Almanac for May 18th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for May 18th: https://ko-fi.com/post/May-18-Go-Tell-It-On-the-Mountain-C0C01FR4CC

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Bertrand Russell

Bummer May 18th

May 18, 1927: Local school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe rigs explosives inside the Bath Township, Michigan elementary school to explode. He murders his wife and sets his house and barn on fire. Kehoe also fills his automobile with nails and explosives, detonating it and killing himself and sending shrapnel flying. The local mail carrier loses a leg when the vehicle explodes and later dies from his injuries. 

As a result of the school explosion and detonation of the vehicle, 38 children and a total of five adult victims are killed. The exact reason for Kehoe’s rampage is unknown, but he may have been upset about losing a local election and his wife’s increasingly poor health.

May 18, 1980: Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington State, erupts. An estimated 57 people die as a direct result of the volcano, and over one billion dollars’ worth of property is destroyed.

May 18, 1996: 29-year-old musician Kevin Gilbert is found dead of apparent autoerotic asphyxiation at his home in California.

May 18, 2017: Musician Chris Cornell, age 52, dies of suicide by hanging.

Now let's move onto something significantly more life-affirming: My all-time (2017-2026) most-played songs on Spotify, Part II.

"Love Is Blindness" by Jack White is the only cover of a U2 song that I actually like better than a U2 song.

"Gettin' It" features into the plot of the tv series Blindspotting, an amazing musical love story starring the uber-talented Jasmine Cephas Jones of Hamilton (the musical) fame. Her character's beloved is played by Rafael Casal and he is also great in this. He's basically playing the most ride-or-die husband in modern musical history.

Cillian Murphy has his own tag HERE.

"Ava Gardner" has its own post HERE.

I like the soundtrack to Disney's The Greatest Showman a normal amount. Don't worry about it. It's probably fine.

"Soul Kitchen" by the Doors is playing in the Umbrella Academy episode where Klaus meets Dave, the closest thing he has to a love of his life. It's beautiful and tragic and I was more than a little obsessed.

I should watch the Bruce Springsteen movie starring the gorgeous Jeremy Allen White of The Bear fame. (The Bear also had Jon Bernthal, who is about to return to playing The Punisher on Disney+. Right after the latest season of Daredevil: Born Again showed us Jessica Jones and Luke Cage as a couple, with their daughter, future Captain America Danielle Cage. I hyperventilated. JonesCage was all I ever wanted out of Marvel's The Defenders. Well, that and for [spoilers] Electra to still be alive, but we can't have everything, can we?)

(P.S. Jon Bernthal is also starring on Broadway in the theatre version of the classic Al Pacino movie Dog Day Afternoon. And while I have mixed feelings about Jews and Italians being used interchangeably in media - don't get me started again - that's pretty fuckin' awesome. I love that guy. I just love him, period.)

I'm done listening to Nicki Minaj now that she's joined Team Maga (a.k.a. the American fascists who want to reinstate white supremacy) and how we just all know instinctively that if she was in that juke joint in Ryan Coogler's Sinners, she would have let those vampires in and fixed them a Myx Moscato to boot.

Doechii is a better rapper, anyway.

I like Murray Head a normal amount. Don't worry about it.

"My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors" has its own page HERE.

"Buttons" is a very catchy pop song, and also I hear it in the voices of Bob Belcher and Jimmy Pesto (senior). And this makes me laugh.

"The Future" from Batman (1989) isn't actually my 121st most-listened song, it's in fact the first song I ever listened to on Spotify on March 31, 2017. I wonder what I was thinking that day. It's true that as a 12-year-old in 1989, I was hella excited about Batman, and I saw it in the theater twice, once regular movie theater and once drive-in. Maybe I was leaning into 1980s nostalgia, as I sometimes do, with or without Murry Head. Maybe I was fantasizing about Christian Bale's Batman, as I sometimes do, with or without Cillian Murphy.

