Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week

01. Putting the whole going-to-space fiasco aside, Katy Perry sure knows how to put on a fabulous, fun concert. Hit after hit, brilliant costumes and so much energy. Although Teenage Dream will always be my absolute fave, her concert remix of I Kissed a Girl was the standout. Continue reading →

No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July

I’m having a Miranda July overload! (Happily, it’s a good place to be). Mini-golf, #6degrees, movies, books…

Last night I saw her 2020 movie, Kajillionaire, and also finished one of her short story collections, No One Belongs Here More Than You, published in 2007. My thoughts are more Miranda-July-in-general rather than specific to this short story collection. Continue reading →

Things That Are Making Me Happy This Week

01. Had the great pleasure of attending the launch of Andrea Goldsmith’s new novel, The Buried Life, at the Abbotsford Convent this week. The book contains lots of references to music so, as Andrea explained, the evening was more of a performance than an author convo. Continue reading →

South and West by Joan Didion

Joan Didion’s South and West is loosely defined as a travel essay, but of course, like all of Didion’s writing, it delivers so much more.

The book is comprised of excerpts from notebooks Didion kept in the 1970s. The first part, ‘Notes on the South‘, traces a road trip that she took through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, with her husband, John Gregory Dunne. Along the way, she chronicles her observations about the small towns they pass through and she gently examines the deeply rooted (and sometimes unquestioned) beliefs about race, class, and heritage held in the South.
Continue reading →