Ursula's Books and Music Corner for 2023

Cat relaxing in the sun at the ferry stop in the Balat district of İstanbul

Hello there, my name is Ursula. I'm about to be 51 years old, and I've been married to my husband, Morgan, for coming up on 12 years. We are both Americans, but those of you who have followed along through the years know that we've done a lot of moving both domestically and internationally in my time here in the 75ers. We are currently living in Istanbul but will be moving to Germany in early 2023.

I'm a reader of "literary fiction" and some non-fiction. Occasionally some genre things find their way in (I'm not a snob about it, I just tend to choose other things).

I have been listening to a lot of music for the last few years and in 2023 I intend to post more regularly about it. It's okay if no one is into the same things, I'm doing it mostly for me, just like my thoughts on my books. :)

Some books I enjoyed in 2022:

           

Red Clocks - Leni Zumas
A Strangeness in My Mind - Orhan Pamuk
Miracle and Wonder - Malcolm Gladwell (audio; conversations with Paul Simon)
Sleepwalk - Dan Chaon
How High We Go in the Dark - Sequoia Nagamatsu
Minor Detail - Adania Shibli
I Saw Ramallah - Mourid Barghouti (NF)

And here are my favorite albums of 2022:



ILYSM by Wild Pink
Surrender by Maggie Rogers

Boom. Done. by Anthony Green
Little Green House by Anxious
Never Before Seen, Never Again Found by Arm's Length

Past Lives by L.S. Dunes
Being Funny in a Foreign Language by The 1975
The Long Way, the Slow Way by Camp Trash

The Hum Goes on Forever by The Wonder Years
No Oblivion by No Devotion

Currently Reading


Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield


Charlie'nin Çikolata Fabrikası by Roald Dahl


Death on Gokumon Island by Seishi Yokomizo

|||:. Januar .:|||:. January .:|||:. Ocak .:|||

Pines by Blake Crouch ☆☆☆☆
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan ☆☆☆☆
New Animal by Ella Baxter ☆☆☆☆1/2
At the Edge of the Woods by Masatsugu Ono ☆☆1/2
The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, translation by Robert Graves ☆☆☆☆
The White Mosque by Sofia Samatar ☆☆☆1/2

|||:. Februar .:|||:. February .:|||:. Şubat .:|||

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner ☆☆☆☆
Kaçırılan Çocuk by Robert Louis Stevenson ☆☆☆1/2
The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout ☆☆1/2
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia ☆☆1/2
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet ☆☆☆
The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler ☆☆☆1/2
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca ☆☆☆

Total: 13

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Hall of Shame (Abandoned)
John Dies at the End by Jason Pargin

Welcome back, Ursula!

Happy new year, Ursula. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that your move goes smoothly and looking forward to hearing all about your new adventure.

>5 drneutron: thank you for creating the place to come back to!

>6 katiekrug: happy new year, and thanks! Once things get rolling I know it will all go fast, but right now it feels far off.

Happy New Year, Ursula! Love the topper photo. Good luck with your move.

Happy new year!

Wishing you a comfortable reading year in 2023, Ursula.

>8 Crazymamie: Happy New Year! Thanks, I am going to miss all the sweet kitties.

>9 banjo123: Thank you! Happy new year to you too!

>10 PaulCranswick: Thanks for the good wishes, happy new year to you as well!

Happy new thread for the new year Ursula! I quite like your topper photo.

How about some stats?

Last year's author nationalities:



It's only the 3rd year since I've been keeping a spreadsheet (2017) that I've had less than 50% American authors.

And some overall numbers:

>12 WhiteRaven.17: Ooh you just sneaked in there! Thank you for dropping by. That cat was living the life for sure.

Happy New Year!

Love seeing your stats.

Happy New Year, Ursula!

Oh, I love the stats!!

Wishing you a Happy New Year, and some good reading in 2023 Ursula.

Happy New Year, Ursula.

I quite like your stats, impressive.

Happy New Year, Ursula! Looking forward to hearing about life in Germany. I thoroughly enjoyed all of your posts, pictures, and videos of Turkey. Thank you so much for sharing them.

Happy New Year, Ursula!

Enjoy your 2023 reads!

Oh goodness, the hellos have piled up since yesterday!

Hello and happy new year to all my visitors! Glad you enjoyed the stats, Anita, Mamie and Ella. :) I am not that focused on numbers, I swear, but I do enjoy some data visualization.

>20 SqueakyChu: I wish I had shared more stuff from Istanbul, honestly, and I may do that in these first few months as we prepare to leave.

John Dies at the End by Jason Pargin

Okay, so. I had vaguely heard some time in the past that this was a funny, weird book, so I checked this out of the library and thought it might be a fun first read of the year. I read for 20 minutes and then returned it to the library. It became the first "nope" of the year. Comedy is a weird thing for me, I have a narrow "sweet spot" for it maybe. Over the top can work, ridiculous can work, etc., but this one was not working for me at all. It just had too much of everything, and seemed to be trying too hard. Onward!

Welcome to 2023, Ursula. I just went back and read all of your three threads from last year. Somehow, I stopped reading them early on, why I don't know. You write one of the most interesting threads I've encountered, and I look forward to what you write this year. And you read books that few others talk about, so that really expands my universe.

Sorry about the gall bladder trouble - I went through it myself a couple of years ago.

Sorry about the tangle you have to go through to move to Germany. Hope it smooths out soon.

Here's to a less complicated, healthy 2023!

Happy new year! >13 ursula: I love how international your reading is.

Hi Ursula, popping in to drop a star! Hope you are well

>26 ffortsa: Hello! Wow, that made me smile, I'm happy you find my threads interesting, and glad to have you along this year!

Oh the gall bladder. Ugh, the entire month of September disappeared into that. Nearly having my gall bladder kill me was not on my bingo card. Sorry to hear you went through it as well. Now that the new year is here, hopefully we can start untangling some things with the move.

Unfortunately, what we know at the moment is that Morgan will have to go there in February for a couple (few?) weeks.

>27 banjo123: Thanks! I'm working on it ... hopefully this year I can continue the trend.

>28 vikzen: Hello! Thanks for stopping in, I appreciate it.

Ugh to the gall bladder, Ursula. I had mine out back in 2015, and honestly, those attacks were the worst pain I have ever experienced.

>30 Crazymamie: Sorry you had to go through that! Mine was just one attack, and it was infected. Short story, I literally spent 7-8 days mostly unconscious. Longer story, in 3 of those days I had to try to get care at 3 different hospitals, which involved going down our 4 flights of stairs, getting into a taxi, and riding over the very bumpy streets for an hour or more, and then returning home to crawl (literally) up our 4 flights of stairs again, only to slip into unconsciousness again and try to do it over the next day.

Not trying to one-up here! I just know you weren't around last year and I can't remember in how much detail I explained the situation anyway. But on the 3rd try with a hospital (after the 2nd one told us we shouldn't wait another day "for her health" but also that there was no radiologist at either hospital to confirm the diagnosis ... without which they wouldn't do anything), I was finally admitted and hooked up to IVs etc. Had surgery for the first time in my life. Stayed in the hospital something like a total of 10 days? Anyway, yeah ... totally lost September.

Pines by Blake Crouch

First line: He came to lying on his back with sunlight pouring down into his face and the murmur of running water close by.

I feel like that first line is representative of what you'll get with this book: it's a variation on a theme, but it's a competent variation on it. That sounds like I'm damning it with faint praise, but that's not the intention. This is the 3rd Crouch book I've read (previously Dark Matter, which I loved and Recursion, which was fine), and one thing you can definitely count on him for is to keep things moving forward.

Anyway, the narrator wakes up, doesn't know where he is, or who he is. But thankfully he remembers at least who he is after a short time, and he discovers he's in a town called Wayward Pines where things seem not quite right. Discovering how not right things are is a fun ride, and there were definitely some twists I didn't see coming. I saw that Crouch said he wrote this trying to give himself the same feeling he got from watching Twin Peaks when he was a kid, and I didn't watch Twin Peaks but I get where he's coming from. This was an entertaining and fast-paced way to start off the year.

Note: this is the first book in a trilogy and it was made into a (short-lived, I think) TV series.

>31 ursula: YIKES! Well, that is a horror story. Glad you have come through the other side of it. How exhausting. And frustrating.

>32 ursula: I have this in the stacks. I did enjoy Dark Matter a lot, so I should probably get to it sooner rather than later. Nice review! I also have not watched Twin Peaks.

>33 Crazymamie: The frustration was mostly on Morgan's part, since he had to actually deal with the administration. All I had to do was occasionally say "safra kesesi" (gall bladder) and drift back into semi-consciousness. :)

There are two books after this, we'll see if I get to them anytime soon. I have a terrible record for actually continuing series!

>25 ursula: Well, why waste time, especially if it's not in your sweet spot.

>31 ursula: I was largely MIA on LT last year too and I didn't know ANY of that had happened to you! OMG. So sorry -- just horrible. We both need a better 2023.

>35 Berly: Hm yeah, when I say "my gall bladder tried to kill me", I mean that literally! The infection was so bad that I was in the hospital on IVs for 8 days before they would operate. I didn't eat more than about 2 crackers a day for a week. It was a situation.

Better years all around, I'll drink to that!

Happy new year, Ursula. I have you starred!

>37 curioussquared: Here's hoping for happier days ahead for you. Loved the photos you added to your thread. It took so long after we lost Penny for me to be able to look at photos.

Well, arrangements have been made for Morgan to deal with the bureaucracy in Germany. Unfortunately, it means he will be spending 16 days there in February.

In fact, we will be going to Germany together (unrelated, for a concert) Feb. 1-3, then he will be going back from the 8th to the 24th.

Friday 5x5

I've got a bunch of different projects going on - we're trying to get through the 2021 lists since we did a terrible job this year, while also doing 2022 albums. And in addition to that, I'm listening to the albums Morgan chose as his favorites of the year, and also picking an artist to focus on and go through their discography, one album per day.

