Oct 24 2022

Freestyle by Gale Galligan

This was my first Gale Galligan but y’all, I’m in love! From the sweet middle school shenanigans to the absolutely adorable art, I was all in for this story of young Corey Tan navigating eighth grade with old friends and interests and new.

Corey is not the greatest student, to the disappointment of his Filipino American parents. When his latest report card comes back with mostly Cs, his parents hire a tutor to help bring up his grades so he can do well on the upcoming high school placement tests. Trouble is, the tutor is Sunna, his annoying new lab partner. Sure she’s top of their class, but Corey’s frustration with her standoffish choice to do their partner-work solo and not give him a chance to even try the experiments spills over to their first tutorial session, leading to a huge fight overheard by his mother. Corey is swiftly grounded for being wildly disrespectful.

This is especially unfortunate because Corey’s dance crew is practicing hard for what might be the last competition of their middle school career. Tess, their crew leader and choreographer, is super gung ho about winning, freaking out at any deviation from the steps she’s assigned each member of Eight Bitz. Corey doesn’t know how to tell them that he can’t make it to rehearsals any more, a dilemma that’s further complicated when he discovers Sunna’s hidden talent at the yo-yo. Soon, she’s bribing him with yo-yo lessons to do his actual tutorial work, even as a sweet friendship develops between them. But what will Corey do when his awkward attempts to integrate all the things and people he likes into his life goes horribly wrong, leaving everyone mad at him even as he’s just honestly trying his best?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/24/freestyle-by-gale-galligan/

Oct 23 2022

Inhuman Land by Jozef Czapski

Seldom does a book’s title fit so perfectly, so terribly as Inhuman Land by Jozef Czapski (pron. “Chop-ski”). He was born into an aristocratic Polish family in Prague, at a time when that city was ruled from Vienna as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Czapski grew up near Minsk, in present-day Belarus; he finished his schooling in 1915 in St. Petersburg when it was still the capital of the Russian Empire. He witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution, but soon relocated to Poland, which had declared its independence at the end of World War I, and took up studies of art in Warsaw. During the war between Poland and Soviet Russia, Czapski undertook a mission back to St. Petersburg as well as fighting as part of a crew on an armored train. With Poland’s independence secured by battlefield valor, he returned to art, spending eight years in Paris and also adding skills as a writer and critic to his talents in drawing and painting. In 1939, when Czapski was already 43 years old, he re-enlisted in the Polish army. Much of this background is related in Timothy Snyder‘s excellent introduction to Inhuman Land.

Inhuman Land by Jozef Czapski

World War II began when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Just over two weeks later, the armies of the Soviet Union fell on Poland from the east, carving up the country with its Nazi allies. The Soviets captured Czapski, as they did many thousands of other Poles. Czapski was held in a camp called Starobilsk for six months. A large share of the Polish army’s officers were held there and at two other camps, Kozelsk and Ostashkov. Snyder’s introduction continues:

In March 1940, Lavrenty Beria, the director of the Soviet secret state police (NKVD), received Stalin’s written approval to shoot the prisoners of Starobilsk, Ostashkov, and Kozelsk. They were mostly officers, and the officers mostly from the reserves: educated men, professionals, and intellectuals; physicians, veterinarians, scientists, lawyers, teachers, artists. After a quick review of their files, 97 percent of these people were sentenced to death. Czapski and 394 other prisoners from the three camps were spared and sent to Gryazovets, some because a foreign power had intervened on their behalf, others because they were Soviet informers. (p. x)

He adds in a footnote, “Czapski seems to have been spared because of the intervention of German diplomats. This was mysterious to him and remains so.” This massacre and other closely related mass executions became known as Katyn, and they weigh on Poland even today. The Soviets claimed during the war that the Nazis had shot thousands of Polish officers at Katyn, and they kept up the lies for decades, only acknowledging the truth during Gorbachev’s time of glasnost. In April 2010 an official Polish airplane carrying dignitaries headed to a commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Katyn crashed in a forest outside of Smolensk. The crash killed Poland’s president, his wife, a former president of Poland’s government-in-exile, the president of Poland’s national bank, 18 members of the Polish parliament, Poland’s military chief of staff, senior members of the Polish clergy, and relatives of the Katyn victims. Katyn, already a raw wound in Polish-Russian relations, acquired new resonance for the 21st century.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/23/inhuman-land-by-jozef-czapski/

