Quote for the Day: September 20th, 2021

Fear makes you forget everything, turns you into something that only knows it can die.
Micah Nemerever, These Violent Delights: A Novel

The Voracious Bibliophile’s Rules for Reading

#1: There are no rules.

#2: Read what you want, when you want, in the format you want.

#3: One genre is not better than another.

#4: You don’t have to read the classics. Unless you want to, of course. The “canon” is mostly Eurocentric and a tool of white supremacy.

#5: Re-reading is valid.

#6: Reading fan-fiction is valid.

#7: It doesn’t matter whether you read fast or slow or somewhere in the middle.

#8: Book snobs are fascists. And most likely colonizers.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version) – Single

What kind of game is Taylor playing with us?

Here I had myself emotionally prepped for a new Red era, one assuaged of the guilt accompanying listening to the BMR (original) version. Now she drops a re-recorded single from 1989?

I didn’t have a full-fledged rebellion in me, but I wanted to act out in a very concrete, yet still mostly vanilla way.

A little background for you all. I was a college freshman in 2014. The world was eagerly awaiting Taylor Swift’s pure pop debut as was I. I’ve always been somewhat of a goody two shoes, flaunting my moral superiority over the weaker beings inhabiting my sphere. But I was young. Well, young-er than I am now. I didn’t have a full-fledged rebellion in me, but I wanted to act out in a very concrete, yet still mostly vanilla way.

As the last notes of “Clean” played out, I declared that she would garner another Grammy for Album of the Year. And she did.

So on October 27th, 2014, I skipped every single college class I had that day. I went to Walmart very early in the morning to buy 1989, so early in fact that the employee working in electronics had to open the box containing the CDs so I could buy one. I stopped by McDonald’s for some sausage biscuits and a large soda, and I went home (I didn’t live on campus; dorms are gross, no thank you). I listened to it all the way through, patiently absorbing this new sound of Taylor’s. And I fell in love. As the last notes of “Clean” played out, I declared that she would garner another Grammy for Album of the Year. And she did.

I am a veritable maelstrom of confusion, angst, and guarded anticipation.

So can you imagine how I feel right now? I am a veritable maelstrom of confusion, angst, and guarded anticipation. What is next for the Swiftie community? What will Mother Taylor give us next? I will be watching closely to find out.

What Not to Do When You Run Out of Almond Milk

Over the past few years, I’ve become sensitive to dairy. I won’t go into the sordid details but you can imagine my first few experiences when I developed said sensitivities. I also love eating crispy rice cereal (I won’t do name-brand anymore—it’s far too sweet) so I had to find a dairy milk alternative. In comes almond milk, my love and my savior. Now I can eat all the crispy rice cereal I want and I eat it with almond milk, always unsweetened because milk is not supposed to be sweet. If this offends you, my apologies.

Now I can eat all the crispy rice cereal I want and I eat it with almond milk, always unsweetened because milk is not supposed to be sweet. If this offends you, my apologies.

Yesterday morning, I poured myself a bowl of crispy rice and reached into my refrigerator for a carton of almond milk. Imagine my horror when the carton I grabbed had just a swig of milk left. I first considered DoorDashing some almond milk from my local Walgreens, but all I needed was almond milk and I was not prepared to pay $11.00 for it after service fees, not including the Dasher’s tip.

I do not recommend doing what I did next. I had several ice-cold bottles of 7-UP in the refrigerator so I decided to use one of them for a milk substitute. What was I thinking? Never in my life have I tasted something so revolting. Although, if I’m being perfectly honest, the sound it made hitting the crispy rice was very sonically pleasing. Could I have eaten the cereal dry? Perhaps. Did I want to? Certainly not.

There’s a lesson to be learned here. When you run out of almond milk (or whatever kind of milk you use) for your cereal, make yourself a sandwich instead. Don’t be innovative.

Poem for the Day: September 19th, 2021

*When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities* (Winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize) by Chen Chen

In the Hospital by Chen Chen

My mother was in the hospital & everyone wanted to be my friend.
But I was busy making a list: good dog, bad citizen, short
skeleton, tall mocha. Typical Tuesday.
My mother was in the hospital & no one wanted to be her friend.
Everyone wanted to be soft cooing sympathies. Very reasonable
pigeons. No one had the tie & our solution to it
was to buy shinier watches. We were enamored with
what our wrists could declare. My mother was in the hospital
& I didn’t want to be her friend. Typical son. Tall latte, short tale,
bad plot, great wifi in the atypical café. My mother was in the hospital
& she didn’t want to be her friend. She wanted to be the family
grocery list. Low-fat yogurt, firm tofu. She didn’t trust my father
to be it. You always forget something, she said, even when
I do the list for you. Even then.

