does so, the internet has informed me that a white man was her ghostwriter.  However much work he put into it, it must be commended because he took a fever dream and made it a literary reality. 

This story is about a world called Metopia. It is broken it four dystopian sections and is centered on teenager Tookie De Le Creme, she has no friends and her family is cruel (Tyra must of mentioned how she is into fairy tales) so by the time she was 10 she knew half the world’s languages. Now she knows them all. How is that important, or any of the other weird facts they drop? You will find out by the end of the story because they made sure to fire off Chekov’s gun and expend all their bullets in this story. 

While the entire community searches for one of seven golden smizes that come pouring out of the waterways, so they can have a chance of being discovered and chosen by one of the model scouts on The Day of Discovery, Tookie doesn’t care cause she has her own shit to deal with. With non-stop introduction of story and action, the surprise is that unattractive weirdo Tookie is selected with other unconventional beauties (her group includes short, plus size, and albino ladies). 

What do we have so far: climate disaster, commentary of the predatory nature of the modeling industry, and also a not so subtle way to insult the gathered uglies this book is about…We have made it to the modeling academy.

I haven’t even begin to regal you with the men at the lesser academy, Bestosterone, and that part is amazing. Guys are there to be eye candy and to build the modeling stadium they all compete in. 

The school is a modeling rip off of Hogwarts and Wonderland (the zipper room, the cat walk corridor). Their goal is survive the academy. Their dream is to be one of the seven elite supermodels whose names were clearly stolen from real life models.

This book was suppose to be the first in a trilogy. Tyra Banks also claims it was 1,000 pages and they cut it down in half. Usually I feel like I am Ursula from the Little Mermaid, but with the quality of this book and my enthusiasm as I sing “I want more”, I know who I am…trash hoarding Ariel. This quality pleasure has a place in my heart.

Bad Morman by Heather Gay

I have given myself sometime to think on how the greatest season of any real housewife show has ended and I am ready to discuss Heather Gay.

I am celebrity obsessed and of a certain age in which I attached myself to the real housewife franchises and never plan to let go. I was there to watch Teresa Giudice flip her shit and the table, not flip on her husband and go to jail, and then flip over a new leaf by divorcing him and allowing him to be deported. How was that Trump relationship in the end Teresa, not beneficial? 

I loved the Real Housewives of Miami and then signed up for Peacock so I could get to the reboot.

I was the first to declare the white women on Dallas for being racist, and was not at all shocked when they decided not to renew, as they were trying to avoid valid criticisms on how they women addressed Hispanic and the Asian community on the show. I was sad though, especially since Ramona was a thing. 

I was also sad that Ramona did not get grilled on the couch for how being both the iceberg and the Titanic when it comes to her show’s demise. 

Basically, I am doing the equivalent of “I was there” by LCD Soundsystem, but with the real housewives.

And although I do not have tidbits to drop about my love for Potomac, Atlanta, Beverly Hills, or the international shows, I love them all for their own merits. Except for Orange County, those trashy bitches are lucky to still have a franchise. 

But SLC reigns supreme. Maybe because I have deigned them the SLC Cunts (in combo of indie film of yore SLC Punk). Maybe because the trauma drama that is Mary was overshadowed by the criminal mastermind that is Jen Shah. (The amount of times I have shared the photos of her in prison, on the yard, talking to Elizabeth Thanos, could best be matched up to the serial card trading scene in Addams Family Values, I am that obsessed.) Whatever the reason, these women are serving me the reality tv of my dreams. 

The only way they can make it better is to cut it with the crap in SLC and move to the prison. I believe that the producers know the events of the last season may be the high of the show. How can the keep milking Jen Shah drama without filming in the prison? What will the women do when they can no longer make a monster of Jen or Monica (other than to turn on each other and Mary)? Where do they go from here?

If Bad Morman is any indication, things are about to get boring and more obvious with the product placement. While a quick interesting look into her personality, I think the memoir is more damaging than it is reflective. Heather spends her time letting us in her world, but keeps the reader at a distance in the same manner that she does on screen. For every one step forward, she makes a comment that brings her several steps back.