Oct 22 2022

Before the West by Ayşe Zarakol

“How would the history of international relations in ‘the East’ be written,” asks Ayşe Zarakol, “if we did not always read the ending — the rise of the West and the decline of the East — into the past?” (frontispiece) Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders is her effort to answer that and related questions. For all that the book is an academic effort firmly situated within the discipline of International Relations (IR), Zarakol aims to both broaden and transcend the discipline. As she summarizes her purposes in writing the book, “First, I wanted to create a non-Eurocentric version of international history and world politics as understood from an Eastern vantage point. … [Second] Given the political and economic resurgence of Asia and the numerous dangerous alleys Asian historiography can travel down in the near future, I wanted to provide an account of Asian history that is not owned by any one ‘nation’, ‘civilisation’, ‘race’ or ‘religion’.” (p. 271)

Before the West by Ayşe Zarakol

International Relations as it is practiced today descends from studies of diplomacy, politics and history that attempted to generalize from the experience of European states, mostly in the 19th century. As the discipline developed, it worked out definitions and analyses of concepts such as statehood and sovereignty, and looked further back in time, and somewhat further afield geographically. As social sciences go, IR is closely tied to practice, with many diplomats and other leaders making scholarly contributions, while many academics have advised or joined governments to put their ideas into action in the real world. Conventionally, IR dates the modern state system to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that largely settled the issues of the Thirty Years War in Central Europe. As the field developed Europe — later the trans-Atlantic community, and later still what is known as the West — was considered self-evidently the measure of all things. In the first decades of the 20th century, when Europe’s technological, intellectual and material dominance was at its apogee, this perspective was understandable. A century later, this just looks out of date. But as Zarakol notes, work to undermine Eurocentrism can, perversely, leave Europe still at the center of the intellectual project, simply inverted.

Zarakol is after something else: “an account of the history of Eastern ‘international relations’ that understands actors of the past in that part of the world primarily through their relations with each other and not with Europe.” (p. 6) Importantly, some of these actors had intentions that went well beyond relations with their immediate neighbors, and of course given the immense size of some Asian land empires, even just the immediate neighbors comprised a significant share of humanity. “Such actors did in fact exist in Asia/Eurasia, and, as we shall see, not only did they aspire to universal sovereignty but they also came close to dominating (and thus ordering) the world — such as it existed — from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries.” (p. 10)

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/22/before-the-west-by-ayse-zarakol/

Oct 21 2022

The Casagrandes #4: Friends And Family by The Loud House Creative Team

While the subtitle of this latest installment of The Casagrandes series is “Friends And Family”, the book mostly focuses on Abuelo Hector, our main character Ronnie Anne and her naughtiest brother Carl. There are, as always, plenty of cameos from each member of the Casagrande family as well as their friends and neighbors, but these three definitely take center stage, appearing in all but one of the vignettes included here.

Hector is probably the star of the show, especially in the very cute story The Meet Up, where he drags his grandkids to the flea market to buy him presents for Abuelo Day. He’s also great in Back To The Boogie, where Ronnie Anne and Carl stumble across a treasure trove of outdated items. I loved as well how Hector and his teenage neighbor Cory bonded in All Nighter, as the reasons that kept them up converged to help them both weather another sleepless night.

While Carl is mostly entertaining for being his usual obnoxious self, it was nice to see Ronnie Anne get to spend time with both family (including Carl himself, in the adorable Meow Or Never) and friends. The stories with Lincoln Loud, whose series she and her family spun off from, were particularly entertaining. The two good friends have not one but two stories where they try to hang out via the Internet, with the one with the scavenger hunt being, like their efforts at conversation, the slightly more successful of the two.

The art hews closely to the Nickelodeon series, with extra large lettering to make understanding what’s happening easier for young readers. That said, I did find the art in the first two stories a little confusing, tho that might be a flaw in their storytelling overall: panel breakdowns to sync story to art are far more difficult than they look, and require a lot of cooperation and communication between writers and artists!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/21/the-casagrandes-4-friends-and-family-by-the-loud-house-creative-team/

Oct 20 2022

Zara’s Rules For Finding Hidden Treasure by Hena Khan

with delightful illustrations by Wastana Haikal.

I’m a huge fan of the first book in this series, Zara’s Rules For Record-Breaking Fun, and finally, finally got my 11 year-old to start reading it when I asked him if he’d like to go to Hena Khan’s book signing with me. He was enthused, but I warned him that he’d have to have read at least book one first. The gratification I felt when he called out to me his excitement that the book was set in Maryland was extremely vindicating (even if his favorite character so far is Zayd, whom I’m hoping to gently point out to him is a lot more like his younger brother Joseph than he is, and so maybe he should be nicer to Joseph then?)

Zara’s Rules For Finding Hidden Treasure picks up from where the first one left off, with Zara getting a snazzy new bike for her birthday, then promptly having it stolen when she forgets to lock it at the park. Granted, she never had to lock her old beater bike, so it’s just a really unfortunate, if decidedly crappy, occurrence. Her parents, understandably, don’t want to just go out to buy a replacement for her. So with the help of her best friend Naomi and the other kids on her street, she starts brainstorming ways to raise money to buy a new bike.

