For once, it’s felt like this month has been…the right length? I often come to the end of any given month still internally mid-month, but it really does feel like it’s the end of July. Maybe I can chalk that up to either a) being nearly finished with my Camp NaNoWriMo goal (!!!) or b) the fact that I’m always looking forward to August, since it’s my birthday month, but either way, July is nearly out the window. Hopefully this awful heat will be out the window, too.
Let’s begin, shall we?
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
July has definitely been on the busier side for me; between working at the library and going for my Camp NaNoWriMo goal, there’s been a lot of writing, a lot of shelving, and a lot of straightening. But it’s all been good busy, as tired as my legs get after standing up for so long on a shift; working in a library has been such a welcoming environment, and I’ve been having tons of fun writing out the first draft of my sci-fi sequel. (I also got to put some books on my library’s unofficial Disability Pride Month display, so that is ALWAYS a plus.) And as of tonight, I’ll be finished with my goal of 50,000 WORDS! I know I technically haven’t done it yet (I’m only about 700 words away from finishing right now, so that’s no big deal), but I’m super proud of myself. I’ve been working towards 50,000 for around 4 and a half years, so it feels amazing to finally be this close.
Despite that, I’ve had a lot more time to read this month! It’s been a good batch of books, too; there were only two books this month that I didn’t really like, and all of the others were good to amazing. Most of what I read was for Disability Pride Month, and I found so many amazing books with great disability rep, which is always wonderful. And now that I’m back home and working at the library, it’s been great to be reading physical books more often. As convenient as my Kindle is, nothing beats the feel of a physical book.
Other than that, I’ve just been listening to the new Palehound (fantastic) and Blur (disappointing) albums, continuing to binge my way through Taskmaster (almost halfway through season 10 now, Johnny Vegas being incredibly flustered has no right to be as funny as it is), watching Barbie (sobbing) and Oppenheimer (never in a million years would I have thought that Robert Downey Jr. would be THAT creepy), and trying to get out of the heat whenever possible. (How is it that it got to almost 120 degrees in Arizona and people still don’t think that climate change is real 😭)
READING AND BLOGGING:
I read 18 books this month! I think this may have been the best (if not one of the best) reading months I’ve had this year, in terms of quantity. And it was a great batch as well—only two books that fell into the 2-star range, a 5-star read, and tons of great reads for Disability Pride Month!
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.
Today marks almost a year since I’ve been making these Sunday Songs graphics, and about six months since I’ve started writing about them on here. But if there’s on thing I’ve learned in this year of collaging album covers on Previews, it’s this: all roads lead back to David Bowie.
“Quicksand” has been an immensely special song to me, from the time I was young and my dad still had to speedily turn the car volume down in time for little me to miss the word “bullshit.” Even back when I didn’t even have the capacity to understand anything about what an ego is or the fact that it was capable of death (“knowledge comes with death’s release,” cue the “aah-aah-aah-aah” that always scoops my tender heart out of my ribcage), this song felt like the encircling warmth of a cosmic pair of arms, infinite in their reach and love, rocking me to sleep like a baby. The iconic lyric “I’m not a prophet or a stone-age man, just a mortal with the potential of a superman” has been my life’s mantra ever since I comprehended it. Learning it on guitar made me love the song down to its molecular structure—chances are, if you can rattle off any old chord off the top of your head, it’s in there somewhere. Even the painful, finger-twisting ones—especially the finger twisting ones. And yet David Bowie makes them all sound like they were all destined to be played together since the dawn of time—all of them. It’s the kind of song that was fully-formed from the very start, as Athena splitting out of the skull of Zeus, armed with a ragtag, motley crew of guitar chords. It feels like listening to the heartbeat of the cosmos itself.
