Howdy, email cowboys! May your lassos of reading comprehension find purchase around my cow-words. Yes, that seems like the clearest way to start this email.
The two biggest things going on in my life right now are:
Querying agents for my novel. Basically you have to email a schmillion agents and beg them to love you enough that they’ll sell your book to an editor, who will then help publish it. This is basically what the process boils down to:
It’s humiliating! Did Steinbeck have to trawl through pages of agents who are only looking for romantasy and cozy mysteries? Did Melville have to pitch himself as a serious writer when his debut Reductress article was called It Takes A Village To Eat My Ass? Fucking humiliating.
Preparing for my hike, which starts Saturday! Not gonna lie, this is looking somewhat dicey survival-wise, if only because I’ve had constant ear infections for the past two months and highlighter-yellow fluid is leaking out of my head every night. But other than THAT I feel quite prepared and excited and also frustrated trying to Tetris every single thing I own into a shockingly small pack. Did I have a mini-meltdown last night trying to figure out how to wedge my hi-vis poop shovel into my pack, because I bought the cheap poop shovel instead of the little titanium one? XOXO, I’ll never tell.
A note for subscribers: I am going to pause all paid subscriptions for the month of September, because I love you and I did not get my shit together enough to schedule posts for when I’ll be gone. I’m sorry/you’re welcome.
On to the content!
Watching
The best show on TV right now, hands down, is Alien: Earth. I was going to write a whole thing about it — and maybe I will one day — but I’ve been so pleasantly surprised by how smart, fun, and scary it is. It’s also timely as hell and builds on the main thrust of the Alien films, which is that corporations are more evil than any xenomorph could ever be, and adds onto it another layer critiquing the “move fast and break things” attitude of modern-day tech bro oligarchs. Truly, the two timeless lessons of this franchise/show are CAPITALISM IS BAD and GET YOUR FACE AWAY FROM THAT WET EGG. It’s trans-coded, it’s disability-justice-coded, it’s got Timothy Olyphant as a crotchety robot in what might be his best performance? And best of all, it’s gorgeous and impressionistic and lush. I can’t recommend it enough, as long as you can handle buckets of blood and/or creepy eyeball monsters. (Also, it’s created/written by Noah Hawley, the guy behind Fargo, so you know the writing is tasty as hell.)
Other than that, the only shows I’ve really been watching are the new Project Runway (fun!) and Love Is Blind: UK. These British people, I swear to God. There’s an army guy on there who is afraid of cake. I guess I’m going to watch every season of this stupid show until my body is a withered husk rotting in a pile of leaves, huh?
Listening
Still looking for perfect pop albums to sweep me away. Lately I’ve been jamming out to Remy Wolf, Caroline Polachek, Wilco, and Radiohead. Also, I’ve been working on my second novel, which is heavily focused on pop music, so lots of 90s pop — including the really delicious tunes of British band Steps. Look, if it’s got group choreo and/or midriff jewelry, hello, I’m listening.
Reading
As I said in my section hike post, I re-read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. It’s… fine! The science and history parts are really well-written and engaging, but the hike itself really hits different when you’re a person who actually likes hiking and camping. Bryson seems to prefer European-style hiking, where you end each day at a pleasant little cottage where a ruddy-cheeked milkmaid serves you stew — which is lovely, but that’s not the AT. It’s like reading a book about the Eiffel Tower by a guy who’s low-level seething that it isn’t more like the Taj Mahal. (Also, he walked about 40% of the trail. Hard to imagine another book where someone calls it quits 40% of the way into their journey. That’s like if Frodo hit Rivendell and decided to stay there and marry Elrond.)
I also (finally) tackled Tamsyn Muir’s Nona the Ninth, which is the third book in her Locked Tomb series. Hoo boy. Muir’s books are like puzzle boxes, which is a very kind way of saying I generally don’t understand anything happening in them until about 70% of the way through, but this one… I don’t think I really understood what was happening in this one until I finished the book and read the Wikipedia summary. It’s a testament to her writing that it was still pretty propulsive and enjoyable, but do not ask me questions about this, I am stupid and do not know the answers. Excited for the next one!
I finally cracked open Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future and found it to be really interesting! It’s marketed as a “science fiction nonfiction” book, which is to say it tracks the efforts of a fictional Swiss organization realistically fighting climate change in the near future. I really liked the narrative sections (in particular, the book opens with an absolutely harrowing account of a man trapped in a brutal Indian heat wave) but some of the drier sections (e.g., pages of economic theory about how to financially incentivize governments to pursue carbon sequestration policies) didn’t hit as hard for me, a fiction girly. If you’re at all interested in climate change and the tangible actions that governments can take to fight it, I think it’s a must-read.
"There’s an army guy on there who is afraid of cake." omg I cackled. Good luck on your hike!!