“The Blues Brothers: An epic friendship, the rise of improv, and the making of an American film classic” by Daniel de Vise

Alright here’s the long-awaited Blues Brothers post. Starting with the book that I’m so glad I dug out of the bottom shelf of a bookstore and thought looked like fun.

The book starts off as a biography of John Belushi and is primarily that for most of the work. It details his upbringing before swapping over to Dan Ackroyd and talking about him as well. They get to SNL together, and then finally we get to the movie about halfway through. The discussion of the movie itself is insanely detailed, talking about specific shots and how much they cost and who got injured. And then there’s the reception of the film, and then denouement of the book that largely ends with Belushi’s death (although there is also an epilogue talking about the legacy of the movie too).

Now I mentioned the details surrounding the movie above, but so much of the book is ridiculously detailed. De Vise has quotes from seemingly everyone that John and Dan grew up with, plus cast members that they worked with and other stars. It becomes clear when you get to the Acknowledgements section, but there must have been a ridiculous amount of interviews that went into this work. And scouring of newspapers and the like.

My only complaint is that I’m not a great connoisseur of cultural figures in the 1970s, there were some instances where a name would be dropped with great gravitas and I would have no idea who it was. Even with that said, there are so many mini biographies that I can hardly say de Vise overlooked anyone, it was just when given no information whatsoever I got a little lost.

When I was reading the book it had been quite a while since I’d seen the movie, so of course I wanted to rewatch it and see how I liked it (or if I could spot some Easter eggs mentioned in the book). I was a little worried that it hadn’t held up well or that I wouldn’t like it now.

Those worries were totally unfounded, turns out that the movie still rips! I love it even more now knowing that so few people were hurt in the car crash scenes and that they totaled something like 103 cars while filming. I thought it was brilliant and the book really only enhanced the viewing experience.

Luckily for me, this movie is staying on my list of favorites. And now I have a new book to go with it and give me unsufferable trivia to spout throughout watching it. So I really cannot recommend this combo enough.

This Is Beautiful: Paper to co-authors

 So the way things work in science is you write the paper, then you have to get approval from everyone whose name is on the paper, then you can send it to a journal. (Yay bureaucracy!) Anyways, I finally got it over the hurdle of sending it to co-authors this week! I had to pull the move of that we are down to the wire with deadlines on my mentor, but it got out and I honestly don't even care anymore I just want to be done. It's happening and it'll get out, and that is beautiful in the end!

“Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic” by Inger N.I. Kuin

I have a soft spot for Diogenes and his life as a philosophical figure, but even though I have a degree in philosophy I hadn’t really learned much about him. I feel as though he has also had a bit of a resurgence recently, with a lot of people gravitating to his hatred of the rich and advice to keep life simple. So when I found this book at a beloved bookstore, I snatched it up.

The book covers quite a lot as its aims are both historical and philosophical. Diogenes didn’t write any books, he lived his philosophy out. So the book covers his life as a man, and the various myths surrounding him, as well as his philosophy. That covers about three quarters of the content, the rest is his legacy and how he influenced other philosophers and thinkers throughout history.

There is a lot in the book, and my only real complaint is that it sometimes feels like there are a lot of names and groups and places thrown around that I don’t recognize. Tragically there’s just a lot of history and politics of Diogenes’ life that I really don’t know that well. This does go away once you start getting more into Diogenes’ philosophy and thinkings and less strictly biography stuff. But this is an ambitious project so it’s no wonder that there’s a lot packed in here.

And I honestly really love the project of the book, I think the most interesting parts of the text are when Kuin is dissecting whether an anecdote about Diogenes is historically accurate or not. Kuin does this by corroborating multiple sources, looking at where writers got different stories, and if it is consistent with Diogenes’ teachings. The result is a very thorough look at Diogenes’ life and work, and a deeper understanding than if the book focused on either his life or his teachings.

This was a really interesting read, I’m so glad that I picked it up. It really is a shame that Diogenes isn’t taught more in philosophical courses and I appreciated getting a crash course on him here.

This Is Beautiful: A timeline???

 Happy over 1,000 posts on this blog!

Anyways last week I met with my mentor and we actually laid out a timeline to get my manuscript out and published and out the door. I'm AMAZED I have been wanting that for so long. It feels like this will actually be happening now! I hope we're able to stick to it and get it out there, it's been so frustrating feeling like the momentum just isn't there, or that we'll say one timeline and keep pushing it back. But there's progress and movement! This might actually happen!

“I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons” by Peter S. Beagle

It’s another installment of “I picked this book up because it has a dragon on the cover.” And honestly, this method works scarily well, it nearly always gives me exactly what I want out of a fantasy series, which is primarily dragons. I didn’t realize the author wrote The Last Unicorn as well, not that I’ve read that book, but I remember the movie being scarring when I was growing up. I don’t remember it in great detail, but the vibe here is rather similar where it is both a whimsical fantasy story and there are real life consequences to actions that the characters grapple with.