Anyway, those are my songs. 

My Tumblr Year in Review 2022

 

My Top Tumblr Tags 2022

1. #books - 1,076 posts
2. #the simpsons - 602 posts
3. #cats - 382 posts
4. #reading - 321 posts
5. #art - 276 posts
6. #poetry - 263 posts
7. #artists on tumblr - 260 posts
8. #style - 225 posts
9. #mcu - 218 posts
10. #shakespeare - 217 posts

My 2021 on Tumblr in Review

https://thatwritererinoriordan.tumblr.com/post/670489221310644224/i-posted-20079-times-in-2021

December 2021 Currentlies

Currently Watching: I'm currently watching the new Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) kid on the block ("the block" in this case being Disney+): Hawkeye, starring Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton and Hailee Steinfeld as the younger Hawkeye, Kate Bishop. 

Hailee Steinfeld also stars in another current fave series, this one on Apple+, which I just got this year: Dickinson. The series is loosely based on the life of Emily Dickinson, but it uses the Civil War-era setting to comment cleverly on current events. Plots frequently revolve around the love triangle between Emily, her brother Austin, and their mutual paramour Sue. Guest stars include comedian John Mulaney as Henry David Thoreau and Billy Eichner (voice of librarian Mr. Ambrose on Bob's Burgers) as a wonderful, openly queer Walt Whitman. My favorite guest star, though, is musician Wiz Khalifa as the personification of Death, who frequently stops his phantom coach for Emily. 

Of course, as a teen, Steinfeld famously played Juliet opposite Douglas Booth's Romeo. She also has a fantastic singing voice and my little pop-loving heart appreciates her as a recording artist. 

I hope Hailee is having a happy Hanukkah 5782.

Here are some of Emily Dickinson's recipes, via LitHub, by the way. 

Currently Reading: Continuing with the American literature theme, I'm finally reading Mark Beauregard's The Whale: A Love Story, a fictionalized account of the relationship between Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's so good. Hawthorne's characterization is exactly the way I always imagined Nathaniel Hawthorne to be. 

I'm also midway through Rainbow Rowell's Attachments. No, I have not read the third Snowbaz book yet. I hope to get to it...someday. 

Further, I'm reading this book I picked up at the Book Warehouse at the outlet mall my husband and I recently visited:

It's not great. I was really hoping for a more folkloric book about contemporary urban legends, but what it really is is a lot of eyewitness accounts of alleged sightings of abnormally large dogs with Anubis-like ears but surprisingly humanoid faces. This seems to be a common misperception or hallucination that apparently a lot of Americans have had, but I wanted more theory and fewer examples. 

Readers of this blog will recall that I don't literally believe in the supernatural, but I did, in real life, have a misperception experience that took the form, in my mind,  of a weird black dog. It was over by the Center for the Homeless (where I used to volunteer) in South Bend, Indiana. I looked down the street and saw what appeared to be a black dog moving very quickly away from me in a very unnatural way. It looked like a dog on a skateboard, only I didn't see a skateboard; it looked like it was floating rapidly down the road. What it probably was was a black garbage bag being blown down the street by the wind. But for the record, I did momentarily have a weird canine experience once. 

Currently Listening: These were the podcasts I mentioned in October 2020: 

- Omnibus with Ken Jennings and John Roderick

- FireStarters Podcast

- None of This Is Real

- Terrible Book Club

- Book Vs Movie Podcast

- You're Wrong About

Here are some of my other top podcasts:

- Big Gay Fiction Podcast. This episode is an interview with Sara Dobie Bauer; I know her from Tumblr.

   

- The History of Literature

- ArtCurious

- Black History Year

- Useless Information

 I (still) listen to all of my podcasts on Spotify Free, but many of these are available across numerous platforms. Curious about what music I listen to on Spotify? Here's a snapshot of my 2021 Spotify Wrapped:

Yeah, it's mostly Lady Gaga. So sue me.