Here are the albums with the most tracks played* in the previous week:

See Through You - A Place to Bury Strangers (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Beautiful Things - Anthony Green (discography listen (finished))
There's Nothing Wrong with Love - Built to Spill (discography listen (in progress))
Sling - Clairo (2021 lists)
Higher Lonely Power - Fireworks (new release)

The Late Great Gold Dust - Gold Dust (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Being Funny in a Foreign Language - The 1975 (my top 10 of 2022)
Twin Plagues - Wednesday (2022 lists)
Pixie Queen - Anthony Green (discography listen (finished))
As Days Get Dark - Arab Strap (2021 lists)

Gris Klein - Birds in Row (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
11:11 - Pinegrove (2022 releases)
The Normal Years - Built to Spill (discography listen (in progress))
Ultimate Alternative Wavers - Built to Spill (discography listen (in progress))
Between the Richness - Fiddlehead (2021 lists)

Plosivs - Plosivs (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Lucifer on the Sofa - Spoon (2022 lists)
S - They Are Gutting a Body of Water (2022 release)
Boom. Done. - Anthony Green (discography listen (finished)/my top 10 of 2022)
Would You Still Be in Love - Anthony Green (discography listen (finished))

Dissolution Wave - Cloakroom (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Every Moment, Everything You Need - Deserta (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Carnage - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis (2022 lists)
ILYSM - Wild Pink (my top 10 of 2022)
Mystic Sisters - City of Caterpillar (2022 releases)

*Often this is just which album has the most tracks on it, but occasionally it means I've played the songs on it more than once.

>40 ursula: Thanks for that Ursula - plenty to explore there. I have long been a Nick Cave devotee.

I have been listening to a lot of Greek music this weekend for some reason - I think that Bridges of Constantine making several references to Zorba probably caused it. In turns very rousing and then very calming.

>41 PaulCranswick: Well then you may be interested in this brand-new discovery of mine!

Interestingly, I just discovered that there is a book related to the new album (in title and some content at least): Faith, Hope and Carnage, about which the blurb at my library says:

Faith, Hope and Carnage is a book about Nick Cave's inner life.

Created from more than forty hours of intimate conversations with the journalist Seán O'Hagan, this is a profoundly thoughtful exploration, in Cave's own words, of what really drives his life and creativity.

The book examines questions of belief, art, music, freedom, grief and love. It draws candidly on Cave's life, from his early childhood to the present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years.

I haven't really listened to any Greek music, I have to say. I mostly enjoy traditional music of the countries around here when it's mixed with something else, not so much on its own.

>42 ursula: I will definitely look for that one, Ursula, thank you.

I suppose the best and probably most obvious introduction to Greek folk and trad music is Mikis Theodorakis.

>43 PaulCranswick: I'll check it out!

*****WARNING!*****

***Avert your eyes if you are sensitive about repurposing books!!***

This weekend I went to the Feriköy Antik Pazarı hoping to find some old books to take out the innards and turn them into sketchbooks. I didn't find any good candidates in Turkish, but one booth had some old French language learning books that were promising, so I picked those up.



I won't get around to rebinding them until who knows how long after we are in Germany, but I'm happy to have these waiting for me. I've done this in the past with other books; I used to trawl thrift stores and estate sales in Denver looking for good ones. I have some of those that I bound then, and I'm using one as my sketchbook for the year, in fact.

>45 ursula:, Ursula, that is so cool, please post one you've finished. I would love to see it. I keep sketchbooks but I have not repurposed an old book for one.

>46 Kristelh: Here are some views of my current self-bound sketchbook. I made this one about 10 years ago, and it's been kicking around ever since waiting for the right moment. The right moment is now!


I took one of the images from inside the book and pasted it onto the otherwise plain cover.


This is the book - Round the World with Famous Authors (seemed appropriate!)


Here's the paper I used for the endpapers, and below you can see that I bound the book with a mixture of white and kraft paper inside.



The first page is wavy because I used watercolor on it, the paper isn't really designed for that but that's fine!

>47 ursula: That’s lovely, and so clever!

>45 ursula: >47 ursula: I like the idea Ursula, especially when the books are maybe unloved or out of date. You are carrying something of them forward.

Thanks for sharing your journal Ursula. Such an appropriate name. Love the end papers and I too use watercolor, cause I like to! You've inspired me. I will be hunting through used books.

>48 SandDune:, >49 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks!

>50 Kristelh: I don't really do much watercolor, I usually just do light washes most of the time. Because this is my urban sketching sketchbook (so drawing on location), I usually have some water-soluble markers or watercolor pencils with me and use those.

Good luck finding some good books to repurpose!

I love the idea of re-purposing books for sketchbooks, and the one you showed is gorgeous.

>52 katiekrug: Thanks! One of the things I like about having a selection of purchased and handmade sketchbooks is when it comes time to start a new one, I get to decide which one feels right for the moment. At the beginning of this year I had to consider the options and decide which one spoke to me. This one won!

>47 ursula: That is SO cool. You are binding your books by hand? Sewn bindings? Wonderful. I get a notion from time to time, but never take it anywhere. I'm inspired. Ha! See if I take it for a spin this time.

I clicked on your thread, being surprised that you were beginning a second thread. I mean, LT didn't zip me to the first unread post, 'cause I hadn't read any of the posts. All were unread. Ahhh. It's your first thread of the year. Bzzzt. Thanks for letting me play the game. I must pay attention.

>52 katiekrug: What Katie said. I'm going to show this to Abby because I think she would love the idea.

>54 weird_O: Yes, these are coptic bindings. Love to inspire!

And I know exactly what you mean about the thread, I do that a lot at this time of year. If I'm lucky, it doesn't actually turn out to be the 2nd thread of the year and I've just missed it until then!

>55 Crazymamie: Again, love to inspire! Let me know if Abby decides to give it a whirl. :)

I've created another ridiculous chart in my reading spreadsheet. This shows books read per author from 2017-now. The vast majority are one-offs, as you can see. I'm an anti-completist!



The very largest section on the right there is from the year I did the 5-book series of Dream of the Red Chamber I wonder if this will make me want to revisit authors more often to change how it looks! Guess we'll find out.

Ooh, pretty!

>58 katiekrug: I think so too! I may have to keep reading one-offs so it'll stay that way haha.

Belated happy reading in 2023, Ursula!

>56 ursula: Never heard of coptic binding, so I inquired of the internets, and Lo, there is much info on the topic, including YouTube how-to vidies. More to explore. Thanks.

>60 FAMeulstee: It's never belated, I'll be here all year! (probably, I have vanished in a few years)

>61 weird_O: Yes! It's a very sturdy, not too difficult binding to do, and lets the book open flat. Very popular. Glad I could lead you to some good content!

Happy Friday, Ursula!

>63 figsfromthistle: Thanks! It's a Friday the 13th, and my birthday. The best combination!

So as I said above, today is my birthday. Morgan and I went out and got a Turkish breakfast, probably the last one we'll do here in Turkey.



I am stuffed.

Happy birthday!

Breakfast looks delicious...

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

First line: "We have your daughter."

Frida is a divorced mother of a toddler, Harriet. When the book opens, she is having what she will afterwards call her "very bad day". What that means is that sleep deprived, desperate for a break and also facing a work deadline, Frida leaves the house and leaves Harriet there alone. When she returns, CPS has taken Harriet. They give Frida the opportunity to try a new program where she can go to a school for a year and, depending on how she does there, regain custody of Harriet.

So, the school involves some sci-fi aspects, so be prepared for that. But basically the school is supposed to teach mothers how to be ever-present, ever-patient, ever-educational, ever-supportive. Which seems to be what is expected in general, anyway. I doubt that's even possible, and is it even what you want when that means subsuming your entire self into service of your child?

I liked a lot of things about this book, although "liked" is probably not the best word. A lot of it made me really angry and sad about the expectations on mothers. It went on a little too long, but that's my main complaint.

Quote: So it begins, Frida thinks. She is a bad mother among other bad mothers. She neglected and abandoned her child. She has no history, no other identity.

>66 katiekrug: Thanks! It was really good. They also delivered some eggs and we had ordered the pişi, which is kinda like doughnuts but plain and good with sweet or savory toppings.

Happy birthday, Ursula! That Turkish breakfast looks wonderful. I would have been stuffed too.

>65 ursula: Happy birthday, Ursula, the breakfast looks like a perfect start of your special day!

Happy birthday!

>67 ursula: This sounds fascinating, but I would probably need to be in a very specific mood to want to read it.

Happy birthday, Ursula! Sounds like a fabulous breakfast and great way to kick off celebrations :)

>57 ursula: That chart does come out looking intricate and pretty! I read a fair amount of series, so I expect it would look very different for me.

Happy Birthday, Ursula.

Happy birthday, Ursula.

Happy birthday! That breakfast sure looks delicious!

>69 ffortsa:, >70 FAMeulstee:, >71 curioussquared:, >72 bell7:, >73 Kristelh:, >74 weird_O:, >75 figsfromthistle: Thanks for all the birthday wishes, everyone!

>71 curioussquared: I can see that. It often made me angry because on the one hand, the things they were being tested on doing were ludicrously difficult to expect someone to do 100% of the time with total sincerity. And yet, it's what people often expect of mothers. 24/7, always on. There's been some more lip service in recent times to "we know moms aren't perfect, they need a break" etc, but the condemnation comes down just as hard on people who make mistakes, or take breaks. You're not supposed to actually need those, or at least only within acceptable parameters.

>72 bell7: Definitely! It would look a lot different for someone who reads a lot of series. I have been aware that I don't repeat authors a whole lot, but seeing it like that was interesting.