So it’s so strange to think that it wasn’t always quite as fully-formed as I thought—in parts, at least. With the release of Divine Symmetry (a line fittingly taken from this song), a boxed set containing Hunky Dory in its entirety, plus the demos and live performances that eventually fused to form my favorite album of all time. Among them was this—a raw, stripped-down version of one of my favorite songs of all time. “Quicksand” was always destined for the epic grandeur of the album version, but there’s a different brand of poignant tenderness to this demo. With only David Bowie’s voice and the heartbeat-thrum of his acoustic guitar, you can hear the subtle differences—lyrics swapping places, Bowie straining to reach the high notes in the higher key he originally plays this song in. There’s an urgency to every strum, as though he knew this song had to see the light of day, but he had to put his heart into it, whichever way it came out. And that’s the power of this song: Bowie never took the easy way out. Every version is in tune with the resonant hum of the universe.
Never in my life would I have anticipated liking a xylophone solo this much. The words “xylophone” and “solo” make sense separately, but you rarely ever hear them together, right? And yet, against all odds, it’s so good. Imagine being at a Violent Femmes concert and the crowd going wild over a xylophone solo. That’s the dream.
A lot of what I’ve heard of the Violent Femmes works against all odds, from the infamous story of how the cover of their debut, self-titled album came to be to everything about their unique, abrasive sound. All you’ve got here is some guitar, bass, and a drum set that was originally part washbasin (plus said xylophone). The nicest you can necessarily say about the vocals is that they’re abrasive. It really is the essence of D.I.Y.—separately, there’s no way that it should work together and sound good, and yet it does. We all know “Blister in the Sun” nowadays, right? Whatever formula that Gordon Gano and company worked out in the early 80’s with this album, when everybody started turning to synths and capitalism, they nailed it. Every song I’ve heard off of this album feels timeless, but “Gone Daddy Gone” feels like it could’ve come from anywhere—a tiny, under-underground garage in the 70’s, somebody sick of all of said synths and capitalism in the 90’s—there’s something so ubiquitous about this song, from its frustrated, high school lyrics that Gano delivers with a sinister sneer, to the unexpected patchwork of sound. And of course, whoever’s idea it was to add a xylophone solo to this song deserves an award.
I’ve been overdue to talk about Here Come the Warm Jets and Brian Eno for a few weeks, but I am nothing if not pointlessly devoted to trying to create a nice color scheme. But yes, I finally got around to listening to it after putting it off for several months (blame it on the whiteboard…oh, I still need to post those, don’t I?), and I’m a fan! Even though nothing rivaled “Cindy Tells Me” (which is, for me, a hard thing to achieve—my absolute favorite Brian Eno song, now that I think about it), there wasn’t a single song I didn’t like. I’m a sucker for any album where each track bleeds into the next, giving the illusion of a continuous, long song—almost a symphony: some of my favorites albums do it, or at least do it partway (see: Hunky Dory, OK Computer), and in the case of Here Come the Warm Jets, it added a cohesive layer to an already meticulously weird album. There’s Brian Eno doing weird voices, there’s guitar freakouts, and there’s uptight-but-glam 70’s weirdness all over the place. It’s an album.
“Baby’s On Fire” stood out immediately—I remember hearing the name somewhere and looking it up a few years before I listened to this album in full, but I’d all but forgotten about it until a few weeks ago. It has a deliciously creeping, building feeling to it—with every thrumming piano chord and drumbeat, it feels like something is sneaking up on you, casting a long, thin shadow over your body before coming in to pounce. And pounce it does, with an extended, purely 70’s guitar freakout that, if you break the separate parts of it, easily takes up half to 2/3 of the song—as it absolutely should. It’s fantastic. I find myself vibrating in my seat every time I listen to it; Robert Fripp’s frenetic playing sounds like the auditory version of fabric being torn apart, all at once ragged and full of hypnotic color. Add that to Brian Eno’s distinctly nasally, theatrical vocals, and you’ve got something that feels like the shadow of a hand on the wall—a hand with long, glossy acrylics on the nails, the kind that look like claws. I suppose that’s what ‘s tearing through the fabric, but I doubt that would be very conducive to the kind of guitar insanity on this song. In this house, we love and cherish 70’s guitars.
I swear that my motive for downloading this song wasn’t just to create a playlist consisting of songs that have the same names as other songs. It’s twins with “Tin Man” by Shakey Graves, if you were interested. I named the playlist “Attack of the Clones.” Execute Order 66.