The ultimate favorite is There Might Be Cupcakes by author Carla Pettigrew Hufstedler. I get stupidly excited every time Carla has something new to say. She introduced me to the tradition of Victorian Christmas horror stories, and I'm looking forward to another spooky Victorian episode this month. 

What are your currentlies? What are you making, reading, watching, and listening to? Everyone is welcome to comment. 

Fic Rec: "Twice"

Friends, Sokovians, countrypersons, lend me your reading eyeballs: I found an extremely sexy fic on Tumblr featuring my problematic fave Baron Helmut Zemo as not-a-villain. No murdered kings of Wakanda here, only a university setting in which the brown-eyed boy is a heavily-accented polylingual history professor. 

Daniel Brühl portrait by Oliver Mark, Berlin 2015

Unburdened with the sadness of losing a wife and child, all he has is an ex-fiancee who didn't work out. (She's fine; she ended up marrying a Zemo cousin and presumably they're happy together.) 

The stakes and angst level are low. There's an age gap - she's 20, he's 39 - but they're both enthusiastically consenting adults. It's the same age gap that Jo and Friedrich have in Little Women, honestly. (I refer to the book, not the 2019 film in which director Greta Gerwig cast French hottie Louis Garrel as the Professor.) 

These links link to mostly text, perhaps with a few safe-for-work images. The text is explicit, rated M for mature, and most definitely not safe for work. 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The author's social media name is J.D. ~ J.D., I salute you. If this were posted on An Archive of Our Own, I would definitely leave a nice comment and some kudos. 

Daniel, Sant Jordi, 23 April 2013 by Tasnim Aslam. The feast day of Sant Jordi - Saint George - is the Catalonian equivalent of Valentine's Day, but instead of cards and candy, Catalonians give books and roses. (Red roses symbolize dragon's blood.) It's a custom we definitely should import to the U.S.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Baron Zemo: Problematic Hot Villain

 Enjoy Nostalgic Last Dance Toni Kukoc Zine, Spring 2021 (Issue #4), is out now!

Digital Issue #4 - only $1

Print Zine

Issues 1-4 package - all 4 issues for the price of 3

Since you, dear reader, know that I'm a huge Marvel nerd, you may not be surprised to read that I've been watching WandaVision and, more recently, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. 

One character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) who reappears in TFATWS is Baron Helmut Zemo. You may remember him from The Avengers: Civil War, in which he killed T'Chaka, king of Wakanda and father of its current king, T'Challa. He pinned the bombing murder on the Winter Soldier in hopes of tearing the Avengers apart from within. 

I don't forgive Zemo for killing King T'Chaka. I do understand that part of his motivation for doing so was that the Avengers unleashed Ultron on the world. Ultron not only killed Wanda Maximoff's twin Pietro but also killed Helmut's father, wife, and son Carl. The Zemos, like the Maximoffs, are from the fictional country of Sokovia. 

Baron Helmut Zemo is a complicated bad guy, less sympathetic than Black Panther's Erik Killmonger, but still with some sad widower Frank Castle vibes. 

Zemo is played by Daniel Brühl, a Catalonian actor born in Barcelona to a Spanish mom and a German dad. Only yesterday I remembered that I'd seen him speaking German (one of his several native languages) in a movie once before: Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (sic). I even wrote an unsolicited-by-anyone article about it, "Brad Pitt Is Not the Hottest Guy in Quentin Tarantino's Latest," written in 2010. It also singles out Michael Fassbender (before I knew he was an accused domestic violence offender - canceled) and Eli Roth. 

Brühl's character in Inglourious Basterds is a Nazi. Tarantino, for all his flaws (accused of sexual harassment on several occasions and poor on-set treatment of his muse/ex-girlfriend Uma Thurman, whom I adore), at least clearly hates Nazis. Brühl's character, on the other hand, is cute but not sympathetic, giving off strong "Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List" vibes. As I say far too often in these Nazi-infested modern times, where is the Bear Jew when I need him?

