Happy Halloween! On this spooky night, I take a moment to honor my fantastic Patreon supporters for the first time since my creator page launched.
Autumn #1
The Firmament: A Poem
Myles Power: Putting the ‘Science’ into ‘Forensic Science’ with Plenty of Sass
Myles Power
Pseudoscience Debunker and Science Advocate
On YouTube at powerm1985
I was introduced to Mr. Myles Power’s work by my boyfriend, Adam, who probably sold it to me as “a charming British man who talks a lot about conspiracy theories.”
And that is a pretty good summary of Mr. Power’s channel.
A Natural Choice for True-Crime, Actually
While it may seem far-fetched to have a chemist featured on a true-crime blog, Myles is, in many ways, very forensic in his approach. Forensic, after all, refers to the application of science towards the fact-finding mission of a court.
The topics he investigates, as mentioned above, often tend towards conspiracy theorists, which make his channel accessible to true crime junkies, like yours truly.
Read more
Urgent Fans Make Me Type Faster: I’m Live on Patreon!
7 October 2018
Hello, dear readers!
Over the last two years, you have helped this blog go from an erratically produced collection of book reviews to a somewhat-less-erratically-produced labor of love.
You have helped me put my fiction out in public for the first time. Well, excepting the middle school literary magazine…but let’s not think about that.
*shudders at the thought of her middle school writing*
You have stuck with me through the dry spells, the shameless introduction of ads, my verse of questionable meter.
Because of your unwavering support, I have decided to devote more time to this blog, making sure to get work out to you on a weekly basis.
(For real, this time, I swear)
To help support my work, I have launched a page on Patreon!
For those of you unfamiliar with Patreon, it is an online platform that allows fans to become patrons of their favorite creators. (I hope I might be one of yours, dear reader)
In exchange for their monthly pledge, patrons get access to rewards, in addition to extreme bragging credit. You are following the footsteps of the Venetian Doges and the Medicis by supporting the arts!
With less murder, of course.
For just $1 a month, patrons will receive a mention in a special edition of this blog every month they are a patron. If you are interested in your business or organization taking the credit, reach out to me by DM on Patreon.
$5 a month gets you access to a weekly patron newsletter and plenty of behind-the-scenes looks into my creative process: drafts, inspiration sources, angst. It’s more of the writing you know and love, even before your patronage helps me produce even more of the writing you know and love.
There’s a virtuous cycle here, you see.
Patreon is going to be especially important for me so I can put together a real, physical “To-Review Queue” have the resources to buy all the books, etc. It will also keep me accountable to a schedule and order for reviews.
Because when you owe people money, you type faster.
Much faster.
Thank you for supporting me on Patreon. You can follow this link to my profile.
Well, That Was Overrated: “Devil in the White City”
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
Erik Larson
447 pages, with notes
Vintage Books
2003
I don’t get it.
I just don’t get it.
Why does everyone love this book?
Why has it been on my reading list since I saw it on my dad’s nightstand in the sixth grade?
How did an author this good produce a book this “meh?”
You Know You’re a Grad Student When…Vol. 1
You know you’re a grad student when….
…you can’t stand to write a book review for your blog because that’s what you do all day and you love it but it’s also consuming your soul for all the class to see.
…you write for your blog as a “break” from school, because you need that little, wilting bit of joy in your day.
…yet you still like to complain about how school leaves no time for your blog, despite the blog eating up what your good, rational, ex-valedictorian side knows is supposed to be school time.
You know you’re a grad student when…
….you envy the undergrads for their ability to do decent work past midnight.
….you begin to realize one one-thousandth the pain your sleep-deprived parents must have felt about your screaming, crying baby self as you scream and cry over your baby: your thesis.
…you, the mature adult, finally reject the sleep-study binary and turn in early because your work would be poop, anyhow.
And, finally, you know you’re a grad student when…
…you reach for your apartment key when unlocking the department office door.
…you then begin using the department key when trying to unlock your apartment.
…you might as well just move into the department because you live there anyhow and the rent would be free.
What Does a Life Leave Behind?
What does a life leave behind?
