non sequiturs

Tonight I read - and had the pleasure of reviewing - a book that was egregiously bad. I won't mention the title or author here, because that seems vaguely unprofessional (if I weren't reviewing it, even for a minor review journal like mine, I'd feel free). The best thing about the book was that the author had these bizarre non sequiturs that interested me more than the actual story. Like, "he ordered half a pound of potato salad. Oh! I bet poor eating habits will come up as a plot point, or one of the characters will be allergic to mayonnaise. Or perhaps he's not budgeting his money well?"
Turns out that none of the above were true. It wasn't a red herring, either. Perhaps this author self-edits; I hope so, because a different editor should have deleted all the unnecessary, bizarre details.
On the bright side, I went on a bus tour tonight to look at Christmas lights. I don't live in a huge town, so the people around me kept saying, "oh, we're coming up to so-and-so's house" or "Oh, yes, they have beautiful lights. I went to high school with her". I had a Christmas cookie with too-sweet, too-pink frosting, but somehow that also added to the Christmas feeling (I don't much like sugar cookies, so not appreciating them is tradition). Just when the tour started getting a bit dull, two things happened: the bus came to a lovely set of lights, so many sets of lights that the electric bill goes up every December. I mean, there were practically villages on this roof, and on the lawn, and everywhere. Whole subplots. And then some kids in the middle of the bus (we were in the back, where the cool kids sit), began to sing Christmas carols. Well, I love to sing, so that was fabulous.

the Penelopiad

I meant to have a quick lunch today, but lunch stretched out for quite a while. I just couldn't put Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad down before finishing it. I hadn't read Atwood for over a decade - I'd felt Handmaid's Tale was a bit heavy-handed. But The Penelopiad had been well-reviewed, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's really well-done. Atwood's a clever writer technically, but it's also fair to call her clever, because she writes for clever people. Or at least well-read ones (my favorite example: "'That which we are, we are,' said Odysseus"). Chapter xxiv ("The chorus line: an anthropology lecture") was a clever insert - much better than reading that information in an afterword.

Rainbow Boys

There's a scene in Alex Sanchez's Rainbow Boys that has always bothered me. It's when Kyle, the sweet but somewhat nerdy swimmer guy, goes to popular Jason's table and asks whether he can sit there. It's a big deal when Jason says no,and there's all sorts of drama, and I never worked out why that scene bugged me.
And then, on Thanksgiving, I did. It's because Kyle and his flamboyant friend Nelson and Jason (so, by extension, Sanchez) makes this a gay issue. Like, Jason doesn't want Kyle to sit with him because he's worried that the basketball players will find out that he and Kyle went on a date. But that's ridiculous, and (ironically) limiting. While I'm sure Jason didn't want to be outed by the socially less-than-ept Kyle, the primary reason to push Kyle away would be that Kyle isn't popular. So of course Jason doesn't want him there, and it's presumptuous at worst and idealistic at best for Kyle to assume that he could invite himself to that table.
It just bugged me that it becomes a gay issue, when it's really all about social strata.