The book opens with Robert, a dragon exterminator who loves dragons. He has a few a helpful pets, but he is hired to exterminate the castle of its dragons when Princess Cerise wants them gone to impress a Prince (she’d been batting them away until Prince Reginald arrives, who looks like the Platonic ideal of a Prince but doesn’t quite act like it). Robert is then accidentally hired to help Prince Reginald slay a dragon, to make him more Prince-ly in the eyes of his father so that he can marry the Princess. They get a little more than they bargain for, there’s a group of huge dragons terrorizing part of the kingdom and something like over half of the retinue dies as Cerise didn’t want to send them home.

From there, they realize that a wizard sent the dragons, and that it’s the wizard Dahl who was supposedly killed by Reginald’s father. Now that he’s back, they head to Reginald’s kingdom but get there too late, Reginald is captured and then his father is turned into a throne. On the way back Dahl tries to stop them since he recognizes Robert’s connection with the dragons and wants his power, but Robert works with the dragon sent after them to burn Dahl into ash. In the process, Robert and Cerise realize that they’re in love, and when they head back Robert tries to hide in his room but is eventually coaxed out to see Cerise. The book ends with them going to talk to Cerise’s parents and Reginald and Robert resolving to eventually free Reginald’s father.

Overall, the book is quite fun to read. I love the dragons, and the characters are a delightful mix of believable and comical. They all start out as stereotypes, and through the story become more and more humanized so you can’t help but care for them and their antics. I do wish Robert’s friends that help with his extermination got more screen time, but that’s alright.

My biggest complaint has to do with the writing style. There are points, especially towards the end where the action gets going, where aspects of the action will just be skipped over in the text and can make it hard to follow. This happens when the King is turned into a throne, there’s a part where Cerise and Robert must move in order for it to make sense, but that isn’t written anywhere. You have to pause to make sense of it all which really takes you out of it. I’m not sure if it is an error, but it happened multiple times so I suspect that it’s part of Beagle’s style. It’s quite hard to describe in advance of reading the situation, so it isn’t really a reason to not read the book, but I found it rather irritating.

The ending with Robert and Cerise getting together is also equal parts annoying and just simply expected. It’s visible from a mile away that they’re going to get together and that annoyed the shit out of me since it was just so trope-y. We could just let the dragon nerd be a dragon nerd and not marry the princess but I guess not. Again, not a reason to not read it, it was pulled off perfectly fine, but I was hoping that a fantasy story that messes with some tropes related to dragons and all might not have that ending.

I’m hoping that there’ll be a sequel eventually since one was teased with the ending, I do like the characters enough to keep going with them. And there’s some intriguing world building with Robert’s powers. So despite all of the complaints above, I would still recommend this book and will keep going with the series myself.

This Is Beautiful: New Semester

 This semester is going to be weird. Hopefully all in a good way but we'll see. I am kinda excited as this all gets up and going. I'm not teaching so my main goals are to just graduate, and I'm in a pretty good position to be graduating. Hopefully this is relaxing and primarily rejuvenating as far as semesters go. I do feel as though I oscillate wildly between "This is going to be so much" and "This will be nothing." But either way, I will be graduating and I'm looking forward to the last semester of things like my dance group and progressing more with aerial circus. It'll be a good one!

“Water Moon” by Samantha Sotto Yambao

I found this book when it was featured at a bookstore as an exciting new fantasy story. And I’ll be so honest here, this book is super not for me. I didn’t like the story, found the conflict to be contrived, and the plot didn’t make integrated sense. I do think part of this is that it should be advertised differently, it’s much more of a romance than fantasy, and maybe that would help. But I’m also very confused why this was so hyped up when it doesn’t technically hold together very well.

The story starts with Hana, she’s the daughter of a pawnshop owner who pawns people’s regrets. The customers come in, trade out their choices for tea, and go on their way. The day Hana takes over the shop, her father steals a choice and disappears. Meanwhile Kei walks in and offers to help her, and the two of them go on a journey through Hana’s world to try and find her father. They fall in love, learn about the darker aspects of Hana’s world and life, and then are eventually reunited in Kei’s world.

Where to start with this book. First of all, the main advertisement seems false to me. This has a lot more romance, not in terms of steaminess or anything, but in terms of coherence. The romance is a much bigger driving factor in the story than the world building. In fact the world building feels like there isn’t a real coherence to the world we explore, it’s more “we go here and then here and then here” and each place has it’s own logic and rules. There isn’t anything linking it together other than maybe the author wanting to create these disparate places. Versus Hana and Kei are constantly whining about how they shouldn’t be together and yet are anyways. I’m not a big romance person, but I got so sick of the same talking points again and again with them.

The conflicts between them were also very contrived. They have a couple fights, the first is when Kei learns that Hana pawns choices to get a piece of someone’s soul to instill in babies in Hana’s world. And this comes out of freaking nowhere, plus Kei is a physicist. As a scientist I would think he would be more bothered by the existence of souls and all that, before getting mad about Hana taking them. Potentially this is a cultural difference, but to go from 0-60 like that felt like we just needed a fight here.

I think that’s enough of me dunking on this book. If it was accurately advertised as a romance rather than a trip through a fantasy world, I probably wouldn’t have picked this up as I would have known that it would piss me off. There’s minimal references to the romance on the back of the book and that feels absurd to me.