Hello Friends,
I had what I think of as a ‘short week.’ I was catching up after last weekend’s screw up with having my car locked in a parking garage. Thursday and Friday, I spent out in the IE again. I took my husband and his aunt to the Ontario Airport for their trip to see relatives in Portland. (Maybe they will catch some great inflatable costumes.) I was able to go to the California Botanic Garden briefly, take a walk with my old walking partner, and take in the Dodger game with some of my fan friends. All a lot of fun!
I hope you had a good ‘No Kings’ experience. Everyone I know did. Peaceful protest. Each protest I go to is bigger than the last. This time people spilled onto nearby streets. Lots of cars with signs, lots of honking, lots of good will. There were some great signs, but it was so crowded, I couldn’t really take a lot of photos. I did get photos of some of the people in inflatable costumes. The funniest sign I saw was one held by a man who had on shorts and a beige and brown sweater, was carrying a drink and “Shut the **** up Donny. The Dude does not abide tyranny.” (He really did look like the Dude). One other funny one: “If Kamala had been elected, we’d be at brunch right now.”
I saved this article from The Contrarian a few weeks back because I had never heard of the ‘3.5% rule.’ I thought you might not have heard of it either and would be interested.
Even if protests don’t hit 3.5%, the resistance can topple Trump
You might have heard of the so-called 3.5% rule. Developed by Erica Chenoweth and colleagues at Harvard, it postulates that “no government has withstood a challenge of 3.5% of their population mobilized against it during a peak event.” However, this is a rule of thumb, not an inviolate law of politics. Chenoweth acknowledges that Brunei and Bahrain, where more than 3.5% turned out but the governments were not overthrown, are exceptions to the rule.
Moreover, and critical for our current purposes, “most mass nonviolent movements that have succeeded have done so even without achieving 3.5% popular participation.” Certainly, turning out 3.5%—or 11.9 million Americans—would be a tremendous achievement in the effort to overcome MAGA authoritarian rule, but over 60% of movements that turned out 1% to 3.5% succeeded.
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Reading and Writing
Typos in Your Manuscript? Your E-mail?
If you’ve had embarrassing typos in your manuscript—or even in your emails—you might feel better after reading this. History Facts has a feature on typos that cost companies millions of dollars. But this error was the funniest one to me:
One notorious typographical error was found within the so-called Wicked Bible, a 1631 edition of the King James Bible in which pious readers were advised, “Thou shalt commit adultery.”
Good Books
A Truce that is Not Peace
I read Miriam Toews’ new nonfiction A Truce that is Not Peacebecause I am thinking that truce and not peace is what life often offers, not just on the national and world stage, but in the personal arena. You may know that Toews’ sister (and only sibling) Marjorie died by suicide. What I did not know is that her father also did.
A Truce is organized around an invitation to a literary conference in Mexico City where Toews, along with other authors, would read something she’d written in response to the question “Why do I write?”
While Toews never is able to answer the question to the satisfaction of the conference committee (her response is “not appropriate”), it is the question that drives this memoir.
Toews writes to speak of the trauma of having both her father and her sister lose their lives by suicide; the struggle with Marjorie’s death is the more difficult one. Marjorie asked Toews to write her letters, and some of these are included in the memoir, highlighting their relationship as well as the young adult life and the mindset of Toews. While she cannot save her sister, she writes to hold on to her.
The book has two other interesting elements. Toews discusses a “Wind Museum” that she’d like to create, which would give visitors experiences of all sorts of wind, from gentle breezes to tornadoes. Interspersed throughout the story of her family, Toews includes brief discussions of famous people who died by suicide.
This is a strange and beautiful book, a thing that can be said of everything I’ve read by Toews.
Sometimes We Tell the Truth
I saw Sometimes We Tell the Truth by Kim Zarins in a bookstore and bought it on a lark, knowing nothing about it. It’s a rift on the Canterbury Tales, which I realized when the second story began and I thought “This is the Miller’s Tale!” It’s a YA novel about teens on a trip to Washington, D.C. I’m not sure YA fiction interests readers of Be a Cactus, but I did write up a review and posted it on School Library Lady if you do happen to enjoy YA lit. (TL;DR—it’s an interesting idea, but, as a teacher myself, the completely useless teacher chaperone disturbed me.)
Writing on Empty
I’ve been looking for writing inspiration. From the library, I checked out Writing on Empty by Natalie Goldberg. However, the book isn’t really on how to kickstart writing, even though the subtitle suggests it is. It’s about Goldberg’s trials and tribulations during the Covid pandemic, which were mild in comparison to many people’s. (They are mild compared, even, to mine.) There are some writing prompts tacked on the end, perhaps so it could be sold as a writing advice book. But for those looking for that advice, Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones is still the far better choice.
Pastoralia
I listened to George Saunders’ Pastoralia for a second time just because I love his work so much. Two of my favorite stories are in that collection: “Sea Oak” and “The Falls.” In “Sea Oak” the narrator is a male stripper who lives with his sister, his cousin, their children, and an aunt. They live a pretty miserable, impoverished life. While the sister and cousin are unemployed and too lazy to change their lives, Aunt Bernie works and is both sweet and grateful for the little she has. That is, until she dies of fright during a burglary and comes back from the dead with a new personality. Wacky, sad, and full of contemplation on why some very good people have very crappy lives. “The Falls” is about two men and their very different reactions to seeing a pair of girls in a canoe that is heading toward ‘the falls.’ A devastating story about moral choices.
My Sister the Serial Killer
With so much driving, I was also able to listen to My Sister the Serial Killer by Nigerian writer Oyinkan Braithwaite. I knew it was a popular book a few years back, but had never read it and didn’t know if it was a thriller, a mystery, or ??? I loved it—definitely not anything I expected and hard to describe. It doesn’t have any in-scene violence. It’s darkly comedic and explores the question of how far someone will go to protect/shield a loved one. It ends on a pretty open note, but is still satisfying. If you want something quirky, I highly recommend it.
Thanks for reading!
