mllesatine

There is she! Busy building her nest. I'm pretty sure it's a red mason bee. I could observe her coming and going for a while and when I peer into the glove I see papery flakes in the thumb section. I guess the glove will stays there for the rest of the summer.

(*I could not make the description feature work. Is this a known DW issue or is this an imgur thing? ETA: I think it's just a preview of the journal thing, the photo should have the image description now)

Looks like I will read more books this years. I have two (2!) I'm currently reading:

Half his age - Jennette McCurdy

Todesmarsch (The long walk) - Stephen King

I pre-ordered "Half his age" at the beginning of January and then found out that people had already reviewed it. My hard copy was delayed for some unknown reason so I had to cancel and reorder the paper back in the middle of February. I really loved McCurdy's autobiography so I have high hopes for her debut novel. I've barely started but the chapters are very short (three pages) and I think the first person POV makes the protagonist too self-aware. But we will see.

"The long walk" is a lot longer than I anticipated. Purely based on the film I expected a novella. Have started it yesterday and Ray noticed on page 16 how well-built Peter is. Down bad from the get go. I recommend this book review on youtube about King's male gaze. 

I don't think I would have bought the book but my library has added the translated version so I picked it up. I might be the first person to borrow this particular book. 

In einer Reportage über einen rollenden Supermarkt zeigt ein treuer Kunde die handschriftliche Notiz seiner verstorbenen Frau. Der erste Großeinkauf. Ich kaufe, kaufe, kaufe. Daneben ist die Quittung aufgeklebt. Darüber ein Zeitungsartikel.

Ich denke daran, wie viele Leute meine Quittungsdurchschläge - dünnes gelbes Papier, Formar A5 - aufheben. Im Portmanee. In der Glasschale auf dem Tisch. "Der ist für Sie", sage ich immer, wenn ich Ihnen den Durschlag aus dem Block reiße. In der Schublade bei, wo auch die anderen Durschläge liegen.

Ich existiere dort, in meiner dünnen Handschrift. In hundert verschiedenen Orten.

I've only read 46 pages but nothing much has happened yet. The protagonist (who I didn't much like in "Witness for the Dead") is exhausted from running one (one!) errand a day. He gets praise from his friends for taking on an impossible task. The task in question: sorting papers. There better be some other plot thread I can follow in the next 20 pages or so because I don't want to read about incompetent people in my free time.

Also Addison has completely given up on explaining her fantasy language to her readers. What is michenmeire? What are ulimeirei? There is no index in this book. I guess I should have retained the knowledge from the last book or maybe it was translated in the one I skipped.

ETA:

I'm at page 125 now and Celehar is driving me crazy. First off, why do I not like the character? He is a doormat in almost every interaction and considering that he has a high position with a lot of power his inaction and unwillingness to confront people makes him unsuited for his work (his calling, as he says). He - and I know that's a pet-peeve of mine - is also a very fussy eater. The amount of times he thinks about drinking tea (oh no, what if there is still theine in it when it's already so late in the evening?) is grating. He also (or maybe that's just Addison's writing style) seems to think that you can't have a conversation when eating. The plot usually pauses completely to describe him eating a bowl of soup or some type of chicken dish. He couldn't possibly eat a spoonful, swallow and then talk. He can only do one thing and has to give his dinner his maximum attention. Like a child.

But the reason why I'm writing right now is this: Celehar is unable to lie when he is doing his duty. Funny how he has such high expecations of his conduct when it costs him nothing and he doesn't have to suffer the consequences. He is told that him retelling what happened to him would upset a good deal of people and his reaction is "well I can't lie so that's no concern of mine". He could just tell people that he can't talk about the thing that happened to him but his interpretation of "I musn't tell lies" is "I have to tell every detail to anyone who asks." Again, that is the worldview of a child.

Now contrast this with the scenes at the start of the book where Celehar notices that work hasn't been done for 50 (!) years. "Hey how about you start looking at the paperwork you have ignored since you started working here?" Somehow his oath of not telling lies doesn't extend to telling his employer what he has found out. I know it doesn't count when it's not work as witness for the dead but that is hair splitting because the work in the first part of the book also includes a lot of dead people who were not buried in the proper rites. But because none of them are able to petition him officially he can use this gentle approach of doing fuck-all. He is even saying that most of the people are poor and can't appeal to the authorities. That's your job, Celehar! You can help them in your official capacities. You can make a stink, you can go to the newspaper. You can go to the emperor. You can tell the truth.

