Celebrity-ing While Quarantining During the COVID-19 pandemic, while most of us #shelterinplace, celebrities have been putting out elaborately orchestrated videos to entertain the troops, as it were, and keep up morale. And generally speaking, call me "curmudgeon" if you must, I loathe what feels to me like being pandered to by rich and famous people. … Continue reading Going Off Book: Quarantine Celebrity-ing, + Notions, Late April Edition
Month: April 2020
America’s City, or I Heart New York
I came up relatively poor, which means I traveled very little. For family vacations we went camping in the nearby canyon or took roadtrips to visit relatives in exotic locations such as Sacramento or Anaheim. I first traveled via airplane as an undergraduate, tagging along on a school trip with friends visiting San Francisco. At … Continue reading America’s City, or I Heart New York
The Force is Strong With This One: Decentering the Powerful in Mantel’s ‘The Mirror and the Light’
The concert musical Six recasts the women who married Henry VIII as pop divas, each queen getting at least one number telling her side of the story. It deliberately aims to decenter Henry, asserting that each of these women meant more than her marital status to a king. Reformulating the story matters because it pushes … Continue reading The Force is Strong With This One: Decentering the Powerful in Mantel’s ‘The Mirror and the Light’
Notions, Early April Edition
Hello. How are you? Doing okay or not so much or a combination of all of the above? Man, I miss bookstores and libraries.Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Here are some fun things from the internet to entertain, delight, and/or tickle your brain: Doing some reading while social distancing? Check out Bookshop, an online book retailer that … Continue reading Notions, Early April Edition
Where the Sidewalk Ends: Four Writers on Climate Change and Understanding the Overarching Crisis of Our Time
Exactly one month ago, the sustainability teams at UO hosted WOHESC, a regional sustainability in higher education conference. Attendees included a mix of professionals and students, spending two days talking about everything from putting social justice into practice to the feasibility of widespread nuclear power in the US. That conference moment happened right before everything … Continue reading Where the Sidewalk Ends: Four Writers on Climate Change and Understanding the Overarching Crisis of Our Time
Dogs, Coffee, & Books 