Welcome to Litsy!

A temp takes her many jobs to mythic proportions—pirate, assassin, purveyor of pamphlets, and more—in this quirky, absurd, moving, and ultimately devastating meditation on the ways humans strive for permanence and stability in a world that‘s ever changing.

"She knew when they were genuine because she was built to feel the world through active, staggered checks of compassion. She could not help but understand where they were coming from, because it was where she came from, too, because she was meant to begin where other people ended."

I find this novel funny, quirky, true, and very sad. It's a look at how we (some of us) are conditioned to put ourselves aside to become what everyone else wants us to be, whether realistic or not, and to change when their whims change. It's a look at how this is okay until it's not, and then we have to figure out what to do with the disillusion and grief that result.

Photo: Unusually active koala at the zoo this morning.

I had about 30 minutes to read, eat lunch, and synthesize vitamin D between academic endeavors today. I'll have to make different arrangements when it starts raining Thursday, but I sure enjoyed the sunshine and blue skies today.

1. It's the first week of the classes I'm taking to explore a possible new career path. So now I have homework in addition to prep and classroom time for the three classes I'm teaching. Excited and nervous!
2. Still working on the tagged.
3. Persistent, intense.
#MotivationalMonday @Cupcake12

I went to a cat show today! I bought nothing, not even a kitten (or these socks for my spouse, the reluctant "cat dad"), but I started to wonder if maybe I'm not asking as much as I could from Silo and Camille. I bet most of these cats are much better about having their claws trimmed than mine are.

Now it's time to spend the afternoon acting like I'm watching football but actually reading.

I'm enjoying the tagged book this evening (I love how weird it is...it reminds me a little of Subdivision) after dropping off the elder kid at college again. On the way there we got to see SoCal snow, both on distant mountains and on cars that presumably had just driven from said distant mountains. We have no chains so we don't visit snow ourselves, but it's exciting to see while we remain down in the 60°F valleys.

Another gem from the #AuldLangSpine list @rachelsbrittain put together.

I cannot say exactly why I liked this weird book about a temp who works in the strangest jobs: a shoe-shiner, on a pirate ship, opening doors, even as a human barnacle 😳

@monalyisha

I heard about this on one of my favorite podcasts, and I was so excited to read it. A story about a temp whose jobs include Chairman of the Board, a murderer's assistant, and a pirate! Sounds fun!

I thought it was funny at times, and definitely a little quirky -- perhaps a little too quirky (and a little too fantastical) for me? It definitely had Piranesi vibes -- which I didn't like. If you DID, then maybe you'll enjoy this one too!

A lifelong temp worker runs through a series of stranger and stranger jobs including as a replacement pirate and a serial killer's assistant. But being a temp is more than just a job-- it's a lifelong pursuit of finding permanency, something that might outlast even humanity itself. A wonderfully weird story.

Finna meets There's No Such Thing As An Easy Job. I really think there should be a sub genre called employment-based existential horror. May have literary/elevated writing style, magical realism elements, heavy on social commentary, leaning dystopic.
We Had to Remove This Post and Horrorstor are also good candidates.
1/?

Oo oo! New (to me) word alert!
According to Merriam-Webster,
"Aedicula: a small structure used as a shrine : a niche for a statue."

🦁👀What gets me is I fully believe there are people who exist who actually say things like this and expect it is an achievable outcome.

👀🎂🍰🍮🍭🍪🍨🍦

"Take your tuffet and stuff it." HA! ?

A lifelong Temp takes a series of jobs, including as a pirate, a barnacle, and a bank robber, trying to see if her life can ever become permanent.

The First Temporary studied the world. She noted the shortcomings of the gods, their tempers and their feuds. It was their bureaucracy that allowed for her existence. She noted the fallacy of permanence in a world where everything ends and desired that kind of permanence all the same.

(Detail of painting by Laurie MacFayden)

This hilarious novel about a woman going from one absurd temporary assignment to another has a charming energy. Whether she‘s filling in for a chairman of the board, an assassin‘s assistant or a barnacle, she tries to do her very best. “Steadiness” is her dream, which seems forever out of reach. Leichter‘s pointed commentary on capitalism is slipped in almost under the radar.

The review of this novel in Publishers Weekly compares Leichter to Italo Calvino. Oddly enough, I was thinking that André Alexis‘ The Night Piece reminded me of Calvino—and I‘m not a fan of Calvino. Conversely, I‘m a big fan of Leichter.

These days, all my boyfriends are long-distance. But then again, so is the length of an arm stretched between two people watching each other from afar.

“There are only a few kinds of jobs in the world,” says the captain, who is the type to pontificate & listicle on subjects varied & profound. “Jobs on land, jobs at sea, jobs in the sky, jobs of the mind, & working remotely.”
“You mean like working from home?” I ask.
“No,” the pirate captain says. “Working remotely is what we call being dead. Pirate lingo.”

[This passage has new shades of meaning in the work-from-home time of Covid.]

Hilary Leichter is giving me Helen Phillips vibes, only Leichter is less chilling.

“I propose a new kind of vote,” says an entirely insignificant shareholder, “in which we vote the way we think our grandmothers would‘ve voted, contrast this against the votes our unborn grandchildren might make, then, using a system of charts and graphs, concede to the hypotenuse of the two hypotheticals, in the name of our forbearers and our descendants.”

(Image: Shaun Tan. See link in comments)

“You ok?” Farren asked. She handed me a form and touched my elbow with a cold, outstretched tip of shimmering nail. Just the nail, not the finger. I couldn‘t tell if it was meant to soothe or scratch.
“I‘m fine. Thanks, Farren.

(Internet photo)

December 16: In the Mist of Everything by Hilary Leichter. Story published in Conjunctions

“Shira thought she would buy furniture for the bedroom first. Kevin made attempts at saving his garden.” So the story begins and so it continues with different names until it start over again.

I think Leichter is making an important point about the way that profession makes a up a disproportionate part of identity and stability, but it‘s all so aggressively quirky, that I had a hard time taking it seriously. #ToB

Liked (but didn‘t live) this odd novel that takes sharp jabs at capitalism and modern life.

Trying this book. Only book I‘ve read for all of quarantine has been The Guest List. Ugh I‘m so stuck!

I had to get out of my house so I‘m in a lawn chair on the driveway reading until the pollen drives me back inside.