Like I know the tomb of dragons and the cemetery from the first part of the book are mirrored but Celehar's reaction is wildy different. Let's see where this is going.

ETA2: page 200. Celehar can't pack warm gloves or a proper coat for his trip and he is unable to pay his rent in advance (when he has to leave for 2 weeks). He constantly is embarrassed to accept help (warm clothes, the money for a return ticket etc) but his network always picks up the pieces. And this is not framed as being poor or having terrible foresight. He is simply relying on other people to bail him out constantly. I mean the man gets on an air plane without packing clothes.

ETA3: page 274 I'm not done bitching about this book. How long does it take the characters to read a letter? The book started with a trip to a single office where paperwork has piled up over 50 years. Even though there are three, sometimes four people, clearing the papers Celehar thinks it will take weeks !! to clear the desk or the space in front of a closet door. He even mentions that most of the paper can be trashed immediately (tram time tables so it's basically a room full of junk mail). Sorry but is so unrealistic. The are looking for a register and I imagine that many of the letters that have been written 50 years ago can't be answered any more. So what is the hold-up? Do they try to work through it? What you do is make three piles: trash (the biggest one), important but needs additional work, important and can be accomplished immediately. Sorting this fucking room shouldn't take more than a week with three people constantly working.

One other thing that threw me was the conversation with Iäna whose friendship is "intense" and Celehar confronts him about his constant involvement. That came out of nowhere for me because Iäna doesn't behave differently than any of the other characters in Celehar's orbit. They are all bending over backwards for him, accompanying him on his trips to the store or bringing him letters and inviting him to dine with him. They all turn up whenever Celehar needs them and without lives of their own that could get in the way of Celehar's story.

ETA4: page 309 sorry but not even the romance can save this book. We are informed Celehar has feelings for the captain. He spends months with him and we barely see them interact, we are being told they talk but there is barely any dialogue to get to know the captain. This is just bad story telling at this point. I hate to say it but all the books in the series have gotten worse. I LOVE the Goblin Emperor, I've read the book so many times. To see the world turned into copaganda (where people just have to confess to murder to be convicted for the crime, no evidence needed as long as everyone else agrees that the person is guilty) is honestly painful. This will be the last book of the series I read. I will finish it but I doubt I will ever read it again.

Ok, I'm still midreading but there is something in Triona Walsh's book "The snow storm" that really bothers me. It's about a group of friends that met again in their remote hometown on an Atlantic island ten years after one friend died. It's a thriller. One of the friends (our protagonist Cara) was married to the dead friend Cillian. And that dead friend also has a brother named Seamus. Seamus left the island shortly after his brother's death. Cara stayed there. I guess the parents of Cillian and Seamus died long before Cillian because their childhood home was left undisturbed for the last ten year. Seamus was the owner and he left everything how it was. The story makes a point about how difficult it is for Cara to return to the house of her dead husband's family. That she drove by countless times and never even looked at the house.

I actually went back and checked if I got the time line wrong because the information is parsed out slwoly. I first got the impression that Cillian died when they were all still teenagers and her memories of him are primarly of the family house. But no, they had been married and had two children together. Presumably they also had their own house.

That's weird, right? Why is Cara so shocked to see the house of her husband's parents? Why was Seamus in charge of boarding the place up? Was he the sole heir? Cara is the one who stayed on the island. It's super difficult to even get things on the island because you have to transport everything on a ferry. Yet the house was left in disrepair. The heating no longer works, everything is mouldy. YET, there is a fiddle in the house that plays perfectly. Sure. If Seamus was living there on his own the whole time Cara was married to Cillian why is she so overwhelmed by being there again? It's her brother-in-law's place. Sure she was there as a teenager but then she married Cillian, they got their own place and then had two children. Also, how stinking rich are these people that they can just lock the doors to their property and leave when someone who didn't live there (!) died?

What I'm trying to say is that this doesn't make any kind of emotional sense for me and feel like this is a mistake that an editor should have fixed. Almost like the time of Cillian's death was moved but the characters are written as if it had happened when they were all teenagers. I reiterate that Cara had two children with Cillian when he died.

