Inputs
The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak: When I had a job that involved a lot of overseas travel, my dad was convinced I was in the CIA and notified everyone he knew. “That’s exactly what he said you’d say!” his friends would tell me when I denied it. It drove me nuts, not least because I knew that nothing I would ever do in reality made him half so proud. Anyway, THA is by a woman living on Long Island with a very similar first name and same last initial as me. The protagonist is a 40 year old woman who actually is a CIA agent, she has a complex relationship with her father, and several key scenes unfold in the country of my father’s birth. I’m not saying you need to have weird biographical synergies with this book in order to find it a perfectly competent spy novel with a few interesting tweaks, but it felt wrong not to disclose all the facts up front.
The Sign for Home by Blair Fell: Is about Arlo, a DeafBlind young man, teaming up with his interpreter to find Arlo’s long-lost love. The Arlo POV chapters are written to match the syntax of a deaf person who was taught ASL relatively late in life and at first, in combination with some of the plot’s high melodrama, I thought it was going to feel manipulative or maudlin. The way Arlo expresses himself ended up being the aspect of the book I enjoyed most.
Outputs
My experiment with morning pages has been limping along and I am starting to wonder if it’s not just laziness but also the fact that having to fill a full typed page with wherever my brain went every day kept leading to mopey, whingy places I am tired of visiting. There aren’t any resulting insights; rather it seems to crank up this impulse to put down very dark harsh things just because they sound punk rock. Every day I hoped my stream of consciousness would stream its way to more creative outputs, but since it’s not having that effect I think I need to try another tack. In contrast, a self-inflicted commitment to coming up with something or other here every two weeks to has imposed helpful structure so I’ve been wondering if there are other exercises that would feel more like this does, and less like listlessly bobbing in a fetid pool of self-absorption. Nothing definite so far but perhaps more to come at some point.
Condiment Corner
My mom brought this mix of chili flakes, salt, garlic, and oregano back from Sicily. It was bought loose from some charming and unlocatable place, but the Burlap and Barrel Pizza Party blend looks similar. Handy to have around if jarred sauce is a big part of your life!