#ajax penumbra: 1969

[book-with-stories]

This is a fun little prequel to "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore", basically an origin story of how the shop came to him. Not quite as interesting as it's predecessor, but still warm and enjoyable.

[twistednuns]

February 2020

I managed to use my iPad as a second monitor for my computer. So tech savvy. Yay me!

Joking about developing a sex-based cardio programme with Manu. Powerfucking! Might help against aggression as well.

A late night phone call with Tom. Not saying much.

Making a huge pot of my grandmother’s signature veggie stew.

More Bon Appétit test kitchen videos. Chris recreating tacos. Claire making Ben&Jerry’s. Priya making her mum’s Indian curries.

Writing a letter to Lena. Drawing upside down bats (which makes them look like they’re having a wicked dance-off). Just the act of writing. I thoroughly enjoy looking at my handwriting.

Using the Salted Coconut handscrub by Lush. Especially now that I wash my hands so often when we’re working with clay at school. I feel like the peeling triggers some pressure points on my palms.

That Saturday productivity high. Cooking and preparing heaps of stuff, cleaning the windows, doing laundry.

Painting my nails like an expressionist artist.

Some portrait studies. Accidentally drawing Sirius Black.

Being really motivated to improve my Spanish. Working with Lorena, the Duolingo app and even starting my own grammar/vocabulary book.

This ultra quirky ASMR video. Also: watching videos with Erin an her boyfriend Chris. It’s amazing how well they work together. How you can almost feel their connection, how similar they are.

Carrot cake oats.

Seeing the The Darkness live again, this time with Margit. Justin’s outfit and personality, singing along, especially to Time of my Life, the band’s traditional first song after the show.

Meeting Chris. Having a Bramblette cocktail at Pusser’s. I like that place. Feels very old-timey with a rowing boat right under the ceiling. We made out in front of a tiger slide in a toy store window on our way to the next bar.

Peeling fresh carrots.

Pickling onions and making kimchi. My fermentation game is strong these days!

Looking through Dominik’s sketchbook. I loved the tree whose bark resembled a mole burrow with its underground tunnel system.

The flu. Yes, really. Fewer pupils at school. Quiet times. I’m actually surprisingly healthy. I’d guess my probiotics must play a role here… Who knows.

More sourdough experiments. Writing about it (DELICACY - a haiku. Oven-warm sourdough / salted butter, alpine cheese / and a strawberry).

Finding a really interesting list of SanFran hippie era book recommendations at the end of Robin Sloan’s Ajax Penumbra: 1969. In the mood to read Maya Angelou, Tom Wolfe, Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan.

Even more beautiful books: I really enjoyed Die weiße Stadt by Karolina Ramqvist, a feminist author from Sweden, and the graphic novel version of To Kill a Mockingbird. But two books that literally (well, figuratively obviously) blew my mind were Circe by Madeline Miller (mythology, loneliness, animals and plants, magic and monsters, some desperate kind of feminism, independence and strength) and Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (magical realms, university setting, psychological depth, unexpected twists and turns). I haven’t read anything comparable in a very long time and I desperately hope that there’s more to come from these authors.

A beach collecting all the world’s single socks in The Magicians. Oh and of course seeing them break the moon. What a sight. The show is super confusing, obnoxious and absolutely fabulous at the same time. Best example: the Freaky Friday szene in which Margo and Eliot switch bodies. I love how the actors took on each other’s speech patterns and behaviour.

A new addition to my colour vocabular: celadon (a greyish green; there is a type of ceramics you’ll only see in this colour which is not surprising since the shade provides such an interesting contrast to the the earthy, rusty orange of burnt clay.)

Manu telling me that he had rarely seen people with more joy in their eyes than me (“Ich habe schon Freude in deinen Augen gesehen! So ein Leuchten kann man nicht simulieren.”) after complaining about being bored and lifeless. / Making curry with or, well, for him the other night. Drinking Liqueur 43 with cinnamon and milk. Playing the Jackbox party games for which you can use your phone as a controller.

Finding myself in a well-known sitation from the past. Lying in Frank’s bed in the early morning hours, not that tired yet, when he starts talking about his life and his depression. In English, obviously, because that’s our emotional filter. Relating, since I feel quite similar. Coming up with a suggestion for a reciprocal support system. Let’s see what we can do for each other.

Looking at travel photographs. The sea, the cenotes. Longing to go back to Mexico or Australia. Diving. Taking it all in.

