Category: Topics of Study

Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Pop Goes the Culture, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

This was a slight deviation from my post-pre-diabetes-diagnosis plan to focus on reading only those challenge books that were already in my possession. When I made that course correction, I’d forgotten that right at the start of 2019 I’d put my name on the waiting list for the library’s e-book copy of this title.

So, when my name finally reached the top of the list a couple weeks ago, I decided just to roll with destiny and give myself the pleasure of reading this. (A bird in the hand and all that…)

I’d already had Cooper’s memoir/social analysis on my reading wish list since mid-2018, on the basis of the good press and positive reviews the work was getting. In complete candor, for all that I went into my 2019 planning with the supposed goal of drawing primarily from my own library, this was a title I wanted to shoehorn onto my 2019 list, come hell or high water.

Lucky for me, it wasn’t all that hard to find a place for Cooper’s book. Between the callout to the New York Public Library staff picks and the invocation of celebrity recommendations, I was golden.(1)

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The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Don't you want to be thin?, Fat is Just an Adjective, Flagrantly Feminist, Health at Every Size, Life-Long Learning, Pop Goes the Culture, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head, Topics of Study2 Comments

We had one main project for the holiday weekend, but we were able to wrap it up so quickly yesterday that I’ve had some extra-luxurious reading time on my Saturday and Sunday. Which means that after a long dry spell, I’ve finished yet another book—this one, the latest choice from my fat activist/HAES/body love reading list.

Sonya Renee Taylor and her radical self-love/liberationist platform, The Body is Not an Apology, has been on my radar for some years now. I think it was my friend Alice who first brought Sonya into my awareness. Even if I’m misremembering this detail, I am going to stand by this poetic retelling for the rest of my days. There is something so just and sacred and fitting in a poet of Alice’s caliber bringing me to learn about a poet of Sonya’s caliber.

So as soon as Sonya’s book was released last year, I bought myself a copy. And then I let it sit on my bookshelves with all the other body love/goddess power books I’ve been ignoring in my quest to be super smart and fulfill all these reading challenges.

My decision to abandon reading challenge perfection in 2019 to make more room for actively self-nurturing titles put Sonya’s book back on the priority list, and then a guest teacher call with Sonya as part of the Mastery curriculum put this at the very top of that list.

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Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

Golly! It has been a year and a day since I last posted here.

Well, I suppose that’s a bit hyperbolic(1): it’s been closer to two weeks. Still, that’s a long darn time to be inactive, especially when compared to the rest of 2019.

What can I say? Travel kicked my ass, the weekend workshop kicked my ass(2), re-entry kicked my ass. I have been seriously crawling into bed as early as I can every evening since I got home. Tonight is the first night I feel remotely awake enough at 20:15 to put hands to keyboard.

At least I did have some time to finish one of my challenge books during these days away from JALC: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

This book also continues my unintentional tour of Man Booker prize books—although Cloud Atlas was only a finalist for the prize, as compared to the two prizewinners (Wolf Hall and Luminaries) I read earlier this year. Still kind of funny, how I keep choosing books for other reasons and still keep tripping over this particular group of prize-winners.

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Taking Responsibility

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Memoir, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

Full disclosure: I’m a little bit crabby tonight. I have beefs with last night’s GOT, I’m having my customary inadequacy/packing crisis in advance of an immersion weekend(1), and the endless rainy season we’re having up here in Boston is pissing me off.

So I expect I’m going to be a bit ranty.

Which, I’ll admit, is somewhat richly hypocritical, insofar as the topic that has me feeling most pissed off and ranty tonight is the topic of emotional responsibility.

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Horror Face x Infinity

On By MezzoSherriIn Flagrantly Feminist, Life-Long Learning, Pop Goes the Culture, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

As I backtrack to reporting out on the second film I watched over the weekend, I’m also taking a quick backtrack to my earlier fun of titling film review posts with emoji strings.

Because my initial response Abducted in Plain Sight cannot be summed up in any other way except with unending expressions of horror and the following declaration:

What the fuck did I just watch?

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Oscar Bait

On By MezzoSherriIn Life-Long Learning, Pop Goes the Culture, Topics of Study1 Comment

I had such virtuous plans for my weekend: I was gonna clean the house, do more decluttering, do some private journalling, and begin building some reading momentum.

Instead, I spent most of yesterday in an exhausted blue funk. Not sure how much of that was just the build-up from a long week of work—both work work and my new side gig. Some piece of the exhaustion was just that, for damn sure. And the blue unmotivated feeling may have been as simple as my system reacting to a stretch of efforting and saying

I don’t care how virtuous and self-caring your Saturday goals are, we want a goddamn day off!

So mostly what I did with my Saturday was cuddled the dog, caught up on some DVR’ed stuff, and watched a couple of movies.

Including BlackKKlansman.

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Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Pop Goes the Culture, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

Well this book was less of a tome than my previous two, so I was able to finish it more quickly than my last read. It was also a bit breezier in content and tone. Don’t get me wrong: my snooty ex-academic cred is still maintained insofar as the book was tagged as a “must read of the week” by good old NPR.

This is yet another one of my impulse discount e-book purchases, but this one from long enough ago that I actually have it as a iBook rather than a Kindle file.(1) It’s a cinematic novel about cinema and Hollywood, but its opening—and most thematically important—setting of a fictional Cinque Terre village in Italy allows me to check off the latter criterion for this challenge category.

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Flights of Whimsy

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Life-Long Learning, Memoir, Pop Goes the Culture, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

Sometimes, my old habits towards isolationism—nurtured over many school years of feeling generally misfit and outcast—give me the sense of moving through my life with as much of an observational, anthropological perspective as a fully engaged one.(1)

I am particularly aware of this tendency as regards the different cultures and traditions of different lived communities. During my childhood, we bounced from the west coast to New England, to South America, the U.S. midwest and then New Jersey. Then, after college, I shifted between urban life—the heart of Philly—and our current suburban Massachusetts home.

With all those different places and lived environments, I now and again find myself surprised when I finally see some phenomenon I’ve heard about with my own eyes.

Such as this fortnight’s plastic flamingos.

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Close-up on the book cover of The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Topics of Study1 Comment

So although it’s a day later than initially planned, I did finish the big tome I’ve been working through for the last month. And, of course, this post is a day later still.(1)

Considering how far off-schedule I am for these reading challenges, it almost seems futile to list what categories different books cover. Almost.

I’m not gonna beat myself up for how far off the mark I end up being come December 31, and I’m not gonna try crazy book bingo stuff to check off more categories. Despite that new “lazy gal’s” approach to reading challenges, I still want to be able to go back at the end of the year and see which categories I covered and which I didn’t.

So, in that spirit:

  • Around the Year #14: Title, cover, or subtitle related to an astronomical term.
  • PopSugar #33: With a zodiac sign or astrology term in the title.

I’m also amused to note that this is the second Booker prize-winner I’ve read in a row. Aren’t I so very cultured?

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Beyonce performing as part of her Formation Tour in 2016.

Flawless and Womanist

On By MezzoSherriIn Flagrantly Feminist, Pop Goes the Culture, Topics of Study1 Comment

My plans for today were relatively unambitious.

  • Follow through on my intention to dump out and purge another dresser drawer while the dog was at daycare (check).
  • Get a very small, chipping-away-at-it, start on cleaning up the clutter room in the basement (check check).
  • Finally finish the tome I’ve been working on since late March (record scratch).

Two out of three ain’t bad. You see, what I didn’t plan on today was watching Beyonce’s Homecoming.

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