Time for my weekly 5x5



Wild Loneliness - Superchunk [indie rock] (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Superwolves - Matt Sweeney & Bonnie "Prince" Billy [alternative] (2022 lists)
Everything Was Beautiful - Spiritualized [space rock/neo-psychedelia] (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Patient Number 9 - Ozzy Osbourne [metal] (2022 lists)
Married in Mount Airy - Nicole Dollanganger [folk/lo-fi] (new release)

In My Car - Rat Tally [indie rock] (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
Past Lives - LS Dunes [post-hardcore] (my top 10 of 2022)
Chemtrails Over the Country Club - Lana Del Rey [pop] (2021 lists)
Link Wray - Link Wray [rockabilly/garage rock] (from a list of albums most influential to Spiritualized)
Household Name - Momma [alternative/indie rock] (2022 lists)

Ancient Melodies of the Future - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)
Keep It Like a Secret - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)
There Is No Enemy - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)
Untethered Moon - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)
You in Reverse - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)

Learning to Be Happy - Kayleigh Goldsworthy [indie/singer-songwriter](2022 releases)
Boat Songs - MJ Lenderman [indie rock] (2022 lists)
Raw Space - Authentically Plastic [electronica] (2022 lists)
Everything - Blankenberge [shoegaze] ("similar artists" exploration)
Perfect From Now On - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)

When the Wind Forgets Your Name - Built to Spill [indie rock] (discography listen, complete)
Semi Sweet - Highnoon [dream pop] (exploration of older release after listening to new release single)
Every Moment of Every Day - short fictions [emo] (2022 releases)
songwrights apothecary lab - Esperanza Spalding [jazz] (2021 lists, incomplete album)
Dying Star - Ruston Kelly [country] (exploration from a song in my library, incomplete album)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week: I was doing the Built to Spill discography because they're a band that's adjacent to a lot of things I like, but I've just never listened to them. They're a favorite of Morgan's, so that was fun to be able to talk about it now. My favorite of the albums was 1997's Perfect From Now On.

Kayleigh Goldsworthy really should have appeared on my top 10 of 2022, I just hadn't rated all the songs by the end of the year. Favorite songs: Losing My Mind, Happy Now, I Want to Know. Anyway, this and the LS Dunes and the No Devotion (which I'll talk about shortly) will be appearing on the charts consistently for the next few weeks probably since we are going to see them together on one bill at the beginning of February. It's a dream show and we are beyond excited.

I'll probably come back and finish the Ruston Kelly album. I've been meaning to check out his music in more detail since he was married to Kacey Musgraves. Since then, she put out a "so in love record" (The Golden Hour), and then a "heartbroken divorce record" (Star Crossed). Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to things.

Happy belated birthday! That breakfast looks delish.

School for Good Mothers sounds pretty interesting... there definitely is an unrealistic expectation of mothers in our culture. Another gift of misogyny.

>78 banjo123: Thank you! It was, definitely.

Yes, so true about mothers and misogyny.

Your thread is literally beautiful this year, Ursula.

>47 ursula: That is so cool.

>57 ursula: As colourful and pretty as it is informative as to a diverse reading!

>65 ursula: Breakfast at the weekends is my favourite meal of the week, I think, although my Sunday evening dinner with the ladies runs it close. I am sure that you'll miss those breakfasts though I think that there will be plenty of Turkish eateries in Germany.

>77 ursula: Spiritualized are a band I used to listen to a lot in the late 90s and early noughties. Great mood music as I recall.

Happy belated birthday, Ursula!

New Animal by Ella Baxter

First line: There is a man with kind eyes and crooked teeth in my bed.

Amelia works in the family business, which is a funeral home. She does makeup for the funerals. She has a lot of interesting and seemingly well-adjusted thoughts about our relationships to our bodies as it relates to being dead, although she describes her compartmentalization and also how she copes by having random sex with men she will never see again. Then a death hits close to home and she doesn't know how to face it, so she tries something physical - in this case, meeting up with a man who takes her to a kink club.

Hm, I've been trying to write more about this particularly in response to some criticisms of the book I've seen, and I just don't know where to start, so here goes: Is it healthy to try something like that at a time of extreme emotional distress? Probably not. Is it responsible of someone to take her there when they know what she's going through? Probably not, but at the same time the man is not portrayed as a pillar of responsible BDSM behavior.

In any event, it's a continuation of her fumbling explorations of what it means to be in a body, and the things we do to try to be more present in it, or alternatively, escape it. I found it to be interesting, but if you're not up for some very frank passages about sex and sex-related things, this isn't the book for you at all.

Quote: It's good practice to use the client's personal makeup mixed with some industry standards. For an undamaged face like Jennifer's, you can just use an oil-based, full-coverage foundation. Chemist brands are highly pigmented and do the job well. Most of us are already using the makeup that we will wear at our funerals, unless something severe happens.

>80 PaulCranswick: I've been posting a lot of images, that's for sure!

Yeah, Morgan and I had said this would be our last Turkish breakfast ... in Turkey. I'm sure we'll still be able to get them in Germany.

Oh! Interesting that you listened to Spiritualized too.

Thank you for the birthday wishes. :)

The Australian Open starts (started) today! My consolation for the time zone of the US Open being trash for me is that the Aussie is pretty decent overall, aside from the first matches of the day (11 am there is 3 am here). Over the last few days Morgan and I have also watched the first two episodes of the Netflix series they were filming on the tour for the last year - Break Point.

>83 ursula: I always enjoy the slams in tennis, Ursula. The results so far a bit mixed for my lot with Rafa taking four sets over our rising star Jack Draper. Emma Radacanu managed to win though which is good.

>83 ursula: - I'm looking forward to watching Break Point. It's from the producers of Formula 1: Drive to Survive which we gobbled up, despite not being racing fans.

>84 PaulCranswick: Yes, if you're following players from a particular country it can be a mixed bag. Getting Rafa in the first round is a tough one! I'm not particularly attached to any of the Americans, but I suppose I'd like to see Taylor Fritz do well.

>85 katiekrug: Oh that's an achievement, to make it interesting to outsiders. I did wonder if it would be of interest to people who don't already follow any tennis.

>47 ursula: I love the repurposed sketchbooks!

>57 ursula: I bet my series image would look very similar. LOL

>65 ursula: Happy belated birthday!!

>83 ursula: Recording the Australian open and watching matches as I write!!

>87 Berly: Thanks for all of that!

I will try to remember not to post any real-time results from the Aussie without spoiler tags.

Belated Happy Birthday wishes to you, Ursula! Your birthday breakfast looks full of fabulous.

I showed Abby the sketchbooks you made, and she loved them. She is very excited about trying that herself sometime soonish. She would not be able to do the coptic binding herself, but Craig could help her with that.

Love the visual presentation of the music you are listening to!

Your Turkish breakfast looks lovely. Belated birthday wishes Ursula.

>89 Crazymamie: Thank you! I can see how the actual sewing would be difficult, but it's good that Craig can help!

I've been finding it fun to have these music charts to look back on. Just like with books, tracking can be addictive.

>90 Caroline_McElwee: Thank you! It was a very lovely time out, and the food was good. Of course, it also cost 3.5x more than it did last time we went.

It was also Morgan's birthday (mine is the 13th, his is the 18th; I turned 51, he turned 42), and we haven't yet made it out to celebrate that. He had to give a final on his birthday, the indignity!

I've reached that frustrating point in January where all of a sudden I have books nearing completion and yet, a dry spell for actually finishing anything. So meanwhile, here is a photo of Archie, who it turns out is a fan of Ozark.



(He did in fact sit there and watch like that for the majority of the show.)

Weekly 5x5



Sorry Ma! Forgot To Take out the Trash! - The Replacements [punk] (discography listen, complete)
The Things We Think We're Missing - Balance and Composure [emo/post-hardcore] (2013 anniversary list)
On All Fours - Goat Girl [post-punk] (2022 lists)
Death of a Cheerleader - Pom Pom Squad [grunge/pop punk] (2022 lists)
All Shook Down - The Replacements [punk/college rock] (discography listen, complete)

Don't Go Tellin' Your Momma - Topaz Jones [R&B] (2021 lists)
Melt My Eyez See Your Future - Denzel Curry [hip hop] (2022 lists)
LYKE MYKE - Myke Towers [latin/reggaeton] (2021 lists, incomplete album)
Hootenanny - The Replacements [punk] (discography listen, complete)
Different Man - Kane Brown [country] (2022 lists, incomplete album)

As the Love Continues - Mogwai [post-rock/space rock] (2021 lists)
Don't Tell a Soul - The Replacements [punk/college rock] (discography listen, complete)
Let It Be - The Replacements [punk/college rock] (discography listen, complete)
Pleased To Meet Me - The Replacements [punk/college rock] (discography listen, complete)
Tim - The Replacements [punk/college rock] (discography listen, complete)

Maybe You, No One Else Worth It - Brave Bird [emo](2022 releases)
Lacuna - Caravels [post-hardcore] (2013 anniversary list)
Cleanse - Joywave [indie/indietronica] (2022 lists)
The Tipping Point - Tears for Fears [rock] (2022 lists)
40 Oz. to Fresno - Joyce Manor [pop punk/emo] (2022 lists)

Really From - Really From [indie/math rock] (not entirely sure where this came from!)
No Oblivion - No Devotion [post-punk] (my top 10 of 2022)
Thought Form Descent - Wake [black metal] (Morgan's top 10 of 2022)
A Dream About Love - Circa Survive [alternative/experimental] (2022 releases)
MAN MADE - Greentea Peng [R&B/neo-soul] (2021 lists, incomplete album)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week: My discography project this week was The Replacements. I listened to Don't Tell a Soul and Pleased to Meet Me a lot in college but never really investigated the other albums very deeply. There's quite an interesting journey from pure punk to what I associate as the sound of The Replacements, and it seems that was a result of first conflict between Bob Stinson and Paul Westerberg, and then Stinson leaving and Westerberg taking the band in the direction he wanted. Don't Tell a Soul remains my favorite but I had a greater appreciation for the rest now.

I'm behind on writing about my and Morgan's albums of the year, but one of each of ours appears here, I'll write about those next.

