People I read

🎬 Who Done It: The Clue Documentary: Directed by Jeff C. Smith. With Colleen Camp, Tim Curry, Syd Dutton, Jane Jenkins. Clue (1985) has become a cult classic film and is loved by multiple generations. Yet there has never been a documentary created to tell the behind the scenes stories…until now. 🔗

A cute fan documentary about the making of Clue (1985), with interviews from some cast and crew members, including the writer/director, and otherwise clips from conventions, TV interviews, and so on.

Audio levels are a bit off on the older recorded bits (the director started in 2017) but overall still watchable. Very interesting learning about the history of the movie’s development, and how they got the cast together.

I thought it was funny that Clue is so popular on social media (especially Tumblr) but the director of the documentary didn’t know any other fans IRL and even the cast/crew didn’t know people loved it. Hopefully they do now, of course!

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

🎬 Some Like It Hot: Directed by Billy Wilder. With Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft. After two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in. 🔗

Queer af! And I did enjoy it, especially Marilyn who was a hoot, but if I think about it too much I start getting the heebies.

I HATE when womanizer characters trick their love interest into liking them and the love interest doesn’t get angry at him when the trick is revealed, because they’re in love. Ugh.

Anyway, now I want to see if I can find recordings of all-girl jazz bands to listen to…

📺 2025 Watched List

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

Life Updates

I’ve been so enjoying my time in Ann Arbor– or at least in this part of A² in particular.

Every morning I wake up around 6, make a cup of coffee and go out to sit in the garden for an hour or two. Then, after feeding the cats, I go walk around the neighborhood for as long as I want, usually 40 minutes, come back and shower and then get to work! I sit at a high desk and watch the garden out the window, and I see all sorts of animals: groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels (three kinds), chipmunks, stray cats, and once even a deer!

The week has fairly raced by! I did make it into town once this week, to check out the farmer’s market and a few shops. I stopped at a used bookstore called Digger’s, where you literally dig around for media (books, DVDs, games, CDs), and managed to find four books for $0.75/each. Now I’m REALLY in trouble, between those and the ones I got from the Little Free Libraries earlier– and did I mention I found an UNLICENSED LFL on a walk the other day? Of course I got a book from there, so now I’m up to (I think) 10 books still waiting to be read.

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

Book Info

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir

LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/1911762/t/I-Married-a-Logger-Life-in-Michigans-Tall-Timber

Acquired from: Digger’s, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Started reading: August 14, 2025

Finished reading: August 17, 2025

Review (written Aug 17)

Overall a good read– author has a good amount of humor and can write funny scenes well. It’s interesting to read about how the logging industry worked before it became industrialized in the late 1940s. The author has some typical 1950s attitudes about thinness and unions which are questionable in modern times, but overall not too bad. It’s an upbeat memoir about a particular time in Michigan that I enjoyed reading.

(Crossposted to LibraryThing)

I’m not going to keep this particular copy because the glue binding is totally falling apart, but if and when I happen to build a library for myself in the future I would enjoy having a copy of this on the shelf.

Reading Updates (Aug 14-17)

Page 0: I picked this book up because a) it’s a memoir set in Michigan (where I’m currently catsitting) and b) the author did her own illustrations and they’re pretty good! Published originally in 1951 and this is a reprint by a local Michigan publisher in the 80s.

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

Went on a re-visiting circuit of Little Free Libraries from the first log, and found a new library! Plus some more good books.

Was a really nice walk, too, though I was sweating by the end because it was like 80F by 8am yeesh.

On another day, I went into the main downtown part of Ann Arbor and visited two LFLs that’re near the Farmer’s Market, though I didn’t find any books to take with me.

New LFL visited:

1. LFL #167052 – Jones Community Garden Library – Ann Arbor, MI
2. LFL #189363 – Ann Arbor, MI (not listed on the map somehow)
3. LFL #198908 – Detroit Street Filling Station – Ann Arbor, MI

Dropped off Moby-Duck, Seasons of the Wild and Climate Resilience!

