The Requisite Beyonce Post

I was working late the night her new album dropped, took a twitter break, and there it was. I think I listened to all of two song previews before I bought the whole thing, but I only got through a few songs that night before I had to stop. Too distracting! I think it was Partition that did me in.

There's been some great writing on this album already, way more than I can curate at this point, so I'll just send you over to a writer friend's take. I have nothing more to contribute other than awed appreciation. (And a major thank you, Mrs. Carter, for an excellent non-holiday holiday soundtrack to ladies' nights.) 

Likeability

Food for thought from Roxane Gay over at Buzzfeed. I'll be thinking more about this myself as I continue with my next novel. The sneak preview will confirm that she's most likely going to be a narrator that people may like, but in spite of her actions. Or maybe they won't. Or maybe it will be more complicated than all that.

I have been known to say that I can read anything so long as I like the characters, but maybe I need to elaborate a bit more on what I mean by "like," because it's not the grade-school kind of emotion that Gay describes people often falling into with fiction. I'll be giving this more thought.

The Hills Are Dry

Coming home to the Bay Area for winter break during college was like stepping from Kansas to Oz. No more black and white of New England winters, or, far worse, dull brown if the snow hadn't yet arrived. Just lush, green hills, buds on the valley oaks biding their time in the wind and rain, muddy trails, and the start of the vernal pools.

This year, all is brown. It's unsettling. The oaks are bare, but their brown silhouettes blend into the sunburnt backdrop that is the hills. It's not how it should be. We aren't like other parts of the country here, not in summer nor in winter. This is supposed to be our time of regeneration. 

I spent time in the Bay Area as a child during the drought of the late eighties, and I know what to do if it's yellow and what to do if it's brown. I'm expecting that this will come back into vogue. I'm expecting a devastating fire season. I'm expecting water rationing and municipal squabbling over what little run off we get this summer.

But on the way back from Sacramento, we spotted something out the car window that at least gives me hope for my favorite, drought-tolerant trees: underneath those valley oaks, Quercus lobata, within the radius of where their bent, spread branches nearly reach the ground, the grass is green. Little green circles, slight, but there, protected and shaded and fed by the moisture the tree can spare. The hills are dry, but the trees are alive.