Zemo on TFATWS is more sympathetic, although I'm torn. Like Billy Russo/Jigsaw on The Punisher, he's a bit queer-coded. Billy Russo, a character who was known to have been sexually abused by a male predator as a young teen, embodied that problematic trope that queer people are queer because of their sexual trauma. Not only is this not supported by clinical evidence, but it also reinforces the mistaken notion that heterosexuality is the default for human sexuality and everything else is some kind of mutation or deviation from the norm. 

It's my opinion that Billy Russo is queer-coded even though his two sexual relationships in the series are with women. He appears to be flirting with every other character he encounters, including Frank Castle. Your mileage may vary.

On the other hand, it's harder to argue that Daniel Brühl isn't playing Helmut Zemo as bisexual, especially after Episode 5. Zemo appears to be sexually attracted to Bucky Barnes (the Winter Soldier), lovingly caressing his face at one point. 

Bisexual-coding your villains skirts dangerously close to the Depraved Bisexual trope, the notion that people without a clear gender preference are, in the words of TVTropes.org, "cold-blooded sociopaths." As a person without a clear gender preference and a non-sociopath, I take personal offence. Representation matters, and although I always want to see more bisexual and pansexual characters in the media, I want to see positive representation as well as regicidal criminals. 

Daniel Brühl is totally adorable, though. Add him to my Fictional Harem, along with basically everyone else from the MCU. 

I have an opening in my Fictional Harem, by the way. I had to kick Jim Caviezel out for being, unfortunately, an advocate of the impossible, nonsensical, illogical right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory. I'm fascinated with conspiracy theories as a species of contemporary folklore, but I cannot abide folk who take part in counterfactual disinformation campaigns that borrow tropes from anti-Semitism. As a person with an Irish-American dad and a Polish-Jewish-American mom, I won't allow my human rights as a Jewish person to be eroded in the service of white supremacist fears. 

See you at the TFATWS season finale on Friday. 

(Edited slightly for clarity on May 7, 2021.)

SnowBaz Carries On: 'Wayward Son' by Rainbow Rowell

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hello, I'm experimenting with using a standardized set of questions in creating my most recent batch of book reviews. Feel free to tell me in the comments what you think of this format.

Have I read anything else from this author? Many things: Landline, Pumpkinheads, Fangirl, of course Carry On, Eleanor and Park, and some (but not all) of her Marvel's Runaways comic books.

Was this book better than this author's other book(s)? I had more fun reading this than I did the Runaways comics (which I still enjoyed), but not nearly as much fun as I had reading Fangirl and Carry On, some of my all-time favorite YA books.

Was this book enjoyable? Yes, although the stakes didn't seem nearly as high this time as they did in Carry On. Maybe they'll go up again in the third book. Maybe the third book will end with more of a sense of resolution than this one did.

Did I learn anything new from this book? I learned that winged dragon-boys and vampires fit in surprising well at a Renaissance fair.

Where did I get this book? I borrowed the hardcover from my local library.

Do I recommend this book to other readers? I recommend this book to anyone who read Carry On.

Jessica Jones on the Cover of BUST Magazine

https://thatwritererinoriordan.tumblr.com/post/171092770840

Comic Book Shop Haul: Rainbow Rowell's Pumpkinheads, Captain Marvel, Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

https://thatwritererinoriordan.tumblr.com/post/187665739990

'Avengers: Infinity War' Gets Dirty (Press Release) - 18+ Only/NSFW

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

'Bonfire' by Krysten Ritter Review

Bonfire by Krysten Ritter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Krysten Ritter's first novel is solid effort, a suspenseful tale involving environmental justice and the company that may or may not be poisoning the small Indiana town of Barrens, a town that loves the company slightly less than it loves Jesus but slightly more than it loves football. Our heroine is Abigail "Abby" Williams, part of a team of Chicago lawyers sent in to investigate the possibly pollution, but also a former Barrens resident herself. Abby's life has not been easy. She lost her mom to cancer and her father was abusive. The other girls at school bullied and tortured her, so Abby has worked hard to leave Barrens in her past.

