how i spent my summer vacation.

Remember when I used to write about the books I was reading? After a summer of vomiting my feelings all over this blog, as well as a summer of great reading, listening, and watching, I thought we'd divorce ourselves from emotion for a few paragraphs while I tell you about my cultural consumption.

Television shows:

Daria. Holy moly, I really wish I'd known about this show when I was a teenager because it would have saved my life. It is like a cartoon combination of the best elements of My So-Called Life, Veronica Mars, and Mission Hill. Watching it makes me wish I still lived near my friend Tara, because I know we would totally rock our Daria/Jane costumes on Halloween. 



Tell Me You Love Me. This is a super sexy, psychology-driven character piece about a group of couples who all attend therapy with the same therapist. It is so intense! And Adam Scott is in it and he plays an architect who is ambivalent about child-rearing! I'm so happy right now. Also, it was filmed in Winnipeg, which I found kind of funny, because I spent half the series trying to figure out where the hell they were. Chicago, maybe? It was cold, wherever it was.


Books:

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. This book has so many of the elements I love: screwball comedy, mother-daughter relationships, detailed allusions to popular culture icons (in this case it's a running reference to Abbey Road which just hurts my feelings so hard), grim tenderness, a complicated voyage to Antarctica. The author used to write for Arrested Development and it shows, in the very best possible way.

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. This is one of those books that I used to scoff at, one of those books Oprah would've chosen if Oprah still chose books. Five years ago I probably would've boycotted it on ridiculous principle. But age has softened my harsh opinions, and now I will willingly admit that I love this book. It tells the story of a dystopian not-so-distant future through the eyes of an eleven year old girl in a California suburb. It is scary, and lovely, and beautifully written. One of my colleagues remarked that there's not a wasted word in the whole book. It's been getting great reviews and I do not mind that. There's nothing wrong with liking something that a lot of other people like. And that, my friends, is called mature thinking.

Swim Back to Me by Ann Packer. Truth be told, I only read the first and last stories in the book. The opener is a novella about a teenage boy and girl in 1970s Palo Alto who discover the scary realities of sex and family and bad decisions, and the final chapter picks up the same characters 30 years later. Ann Packer creates these incredibly believable characters and puts them in positions that make you so nervous your hands get clammy. You want to know what will happen next. 

Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead. Oh, this is a classic summer novel in the tradition of Gatsby, for real. It's about a glittering, dysfunctional family gathered at the family beach house for a wedding fraught with emotional turmoil and domestic disaster. It's dark and witty and sharp. It takes down the upper classes in the most delightful way. I get a bit of a WASPY Melissa Bank vibe from Shipstead although I can't quite articulate why.

Music:

Oh, you mean besides Bob Dylan? Not sure if you are aware of this but I am a pretty big fan.



I've been getting into Townes van Zandt lately. I downloaded Steve Earle's Townes cover album awhile ago and it just kept coming up on my shuffle, which inspired me to listen to the originals. The song Loretta just kills me dead.



Also, Sunparlour Players. Thanks to my secret CBC husband Tom Power for this tip. If you're not tuning into Deep Roots every weekend you're missing out, you really are.




Magazines: 

I am still working on a month-old New York Times Magazine article about the Occupy movement in Oakland California. Shit is getting REAL there and I think more people should know about it.

And also, an article about food photo staging in the Hamilton Spectator.

It's been a hell of a summer.