Sunday Morning: Trolls (2016, 2017, 2018-)

Maribou

Maribou is a voracious reader who also likes to watch, stare at, and listen to stuff. Occasionally he makes stuff, too. They work in a small liberal arts college library, and share a house in Colorado with their husband Jaybird, three cats, and what looms ever closer to ten thousand books. She is identifiable as genderfluid, trans, farm-raised, citified, and bisexual, among a plethora of other adjectives.

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15 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    I’m reaching the point where “guilty pleasure” means “something I’m doing instead of work-related stuff”.

    So it doesn’t matter if I’m reading Dostoyevsky or Batman, neither one is about Red Hat.Report

  2. Reformed Republic says:

    Sometimes, I consider lighter stuff to be something like a palette cleanser. After being engaged in something really dark or mentally taxing, it is nice to employ something fun and light.Report

    • Maribou in reply to Reformed Republic says:

      @Reformed-republic yes, that’s definitely a dynamic I see in myself as well. Any examples that come to mind for you?Report

      • Reformed Republican in reply to Maribou says:

        I know when I was reading A Song of Ice and Fire and Wheel of Time I would read lighter stuff like Discworld in between. When I decided to read War and Peace, I took some breaks with short, easy books as well. A lot of graphic novels can serve that purpose as well.

        For me they serve one of a few different purposes, sometimes overlapping. If a book is really dark, having something more whimsical or humorous is nice. If a book is very dense and more mentally taxing, it can be nice to intersperse reading that requires less brainpower. Another time it is nice, when reading through long series, is just to get a change of writing style.Report

  3. atomickristin says:

    Hilda is FANTASTIC!! +1. Even very serious adults will like it.Report

  4. Aaron David says:

    Reading Maugham’s Painted Veil. He is becoming one of my favorite writers as I get older, along with many of his contemporary Brits. Contemporary lit has been such dreck for the last decade, since the millennium really, going back in time has been really rewarding and refreshing.Report

  5. fillyjonk says:

    “Because it’s okay for not everything to be a challenge. Not everything has to be work, not everything has to be Very Stimulating, not everything has to be unproblematic (or problematic for that matter), not everything has to take my breath away, not everything has to be a gateway into a whole new world of self-improvements and metaphysical epiphanies. Sometimes it really is okay to just relax. Wholly, utterly, uncritically…. relax.”

    Oh man, yes, this so much this.

    I love – unabashedly, unapologetically love – stuff that some more serious sorts would either label “dumb and hokey” or “problematic” or “can’t you stretch yourself more, this is too easy for you.” And as I draw in on 50….well, the joy of things that are just simple and easy to love and where you can kind of turn off some of your higher critical/analytical stuff and just enjoy it without thinking too hard about it….is a relief.

    I love Golden Era detective stories. Especially British ones. Yes, in some of them the writing is not great and in many of them I can see “who did it” a mile away, and many of them have their “problematic” aspects (example: anti-Semitism was common in 30s Britain. But that’s not the only thing). But I still enjoy them and they provide a respite from a world where all too often the wrong guy is arrested and the guilty party goes free, or someone’s death goes unavenged, or whatever.

    And cartoons. I love many cartoons that are aimed squarely at children – the current My Little Ponies being one, but I also enjoy some of the stuff on Cartoon Network and even though it seems there are like only eight different episodes of “Bunnicula” that Boomerang keeps re-running, I like that too. And even some of the “educational” or ‘very small child’ cartoons: I get Qubo and sometimes now they run a 1980s era Paddington-Bear cartoon that makes good background distraction.

    Most of my movie library is either Pixar/Disney cartoons or fluffy silly comedies.

    And this time of year….oh, it’s the best. I spent much of yesterday watching AMC’s re-run of the old Rankin-Bass animagic specials: I love these dearly because they were a big part of my childhood Christmases, and AMC was even showing some of the ones (like the one about the donkey) that you hardly ever see any more.

    I dunno. People have accused me in the past of being too non-serious, but I’ve gone through some deadly-serious periods these past couple years (dealing with very grown-up issues: mortality of loved-ones, possible loss of a job, concerns for my own health and whether my life will be as long as I originally thought it would be) and honestly? I think people need a break from being so serious.Report

    • jason in reply to fillyjonk says:

      Nice. I consume serious stuff, but agree 100% with what you and Maribou are saying. I also love the Rankin Bass specials, as cheesy as they are. And Pixar has some amazing films.

      You’ve probably seen them, but Midsomer Murders is on netflix and it’s a great British murder series; it was one of my “easy” entertainment options, even if it did make most of the folks living in the British countryside seem like a-holes–seriously, most of the victims were asking for it (as they’re fictional characters this seems okay to say).Report

      • fillyjonk in reply to jason says:

        I’ve seen bits and pieces of it on PBS (I don’t get Netflix; I pay for cable in order to get my Internet and I am resistant to paying for more streaming stuff). I admit I prefer the Father Brown series (even if Chesterton would spit about what they did with his character)

        And yeah, the “The dude who got killed was usually a jerk” is a big part of why I like the murder mysteries. Along with “The jerk who killed the first jerk usually winds up facing justice in the end.” It’s a simple world.

        “Elf” is another Christmas movie that is just silly and fluffy but I love it so much because it is so goofy and good-hearted, and it’s one of those set in a universe where a literal Santa Claus actually exists, and I admit the “Santa is real and people on the Nice List get gifts” AU is my favorite AU.Report

    • aaron david in reply to fillyjonk says:

      I am right there with you on Golden Age mysteries, especially the British ones. The British Museum Crime Classics have been my go-to for a while now. I love having the Vicker solve the crime!Report

    • Maribou in reply to fillyjonk says:

      @fillyjonk Your tastes and my tastes in relaxing fluff have a lot of commonalities 🙂Report

  6. Slade the Leveller says:

    Reading: OT’s very own Michael Siegel has published a novel, The Water Lily Pond that is one of the better books I’ve read in 2018. Check it out.

    Watching: Mrs. Slade and I went to see Green Book Saturday, and I can’t recommend this highly enough. It’s a great Christmas movie.

    Also watching: Blazing Saddles. It doesn’t matter how many times I see this movie, it cracks me up every time. Plus, it’s great to see that Borscht Belt comedy survived at least into the early ’70s.Report