This Is Beautiful: Rainy Days

There are times when rainy days are horrible, and there are times when they are wonderful. But being able to go into work one rainy day late is pretty wonderful. I got to wake up and drink tea and look outside and just watch the rain come down onto the ground. It's not as entertaining as snow to be sure, but there's something hypnotic about just watching all of that water splash onto the ground and disappear into puddles.

Sometimes it's nice to have an excuse to stay home and relax, and I've needed that more and more often lately. Rain is good for that.

“Conan Doyle for the Defense” by Margalit Fox

As stated before, I am quite the Sherlock Holmes nut. So a book exploring how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer behind Sherlock Holmes, once came to a man’s defense in court? Sign me up please.

Fox is telling a couple different stories here. First of all, there’s the crime. A rich, paranoid woman is killed in her home. Only a diamond brooch is found to be missing from her house. Who did it?

The man that the police arrest is Oscar Slater, a foreigner and a Jew. Determined to pin the crime on him, they arrest him and put him on trial. His voice is curiously absent from these proceedings, as he was advised not to testify due to his accent and the fact that everyone in Victorian times was racist. Who is he?

And then there’s Conan Doyle, already well-known for his Holmes stories and for coming to the aid of other underdogs. Oh and his obsession with spiritualism. That too. How did he get involved, and how did he eventually clear Slater’s name?

The entire story is told, from the general prejudices in Victorian times and societal norms, to the policeman who sacrificed his career after expressing doubts about the investigation, to the falling out between Conan Doyle and Slater after his release. Guesses are made as to who actually committed the murder, including Conan Doyle’s, but no one was ever convicted.

I found this book to be a delight. The subject matter is fascinating, as you rarely read about author’s lives since they are rarely this interesting, and Fox’s writing style is clear and easy to read. She keeps you turning pages up until the very end.

Honestly if you like mystery or history then this book is kind of a no-brainer. Those already into Holmes definitely are, and seeing a different side to his creator is incredible. Would highly recommend!

This Is Beautiful: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

I forgot how much I LOVED this show until I started the second season. It's so good!

The first season covered Midge Maisel, your typical 50s housewife whose life falls apart and then turns to stand-up comedy to cope. She then starts trying to make it in a world where typical housewives aren't supposed to do comedy, in fact women in general don't do comedy, as her hobby becomes more and more serious.

Season 2 shows Midge becoming more and more successful, which is great. I thought that the first season had a little too much of her flopping onstage. It also shows how her new hobby is affecting those around her, like her family and friends.

What I really like about the show is the different characters at play. Midge definitely isn't your typical feminist, she measures her dimensions everyday to make sure she still has her figure and dreams of working at the makeup counter. But nevertheless, she is still doing something bold and against most of the men in her life. She just goes to show that there is no one type of feminist, you do not have to fit into a specific mold to do radical things. You just have to be passionate and willing to make a change.

Then there's her ex-husband Joel. He earns a special place in my heart as a guy you love and hate almost equally. He spends a lot of time searching for forgiveness for breaking up with Midge, and staying that way since he couldn't stand being married to a comic who could use him as a joke. Still, he's crazy about her and hates seeing her with other men, even though he can't prevent it. He walks such a fine line between being endearing and being a bit of a creep but either way you see his character I think he's great for just being so complex.

And there's Susie, Midge's manager. If she doesn't turn out to be gay I'm going to throw a fit. I adore her.

Consider watching the show if you haven't already, both seasons are up now on Amazon Prime. It's wonderful and very bingeable!

"Poirot Investigates" by Agatha Christie

Picked this up because I realized that despite my love of mysteries, I haven't really red much Agatha Christie. Also I'm a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, so this seemed like it'd be up my alley.

To be honest, I was kind of confused by the selection of stories. They don't seem to be sequential, they definitely don't start at the very beginning, and there isn't really an order to them (besides the ending, which I'll get to). The result was that the whole thing seemed like a Homesian spin-off with the similar setting, partnership, and similar attitude to the police. I'm a little disappointed because to be honest I couldn't pin down the differences. Hastings is portrayed as a bit of an idiot next to the genius detective who consults for the police in the same way that Watson is. I guess Sherlock is British while Poirot is Belgian and Poirot is more OCD than Sherlock and doesn't do drugs but can't say much beyond that.

I do think that it was a nice touch to end with a case that Poirot would describe as a failure. (It isn't really much of a failure, the killer isn't so much as let free as Poirot doesn't press charges.) For much of the book he is trumpeting how smart he is so it's a good note to end on and contrast the rest of it. It also shows how Poirot is not the police, he can follow his own conscience above the law, an aspect that I love about Sherlock and him.

So I don't know, I guess this compilation is for those who either want a very light introduction to crime stores, or for those who are Poirot fanatics and want to hear all of the small stories as well. I just don't think it was a great fit for where I am, a Holmes nut wanting a lil something different from Poirot. I'll see if I can find other works by Christie to flesh this out a little.