After a few false starts, a travelling garage sale seems to be the best bet, with discarded items from both her household and Naomi’s. But when Zara discovers she’s made an awful mistake, will her dream of quickly getting a replacement bike disappear as swiftly as her last bike did?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/20/zaras-rules-for-finding-hidden-treasure-by-hena-khan/

Oct 19 2022

Head Wounds: Sparrow by Brian Buccellato & Christian Ward

Despite the many names on this cover, including a Created By Robert Johnson and Story By Robert Johnson & John Alvey (and a smaller development credit for Jason Spire right at the bottom,) the number one reason most people, myself included, will pick up this comic is the name Oscar Isaac, emblazoned top and bottom over a stylized portrait of someone who looks a lot like the actor himself, in a beat-up Poe Dameron sort of way.

Ofc, if you’re a comics nerd like me, there’s a strong chance you’ll see Christian Ward’s name on the art and think “rad!” Frankly, the art is one of the strongest aspects of the actual book. Mr Ward’s pencils and inks are loose on the figurative, non-background aspects (and get looser as the book progresses) but dang, his colors and light effects are tremendous. And in fairness, there’s a lot going on, with a lot of people running around. Kudos to him and Brian Buccellato for storyboarding that makes it clear who exactly is in the spotlight in any given panel, even when the art gets a bit, well, sketchy is likely the best word. Like, if you pulled individual panels out and asked me to identify characters, I’d be pretty stumped, but contextually, I was never confused as to who’s who, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of books out there today. Did I mention that the cast here is huge? It feels very action-movie cinematic in scope.

It’s also very Catholic, with imagery of angels and redemption and damnation, that almost but doesn’t quite go all the way round to approaching the weirdly Protestant atheism of Garth Ennis (particularly in re Preacher.) I mean, it’s set in New Orleans, and in addition to corrupt cops, there are cults and purgatorial battles while angels and demons hover around pronouncing over the lead character’s soul. I was actually kinda hoping that the weird phenomena assailing said lead was due to (insert meme) Aliens, but a quasi-religious battle for the guy’s soul also makes sense, even tho this is, at this point in time, very well-covered territory.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/19/head-wounds-sparrow-by-brian-buccellato-christian-ward/

Oct 18 2022

I Can’t Draw by Stephen W. Martin & Brian Biggs

Okay, wow, first of all, whoever is telling Max he can’t draw needs to sit down and take a chill pill.

And sure, I suppose that Max, the protagonist of this children’s picture book, can’t draw as photorealistically as his friend Eugene, who has serious talent. But Max draws quite well for his age, or doodles, I suppose. And in this day and age, figurative drawing isn’t considered a more meaningful (or commercial) format than any other art that gets the point across, never mind the opinions of Old Master purists. Sure I’ll admire a Breughel, but I’ll engage more with a Nathan W Pyle or a Liz Climo. The Helnweins might live in a castle, but Dav Pilkey is still laughing all the way to the bank.

Anyway, this cute book is basically how Max learns to love his own drawing style, tho not in so many words. At first, he’s bummed because his drawings are, according to him, hard to decipher. So he asks the phenomenally talented Eugene to teach him how to draw. As the two become friends, Max’s drawings slowly improve… but something is still missing. Discovering what that is and embracing it are only one of the charms of this delightful book, that’s sure to boost the self-esteem of any reader who, like Max at the start of the book, thinks there’s only one “good” way to draw.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/18/i-cant-draw-by-stephen-w-martin-brian-biggs/

Oct 17 2022

I Miss You, I Hate This by Sara Saedi

I don’t remember the last time I read a book that was focused primarily on the work of friendship between two young women (Rumaan Alam’s Rich And Pretty, maybe? Which I read in 2016 and did not love) without a mystery or epic storyline to pull focus from the relationship. And while I Miss You, I Hate This is allegedly about a fictional ademavirus that strikes in 2022, it’s really about the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it derailed the end of American high school and its attendant rituals.

The reason for the fake pandemic is to emphasize its impact on teenagers, who are the most vulnerable target for the fictional virus. This lends a greater sense of urgency to the need for our main characters to avoid it, and adds a touch more drama to the narrative. Said main characters are Parisa Naficy, the over-achieving, anxiety-ridden daughter of Iranian immigrants, and Gabriela Gonzalez, the beautiful, artistic daughter of struggling lesbians. They’ve been best friends since the first day of high school, bonding over their relative status as outsiders, Parisa due to being an awkward nerd and Gabriela due to not having gone to the same middle school as everyone else.

