Book Corner 2025.46

Stupid TV, Be More Funny!

by Alan Siegel

It’s about the SIMPSONS, but more than that, about the SIMPSONS’ golden era – the early to mid-90s. Because IT STOPPED BEING GOOD after that, people. Worst. Downfall. Ever.

But the SIMPSONS through most of the 90s was just awe-inspiring. I remember calling it “God”, which was ludicrous, but I remember distinctly actually saying that.

It was impactful. It was meaningful. It was really moving.

Yet this book… wasn’t that great. It was about the writers, and it was hard to keep track of all the different writers; I wasn’t made to care about them or even really like them much.

Stupid book!! Be more better!!

Book Corner 2025.45

Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver


Amazing writing! It just keeps coming at you. I could pull worthy quotes from every page. Such as: “My mind had only one thought in it as regards childhood. For any kid that gets that as an option: take that sweet thing and run with it. Hide. Love it so hard. Because it’s going to fucking leave you and not come back.” I felt like she wasn’t writing, she was channeling someone.

Honest Gratitude

Not a humblebrag about how awesome my life is. Honest things I’m thankful as all hell for.

I’m thankful a pregnant 19-year-old went home for pre-natal care and birthed me all healthy-like, and did what she thought was best.

I’m thankful I didn’t get pregnant as a teenager.

I’m thankful that when I spun my car around 180 degrees in the rain on a BQE entrance ramp, nobody was coming up behind me, for the whole amount of time it took me to point myself right again. I think I had to make a K-turn on the ramp.

I’m thankful I set up that interview with the FRBNY and walked into that job.

I’m thankful I never spiraled down so low I couldn’t get back up again.

I’m thankful for the Kinks song “Better Things.” When things are bad, I know tomorrow, you’ll find better things.

Book Corner 2025.44

Little House on the Prairie

by Laura Ingalls Wilder (re-read)

I picked this up to re-read after reading something about the ‘problematic’ discussion of and portrayal of Native Americans, and the stripping of Wilder’s name from what is now called simply the Children’s Literature Award.

Indians play a prominent role in this installment of the Little House series. They are sometimes threatening and thieving. Ma, Mr. Scott, and Mrs. Scott are scared of them and full of dislike; but Pa feels that Indians are surely just ordinary folks who want to be left alone. Laura, about 6 or 7 in the book, is full of questions. Why is the family even here in Indian Territory?

This is a book about the 1870s. The characters have the attitudes of the 1870s. Pa and Laura are enlightened for their time.

I notice I have an expurgated version. When Pa talks Ma into resettling in Indian Territory, the original book said that there were no people in the territory; only Indians lived there. This was changed, appropriately, to say that no settlers lived there; only Indians lived there.