This Is Beautiful: Steven Universe

I don't think I've posted about "Steven Universe" before, which is a huge mistake on my part, I do apologize. "Steven Universe" is probably the best cartoon on air right now, it's on Cartoon Network and the creator is Rebecca Sugar who got her start on "Adventure Time." It's such a wholesome show with excellent characters.

The story centers around Steven, a boy whose dad is a long-haired musician now running a car wash and whose mom is Rose Quartz the leader of the Crystal Gems. Happy family. Essentially out in space there is a race of gems made into sentient, female, beings. They wanted to colonize Earth and use it to mine new gems from the ground, but Rose Quartz and her gang of Crystal Gems stopped them. Rose then decided to have a baby, and she gave him her gem, meaning that Rose isn't around anymore, but Steven has her powers.

The Crystal Gems as a whole function as Steven's mom now. There's Garnet, who is super badass and can see into the future; Amethyst, the youngest and a bit of a mess; and Pearl, the neurotic very organized and concerned type. Together they all go on missions to keep the other gems away from Earth! And Steven learns a thing or two about love and compassion along the way.

My personal opinion on this show is that it is a great example of meta-modernism. (This is about to get more philosophical.) Modernism can roughly be summed up as the idea that there is meta-narrative, that we all play a unique part in a larger story and life has meaning. Postmodernism is basically that there is no meaning and we are all worthless. Meta-modernism goes one step past that and says that yes life has no meaning, but we can try to create good things anyways.

Steven is very meta-modern in that he keeps going up against these terrifying situations with love in his heart for everyone around him. As he learns more and more about how his mom wasn't perfect (and I will argue that his mom is essentially his god, she died creating him and everyone worships her I mean the parallels are right there people) he grapples with his resentment of her, but he always comes back to this position of love and how he can do better. Which is very similar to the meta-modern agenda. I don't want to get too into it, but maybe I'll flesh this out more in the future.

Bottom line: this show is so good, regardless of what age you are. If you aren't watching it you are wrong, so put it on right now, episodes are only 10 minutes each!

"The Word is Murder" by Anthony Horowitz

Since reading Magpie Murders by the same author last year I've been dying to read more of Horowitz's work. Unfortunately it is kind of impossible to talk about this book without mentioning his other novel, so I'll just sum it up briefly. Magpie Murders is about an author of crime fiction being murdered, and it goes through all of the tropes of writing crime fiction in the process of solving both murders. It's incredible, I loved it. The Word is Murder tries to do something similar, but from a different angle.

The main character of this book is an author called Anthony (sound familiar?). He is hired by a retired detective to write about his life and a case that he is working on (sound familiar?). The result is a Sherlock Holmes style story, that appears to be vaguely autobiographical. Even the "Acknowledgements" section is vague about what was real and what was not!

I looked up the facts, and yes it is fictional, but all of the details about Horowitz's own life are true. The book goes into how he wrote The House of Silk and "Foyle's War." The rest is made up. (Yes the novel says that names were changed and all that, but there literally isn't anyone who fits the bill of the other characters.)

What results is an interesting view into the writing process. The protagonist discusses what details he keeps in, and what he decides to leave out. He also talks about his uncertainty about writing about a case that might not even be solved by his detective! One scene that I thought was great was when Anthony realizes that his detective is homophobic. He goes through his thought process of how this wouldn't be a likable character in this day and age, and the mystery of why he is remains unsolved. And I think that's fine, to give a reason for it would add legitimacy to his beliefs, and the point still stands. He's a flawed hero, not someone who you would read about in crime novels, and that makes it more realistic. Anthony says over and over that this isn't an acceptable view to have, which denounces it quite effectively. But it shows the struggle of trying to take real life and turn it into a fiction, the way Watson did with Sherlock.

Unfortunately, if I had to pick one, it would be Magpie Murders. It just went through all of the tropes so well and effectively, and had a book-within-a-book format. The Word is Murder of course could never be as good as that, but it is still a great work in its own right, just comes from a slightly different angle. As a result I still highly recommend this work, but if you enjoy it, just go for Magpie Murders because that will blow your socks off. It's unfortunate that I keep comparing the two, really you should just read both, but that's how it works.

This Is Beautiful: Plants

Plants! Big plants! Small plants! Plants are great.

I started adopting small succulents my senior year of college because for some reason I kept finding abandoned ones around campus. Currently I have a small succulent named "Hardy" because it said that on his plant sign thing, and a Hawaiian plant named Lili after the last queen of Hawaii. (Read about her here if you are so inclined.)

Taking care of plants is great, you are responsible for a living thing, but it isn't a living thing you have to worry about wandering away or cleaning up after it or anything. It just needs water and sunlight, two rather easy things to provide. Succulents require even less care since you don't need to water them that often and the temperature doesn't bother them much.

What I've really grown to love about plants is how the progress takes a while to see. I've had both of these plants for over a year and every once in a while it strikes me how much they have grown while I've had them. And having that long-term progress is a unique kind of reward that we don't get often in this immediate gratification world.

Plants are awesome! Go buy a plant! Give it a silly name! It'll love you!