I didn't end up finishing the Kane Brown album; it was very long. And although I liked some of it quite a bit, it got bogged down in some smarmy albums about god blessing you with love etc and I called it there. I also didn't finish the Myke Towers album, also very long. It was fine, but most of the songs sounded very much the same and it didn't seem that was going to change appreciably on the rest of it.

Pom Pom Squad was fun, the lyrics were interesting and occasionally heavier than the music would suggest. One song reminded me a lot of the Runaways, and then that was followed by a cover of Crimson and Clover, which was not nearly as good as the one Joan Jett did, so I think that was probably a bad choice.

The albums that say they're from a 2013 anniversary list come from here: 25 Classic Emo and Post-Hardcore Albums Turning 10 in 2023.

Hi Ursula. A belated Happy New Year and happy first thread of 2023.

>1 ursula: The picture of that cat makes me happy.

>4 ursula: I couldn’t resist looking at Amazon for The Golden Ass simply based on the title, and what a can of worms I opened – there are at least 10 translations starting in the Elizabethan era. I was directed to the Relihan translation, but want to research before actually buying a copy. It sounds fascinating.

>4 ursula: Heh. Hall of Shame.

>13 ursula: Great international flavor and switch to e-reading.

>57 ursula: Psychedelic. If I look at it long enough, I’ll trance out. *smile*

>65 ursula: Belated happy birthday, and just … yum.

>92 ursula: Fun pic of Archie – our kitties are occasionally fascinated with what’s on the TV, too.

>92 ursula: - Archie does look enthralled...

Have a good weekend, Ursula!

Hello, Ursula! Love the photo of Archie. I showed Birdy your 5x5, and she thought it was so cool. She has recently started collecting vinyl, which takes me back.

Hoping your weekend is full of fabulous!

At the Edge of the Woods by Masatsugu Ono

WTF did I just read.

First line: My wife had gone back to her parents' home to have our second child, leaving me and my son to manage by ourselves for a while.

On the surface, this is sort of a creepy, surreal story about a man taking care of his young son in their house on the edge of the woods. They are in a country where they are not native; although they've gotten over the language barrier there may still be some sort of cultural barrier between them and the people in the town a short distance away. Much is made by these townspeople of the imps they say live in the woods and will get up to all sorts of terrible things. The father describes the sounds the woods make - laughing, speaking, etc. There are some weird incidents of semi-reality, from the mildly amusing to the outright disturbing. It wasn't clear to me exactly how I was supposed to take all of this, and I often felt like I was reading someone's fever dream. Then I went to Goodreads and saw that it was supposed to be some sort of allegory for climate change? I have no clue.

Quote: I switched on the lamp on the mantel. We use energy-efficient lightbulbs, and it takes a while for them to light up. Little by little, Night was forced back outside the windows. Bits of nocturnal darkness that failed to escape hid in panic under the toys scattered on the floor and in the curtain folds.

>94 karenmarie: I love capturing those moments when the street cats are just living their best lives. This was definitely one of them!

Yeah, The Golden Ass is on the 1001 Books list. I happened to come across a copy of it at a library sale in California. My translation is by Robert Graves and I have no complaints about it at all.

Thanks for the birthday wishes!

Archie will often watch a little bit of shows from Morgan's lap (we are usually watching on Morgan's small laptop, so I guess Archie just liked the cinematic experience).

>95 katiekrug: He was! We couldn't stop laughing at him. I hope you have a good weekend too!

>96 Crazymamie: Archie is a silly boy.

Oh fun that Birdy has started collecting vinyl. Morgan has a vinyl collection - I have added a couple of records to it recently. I mean, kind of. We had them delivered to Em in Kentucky, so I won't have them in hand until she comes to visit. I hope you're having a good weekend, thanks for stopping by!

All the talk of tattoos and piercings made me realize that I don't think I've shared pictures of the last tattoo I got. I managed to start it just before the pandemic hit, and then have it finished even through the restrictions, with the deadline of leaving the country hanging over me, haha.

 

 

Ursula, the artwork on that is stunning! I cannot imagine how long that took. Is it your own design?

*edited because I can't type

>99 ursula: - Beautiful!

>100 Crazymamie: Thank you! It took 4 sessions of 4-5 hours each, and a touchup session at the end just to fill in any bits the artist wasn't happy with. It was not my design - I actually came to him with a photo I'd taken in a church in Hungary (below) and told him that I'd like it to be a woman instead of a man, no snake, etc, and that I wanted it to be in an Art Nouveau style. This is the design he came up with. Originally the "fortitudo" was going to go at the top, around the shoulder, but it didn't sit right so we put it below and added the sun to pull it all together.



He had a couple of posts on his instagram that were the style I was looking for, and he loved the project so he really put a lot into it. It was a perfect match.

>101 katiekrug: Thank you! I've had it for just about 3 years now and am still totally thrilled with it.

That is such a cool story about how your tattoo came to fruition. It is full of gorgeous - the coloring is so vibrant and real.

>92 ursula: So funny Archie.

>99 ursula: >102 ursula: Cool indeed Ursula. I'm sure you are pleased with the end result.

Gorgeous ink!

I recently read another book by Ono, Echo on the Bay. It was also a bit hard to figure out what that one was about, but worth reading, I thought.

>99 ursula: Oh wow, that's fantastic! And I love your story of the inspiration for it.

>99 ursula: Nice1 It looks like it took quite a while....Lots of detail and colour.

>99 ursula: Really well designed and spaced tattoo, looks great! Reminds me how much I've been itching to get my next ones.

>103 Crazymamie: ❤️

>104 Caroline_McElwee: Archie is very funny - I started to say he's maybe our funniest cat, but honestly they all have their very different moments.

I am indeed very pleased with the end result. It's 100% different than what I went in thinking I would get, but it's perfect.

>105 banjo123: Thanks! Interesting about the other Ono book. As I've read more Japanese literature, I feel like I don't connect with the interiority of it, or its style, very often. I have loved so many Murakami books, but I know I've seen people say that his style stands apart from Japanese lit anyway. I don't know, I'll probably continue investigating.

>106 bell7: Thank you! I had this idea in my mind, and then there just happened to be an artist in Fresno who also loved Art Nouveau. It was meant to be!

>107 figsfromthistle: It did, it took about 20 hours all together I guess, spread out over multiple sessions. Sometimes I was there for 5 hours at a time.

>108 WhiteRaven.17: He did a phenomenal job. It's funny, because I always said that I didn't see the appeal of getting a lady head tattoo and that I would never get one, and then ... well, here we are! I hope you can get in to get a new one soon. My husband and I are both wanting to get something new in the near-ish future.

Wow! There is so much going on in those tattoos! Looks like your research (both on the image and the artist) paid off because the artistry is simply beautiful.

>110 Berly: I can't claim to have done much research in either case! It was about almost a year from the time I took the photo to the time I contacted the artist, but I wasn't actively thinking about the design much during that time. And the artist - well, I was poking around looking for an artist and was very surprised to find someone who had done some Art Nouveau style pieces (there were like ... 2 on his insta, haha). When I reached out he was very excited because it's a style he gravitates toward naturally but hadn't found many takers.

And even though the design was not at all how I had imagined it, I knew it was beautiful and I trusted his judgment. Worked out very well all around, I think. He's since had a good amount of business working in this style!

>111 ursula: Then you are a very trusting soul that really lucked out! LOL. : )

>112 Berly: I mean, it's not like he started on it sight unseen! I saw the design a few days beforehand, we talked about colors, etc. I just hadn't pictured it like this, but I don't have experience with how something works on the body, etc. And when part of the original design didn't work out (word on the shoulder), then we just worked together to come up with how to incorporate it. It was easy to trust him since I knew he wanted to do more work in this style - he was definitely looking to make sure it would be something he would be really proud of/something that would bring in business. :)

The Golden Ass by Apuleius, translated by Robert Graves

Knocked this one off the 1001 Books list!

First line: Business once took me to Thessaly, where my mother's family originated; I have, by the way, the distinction of being descended through her from the famous Plutarch.

I think I found the source material for The Emperor's New Groove! Our curious narrator wants to be transformed into a bird to fly around but instead his helper brings him the wrong potion and he's turned into an ass. Oopsies! (Emperor's New Groove reference: this scene)

His life as an ass is not exactly charmed, as you might guess, but there aren't many dull moments. I was wondering how something written in the 2nd or 3rd century and translated from Latin would read, but it was honestly pretty breezy. I mean, as breezy as people whacking the crap out of their beasts of burden can be. The introduction (I don't normally read these before the book, but like I said, I wasn't sure how the reading experience would be without it) gave me some insight into things to notice in the story - namely, how poverty is a result of bad luck, and that bad luck is contagious. Moral of the story: it's best to steer clear of anyone in difficulty, lest their bad luck rub off on you and you end up in the same situation.

Weekly 5x5



Coral Island - The Coral [indie rock] (2021 lists)
In the Wee Small Hours - Frank Sinatra [pop] (1001 Albums list)
Year of the Horse (Act One) - Fucked Up [hardcore punk] (2021 lists)
Songs for Swingin' Lovers! - Frank Sinatra [pop] (1001 Albums list)
Year of the Horse (Act Two) - Fucked Up [hardcore punk] (2021 lists)

Here, My Dear - Marvin Gaye [soul] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Nurture - Porter Robinson [electronic] (2021 lists)
Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley [rock] (1001 Albums list)
Giving the World Away - Hatchie [dream pop] (2021 lists)
Tragic Songs of Life - The Louvin Brothers [country] (1001 Albums list)

Dark in Here - The Mountain Goats [indie folk] (2021 lists)
Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes - The Ronettes [pop] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Nick of Time - Bonnie Raitt [blues] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Please Don't Take Me Back - Martha [pop punk] (2022 lists)
Birth of the Cool - Miles Davis [jazz] (1001 Albums list)

Permanence - No Devotion [post-punk](getting ready for the show next week ... see below)
Fear of Music - Talking Heads [new wave/post-punk] (discography listen, in progress)
More Songs about Buildings and Food - Talking Heads [new wave/post-punk] (discography listen, in progress)
Talking Heads: 77 - Talking Heads [new wave/post-punk] (discography listen, in progress)
Driver - Adult Mom [lo-fi/indie pop] (2021 lists)

Youth - Citizen [emo/pop punk] (2013 anniversary list)
Paul Walker - Drug Church [hardcore] (2013 anniversary list)
Albatross - Foxing [emo] (2013 anniversary list)
Heart Under - Just Mustard [noise rock/shoegaze] (2022 lists)
Heart Like a Wheel - Linda Ronstadt [pop] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week: My discography project this week has been Talking Heads. Just like with The Replacements, I have a couple of "most-listened albums" and after that I've listened a lot less. (Today's album is their last one, Naked, and I think I've never even listened to it at all.) Speaking in Tongues and Little Creatures are the ones I have listened to a lot in the past, and I think the former is still my favorite, but Fear of Music is up there too now. Their albums are mostly too short to show up here, but I did 7 of them.

