Tuesday's Back.

And I'm proud of all of us.

Hello, everyone. I had quite an exciting week, including my husband’s emergency hospitalization with cellulitis (WTF but he is now fine, not to worry), a quick trip to the desert, and my library hold of the new Hunger Games book coming in.

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What I Read Last Week:

So, I finished Bibliophobia, a book I was genuinely excited about.

The author is an academic who charts her mental breakdown in parallel with her history of passionate, obsessive reading. After struggling with depression since childhood, she eventually ends up in a psychiatric hospital for suicidal ideation.

I am of two minds about this book. First, I just am not a memoir person. Most memoirs should just be diaries, in my humble opinion, especially memoirs focused on addiction, illness, shitty childhoods, adultery, dating, and divorce. It’s just not for me. If you really need a lot of people to know about your suffering, go to group therapy.

However, Bibliophobia avoids a LOT of the pitfalls of the traditional memoir because Chihaya spends so much time writing not about herself but about books. And the way she writes about books is delightful — she is smart in the way you’d want your English professor to be, without being didactic or boring. I would read anything this woman wrote about books, and I appreciate that she treats contemporary fiction rigorously and thoughtfully.

You should read this book if you are: an English major who still annotates 20+ years after college, a Ruth Ozeki or Anne of Green Gables fangirl, a humanities professor, a 40something in career limbo who doesn’t know her next move but hopes it involves cigarettes, literature, and cool old libraries.

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What You Should Read: When Animals Attack Edition

I love animals, almost all of them¹. I love dogs and cats and owls and elephants and hammerheads and tapirs and sea bunnies. They’re just great. I do NOT love animals in captivity, or when humans fuck with animals. It seems to me a special kind of hubris to attempt to exert dominance over a wild animal, especially one with big teeth, and I feel a true karmic sizzle when a wild animal gets revenge. I am literally always rooting for the orcas who capsize yachts, because I think those orcas are right to be mad about conspicuous consumption.

In that spirit, I present to you two books and an article about animals reminding humans exactly how frail we are.

First, up, a book about my beloved orcas. Orcas are in my top three favorite animals for many reasons: they look really cool, they have sophisticated language with different dialects, they live in matriarchal pods, they are the only known predator of the great white shark. I LOVE THEM.

Here, one of my most-recommended books ever: Death at SeaWorld: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity by David Kirby.

From the publisher:

“Death at SeaWorld centers on the battle with the multimillion-dollar marine park industry over the controversial and even lethal ramifications of keeping killer whales in captivity. Following the story of marine biologist and animal advocate at the Humane Society of the US, Naomi Rose, Kirby tells the gripping story of the two-decade fight against PR-savvy SeaWorld, which came to a head with the tragic death of trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010. Kirby puts that horrific animal-on-human attack in context. Brancheau's death was the most publicized among several brutal attacks that have occurred at Sea World and other marine mammal theme parks. Death at SeaWorld introduces real people taking part in this debate, from former trainers turned animal rights activists to the men and women that champion SeaWorld and the captivity of whales. In section two the orcas act out. And as the story progresses and orca attacks on trainers become increasingly violent, the warnings of Naomi Rose and other scientists fall on deaf ears, only to be realized with the death of Dawn Brancheau. Finally he covers the media backlash, the eyewitnesses who come forward to challenge SeaWorld's glossy image, and the groundbreaking OSHA case that challenges the very idea of keeping killer whales in captivity and may spell the end of having trainers in the water with the ocean's top predators.”

I want to be clear that I was in no way rooting for the death of Dawn Brancheau, a woman who seems lovely and kind. I think the animal trainers who worked at SeaWorld were probably a lot like me: obsessed with marine mammals and wanting to share that passion with the world. I am, however, rooting for the deaths of everyone who knows how harmful it is to keep orcas in captivity and does it anyway.

This book was terrifying, moving, haunting, inspiring, and educational. Did you know that there has never once been an attack by an orca on a human in the wild? Did you know that orcas are so smart that they have figured out how to launch themselves onto rocky beaches, using the waves to propel them both in and out of the water, to eat sea lions? Did you know that if I saw an orca in the ocean I would probably cry and scream and fall over because they are just so COOL? Anyway, read this book if you want to feel awe, rage, and horror all at the same time. [The movie “Blackfish” was based on this book. You should definitely read this book even if you’ve already seen the movie; it’s so much better.]

Next up, the orca of the land: a tiger!

