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Periodical: Drift Magazine Volume 13

Cover of Drift Magazine volume 13

Drift (Berlin – volume 13)
published by Digital Ventures, LLC (NY)
2023

I finally caved and bought this gorgeous magazine, because I’ve resisted long enough.

This magazine is one of the best examples of book / magazine design I have enjoyed. It combines black and white fine art photography (most of architecture and urban landscapes), color photographs centering on one topic (coffee enjoyment) which are laid out with plenty of white space, and concisely written passion articles about coffee.

It’s… perfect, really.

I have purchased books purely for their design in the past (because: of course I did), but this magazine is consistently gorgeous. Lots of blank space. Good contrast. Uncluttered. Consistent in its themes. I struggle to think of it as a coffee culture magazine alone, because its design is so lovely and the photography sells it for me. It’s so well designed that I fear I would have bought it even if it wasn’t about a city I adore and a drink I adore EVEN MORE.

I recommend it if you like: black and white photography of cities with saturated black and fine midtones (WHAT A PRINTER THEY HAVE!), and casual conversation about the coffee culture of wonderful cities.

“You must REALLY like coffee,” said the gentle bookseller. Yes, yes, I do, and we also talked about how much coffee I like because so much of it is good around here, how fabulous fancy espresso drinks are, plus the Bay Area’s Jazz Station (which we both love: I broadcast this by wearing their jacket).

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Book: When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

Cover of Book: When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
Either this book cover was very upsetting to the man sitting two seats away from me, or my hair was attacking someone without me noticing. I’m still unsure why he kept looking at the book/me reading and then away…

When You are Engulfed in Flames
by David Sedaris
published by Hachette (Back Bay Books)
2008

David Sedaris is a storyteller, and whether that story is a real one about having a truck driver attempt to persaude him to exchange sexual acts, or an imagined one about majoring in Patricide at Princeton, he tells these stories in a dry, engaging, and periodically distressing way.

I laughed loudly enough that I may have alarmed the neighbors. (To soften this strong endorsement, I admit that I laughed less often than I did while reading Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls: some of this relates to being familiar with his work, and laughing quietly rather than loudly. You know what I mean.) The only repeat story was the Normandy creepy-old-man story, but all others were new to me.

I recommend this collection if you like his other story collections.

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Book (Manhwa): A Martial Master Wakes Up as a Concubine by LICO, koyanghee

Cover for A Martial Master Wakes Up as a Concubine by LICO , koyanghee

A Martial Master Wakes Up as a Concubine
by LICO, koyanghee
published by Webtoon (44 chapters, ongoing)
2023 – present

If you hear me cackling after dinner for no apparent reason, it is likely because I’m reading this comedy comic.

Nyeonbi Cheon is a famous villainess who somehow winds up romantically entangled with a famous hero. After her boo kills her (!?!), she wakes up in the body of an imperial concubine who appears to have died simultaneously. She has no memory of this concubine’s past, but instead has her own villainy-filled memories, plus a desire to avenge her death against her unexpectedly cruel former love.

If there is anything a famous, powerful, crude villainess struggles to pull off, it is the manners required of an imperial concubine. Poetry? Tea making? Polite chit chat? Oh, goodness no – these are critical failures! The backstabbing and rivalries are familiar enough concepts, but Cheon isn’t allowed to murder her way out of them. (Or is she…?)

Whether it is chatting with the guy who brings her rice cakes, telling the emperor how much she wants to see his package (which makes him want to… not let that happen), or faking the aftermath of a fight to preserve her secret past identity, no one messes ordinary activities up more obliviously to social graces than she does! I really do laugh out loud – this is so silly in a fun way.

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Book (Manhwa): My In-Laws are Obsessed with Me by seungu, Han Yoon seol

Cover page for My In-Laws are Obsessed with Me by Seungu, Han Yoon seol

My In-Laws are Obsessed with Me
by seungu, Han Yoon seol
published by Webtoon (100+ chapters, ongoing)
2022 – present

This comic has a cheerful prologue to reassure you that things WILL GET BETTER . Because you need that reassurance so you don’t panic and flee after the first full episode!

Pereshati is getting murdered as the story opens. She tries to convince herself that her clear murder memory is all a dream when she wakes up in what appears to be the past. That can’t be right – time travel is impossible! However, she soon realizes the events leading to her murder are playing out EXACTLY as they were before, and she wants to make it stop.

Her rash new plan seems to be going well… right up until she is being buried alive. But somehow, waking up as the dirt hits seals the deal she was trying to make with a scary Grand Duke. After this, she can seek revenge against her murderers from a position of power and try to not get murdered again!

This story suggests that a “curse” might just be a technology we don’t understand; that intimacy is difficult with people who are literally poisonous; that you shouldn’t rule out your daughter-in-law’s accusations that someone might be committing terrible crimes using [the family secret]; that it’s good to make your husband blush now and then; and that being kind can make your in-laws very CLINGY.

I reread the series up until the present chapter, and realized its long serialization made me forget key details. I enjoy the story even more for having refreshed my memory.

Pereshati looking shocked is hilarious; I like her outfits; I like her facial expressions (and the jokes about the Duke’s facial expressions)… She seems like a rather nice, normal person going through some extremely terrible things, and trying to remain kind while doing so. The Duke also seems rather… like a normal person? (Dukes in other stories are merciless killers who draw their sword several times a day to dish out punishments; this one is somewhere between chill and chilly.)

Cute, fun, with good collars, with accurate-feeling scenes of awkwardness… I’m looking forward to more.

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Writing: Fountain Pens (Primary Red Theme)

A Pilot Metropolitan in Red, with a writing sample from its smooth medium nib.
My very red Pilot Metropolitan. The ink is likely Diamine Syrah.

