Why haven't you visited Night Vale yet?

I don't think enough of you have listened to my recommendations to listen to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast. I could just assume that you've seen my recommendation and decided "Thanks, but no thanks. This isn't for me." I could assume that, but instead I'm choosing to assume that my other mentions were too subtle, or just obscured by puppy pictures. So now I'm going to bash you over the head with a recommendation to check out Night Vale.

I first heard about this show on PBS Idea Channel (another thing I'm going to keep bugging you guys about) in their show "How does Night Vale confront us with the unknown?" The show describes Night Vale as "borrowing Lovecraft's (as in H.P.) spirit" but with "paralytic terror replaced with drab mundanity", taking "unspeakable abomination and turning it into unremarkable absurdity," and HOW HAVE YOU NOT STARTED LISTENING TO THIS YET?

I listen to it sometimes on my commute if I'm not feeling my book/reading in general and I constantly find I'm giggling to myself, which is fun cos sometimes that means people will slowly edge away and I get a bit more space.

Need more reason? How about 10 of my favorite quotes from the episodes I've listened to so far:

1. "There appear to be catastrophic earthquakes happening right here in Night Vale that absolutely no one can feel. Well, submit an insurance claim, anyway. See what you can get, right?"

2. "Wednesday has been cancelled due to a scheduling error."

3. "Hello, radio audience. I come to you live from under my desk, where I have dragged my microphone and am currently in the fetal position."

4. "Saturday, the public library will be unknowable. Citizens will forget the existence of the library from 6am Saturday morning until 11pm that night. The library will be under a sort of renovation. It is not important what kind of renovation."

5. "This just came across the wire! The secret police have issued a new statement shedding more light on last night’s PTA meeting incident. The noisy portal and subsequent dinosaur attack that brutally interrupted discussion of swing set repairs on the elementary school playground stayed open long after recreation center employees thought they had rounded up all of the ancestral avian beasts— and, authorities warn, there is still at least one more pteranodon on the loose.
Citizens should cover themselves with a low-SPF sunscreen and hide in a tiled bathroom."

6. "In light of the ever declining sales of newspapers and the rise of competition from digital media The Night Vale Daily Journal announced that it has developed a new business model. Publishing Editor, Leanne Hart, speaking to television and internet reporters outside the burned down shell of the The Journal’s distribution plant, said their new mission, as a newspaper, is to kill news bloggers with hatchets.
In this bold new initiative, a game changing strategy by one of the industry’s stalwarts, The Daily Journal plans to just go to bloggers homes and places of employment, with hatchets, and then chop them up, the bloggers. Until they, the bloggers, are dead."

7. "Exciting news about the abandoned mine shaft outside of town, where people who vote incorrectly are taken by the secret police: HBO On-Demand will be made available to prisoners during their indefinite detention!"

8. "I’m still not completely sold on there being more than one mountain. It’s possible that the mountain apologists built a single mountain in order to prove their skewed world view."

9. "The Night Vale medical board has issued a new study indicating that you have a spider somewhere on your body at all times, but especially now. The study said the further research would be needed to determine exactly where on your body the spider is and what its intentions are. Only that it is definitely there and is statistically likely to be one of the really ugly ones."

10. And of course, Night Vale City Council's motto, "If you see something, say nothing, and drink to forget."

So. Yeah. Bet you feel pretty silly you haven't already listened to this. You should probably get on that.

Oh and um, how to make this book related? Well, there's the whole Lovecraft thing. And the show is put together by Commonplace Books. There you go.

Top 10 Characters I'd Never Want to Trade Places With

I haven't done the Broke and the Bookish's Tuesday Top Ten in awhile but I liked this week's prompt and also I don't have a book review ready. I also don't have a book read to review so yeah, it's going to be some time before I get to that point. In the meantime, here are the top ten characters I would never want to change places with.

1. Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: Because OBVIOUSLY. I'm pretty sure this won't be an original selection but also, do not want to play the Hunger Games kthxbai.