Dreaming of my grandmother talking about her biggest regrets in life. Weirdly she was in a little bundle under a coffee table, much like Voldemort in the last Harry Potter movie.

My weird, weird brain. How both pleasure and pain enhance my sense of smell and increase my brain activity, almost causing hallucinations and fixations on ideas. Like geometric shapes in gloomy off-colours and a beige silicon-like surface the other night. All I could think of was a benchscraper.

Blue eyeliner.

Brainstorming three-letter-words with Frank since I’m thinking of getting personalised Nike Blazers. Sad cat. Yes but. Dat ass. Why tho.

Flying squirrels. Watching them wobble through the air. How they look like cute exhibitionist when they’re extending their limbs and thus stretching their, well, let’s just call it wings.

The fact that red cabbage has an intricate pattern like brain convolutions when you cut it open.

Talking to Sonja for the first time in over two years. What a strange person. Interesting, too. At least in homeopathic doses.

Ripe strawberries and nectarines. Oh my god. I love fruit.

Meeting Eve at Pub Quiz. She identifies as female, loves swing dance, used to be an animator and I love her style. Also, I realised that really like Betty. And Dennis wasn’t mean to me for once. I love my nerd friends <3 And I learned that Starbucks was named after the first mate in Moby Dick! Also, coincidentally they asked a question about the city where To Kill a Mockingbird takes place (Maycombe, Alabama) after I had read it the week before.

Inviting Lorena to the Botanical Gardens. I always feel very happy and very much myself when I’m there. I sometimes wish I was a gardener. Lorena was late so I walked along the Spring Path outside and it might have been the first time I’ve seen a brussels sprouts plant. Inside I learned lots of Spanish words and marveled at the incredible butterflies. The huge yellow one right behind the entrance was my favourite. Its delicate feelers were fascinating.

Washing my hands at the Keg’s bathroom. Looking into the mirror. Suddenly thinking of the perfect karaoke song… Rescue Me by Bell Book and Candle! I kept singing it for days on repeat. My neighbour must hate me (nothing new here) especially since my voice is too low for the chorus.

It isn’t hard to see how such attachment patterns can undermine mental health. Both anxious and avoidant coping have been linked to a heightened risk of anxiety, depression, loneliness, eating and conduct disorders, alcohol dependence, substance abuse and hostility. The way to treat these problems, say attachment theorists, is in and through a new relationship. On this view, the good therapist becomes a temporary attachment figure, assuming the functions of a nurturing mother, repairing lost trust, restoring security, and instilling two of the key skills engendered by a normal childhood: the regulation of emotions and a healthy intimacy. // An interesting article on attachment styles and why theraphy works; it makes me want to learn more about attachment theory. This School of Life video is a nice addition as well.

That dream. About a book shop modeled after my picture of Penumbra’s 24-hour bookstore. There was an old man in a very narrow but high-ceilinged room full of books. There was no light source except for moonlight or some street lights. There were loads of stairs, very steep, leading to the back of the house. Upstairs the man would set out cat food and on the rooftop there was an old sailing boat. One day the man decided to open the door to the roof and let visitors see the ship, much like a museum; perhaps to attract customers. However, in the next night a cat-shaped ghost appeared who reminded me quite a lot of Kot Behemoth character in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. The ghost was not amused about the old man’s decision and took away his key, a big golden one adorned with a red ribbon.

Toasted sesame makes pretty much every dish so much better.

Watching High Fidelity with gorgeous Zoe Kravitz (I adore her effortless style and her outfits), getting in the mood for making a playlist and listening to more music in general. There are all these great songs out there I forgot about.

Remembering the xkcd storm chaser comics.

Making a wicked good batch of Pho for Tom.

Spending a nice evening with Alex at Shamrock. Singing along to American Boy by Estelle. Confirming the hypothesis that the nerdy, quiet ones usually have a freak streak. That moment in the morning. Eye contact and kegel exercises.

Karaoke with Margit and Betty. Meeting Manu’s doppelganger. Same type, looks, voice. Eerie.

Making a BA Gourmet Makes meme for Steffen after he had passed his law examps. Strangely Gaby kinda looked like him after I was done with it.

Saturday morning in bed. Reading comics and graphic novels. Fresh bedclothes, surrounded by books. Since it was February 29 I thought about leap years and asked a few friends what their inner seven-year-old would have done that day (based on the thought experiment that your birthday was on February 29 and you’d age in 4-year-steps which would divide your age by 4 obviously).      