This Pilot Metropolitan (yes, another) is another satisfying, well-designed, reasonably priced pen. It writes smoothly and looks great. It has spent many hours in my hand, and that time has been pleasant.

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Book: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Cover of the book Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
by Gabrielle Zevin
published by Penguin Random House
2022

The pen friend who recommended this to me was so right – and so good – to encourage me to read this!

Sadie is visiting her sister in a hospital when she meets Sam after his life-changing accident. The fact that he speaks with her (and almost no one else) leads to her return, and then to a friendship that spans decades – and the creation of multiple immersive video games reflecting their joint and separate (and often disparate) visions. Estrangement, reconnection, deep friendship, creative collaboration, fundamentally knowing each other at the geekiest levels, affection, exploitation, and the fraught business of being opposite sex business partners in the world of video gaming make for an engaging, emotionally developed story.

Zevin creates a window in time when real innovation in video games was possible, when leaving MIT to create a game as one’s life’s work felt right, when friends made in youth become lifelong, when life happens to members of a group at different rates, and when creative credit and blame were never evenly distributed.

The collaborative elements, design, and friend-strife all feel compelling. It is hard to dream and create with other people! Even people you know well. ESPECIALLY people you know well.

This is an adventure story, a tech story, several relationship stories, a tribute to geek culture at its university-spawned-finest, and the story of several entwined lives running on slightly-misaligned-yet-deeply-caring tracks. I was deeply engaged throughout.

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Life: Sunshine and Wind

Photo of a yellow, black, and blue butterfly (with some red eye like patterns) resting on flowers.
Whoever designed this butterfly should be very proud.

I’m posting with the hesitation of someone who realizes that dumb and indifferent AI programs will steal and then vomit up my (incompletely digested) content in no coherent order. (What a world.)

I’m relaxing, playing with ink, buying paper, and eating delicious (vegan Vietnamese) food with a friend I haven’t seen since the Before Times. These are good days.

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Book (Manhwa): A Not So Fairy Tale by Hyobin

Banner for A Not So Fairy Tale by Hyobin
Screenshot

A Not So Fairy Tale
by hyobin
published by Webtoon (44 chapters, ongoing)
2023 – present

This contemporary Korean comic tells the traditional story of the Fairy and the Woodcutter in a modern zombie-fighting context!

A thousand years ago, a goddess came to earth, and (under instruction from a suspicious deer) a human man stole her clothes (her keys to heaven) and demanded that she have his children, only to die without returning them, leaving her trapped on earth with humans. (See Wikipedia’s summary of the variations of this folktale.) In the contemporary Korea of this comic, she is still here – and she is PISSED. Zombies (called Fiends) are killing people, and Moran Cheon, as she is now known, is a famous actress who SECRETLY can kill zombies with her bare hands. She can also leap from tall buildings, is inhumanly strong, and is unnaturally beautiful.

She wants to go back to to the celestial realm, is angry at that evil deer, and has been waiting impatiently for that damned woodcutter to be reincarnated so she can get her situation sorted out.

Three highly attractive characters from A Not So Fairy Tale.
The characters are good-looking, and drawn in an atypical style that I enjoy.

There is more to the fiend situation than anyone knows, and the detective who is investigating isn’t dazzled by the goddess at all – a sure sign that HE IS THE PROBLEM – I mean, the reincarnation she has been waiting for. The goddess has struggled with with loneliness, resentment, a fox-spirit child she raised as her only other potentially immortal companion, and the risk that she will miss the chance to return to the heavens forever.

This story has: a celebrity, zombie-fighting, immortal actress; a handsome cop who may have hidden memories of his past lives; luxury condominiums; corporate cover-ups; secret crime-fighting identities; unnatural healing abilities; characters who lack human ethics; monsters posing as normal people (until they are ready to eat you); eternal villains and their adversaries; and the fox drawn in…vulnerable moments.

This comic is refreshing – contemporary urban settings, a new type of monster, a non-traditional interpretation of a folktale, lovely art – and is the least predictable of the stories I’m reading. I’m looking forward to future chapters.

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Writing: Fountain Pens (Bright plus Dusty Green Theme)

Collage of three images showing a full length Monteverde fountain pen, a close up of its nib, and a page of writing in a dusky green
My Monteverde Prima fountain pen; its nib; a writing sample about the our golden summers, and how strange it is that other places have green summers. Who knew? The muted green ink is Herbin’s ‘Vert Empire.’

The view out my east facing dining room window is of the deep green of a holly tree, and the brighter green of a juniper, which inspired me to fill my greenest pen and write about the color.

This Monteverde Prima is one of my earliest fountain pen purchases. I initially thought it was stingy with ink, but just happened to be using a drier flowing ink. I tried others and improved my paper choices, which help me appreciate this pen’s smooth writing and pleasant proportions. It is comfortable to hold, is reliable (doesn’t clog or dry out), and the way it catches the light is attractive. The nib is firm, and I am amused that Monteverde is so proud of it that they engraved their long name on it TWICE.

The ink is Herbin’s ‘Vert Empire,’ the color of a dusty green velvet, or leafy desert plants that must protect themselves from the sun by being a bit gray. The pen isn’t an exact match for any of my five or so shades of green ink, though it comes quite close to Herbin’s ‘Lierre Sauvage‘ (which the Herbin website associates with anarchy. Ah, leafy green anarchy…). A medium bright green with silver sparkle could also come close, though that might be difficult to read if too shiny. (If you are a fan of Herbin’s “Vert Atlantide,” you probably beat me to this.)

Yes, my personal true color of California in summer is the yellow-gold of sun-dried grass on our rolling hills, but our extensive agricultural regions offer many shades of green, from the yellow-greens of grape leaves through the pale, silver-greens of artichoke leaves.

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