2. Dana Franklin from Kindred by Octavia Butler: Dana is a black woman that gets sent back to antebellum Maryland and could things be shittier than that? Not really. In this case I would need to become Dana, or at least a black lady, for the terribleness to be at max levels.

3. Eddie Russett from Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde: Anytime you're dealing with a dystopia you know it's not somewhere you want to be. This is a place I might be able to handle but all the Leapbacks, the strict social structure, the attack swans. No thank you.

4. Anyone from 1984 by George Orwell: Actually, I guess being Big Brother wouldn't be so bad, but anyone else NO THANK YOU. I haven't read this book since high school (which means I'm probably due for a re-read) but that book scarred me.

5. Offred from The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: Another one that's probably on a lot of lists but yeah, dystopian (again) world where women have no rights. At all.

6. Jack's Ma from Room by Emma Donoghue: Woman kidnapped and raped for YEARS while trying to make a normal world for her son. Yeah, no.

7. Anyone in the Lamberts family from The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen: Not a dystopia, but I think I'd rather take my chances in the Hunger Games. I don't even want to be a distant cousin of these guys.

8. Anyone in Dreamcatcher by Stephen King: Fart aliens. Do you need more? Sure there are lots of terrifying King worlds, but this one is scary and horrible.

9. Kathy H. from Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: It's hard to talk about this one without spoilers so I'm just going to say...reasons.

10. Piggy from Lord of the Flies by William Golding: This book. This book about how terrible little English boys are, apparently. I don't like camping in good, non-murdery conditions.  So this would just be a double whammy.

Wedding Update: Big decisions DONE!

I always forget how much time has passed since my last wedding update. Of course I also forget how much time has passed on this engagement (over a year) so I'm bad at keeping track of dates and time in general. I did mention in a comment to Emily that I had a wedding post coming up. And then I forgot to write one. I'm going to blame Tumblr since I have been spending way too much time on there this past week. But I'm sitting around procrastinating on some chores while watching that TLC show Four Weddings* and realized I should probably write that update.

ANYWAY, I think I now have all of the big wedding decisions done, which is pretty exciting. Update on the last post where I went over shit we had figured out.

Venue: Still figured out! I want to go see it again cos apparently they've done a lot of renovations to the room we're in. Everyone we've talked to says the changes are awesome and it still pretty much looks the same, only better. The venue includes food AND the wedding cake AND the ceremony space so BAM! So much finished right here.

Wedding dress: Also still figured out, and should be coming in soon. Which will be cool cos it's been over a year since I saw the thing. Apparently these things take 9 months to make if you order it. But if you're not getting married for like a year and a half from the time you order it they figure they have some time to make it. And they're right. It's way better that they take their time with it rather than putting it into my hands where there's a good chance something will go wrong. I even have the shoes already and I've been sporadically wearing them around the house to break them in.

Bridesmaids dresses: Done! And everyone ordered them. And one of the girls even got theirs already so that's fun.

Photographer: Done! Found a company we really really liked. They did a great job showing us their whole set up (they do all of the work in house) and I loved what they do. Fun story from one of the photographers we didn't go with.
The photographer showed us an album of their work. As we're flipping through the album we notice one of the big pictures where both the groom and a groomsman both had their eyes closed. When Boyfriend+ pointed this out the answer was "Well, we let you pick whatever photo you want, even if someone has their eyes closed." His response: "Yes, that's great. But you don't have to show ME this picture when trying to sell me on your service." A week or so later they called me to follow up. Now, I didn't have the number saved to my phone so when I saw this number come up I didn't recognize it. Apparently they weren't sure who they were calling since they responded to my "Hello?" with a "Hi, who am I speaking to?" I think I actually made a scoffing noise and said "Well, you called me. So who are you?" At which point Boyfriend+ started laughing, they sounded taken aback, and once they announced themselves I felt even better about going with someone else. I won't name names cos that'd be mean but yeah.