Seeing talk about the RS 500 and the 1001 Albums list, I figured I'd take those on too because I can never have too many lists.

(Also, I'm trying to make sure to listen to an album just for me every day as well, although sometimes it's not a full album.)

The Mountain Goats are a band I've never really listened to, but they have too many albums for my self-imposed limits on the discography project. I might just listen to a few here and there instead of concentrating on them. Also, I want to read another of John Darnielle's books (I read Wolf in White Van last year). AND Morgan just told me that he's involved in an episode of a tv series called Poker Face, starring Natasha Lyonne, so we're going to check that out.

I am gutted that No Devotion had to cancel their plans to open for L.S. Dunes this week. They are the unluckiest band in history; they've had to cancel every tour they've tried to undertake.

The White Mosque by Sofia Samatar

First line: Begin with the glow: the faint beam of a half-forgotten history.

My first non-fiction read of the year.

This is ostensibly the story of Mennonites who, in the 19th century, followed a radical who claimed to be a prophet with a vision of the end times. They followed him on a brutal trek through Russia and into Uzbekistan, where they were supposed to wait for the appointed date for the end of the world. But it's also the story of a second trek, less brutal, that the author is making to find out more information about this journey and the people who made it, a pilgrimage to see ... something. She's not even sure what herself. But it leads to a lot of ruminations about groups and what holds them together, belonging, and how to have true belonging when you are a part of a group and yet your presence challenges the group's self-identity.

The author is a Mennonite whose mother is of the typical German Mennonite stock, while her father is a Somali who converted. She doesn't have one of the "right" last names (German), she doesn't have the right skin tone, features and hair, and she doesn't even consider herself religious but a "secular Mennonite". I'd never heard that phrase or considered that as a concept before. She mixes together threads of her own life, the group trip she is on to visit Uzbekistan, and the journey of the original pilgrims. It's all pretty interesting, but if you don't like things where the author extrapolates from what is known into what a person was thinking or doing or what the weather was over 100 years ago on a specific day, this isn't for you. Also, she writes some intensely long sentences.

For me, this was a pretty interesting look into a world I knew very little about, though it did drag from time to time.

Quote: But if my study of Mennonite literature has convinced me of anything, it's that numbers don't matter. Anyone who is waiting for a critical mass of people of color to transform a white space will wait until Judgment Day. This is because identity is not a question of numbers. It's a question of storytelling. When I want to find stories of Mennonites like my father, I don't go to books about writing but to books about missionary work, because most of the world's Mennonites are framed as receivers, rather than creators, of Mennonite stories.

>116 ursula:. That sounds really interesting. I am a Miriam Toews fan, so interested in reading more about Mennonites from a different angle.

Re: Japanese literature, have you read Banana Yoshimoto? I find her pretty accessible, but it does seem like a lot of Japanese literature is about trauma and WWII. Also I loved The Housekeeper and the Professor

>117 banjo123: I have read Banana Yoshimoto, but quite a long time ago. She was fine. Some aspects of Japanese literature work for me but I'm finding that in particular, their horror/suspense stories don't.

>115 ursula: Intertwining Frank Sinatra with Fucked Up! made me smile, Ursula.

Very diverse listening recently.

>119 PaulCranswick: Ha, strange bedfellows!

Two more Fucked Up albums coming, Act 3 and 4 of Year of the Horse (it's a weird thing, they're set up as separate albums on streaming with multiple short tracks each but I guess on vinyl it's just 4 sides with one track on each side, all between 19 and 26 minutes long). Wonder what they'll be next to this time!

>120 ursula: Well there is Perry Como, Andy Williams, Bing Crosby and Tony Bennett or, not to be entirely sexist Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald or Rosemary Clooney! Hehehe

Weekly 5x5



Anthology - Muddy Waters [blues] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list), partial album -1 disc of 2 completed
Happier than Ever - Billie Eilish [pop] (2021 lists)
Damaged - Black Flag [punk] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Born This Way - Lady Gaga [pop] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Sheer Heart Attack - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)

This Is Fats Domino! - Fats Domino [rock] (1001 Albums list)
Here's Little Richard - Little Richard [rock] (1001 Albums list)
Kenya - Machito [jazz/latin jazz] (1001 Albums list)
A Night at the Opera - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
You're Always on My Mind - A Great Big Pile of Leaves [emo] (2013 anniversary list)

Past Lives - L.S. Dunes [post-hardcore] (show prep!)
Solitude - Lord Snow [screamo] (2013 anniversary list)
Queen II - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
Cub - Wunderhorse [rock] (2022 lists)
Learning to Be Happy - Kayleigh Goldsworthy [indie/singer-songwriter] (show prep!)

The Wildest! - Louis Prima [jazz/swing] (1001 Albums list)
A Day at the Races - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
Queen - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight - Richard & Linda Thompson [folk] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Projector - Geese [post-punk] (2021 lists)

Celestial Blues - King Woman [metal] (2021 lists)
These Are Good People - Little Big League [emo] (2013 anniversary list)
Temporary Highs in the Violet Skies - Snoh Aalegra [r&b] (2021 lists) - partial album
NINXS ROTXS - Mabiland [latin r&b] (2021 lists) - partial album
Palo Congo - Sabu Martinez [Cuban/latin jazz] (1001 Albums list)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week:
This is an abbreviated week, I was away Thursday through Sunday in Cologne for the LS Dunes show.

Started my listen to Queen's discography. I remember being little and sitting next to the record player with my parents' giant headphones, listening to A Day at the Races. My phone has a Freddie Mercury sticker on the back of it.

Let's see, what else? A little overlap with my reading here - Little Big League was Michelle Zauner's band before Japanese Breakfast, and I just finished her memoir Crying in H Mart a few days ago (thoughts about that to come soon too). Also, it's probably sacrilege but I might have liked this album better than Japanese Breakfast, or at least better than her most recent album, Jubilee.

I've listened to the Billie Eilish before, but I liked it better on a re-listen. I still think it's too long though.

>121 PaulCranswick: We'll see what comes up on my lists. I will keep these in mind for later but at the moment my plate is full with lists and some personal listening!

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

I feel like lots of people have read this memoir of the experience of losing her mother, so I'll just say that for me, it was good. It didn't completely knock my socks off, but it was good. I guess I wanted more actual details about the relationship she had with her mother, but I guess it was enigmatic to her as well, so maybe this is how it had to be. Unsurprisingly, since a large part of their bond was forged through food, it made me want Korean food.

Quote: The cowboy boots arrived in one of these packages after my parents had vacationed in Mexico. When I slipped them on I discovered they'd already been broken in. My mother had worn them around the house for a week, smoothing the hard edges in two pairs of socks for an hour every day, molding the flat sole with the bottom of her feet, wearing in the stiffness, breaking the tough leather to spare me all discomfort.

>122 ursula: Queen always satisfies and I am pleased to see Richard and Linda Thompson there music much more harmonious than their relationship ever was!

Dropping in to wish you a wonderful Sunday!

>125 PaulCranswick: I admit I don't know anything about them, although the music is indeed quite harmonious.

>126 figsfromthistle: Thanks, it turned out to be our first real day of winter - very windy and cold, rain turning into snow. Glad we flew in the day before.

>124 ursula: Like you, I had mixed feelings about this one. You remind me, though, that I'd meant to listen to some of her music and haven't yet. I think I can stream Japanese Breakfast through one of my library's services, and I'll try to remember to do that this week.

I was sorry to wake up today to hear about the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria. I had to Google Map it (my geography is really shoddy) but it doesn't look like you were close enough to be immediately affected. Hope all is well with you.

>128 bell7: Songs on the most recent album (Jubilee) I have hearts next to: Paprika, Be Sweet. On the previous one (Soft Sounds from Another Planet): Machinist, 12 Steps, The Body Is a Blade. I haven't listened to any of them in quite a while so it's more informational than a recommendation!

No you're right, the earthquakes are in southern Turkey near the Syrian border. That's well over 1100 km/700 miles from Istanbul, so everything is fine here.

Our quick trip to Cologne allowed me to stop in to the St. Ursula Church again (I visited here previously in 2013). I wanted to see the Goldene Kammer (Golden Chamber), which is full of busts of saints, glass cases containing skulls, and the upper walls covered with human bones. When I was here before, they had been doing some work to it and were just starting to put the busts and skulls out again so I didn't get the full experience.

>130 ursula: Wow. That picture of the church does give me pause. Human bones. Huh.

I'm glad you weren't tossed around by this awful earthquake. But it will damage Turkey in general to recover. Sounds like a good time to move to Germany.

That's one way to look at it.

>130 ursula: that is extraordinary Ursula.

I've long liked 'The Dream of St Ursula' by Carpaccio.

>133 Caroline_McElwee: Very nice! I see it's part of a series. I love the cat at the foot of the bed!

Wordle 598 2/6

🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Well, that was unexpected.

