I didn't realize this until I opened weebly to write, but I read the remaining five books in the Johnny Dixon series after the last post. I just finished the final book, The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost. I'm very very grateful for Irwin Terry's blog Goreyana, which is still active! Mr. Terry has posted all of these dustjackets for the John Bellairs books that were illustrated by Edward Gorey. (The new covers are so plain in comparison.) I've been reading these books on Hoopla, and they all have the new ebook covers: All right, let's see. - The Chessmen of Doom: Classic Bellairs in that there is some weird stuff happening that is never fully explained. Suspension of Disbelief Dept.: Prof. Childermass gives up on a $10 million dollar inheritance because he doesn't want to deal with the hassle of contesting his brother Peregrine's will. (Is tenure THAT good? Maybe it was.) Loved the witch at the end and the mention of Hecate. - The Secret of the Underground Room: Johnny, Fergie, and Professor Childermass have to rescue Father Higgins, which entails a trip to England. Johnny Dixon truly gets to go all over the place and Professor Childermass foots the bill. I'm sure the idea of Johnny and Fergie running around by themselves in a foreign land would scandalize parents these days, but this is the 1950s, so of course these thirteen year olds are on their own for most of the day while the Professor is in the library finding clues. I was going to finish writing about these other books, but Weebly just logged me out as I was writing this post and I lost about half of what I had just written. So I will do that another time because now I'm irritated.
Also, while I was writing this post I found that there is another book? I'm not sure how I feel about that, though. I actually haven't read the first book in the series! Maybe I will go back and read that one.
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Well, I knew I said that I wasn't going to buy or check out anything new until I cleared my backlog, but my willpower was not strong enough. I am obsessed with these little Johnny Dixon mysteries. I don't know why! It's like a craving for food. That's the only way I can describe it. I read this time-travel one even though it did not have the most interesting premise and it was VERY silly compared to the previous installations. Not silly like humorous, although I did appreciate Brewster's once-in-a-thousand-years magic trick, but silly in that it was over the top. It was still fine, though. I'm on the next one now, which has a much more interesting premise: Professor Childermass' brother has died, leaving behind a huge estate (both monetarily and in property) - but his will has some Mysterious Conditions! I hope this one has some haunted house action. I like these little friends. Daryl Surat reports that Wikipedia describes this series as "children's Gothic horror", but I wouldn't consider them horror books. Maybe "children's occult mystery."
Job hunting is becoming depressing, but also kind of infuriating? Starting to make me feel kind of: Why are these people wasting my time, energy, and sometimes money? I just had an interview and the start date they quoted was a week away from the time they informed candidates of a decision. At that point I kind of figured there was an internal candidate for that position, because how is anyone going to relocate and get settled in a week? So...why are you wasting my time? And getting my hopes slightly higher than off the ground? Same kind of deal with my friend from LPL: she applies for a position, they have someone in mind, everyone tells her that they have x person in mind and she says, well, I'll withdraw my application and they say oh no no you shouldn't withdraw. So we're just living on pathological hope over here and very little money. Even though we have master's degrees. Okay. I am a member of the American Academy of Religion which is nice because it gives me JSTOR access. They had a little career exploration thing and I went to log in to that but it's for people who have PhDs. I do not have a PhD. I wish I had a PhD. Just a little. I think about getting a PhD. Then I think about all the work that I did to do my bachelor's degree at 30, and all the work I did and the trauma I went through with former friends and family I no longer communicate with to get my master's degree at age 40, all of which was to better my job prospects so that I could buy a fuckin' house & stop moving around like a backpacker. And here I am with a terrific education and I do not make enough money to rent an apartment on my own. I do not own a bed. Most of my belongings are in storage. Meanwhile, everyone I know who is making good money has a BA, if that. It's really, really depressing. So I'm sad because I want a PhD, I want to study and know and read, but it doesn't seem like it's going to make my life any better and will possibly make it worse. Although I don't know if it gets much worse. I guess in 2018 I had seventy-five cents in my bank account. That was probably worse. Yesterday I put on the Confessions Special Edition for my little studio soundtrack. Confessions came out in 2004. In 2004 I was waiting tables and had no college education but I had my own apartment. Maybe I can get a book deal out of all these restaurant stories. I tell you this shit has got to stop. |
AuthorArtist, essayist, divinity school dropout. Here for a good time, not for a long time. Archives
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