The language in this poem exposes both the terror and banality accompanying seeing someone you love ill. Small details become our refuge and religion.

I thought today’s poem would be apropos for the world we currently live in, where so much of our collective existence is focused on (the avoidance of needing to go to) hospitals. I’ve been enamored with Chen Chen’s poetry for years now, and his collection (pictured above) that includes “In the Hospital” was in my opinion one of the best of the 2010s. The language in this poem exposes both the terror and banality accompanying seeing someone you love ill. Small details become our refuge and religion.

In the end, we cannot do the thing that needs doing the most, which is healing, a return to vitality, a restoration to order.

We pick minutiae that can be controlled, or at least reasonably assessed, and make that our focus. We grapple with our incompetencies and make lists of all the things we can do and all the things we can’t. In the end, we cannot do the thing that needs doing the most, which is healing, a return to vitality, a restoration to order. That is always thanklessly out of our hands.

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities was released in 2017 by BOA Editions, Ltd. and is available to order wherever books are sold.

Quote for the Day: September 19th, 2021

Loving dark men is a seesaw; they never tell you everything. You always wonder if the tiny red spot on a shirt is really from a spaghetti dinner like they claim. But then they put a bird back in a nest. They pull a drowning kid out of the water. And that’s all it takes: the spaghetti is not blood.
Julia Heaberlin, We Are All the Same in the Dark: A Novel

Poem for the Day: September 18th, 2021

Miracle Removal by Kevin Young

                             i.m. Helen Hill 

This world is rigged
with ruin.

Rain,
and its remains.

In the yard drought
fills the empty jars—

houses on stilts
still lean.

Sweet as revenge, the grass
devours the abandoned

dream house, unfinished kitchen
where cows now graze.

What angels
I would wrestle.

Kevin Young currently serves as the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and has been the poetry editor at The New Yorker since 2017. He was named a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020. He previously served as the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. His most recent collection, Stones: Poems, will be released on September 28th, 2021 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and is now available to preorder wherever books are sold.

Quote for the Day: September 18th, 2021

Conrad Veidt in a still from Robert Wiene’s *The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari* (1920)

We queens are not free to answer the calls of our hearts.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920); directed by Robert Wiene

Revolutionary at the time were its sharp lines and angles, its use of shadows and light to heighten the viewer’s anxiety. Caligari quite literally helped to develop the language of cinema.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is a masterpiece of German Expressionist filmcraft. Perhaps no other film in the history of cinema has received as much scholarly attention because it paved the way for so many films that succeeded it. Revolutionary at the time were its sharp lines and angles, its use of shadows and light to heighten the viewer’s anxiety. Caligari quite literally helped to develop the language of cinema. Without it, there would be no film noir. None of the great horror films made by Universal from the 1930s to the 1950s would exist.

It would be my contention, in fact, that you can draw a direct line that starts with Caligari and goes all the way to films like The Wolf House (2018), Us (2019), and Midsommar (2019). I could talk about it all day, but it’s really something you need to see for yourself to truly appreciate. What are you waiting for?

Quote for the Day: September 17th, 2021

I’m nobody’s fragment.
Sandra Milo, in an interview on the Criterion Collection DVD release of 8 1/2 (1963); directed by Federico Fellini

Poem for the Day: September 17th, 2021

won’t you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton

won’t you celebrate with me 
what i have shaped into 
a kind of life? i had no model. 
born in babylon 
both nonwhite and woman 
what did i see to be except myself? 
i made it up 
here on this bridge between 
starshine and clay, 
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate 
with me that everyday 
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

Lucille Clifton was born exactly 64 days after my paternal grandmother, on June 27th, 1936. She was discovered by Langston Hughes, who was shown her poetry by Ishmael Reed, himself an acclaimed Black poet and novelist. Clifton was extremely prolific during her writing career, having more than thirty works published, including poetry collections, children’s books, and memoirs. In addition to many other accolades and awards, she was awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2007. The Book of Light, the collection from which today’s poem was taken, is available to purchase wherever books are sold.