2019 Reading Revisited

Behold! My stack for 2019. Twenty-five titles (26 if you count perusing Sizzle & Drizzle for recipes to try)!

Like before, I tried to read what I wanted, as I wanted. After all, what's the point of reading for pleasure when you hate what you're reading?


As usual, it was a year heavy on memoirs. Michelle Obama's was stellar. If you read nothing else, I highly recommend hers because it was both revealing and inspiring. And in an era of Presidential catastrophe, it's good to remember the hope. Elton John's memoir was also amazing... if for more salacious reasons. Julie Andrews second memoir about her Hollywood years was good for the BTS chapters on Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Victor/Victoria. Relatedly, let her love for Gstaad never be questioned. I also spent a great deal of time with Zora Neale Hurston this year. Her autobiography, fiction, nonfiction, and the story of her tumultuous friendship with Langston Hughes shed light on an author I have admired since high school. Rounding out the memoirs... Trevaaaaah (Trevor Noah)
 
I delved heavily into the LGBT+ YA section this year. What If It's Us by Becky Albertelli & Adam Silvera was adorable. Albertelli's Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda was also great, proving the girl knows how to write good, well-formulated characters. Happy to report that I discovered Rainbow Rowell this year through Simon Snow. If gay, magical vampires are your thing, then look no further. My favorite YA novel was Mackenzi Lee's The Gentlemen's Guide To Vice And Virtue. Witty, clever, and unwillingly hopeful, this one will be re-read time and again. The follow up novella was not enough, Mackenzi! Give us a sequel.

I tried to balance the fluff with more classic, adult content in the LGBT section. Dancer From The Dance was a pristine, if not altogether haunting, time capsule of gay life pre-AIDS crisis. The first film I saw this year was Maurice (staring a very young and dashing Hugh Grant) so naturally I had to follow it up by reading the novel it was based on written by E.M. Forster. Having seen the film, there was little by way of new plot points in the book but it's an important book for its depiction of how social pressures can derail lives if left unchecked. James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room was incredibly sad. I was not expecting the twist and turns that novel took and I'm not entirely sure I wanted to go where it took me. Andre Aciman's sequel to Call Me By Your Name was the most anticipated release of the year for me and, while a little disappointed it did not feature Oliver & Elio more prominently, Aciman's writing continues to awe and inspire me.

One of the best books I read this year was Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. A complicated story about the nature of true motherhood, I was gobsmacked by the sensitivity and precision of her writing. Oprah's Book Club selection of Ta-nehisi Coates' The Water Dancer could not have been an more perfect. As with with his previous work, I maintain that this novel be taught in every school across America. 

Finally, the best book I read this year, no questions asked, hands-down, "no more callers, please. We have our winner" was Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys. Raw, visceral, and completely complicated, this book details the horrors perpetuated at a correctional school for boys. With a journalistic eye, Whitehead gives us a fictional account of unfathomable things that happened in real life at the Dozier School for Boys in the Florida Panhandle. Oof and that ending!

I read a lot this year as a means of escape... from boredom, loneliness, and my phone. Getting away from reality for an hour (or maybe six!), is probably the best thing I did for myself this year. Different strokes for different strokes... but if you're ever feeling overwhelmed or underwhelmed by life, as I so often am, I encourage you to pick up a book and lose yourself in someone else's story.

"Do you know how much I love you? I love you more than everything.

In an effort to be fully transparent before you continue reading, I have to admit that I'm in love with Timothée Chalamet... As in love as anyone can be with a person that they've never met (yet!). 

It's a love that grew out of my fascination with his character in Call Me By Your Name. Timothée's turn as Elio, the lovelorn teenage protagonist in André Aciman's story, was engrossing and haunting. That performance still haunts me tbh. Since then I have embarked on a journey to cyberstalking him on Instagram watch all his films.

Last night, I watched him play the role of a drug-addicted kid in Beautiful Boy. The film, based on the memoirs of both David Sheff (the father) and Nic Sheff (son/addict), is a gripping story of how addiction ruins lives and families-- told from alternating points of view. Timothée descent into addition is breathtakingly wrenching to watch in the best ways. So mush so that he is currently nominated for a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, a SAG, and a Critics' Choice Award, all for Best Supporting Actor. All immensely well-deserved.

Steve Carell in this film is a different story.

Before you continue reading further, you should know that I also love Steve. I've been a big fan of his since The Daily Show. I quote him from The 40 Year Old Virgin constantly ("Feels like a bag of sand..."). And that's to say nothing about the cultural icon that he created in Michael Scott. He writes the rules in the comedy game.

That said though, his range when it comes to drama is plain limited. He was a complete misfire in Beautiful Boy. Given that the main thrust of the film is the emotional toll of being the loving father of an addict, Carrel never raises to the rawness that such a role demands. He's almost robotic; cry now, hug now, be angry now. What's more, he had no chemistry with Timothée. (As Ursula would put it) Zip!

I hate to pigeonhole the actors I like to type. Funny people should do dramatic roles and vice versa. Dramatic actors should be funny (except Nicole Kidman. No one wants to see Bewitched 2).

I think the standard-bearer of poignant/funny actors was Robin Williams. There is no disputing that he was a king of comedy. But it's when he was serious or sad as a funny guy that I think he really shined. Refer to Mrs. Doubtfire, Hook, or Patch Adams to name a few. Even the Genie's final seen in Aladdin packs an animated emotional punch.

I don't really know what my point in all this is. I think I just needed to rant. Timothée, I love you in all ways. Steve, I love you in different ways.

Beautiful Boy is available now on Amazon Prime.

"It's not the song, it's the singing'. It's the heaven of the human spirit ringin'..."

Sometimes the only real way to move forward is to let go of the past holding you back. I don't mean forgiving and forgetting (I'm too petty for that) or to disassociate yourself from meaningful things in your history. Quite the opposite.

It's important to reflect upon the lessons it taught you. To remember it with kindness (if you can) and THEN kiss it goodbye.

The problem for me is that I've never (in my whole life!) been good at goodbyes. Old toys, old clothes, old boyfriends... I hang on to everything and everyone. It's a compulsion I suppose. A manifestation of some childhood trauma that I have yet to pinpoint and analyze. But at any rate, goodbyes are not my forte.

However, tonight I'm saying an important and very necessary goodbye.  As of this writing, I have decided to shut down The Jerry Curl. 

Started in 2007, that blog saw me through both the happiest and darkest times of my life. I began running it as a means of filling "the endless hours I [spent] wasting away at my dead-end job." But it was also a place where I documented important moments in my life... in a way preserving them for future reference. 

But life happens. And distractions do their deeds. And soon The Jerry Curl started to feel less like an outlet and more like a burden. Worst yet, it became a painful reminder of what I wasn't doing anymore... writing. 

I didn't know how to evolve The Jerry Curl beyond what I had created it to be and therefore stopped going to it with new material. I outgrew the sandbox. But having a hard time letting go as I do, I didn't. I kept trying to reignite the flame on a spent candle.

But tonight, alone with my dogs, looking out my window onto the South Hills of Pittsburgh/nowhere, I realized that it was time... Time to reflect upon the lessons it taught me. To remember it with kindness because I can. And kiss it goodbye.

The Jerry Curl

September 27, 2007 - January 2, 2019