Ok, one more thing I have to add: the friends will all sleep in the house (in the SNOW STORM) that hasn't been ventilated for the past ten years. Or cleaned. Cara sleeps in her husband's old room and the bedding has been changed prior to her arrival. I'm sure that will help with the mould, dust, the dead flies and spider webs. Can you imagine the smell? Who would willingly lie down on a mattress that has rotted for the last ten winters?

Der Report der Magd - Margaret Atwood (07/23)
In blaukalter Tiefe - Kristina Hauff (08/23)
The Mermaid and Mrs Handcock - Imogen Hermes Gowar (ein glücklicher Fund aus der Bibliothek, 08/23 im Urlaub ausgelesen, musste mich für die letzten Seiten wegsetzen damit ich die Ruhe hatte, Schatten eines Strandkorbs; ganz anders als erwartet, sehr grausames Ende für die Bordellbesitzerin und für die schwarze Prostituierte, Hancock hat mehr Glück als Verstand, Nichte und seine Frau sehr sympathische Charaktere mit menschlichen Schwächen)
Amity Gaige - Unter uns das Meer (Zentralbio)
Spook Street - Mick Herron 14.12.23 (als Hörbuch)

Ich hoffe, ich kann im neuen Jahr mehr Bücher finden, die mich interessieren.

Ich lese gerade Victor Klemperer's LTI (lingua tertii imperii Sprache des Dritten Reichs) und es ist fesselnd und frustrierend zugleich. Klemperer ist ein spritziger Erzähler, mit erstaunlicher Beobachtungsgabe - meine Frustration kommt nur daher, dass er seiner Frau das Buch widmet und sie zur Mitautorin erklärt, aber es eben bei der Erklärung bleibt. Er ist Autor, sie nicht. Er hat sie bis jetzt im Buch zweimal erwähnt.

Und wenn man dann noch die vielen sexistischen Bemerkungen anstreicht (die vielen abwertenden Beschreibungen der Frauen, die im Buch vorkommen "nicht mehr ganz jugendlich", "die alte Jungfer", "die Seidel"*) und dann bei Seite 181 von 320 ganze drei Autorinnen von Klemperer namentlich erwähnt werden, wo er doch pro Seite mindestens drei Männer unterbringen kann. Und wenn Klemperer von einem jungen Menschen spricht, dann meint er ganz eindeutig einen "jungen Mann". Schade, die Beobachtungsgabe reicht leider nicht um den eigenen Sexismus kritisch zu hinterfragen. Und Klemperer ist ein Riesen-Snob und auch das kann er selbst nicht ergründen. Nein, er widerspricht seiner eigenen These, wenn er bemerkt, dass doch eigentlich nur ungebildete Menschen einem Hitler auf den Leim gehen und WUNDERT sich dann, warum ein Professor der Mathematik, der doch über solche kultischen Methoden erhaben sein müsste, den Mann genauso verherrlicht wie das einfache Volk.

Ich hatte eigentlich erwartet, dass das im Kommentar zumindest erwähnt wird, aber leider ist der (von Elke Fröhlich verfasste) Text auch nicht vorm Sexismus gefeit. Sie klingt genauso abwertend wie Klemperer, wenn sie von Colettes "Variete-Karriere" spricht. Und ich hatte mir wirklich mehr Sorgfalt beim Kommentar gewünscht. Die Runen, die Klemperer relativ früh in LTI erwähnt, werden erst ca 100 Seiten später im Buch abgedruck, hier hätte man im Kommentar vorgreifend auf die entsprechende Stelle hinweisen können, dann hätte ich nicht erst umständlich googeln müssen, denn ich kenne diese germanischen Runen leider nicht und denke, dass es auch anderen Leserinnen so gehen wird.

Manche Fachausdrücke werden erklärt, andere nicht - ich habe zum Beispiel nicht den Ausdruck "Schinken" für ein minderwertiges großes Gemälde gekannt; das Wort Pg wird nie von Klemperer ausgeschrieben - ich nehme an es steht für Parteigenosse. Die Abkürzungen SS und SA werden dagegen im Kommentar ausreichend erläutert, wo man doch davon ausgehen könnte, dass die bei der heutigen Leserschaft wesentlich verbreiteter sind als "Pg". Fröhlich führt die Göbbels-Tagebücher (sie ist Herausgeberin) mehrfach als Quelle an, bei anderen Autoren musste ich erst umständlich suchen, da die nicht im Kommentar ordentlich gelistet waren, sondern in einer Fußnote (!) im Anhang standen. Eine ordentliche Quellenarbeit ist das nicht!