From the publisher:

“Outside a remote village in Russia’s Far East a man-eating tiger is on the prowl. The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s murdering them, almost as if it has a vendetta. A team of trackers is dispatched to hunt down the tiger before it strikes again. They know the creature is cunning, injured, and starving, making it even more dangerous. As John Vaillant re-creates these extraordinary events, he gives us an unforgettable and masterful work of narrative nonfiction that combines a riveting portrait of a stark and mysterious region of the world and its people, with the natural history of nature’s most deadly predator.”

Just for the record, the titular tiger did not turn murderous because he was a bad tiger; he killed a poacher who shot him first and stole his food. Fair play, I say.

Read this when the air conditioner is broken and you need to trick yourself into feeling cold, or when you are contemplating the complicated dynamics of animal conservation, poaching, habitat loss, poverty, and Russian politics.

Finally, one of the most batshit things I have ever read in my entire life, an article in New York Magazine about a rogue chimp.

You might remember the victim in this story, a woman named Charla who is attacked by Travis, an adult chimpanzee who has been living in suburban Connecticut with his human “mother.” Charla famously received a face transplant and went on Oprah to talk about it. I do not understand Charla at all, because when her friend called her and said, “Hey, my chimpanzee is having a tantrum,” she actually went to see if she could deal with the chimpanzee, rather than calling Animal Control or telling her friend to deal with her chimpanzee-son herself. While I don’t understand Charla, I do not think she is at fault. The person at fault here is Sandy, a complete loon who fills her empty nest not with Reborn Dolls like a normal person, but with a REAL CHIMPANZEE.

A little excerpt to give you the vibes:

“Sandy and Jerry invited Travis to join them at the table for meals. He ate oatmeal with a spoon every morning. At their favorite Italian restaurant, Pellicci’s, she read him the menu, offering him choices. His favorite food was filet mignon. He also enjoyed lobster tail. He preferred Lindt’s chocolates. He liked Nerds candy and taffy, and he loved ice cream, hooting and pulling at Sandy when the ice-cream man came down the street. When he was thirsty, he swung his body up onto the counter and took out a glass, opened the refrigerator, and poured himself juice or soda.”

Anyway, the story is tragic, and a good reminder that you never know what is happening inside people’s houses, so don’t make new friends!

Candy Review: Sour Airheads

Airheads, much like last week’s candy, Gushers, are a true throwback to childhood. Eating them makes me feel like I’m in sixth grade, reading The Giver and wondering if Leonardo DiCaprio circa Romeo + Juliet will ever understand that I am his one true love.

While I am loyal to the original iteration of Airheads, I am always willing to try something new, so when my husband brought these home, I ate them for science. The flavors: watermelon punch, lemon berry squeeze, and blue blast. Shockingly, as artificial watermelon is one of my favorite flavors, the watermelon punch was by far the worst. It was medicinal and overwhelming. Lemon berry squeeze and blue blast were both delicious, though. The texture is distinctly not food-like, which is always fun; it’s a little like eating the wax from a Babybel cheese. As they say on Top Chef, I like the “mouth feel” of an Airhead. I prefer the original, but these are a welcome addition to my life, and if I were to make a salad out of candy, I’d cut these up in little shapes to be the croutons. 7/10 stars.

Pop Culture Moment I’m Thinking About:

If you know anything about me, you know that I believe that America’s Next Top Model is the greatest reality show ever. Seasons 2-16 are literally perfect. I could probably do a year’s worth of Substacks just on ANTM, but that feels like something only my friend Lexi and I would enjoy, so I instead submit this moment to you. The background: Ann, the eventual winner of season 15, is a deeply awkward and self-conscious young lady. Naturally, Tyra put her in roller skates to film a commercial in Venice Beach. This is the result:

I encourage you to focus on the moment at 1:07. It is a corporeal scream of futility, a bodily manifestation of the wretched human condition, bleak poetry sketched in Ann’s skin and bones and muscles. We are all Ann.

When I tell you that I wept the first time I watched this, I mean it sincerely. It was during the time when TiVo was a thing, and I still remember the plunk sound as I rewound, over and over again, to watch Ann’s slow-motion collapse. I love Ann, and apparently now she is a character designer and animator. Good for Ann!!!!!! A gentle soul, she is; a crack roller skater, she is not.

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What I’m Excited About:

My girl Isabel Allende has a new book coming out in May! I’m not an Allende completist, but she has a forever fan in me for The House of the Spirits and Eva Luna. I love how unapologetic her female characters are, and how rich and complicated their lives are. I will 100% read this book about the love child of an Irish nun and Chilean aristocrat who becomes a feisty journalist in search of the truth of her own identity.

Okay - that’s all for this week. See you next Tuesday with my Hunger Games prequel review!

1. Not cockroaches. Fuck them all.