March (Spring) Podcast Madness

3 April, 2017 / austinfey / 7 Comments

A couple weeks ago, in search of new podcasts to listen to while on the way to work, washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, etc. I asked friends on Facebook to recommend podcasts to listen to. They responded enthusiastically, with 43 discrete suggestions. Thanks, everyone!

I decided that such enthusiasm be met with enthusiasm, and my brother (facetiously, I think) suggested I review them all and announce a “winner.” While I probably won’t write in-depth reviews of that many podcasts, I thought it would be fun to start a March Madness bracket to find a winner. I know it’s April, but I started in March, and the alliteration and allusion to the NCAA basketball tournament is too good to pass up.

Of course, I expect that I’ll end up enjoying far more than 1 new podcast, but who doesn’t love a little competition??

Here are the details:

First, there were only 42 suggestions when I started the project (now there are 43), so the last suggestion didn’t make it into my bracket. I’m sorry. I also removed Radiolab and Invisibilia from the bracket because I already listen to them and love them, so I thought it might give them an unfair advantage, plus, it would make the bracket system more difficult.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I do already listen to The West Wing Weekly, but I needed an even number, so it stays in. I suppose I could replace it with the 43rd suggestion, but I want the West Wing Weekly vs. Pod4Ham matchup to stay.

Next, I downloaded a blank bracket and entered the 40 podcasts into the spaces. I tried pairing up similar themed podcasts for the first rounds. Not every podcast will compete against a similar genre in the first round, but there were a surprising number of crime and history podcasts, so I think it will work out well.

Then I created a “Podcast Brackets!” playlist on Overcast, my podcast listening app of choice (sadly, I am not being paid to mention them), and started downloading podcasts and adding two at a time to the playlist for a head-to-head listening experience.

Expect to hear results of the first round soon!

*I realized later that I misspelled “Ferriss” on my original bracket. No need to let me know. 🙂

2 Creative Outlets, 1 Confusing Piece of Fashion

28 October, 2016 / austinfey / 2 Comments

This month, my husband and I have been participating in Inktober. Participants do (at least) one ink drawing a day, and the hashtags are #inktober and #inktober2016 if you want to see examples.

I’ve been posting mine to Instagram and sharing on Twitter and Facebook.

It’s been fun, though I think if I set aside a little more time, I could do much better. Plus, this year, I’ve been really trying to experiment with the fancy Copic markers we bought. They are awesome, and slightly tricky. I want to practice more with blending, which is their real strength. Or one of their strengths.

For November, I’m upping the stakes and attempting to write for NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month (I’m austin_marie if you want to be buddies). The goal of said challenge is to write 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. That comes to about 100 pages of (single spaced) text, or around the length of a short novel.

Obviously, when trying to write 50,000 words in one month, the first draft is going to be a complete mess. I think the main point of the movement is to encourage people to just write. Writing is hard, and getting started is a hurdle, and you can’t revise what you haven’t written.

So I’m going to make the attempt. We’ll see what happens. I’ll probably need to throw out the whole draft and re-write it, but at least I’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t. Gotta start somewhere, right?

As promised, the confusing piece of fashion. I know, just one! But here it is: cold shoulder sweaters.

Sweater from Guess. WHY??

My thought process on seeing a cold shoulder sweater:

Look at that cozy sweater. Do I need a cable knit sweater? No, I don’t. Hey wait a second, WHERE ARE THE SHOULDERS?? Why is she exposing her skin to the elements!? Why would you ruin the coziness of the sweater by slicing out the shoulders? WHAT IS THIS TREND?

Yeah, I don’t understand. Let me know if you have insight here.

PSLs and an Election Year

11 October, 2016 / austinfey / Leave a comment

One a road trip last weekend we stopped by a Starbucks on our way out of town, where I sampled a pumpkin spice latte, seeing as the weather has finally decided to cool.

I found, to my quiet horror, that I do not really like pumpkin spice lattes much.

Gasp. I know, I’m a traitor to fall.

Here’s the thing that makes it even worse: knowing that pumpkin spice lattes are so sweet and syrupy, I asked for half the flavor pumps (1 1/2 pumps of flavor instead of 3) so I could taste the actual coffee in the drink.

It was still too sweet and left a strange aftertaste that I didn’t much care for.

Apparently I’ve become a coffee snob, and I’ve become more sensitive to sweet drinks. While this is probably good for my overall health, it is a little sad that I don’t get excited about the fall-in-a-cup treat that makes the social media rounds. I do, however, still like anything with salted caramel in it, so all is not lost.

Just make the drink with half the normal sugar and it will be fine.

It feels so frivolous to think about the relative merits of sugary flavored coffee when the world is in such turmoil. Natural disasters, wars, violence, racial tensions, an especially acrimonious political season, not to mention smaller disappointments, personal failings, and suffering of people I care about – these are all present.

Thinking about all the problems in the world is too much. Thinking about politics alone is sometimes too much, makes me too angry. Larger movements in the world — I have no control over these. Not that this means I should ignore them or disclaim any responsibility to make the world a better place in small ways, but I need not bear the weight of the world on my shoulders.

It’s better some days to focus on small moments of joy:

passing a test (after many, many attempts…)
friends who are learning to be new parents
friends whose child came home after a successful surgery
leaves that are just beginning to turn lovely colors
coming home to the smell of soup in a crockpot wafting through the house
time with my parents and my in-laws over delicious food

The world may be tired and dangerous, torn apart with strife, but the seasons continue, and the leaves will be beautiful no matter who wins the presidential election.

