Sunday Coffee – a quest for new art (Please help!!)

Posted on January 22, 2023 by Thistle

This week, Jason and I painted my bedroom. It was still mostly this horrible brown color except the one wall we had to fix when we redid the windows a couple years ago. In repainting, we also added a shelf high up on one wall, and rearranged the room so that it could better accommodate some things that I’d just been stuffing into my closet in the meantime. While we did all this, I decided it was time to do a bit of spring cleaning. Everything was off the walls and shelves, tucked into piles, so it was time to sort and decide what I still wanted, and what had outlived its purpose. This went from everything from extra yoga mats to artwork that had been hanging on my wall for five years but no longer really fit my aesthetic.

By the end of the project, this is what my room looked like:

A couple notes: First, on a purely color-based note, the doors/trim will eventually be repainted. They’re still the original almond that was here before, which matched the brown but just looks dirty and dingy against the blue walls. That will be a later project, though. Second, the blank wall behind the armchair has a set of wavy drop mirrors coming from Etsy to reflect the window-light and the accent wall across from them. Third, the blank space above the dresser will soon hold a cascade of scarves from my late grandmother’s collection.

Which leads me to the dark blue accent wall. Right now it is empty and dark and blank, a perfect canvas to decorate! What I would like to do on this wall is fill it with closely-set, framed pieces of art and photography, collected over time, as well as potentially some antique hand-mirrors, hanging skeleton keys, etc. Some might actually be photos that I take, but I mostly want to focus on discovering and supporting small artists and photographers selling locally or online. I have very specific tastes that I’m aiming for, and this collage shows a general idea of that, but the problem is that I’m really no good at finding artists. Mostly, I come across them on the recommendations of friends! Like, I absolutely adore the Jennifer Gordon artwork that accompanied the old RIP challenges (back in the 2009/2010 era!) and used to have several framed pieces from her etsy store, but that store no longer exists there doesn’t seem to be a way to purchase on her website. (Don’t ask why I got rid of my original prints. It’s a long story that had to do with subsuming my personality in 2015, and I still regret it.) I never would have discovered Gordon’s work if not for my online friends, so if you have any artists you love, please send me links! Obvs I won’t be buying an entire wall’s worth of art right away, but my birthday is coming up in March so I’d love to be able to put links out for folks before then! Even if you don’t think the artists you love fit the aesthetic, please leave as many links as you like! I always appreciate discovering new things.

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The Book Eaters, by Sunyi Dean

Posted on January 20, 2023 by Thistle

Excerpt from the book jacket: Out on the Yorkshire moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book’s content after eating it… Devon is part of the Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grew up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon – like all book eater women – was raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn’t always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger – not for books, but for human minds.

TW: abuse in many varieties, violence/gore

That description is slightly misleading, mostly because Devon discovers misery long before her son is born. It also doesn’t do justice to the complexity of this story. The book eaters live in this world, but apart from it. They look like humans, but aren’t human. Not only is their biology vastly different for all it mimics humans, but they have strange physical constraints (example: they literally cannot write in any form), no knowledge of where their species came from (though there is religious-like lore), and their diet of books eventually breaks their minds down as they try to hold more and more information inside. For the most part, book eaters keep away from humans so as not to draw attention to their oddities and differences, but by the time this book begins, there’s been a political upheaval in their Family system, and Devon finds herself living out in the open world, her son in tow. And that makes for an incredibly intriguing story.

The Book Eaters is told in two parallel lines – the current timeline, and a series of flashback chapters that take Devon from her childhood self to her current-day predicaments. You see through her eyes the constraints on women in her society due to their rarity (and thus value), with all the strictures placed on them because they have value. Women are a commodity not to be wasted, so they must not be indulged, given choices, or allowed to make any but the most minor of decisions. When you value a thing too much, you put it in a box where it can’t get harmed. But women aren’t things, and when you put them in boxes, they break. The Families are okay with this as long as it’s the spirit and heart that are broken, making their women weak and pliable. As you can imagine, Devon is different than the norm.

