Lit City Blues

It's been hard lately.  I can't quite put my finger on why. Churchill liked to call such periods of melancholy and depression his 'black dog' but I'm not sure I'd call this melancholy or depression. Maybe some people can still stay in bed for days on end and do nothing and embrace the blackness for a while- Lord knows, that sounds tempting enough some days- just a day to sit and do nothing. Whether it's binge a television show that's not a cartoon or just staring at a blank wall for hours on end and being in your own head for a little bit, that sounds nice right now. It sounds very nice indeed. The world doesn't help. We're cracking down- I'm sure everyone is- belts are tightening, but the margins these days are fucking thin. One random Black Swan event and I don't know what we'd do. I'm sure we would do what people do in such times, which is 'figure it out and survive and scrape' somehow, but I feel like it should be jus

Like most bibliophiles, I am guilty of accumulating books that sit on my bookshelves for years before I actually get around to picking up and reading them. Sadly, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee was one of those books. I had taken a run at it once before but didn't get very far- whether because it was frankly too damn depressing (it is) or because I had gotten bored, I can't remember- but I sat down and actually read the thing cover to cover this time. For all the current shouting about CRT and things like the 1619 Project (which I haven't read), no one wants to talk about the inescapable fact of life in contemporary America: many of us (a lot of us white, yes, but many of us in general) are profoundly ignorant about our own history. Too many Americans found out about the Tulsa Race Massacre from a superhero show on HBO. Personally, I had no idea about the Great Sioux Uprising or the 38 Lakota, or the expulsion of the Lakota from Minnesota until I moved to Mankato. We do to

I'll be honest: I think the next couple of years in both the Marvel Universe and the Star Wars Universe are going to be interesting to watch because I think both studios risk running into a hitherto unknown phenomenon in the world of entertainment: content overload. I am woefully behind on my Marvel movies and shows and you know, at this point, there are so many of them I don't know if I'll ever catch up, and more to the point, they're starting to feel like a chore , you know? So I approached Moon Knight with something approaching a mixture of outright indifference and mild curiosity. I like Oscar Isaac. It looked interesting. It was only six episodes long- so, why not check it out? Moon Knight opens with Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) going to his job at the British Museum in London- he's hoping to be a tour guide eventually, given his extensive knowledge of Ancient Egypt, but after going to sleep one night, he wakes up in the Austrian Alps, at a cult meeting led by Ar

I love Star Trek. I've always loved Star Trek-- I got into it a bit too late for The Next Generation (but I do remember watching 'Rascals' on television one Saturday night when it was actually airing)- but DS9, Voyager, everything that came after? I grew up with all of it. Eventually, I went back and watched every bit of Star Trek I could get my hands on and I am loving Discovery, Lower Decks, Picard, Prodigy, and now Strange New Worlds. I love the shows. I love the franchise. I love the characters. I love the struggles and fighting to keep an optimistic future. I love it when creators and writers take risks with the franchise- because sometimes the results are uneven, but (and granted I may be a wee bit biased because I love the franchise so much) rarely are the results genuinely bad. But what I can't stand? Less charitable people would call it: "Terminally online people who do nothing but complain, complain, complain," but a better and more charitable descri

Westerns aren't usually my thing, but this one was recommended by a co-worker, and what a recommendation it turned out to be. The Son is an amazing novel and although I went the audiobook route for this one, the audiobook was even more brilliant, because they've got Will Patton, Clifton Collins, and Kate Mulgrew to do the narration for it.  The story begins with Eli McCullough at the end of his life, beginning narration of his last testament before flashing us back to the Texas frontier of 1849. Eli is 13 years old when his family is attacked by the Comanches which results in the rape and murder of his sister and mother. Eli and his older brother are kidnapped and eventually, Martin, his brother dies as well. Eli is eventually welcomed into the band- first as a slave and then gradually as a full member of the tribe. He's eventually adopted by Toshaway, the man who kidnapped him. A series of misfortunes eventually it the tribe, including an outbreak of disease that eventual

Look, I read a lot of books on my own but I've also got a healthy posse of crotchgoblins, so it occurred to me that poking into the weird and wonderful world of Children's Books or more precisely, the books my children sometimes charm me into reading (when they pick good ones) or force me into reading (when they pick the bad or interminable ones) and so because Kids should do shots (like Bookshot) but they do drink plenty of juice boxes, when given the opportunity, Kids Bookbox was born and for this inaugural edition of what I'm sure will be an intermittent feature on the blog, we're going to look at an interminable book and a charming book. So, first up: the interminable book. Let's leave aside the tiresome Culture War Brain Worms that had the internet all in a tizzy about Dr. Seuss being canceled sometime last year. The fact is that every parent should probably realize by now that Dr. Seuss has a lot to answer for and not necessarily in a good way. Yes, they'r