As the book starts, the two have stolen a bunch of Parisa’s parents’ vodka and edibles, and are having their first experience with either in Parisa’s empty hot tub-style bathtub. Unfortunately, Parisa’s anxiety kicks in, leading her to think she’s dying and causing her to scream for her parents. Gabriela gets sent home and they’re both grounded… but then the pandemic kicks in and their temporary separation looks to become far more permanent. Will their bond be able to survive not only this forced estrangement but the stresses inherent to adolescent friendships?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/17/i-miss-you-i-hate-this-by-sara-saedi/

Oct 16 2022

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

So in my day job I do things related to fairly customized computer software, and if the company needed some extras to stand around in the background for a public presentation or a video about a new product, sure, I’d do that. Anna Tromedlov, the first-person narrator of Hench, says yes to more or less the same thing and a few hours later has her femur shattered for her trouble. To add insult to grievous injury, she had been a temp so now she’s laid off. Of course, she knew that she was temping — henching — for a supervillain. But she hadn’t counted on bumping into — ok, getting thrown across a conference room by — the world’s leading hero, Supercollider.

Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

Those comic book scenes where the hero interrupts the villain’s press conference or announcement or demonstration of their latest nefarious technology, the scenes that feature lots of bodies flying around like tenpins and bouncing off of furniture and walls and whatever? That was Anna’s afternoon, with her one wild and precious life in the role of the bounced. Afterward, all the glory goes to the heroes, and anyone who looks in later figures the henchpeople got what they deserved for working for the baddies. The doctors put Anna back together, of course, because that’s what doctors do, but then she’s looking down the barrel of half a year of recovery, a high probability of permanent disability, and even more limited career prospects.

Hench starts out as a novel of young people taking crappy young-people jobs, scraping by among lots of friends in similar situations, making fun of the system while they still only have half a foot in it. The world is full of superheroes and supervillains, giving things some odd twists, but in previous decades the characters would not have been too out of place in Generation X or Slackers. When Anna gets an offer to upgrade from remote data entry work to more on-site analysis, she calls her best friend June, who’s already on-site as part of the same villain’s team.
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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/16/hench-by-natalie-zina-walschots/

Oct 15 2022

Lessons from the Edge by Marie Yovanovitch

If not for Donald Fucking Trump, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch would have had a long, distinguished and inspiring career serving the United States of America that nevertheless remained practically unknown outside the circles of her work. Perhaps she would have been best known for providing a crucial piece of local knowledge when the embassy in Mogadishu was being evacuated in 1991. Maybe her career highlight would have been working for the Moscow embassy when Boris Yeltsin confronted the remnants of the Soviet parliament in 1993, or later in that same assignment working with an all-star team (including legends of American diplomacy Bill Burns and Thomas Pickering) and having front-row seats for Yeltsin’s comeback re-election and the “loans for shares” scheme that cast the die for so much that followed in Russia. That’s a stint that included a few weeks helping to open America’s first diplomatic presence in Uzbekistan in April 1992. “Our makeshift embassy was in the former Communist Youth League building, where a bust of Lenin still presided in the first floor’s main hall. There was no setback, no wall, not even a Marine guard standing between Embassy Tashkent and the rest of the city. In fact, our small team of Americans took turns sleeping in the embassy to guard our communications equipment.” (p. 76) Any of those precautions would have been helpful when there’s a hostage situation soon after, one that Yovanovitch’s quick thinking keeps from escalating and eventually helps to defuse.

Lessons from the Edge by Marie Yovanovitch

If not for Donald Fucking Trump, the toughest battle that Yovanovitch might have faced in Ukraine was over whether the corrupt government of then–President Kuchma had supplied anti-aircraft weapons to Iraq, and her toughest moment before the US Congress might have been attempts to get her to say the word “genocide” in her confirmation hearings to become ambassador to Armenia in early 2008. (Whether or not the US government should characterize World War I era massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide was a policy decision to be taken by the president or the Secretary of State. Ambassadors implement policy; they don’t make it. Senators, Yovanovitch writes, “pushed me to break with the president’s policy and say the word ‘genocide.’ It wasn’t going to happen, and everyone knew it. It was pure Kabuki.” (p. 164))

It’s during her time in Armenia that Yovanovitch’s path comes closest to crossing mine. She arrived in Armenia a little more than a month after Russia invaded neighboring Georgia. I arrived in Georgia two weeks before the invasion, and when the Russians came fled to Armenia with three small children in tow, though we soon returned to Tbilisi. One of Yovanovitch’s major tasks in Armenia was facilitating a potential rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey, something that would have transformed the region’s relations and probably have prevented at least one war. Most of the talks took place in Tbilisi, and I was close enough to write about it at the time. As I read through Lessons from the Edge, I figured that I knew people who knew Yovanovitch, and indeed, when I mentioned the book to a friend who had lived in Armenia, they immediately said, “Masha? Oh yeah, she’s awesome.”

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2022/10/15/lessons-from-the-edge-by-marie-yovanovitch/