Re: All Fours

1

The Ed Norton guy and the Brad Pitt guy are the same person.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 6:53 AM
horizontal rule
2

seemed perfectly normal to me

))>((


Posted by: opinionated me and you and everyone we know | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 6:59 AM
horizontal rule
3

Oh god, that's the only scene I remember from that movie, and boy is that scene uncomfortable. And now I'm learning that I do know Miranda July's previous work, after all.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 7:02 AM
horizontal rule
4

I'm pretty sure I've never seen/read anything by Miranda July before; should I be worried? But the book looks interesting. I've added it to my reading list. It seems like a more fun/funny version of Nightbitch, which I'm very ambivalent about based on the previews for the upcoming movie.

I'm also ambivalent about my reading list. Not counting this one it currently includes eight books I'm interested in but haven't got around to for one reason or another and four books that were gifts or recommendations from family. I'm not particularly interested in those four. I'm not opposed to reading them, if I was I think I could have told them so and just not put them on the list, but if I was eager to read them, someone else wouldn't have had to recommend them, I would have just added them to my reading list or checked them out from the library myself. But those four are already in the house, so I feel like I have to get through them before I read the other stuff. It's a bit chore-like.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 7:24 AM
horizontal rule
5

OK, I found the Wikipedia page for her movie. I see what's worrisome about it.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 7:31 AM
horizontal rule
6

Between this, Glennon Doyle, Brene Brown, and who knows what else, there's a whole swath of the zeitgeist that's about early-middle-aged women's freedom and self-actualization, and, frankly, I'm against it.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 7:34 AM
horizontal rule
7

All these feminists hate me for being a beautiful tradwife who genuinely enjoys doing the dishes, but Ogged gets me.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 7:45 AM
horizontal rule
8

I'm impressed Cyrus can remember how many books are on his list.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 7:47 AM
horizontal rule
9

8: Writing things down helps.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 8:06 AM
horizontal rule
10

I used to write things down, but now I can't remember how many lists I have.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 8:09 AM
horizontal rule
11

4.2: Support enthusiastic consent for reading lists.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 8:10 AM
horizontal rule
12

11: Eh, sure, but the local bookstore was having a sale and we were browsing and she asked me if I wanted a certain book and I said "no thanks" and she asked me if I wanted another one, and I had the impression it would continue until I said yes to one of them. It's even harder to say "no thanks" to birthday or Christmas presents. If I make this sound like a "her" problem, that might just be because I can only get inside my own head. Based on some other things, it's definitely at least partly a "me" problem.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 8:34 AM
horizontal rule
13

That's a weird trade.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 8:35 AM
horizontal rule
14

13 to 11.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 8:35 AM
horizontal rule
15

I mean, pretty much no one checks up on whether you've read the books they gave. I mean it more as "should you saddle yourself with this as social responsibility?"


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 8:39 AM
horizontal rule
16

When I go to someone's house, I like to ask to see all the holiday cards I've ever given them.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 10:07 AM
horizontal rule
17

I stole that joke.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 10:10 AM
horizontal rule
18

Oh man, early-middle-aged women's freedom and self-actualization is a topic of some interest to me but I get so annoyed by Miranda July's whole thing. See, as a shorter-form alternative to reading the book, this New Yorker profile that at some point just turns into house porn about how great it is to pick up a Silver Lake bungalow for your writing studio because you need to get some distance from the Silver Lake bungalow that you already live in and/or the (possibly third?) Silver Lake bungalow you share with the partner you're uncoupling from.

I still feel some kind of obligation to read the book, but it seems at risk of turning into a hate read and at book length that's a real commitment.


Posted by: lourdes kayak | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 10:15 AM
horizontal rule
19

15: Eh, in one sense I'm probably overthinking this. It wouldn't be the first time/topic. In another sense, maintaining a reading list seems easier, both in a practical sense and in an "emotional labor" sense, than several other possible ways to handle the "problem" of too many interesting books. It's just that right now I'm in a less-fun-than-usual part of it.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 10:18 AM
horizontal rule
20

Well, not literally no one asks, I remember asking my mother recently, but I don't think anyone presses after you say "oh, not yet."


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 12:27 PM
horizontal rule
21

My cousin raised a bunch of pigs and is selling their pre-corpses on Facebook. You can buy a whole or half (left or right). This is why I haven't deleted Facebook like I did Twitter.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 7:03 PM
horizontal rule
22

Apparently they don't cut pigs in half to separate top and bottom.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 7:07 PM
horizontal rule
23

I just finished reading a book. I don't even remember the last time I read a whole book. I should get an e-reader -- I don't have a problem with hardbounds, but the light situation in my house is really not conducive.

Becoming Little Shell by Chris LaTray. He's touring around the country right now, and if he's in your town, think about going. He's a good storyteller.

https://www.chrislatray.com/events


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09- 5-24 7:13 PM
horizontal rule
24

21: You should get in on that. My sister raised a couple of pigs a few years back and they were amazing. Sadly, she probably won't do it again. They weren't fun to have around.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09- 6-24 4:30 AM
horizontal rule
25

I think shipping from Nebraska would be expensive.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 6-24 4:42 AM
horizontal rule
26

18: I saw Miranda July performing with I believe Mary Timony, years and years ago, and while I liked it, it does seem like her whole thing would very rapidly grow exhausting. (I haven't seen Me and You, but I did see Kajillionaire, which I enjoyed but which is 100% A Lot.)


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 09- 6-24 5:06 AM
horizontal rule
27

I got about a third of the way through M. July's wikipedia entry and was already exhausted. Not every book is for me.


Posted by: Doug | Link to this comment | 09- 6-24 5:30 AM
horizontal rule
28

You know how the internet is full of ads for t-shirts with entire paragraphs written on the front? There's an old man here wearing one. The only words I was able to make out were ""solemn","Constitution", and "foreign."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09- 6-24 9:06 AM
horizontal rule
29

heebie, I read this (while in a WiFi-free cottage on vacation with my family and unable to sleep, which probably adds some something) and I found it probably more annoying than compelling but every so often an observation struck a chord with me. More of the last bit than the Nightbitch book, certainly. (I just finished the latest Lorrie Moore, I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, which is about a transformed wife or actually not quite for several reasons in this case but it's from the husband's perspective.) Depending on when the Libby app sends me things, I may end up reading about half the Booker longlist this year, which makes me curious whether it will be the half that doesn't make the shortlist or what.

I keep opening the NYT article about all these women who are leaving their relationships because of it and I don't believe that's much of a trend but should read it. I had thought that if I ever started reading here properly again I should send in something about the wave of pandemic divorce books women are writing, but I haven't read enough of them to say anything worthwhile anyway.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 09- 6-24 9:31 AM
horizontal rule
30

I just finished the latest Lorrie Moore, I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home

I loved this book. I don't think it ever quite coalesced as a novel (I haven't read any other novels by Lorrie Moore, only short stories), but there were moments in it that I found deeply moving.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 09- 6-24 9:34 AM
horizontal rule
31

My grandmother after having five children realized in the 60's she could liberate herself and struck out to enjoy many sexual partners as well a lot of drugs & alcohol. She died of heart failure when I was very young, but I think the family generally is glad she found herself more.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 09- 6-24 9:37 AM
horizontal rule
32

30 works for me too. She's best at short stories, but she sticks enough moments of him into her novels that it's worth reading them too. (This is not a novel opinion, other kind of novel.)


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 09- 6-24 9:44 AM
horizontal rule