Miscellany
a vocab word that covers a lot of different things.
I’ve been seeing collections of links and resources and collections and things about keeping notebooks by various different writers I follow, and it inspired me to make a little online miscellany of my own. This is not everything in my current world by any means but it gives you an idea. Also, I hope you find something fun or curious enough to lead you down an enjoyable rabbit hole yourself. Sound fun? Sure it does. Let’s go:
Reading
I’m always reading something, though I do go through certain (what I call) intake/output cycles. I at least always have some Sherlock Holmes in my face holes at night on my way to sleep. And the past couple days, whilst my husband has been away on a work trip, I’ve had LOTR narrated by Andy Serkis going into my earholes. Other things I’m reading now include:
My friend JQM’s book: working title, Crazy Unconscious Days. I just started it, so I won’t tell you anything about it, only that it’s so bizarre and I’m enjoying the wild trip muchly.
Unruly by David Mitchell: I got this on impulse when watching him chat with historian Mary Beard on YouTube, and I thought, huh. One of my favorite smarty pants comedians that appears regularly on QI wrote a history book? Cool. This was my vacation reading and I devoured most of it in my father-in-law’s easy chair by the bay window where the deer and the chipmunk harassed me, and the bird-sized dragonflies banged against the glass unnervingly loud.
As I mainly write essays these days meself, I’m always looking for the best of those. I figure if I absorb enough excellence in that genre, I’ll become excellent myself by osmosis combined with practice. My favorite is still Clive James, but I know my wide readership in that genre is woefully narrow, having been mostly a Fantasy fan as a young veracious bookworm, so. I’ve got a good thicc anthology edited by Philip Lopate himself, and another impulse buy related to something I saw online that pricked my eyeballs and brain: I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman.1 But I promised my friend I’d get him some feedback by the end of July so I have to leave these be till I’ve finished that one.
Writing
If you’ve been following me or subscribed for any length of time, you’ll have noticed The Zuko’s Musings pattern of essays:
Monday: Popinations
Wednesday: Fight Clip Club2
Friday: Vocab word prompt
ALSO! This past Thursday marked the last of the Problematic Tropes Essays reshared. I call that tab ‘T is for Thursday Tropes,’ and I’m not gonna guarantee I won’t be doing a GLOSS on each of those soon. This series (like my other tabbed offering, my memoir Next Time,3 will hopefully become a book if I can figure out how.
‘Rithmetic
Not really; the only ‘rithmetic I do is calculating bar tips. But I did want to mention my job, such as it is: the adjunct plight is manifesting at the moment in the next phase of its evolution, basically in the form of implosion. If you’ve read any bits of my memoir, or if you’ve seen my guest work on
’s or others’ collections, you’ll have read about the exploitative nature of my 20+ years long ‘career’ and how it’s been treating me through the decades. These days, it’s all but gone: they told us that enrollment is way down, and that we wouldn’t be given as many classes as often. I’ve certainly heard that before. And then I heard via the news that the DU faculty senate just voted No Confidence in our chancellor. Higher ed, man. I’ve been watching the cracks form and deepen for a long time, and now it’s starting to crumble.
Performing Arts:
I’m still extremely active in performance, of course: my main two theatrical thingies I do regularly is my monthly variety show, and fight choreography when and where people need my services. The fight choreo in particular is a bit thin these days (as is any funding for any arts, including theatre most. As always, but more so), but I still get a gig or two trickling in here and there.
Blue Dime Cabaret today: I was chatting with one of our producers (who’s also our emcee) the other day about risqué work like this being our form of resistance. Our Pride show certainly was overtly, but each and every time we gather a gaggle of queerdos on that sparkly stage and celebrate who they are with the highest caliber acts I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen Cirque), it’s a continued artistic statement beyond Pride Month. And I’m still proud.
(Our next show is called Hot Burl(esque) Summer and it’s a hot one. No lie.)
Magic
Here’s an incomplete list of the wholesome, joyful, or otherwise wonderful things I’ve come across online lately. I wanted to do this because the world is very scary, hard, and hateful right now. And so. Here are a few nodes I’ve enjoyed that are not those things:
Substack standouts
Our shelfie/stack Saturdays/Sundays: Each weekend, a handful of us post a pic of a Shelfie or a book stack, and share it in Notes with all of us tagged. It’s so aesthetically pleasing, and such a fun game. Join in and tag us if you want!
I’m heartily enjoying
’s neurotic first steps into a PhD, and all her conference nerves and notebook tastes and everything else she shares. Oh, and her dang good translation of Sir Gawain & the Green Knight.
I’m still quite delighted by Allison’s skewed history and puns in
. I always love a good irreverent yet detailed historical nugget, and she always delivers. Plus, her subheadings are goals.
Speaking of fun history stuff…
Other online highlights
Here’s a quick rundown of just a select few of the shining baubles I’ve chuckled at in other corners of teh interwebz:
Tasting History: Prince Charming impersonator Max Miller (no, really—he used to work for Disney) makes and tastes recipes from around the globe, from across history. It’s pretty fascinating. Start with garum, and go from there. Just trust me.
Stanley Tucci’s new devastatingly elegant foodie series on Italy: Is there anyone more urbane, charming, stylish, and …Italian than Stanley Tucci? I think not. His new series has one season complete and it’ll make you hungry, as well as suddenly interested in menswear.
Georgy Kavkaz and Friends is getting more and more unhinged and I’m here for it. He’s got his buddies joining him more often now, and they’re all getting way more adorably theatrical and it’s just too funny. Plus, what’s more soothing after a long day than watching a husky Georgian take apart a huge carcass with culinary artistic precision?
The WDNC club is continuing its shenanigans and I’m also here for that. I’m mulling over making a little videolet of my own to submit to the tagging, but I haven’t quite managed it yet. Apart from my picture of myself as the Perimenopause Samurai.
A current trend I’m enjoying muchly is this premise: one aggressive partner admonishes you to listen to their partner talk about their >insert gentle or nerdy hobby here< or else. Then their gentle or soft or nerdy partner steps up and explains their obsession in detail while their aggressive partner stares daggers at you in the background. Here’s one of the more adorable examples, but there are myriads on TikTok and I believe you can find these on Insta as well: Close Your Earholes While Boo Boo Tells You About Our New House Plant4
Well, that’s that, at least for now. What’s on your miscellany list? What do you put into your little notebooks? What are you consuming and excreting (ew) right now? Let me know in the comments.
This collection sounds like she’s writing about a lot of the issues I do in my memoir. I’m looking forward to delving into it.
The only paywalled series on my site. Sorry, it’s my professional stuff. Not that the rest of my writing isn’t professionally done, but. The rest is more personal, content-wise. So.
Published under a tab called ‘Saturday Morning Serial.’
Pretty sure they meant ‘mouth hole’ not ‘earholes’ but ehhh you get the picture.