I think my favorite thing about this book is how rich the world-building is without every aspect being explained. Why can book eaters not write? It’s a question never answered, one of many. The point is not to discover where these creatures came from, or what their purpose is, or whether their mythos is in any way rooted in truth. They exist, and like humans with their cultures and beliefs and limitations and problems, obstacles and barriers also exist. The unknown and the unknowable also exist. For me, that’s what makes the book so rich. It doesn’t feel like the author doesn’t know and therefore won’t tell you, nor does it feel like these random bits are in the story purely to move the plot along. They simply enhance the world, create potential complications, and bring a very alien creature into a space where they’re extremely relatable to the reader despite having a second set of bookteeth and ink that runs through their veins.

While this book appears to be standalone – I can’t find any evidence that it’s meant to be the first in a series – the end is a bit unsettling. The rest of this paragraph contains very, very mild spoilers not regarding events but the tone of the book, so I’m going to white it out. Highlight to read: The climax and tension build all the way through the last few pages, and even once you know where things are headed, there’s always uncertainty for the future. There are some really disturbing moments through the climax – disturbing in the implications of what they might mean for the characters going forward. It feels like there could be a whole host of questions that could be addressed in further volumes, or potentially a complete standalone with an ending that simply says life will never be even remotely simple for these creatures who are alien in our world. End mild spoilers.

I loved this book. Loved the writing, the fabric of the world, the use of queer characters without that being the focus of their stories or personalities, loved the complexities that inherently come with living in a world that isn’t meant for you. I loved the focus on family, both good and bad, and the discussion of the cost of love. There were definitely some unsettling and gruesome parts of the book (see trigger warnings), but it all felt appropriate in context and never glorified or overemphasized. Altogether, it was a rich book that I would guess will stick with me for a long time.

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January Self Portrait: Gutter Glitter

Posted on January 18, 2023 by Thistle

Part of my goals this year is to move forward with photography (in many different aspects). With a nod toward that goal, I decided to emulate a TT creator who chose to do a self portrait each month of 2022. By doing a personal self portrait each month, I can explore different themes and styles (in shots, costume, and edits), improve at creative portraiture, and personally get more comfortable in my skin as my body image has really suffered since Ozempic caused massive weight gain in late 2020 through 2021.

Last weekend, I took January’s photos, a shoot I called Gutter Glitter after a song from Switchblade Symphony. There were two locations that inspired these photos, a drainage ditch and an industrial park, both of which I pass regularly as I travel back and forth to the animal shelter that I foster through. I had the idea to contrast an ethereal/fantastical costume with the grimy reality that is litter, graffiti, runoff, and rust. Concrete and metal vs gossamer and light.

Let me just say that this is one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever forced myself to do. No one expects a person to dress up like they’re going to Ren Faire, smear glitter haphazardly across their face, and then walk down a busy public street in an industrial area, or jump into a drainage ditch. Believe me, you get a LOT of stares. Jason came along with me, because frankly, I needed the moral support, plus I didn’t feel safe going into that situation alone, and he made a great stand-in model for focusing my camera! We went to three locations – the two mentioned above, plus a utility pole at the edge of my neighborhood. (At a four way stop. Where I was close enough to each car to see the baffled and/or bemused expressions on every person’s face.) It was right around sunset, so there was perfect golden hour light to take these photos, which get progressively darker as we went along. (And hey, at the last stop, the stares went so far as to involve an old man across the street watching us and laughing!)

Uncomfortable? Yes, I was! But honestly, the longer the night went on, the more comfortable I got, even with the old man laughing at me in that third location. A lot of the photos weren’t great – I’m not very good at posing for the camera, never have been! – but there were several dozen that came out phenomenal. Once I got them edited, I had a really fun and creative story to tell.

What should I do in February? Any suggestions?

*****
OMG. I found out four days after this photo session that there was a drug-deal-turned-shooting at the halfway point between my second and third location, while we were driving from the gutter to the industrial park. We were literally driving by as the shooting happened. Holy f*ck…

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The Alchemist of Riddle and Ruin, by Gigi Pandian (audio)

Posted on January 16, 2023 by Thistle

Zoe’s friend Heather is confronted by what she believes is the ghost of her teenage best friend, Riddle (Ridley), who was murdered 16 years before. Zoe doesn’t believe in ghosts, and knows it’s more likely – though still not terribly probable – that Riddle is an alchemist. But stone gargoyle Dorian, Heather’s son Brickston, and Brickston’s friend Veronica all want to investigate the ghost, and in turn, Riddle’s unsolved murder. Unsolved, however, means that the killer is still out there, and investigating them puts everyone at risk.