While admitting her skills and interest in writing, as if to convince us that no ghost writer or help was needed in this book, she also cops to bad plagiarism in the story in which she brags about being published in the newspaper for a poem she stole from famous songs about America (an elementary school tale). Most of her chapter titles were taking from songs meant to set the tone that her “writing” should have done. And with the length of the book, that is a fair amount of not writing and allowing other’s words do the talking for her.

The lack of accountability in the decision making that lead her to her marriage was not unreasonable, being from a conservative and hindering religion I do not understand the intricacies in how she was silenced or stifled. My contestation is that she is at an age and intelligence that I believe if she pushed herself further, she would see some development and can take some insight into what she could have done better. This same attitude and shallowness to her book leads us to her business model of the patient is always right. At Beauty Lab, there is no one to tell if you have gone too far or the medical consequences of adjusting your self esteem with too many procedures, they are there to take your money.

She is so busy selling that she is writer, that she is happy with the ending or her marriage because it was wasted time, that she is happy for her daughter’s freedom while denying herself the same, that the customer is always right, that she is now on a reality show making things happen even when being called inbred looking by a cruel woman of “God”, that she knew the women before they were famous and respected them, so on and so on…That all I can see is a delusional housewife.

From the book and the judgements I have made for the show, the downfall of SLC is that they are all too narcissistic, they believe they are planning Game of Thrones and that their political mechanizations via snappily delivered lines and “well acted” scenes won’t be seen for what they are, and that their flexibility with the truth will only be shown via previous season flashbacks.

I am staying tuned in, and while I would like to think it is at their expense, let’s be real I keep buying into and they keep taking our money. I hope they enjoy the notoriety, they are more successful than I could ever imagine.  

The New Jim Crow and my current state (of sadness)

Okay, I am willing to admit it I am hitting that overwhelming and constant depressed feeling. It could be the time of year, but really I think I am falling into despair because of the events that we are finding ourselves in. I have been thinking and over analyzing my part in everything and now I am too critical and at a critical point. 

The things I am clinging onto as my joy, in a way to reverse psychology myself into a delusional state, are not working. Just know that there was a crush of overwhelming shame and sadness and fatalism when my eyes go dead for a second.

I may need to take a break on the serious non-fiction reads, from the shit that is happening overseas to what we are dealing with in our own backyards, I need to find a more sustainable consumption rate. 

I finished The New Jim Crow and then tried to jump into a book mentioned, and because the subject matter is pertinent and about home I found myself succumbing to defeat, when these books are meant to advocate and illuminate our current surroundings. Not the authors fault at all, just trying to make sense of where I am.

Michelle Alexander’s critical look at how the current policies and response to the emancipation of enslaved people, and how it lead us to the current criminal state, makes it an important work when it comes to understanding American society today. As a civil rights lawyers who is passionate to tell a collective history that she is part of, I can see how this may not be for everyone and yet I would say it should be required reading for all Americans. Her passion and anger in the injustice of it all is clear throughout, her skill and intelligence as a lawyer means that there is indisputable data and citations to support her arguments and conclusions, and though nearly 15 years old and missing some of the new crimes that the police state has wrought on people of color - it is still relevant to what is going on this moment.

The author shows how the current criminal justice system is biased, set to disenfranchise large segments of American society, and the many political and supreme court decisions that created this beast. While the end offers some solutions, what this work does is expose the complexity and similarity with the new system that took over for Jim Crow, so the end result would call for radical restructuring and dismantling of those systems.

Maybe you could see how I am feeling in the face of this, especially since in Texas it is an upwards battle to have those in power recognize the rights of anyone that isn’t a rich white man. 