Kaçırılan Çocuk by Robert Louis Stevenson

I finished my first book in Turkish (ironic, but there were reasons it took so long to happen). It's a (n abridged) translation of Kidnapped.

I have some other books on deck in Turkish, hoping I can finish another one in the next month.

First lines: Benim hikâyem 1751 yılında başladı. Haziran ayında bir sabah erkenden evimden çıktım.

(My story begins in the year 1751. I left my home early one morning in June.)

>131 ffortsa: Oops. Sorry if that sounded that was appallingly insensitive. It's horrible to think of all the people trapped or homeless in the earthquake area. I can't think of anything more frightening and destabilizing than such a catastrophe.

>137 ffortsa: I appreciate that.

It's disastrous. Yes, it's lucky that we're able to/had already been planning to leave. But it has already felt bad to be bailing/able to bail when so many people have been finding living under the inflation rates such a burden, and then this happens. Istanbul is unaffected by the actual quake, but the nature of the city is that so many people here came from villages in various parts of the country and have family there that the mood is somber. Also it's a very vivid reminder that the fate of this city would be worse than that in so many ways.

Weekly 5x5



The Weight of These Wings - Miranda Lambert [country] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list), partial album - 1 of 2 discs done
Anthology - Muddy Waters [blues] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list), partial album - 2nd half done
Sarah Vaughan at Mister Kelly's - Sarah Vaughan [jazz] (1001 Albums list)
Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde - The Pharcyde [hip hop] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Jazz - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)

Something Else by The Kinks - The Kinks [rock] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Dancing Dimensions - Ural Thomas & the Pain [r&b] (2022 lists)
Norm - Andy Shauf [singer-songwriter] (new releases)
Lady in Satin - Billie Holiday [jazz] (1001 Albums list)
The "Chirping" Crickets - Buddy Holly & the Crickets [rock] (1001 Albums list)

Hanazono - Satomimagae [electronic/ambient] (2021 lists)
Dance Mania - Tito Puente [latin jazz] (1001 Albums list)
Bloodmoon: I - Converge & Chelsea Wolfe [metal] (2021 lists)
Jack Takes the Floor - Ramblin' Jack Elliott [folk] (1001 Albums list)
After the Magic - Parannoul [shoegaze/emo] (new releases)

Hot Space - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
News of the World - Queen [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
Resonate/ Desperate - State Faults [screamo] (2013 anniversary list)
Blue Weekend - Wolf Alice [indie rock] (2021 lists)
If You're Feeling Sinister - Belle & Sebastian [indie pop] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)

Caroline - Caroline [post-rock] (2022 lists)
Tresor - Gwenno [electropop] (2022 lists)
Jack in the Box - J-Hope [hip hop] (2022 lists)
Hideous Bastard - Oliver Sim [rock] (2022 lists)
Feast of Love - Pity Sex [emo] (2013 anniversary list)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week:
Queen discography listen continues. I hit what is probably their low point, Hot Space from 1982. It was a very low point, but honestly the albums up till then were good, so I guess everyone's entitled to a lull.

Finished the 2nd disc of the Muddy Waters album - feels unnecessary for them to have chosen something with 50 songs on it?!
Belle and Sebastian: is there anyone out there who can explain the appeal to me? I do not get it at all.
Gwenno was not at all what I was expecting. The writeup said something about psychedelic electronica or things along those lines so I was expecting very boring festival music but this was actually pretty good (also all in Welsh).
Oliver Sim was also interesting, mostly for lyrical content (very personal, about dealing with HIV for most of his life, being queer, etc).

I liked Sarah Vaughan better than Billie Holiday. The Kinks album didn't grab me aside from a couple of songs. I enjoyed the Ramblin' Jack Elliott a lot. Pity Sex was pretty good.

My favorite listen of the week: the new Parannoul album. They're Korean emo/shoegaze and although I was on the fence about their previous album I really liked this one a lot.

>139 ursula: I quite enjoy these weekly displays. Quite beautiful!

Has Morgan left for Germany yet, or is that later?

>140 figsfromthistle: I enjoy seeing all the album art together, too!

>141 katiekrug: Yep, we got back on Saturday and he left again on Tuesday. He's staying at the university housing that they have offered for the first few months while we look for an apartment. He said he's going to start looking for an apartment now, calling the university residence "grim".

>142 ursula: - I'm sorry about the separation but maybe it's good he can scout things out first!

>138 ursula: There's a lot of talk on the radio here that this may seriously affect Erdogan's chances in the next election. That might be ok, depending on who might come in instead. The economy plus the earthquake are surely daunting. And the situation must be at least as horrible on the Syrian side, where civil war has already leveled so much.

Do you have any perspective on effective relief agencies?

Fingers crossed Morgan finds a nice place for you both.

I'm way behind, forgive me for mentioning a book you read ages ago. I don't remember coming across The Golden Ass until very recently: reading Cloud Cuckoo Land. Although I really should pick that book up and finish it (someone else recalled the original copy I was reading, so I got hold of another.)

The earthquake news from Turkey is so awful. Much on the local news on the impact on Turkish and Syrian communities here, and people coming together to raise money and send support.

>143 katiekrug: It's a first - he has been to places we later moved (Ghent, Istanbul), or we've been together (Padova), but we never knew we were moving there at the time.

>144 ffortsa: It's hard to know about the election. There are a lot of factors. But I mean, he had one of his possible opponents arrested under the "disinformation" laws not that long ago. (He's still fighting it, but he does face jail time and most importantly, a ban from politics.) Obviously the average person doesn't always vote in their own best interests - I don't know how much people in wide swaths of the country blame The Tall Man for the current state of the economy, even though they should.

Syria - well, yes. I was talking to Morgan and saying that it's heartbreaking to realize that a 16 or 17-year-old there will have memories of nothing but disaster after disaster for their entire lives. Of course, fully 1/3 of the Syrian population resides in Turkey at this point, so.

Relief agencies: my recommendations for donations are -

AKUT, they are a Turkish-based independent search and rescue organization that has been on the ground from the beginning. Their role is critical in any kind of disaster.

https://www.akut.org.tr/en/donation

AHBAP, they are a relief organization, again non-governmental.

https://ahbap.org/disasters-turkey

The fact that AKUT's maximum pre-selected donation amount is 200TL breaks my fucking heart. That's $10.

>145 charl08: Well he's probably not going to be able to find an actual place just yet, we're still (maybe? I don't know how things work in Germany) too far out to lock down a place. But he can at least see if areas are convenient to the university and also other things, which neighborhoods look nice, etc.

No problem mentioning "old" stuff, there's no expiration date! (Aside from my memory.) I've had The Golden Ass on my shelf for a while, picked it up at a library book sale, and on my radar for longer since it's on the 1001 Books list. I read it now because I'm trying to read some physical books so we don't have to move them to Germany. I mean, it'll be the difference between 1 box and 2, it's not the end of the world! But it turns out a lot of other people ended up reading it around the same time because of the Africa Challenge I guess. I was unintentionally trendy.

The news is truly terrible, I've been hearing a lot from someone I know online who lives in Kahranmaraş, which is where the second earthquake hit. His family got out all right but they are sleeping in tents (some of the lucky ones who have tents). His cousin was rescued after over 3 days under rubble. Help from abroad means a lot, it's been nice to see so many agencies from other countries here contributing their manpower. (Personpower?)

Also FINALLY, I'm sharing some videos from the show. They go to my iCloud, just click on the thumbnail on the page to play them. Links are valid for a month.

First up, here's Kayleigh Goldsworthy, the opener. She's awesome.

Here are a couple from LS Dunes; I couldn't decide which one to share.

Part of Permanent Rebellion, and the end of 2022, with Anthony thanking the crowd at the end.

This is the portrait of the little ghost I bought from Kayleigh making its way home. She ran out of merch in the US tour and started making these little paintings, offering 10 or so each night. She sells her own merch between the sets so she signs and dates them on the back, and it was cool to talk to her.

>146 ursula: Thanks for the recs. And yes, that minimum is truly heartbreaking.

>149 ffortsa: No problem at all.

Sometimes these kitties are just so sweet and cuddly with each other. Cleo on the left, Archie on the right.

>151 ursula: - Adorable!

>152 katiekrug: They certainly can be! The rest of the time they're begging for food and/or fighting with each other.

The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout

First line: No one at the cemetery that day could understand why Abdel Nasser had lashed out so violently.

Set in Tunisia during the 80s, mostly before and then a little after the 1987 coup. It's not an era or a country that I knew much about, and the main characters are student activists so it provided some insight. Abdel Nasser is a student organizer, and he has a sort of meet-cute with a fellow student, Zeina, in the middle of a scary instance of the police attacking students. They get together, both ambitious and driven at that point. She wants to be a professor; he ends up wanting to be a journalist. But things go south in their relationship at least partially because of the friction created by her relentless focus on her career.

It's impossible to talk about this without spoilers, so I'm just going to tell you that I wouldn't recommend this book, and I'm going to spoil it here because I need to think some things out. At the beginning, Abdel Nasser seems like a kind of cool guy, or at least like we're supposed to think he's a kind of cool guy - handsome, smooth, smart, fighting for a cause, driven to distraction for his love for Zeina. But then his behavior becomes appalling - his treatment of women becomes very chauvinistic and gets worse from there. Cruelty to Zeina, infidelity, bringing home diseases, stalking ... and at the very, very end, some information from his past that is maybe supposed to explain him? Redeem him? I don't think so.

And for all the talk about how women in Tunisia are fighting for their lives, for the right to exist and work and be recognized for that work, Zeina gets the treatment of "cold, unfeeling bitch" who ends up being denied her dreams anyway. And the (most important) "other woman" - well, it just seems like she gets what she deserves for daring to seek her own pleasures as well.

I walked away feeling like I wasn't sure what kind of book the author thought he was writing. There's a lot of lip service to the difficulties experienced by women, but it feels disingenuous.