I believe this is the sixth volume of this series. Former mysteries have all been wrapped up, so it’s only the characters who continue at this point. I’m not complaining even slightly about this – I love these characters and every time I return to one of these books, it feels like slipping into a warm, comfy bath. I’m glad there are new mysteries to investigate, especially as this one straddles the line of maybe-paranormal, maybe-not.

Because this is the sixth volume, I’m not going to say more. Just reiterate something I’ve said in probably every single review I’ve done on this series: I’m so very glad I took a chance on a $3 audiobook all those years ago.

PS – Julia Motyka does a great job reading the book as always. I was worried, because the introduction is read by a man, and I thought they’d switched narrators for a hot second. Whew!

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Sunday Coffee – a fortuitous moment

Posted on January 15, 2023 by Thistle

On Thursday this week, I brought my half-sister a book to borrow for her last few days in San Antonio, and in exchange, she took me out for coffee at a local cafe, Mildfire Coffee. We hung out for a couple hours at the cafe, and at one point, we paused our conversation while Julia used the restroom. When she was gone, my ear picked up a conversation going on behind me, two folks discussing an otherworldly nature area and fantastical portraits. I mean, come on, that’s literally bullseye on my interests!!

Now, I could have just ignored it, or eavesdropped, but instead I decided to break out of my comfort zone. I got up, approached these two, and started a conversation. As it turned out, one of them is a nature photographer who had an idea for a fantasy/dryad photoshoot in the location they’d been discussing, and the other was interested in fantasy portraiture! I showed them the photos from my January Gutter Glitter photoshoot (post coming soon), and we talked about collaboration and exchanged Instagram handles. It turns out that the second of these two was an employee at Mildfire who knows my sister (because my dad, stepmom, and sister have been going to Mildfire regularly for years!).[er =\-=] <–the stuff in [] was written by my foster kitten running across the keyboard…ha!

Anyway, it was a lovely conversation and I made two new friends that I’ll hopefully be able to get to know better and work with in the future. The whole thing made me feel so warm and cozy and happy, and I know that if I had decided to stay quiet like my normal self rather than put myself out there, I would have instead felt disappointed and ashamed and hopeless. It’s a thing I’m trying to learn, but need to be taught more regularly: Don’t be afraid to speak. Reach out. Do the thing. More often than not, humanity will surprise and delight me when I do.

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Tress of the Emerald Sea, by Brandon Sanderson (audio)

Posted on January 13, 2023 by Thistle

Tress would be content to stay at home on her tiny island forever. It’s safe from the deadly spore sea and her life is hard but fulfilling. Plus, no one is allowed to leave, so what would be the point of imagining life off the Rock? Only now, Tress has a reason. Her truest friend is gone, kidnapped by an evil sorcerous, and no one cares enough to rescue him except her. All she has to do is illegally escape the island, sail through deadly seas to even deadlier seas, and then defeat the most powerful woman in the world. Simple, right?

This is the first of the four secret novels Brandon Sanderson announced last March. It’s set in the Cosmere, on a planet that previously had no stories attached to it, containing a spore-based magic system that has been tangentially referred to in a very, very vague way. I don’t know that this novel will be particularly relevant to the whole of the Cosmere, but it was definitely worth reading. Will it be a favorite? No. Did I enjoy it? Mostly.

The part I didn’t enjoy is easy to sum up. There’s a character in the Cosmere named Hoid who hops around to different worlds and shows up in every single book. He’s got a larger part in the Stormlight books, and will eventually share his own story, which will be very important. However, I find Hoid extremely tedious as a character, if I’m honest. He’s got a forced whimsical kind of personality, overly crass and immature, like dealing with a middle-school boy except that this particular middle-school boy is millennia old and incredibly wise if and when he choses to drop the whimsical act. Normally, I don’t mind him so much while reading through a book because he only shows up in small doses. Unfortunately, he’s the narrator of this book. There are times when the narration gets caught up and almost feels like normal, third-person POV, but then it careens suddenly back to first person as Hoid brings in jokes, unimportant observances, and whatever other whimsy he chooses. It drove me crazy.