To feel sad is to have an heart. To be human is to be fucked up. But I have to remember that at least I feel shame and that one day I may have the chance to do right and make up for all the micro and outright aggressions I have shown others in my life. It is not like I made a law that made it impossible for others to get a settlement that I had previously sought and won for myself, became governor, and then allowed women and children to die because of my bonkers border policies. 

My sad girl playlist for the day while writing:

1. Let’s Have a War - A Perfect Circle

2. I Don’t Want to Know - Fleetwood Mac

3. Two-Timing Touch and Broken Bones - The Hives

4. Budget - Megan the Stallion and Latto

5. Eli, the Barrow Boy - The Decembrists

6. Mr. P.C. - John Coltrane

7. You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine _ Death from Above 1979

8. You Wouldn’t Like Me - The Beths

9. A Strange Day - The Cure

10. Three Days - Jane’s Addiction

Babel by R. F. Kuang

Babel is the type of book that people will write far more important essays and critiques on. So maybe read this more as a love letter. 

This is a fantasy novel with a historical fiction and alternative history touch. It takes a real place (Oxford) and tweaks with the reality to tell the story of Englands colonizing campaign. This novel is an instant classic because it tries (and succeeds) in explaining the mechanics of racism, appropriation, classism, inequality and disregard to humanity in a quest for dominance and control. It also does not ignore the many reasons people are driven to fight their oppressors and why those fights have an element of violence to it.

It is beyond pertinent to current events, even if it takes place during Queen Victorias reign and at the epicenter of the magical silver trade - the translator tower of Babel in Oxford. 

It is a book with a literary flair, it is thick, it makes use of footnotes, it explains the translations that makes the magic and the world and her story work. Speeches are made by both villains, heroes, and the people caught in between that help drive home all the points that the author has to make. 

The main character and voice is Robin, a boy taken from his home in Canton to join an elite group of intelligent translators needed to make them magic work. There are interludes that are placed throughout the book to give the perspective of his core group of friends and in their brevity the taste that you get is bittersweet and illuminating. 

I cried at the end. And I hope to re-read this book throughout my life because I think I will always cry at the end. 

After this and Yellowface, R. F. Kuang’s novel made me think that she is one of the voices of her generation (in the exact opposite meaning to what Lena Dunham proudly proclaim - as if Lena is in on the joke except for the fact that she really believes it and it really is not true no matter how many times she attempts to woo us over with her “self-deprecation”). I love her writing so much that I have transcended envy and have been in instant awe of her skill, her education, and her execution. This is very much an Waynes World “I am not worthy” gush of love for her work.

I cannot wait to read the Poppy Wars trilogy. I cannot wait til she graces us with another amazing novel that critiques where we are and what we have built. I cannot wait to see what ripples her words have amongst those who are starved of being seen and heard and represented.

A change of opinion: audiobooks

I used to judge those who only listened to audiobooks. I know unforgivable, ablest, narrow minded, these are all things that I was, I still am, and will probably forever will be. (Not to brag, but to be honest)

As I have become older, and was checked by others, I realized this opinion is shit. So I only have really started to delve into it in the last couple of years. I was using audiobooks as a way to help me make my way through my true crime list, as way to prevent others judging me for how many books on my shelf were from this genre. And they result was: I shouldn’t be ashamed, it didn’t work since those around me were forced to hear what I was reading as opposed to speculating based off the cover and blur, and I ended up wanting to buy each book I listened to in the end anyway.

Overall, I found that replacing the time I dedicated to watching tv or listening to podcasts (while doing work or chores) could be replaced by listening to books. SO YEAH FOR MORE BOOK TIME! 

While I still dedicate a lot of my focus attention to reading a physical book or eBook, I found that I have an impressive book body count at the end of each month. 