I came up with: visiting grandma / eating Cini-Minis / falling asleep with my face buried in a cat / beating my neighbour Anna at Memory / drawing while listening to a Bibi Blocksberg cassette.

Alex said he’d have been outside all day, building a snow igloo. Not noticing his mum telling him to come to dinner. If the weather had been bad he would have played with his dinosaur collection. His inner 7-year-old was a hopeless dreamer who got agitated whenever his parents had a fight. Who came home late from school every day because he forgot about time when he was talking to his friend next to a hedge with thorns that looked like tiny airplanes.

Lena said she would have been outside all day long, playing in the mud with the neighbours’ kids. Of course.

[shadowtearling]

NOVEMBER 2018 — This was a reeeeeaaallllyy good month, quantity- and quality- wise. I found myself genuinely enjoying the books I was reading, which is a relief after a shit year thus far tbh. It’s like I remembered to have feelings! Wow! I’m human. Also a crybaby. So many tissues...

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

I was so nervous going into this because it’s so beloved, and nothing sucks more than being disappointed by a widely loved book like this (plus I already told myself I was never going to touch this series LOL @ past me, you fool). The first quarter was difficult to get into because there’s just so much information withheld from the reader, and, at one point, I started to become frustrated, feeling like an idiot for not knowing what the hell was going on. As the book went on, I found myself just wholly engrossed in Lyra’s character that not knowing became a secondary priority. It didn’t matter anymore that I knew absolutely nothing as long as I was on this journey to finding out with someone as witty, clever, and kind-hearted as Lyra. I was rooting for her the whole way through and was genuinely panicking when she was in danger. The second half is definitely much better than the first just because it feels less like fumbling around in the dark. Her parents are freaks. Bear dad for the win. Also, that ending... how she just gonna do That? girl.. Gonna try to read the rest of the series whenever that happens lol

My Plain Jane by The Lady Janies (Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows)

This was so. much. fun. I was reading this at a Barnes and Noble, while sat near this group of old men (who don’t know each other) talking about who knows what, and laughing out loud every few pages. (One of them finally got fed up after a few minutes and asked me what I was reading—I was literally holding the cover up, but I digress—and I struggled to explain that this is a Jane Eyre retelling full of nagging ghosts. How can such a Serious Novel™ possibly have a laugh-out-loud retelling? It works (but only because they throw every single fact out the window). If you really love Jane Eyre and Charlotte Brontë, this may not be the book for you. They mischaracterize both women, and while I didn’t mind, others might. This is also a pretty straightforward retelling of the novel in that the very basic structure is there, but I found that I kept turning the page because I wanted to know how exactly they would deviate from the original storyline. I really wasn’t disappointed. I especially love the Rochester shade. :)

It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Sigiura

It’s not like it’s a secret that I don’t like this book. I really just talked this to death. The first half was going okay, but Sana, the main character, was really bland and had no real passion or interest that gave her character dimension. Oh, and there’s a million cheating plotlines that were resolved terribly. Find you a better book. Read my lengthy review (in which spoilers are involved).

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

I didn’t mean to love this as much as I do. I was scared about it at first, wondering if I’ll love it more or less than Uprooted and terrified that either outcome would be true. Thankfully, I love this differently to its predecessor. I think Uprooted is just so special to me in a way where I felt like it was the only companion I was afforded when I had no one else. I read that book during a really terrible time in my life lol. But this one reminded me why I love reading, after a whole year of feeling terrible that I couldn’t find it in me to give a shit about any of the books I was picking up. It’s the perfect atmospheric book, and I definitely picked it up at the right time, with the cold just beginning to settle into my bones. I fell in love with Miryem and Irina, and it makes sense because they’re mirrors of each other. What I love most, probably besides the ending, is how none of the characters are willing participants of their fairy tale, but they’re clever enough to know how to work the system so they at least survive it. And survive they did. I also loved how every perspective felt distinctly different from the last that I never found myself wondering from who I was reading. One more thing, Mirnatius is very dear to my heart. (His character, though, is questionable because he’s the only dark skinned person in the story, and he’s also literally the devil. I don’t know how to process that because I know he’s also seen later on as a victim, but like.... still... lol)

REREAD! We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

I love this book a lot. I was feeling all sorts of feelings, and I wanted to let some of that emotion out. I still think this handles grief and loneliness so well. I think because I’m in a different place than I was when I first read this, especially regarding to those two things, my reaction and takeaway is extremely different. First read, I was mostly dealing with the suffocating weight of loneliness. Now, I picked this up specifically because I’m grieving, differently from Marin, but nonetheless grieving. Who knows, maybe when I read this again in the future, I’ll once again be in a different place and I get something completely different from the first two times. This book is great for any occasion, though. If you want a good cry, for whatever reason, this is It.

