Books read in October 2017

New:

1. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
2. Toronto Public Etiquette Guide by Dylan Reid
3. Why Won't You Apologize? Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts by Harriet Lerner
4. Dangerous Women (anthology) ed. George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
5. Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada by Chelsea Vowel 
6. Glass Houses by Louise Penny
7.  I Am Woman: A Native Perspective On Sociology And Feminism by Lee Maracle

Reread:

1. Strangers in Death
2. Salvation in Death
3. Ritual in Death

Indigenous Writes by Chelsea Vowel

Indigenous Writes by Chelsea Vowel is a fantastic primer for those of us who are reading for reconciliation from an ignorant settler starting point.

In an easy and approachable style, it gives an overview that helped me get a better idea of where I am and am not ignorant - I now know far more about what I don't know, and about what else there might be to know.  It has spared me the embarrassment of several blog posts that I was vaguely considering but now know to be ignorant, and has led me to consider that various ideas I had in other areas of life might be ignorant as well.

I don't normally review books because I'm not particularly good at doing so, but this one had such a clear positive impact that I just had to share.  And I don't normally buy books, preferring instead to read from the library, but I will be buying this one so I can refer back to it as needed.

Will & Grace

I've been watching and enjoying the Will & Grace revival, but there's one thing I have trouble overlooking: the characters haven't evolved.  They're exactly the same people they were 11 years ago.

Real people would grow and change somewhat over 11 years.  Fictional characters who are being written for 11 years would evolve.  But Will and Grace and Jack and Karen have been in stasis.

Which is really a catch-22 for the writers. If they had somehow managed to write the characters after 11 years of evolving, they wouldn't be the characters we know and love.  But their not having evolved feels unnatural.

However, I am enjoying having new Will & Grace, so what I'm doing as a viewer is just treating these new shows as though they're syndicated reruns I haven't seen before. The cultural references are from 2017, but all of Will & Grace's cultural references have been current at some point of my cultural awareness. And the characters feel the same as always, which isn't at all incongruous if I don't think about the timeline.

T.H.I.N.K. before you speak: let's replace "inspiring" with "informative"

A common guideline on avoiding saying assholic things is:

T.H.I.N.K before you speak: Is it:

True
Helpful
Inspiring
Necessary
Kind?

I think "inspiring" is too tall an order. There are plenty of things that should be said that are nowhere near inspirational. For example, "Excuse me, ma'am, you dropped this," and "Thank you, I appreciate it," and "I put the coffee creamer in the fridge but the sugar bowl is still on the table." For these kinds of benign statements, you can make an argument for true, helpful, necessary and kind, but they are by no stretch of the imagination inspiring.  Nevertheless, they should be said.

I think the word "inspiring" is only even in the acronym in the first place because they wanted a vowel so they could make a word. So let's replace it with a better word that starts with a vowel.

I propose informative.  One of the things we should think about before we speak is whether we're providing new information that our interlocutor doesn't already have, as opposed to being one of those assholes go goes around monopolizing the conversation and people's time by stating the obvious.

T.H.I.N.K. before you speak.  Is it:

True
Helpful
Informative
Necessary
Kind?