 And in the last couple of months my journey has progressed to fiction. I am liking where I am going on this journey. So far I have found that the benefits and small joys to overcoming my prejudices have been:

1. I can see how an audiobook could be it own storytelling art form as some narrators are better matched for the story than others. Examples being the play Evil Eye by Madhuri Shekar or The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

2. I am starting to share in the amusement there is to find when using a singular narrator whose voice is noticeable “masculine”or “feminine,” and when that narrator has to then switch to the other sound for opposite gendered characters who have dialogue. Especially if there is an accent involved. Examples: Sarah Gailey's River of Teeth or Upright Women Wanted

3. I am starting to find and hone my feeling for where in the story I should give up and DNF (in fact most of my DNFs have been audiobooks). Most recently was Cook County ICU. 

4. And I am clearing out my book tbr list so quickly! As mentioned by most of the books above. Downside will be that it is now another medium that I use as an excuse to add more to my list, but still something to help check off my list.

For those who would find my old views offensive and judgmental, I am sorry. You are right. 

For those who are starting out on the path to audiobook enlightenment, welcome you made the right choice!

And for those still stuck on is this reading or not, of course it is. Anyway that you decide to consume stories (or smut) is okay. 

The best and worst book I read this year

Let me start this with something nice.

The best book I read this year was The Warmth of Other Suns. It was the most annotated of all my reads, you would think I was trying to memorize the book in it’s entirety. It is well written and has the flow of a novel, even when considering this is a nonfiction piece meant to cover The Great Migration. The writer is so talented in her ability to portray the humanity and the life in the voices that she uplifted through the white noise that is American history. It made me feel so emotional, it taught me so much about American history and the black experience after the end of slavery and the fight for any semblance of equality that people are striving so hard for. This book puts into perspective so many other books, tv shows, movies, articles, conversations, and other facets of life that I encounter.

The worst book I read this year felt like it had a lot it wanted to say and could not get there. It was the antithesis of the praise I have for my best read. Maybe I would have enjoyed Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow if I hadn’t read this and all the other novels and nonfictions pieces that wormed their way into my thoughts in a more pleasing manner.

On the surface I should have enjoyed it, it tries to cover serious topics, it has an appealing cover and was recommended by a friend, it is long fiction piece of contemporary work that tries to bring a literary light to one of my passions - video games.  

It just wasn’t good. This is the first book I have read that was written by the author and it was enough of a trip where I am hesitant to give her another try. If I had to say anything good it was that I at least hated it so much that I rage read it all the way through hoping to find that redeemable quality that would change my bias. I didn’t.

Look I like a wordy writer, I am an Anne Rice fan. I read the unabridged versions of Stephen King books, and fucking was here for the Trashcan Man chapters and sections within The Stand. I do not feel comfortable shitting on another writer’s technique because I would hate for others to do that to me. But damn if this book didn’t make me think that she should have a hard-ass editor. A lot of the book was not needed. It was a drag. Entire chapters, characters, subplots, commentary, sections, and words within the sentences should have been cut.

It was not ground breaking. It did not give good commentary on what she thought she was doing (race, the me too movement, homosexuality, sexism, disabilities, depression, the current video game industry, heteronormative standards, how art and games are political). She inserts too many things and does not delve into it deeply enough.

Even though she is Jewish and Korean, her attempts to discuss appropriation, racism, and the unfair burden women have in partnerships comes off as maybe even more harmful than good. This isn’t a book that holds a mirror to current society to show us what we are looking past. Nor does it seem like it is a novel trying to visualize how these characters could take these problems with their current society and create a space for themselves. It left me wondering, why was it even written if not to be some type of wank writing exercise. I feel she might have known this too? Towards the end there is a section where her characters start to “Skip” the dialogue in the game and I could think was, “You are fucking with us. Even you want to skip through to your shitty end.”

Not to spoil it, but this was the more timid A Little Life: bougie friends whose center is someone else’s unimaginable trauma and identity, the tone of which is that you should pity these highly intelligent characters because they have emotional and physical disabilities that they suffer through life. As someone who has been privileged enough to not yet have a serious illness or accident, maybe I don’t know what I am talking about, but it comes across as condescending and ablest. 

