Lit City Blues

Given the times we live in, the idea of New Year's Resolutions seems idiotic, but I'm doing it anyway because lists are easy to make and strangely satisfying to cross things off of. But before I launch on yet another exercise in mild futility (I do usually get some of these things accomplished), it's time to look back on 2023 and see how I did:  1. Big Writing Goal for the Year: Get Book 4 into the draft format by the end of the year. I'm currently working my way through Chapter 5 and I'm sitting at 25,744 words. It's been challenging so far: I'm sticking to a single POV for the first time in a book, I'm writing well outside my usual genre preferences so far, and writing consistently and well is hard, y'all. But enough is enough-- time to light this candle and git 'er done. Okay, here's the story with Book 4. I was plowing through, heading into Chapter 8, the wind was in my sails and then I got a note. A note so damn good, so brilliant that ...

I know there's this trend in Hollywood of bringing things back or announcing reboots or revivals, but occasionally, I think it would be great for people to remember that it's all right for things to just end, you know. And Sex Education is one of those shows. The final season was just about everything you could possibly ask for in a final season and where everyone ends up is so unbelievably satisfying. Season Four opens with Otis (Asa Butterfield) and Maeve (Emma Mackey) trying to make a long distance relationship work. She is still in America, studying at a creative writing program. Otis is still... awkward and when she sends him a nude photo on his first day at a new college, Cavendish-- which ticks all the boxes for being friendly, inclusive, environmentally aware and, of course, progressive, the usual shenanigans ensue. Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) finds community with the most popular students known as 'The Coven.' Isaac (George Robinson) enrolls at Cavendish with an eye to...

I am aware that there's more than a little hypocrisy lurking behind this post. I'm on TikTok. I use it. I send TikToks to the Missus and she sends Instagram reels to me. We're the perfect portrait of a married couple with four kids in 21st-century America that way. I also am a proponent of Free Speech. I don't have the legal knowledge to say with any certainty what the Constitutional issues might be. Montana's statewide ban was knocked down on the grounds of prior restraint and a few other things I hadn't considered. A ban would probably amount to the government picking and choosing platforms which probably runs afoul of the 1st Amendment in some way. A Federal Ban might be different-- as national security concerns would come into play and I would imagine, you'd have to balance those out in a way that might not preclude a ban.  But who knows? There are, after all, other platforms available to folks (Instagram Reels are pretty close to the same thing, imo) an...

This book was one of my UK haul and I almost put it back and picked up a 'biography of Parliament' which seemed a lot more interesting and more in my political science wheelhouse. However, I'm glad I didn't. History books are kind of interesting for me to grapple with- especially when it comes to reviewing them. On the one hand, my poli-sci brain kicks to life and I want to look at things from a more academic perspective. On the other hand, as a reader, I want to be informed and not bored to death. Happily, Dan Joes managed to satisfy both 'hands' with his excellent history of the Wars of the Roses. I will be honest: the biggest takeaway from this book was learning that there was so much before Richard III- and yes, my knowledge of the Wars of the Roses stems mainly from Shakespeare. Richard III, the Princes in the Tower, him being all twisty and scoliosis'd up and wandering around Bosworth Field, demanding a horse. (Al Pacino did a really great- I don'...

I did it. I watched the Barbie movie... I still need to dig up Oppenheimer to complete the Barbenheimer Experience, but half of the deed is done. The current cultural discourse meant that immediately, people would hate and despise this movie because... reasons, but having watched it with (what I hope is) a fairly open mind, I don't really see why. (And I can't find anything to really back up the 'gurrrrrrrr, man-hating woke woke woke' that was floating around about it. Both Critic and Audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes are in the mid-80s, so people really seemed to genuinely like it. ) Barbie opens in Barbieland, where Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) is going about her perfect day with her fellow Barbies. Every night is girl's night in Barbieland. Barbies hold all the prestigious jobs, such as President Barbie (Issa Rae), Doctor Barbie (Hari Nef), Lawyer Barbie (Sharon Rooney), Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp), Journalist Barbie (Ritu Arya), and Diplomat Barbie...

Author's Note: These were going up over on Minds, but after two days of fighting with their stupid Captcha verification to get this to go up, I'm done. So, I'm moving them back to the regular blog. I think they're probably going to be an 'every other week' thing and I'll try and move topics around a bit so I'm not all in politics or one particular topic so people don't click away. Hopefully, you get some enjoyment out of reading these... Out there in the world of college football's commentariat, there are prophets of doom that say a Super League is coming. Television executives will dismember the traditional conferences still further and break away with the top thirty 'brands' and make them into their own league, leaving the rest of college football adrift in the wilderness, bereft of the ludicrous paydays and lucrative money that a Super League would presumably bring. I have been skeptical of the concept. I've never been able to see...

This book had been sitting on my shelf for years now (I think The Quiet Man might have gifted it to me, but I'm not 100% sure on that, which is how I know it's been sitting there for years) and honestly, this area of history just isn't my bag, baby. World War II doesn't trip my trigger the way it does for some people and I went into this book thinking it was going to be rehashing events that I had a basic outline/knowledge about in the first place and I didn't know what I was going to get out of it.  I couldn't have been more wrong. Every time travel movie ever made inevitable poses the question of: "Could we travel back in time and kill Hitler?" Most people, being decent enough people, would say 'sure' to that notion- hell, Doctor Who even has an episode called "Let's Kill Hitler" but I hate to rain on the science fiction wishes and dreams of many people: killing Hitler wouldn't have helped. Things had been cooking for a whi...