Quote: One thing Abdel Nasser did not understand was Si Abdel Hamid's hatred for poetry, despite his great knowledge of it. He asked him about it once. "Poetry is a rhetorical exercise," the president responded, "whereas the novel is the mother of deep truths."

Two other small notes:

1. perhaps the extremely extended metaphor of horse and rider to describe sex sounded better in Arabic. I sure hope so.
2. when several people call a novel "sprawling" that means "needed a firmer editor".

>154 ursula: - Oof. Hard pass.

>155 katiekrug: Yeah, it sort of actively infuriated me, which is partially what kept me reading.

Wordle 607 2/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Oh this made me laugh.

Wordle 608 2/6

⬜🟩⬜🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

2 for 2 in 2.

This will assuredly never happen again.

Impressive!

You're on fire!

Weekly 5x5



Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book - Ella Fitzgerald [jazz] (1001 Albums list)
Barrio Fino - Daddy Yankee [reggaeton] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Year of the Horse (Act Four) - Fucked Up [hardcore punk] (2021 lists)
Love in the Void - Hammock [shoegaze] (new releases)
Pool - Skee Mask [electronic] (2021 lists)

400 Degreez - Juvenile [hip hop] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Year of the Horse (Act Three) - Fucked Up [hardcore punk] (2021 lists)
Pedestrian Verse - Frightened Rabbit [indie] (self selection)
#1 Record - Big Star [rock] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
City of Mirrors - Dos Santos [psychedelic rock] (2021 lists)

Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky - Porridge Radio [indie] (2022 lists)
Sheryl Crow - Sheryl Crow [rock] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
The Greatest Generation - The Wonder Years [pop punk] (2013 anniversary list)
Streethawk: A Seduction - Destroyer [indie rock] (slimeboy recommendation)
Mythopoetics - Half Waif [electronic/synth pop] (2021 lists)

Moanin' in the Moonlight - Howlin' Wolf [blues] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
Friends that Break Your Heart - James Blake [electronic] (2021 lists)
Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs - Marty Robbins [country] (1001 Albums list)
Innuendo - Queen [rock] (discography listen, complete)
Estrela Acesa - Sessa [Brazilian] (2022 lists)

For the Boats - State Lines [pop punk] (2013 anniversary list)
Jar - Superheaven [emo/grunge revival] (2013 anniversary list)
MAHAL - Toro y Moi [indie rock] (2022 lists)
Is Survived By - Touché Amoré [post-hardcore] (2013 anniversary list)
Surrealistic Pillow - Jefferson Airplane [rock] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week:
There's so much going on outside of the top 25 this week - I actually listened to about 48 albums. Morgan being gone means that I have something playing out loud through the speakers most of the day (as opposed to listening sporadically through headphones when he's here) so I listened to a lot. Anyhow -

• I finished my discography listen of Queen with the last album, and started the next one, The Police. I wanted something quick and easy and their 5 albums that I'm already relatively familiar with fit the bill.


• The Rolling Stone list had one of my favorite albums of all time on it this week - Big Star's #1 Record. "Thirteen" is such a perfect song.


• Another marathon session from the 1001 Albums list with Ella Fitzgerald's 5-disc set of the Gershwin songbook. Good thing I enjoyed it!


• I listened to the first of slimeboy's Destroyer recommendations, Streethawk: A Seduction. Definitely some interesting lyrics here, worth another listen. One that stuck with me maybe because it's evocative but I totally disagree: "No man has ever hung from the rafters of a second home" (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux (Sea of Tears)) There were others - the Clash reference in The Sublimation Hour caught my ear as well ("until this phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust")


• Speaking of lyrics, there were some great ones on the Wonder Years album (not surprising).
  Well, the highway won
  I'm listening to traffic reports one on one
  Coming quietly undone
  I was born to run
  Away from anything good
  An escape artist's son
  Sun-drenched pavement in my blood
  The first thing that I do when I walk in
  Is find a way out for when shit gets bad


• Really loved the Half Waif album (I've loved all her albums and yet consistently forget to listen to her).


• Did not enjoy the experience of having melody-less journal entries screamed at me by Touché Amoré.

Quick takes from listening not showing up there:
Soccer Mommy's 2022 album Sometimes, Forever: all the thumbs up. I've found some of her previous stuff samey-samey but this was really good.
Kimono My House by Sparks (RS list): never heard of it/them before, this was fun!
Comradely Objects - Horse Lords: weird and interesting avant garde/jazzy/mathy stuff
Cobalt Desert Oasis - Marco Shuttle: same, but for electronic

>159 katiekrug:, >160 curioussquared: Truly a miracle :)

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

First line: Collecting garbage sharpens the senses.

Vampires in Mexico City, all sorts of different kinds of vampires. And what does that first line have to do with vampires? Well, it's the human protagonist Domingo speaking, and that's what he does to scrape by in the city. Then he meets Atl, who is a young female vampire on the run.

The cover is gorgeous, the ideas are good, the writing is amateurish. Her writing had definitely improved by the time she got to Mexican Gothic, which I like quite a bit.

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet

First line: Towards the end of 2019 I received an email from a Mr Martin Grey of Clacton-on-Sea. He had in his possession a series of notebooks written by his cousin that he thought might form the basis of an interesting book.

I'm kind of at a loss here. I was really into the first 2/3 of the book, and then not at all into the last third. As you can tell by the first line, it's a novel that purports to be made up of mostly found materials, etc. It's a similar conceit to His Bloody Project, which I also read and didn't entirely connect with. I was on the fence all the way through with that one, whereas this one had me and then lost me. But you know, it was longlisted for the Booker Prize so YMMV.

I've been going back and adding in info from previous years into my spreadsheet (I've resisted the urge for the last 6 years, but now I've decided to do it).

So here is what my authors chart looks like now, with everything from 2013-2023 in it.

>164 ursula: - I get very mad when I am enjoying a book and then end up hating it. I'd rather hate-read all the way through :)

>165 ursula: - Ooooh, pretty! What is the chunk of green in the lower left?

>166 katiekrug: Agreed, I can get behind a good hate read!

That's Murakami, with 8 books. (I think the next-highest are at 6? The burgundy-ish at around 9:00 is Proust.)

>165 ursula: Is the chart by number of titles or word or page count?

>168 ffortsa: number of books

>165 ursula: Pretty!!

>170 curioussquared: It is! As it turns out, I do read repeated authors sometimes - it just takes me 5-7 years to get back to them. ;)

So, this whole thing with Morgan being in Germany.

He (finally) comes back tomorrow night. He went to sort out the visa issues because he had to be there in person and have an address to apply for the work permit. So he stayed at the university housing and did that.

The good news - he had his second appointment a few days ago and now has his work visa in hand. (This was after running around and getting all the paperwork he needed from various places of course.) He also has us both on insurance, and I guess the groundwork laid for my visa, although that won't be finalized until I can go in person obviously. Mine is unimportant though, since I can be there for 3 months without a visa.

The not-as-good news - he hasn't been able to nail down an apartment for us. This was difficult at first because he needed to establish a bank account, get a credit report, etc in order to even be considered and that took time. He saw one apartment where the landlords were pretty strange and vague about the whole thing so that was a no. Then he's got a couple that he's trying to connect with in the next day and a half, so it's not looking good.

The ugh news - The arrangement with his bosses there was that he would go, get his work visa, and then they would have him start Mar. 1 and work remotely from Istanbul for the first month. However, it's just come up (2 days ago) that the HR department doesn't approve of this, for insurance reasons. So now they're trying to figure out how to circumvent it. There are some ideas being floated, but it's all very touch and go at the moment.

The unknown news - although Morgan had intended to keep the job here until we left (because his visa was obviously tied to his employment), he ended up having to quit it at the beginning of February. He was supposed to get a raise (everyone was), and there are legal rules for how much that is supposed to be related to the minimum wage, which was raised yet again due to inflation. The university paid him (considerably) less than what they are supposed to legally, which means he could quit "for cause", which is supposed to mean they are required to give him severance. But in order to quit "for cause", you have to do it within 6 days of when you realize the cause. What happens with that ultimately, I'm not sure, like if we'll end up needing a lawyer to get anything out of them, etc.

The other unknown news - He should be able to just reenter the country by getting a new tourist e-visa (those are good for 90 days), but of course I'm a little concerned about that until it actually happens. My situation is unaffected because the university did the paperwork wrong and I just have a regular residence permit, which is good until August.

I think that's everything at the moment.

No, I forgot. He will probably have to go back to Germany on March 1st to be there in person for his first day, or HR might use that as a reason to cancel his contract.

Thanks for the update Ursula, sounds like a lot of anxiety provoking situations.

>172 ursula: >173 ursula: That is a lot to deal with, Ursula. I hope it all sorts out soon.

>172 ursula: - Oof. So many moving parts, few of which you can control. I wish you both patience!

I guess I should have seen it coming that typing out an update would immediately lead to things changing.

Now he's staying there until the 3rd. Then he can take a week's vacation against his first two months, and come here. But he has to go back before we can move (that'll be around the 12th, the cats can't leave until the 27th). So I guess he'll come back on a weekend for us to actually move. How this all works logistically with packing, moving company, etc, I have no idea.

>174 Kristelh:, >175 FAMeulstee:, >176 katiekrug: Thanks. There are definitely a lot of moving parts, I was hoping this was going to be somewhat more straightforward and obviously that it would involve a lot less time in different countries.

>164 ursula: Hmmm I think I will pass on that one for a bit longer

>165 ursula: Absolutely beautiful!

>172 ursula: Who would thing that getting a visa would be so complicated! Good luck with the move :)

>179 figsfromthistle: I am maybe in the minority on this one, I think.

There are often a lot of hoops to jump through to get visas straightened out, but the visa is fine, it's done. The HR department is who we're struggling with now. Morgan's boss blithely said that he would be fine with him working from here for the first month without checking with HR, and so here we are now.

Ugh, sorry to hear the move continues to grow ever more complicated. I hope everything is resolved relatively easily soon!

>181 curioussquared: Thank you for the good wishes!