Around the same part of the book, the author then takes out the happiness in an abrupt and startling way, just so she could say don’t forget America has a gun problem. But here is where I think this is due to bad writing. A Little Life is torture porn and a fantasy of rich but sad group of people in New York, it was engrossing even if it was at the expense of it characters, and in the end you know who the villains are. I then read her other book that was very similar in tone, The People in the Trees.Very similar in graphic abuse of young characters, but clearly a unreliable narrator in the style of Humbert Humbert. What I like about it more is that she is a talented writer, it was clear she was trying to talk about anthropologists - their abuse in the people and the lands. It matched up to what I had learned about how Yanomami and the monsters that came into their midst (Jacques Lizot). Are they hard books to read, yes. Are they controversial because of the abuse the characters face, yes. But I cannot apply that same energy to Gabrielle Zevin's novel, because Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow doesn’t even have that.

Finally, I have been unable to find direct sources that talk about the author’s opinion on the current events in Palestine, but from her writing I can’t imagine it would be good. There is a line in which a douche bag teacher who has started a relationship with his young student is lecturing her about not knowing about Israel (since she is a young American Jewish woman). I want to know what she is trying to say, especially because if any statement is clear from her book - it is that she seems to believe that creating something is political. I have a feeling that it will not be an opinion that I would respect, and one that focuses on hers and her families personal history while ignoring that racism and discrimination is not novel to one group of people. If I am wrong, and she does come out acknowledging that the Israeli state is as the expense of the Palestinians that are being displaced and killed in this long standing genocidal campaign against them, good for her because that is what I want to hear and I apologize for assuming otherwise. Maybe then I will give her another go.  

Most of what I read in November

Was good because it was written by diverse and BIPOC authors, or by an author that at least attempted to add clarity to the many issues we are facing today. I am trying to highlight this because while it was a fulfilling month reading wise, when it comes to writing: I myself, did not do shit. 

I fall into the trap each year thinking that I will partake in the goal of writing a book in November. It is in my opinion (probably due to my constant failure at the goal) that it can be hard for those to make the time if they are also in a stage in life where their family and work obligations are full time, it is unrealistic to expect people to be able to power through a novel. 

I mean I feel like I can’t find the time now, why do I think that I am going to get into a steady and completing habit of writing during the holiday months? I am being forced to leave the house for hours at a time once a week at this point, how can I recoup from that!?

At least I can counter my shame and self reflection on my writing goals, with my pride and intense reflection after nailing my reading goals. 

Pachinko - This Dickensian novel is an engrossing multi-generational tale that drew me in and convinced me that I could tackle some of the more denser reads that I would later pick up. I was able to learn more about how the Korean people struggled under annexation by following this fictional family centered around Sunja. 

I still haven’t watch the drama, mostly because I am struggling to stay up to date on the Real Housewives shows right now. I can accept that I am one of the sheeple who is running with the masses - about how the Golden Age of TV is done, while not putting in effort to stream anything. 

This novel is written by a journalist and it shows: from how the narrative is laid out, to the attention to details when describing the scene and living arrangements available to the characters, and from the interactions the characters have within their society. It is meant to humanize people in a time in which their plight was being ignored.

Never Whistle at Night - This is marketed as a dark fantasy anthology from Indigenous writers. I have been into this since I heard it was coming out, tried to avoid buying any new books, and then used Native American History Month in not a completely horrible way (even though it was my excuse) to buy the book. I tend to say that I am not into stories, but I guess I am not yet skilled at writing short stories myself. The people who can deserved, to be read. And this group of writers deserve to be read. 

I feel overall there is more of a horror tone to the stories, but they range in sadness and triumph and metaphor and reality. It is also, a most excellent cheat sheet for which other works by these writers I should be reading. 

“Limbs” was the most terrifying.

“Uncle Robert Rides the Lightning,” the most sad.

Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World  - This felt like a life changing memoir, not just for the man who lived the life and had the skill to tell it so well, but for me as a reader. I did not realize what he and others like him had to go through as an older queer black nerd, nor that the beauty he found in the natural world was one that would be so inevitable and compelling. The growth and strength in voicing what we should all know to be morally right or wrong, is what I am expecting off everyone, even the vapid pop culture stars on their successful redemptive tours (and even while knowing it is wrong to expect so much given the differences in circumstances, character, and determination). 

This is an amazing memoir that I plan to gift everyone in my life who might have a passing fancy to one of the many fancies this eloquent nature nerd has to offer. 

But also it is funny, it really is.

The Warmth of Other Suns - This book has been on my to buy list for a while, then on my to read shelf for a month or two, before I gave it the time it deserved and I needed. It took me a full two weeks to read, I was underlining and taking notes nonstop, feeling my mind and heart open. While the author focuses on three different archetypes during the Great Migration, with her research in those individual lives, and the lives of so many others, she comes off with a true Dickensian telling that should be required reading for all college students. 

This book is full of voices and does not shy away from the unspoken horror that America does not like to recall in its historical texts. This is a reminder, but also a conscious effort, to document a time period that is not to far removed from where we are now. There are still millions of Americans who can recall what they or their family had to go through when desegregation was ended in the South.

I feel pretty confident in saying that this may be my favorite book of the year. I hope that I will be able to read this several times before I kick it, I have a feeling it will be the book that rave about for years (until the next mind blowing text comes along).

Okay but back to the writing goal. I did write something, even if I did not accomplish what I set out to do. I made notes for new ideas. I trudged through one that I can’t work out of my head or out on the paper. I have a feeling that if I gave myself time, I could work through my frustration, complete it, and feel some sense of relief to be rid of it. But what do I know, except the lies I am willing to tell myself?

What's this, an old journal entry/review on a 2015 Kraftwerk concert? (Yes it is and yes it ends abruptly)

I am not a die hard fan of Kraftwerk. I do not own any albums nor have I downloaded any of their tracks. Living with a boyfriend who is a DJ does not allow me to be ignorant of them. One of his endearing traits of being in love is when the other person goes on at length with their encyclopedic knowledge on subject, so I have been learning the ins and outs of certain subjects that I would have never sought out on my own. Just as Zach will be happy and willing to pay an exorbitant amount to see my dream act perform (Cher), I was down for seeing his dream show: Kraftwerk. So going into this I am not a die hard fan of Kraftwerk, but I can still enjoy them.

The notorious seclusion aspect of their personalities makes sense with the music and the performance that they put on. Besides being pioneers in electronic music, they are just plain wise. The show was well thought out on several levels and was worth the chance to see it. What they make is interesting, but is not exciting visually. The sounds they use are simple and repetitive, but it is not boring. There are paradoxes to making electronic music, and they have been doing it for so long that they are wise to the process. Any point of the show or the albums could be dissected and pondered upon for far longer than what I will devout to it.

Shit was sold out and no one wasted a ticket for every seat was filled. In the darkness every so often people would move about the rows requiring more beer for whatever fucked up journey they were living through. Even with the pulling back as some squirmed past, only to come back to squish by you, I did not curse the person for breaking my concentration. Though I broke eye sight with the screen, the music was already telling the story. All the visuals were either pulled from music videos are specific to the songs message. As a 3D performance, not everything was nauseatingly whooshing towards your face. The effects were used more subtle than that. It was used to emphasis letters and words within the songs. It was used to help visualize themes and draw you into the repetitive enticing rhythms.

I am sure that if you have a predilection to hallucinogens or mood alerting drugs, that Kraftwerk is the best way to enhance the experience. As a sober person, the effects and knowing that a couple thousand people were having the same type of awed experience was enough to let me loose myself a couple of times. And yes during Autobahn I had issues trying to stay awake, the soothing expense of early graphics computer animated VW Beetle overtaking a Mercedes and the lilting melody of the track was knocking me out. I had to keep on trying to wake myself knowing, that soon another song will play and I will be energized, and I did not want to miss out on it because I was sleeping. Digression over, the point is Kraftwerk must be aware of the drug culture in the electronic scene and how laser shows go hand in hand with music and shrooms. This is less psychedelic and spiritual and more scientific and spatial. To have a show is important and part of the reason why they can play so few shows and still sell out. It makes the experience more special for the rarity and does not dull the senses to the experience. It also entertains while they make music, for DJing is not a performance. Everything else that surrounds it is, but not the the music makers themselves, they are just boring robots.

