Friday News 13/03/2020

What a lovely date! There has to be a picture of a black cat to accompany it.

Of course, do be nice to cats, on this and every other day.

News?

COVID-19 is now officially a pandemic, but you already know it (or you should). If we’re talking about work, businesses are affected, freelancers are affected…and if we’re not talking about work only, well, do try to stay alive, even if there are those who prefer the “strictly economic” approach (as in, there might be economical benefits if we let more people die).

All right, rant over. But do try to stay alive.

Now, back to the usual news. And a warning: there will be some vague spoilers for The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.

Currently reading: A Universal History of Iniquity by Jorge Luis Borges. It’s Borges, so of course it’s good. Colorful stories about vile people. Real or imagined. Mostly imagined, even if real. You know, Borges. And if you don’t know, it’s high time you read his books.

Recently read: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. Where do I even start? It’s set some 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale, but it doesn’t follow just the book, it follows the TV series, too. To a point, though; there are some changes, like Aunt Lydia being a judge in her previous life, not a teacher (this wasn’t much of a spoiler, and it does go well with her character).

So, if you’re going to read this, I suggest you read the first book (if you haven’t already), and watch the series (if you haven’t already). You can read this book without the previous works, but the experience is going to be much more emotional with them. There will be wonderful Oh, it’s actually her moments, as well as even more wonderful Whoa, hey, they’re actually… Oh, I can’t wait for them to find out! ones. I’ve seen some people complain that everything went too smoothly, but… On the one hand, it sort of did, considering everything that could have happened, but on the other hand, that ending was being prepared for 15 years, and many, many bad things have happened during those 15 years. So, it’s about as smooth as someone is an overnight success. In other words: no, it isn’t.

Currently watching: courses. In order to help businesses, freelancers, and others affected by COVID-19, Fiverr has created a special site with resources for those impacted, and for a limited time, they’re offering some free courses, too: Brand Strategy and Design for Small Businesses, Build a Professional Website with WordPress.com, Social Media Content Strategy, and Online Freelancing Essentials. None of those will turn you into an expert, but they are packed with information all in one convenient place, at least the ones I’ve seen so far. So, I’m learning what I can, both for work and for myself (plus I’m a curious cat).

Mostly working on: courses. See above. And the same blog I’ve mentioned the last few times. And planning to explore a few tools I’ve learned about in the courses.

Well, that’s it for today’s edition of Life and Work in the Time of Coronavirus, err, A Kitty Dreaming About Wings, see you next time!

Summer (What Summer?) Reading (A Bookpile Post)

The weather is killing me.

Summer? Seriously?

It’s supposed to be summer, but you can see on the picture what it looks like these days. I can’t properly wake up, my mind refuses to work, and on Twitter I read that my friends are experiencing similar problems, taking four hours just to wake up and then forgetting stuff at home, saying “Hi” to everyone and then going for a nap at 3 in the afternoon, and we’re talking about young, healthy people here.

So, what I do mostly is read. Some time ago i went to the library again, and took seven books. The librarian was new, and didn’t ask me whether I’d be able to read it; she seemed not to care one way or the other.

My new bookpile

The books in the pile, from the top to the bottom, are: Hunger by Knut Hamsun, Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Castle by Franz Kafka, A Philosophy of Boredom by Lars Fr. H. Svendsen, Muleum by Erlend Loe, and Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. Hamsun, Svendsen, Loe and Petterson are Scandinavian authors, Kafka is German, Atwood is Canadian, and Adichie African. A wide variety, and so far a good pile of books.

The first one I read from the pile was Hunger, about a talented, but still unrecognized writer. Wait now, where have I seen that one before? Fante and Bukowski come to mind, but, while their protagonists were drinking and doing dumb things, the protagonist of Hunger is starving. Not being really hungry and managing to find something to eat, even if it’s same old, same old; no, not eating for days, so he gets thinner and thinner, his hair falls off, he really, truly looks like a ruin. A very well written novel.

Then there was Out Stealing Horses, an old man coming to live in a distant part of Norway, wishing to be alone, to escape… Well, to escape himself, mostly. And there he remembers the summer when he was fifteen, had a friend he used to steal horses with (the “theft” was actually getting on neighbor’s horses, riding them while imagining they were in the Wild West, and sending them back to the owner). As the novel progresses, the things become more serious. Something horrible, unforgivable happened to the friend right before they went to the horse theft. And “stealing horses” was a phrase used before, by the protagonist’s father, during the resistance to the Nazis. And the protagonist’s father and the friend’s mother have a sort of a history together (no, not some cheap affair). And the protagonist, in his old days, meets someone he never expected nor wanted to meet again, and discovers it’s actually a good thing.

With all this said, this short novel is quite easy to read, and gets you in its world pretty quickly.

After that, there was Muleum by Erlend Loe. The main character is 18-year-old Juliet from Norway who lost her entire family when a plane crashed. While she doesn’t have to fight for physical existence – her family was rich, and she has lots of money – she has to find a reason to keep living, and she fails to do it. Juliet tries to kill herself, then travels the world, stays at the airports, hopes that the next plane she gets on will crash (and feels guilty because of all the other people who would die too), meets a Korean athletic star she likes… Although the subject is difficult, there’s humor in the novel too, and there’s some strength in this young woman as she seeks some sense after the family to whom the word “muleum” meant something is gone (one of the first words little Juliet spoke was “muleum”, it was supposed to be “museum”, but ever since then her family kept saying “muleum”, it was like their family word). While what happened to Juliet is tragic, there’s nothing pathetic in this novel, and it’s quite an enjoyable read.

Then there was A Philosophy of Boredom. Svendsen writes in a clear, understandable style – you don’t have to be a Philosophy major in order to understand his books. In this book, he explores the history of boredom (boredom as we know it today seems to be somewhat new), gives some examples in great literature about the consequences of boredom brought to the extreme, and, while he doesn’t give an answer to the problem of boredom, he does give some suggestions.

Right now, I’m reading Surfacing. I’m still at the beginning, so all I can tell you is that it is about a woman who comes to Quebec to look for her father who just disappeared; she comes to an extremely, err, old-fashioned community (for example, a divorce is unimaginable there) she ran away from when she was younger, and isn’t happy about it, but hey, her father disappeared, and she wants to know what happened.

Well, that would be it for now. And, for the end, and completely unrelated, here’s a cat picture, because every blog needs one.

Every blog needs a cat picture.