March 24, 2021

I have a sensitive friend. She gets annoyed or offended by remarks or behavior that generally blows by me, unnoticed. She also has a vast and deep memory for these slights. One of our biggest fights to date was a time when I thought an old movie she liked had misogynist undertones.  She once burst into tears in my car after group lunch hangout because she was upset over the way the bill was settled. 

The old movie aside, my other slip up when it comes to this friend was the explanation I gave as to why I didn't cast her in one of my audio projects. I told her the director and I were trying to get "real actors." Obviously this was a mistake as my friend had acted in high school and college. What I meant was working actors, people who are hoping to make -- or are currently making -- acting their career. I want these audio plays to have the maximum impact they can, and I think casting people because acting is their ambition helps to do that (as opposed to casting people because they're my friends). Anyway, I said the wrong thing. She remembers. 

But happily, those are the only two instances I'm aware of. (Writing this post would be a third, of course, but I'm confident that no one is going to read this blog. It being a true internet backwater.) My present concern, is that I have a feeling that my friend is getting bored of me. I've navigated the treacherous waters of offense so well, I've been agreeable enough, mild enough, bland enough, that not only have I not triggered her, I've put her right to sleep. 

Either I'm a smooth operator or, I am in fact, just kind of boring. 

BLog Time! **SPOILERS**

Hobson, Brandon – THE REMOVED

Published: 2021

Read: 3/2021

Written from the perspective of each family member (Maria, mother; Ernest, father; Sonja, sister; and Edgar, brother) 15 years after the death of 15-year-old Ray-Ray at the hands of police. Ernest and Maria take in Wyatt, a foster boy, who is maybe the reincarnation of Ray-Ray and helps to heal Ernest’s Alzheimer’s. Sonja, in her 30s and who enjoys trysts with younger men, starts a wobbling relationship with a man who turns out to be the cop who killed Ray-Ray’s son. Edgar is addicted to drugs and enters The Darkening, a Kelly-Link style sub reality, where people go when they take too many pills and maybe commit suicide. Edgar meets an acquaintance from high school who uses him to make a holographic game about shooting Indians. 

My summary of it makes it sound more exciting than it is. There’s not a lot going on in this book. And the stuff that is happening is too repeated and drawn out. We’re told that Wyatt looks like Ray-Ray 1,000,000,000 times. The only storyline I liked was Edgar’s. The other storylines seemed somehow both predictable and too reliant on coincidence. The writing style was clunky and repetitive. Maybe the author was going for a kind of Hemingway vibe? But it definitely made reading slow-going and arduous. 

Rating: ★1/2 

Got to talk about the documentary United Skates tomorrow!