I’m very new to feeble little horse, but “off-kilter” was the one (hyphenated) word that immediately came to mind when I first listened to “Tin Man.” Every note just seems slightly tweaked from the next—almost pleasant sounding, but just enough to make you furrow your brow. Lydia Slocum’s dry, droll drawl creeps over the withered vines of notes, just as creaky and rusty as the the famous Tin Man himself before he got some oil in his joints. But unlike the Tin Man, this song doesn’t need any oiling or polishing; like the Violent Femmes, it exists in its own, uniquely abrasive space, not existing to please, but baring its prickly porcupine quills proudly. Like Lisa Germano, Sparklehorse, and others before them, feeble little horse is content to make their songs look and feel like a collection of rusty spare and found parts. But where the former two is the dread you feel upon finding said spare parts, “Tin Man” is the sudden prick of stepping on something sharp sticking out of the pile. It’s almost like Sid’s cobbled-together, mutant toys in Toy Story—despite all of its parts from other toys, it crawls along the carpet just fine. And maybe it’s an insult to compare this great song to that baby doll-spider monstrosity, but given the aesthetic of the music video, I don’t think Lydia Slocum and company would be too insulted.
I didn’t intend for this one to end on such a somber note, I promise. Just the way I thought the album covers went together. But I came upon this song on accident—as dear to my heart as Wilco is, I haven’t listened to Being There all the way, despite the claims of an unknown employee at Amoeba Records in San Francisco that it was “the best Wilco album.” BOOOOOO. DUDE. Not to rag on a complete stranger several states away that has no idea that I exist, but respectfully…Yankee Hotel Foxtrot exists? Summerteeth? My guy??
But I’m not here to rag on Being There, either. It’s the same record that gave us “Misunderstood,” after all, and proof that screaming like a death metal frontman is just one of the great Jeff Tweedy’s many talents. Every member of Wilco is proof that they’re really a jack-of-all-trades band; they’re primarily known for generally being on the stranger side of alt-country, but they can do it all, from Nels Cline’s famous, spidery guitar solo on “Impossible Germany” to the pseudo-Thom Yorke surprise of “Art of Almost.” The thing is, loving songs like those almost makes me forget that they’re just as apt at creating gently melancholy folk numbers: “Red-Eyed and Blue,” anyone? And as with every Wilco song that I can think of, Jeff Tweedy’s sharp, ever-clever songwriting is the clear star (no pun intended) on “Sun’s a Star.” What’s more Tweedy than taking a look at one’s own folky breakup tune and declaring “and there’s this song/in a minor key/hey, how could it be/such a cloudless tune?” I’m nothing if not a sucker for a sad, acoustic song, and leave it to Jeff Tweedy to scratch that itch. And there’s nobody else that could translate walking away into a single contraction—somehow, the name “Sun’s a Star” feels like an apathetic shrug of the shoulders. You’re not as special as I thought you were. Oh well. Sun’s a star.
Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.
That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles, and happy…Tuesday. The fact that the Fourth of July comes so close on the heels of the Supreme Court releasing the results of all of their major rulings has significantly soured most attempts I’ve tried to have at patriotism (especially since we have the incredibly unfortunate conservative majority controlling far more than they should), especially in our post-Roe era. None of that puts me in a particularly patriotic mood. But, as always, criticizing your country and pushing for change that will make it better is, to me, is the best kind of patriotism. And if nothing else, I get the day off work today. I’m not about to complain.
That aside, I’ve got an exciting review today! Ever since I devoured Little Thieves back in January, I’ve been itching to read the sequel, which came out this May. After a few failed attempts to get it on Libby, I finally got a physical copy from the library and ate it up as quickly as I did its predecessor. And although I liked it slightly less than book 1, Painted Devils retained its spirit—delightful from start to finish.
Now, tread lightly! This review may contain spoilers for book 1, Little Thieves, so if you haven’t read it and intend to do so, skip over this review.
