2019 recap- books, Shakespeare, snippets, and other things…

Hello! So, I’m not dead, but by now you’ve probably realized that I have a habit of disappearing for long periods of time and not being dead. “Maybe she just takes really long naps?” you may think to yourself. I WISH. I need that kind of nap.

But anyway! I’m here to tell you a bit about what happened in 2019! So, without further ado:

Books

Just a smattering of my favorites:

(+Sequels) Is this a great book? Not really. But do I feel obligated to take care of Cadel? Yes, I do.

Aidan eating so much food and Mrs. Stock moving the piano and the kid dressed as a tube of toothpaste.

Such a small book with so many characters, and yet somehow I love them all. Especially Joff.

I didn’t cry, but I WANTED TO because ELI.

JOHNATHAN. This kid. He is my son.

Let’s be honset…I’m really just here for William Joyce’s artwork.

(+Sequel) Basically Vango climbing up buildings, trying not to get murdered, and generally being endearing.

SAM AND AVERY. We must adopt them and feed brownies and protect them at all costs.

Featuring Lenny and her little brother reading encycolpedias and me crying everywhere.

Featuring Carter just trying to be there for his little sisters and me crying again.

THIS KID. I love him. And I love Terra. And I love this book.

(+Sequel) Just Timothy (MY SON) trying to save his little brother. Also some super amazing moms being so so amazing.

Looking at these all next to each other just now, I realized that most of them basically revolve around sibling relationships of some kind. Which explains why I love them so much.

Music

So, I disappeared off the face of the blogosphere at the beginning of August which means I didn’t really get a chance to scream about The Search, which came out at the end of July.

SO HERE I AM, SCREAMING ABOUT THE SEARCH.

This album is pretty intense. It deals with anxiety, depression, OCD, and trauma with unflinching honesty and it can be  hard to listen straight through the whole album. But it’s so good.

Favorite tracks: THERE ARE TOO MANY. But here’s a few:

• The Search
• Leave Me Alone
• Let Me Go
• Hate Myself
• Why
• Trauma

So yes. The Search happened.

Also this!

I’ve been listening to Hadestown, but at first I was listening to the Live Original Cast Recording and then I started listening to the Original Broadway Cast Recording and things are different and now I’m just confused. The intro part of “Wait for Me” starts and I shout “Eurydice?” and Orpheus shouts “Mr. Hermes!” and I don’t know when I’m finally going to catch on.

Favorite tracks:

• Road to Hell
• Way Down Hadestown
• Chant
• Wait for Me

A few other songs I’ve discovered/listened to too many times this year:

• Scared of the Dark by Lil Wayne, Ty Dolla $ign, and XXXTENTACION (Because SPIDERVERSE)
• What’s Up Danger by Blackway and Black Caviar (And MORE SPIDERVERSE)
• Demons, Gold, Whatever it Takes …and a bunch of other songs by Imagine Dragons (Me singing the verses of Whatever if Takes: “Dubu-dubu-dubu-dubu-dubu-du dubu-dubu-dubu-dubu-dubu-du)
• Birthday Party, Break My Face, and Don’t Throw Out My Legos by AJR (“Are your eyes ok? / THEY ROLLED AWAY”)
• Slow Dancing in the Dark by Joji (“In the- DAAAAAAAAAAAARK”)

Also this exists. You’re welcome.

Theatre

I took a Shakespeare class this past semester. We read a bunch of plays, but also plays are meant to be seen, so we watched several film and stage adaptions. And may I just say, the Royal Shakespeare Company is phenomenal? Highlights:

Love’s Labour Won (Much Ado About Nothing) 2015

Beatrice and Benedick are witty and hilarious, but they’re also so very endearing. The acting, direction, and design of this production are all superb. I especially love the scene between Beatrice and Benedick after the whole wedding fiasco. There’s been so much banter and exchanging of insults between them, but when it really comes down to it and something bad happens to Beatrice’s family Benedick is like, “What can I do? How can I help?” And I don’t usually melt over romance, but my heart may or may not have melted a bit over that scene.

Hamlet 2016

So yes. Hamlet is my favorite Shakespeare play. But that doesn’t mean I automatically love every adaption of it (I didn’t care much for the Kenneth Branagh film). But this! I loved this production- all three hours of it. Paapa Essiedu is phenomenal as Hamlet and I love the design of the production. As Hamlet is going crazy/pretending to go crazy, he starts spray painting everything and the stage just gets more and more chaotic (as shown above), and it is wonderful.

Aside from Shakespeare, I also watched Red by John Logan on PBS Great Performances.

You know those plays that are just two people talking for an hour and a half and it’s wonderful? They talk about painting and life and fame and murder. What more could you want? The design is so effective with the lighting and the way they move the paintings around to suggest different scenes/days. Also the priming the canvas sequence (pictured above) is so cool to watch.

Aside from watching filmed theatre, I also saw/participated in several community theatre/college productions. There were pirates, trolls, tap-dancing, fake piano playing, fake spaghetti, a bathtub, and a sharkhead. Good fun.

Writing

At the beginning of the year my friend and I started writing a story together about Pirates and flying ships and legendary spoons. We’ve both been really busy throughout the year so it’s slow going, but it’s great fun. She writes about a little girl who sees the pirate ship out her window and decides to build her own flying ship to follow them, and I write about the pirate captain and his cabin boy.

I must admit, there are moments where Captain Holm’s behavior is suspiciously Howl-Jenkins-like…

So in July I planned to do Camp NaNoWriMo…but I didn’t plan what project I was going to work on. At the end of June I was scrambling to decide, but I wasn’t feeling very inspired by any of my ideas. I wrote a few scenes for one story at the very beginning of July, but it really wasn’t working. So I stopped.

Halfway through July, Lo and Behold, I suddenly had a new idea for a story. So I decided, why not go for it? Since it was already halfway through July I cut my wordcount goal in half (25,000 words instead of 50,000), because I don’t hate myself that much.

And guess what?

Ta-da.

It’s all brothers and angst and magical realism and painting and stamps. What’s great is that I saved the document as “Phoenix and Jackson” (the names of the two brothers) on my computer. So every time I hit save, a little message would come up in the corner saying, “Word is saving Phoenix and Jackson”. HAHAHA, no you aren’t Word. I’d like to see you try.

Basically just Jackson trying to run away from all his problems…and all places and people in general. Yup. That’s my boy.

Other than that, I wrote several short stories, a bunch of poems, and a bunch of random scenes about rabbits and corn chips and secret agents.

Other Things

Or should I say Stranger Things?

Or should I say Will’s Bad Day? My sister and I have decided that is the alternate title of the show.

So basically I started watching Stranger Things a few months ago. And I’ve watched all three seasons now. And I love it. ESPECIALLY THE BYERS. THE WHOLE BYERS FAMILY. I LOVE THEM ALL.

That one episode where Joyce commits a triple murder because kids are picking on Will and it’s not ok

Also Eleven. And Hopper. And Dustin. And Max. AND I COULD GO ON, but I won’t because this post actually needs to end at some point.

How was your 2019? What books did you read? Did you discover any new favorites? Have you ever watched or read a Shakespeare play? What did you write this year? What are your favorite fictional families? Do tell! I’ll see you in the new year!

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