Some of my writer friends were talking about people’s reading habits during the current situation, and the theory was floated that in times like these, people like comfort reading: light, escapist, familiar.
A lightbulb went off in my head. I think I forgot to tell everyone that my two story collections, Going Alien, and Reality and Other Fictions, are both free at Smashwords through May as part of the Authors Give Back Sale. Both of those collections have some light, funny stories in them. Plus, they’re free!
Cast your mind back to a long, long time ago, when the threat of being stuck in the house for weeks on end was merely a threat. In order to be prepared, I stocked up on less-perishable food items, including snack foods for comfort. Here’s one I found at Costco: Crispy Cauliflower. Hey, I figured, we all like cauliflower! Maybe these will be good!
They’re not. They’re awful. They’re terrible. They’re spit it out and wash your mouth out and dig the bits out of your teeth terrible! Imagine leftover cooked cauliflower five days in the fridge, but crisp. Why would anyone market something like that? Augh. I hope this company makes other, tastier stuff, because relying on this as a marketing plan would be a recipe for disaster.* I wish them well, but not this product.
Here’s another one, and I say this sadly as a dedicated lover of Oatly Oat Milk. Truly, we drink Oatly all the time, and I miss it if I can’t mix it with dairy milk in my coffee. Unfortunately, Oatly ice cream (second ingredient: coconut oil) tastes nothing like oat milk. In fact, it tastes like nothing quite so much as hardened lubricating oil, with an aftertaste of generic chemical.* We each ate a few bites—and then, wishing that we hadn’t, threw the rest of it away. Allysen flashed back to many years ago, when we tried Tofutti ice cream, a vegan smart-bomb targeted at unsuspecting tofu lovers.*
I don’t want to end on a downer, so let me just praise to the skies this other Oatly product, Barista Edition Oatmilk! Love the stuff!
Here’s hoping for a joyous Easter for all of you who celebrate Easter, and a beautiful day for everyone! I couldn’t find any flowers blooming around our house, but my neighbor Maddie is showing off these lovely azaleas.
We dragged ourselves out of bed at 10 this morning for virch, the virtual church service at our Reservoir Church—which was lovely, including a dozen or so band members coming together from their homes, via Zoom. Since then the day has been filled with zooming of friends and family, and I am about to start preparing our Easter dinner. Hamburgers for two, on the grill!
Celebrations are a bit surreal in this time of quarantine-at-home, as my friends celebrating Passover just experienced. But a celebration is a celebration—so let’s celebrate! I hope this finds all of you well.
In this time of crisis, we all need some good news, right? John Krasinski’s “Some Good News,” shot from his home, is a great example. Here’s episode 2, with some extremely uplifting guest appearances. The best part starts about 9 minutes in.
I came across this picture—on photo paper! The year was 1998. The year we hung on.
This is me with my family, gathered around our one-square-yard wheat crop. We harvested that wheat, and still have the unhusked kernels in a Mason jar, to remind us of when we survived. I take this as a sign that perhaps we should try gardening again this year.
Beyond the Trope is a weekly podcast about writing, hosted by the lively and welcoming Michelle and Giles. This week, they pick the brain of moi, and we talk about writing in general, touching on research, teaching, and television hosting. I just listened to it, and I was not disappointed! Hopefully you will be, too. Er, not. You know what I mean. Check out all of their podcasts!
You probably didn’t think of books as a sector that would be hammered by Covid-19. Writers can write anywhere, right? Maybe, but that’s not the whole story, by far. Traditional publishing and bookselling are in deep trouble due to the shutdown of the economy. Even audiobooks are apparently being hit hard. If you’re at all interested in books, publishing, and reading, please read this summary by Beth Meacham, Executive Editor at Tor Books. She knows what she’s talking about, and it’s sobering.
Looks like I picked the wrong year to put my money on audiobooks, right? Possibly. But seriously, this is hitting a lot of people in the creative arts hard. I will just add as a ray of hope: Ebooks do not seem to be suffering in the same way as print. Ebooks are all handled online, and you can download them (and publish them) while shut up in your home. So they remain a (generally) inexpensive and readily available way to keep information, stories, and entertainment flowing.
Still, what hurts books in any sector hurts everyone. So please keep supporting audiobooks and print books if you can. (Mail-order from your local bookstore, perhaps?) And keep reading!