Vanja Schmidt may have succeeded in breaking a godly curse and finding love with Emeric, but that doesn’t mean that her conniving days are behind her. In fact, they’re very much alive—and proved when she fabricates a god to get out of a slippery situation. Problem is, the townsfolk have now accepted Vanja’s Scarlet Maiden as their god, and started a cult in her name. And the Scarlet Maiden demands a sacrifice in blood—a sacrifice that Vanja can’t afford to make. While Emeric goes on a hunt to verify the Scarlet Maiden’s existence, Vanja must find a way out of the sacrifice before time runs out—and before her fraud is exposed.
TW/CW: abuse (physical and verbal), fantasy violence, blood, body image issues, abandonment, animal death, cult imagery
Seeing the phrases “we live in a society” and “scrimblo” within 100 pages of each other in a medieval-inspired fantasy book felt like being hit by a train, to say the least, but the fact that Margaret Owen very nearly pulled it off is nothing short of a miracle. I’m still reeling just thinkingabout it.
My months of waiting and searching are finally over—I managed to get Painted Devils in my hands, and I’m so happy for it! Although it wasn’t quite as cohesive as Little Thieves was, it was nevertheless a delight from start to finish—being back with Vanja on her chaotic adventures was nothing short of a joy in a sea of YA fantasy novels that take themselves a little too seriously, even though their protagonists are only 16.
I’ll quickly start off with my one major gripe—the reason that I docked it down from book 1’s 4.5 stars to 4.25. Painted Devils, as much as I adored it, definitely fell into the curse of book 2: all of the good elements were still there, but they lacked the cohesion that the first book had. It was all fun, but a good portion of the middle felt like the characters were running around for no reason, without much consequence to the plot. Some of it felt like filler, and for a book that was almost 500 pages long, it didn’t feel altogether necessary.
Other than that, it’s hard to find any nitpicks or problems with Painted Devils! Even though Vanja has always been the main character, this book really felt more about her—it was wholly her story, about what happens when your storied past catches up to you, and how to reckon with your past to become the person you are today. Even amidst the near-constant humor that these books have relied on, Owen manages to tackle so much of Vanja’s character with incredible aplomb, balancing her bouncing-off-the-walls personality with some genuinely heartbreaking and wholly important discussions about familial manipulation and abuse. For a series that’s often been defined by its levity, Vanja’s journey towards self-love and acceptance was unexpectedly heartfelt. It’s exceedingly difficult to balance those two aspects, but Owen made it look easy.
Beyond that, I loved seeing the relationship between Emeric and Vanja develop, both romantically and platonically! They continue to be perfect foils for each other—a physical representation of the grounded and humorous qualities of this novel, and how they complement each other. Their personalities have started to bleed into each other in the sweetest way—Emeric starting to loosen up, and Vanja reluctantly trying to do the opposite—and every moment they shared together was a delight to read. Plus, the discussions about consent are always welcome, and a refreshing break from the years of 500+ year old fantasy love interest that we’ve all had to slog through in the last decade or so.
Owen’s writing, of course, continues to be the star. It’s rare that an author can make a character whose main trait is being “chaotic/morally gray” into something that goes above and beyond the buzzwords—Vanja continues to be impressively fleshed-out, and my life is all the better for it. Some of the more meme-y humor, like the previous book, continues to be jarring in places, but Owen’s other points of humor makes for a wonderfully charming read. There’s really not much else in the world of YA fantasy that succeed like Little Thieves and Painted Devils do: bringing the joy back to a magical, fairytale-inspired world, and balancing it with the reality and darkness that every bad, gritty fairytale retelling missed by a mile. Even with the frustrating ending, I’m so eager to see where the conclusion takes Vanja, Emeric, and all the rest.
I really feel like the world needs a 2D animated adaptation of these books. Just saying.
All in all, a sequel that was a delight to read, even with its lessened cohesion. 4.25 stars!
Painted Devils is the second book in Margaret Owen’s Little Thieves trilogy, preceded by Little Thieves and concluded by an untitled book slated for release in January of 2024. She is also the author of the Merciful Crow duology (The Merciful Crow and The Faithless Hawk).
Today’s song:
XYLOPHONE SOLO
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
The Bookish Mutant 