Other than Hoid, though, I loved the book. Sanderson does so well with personal transformation stories, and found families, and the development of magical systems. The spores were sooooo fascinating here and I do hope we get to learn more about them. Tress herself undergoes so much change, from content and unquestioning into a powerful and commanding figure no longer willing to just accept things as they are. Her search for her friend really becomes a search inside herself, told parallel, crashing together into potential conflict throughout the book. It was wonderful.

Oddly for Sanderson, I wasn’t taken by surprise this time around. I had very early suspicions about what was going to happen in Tress’ journey, and they seemed so obvious that I thought there was no way I could be right. Sanderson never takes the obvious route! And yet, either he tricked us all by doing the obvious thing, or I’ve just gotten wiser to his ploys. I’m guessing it’s the first one, because I’m still sure I’ll get smacked upside the head multiple times in future books, heh.

Performance: This book is read by Michael Kramer like many of Sanderson’s books. Funny thing – I could always tell when the narration was about to veer back into Hoid’s whimsy by the changes in Kramer’s vocal inflections as he read. Ha!

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TNR: Feather

Posted on January 11, 2023 by Thistle

This is the story of a calico. The calico has shown up a few times on our overnight camera, in April, August, and twice in September. She began to show up during the day not long before Christmas, and seemed to figure out that we keep cat food in our yard throughout the day for the ferals. As far as I could ascertain, the calico was an unfixed stray and not someone’s indoor/outdoor baby. She brought with her an entourage, including King – a giant part-maine-coon tomcat who also happened to be Shai and Hulud’s father – and a rare male calico (pic below) who also showed up on our overnight camera a few times back in the spring. And while I would love to trap and fix all of these stray cats, the calico was the most important. The boys were following her around, and there were clear cries of cat-in-heat going on in the wee morning hours. NO ONE NEEDS MORE KITTENS TO RESCUE. Especially not us.

Project Calico began the week between Christmas and New Years. It started with trap-training, which is when you leave the trap tied open with food progressively further inside. The trap can’t go off because you have it tied back, and the cats getting the food begin to believe the trap is not a trap.

[Side dilemma: We did not want Lord Grey to use the trap at all. He’s only just starting to get a bit more trusting, and so we kept watch as much as possible. Whenever LG appeared, one of us would hurry outside to bring him his own personal food bowl. Like any cat, he prefers to eat outside the cage, so as long as we catered to him and brought his bowl back inside as soon as he left, we were able to deter him from using the cage. Phew.]

Once the calico was happy to eat all the way in the cage, completely oblivious to our sneakiness, and once we had a tentative date for the vet, we set the trap out with all the stinky sardines and watched constantly. The thing about trapping cats is that once they’re inside the closed cage, you need to cover them ASAP or they can hurt themselves in their panic. So I spent all of Jan 2nd either staring out my window or watching the live feed from the camera on my phone. No calico. She never appeared once. A squirrel set the trap off, though, and later, Jason had to chase a possum away. Male Calico – now called Unicorn – also appeared, but showed no interest at all in food. Sometimes, that’s how TNR goes.

On the 3rd, we set the trap again, and once again, I watched. I watched as the calico appeared and set off straight for the food. I watched as she crept into the trap. I watched as she leaned forward, ate the sardines, and backed out of the trap, all without setting the stupid thing off. That’s right. A squirrel set off the damn trap, but not the calico. Little girl walked off licking her lips. Calico: 1, Amanda: 0.

But we weren’t giving up. Jason re-baited the trap, this time with tuna so that our little girl couldn’t just stretch her neck out and pull full fishies towards her. She’d have to take an extra step onto the pressure plate. We hoped. Unfortunately, the next cat that appeared wasn’t the calico, or King, or Unicorn. It was Mustache. I don’t know Mustache’s real name, but he’s someone’s fixed indoor-outdoor pet who is super greedy for food. Mustache didn’t need tuna, but he certainly wanted tuna. So after marking the insulated home we made for Lord Grey with his own scent (thanks, Mustache!), he sauntered into the cage and got himself trapped. Calico: 1, Amanda: 0, Mustache, -1.

Jason let him out. Hopefully Mustache has learned his lesson and won’t enter traps again any time soon. And honestly, we thought that was the end for the day, only then guess who appeared? The calico!!!