Photo from Unsplash.

Books (Re)Read: Persuasion

30 August, 2015 / austinfey / Leave a comment

For #AusteninAugust (genius idea for an excuse to read or re-read some Jane Austen or Austen-inspired literature), I re-read Persuasion. I think this is probably my second favorite Jane Austen book. Well…it might be tied with Emma for that distinction.

Title & Author:

Persuasion, by Jane Austen (1818)

Summary:

Anne Elliot, the daughter of a spendthrift baronet, is 28, unmarried, and without immediate prospects. She was engaged 8(?) years before the story opens to a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but was persuaded by her almost-surrogate mother to break off the engagement as the young man was poor and unknown, and her rank should attract much better options.

When Anne’s family moves out of their house and rents it to his sister and brother-in-law, Captain Wentworth re-appears on the scene, but makes it clear that he no longer cares for Anne. It has been years since their engagement, and she knows everything is over between them.

They both make it quite clear that they have moved on. There’s no reason to suspect they might still like each other. Definitely not. Read this book and read how fine they are without each other. Nothing to see here.

Thoughts:

…Jane Austen puts all of this much more eloquently than my summary, which may have devolved a bit at the end.

I love the protagonist, Anne Elliot. I wish she was real so we could be friends. She is so sweet and patient and kind and overlooked, as such people can be. Thankfully, Austen gives her a few true friends who appreciate and value her, and she is generally liked because she treats everyone with such understanding and is a sympathetic listener. She is kind to everyone she meets, even if she does not particularly care for them. She tries to give them the benefit of the doubt, but she is a good observer and does not excuse bad behavior.

Anne is a clever, reading woman, and is loyal to a fault. She cares and looks after her family and bears with them and doesn’t often give way to frustration or anger. In a culture that tells you to leave behind anything or anyone that doesn’t promote your personal happiness, Anne’s story and choices are unusual.

This is sometimes called one of Austen’s “more mature works,” which means it isn’t quite so overtly witty as Pride & Prejudice, and has a more melancholy tone. Austen shows us how lonely life can be sometimes, and the ways in which our internal dialogue can lead us astray. We are not always truthful even with ourselves, and that is fascinating to observe. We sometimes lie to ourselves because we think it will make a painful situation easier, or because we do not want to admit how we really feel.

Of course, as always, the secondary cast is full of wonderful characters. By “wonderful” I mean they are sharply drawn characters who are often ridiculous and hilarious, especially Anne’s vain father and attention-seeking youngest sister.

Maybe later I will write a post about my favorite Jane Austen secondary characters. There are so many to love and some I love to hate.

As always, I enjoyed this book immensely, and feel even more convinced that any Austen novel richly rewards the careful reader.

Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Bronte vs. Austen, Continued

31 July, 2015 / austinfey / 1 Comment

In an earlier post I started talking about how I’ve seen strong feelings about (see this Goodreads thread for just one example)

Charlotte Bronte (specifically, Jane Eyre)

vs. Jane Austen (probably more specifically, Pride & Prejudice)

Many people feel a stronger affinity for one or the other of the Janes, and do not care as much for the other. Bronte fans complain that they just can’t “get into” Austen, and Austen fans say the same about Bronte.

It is true that Austen and Bronte have quite different styles, and very different heroines (though both have strong female protagonists).

People tend to gravitate toward either the darker tone of the gothic-esque Jane Eyre, or they prefer the lighter tone of Pride and Prejudice (and the other Austen novels). Are you more drawn in by the passionate emotions of Jane Eyre, or by the wit and sparkle of Elizabeth Bennet?

Personally, I love both Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice, and have loved them both since I read them in high school. I love them for different reasons, but I generally hear of people connecting with one and not the other.

Some think that comparing the two authors is like comparing apples to oranges. While I agree that they are different, I think certainly some comparisons can be made, and of course, some room will have to be left for personal taste. I think a commenter on a Goodreads thread put it well:

“I always say that they’re like Bach and Beethoven. Jane Austen’s the better prose stylist, but Bronte has the power and passion.”

I too like them for different reasons, and appreciate them in different moods, just as I do with Bach and Beethoven. Bronte is able to capture emotion and drama and the wild passion and sometimes the creepy (what is the deal with Grace Poole??). Austen has more lightness and order, an understated style (for example, this gem: “Emma was not required, by any subsequent discovery, to retract her ill opinion of Mrs. Elton.”), and is able to capture a portrait of society and paints hilarious caricatures of people living in that society. In some ways, Bronte appeals to emotion and Austen to reason, though that is too simplistic; both have elements of each.

Austen has moments of passion (read Sense and Sensibility for its characterization of Marianne Dashwood; or read closely into the actions of Lydia Bennet). Nor is Bronte only wild, dark, and humorless (in one chapter of Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester dresses up like a gypsy woman – while it’s slightly…offensive, he uses his disguise to poke fun at everyone). There are distinct differences between the two authors though, and there are generalities to make about their works. Art needs both of these ends of the spectrum (and others besides).

My goal here is to try to persuade those who only love one or the other of these great literary ladies to give the other a chance. And if you want a cheerleader for one of them, come talk to me. I’m happy to discuss their merits any time.

This post is getting too long, so I’ll save my suggestions for optimal reading conditions for another time. But I do think when and where you read makes a difference. More on that later….

Photos by Val used under Flickr Creative Commons license.

Austin Fey

Book Reviews and General Thoughts

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