The Beast is an Animal by Peternelle van Arsdale 

I enjoyed this book, but I doubt this is something I’ll remember a year from now. I liked the writing, simple but compelling. I thought that Alys’s apathy was done really well. I was caught off guard and cried a little (I’m sensitive, Aubrey), but I love that. This is a really slow book, with a whole lot of nothing happening. I like books like that, especially because this made up for its slowness with the atmosphere. My problem is that the ending was rushed, and it became extremely obvious that Alys was not a character who does things; rather, things happen To Her. The other issue is the love interest/story: I don’t mind insta-love as long as we see relationship growth within the novel. Because of time jumps, we almost never see the two have moments together that weren’t for the sake of the plot. It was hard to believe, then, that devotion they had for each other when they barely interacted on the page. It’s Average.

Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly

I tried talking about this twice, and twice I cried. I’m really just the snot machine this month, huh? Okay but seriously, I am genuinely so thankful to Kelly for writing Filipino characters in her books. I am a whole ass adult crying about representation in a middle grade novel because that’s how much I needed it. Much like The Land of Forgotten Girls, there’s not really a plot. This is more character-driven, filled with stories of everyday magic and the power of friendship. My favorite part is Virgil’s relationship with his grandmother that reflected my relationship with my grandmother, even though the two ladies are vastly different from one another. ALSO, if you’d like a book with a really wonderful deaf/HoH rep, this is your friend. Valencia was a delightful character to read from.

Ajax Penumbra, 1969 by Robin Sloan

Forgettable but fun! I like learning about Mr. Penumbra’s origin story, and I would be glad to read more of him were there more. This was too short, imo, because Sloan introduced some interesting new things to this world that had great potential (particularly the bookstore and its previous storerunners) and weren’t given enough time to fully develop. As with the book, I really won’t remember this by the time the new year rolls around. It was fun while it lasted.

[kaybttl]

🤷🏽‍♀️ when it’s a jar - apparently the second in a series but really it’s fine as a stand alone book albeit really quite weird.

😐 a darker shade of magic - it was alright. i remember it but i could easily forget it.

😐 roses and rot - again, it was alright.

👌🏼 all our wrong todays - i liked this book because it made you think. anything with some pseudo science in it will be entertaining to me. a lot of other reviews described the main character and awful / whiny / self absorbed which i can in part see.

😐 the dead key - the main characters in this book i didn’t particularly like because they were just so illogical and unintelligent sometimes. i don’t like when womxn are written that way - in part their reactions are probably believable but in part not at all.

👎🏼 out of spite, out of mind (magic 2.0 #5) - was not a fan. it is possibly that i just disagree with the author on a super fundamental level about his telling of this story or that he’s really running out of ideas and the series sucks now. i pre-ordered this damn book. the first theee books in this series were good & worth reading. beyond that...not so much

👍🏼 ajax penumbra 1969 - very short prequel to mr. penumbra’s 24 hour bookstore. it was a nice little prequel. filled in a couple blanks

books of 2018

so, i have a good reads but i might as well keep track of my books here too. definitely didn’t keep my 2017 list updated but i will try to keep this one updated. goal is 50 books (audio or reading - same thing) i’m 5 in so far.

👍🏼 in a dark, dark wood - ruth ware is pretty great. her books are easy to read & easy to get lost in (this was my plane book).

👏🏼dark matter - sci-fi done well.

👍🏼/ 😐 alien: out of the shadows - it was aight.

🙂 hitchhikers guide to the galaxy - one of those books that i just felt like i should get to. was enjoyable.

👏🏼/🙌🏼 waking gods - the sequal to sleeping giants. whoa this was fantastic. listened to the audio book with full cast. 10/10. not sure i would feel the same way without the full cast behind it though. the next book in the series comes out in may and i will probably have to listen to the first two at least once more before then. so. good.