Oh you should have seen me at the window, trying to stay hidden out of sight, cheering for her to get in that stupid trap. She is an extremely skittish little girl, terrified of everything, so the smell of the tuna – just slightly different from the sardines – and the smell of Mustache made her extra cautious. It took her a quarter hour before she finally ventured into the trap, down to the tuna, and WOOHOO we got her! Calico: 2, Amanda: 1, Mustache, -10 for the stink. (The calico didn’t understand why I’ve awarded her an extra point here, but she was about to enter the good (spayed) life, and just didn’t know it yet.)

(first trapped, then freed!)

From there, things became very standard and not very story-like. We named the little girl Feather, since even a squirrel set off the trap but she didn’t. Feather went into the vet on Thursday for her appointment, and got both spayed and vaccinated. She came home that evening, woozy on anesthesia, and after an overnight stint to let all that wear off, Feather had her Freedom Run on Friday morning. She was, btw, desperate to make that run, even hurling herself at the cage opening as we were trying to open it. This is why it’s important to keep those cages covered – the kitties start trying to find a way out by bashing themselves against ceilings and walls if they aren’t! In any case, Feather is now free and will live baby-free for the rest of her life. Hopefully she forgives us and returns for food, because we’re happy to loosely adopt another feral into our daily outdoor food schedule. So far, no sightings, but at least we know that wherever she’s getting her meals now, she’s at least going to live a less dangerous, baby-free life!

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A Rip Through Time, by Kelley Armstrong

Posted on January 9, 2023 by Thistle

From Goodreads: May 20, 2019: Homicide detective Mallory is in Edinburgh to be with her dying grandmother. While out on a jog one evening, Mallory hears a woman in distress. She’s drawn to an alley, where she is attacked and loses consciousness.

May 20, 1869: Housemaid Catriona Mitchell had been enjoying a half-day off, only to be discovered that night in a lane, where she’d been strangled and left for dead…exactly one-hundred-and-fifty years before Mallory was strangled in the same spot.

When Mallory wakes up in Catriona’s body in 1869, she must put aside her shock and adjust quickly to the reality: life as a housemaid to an undertaker in Victorian Scotland. She soon discovers that her boss, Dr. Gray, also moonlights as a medical examiner and has just taken on an intriguing case, the strangulation of a young man, similar to the attack on herself. Her only hope is that catching the murderer can lead her back to her modern life…before it’s too late.

This review will be slightly tainted by my experience of reading it. This is a book that, at least for me, needs to be read in a slow, deliberate way. It’s a genre-bending mix of mystery, historical fiction, and time travel, with the primary genres focused on the first two. Historical fiction is rarely my favorite, and I need to read it slow to fully appreciate it. Unfortunately, I had a very strict deadline. I couldn’t renew my library hold with others waiting for the book, and had less than a week to read it unless I wanted to get back in line (which I didn’t). So rather than take a week or more to read, I took three days. This made me feel slightly sick while reading – too much input in too little a time frame. Therefore, it’s possible that I view the book less favorably than I should.

That’s not to say I didn’t like it, because I really did. It was thoroughly enjoyable, well-crafted, and intriguing. But I would have enjoyed it more if 1) I’d read it slower, and 2) if the speculative portions had played more of a roll, rather than the emphasis on the historical parts. It’s not as if the speculative parts are unimportant. Mallory has to live in 1869 Scotland with the mindset, knowledge, and cultural context of the 21st century. However, the time travel seems more to provide contrast to the historical parts, rather than being a focus itself. Any cross-genre novel is going to lean more heavily on one or two genres than the rest, and this one just leaned toward the side I least enjoy.

This is the first book in a series, though the mystery part reads as a standalone. The description for Book 2 is a brand new mystery, and I have no idea if the time travel part will get any more attention or resolution, or if Mallory is just stuck in historical Scotland for awhile. Hopefully, it’s not just a historical fiction mystery with a slightly speculative twist. Either way, I’m tentatively looking forward to it (and to reading it slower this time!).

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Sunday Coffee – And he’s gone again

Posted on January 8, 2023 by Thistle

Just over three weeks since Laurence arrived home for winter break, he’s once again back in Canada for his spring semester. This is potentially the last time we’ll see him in person until next winter, because he’s talking with someone about getting an apartment together over the next year, including summer, in order to keep working at his job and on some of his theatre production things. So we’ll see.