It looks like this at the moment: he'll be there till the 3rd. Come back here until the 11th, maybe, then back there till maybe the 24th, and we can fly out together the 27th or 28th. (Hopefully - that's fudging the days off from work for him a little bit, but unfortunately the cats aren't eligible to fly until the 27th and that's not a weekend.)

We may have an apartment. Well, we do, I just hesitate to say it until the contract is signed. But he went to see one we liked the look of (and had a landlord who would show him the apartment - it's been a nightmare to get anyone to actually talk to him) and they want to rent to us, we want to rent it, so he's just reading over the details on it and then he's going to sign. Which gives him a place to live while he's there too, since although we were offered the university housing until April 1, they're getting all weird about that too.

It's taking shape, I guess. It's just not the shape we'd hoped for.

Weekly 5x5



Step on Step - Charles Stepney [soul] (2022 lists)
LP! - JPEGMAFIA [experimental hip hop] (2021 lists)
Love the Stranger - Friendship [indie rock] (2022 lists)
Clandestino - Manu Chao [latin] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)
The Lonesome Crowded West - Modest Mouse [indie rock] (TrebleZine 100 all-time favorite albums list)

Miriam Makeba - Miriam Makeba [African] (1001 Albums list)
Fire - The Bug [electronic] (2021 lists)
Sing the Sorrow - AFI [post-harcore/emo] (2003 anniversary list)
Joan Baez - Joan Baez [folk] (1001 Albums list)
Eli and the Thirteenth Confession - Laura Nyro [pop] (Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list)

Ramblin' Soul - Melissa Carper [country] (2022 lists)
The Envoy - Warren Zevon [rock] (discography listen, in progress)
Jane Doe - Converge [metal] (TrebleZine 100 all-time favorite albums list)
Elvis Is Back! - Elvis Presley [rock] (1001 Albums list)
Mythopoetics - Half Waif [electronic/synth pop] (2021 lists)

Noise Between the Shades - Melting Palms [shoegaze/dream pop] (2022 twitter list)
The Genius of Ray Charles - Ray Charles [pop/r&b] (1001 Albums list)
A Date with the Everly Brothers - The Everly Brothers [pop] (1001 Albums list)
Never Before Seen, Never Again Found - Arm's Length [emo/pop punk] (favorite)
Body Prophecy - Black Magnet [industrial metal] (2022 lists)

Teeth Marks - S. G. Goodman [americana] (2022 lists)
Synchronicity - The Police [rock] (discography listen, complete)
Tomorrow - The Rave-Ups [roots rock] (2022 twitter list)
Exile on Main Street - The Tisburys [indie rock] (2022 twitter list)
Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School - Warren Zevon [rock] (discography listen, in progress)

----------------------------
******Notes on this week:

This week had some wild stuff! JPEGMAFIA is always an adventure, though I didn't like this album as much as I've liked some past stuff. The Bug - Fire was also a crazy futuristic, apocalyptic ride (and another case of someone who's been putting out music for an eternity that I knew nothing about). And below the level of this chart was I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES - Backxwash (horrorcore/experimental hip hop), which was ... certainly something. Black Magnet was Nine Inch Nails-adjacent.

I listened to the Half Waif again because I just loved it so much. The Miriam Makeba was really good. I didn't know anything about Laura Nyro, really enjoyed her voice and the album a lot. Converge was good, if you like that sort of thing.

Last week's discography project was a short one, The Police. My ranking:

1. Outlandos d'Amour (1978)
2. Synchronicity (1983)
3. Regatta de Blanc (1979)
4. Zenyatta Mondatta (1980)
5. Ghost in the Machine (1981)

I bought the record of Synchronicity when it came out, so I would have been 11. I was scandalized by boobs on the cover and also weirded out by a couple of the songs (King of Pain most notably; I just found it very unsettling).

My current discography project is Warren Zevon - I'm halfway through his 12 albums.

Sorry to hear about all the complications of the impending move, Ursula. I hope everything gets settled soon.

>184 bell7: I think this is about as settled as it's getting - lots of time with him there and me here. There are lots of things that make that a bigger deal than it might be normally, such as the fact that I don't have any Turkish bank cards, and ordering apps don't accept foreign ones. So we have to coordinate him ordering things for me (like water, haha).

The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler

An essay about mystery stories, and then 3 mystery stories. I thought the first one (Spanish Blood) was the weakest, and wrapped up with a lot of convenient shooting. (Yes, I know this is Chandler.) The last one, Pearls Are a Nuisance, was my favorite. Missing pearls, a guy who is trying to figure out what happened for his sort-of-fiancee (she was definitely his fiancee before all this started, but he immediately started drinking once he got on the case and she wasn't amused), some colorful characters to try to squeeze information out of. It was just a lot of fun.


Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

Another book with 3 short stories. The cover is my favorite thing about this one. Which, honestly, wouldn't even be a terrible thing because I really love this cover. In the first one, two women meet online in the early 2000s and end up in a sort of relationship that takes some disturbing turns. In the second one, a couple loses their son in a credulity-defying way and the situation devolves from there. The last one takes the concept of neighborliness and stretches it to the breaking point. They were all ... not as good as the beginnings of each story might lead you to believe. I think the first one could have developed into something, given more time. The second one was fine, but if you look at or think about any of it too long it just falls apart. The third one shouldn't exist.

>172 ursula: >173 ursula: >177 ursula: Oh my, what a palaver Ursula. I hope it all works out in the end.

>186 ursula: I picked up the LaRocca last year and have it on my list - half for the cover because it really does have beautiful cover art and because the stories sounded semi-intriguing. That's too bad to hear the writing doesn't live up to how it looks or sounds.

>188 WhiteRaven.17: I'm not particularly mad I read it but there needed to be more, for me. Even the last story could have really been something if the characters didn't seem like automatons moving from plot point to plot point.

Morgan gets the key to our new apartment tomorrow night.

Here are the photos of the apartment from the site; Morgan will hopefully take some better ones once he's in.

 
The kitchen is outfitted, which is nice (you frequently have to provide the kitchen yourself). There's a small balcony, as you can see in the left photo. Also, it's exciting to see the counter space and cupboards. At our apartment in Istanbul we have less counter space than what is in that left photo! We also currently have 5 drawers and 6 cupboards for everything - pots and pans, plates and glasses, silverware, and food.

 
The bedroom. Here, we have two bedrooms, so it's a downgrade in that sense. But he says those cupboards are really deep, so I'm excited about that. (I guess you can tell they're deep from the photo.) The cats will be happy with the ledges over the radiators.

  
The living area. He says it's huge. Obviously there's plenty of light, which is important to me. And that corner will be the perfect place for a cat tree. :)

There's a bathroom, obviously, but I think everyone knows what those generally look like (it's small).

And we'll save climbing up one flight of stairs - it's on the 3rd floor rather than the 4th like here (still no elevator).

That apartment looks really nice! The kitties will definitely love that corner with all the windows :)

That apartment looks like your kitties may have done the apartment hunting. I think it will be Cat approved.

>191 katiekrug: Yeah I'm pretty excited. All the windows are perfect for artists and cats. :)

>192 Kristelh: Haha they were definitely in the forefront of our considerations. Nice too that having 3 cats was not a problem for the landlord.

>190 ursula: WOW! That looks awesome! I hope life gets a little less crazy for you. I've lost track. When are you moving out there?

Also, I miss reading with you. Do you have any upcoming reads I could join you on? Or maybe something I have coming up? And it doesn't have to be this month (see all your above craziness), but later in the year. : )

>190 ursula: Nice. Glad he was able to find a place. Looks clean and modern just waiting for a bookshelf or two ;)

The flat looks lovely, Ursula. If you evet need a flat/ cat sitter, can I go on the list?

>194 Berly: We are leaving Istanbul at the end of March, either the 27th or the 28th.

I have no reading plans. I mean, I have some things in the library wishlist that I could put on hold or whatever but I don't do that by any rhyme or reason. I can pop over and see what you're up to and maybe we can sort something out. I've got about 2 weeks in March when I'm not doing much of anything at all (Morgan will be back in Germany and there's not really any packing to be done because we don't have a lot and everything we have, we're using), so that could be a possibility as well - provided I could access the book in that timeframe. (About the 12th-24th of the month)

>195 figsfromthistle: Ha, I know it's sacrilege but I'm unlikely to put in more than one tiny bookshelf. Morgan will want to have one to put his math books on to collect dust, and I'll have a few books to add but it's true that I don't have many.

>196 charl08: You're on! Hopefully it's as cute as it seems, and the central location is nice.

Morgan comes home tonight! For 9 days, but I guess it's better than nothing. Just when the cats were used to living in a single-parent household, haha.

In Germany, he got the keys to the place and had a bed delivered. I guess next will probably be a desk for him that can double as a table until we get ours there. The only furniture we have here that belongs to us is my desk, a dining room table, and a small drawer unit.

Yesterday he showed me around the apartment on a FaceTime and there's a lot that wasn't visible - the entryway is big and has a coat closet and another cupboard above it, the big room area has actually sort of a dining-living room with no separation and then a wide archway that leads into another smaller room. The balcony is pretty decent-sized (the guy said they had a table and chairs out there for lunch on nice days) and another cupboard. Plus, there's a storage area on the ground floor for other stuff/bikes. So we won't be at a loss for places to put all the things we don't have, haha.

>198 ursula: - It's sounding better and better!

Enjoy your time with Morgan.

The apartment looks lovely and sounds even better! Glad to hear Morgan is coming home :)

>199 katiekrug: I know, it's nice to have storage, it's a thing that has been lacking in all our previous European apartments.

>200 curioussquared: Yes, it will be nice once we can start putting some furniture in it.

Morgan arrived home without incident, so now we can figure out all the logistical stuff that there won't be time to sort out in those last few days.

>190 ursula: Looks like a great apartment Ursula.

>202 Caroline_McElwee: I am looking forward to finally seeing it, but I agree!