Abby's childhood best frenemy Kaycee Mitchell hasn't been seen in Barrens since shortly after they graduated from high school. Although local legend holds that she escaped the small town for a more glamorous life, Abby suspects Kaycee's disappearance may be related to a rash of illnesses associated with the town's drinking water. To investigate, she much navigate reluctant small towners who are worried about their meager livelihoods, an estranged father who now seems more frail than frightening, and both locals and colleagues whose good faith can only be trusted so far.

In her quest to investigate the town's mysteries, in her traumatic past, and in her capacity to consume alcoholic beverages, Abby Williams may remind some of Ritter's fans of her Marvel/Netflix character Jessica Jones. Abby Williams may not have Jones' superhuman strength, but she is just Jessica Jones-like enough that Marvel fangirls will enjoy the read.

(Photo/Jana Lynn French/ Peabody, jjlynnf@gmail.com in New York City, New York on Wednesday, May 18, 2016)

Ritter is a talented writer. Her debut shows psychological insight, the ability to paint a picture in the reader's mind, and characters well-rounded enough that they don't devolve into Midwestern stereotypes (and as a Midwesterner living in Indianapolis, I appreciate this). The ending doesn't seem completely fresh and original compared to other stories in this suspense genre, but I was willing to forgive this because I genuinely cared about Abby and was wrapped up in what was going to happen to her. But I imagine if she decides to write another novel, the plot will unfold a little more smoothly.

One of the three blurbs on the back is by Ruth Ware, the English suspense fiction author whose novel In a Dark, Dark Wood I enjoyed so well. This book reminded me less of that novel, though, and more of Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll. Knoll's protagonist was also desperately trying to escape a nightmarish high school experience.

I first became aware of Krysten Ritter as an actress on one of my all-time favorite TV series, Veronica Mars. In my head I imagine her as the black-haired but cold-hearted beauty Charlotte Campbell in Robert Galbraith's Cormoran Strike novels. And yes, I love her in Jessica Jones and am eagerly awaiting its second season to appear on Netflix this March. So I read this while I'm waiting.

I purchased this book with my own funds from my local brick and mortar Barnes and Noble and was not obligated in any way to review it. My copy is signed by Ritter, but not personalized. I just bought it off the shelf that way. It's pretty cool.

Non-alcoholic beverage ideas

Uh-Oh, I Have a Crush on Another Boy

SPOILERS FOR THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 2. 

Slight spoilers for Marvel's The Punisher, if you haven't seen the whole season yet. 

I haven't been very consistent with watching the Marvel superheroes series on Netflix, but my husband, Mr. Tit Elingtin, has been devouring them. I watched a bit of Luke Cage, which I really liked, and a bit more of Jessica Jones, which was also quite good, but with my inconsistent access to streaming Netflix this summer, I hardly watched any of Daredevil. 

I knew Deborah Ann Woll played a character on Daredevil. You may remember her from the Charlaine Harris-based HBO series True Blood. She played Bill Compton's vampire "child," Jessica Hamby, and much of Jessica's storyline was a love triangle involving her, Jason Stackhouse, and Jason's best friend Hoyt Fortenberry. The series ended with a happily-ever-after for Jessica. 

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Tit binge-watched the latest Marvel series, The Punisher. Woll's character from Daredevil, Karen Page, had a starring role. I got hooked.

The Punisher is a Marvel title that I actually used to read as a teenager. My brother had a subscription. It was right around 1990, and the series was The Punisher: War Journal by Jim Lee and Carl Potts. 

