My Top 10 Tumblr Posts 2023

My #1 post this year, about the end of Ted Lasso, got 401 notes.

This was my #2 post.

The answer is, Jonathan Crane did earn his degrees at a young age, but he wasn't an M.D. He didn't go to pre-med, medical school, and a psychiatric residency. He was a Ph.D. That's still a lot of years of school, but fewer than the psychiatry track.

My next-most-popular post was about Hanukkah.

Then there were 2 posts stolen from Facebook, followed by a photo I snapped of my neighbor's Barbie-themed Halloween decorations.

My chosen Richard Scarry car is pickle, by the way.

I feel very strongly about the human right to bodily autonomy.

And I also think about Bob Dylan a lot.

Sometimes I read graphic novels.

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My 10th post popular post was: 

...a comparison between this M*A*S*H text post meme and Audra McDonald, Anne Hathaway, and Raul Esparza starring in a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night that ran from June-July 2009 in Central Park, part of New York City’s annual Shakespeare in the Park tradition.

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The Books I Read in 2021

 

Of these, the best was The Whale: A Love Story by Mark Beauregard. It's the fictionalized story of the forbidden love between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's so good and so sad. The Hawthorne character is exactly how I always imagined Nathaniel Hawthorne would be. Herman Melville is, surprisingly, extremely relatable. 

I haven't read Moby Dick, and honestly I probably never will because I asked my dad what it was like and he said, "Boring." We both like the Last of the Mohicans novels, so if he thinks it's more boring than James Fenimore Cooper's six pages of descriptions of trees, it's probably pretty boring, even if it is an extended Symbolist metaphor for love. 

Just know, as a bit of background information, that classic American literature lives rent-free in my mind at all times. 

There are a lot of really good ones in this middle photo, but I think my absolute favorite was State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. My copy belonged to my grandma, who loved Ann Patchett, especially Bel Canto. State of Wonder knocked me for several loops and, although it may seem counterintuitive to read about diseases in the midst of a pandemic, actually a good read for the COVID-19 outbreak. I highly recommend it. 

Carmen Maria Machado's graphic novel The Low, Low Woods is excellent, and of course reading Alex Trebek's memoir was a bittersweet pleasure. I think my favorite of these was the first one I read, Ayiti, a short writing collection by Roxane Gay. Everything Gay writes is phenomenal. And I'm not even that upset that she and her wife moved (moved back, in Gay's case) to Omaha and don't live in West Lafayette, Indiana anymore (where I always hoped I would accidentally run into them. Oh well, Indianapolis still has John Green). 

What was your favorite book that you read in 2021?

'Beautiful Creatures' by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl Book Review

Beautiful Creatures? Beautiful writing.

This is a lovely book - one could almost say spellbinding - a combination of young adult paranormal fiction and Southern Gothic.I saw the movie in June 2013, but since my morning commute now allows me to listen to audiobooks, I checked this one out from my local library.

Some thoughts.

- Sixteen-year-old boys, please be more like Ethan Wate. Play basketball and keep books under your bed. Return to your favorite classics again and again for the comfort of familiarity. Care what your friends think, but not all that much. Get your girlfriend a birthday present when she says she doesn't want one.

- Marian Ashcroft and Lilah Evers Wate, please be real. I would love to read their history books - and to explore the secret underground Caster library.

I like the name Lilah Evers, and it is somewhat similar to the name of Harry Potter's deceased mother, Lily Evans. I wonder if that was an intentional homage.

- Ethan isn't an orphan, though. His father, Mitchell, is alive, and he's clinically depressed. Ethan - realistically for a 16-year-old narrator - refers to him as "crazy." However, as adults we know that people with depression don't deserve to be stereotyped or stigmatized because of their illness, and we should try to back away from using the c-word. People who have serious mental illnesses have enough to deal with without the burden of dismissive labels.

- It's also realistic that Ethan would be somewhat dismissive of Charlotte, because like all teenagers he's been encultured to think that "pretty" means "skinny." The Charlottes of the world should know there is nothing wrong with being fat, though. People - fat, skinny, and in between - don't need to be shamed because of our body types.

Charlotte makes some unsavory choices because she's trying to fit in with the popular girls; Emily is just a bitch. I can't believe my sweet, sassy Dhampir - Zoey Deutsch, a.k.a. Rose Hathaway - played that awful Emily in the movie.

- I don't remember Uncle Macon being an incubus in the movie? But fortunately he's not the sexual kind, like the incubi of traditional mythology. In fact, he seems to be repulsed by the whole idea of sex. Is Macon Ravenwood an asexual character? Asexual people need positive media representation too - although I do think incubi are technically demons, so I don't know how "positive" this portrayal actually is.

I myself do not identify as asexual, but I understand that asexuality is a normal variation under the human sexuality umbrella.

- Was Boo Radley in the movie?

Also, kudos to Garcia and Stohl for the tons of literary references they worked in. Perhaps they are the real-life Lilah and Marian - except, y'know, neither one of them is a ghost.

- The next time I go to the movies, I would like to try mixing Milk Duds with my hot popcorn, a la Lena. (Unlike Lena, though, I like "butter.")

- The ending of the book is very different from the ending of the movie. Lena doesn't leave Ethan. Instead there's a vague but ominous warning that all Lena has really done is put off her Claiming until her 17th birthday, buying Lena and Ethan an additional year together.

- I typically read one YA series a year. In 2012 it was Hunger Games, in 2013 it was Divergent, and this year it's been Vampire Academy. I think I would like to read Beautiful Darkness (the second book in the series) and its subsequent volumes in 2015.

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