The Tarantula Lounge

      My buddy Tim recently attended a work conference, and he learned the term  Covid Carryover . A covid carryover is a lesson/habit we picked up during the pandemic that we intend to carry over into the future. In his context, it was a work-related question, but I think my most obvious covid carryovers are life- and culture-related. Here are my covid carryovers:   Support our community businesses.   I try to do this, anyway, in a half-hearted way. Now I want to keep dollars local, support the businesses of friends and family (and make friends with local business folks). Why? I think it’s more humane, I think it’s cooler to keep money local, and it’s more fun and fulfilling, as well. I also think it helps us realize the actual cost of things. Cheapest isn’t always best (and isn’t cheapest in the long run, when we consider the ethical, social, environmental, and spiritual costs of never-ending economic expansion and consumerism.)   Spend time with friends. I miss hanging out with frie

 

Windhall : A Novel by Ava Barry My rating: 4 of 5 stars "Everyone loves a beautiful dead girl." Windhall is a novel about Hollywood, the way men treat women, fame, obsession, and Los Angeles. Hailey is an antisocial journalist at a counterculture zine turned blog (I think) in LA. He is obsessed with the decades old murder of a Hollywood star at the home of an infamous director. His obsession weaves in with his own family’s story, as well as the DNA of modern day Los Angeles. It’s hard for him to separate the glamour and allure of the city with the facts, and isn’t that the point of Hollywood? While Hailey is obsessed with the historical murder, the mansion where it occurred is not much more than a tour-bus destination these days. However, all of that changes when someone murders two women at the foot of the mansion. The murders grab the city’s attention, and some of the players aren’t as keen as others to be back in front of the public’s eye. Hailey finds himself simultane

Camino Island by John Grisham My rating: 4 of 5 stars The wildest thing about this John Grisham book is that it’s not about lawyers. Our man John instead focuses on writers, books, heists, and French furntiure. It’s a welcome and pleasant departure for the reader as much as I’m sure it is for Grisham. It’s a fun little novel that would probably make a nice little Netflix limited run series. Or Paramount+, mayhaps. If you like fun but relaxing beach reads with a little bit of danger and sexiness – here you go. Mercer is a middling author stuck teaching English as an adjunct. When her adjunct contract isn’t renewed, she hits a new low point. What’s next? Finally get back to writing – find another teaching job – something else? Before Mercer can make a decision one is made for her. The myterious disappearance of several Fitzgerald manuscripts from Princeton’s library means that the feds and insurers for the ultra-rich need an inside (wo)man to infiltrate the world of shady black market