The Punisher, a.k.a. Frank Castle, isn't a superhero. He has no superpowers. He's a violent vigilante who brutally dispatches criminals. His Backstory of Infinite Sadness is that his wife and two children were brutally murdered, and now he doesn't GAF what happens to him personally. He's on a suicidal revenge mission (or what TVTropes.org designates as "Roaring Rampage of Revenge") -- he just happens to be exceptionally skilled at killing criminals. 

This characterization may remind one of my fictional TV boyfriend John Reese. 

On the Marvel series, Frank is played by Jon Bernthal, my newest boy crush. He played Shane Walsh on The Walking Dead, but I didn't like Shane Walsh. No one likes Shane Walsh**. Shane Walsh was an abusive asshole.

Jon Bernthal as Al Capone in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.
Because as everyone in Hollywood knows, Jews and Italians are interchangeable.

I didn't make it that far into the TV series, but I understand that--SPOILER ALERT--his conflict with Rick ended in a physical fight in which Rick had to kill Shane or be killed himself. Then Shane came back as a zombie. Then Carl, the one of Lori's children whose bio dad is definitely Rick and not Shane, had to re-kill Zombie Shane. 

http://thatwritererinoriordan.tumblr.com/post/167866152170

He was a zombie. She was a vampire. They're perfect for each other. 

In this Netflix iteration, Frank Castle -- well, he's kind of an asshole too, what with the brutal vigilante killings and all. He has another side, though, one that's extremely loyal to his family and friends -- and yes, even romantic. Many of his memories of his slain wife Maria are very sweet, and he was clearly a loving, hands-on dad to elder child Lisa and younger child Frank Jr., even though he had to be away from them with the Marine Corps. He was a military dad, but a soft dad nonetheless. 

His friendship with Karen Page is developing into a slow-burn romance, but obviously with quite serious complications, him being a wanted multiple murderer and her a reporter. Karen has become his berserk button - don't dare threaten her. They've saved each others' lives now, and there was a significant forehead touch in an elevator. 

Forehead touches are not sex but often foreshadow sex in the future. They also convey an emotional connection. Frank is really a one-woman-at-a-time type of guy, and his commitment to Maria was deep and genuine and lasted longer than her life. In one scene in which he's badly injured and near death, he remembers dancing with Maria at their wedding. 

Their ship name is Kastle, and I ship it so hard. I really want Frank Castle for Karen Page, not for myself. 

However.

Frank's characterization hits upon several of the tropes that I find particularly delicious: the wounded warrior trope, the outwardly tough guy who's soft as a kitten belly around the right woman, and the woman who's strong enough to stand on her own two feet but inwardly melts when the tough-soft guy's around. Frank Castle is covered in blood, scars, bruises, and stitches most of the time, which is true to the comic books, and WHY DO I LIKE THAT?!? But I do.

And Jon Bernthal is one of my (many) favorite boy types: Yeshiva Boy Who Grew Up Hot. He has clearly been working out for this physically demanding role and as a result has back muscles that look awesome in his many shirtless scenes. He has big, soulful, dark-chocolate brown eyes, and why wouldn't Karen be into a Frank who looks like this? 

Karen and Frank can't possibly have a happily-ever-after ending. I won't pretend I think they're going to end up getting married and having children. One of them probably ends up bleeding out in the other's arms. Vigilantes don't get to grow old gracefully. Ask Mr. Reese. 

I'm asking for heartbreak once again, but I can't help my stupid feelings. I'm shipping Kastle. It'll go right up there with my other OTPs, like CaReese, Destiel, SnowBaz, Johnlock, and all the other shipper nonsense I get myself into, most of which are doomed to end in a puddle of blood and tears. 

P.S. I do highly recommend the Night at the Museum movie trilogy if you haven't seen it already. The third film, one of the last performances of Robin Williams, is especially bittersweet and poignant but ultimately worthwhile. And Rami Malek as the young mummified Egyptian pharaoh Akhmenrah is also quite handsome. 

**Some people probably like Shane Walsh. If you do, I'm not judging. He's fictional. Go for it.