DJ: Done! This was a pretty hard choice cos we really liked everyone we talked to but I'm happy with who we decided to go with. Now I need to work on the list of "Must Play" and "Must Avoid" songs. We already figured out the first dance song but I guess I'm supposed to figure out a Father/Daughter dance (assuming my dad wants to do that). Maybe I should farm that out to him...

Florist: Done! My mom came out last weekend and we went to see three florists in one day. After the first place she was ready to sign on but I need to know I'm making the right choice. I was. We ended up going with the first place, which does the flowers for our venue anyway. The venue comes with ceremony flowers (win!) which this place provides. Normally you sort of take what they give you, but now that we signed with them for all the other stuff they said they'd work with us a bit more on the ceremony flowers.

Invitations: Ordered AND delivered. Which was insanely fast. I think it was 2 days. I assumed this would be weeks but yeah, that was pretty sweet. Plus it means if we need to order more (man, I hope not) then at least I know it's a quick turn around.

Honeymoon: Booked! And I (finally) send my passport out for renewal. Getting that photograph taken is a real hassle. Hopefully there won't be any problems. But really, I got all of the measurements and despite what guy at CVS said, I'm pretty sure I can do just as good of a job as he can. It's not like he's an expert passport-photo-taker. The second problem is my inability to go to the post office even when I walk by it several times a week. But ugh, I really need to psych myself up anytime I need to go there.

I think now we just have the details to figure out. Wedding favors have been decided, I just need to poke some people to make things happen. I'm still deciding if I want to do literary couples or fav books as the table names. I'm thinking literary couples and I sort of don't care if people at the wedding don't already know who Eleanor and Park are. THEY CAN LEARN. Boyfriend+ still needs to pick out a suit. We need to get the wedding bands. Oh, and we still need an officiant. You know, details.

But I think we're in a pretty good place with everything. And things haven't actually been that stressful which is amazing. Hopefully it stays that way right up to the wedding day.

*Apparently my mom saw some casting call asking for brides in my area getting married when I am if they want to be on the show. And I laughed and laughed and laughed cos oh GOD no. No. I don't need strangers, both in person and on TV, judging my wedding. Besides I'd probably be there as the clueless bride who is like "Our theme is...umm...well I liked this thing so yeah, I went with that. That's a theme right?" If your curious our theme is "wedding," and I think we are NAILING IT. Also the prize is a honeymoon, which is awesome cos I heart free vacations but we already have our honeymoon booked so yeah. This was a long ramble to say you won't be seeing me on TV.

You guys want to go see a dead body?

My reading slump from December is continuing into January. Well, not so much slump as slog? I'm reading, just slower than normal. No reason. I'm enjoying the books I'm reading, so it's not like I struggling through these books. I'm just easily distracted and there's a lot of Sherlock to watch (and then re-watch).

The minithon helped me a bit with the reading (and a lot with the eating-mini-things and coming-up-with-mini-justifications) and after finishing up with Bryson's In A Sunburned Country I picked up Different Seasons by Stephen King. Laura got it for me for Christmas and since it's a collection of King novellas, it counted as mini. I mean, sort of mini. By King standards. By other author standards it's a bunch of novels. Figure the book is over 600 pages and there's only 4 stories in here. Not long novels, but still, you could call them novels and people wouldn't call you a liar.

You probably already know 3 of the stories. They've been made into movies, and that's not to say you only know them cos of their movie-ness, but you know...if you know them, it's likely because MOVIES. I've seen 2 out of the 3 movies, and know of the third, so I'll just assume you're all in the same boat as me.

Right, maybe I should get to the stories. And since this is 4 short novels, I'll give you a brief review of each.