A shelf of books, a drawer of socks,
a robe never worn and given away
unwashed dishes left for a ‘later’ never-come
and bills, always bills—for pills, for palls,
for flowers and for a last ditch’s efforts.
Read more
To Pompeii
To Pompeii
24 August, anno 832 ab urbe condita
From Baiae I write, Severus Tarentius,
to tell you things you must already know:
business is good; the weather is fine.
I have only just come from Rome,
bringing with me two new handmaids
for my dearest wife, Aurelia.
One is a Greek woman, a skilled hairdresser—
sold, I think, by our feckless Senate colleague
Syrianus, to pay his debts.
I recently beat the old goat at alea, by the way,
a victory decisive as Scipio’s at Carthage.
The other is a rather unfortunate figure,
a slave woman from deepest Germania,
driven, the trader told me, across the river
that divides our empire from their lands
by maurauding tribes out for loot and brides.
It disgusts me how
these Germanics fight among themselves.
Such suffering they cause for their own kind!
This new woman, like many others,
fled with her small child
into the arms of our legionaries
and the warm embrace of Rome.
The babe was wailing
while she was on the block.
She wailed too as we led her away.
It was really quite distasteful:
somehow, Rome’s din grew even worse.
And the smell, Severus,
I can smell it still here—like brimstone
against the salty stink of the bay
We have given her a bath.
She’ll be well taken care of now,
among civilized people.
I think I’ll call her Macaria,
for blessed is she.
What other news is there to tell…
Oh!
I have met the new emperor
–long may he reign—
and I am not impressed.
Yet Caesar is always useful, though,
so long as we are useful to Him.
Gods, this table needs a new leg!
Perhaps Caesar can grant me one of those,
so I won’t be writing in the midst of a quake?
I am looking out across the bay
towards your home at Pompeii.
It is hot, but the mountain
looks so tranquil from here.
Such is the order of our lives, Severus:
empire without end,
baths and dinners,
immovable and unchanging
as Vesuvius’ peak.
-By Allison R. Shely, September 2018.
All rights reserved.
Nightmare on Peach Street: Reviewing “Evil Genius”
Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist
A Netflix Original, 2018
Four Parts
Rated TV-MA
Directed by Trey Borzillieri and Barbara Schroeder
Written by Barbara Schroeder
A few months ago, I was searching for a documentary on a case I knew only as “the Pizza Bomber” and was surprised I could find nothing aside from some local news clips saying the mastermind had died in prison. Shortly, Evil Genius would come to fill the void.
The good and the bad of this series can both be summarized in one word: understatement.
The good of the filmmakers’ understatement is that allows the horror of the events to speak for itself.
In August 2003, pizza deliveryman Brian Wells died on live TV when a bomb strapped to his neck went off. He had claimed that he had been kidnapped at gunpoint and forced into a bomb-holding collar before being sent on a bank heist/hellish scavenger hunt. His body suffered further indignities in death; authorities decapitated him rather than risk damaging evidence: the collar that held the bomb.
This is all we know for sure, Evil Genius tells us, and it is horrible. While intriguing, the series cannot be called “entertaining” as much as “edifying.” This is an exploration of suffering and evil, and that alone. No glitz or unnecessary gore.
The understatement of the series also allows viewers to inhabit the uncertainties of the crime and the ambiguities of the suspects. The main question the series poses, without ever fully resolving to my satisfaction, is as to whether Mr. Wells was, as he claimed, kidnapped and forced to rob the bank. The alternative is that he was a double-crossed participant in a criminal ring headed by Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, a woman as brilliant as she was disturbed. The question as to whether Diehl-Armstrong, the titular “evil genius” was mad, bad, or some combination of both is another ambiguity that the four-part series explores.
The understatement and suggestion can bog down the series. With each episode clocking in at about forty-five minutes, the series felt twice as long. There is a lot of information to process. While the filmmakers to present all the evidence to preserve the ambiguity of the situation, the series would have benefited from some heavy-duty pruning.
3/5 stars: A good series hobbled by serious pacing issues.
2/5 ‘fraidy cats: Evil acts, but nothing that will creep up on you at night.
2/5 ick-factor: Unsparing description of postmortem mutilation and mistreatment
true crime librarian 