I love reading books about people living really, really adventurous/dangerous lives — especially mountain climbers. Mountain climbing fascinates me, because it seems like something I could possibly do (hey, I lift weights, I run, I hike — how hard could it be?) until I read peoples’ accounts and realize 1) it’s really cold up there and 2) no way in hell could I do that because I am a total weenie. I also love Bear Grylls, despite (as my husband continually reminded me while I read this book) the […]
Space and Race
Like most people who watched NBC’s (abysmal) coverage of the Olympics this summer I saw the preview for Hidden Figures starring Taraji P Henson and Octavia Spencer. Just as I was about to exclaim “How interesting” my husband muttered “ugh, Oscar bait” which means I’ll have to bring it home from Redbox a few months after it leaves theaters. Luckily for me, like most movies nowadays, there was a book used as source material. Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures tells the story of the African American women […]
Semisonic’s drummer on life in the ’90s music biz
Semisonic’s Feeling Strangely Fine came out in 1998. I was a slouchy eighth-grader who was battling severe nodular acne, braces, and a wildly inappropriate volume of palm sweat. Lucky for me, I also played guitar. Conversations with anyone were hard, but rocking out was natural. Music is where I felt comfortable and found myself. It’s how I made friends and a life. In So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star, Semisonic drummer Jake Slichter tells a similar story. He wasn’t a particularly cool teenager, but he […]
” Close your eyes and open them again. That’s what a blackout feels like.”
In my life I can recall (or not recall) two times I blacked out from drinking. One lead to vague consent issues and the other lead to me arriving at home- 20 miles away from where I started- with no recollection of my drive home… when I was the driver. (Hi mom!) Sarah Hepola spent 25 years having similar, and worse, experiences to mine. A person suffering from a black out may appear fine. The hippocampus is shut down but short term memory still works, therefore […]
“If you can affect someone when they’re young, you are in their hearts forever.”
Mara Wilson’s precocious lisp was everywhere throughout my childhood; looking back, and on imdb, she wasn’t everywhere but simply in two movies that played on a frequent loop in my house. Her breakthrough role as Robin William’s daughter in Mrs Doubtfire and the titular role in Matilda has guaranteed her spot in the pop culture annals of anyone alive in the ’90s regardless of her adult career choices. I believe a lot of people my age (Mara Wilson is only about 6 months older than myself) saw her as a peer […]
The more things change …
Maya Angelou’s first autobiographical installment, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is widely considered to be the best of her series of autobiographies. Nominated for a National Book Award in 1970, this work has been a staple of high school reading lists, and banned book lists, for several decades. It is a beautifully written recollection of Angelou’s childhood, from the time she and her older brother were sent alone by train to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother (Angelou was 5) until Angelou, […]
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