But to see a robot on screen, that is far more entertaining. To see a 3D computer rendition line drawing of them, clicking buttons while not moving, is far more entertaining than the men up there doing just that. They are brilliant for playing within contexts and experimenting with what an audience will enjoy and what they can say before they no longer enjoy it.

Playing in Austin, Texas, they are very European and a world apart from our mentality. Their references and songs are very strange to what I hear everyday ( I know of it, I just rarely have to think on those terms) old models who wore the clothes for the patrons, Tour de France, and Autobahn. The politics were there, just restrained in its performance. Referring to the radioactive disgraces within its native language in respect to the tragedies.

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears and Paris by Paris Hilton

Given some time to mull over The Woman in Me and Paris memoirs, I have some thoughts.

In general, I do not like to give reviews or opinions on memoirs, even if it is some major bullshit - what right do I have to call someone out on their lies. If anything, their lack of self awareness and the delusion it takes to write (or get a ghost writer to write) that down is not my battle to fight. I feel it is asking more of someone that they have to be willing to give, and as a reader and consumer if we do that then we are crossing into parasocial relationship territory.

I do feel that both stories were very aware of how they wanted to spin that they were wronged. We (society and the media) have gone back and forth with hatred and admiration in a way that is unfair. Paris Hilton’s and Britney Spear’s stories are very focused on their experience and how we were unaware of the circumstances and how we added to their victimization. I think they have every right to tell it, I believe what they wrote, and I enjoyed it and learned more about them as complex women and not characters. Yet it has to be said, the worst thing about the stories is that it is very white and privileged, they have yet to take the next leap to making sure other women (who are not white or rich) deserve better and they may be downplaying how substance abuse can be a result of their trauma.

While The Woman in Me is more unaware of maybe how alcohol and drug use negatively impacted her life, Paris Hilton does gives us a little more into how she is aware - only to pull back. The Woman in Me is more of a puff piece then I would like, which makes sense since Britney does not have the distance and time to reflect.

Paris has had more time, and while she does as the book goes on allude to her real fuckups that should be more closely examined (claims of racist slurs used, sexists slurs used, indifference to others) it is not fully there. I am not expecting her to be treated like Cersei made to walk with her shame, that is monstrous. When Paris Hilton does attempt remorse, the steps she starts are still admirable even if they fall short.

It is just that when Paris was talking about the bill she was working on, she is so antipolitics that she refuses to acknowledge parties. Even if her opinion is that they are all the same at this point, cause they are, this statement would given her more grace. But then she makes sure to drive home that the bill needs to speak to the wealthy individuals who are sending their kids to the camp, because they are the ones funding it. But she does not realize the irony that it could be at the exclusion of the foster children and children on state benefits who do find themselves in those and other similar hell holes, because there are not proper social resources and they have are making the largest group of undesirable others that society is trying to crush.

I guess with her activism, and other stars we idolize, it can’t be because they finally experienced something and now get it. It should be because, “ Oh shit if it could happen to me, what will happen to someone else in even worse circumstances?”

Love the name drops in both, and to be honest Paris does give more in her book that Britney does. But be aware she keeps trying to make sliving happen and it is definitely a way for her to plug all her past and current crap she is trying to sell. Paris brings up NFTs so many times that all it does is convince me that like BitCoin it is the scam of the future. I am going to keep my recession impacted dollar bills in my mattress thank you for very much. (Only to pull them out to buy Britney Spear’s Curious at Wal-Mart, it is the only celebrity perfume I have bought multiple times and makes me smell like the pop star tart I really wish I was.)