So the first one is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which was my favorite. The other stories are good but I almost wish this was the last story because it's hard for the other ones to compete. If you don't already know the story, how'd you manage that? Because I'm pretty sure that movie is playing on TV on some channel right now. Andy Dufresne is in Shawshank prison for the murder of his wife and her lover. Long-timer Red tells the story of Andy, who seems to confound the prisoners and guards alike. He has a confidence about him, even in these dark circumstances. There are no surprises going from the movie to the book. What you see on film is essentially what you get in the story, so good job, filmmakers. This isn't a horror story. There's nothing supernatural here, although there is some violence. I highly recommend this one. Probably one of King's bests.

I know I said that I wish this story came at the end because the other stories had a hell of an act to follow. But the other novellas did a good job. I mean, I still like Shawshank best, but the others are excellent in their own right.

The second story is Apt Pupil which is the second movie I saw and I can't even remember why I saw it. But I'm pretty sure I not only saw it but went out of my way to to rent it. Possibly on VHS. Unlike Shawshank and the other stories in this collection, this is the closest to a horror story in this collection. Again, there's nothing supernatural here but it's scary. Scary and disturbing and gave me stress headaches. Which I guess is sort of a good thing cos this is a story about Nazis so I think being deeply disturbed is the correct response. Thirteen year old Todd Bowden discovers there's a fugitive Nazi living in his neighborhood and decides to blackmail the guy into telling him everything he can about the concentration camps and the general shittery that was the Nazis. The Nazi Arthur Denker/Kurt Dussander at first doesn't want to reminisce but eventually something awakens in him. It's a messed up story that gets more and more violent and more and more hopeless. It was very well written, but not one I think I'll be re-reading anytime soon. Which is vaguely how I remember the movie so while I'm pretty sure the movie changed a lot, it did at least keep that spirit.

The third story is The Body, which was made into the film Stand By Me, which is the movie I haven't seen. Which is silly because I hear excellent things about it and I should probably fix that. ANYWAY, this is another story you probably already know the plot of, but I'll share anyway. Four twelve-year-olds find out there's a dead body and decide to go see it. OK, well that's the basic plot and what puts the story in motion. The story is a coming of age story about these four boys, Gordie (who is narrating the story as an adult), Chris, Vern, and Teddy. None of them are coming from great home lives. Gordie's parents have never really paid attention to him and the death of his older brother made things worse. Chris comes from a family of criminals and is branded a delinquent by the town. Teddy idolizes his father who has severe PTSD after coming home from Vietnam and caused permanent damage to the boy before being taken away. Everyone, including his family, picks on Vern (with possible beatings, but I kept mixing up Chris and Vern so it could be possible Vern didn't get beaten at home. Or they both did. I could try to skim through and see if I can find evidence one way or another but laaaaazy). The boys go on a journey to find this dead body, face down bullies, learn about themselves, all the things you expect from a coming of age story. Again, not a horror story but not exactly a happy story either. Very well done though.

The final story is movie-less. For now. And probably forever since I don't know if it would work on the screen. It's sort of a quiet story about a club where people tell stories. There's sort of something magical about this club, which on the surface seems like a stuffy, wood-paneled, old man's club. No one really explains what's going on, but there seem to be lots of books to read by authors that can't be found anywhere else, published by companies that don't seem to exist outside this home. And people tell stories. Sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're sad, sometimes they're scary. We hear little bits of a few of the stories but the main one we focus on is the Christmas story "The Breathing Method". Now, this isn't a story about Christmas, but the Thursday before Christmas is when people tell the most...off-putting tale. I won't go into it but to let you know that I really liked this story. The whole story (frame & main) have the same feeling and in the end nothing is really explained, which works for it.

Overall good times. If you want to try out King, I recommend his short works. And if you want something a bit longer than his short stories but aren't quite ready to commit to one of his full novels (which, I mean, can drag on) this is a great place to try. Really, if nothing else, try to find Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.

Title quote from page 393

King, Stephen. Different Seasons. Hoddor, 1982.

New fangled reading

I think I need to start recording the random things I overhear when I'm on the train. Or I guess random things I overhear anywhere, but the train is where the crazy really shines.