Trotzdem Empfehlung an alle, die ihn noch nicht gelesen haben.

*DIE hängt auf der Leine und trippt, hat meine Mutter immer zu mir gesagt, wenn ich mich so abschätzig über eine Person geäußert habe

A note on "The Gilded Age" and it's terrible camera work. All (and I mean ALL) scenes are blurry at the bottom edge. It's unwatchable. I feel like the focus also shifts slightly during scenes, like the camera is constantly readjusting. Even when people are standing still but the focus is so tight that people move one step and they are blurry. Am I going mad? Is nobody seeing this? WTF? This is an expensive HBO show and it looks like shit.

I'm about the finish this show (after hearing about it on Feminist Frequency's podcast). Episode 7 is stellar and episode 8 that's playing in the background as I'm writing this is absolute crap.

I also closed the tab twice when I started watching it yesterday because I found the whole family so annoying when they drove to their second house in the Hamptons after the dad character (Jesse Eisenberg) has just taken a day off work while at work (in the middle of his work day to go on an unscheduled vacation so his children wouldn't be bored on summer holiday). The children are unable to entertain themselves, he took them to the hospital he works in because he can't leave them alone at home - a totally normal thing in that world. They are literally not even able to make their own dinner. I think I stopped watching twice, for the dinner thing and the Hampton thing.

But then I started again and they are on the way to the Hamptons and suddenly Claire Danes appears as the mother and the show gets good. All her scenes were so much more interesting than anything Jesse Eisenberg did on his own.

(slightly spoilery ramblings ahead, heavy subject matter)

( Read more... )

I send off all my Christmas cards for work today. It was a rush job. I couldn't find the five-a-pack hallmark ones I used last year so I bought from a bunch of different stores. Of course I found the nicest in the last store I checked and after already buying a bunch. You think it's a good deal so you buy not one but two packs and look they have the really tasteful ones without any writing, it's a steal! *g*

The most I paid was 1€/card for a very pretty black night scene with Santa cruising around a big tree and dropping gifts from the air, all with gold and red glitter. Too bad the envelope was such a dark gold that I had to cut out a white sticker to write the address. Guess it's the kind of card you don't send through the regular mail.

So what I like is gold or silver embellishments (more is more), glitter if sparsely applied. Scenes of nature, especially birds. Geometric patterns. No Christian images (like people leaving church), nothing with an emphasis on children or family. Nothing too witty. All cards should be hand-drawn. The writing should be traditional and look like hand writing although I bought a few with "modern" fonts. At first I tried finding ones without any greetings and without English holiday wishes but that turned out to be impossible.

Hope they arrive in time. The mail box is being emptied at 11 every day, so it should be enough.

Things that broke since I moved in my new apartment:

- my washing machine Pump had to be replaced, supposedly that had nothing to do with the movers not being careful enough (and refusing to use the screws provided to stabilize the drum) and could have happened at any time, still weird it stopped working directly after the move. It cost around 200 € and two appointments with the repair person, one to assess the damage, the other to replace the part that had to be ordered of course

- my coffee grinder Literally the second one from Severin I have used. My first barely lasted 6 months but it was a gift and my dad didn't keep the receipt so I couldn't get the money back when it broke, the second did better but still not great. I replaced it with an equally cheap Bosch model. How is it so difficult to design a grinder where coffee dust isn't ending up next to it when you lift the lid?

- my vaccum cleaner The vaccum is from 2005 so I was ready to replace it but the thought of picking and choosing another one is exhausting. Also they have gotten expensive!! 250 € for a thing I don't even want to buy. The bendy tube broke but thankfully it was close to the metal part of the tube and could be cut. The bendy tube is now being held in place with tape. I'll see how long that lasts or when the next part breaks. The problem is that all the new vaccum cleaners have gotten a lot bigger in recent years. It's like this thing with cars. Mine is barely 40 cm long. The new ones I looked at had unnecessary details like a bulky handle (handhold?) on top of the handle.