[danmartinusa]

From Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, the story of Mr. Penumbra’s first trip to San Francisco - and of how he got entangled with the city’s most unusual always-open enterprise…. It is August 1969. The Summer of Love is a fading memory. The streets of San Francisco pulse to the sounds of Led Zeppelin and Marvin Gaye. Ajax Penumbra 1969 Audiobook #Audible (at On Puget Sound)

[gisacuppabooks]

Ajax Penumbra: 1969 by Robin Sloan

I read this short story on 10/12/13. It was actually a really good way of showing more about the life of Mr Penumbra -why he's called Ajax, how he came about running the 24-hour bookstore, and his relationship with Mo and Corvina. You witness Corvina's dislike of how Mo runs the bookstore only mirrored again when Mr Penumbra runs it later. I think it is best read after reading the main book, and quite soon after too, so you can understand everything better. It was only 41p on the Kindle so its worth it.

[shadowtearling]

NOVEMBER 2018 — A really good month of audiobooks! I love them so much honestly bless their existence. My short attention span is ever so grateful. Also, I found out a lot of things about my audiobook habits, and I might make a post about all that in the future.

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Narrators: Full cast, including Pullman himself

I honestly love full cast audiobooks. Listening to this really helped pull me along when I found myself wanting to stop due to my confusion and the lack of information given to the reader. The voice acting was excellent, oh man the whispers between Lyra and Pantalaimon. As always, I’m the last person ever to hop on a bandwagon, but if you ever want to read this, listen to the audiobook. A gem.

My Plain Jane by The Lady Janies (Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows)

Narrator: Fiona Hardingham

I love a narrator with great comedic timing. This series deserves to be listened to, truly. Hardingham did a fantastic job and is definitely on par with Katherine Kellgren, who narrated My Lady Jane. My complaint is extremely minor, and people who don’t also follow along with the text while listening probably won’t care or notice. Hardingham occasionally (it happened at least three times that I could remember) misreads sentences or words. If you’re really perceptive, you could probably notice it because the meaning is altered and sometimes makes no sense in context. I personally didn’t mind because I had the book on me, and I knew what she meant to say. I was also just having too much fun to care. Just something to warn people against, should they want to listen to this book. It’s very minor, though, and doesn’t jeopardize the whole book. I still recommend it :D

It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Sigiura 

Narrator: Emily Zoo Weller

I really like Weller; her voice acting is great and consistent and really embodies the characters. Unfortunately for me, this book isn’t good, and I’d listened to American Panda a month earlier with Weller also narrating. Sana sounded too much like Mei, and it didn’t help that they have a similar narrative of overbearing Asian parents. I’ll listen to more of Weller in the future if there’s any book she narrates that I’m interested in, but I can’t, in good conscience, recommend this one. Please, save yourselves.

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

Narrator: Jorjeanna Marie

This audiobook was fine. There was nothing really wrong with it. Except that it was too loud. And I don’t mean in volume. I mean, the book itself is quiet in the way of winter, when snow falls on snow and the whole world is still. And having someone narrate it disrupts that quiet, too loud, distracting. This is a book to be internalized, and an audiobook feels almost like it detaches you from the story. Were I not already familiar with this story, I would have said Marin’s grief to be inaccessible, which defeats the whole purpose. Read it with your eyeballs (not your ear... balls?). It’s much sadder that way.

The Beast is an Animal by Peternelle van Arsdale 

Narrator: Candace Thaxton

This audiobook feels like one of those cliché scenes where a woman is sat beside a hearth telling an old fairy tale. ~cue water/ripple transition effect~ It’s a good one; Thaxton’s voice is pretty much perfect for this book because she sounds like she could easily be one of the characters, a village woman gossiping with other women about the Beast in the fforest and the children of evil spirits. Really easy to get sucked into the story. If you want to read this book, try the audio.

Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly

Narrators: Ramon de Ocampo and Amielynn Abellera

Listen, listen, I would recommend you listening to this audiobook specifically so you can listen to de Ocampo. He’s so fun. I’ve listened to one other audiobook by him (Tall Story by Candy Gourlay, also Filipino), and I just love when he does the Filipino accent. It really adds character to whenever he does it for Lola when she tells her stories. Abellera is also good. I like that she makes a very small change in how she talks to specify when Valencia was physically speaking. It’s subtle and doesn’t exaggerate the fact that speaking may be more challenging for Valencia because she’s deaf. Also really like the sass in her voice.

Ajax Penumbra, 1969 by Robin Sloan

Narrator: Ari Fliakos

He’s the same narrator from the novel, and he did a good job at capturing that same energy. I don’t really have much to say, but I do wonder at him using a very stereotypical South Asian accent for Mo when he’s a White. mmmm. Honestly, this story is so short you don’t need to listen to the audio, but I’m lazy.