Anyway, it’s been lovely having him home. Laurence loves board/card games, so we played a lot over of them. Anomia, 5 Second Rule, Cat Lady, Scattegories, Trivial Pursuit, Scene It, Apples to Apples, and more that I can’t think of immediately. We all played Wii Sports and Wii Games (very old school!), watched tons of movies (mostly Jason and Laurence), saw a lot of football, and visited many of the restaurants and stores that L missed. There were practical things too, like replacing his shoes and repairing a ripped portion of his coat. Mostly, though, it was just quiet time at home mixed with some outings, which is very US of us.

Laurence’s first flight was super early yesterday morning – as in, get up at 4am kind of early – and he had several extended layovers, so that he didn’t arrive until past midnight in his time zone. Poor kid. Of course, he didn’t actually text Jason or me to tell us he’d arrived, and I’m sure he’s still asleep atm, so we won’t find out until later today that he’s made it back to his dorm after staying the night with a friend. But we know he boarded the last plane, so hopefully it all went well after that and his friend picked him up without a hitch.

Now empty-nesting resumes, and I think my heart is a little more at peace with it than it was back in Aug/Sept.

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Nine Liars, by Maureen Johnson (audio)

Posted on January 5, 2023 by Thistle

Stevie is struggling with her second year at Ellingham. Now that she’s solved her Big Case (and a few others), she’s not sure what to do next with her life. Most of her friends are applying to college, but Stevie is too paralyzed to even begin the process. To make things worse, her boyfriend is studying abroad in London, and she feels lost in the long distance. So when David invites her and her classmates to a short study abroad trip in London, Stevie jumps at the chance. To no one’s surprise, she ends up embroiled in a decades-old murder mystery almost the moment she arrives.

This is the fifth book in a loose series that includes an initial trilogy about the Ellingham murders, a bridge book in the summer between Stevie’s junior and senior year of high school, and now this, which is the start of something new. Unlike the former books, the mystery portion of the story is fully disclosed and wrapped up, but there are cliffhangers left in the catastrophe Stevie’s decisions make of her life near the end of the book. I can’t say more without spoilers, but it’s definitely a heavy tease for the next volume.

[A short note on the cold case: Nine friends – the best of friends – went out to a country estate to spend a week together before they all graduated from Cambridge and moved on to the next phase of their lives. While there, two of nine are murdered. That’s all I’m going to say about that.]

As usual in these books, the story is split between the interpersonal relationships among all the main characters, the past timeline/mystery, and the current solving of the past timeline/mystery. Because the murders in this case happened in 1995, the surviving players are all still alive. I honestly enjoyed both aspects of the book equally, but I also think that’s because this is the fifth book I’ve read in the series. If I wasn’t already attached to Stevie, Nate, Vi, Janelle, and David, I would likely have been quite annoyed by all the uncertainty and prevaricating that happens in the non-mystery bits of the book. This is why I don’t read a lot of YA anymore – I’m well past that age range, and I just raised three kids through it. I need a break from the vagaries of young transitional life. Knowing the characters, though, it was like visiting old friends, which was perfect for my first-of-the-year read!

I also really enjoyed the 90s timeline plot, though. The Nine (as they called themselves) were interesting characters, both as recent Cambridge graduates and in their present-day selves. They kept me guessing, provided an excellent parallel story of tight friendship groups to Stevie’s circle, and despite being general reprobates in college, have generally all become kind and caring people with nuanced lives. I really appreciated that, because they could have all too easily become a little two-dimensional, and they weren’t.

Definitely looking forward to the next volume!

Performance: Kate Rudd narrates this book as she has the former ones. In the beginning, I wasn’t really a fan of her reading, and only listened to Truly Devious on audio because the hold list was so long for the print book. Later, I continued to listen on audio because I was left with a pleasing longterm impression about the performance, despite not liking it initially. With each subsequent book, I had to adjust. Until this one. In this one, I liked it from the beginning, full circle from a few years ago. I thought Rudd was the perfect narrator and she did a phenomenal job with the many, many characters introduced here. Even though this was the first time I was meeting the Nine, it only took me a chapter or two before I always knew who was speaking by narration alone, and that’s impressive.

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