If you follow me on Twitter you probably see me tweeting snippets of conversations happening around me. At least when the conversation makes me go "WTF is going on." I was on NJ Transit (lest you think all the crazy happens on the subway or LIRR) when the person behind me started a phone call that included a conspiracy between Hollywood and Wall St to control what museum galleries are allowed to show and that terrorist are going to try to take down the new WTC building because it's ugly. (Terrorists HATE ugly things. All about beauty, those guys.) One of the things she said that I felt needed to be shared was this:

Unfortunately she didn't elaborate on what these "new fangled reading styles" are. Not exactly. She started ranting about text message language and how if you're going to go on the internet you need to learn a whole new language. She just didn't address how this new language changed the whole "read a page, turn page, read next page" thing. I imagine she thinks people are now learning to read a sentence, skip ahead 30 pages, read a third of a paragraph, back to that first page to read only the LAST sentence, etc. You know, those new fangled styles. 

This clearly isn't a real post. This is more a "I really want to write some post but I'm not done with Different Seasons yet and I don't like the Tuesday Top Ten prompt so I'll just ramble about something else." This also gives you the opportunity to see what you're missing if you don't follow me on Twitter.

I also started a Tumblr because I give into peer pressure, even if it's really weak peer pressure. And really more pressure that people are having fun somewhere without me and I don't want to be left out. I wouldn't recommend following me on Tumblr because at the moment all I'm doing is reblogging random gif sets about Sherlock, Parks & Rec, and Pushing Daisies. Eventually I might figure out what I'm doing over there. Maybe.

That is the thing about Australia, of course - that it is packed with unappreciated wonders

I went through a bit of a reading slump at the end of December/beginning of January. I'm not sure what it was. Probably the holidays coupled with the fact that I wasn't working (or at least I wasn't riding the train) just meant that instead of doing any reading I mostly watched stupid TV. (Also Sherlock. Lots of Sherlock.) So I picked up Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country to help get me out of the slump because 1) Bryson is great and his books are always a fun read 2) it was cold out and I wanted to read about somewhere warm 3) I had recently met up with Kayleigh and she's from Australia so hey, seems like a good choice.

Sunburned Country (or Down Under which is the British title) is about Bryson traveling around Australia, both the cities and the outback. There are a few topics he touches on again and again:

Australia is full of things, animals and environment, that are actively trying to kill you. At all times.
Australia is BIG.
Australia is far away and most of the rest of the world seems to forget it's there. Which is stupid of the rest of the world.

Bryson describes Australia as a fusion of American and British culture.
[Australia] had a casualness and vivacity - a lack of reserve, comfortableness with strangers - that felt distinctly American, but hung on a British framework. In their optimism and informality, Australians could pass for a glance as Americans, but they drove on the left, drank tea, played cricket, adorned their public places with statues of Queen Victoria, dressed their children in the sort of school uniform that only a Britannic people could wear without conspicuous regret.

Overall Bryson loves Australia. Even when he was almost murdered by some dogs in Canberra (or not since you never actually SEE the dogs) he still likes the place. He has nothing but nice things to say about the people, the cities, the deserts, sometimes even the animals. Well maybe not the ones that want him dead, but some of the others. He gets drunk at strange bars in the middle of no where on his way to see the outback, the part of Australia many Australians never even get to visit. He listens to a lot of cricket on the radio. And of course there are lots of historical anecdotes about people who have died horribly trying to cross the huge country. Really everything you'd expect from a Bryson book.

Oh and I feel I should point out that Bryson acknowledges that the (American) title of his book is taken from a poem, except it's changed from "sunburnt" to "sunburned". As he says, it should be called In a Sunburnt Country. But it isn't.

I can't say this is my favorite Bryson BUT this did make me want to visit Australia. Dammit, why are you so far away from me? Really though, you can't go wrong with Bryson. Now I just need to get my hands on his new book.

Title quote from page 288

Bryson, Bill. In a Sunburned Country. Broadway Books, 2001.