Obtained Into the Wild, Granta issue 138, The Forest Unseen, Sweet Days of Discipline

🌟 All LFL Visited / All LFL Visit Logs

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

Much larger IRL than I expected… [Wikipedia]

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

Life Updates

I can’t believe another week has gone by already! I’ve been enjoying myself immensely here, sitting in the garden and harvesting handfuls of cherry tomatoes. I haven’t even made it into town proper yet and I’m coming up on my third week in this housesit. Whoops!

🐈‍⬛ Cats are doing well, and the shyest one even let me pet him (once) when he saw his siblings in the same room with me. They’ve also started coming to wake me (at 6am) which I’m taking as a sign that they like me.

Media Consumption

🎧 Too Many Tabs podcast has started their Quack Month, where they focus on quacks in August. It’s one of my favorite months for their podcast, partly because Mrs. P is the one researching and explaining everything, and she’s great. (Mr. P is also good but his shtick is shouting enthusiastically about everything which can be tiring. Also if you’re looking at the thumbnails– only Mr. P is onscreen because Mrs. P doesn’t want internet fame.)

The first episode was about Liver King, who I’ve only seen on the periphery on TikTok from people talking about how horrible he is.

📺 I watched The Producers (1967) which I think I’ve seen before– but I don’t remember the entire last half of the film, so basically it was like watching it for the first time. I enjoyed seeing where they changed things for the musical (which I love) and what things they kept. I much prefer the characters in the musical, as they have a bit more depth.

I also watched The Wiz (1978)! I loved the actors/singing/music, but the empty urban pseudo-NYC streets freaked me out (maybe it was supposed to do that?) and some of the musical numbers went on way too long (the intro to Oz scene where they change colors over and over). I’m planning on watching the Live production of the musical whenever I can track it down, as apparently the stage version is much better.

📖 Finished reading Moby-Duck (reading log + review), which I overall enjoyed but I do think it needed a bit more tightening up.

Also finished Seasons of the Wild (reading log + review), which was underwhelming.

Currently reading Climate Resilience (reading log), which is a good topic and has some great tips for getting more involve with climate activism, but some of the language feels…idk…over-the-top? I’m not sure how to describe it. Like, instead of just saying “I met this person and it was great,” it’s written more like “I had the honor of being in the same room as this amazing activist who has done 50 million things and is a mother, daughter, sister, aunt and earth goddess.” :/ Also they’re edited/compiled essays from interviews and everyone ends up sounding the same because of that, which is a shame.

I think I may temporarily swap over to my Kindle and read a fantasy/romance book as a palette cleanser.

Food & Dining

I harvested enough cherry tomatoes to finally be able to make a soup, which I did. (I used this recipe.) Of course as soon as I made it, I didn’t want to eat it, so it’s in the fridge for later.

The next batch of tomatoes are going to be made into a pasta sauce. I have some non-cherry ones ripening in a paper bag, and they’re nearly ready to use. I just need to track down some jars so I have somewhere to store it all!

Web Updates

New on the site:

• Added a new note to my Commonplace Notebook on the Notes about AI page

Posted on the blog:

• weeknotes (july 27-august 2) (DW)
• morning in the garden (DW)
• 📸 garden haul: cherry tomatoes + bell pepper (DW)
• reading wednesday (DW)
• 📖 reading log: seasons of the wild by sy montgomery (DW)
• 📖 reading log: climate resilience by kylie flanagan

I also did a lot of theme customization, which I outlined here on this page.

Looking Forward

My usual goal to write here and on my site. I’m nearly done with a guide to customizing the look of your Calibre library, I just need to finish the formatting.

I’d also like to get in the habit of leaving comments on other people’s blogs (or emailing them), especially if I link them in a linkspam post. Right now I do it sporadically and I think if I make it more of a habit then it’ll stick better.

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

💗 2025 Reading Log | 51/200 yearly goal (+1 from last update)

This morning I finished reading Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn (book log here), a travel memoir/popular science book ostensibly about a bunch of plastic animals that fell overboard in the early 90s and how they roamed around the ocean for 15 years. I enjoyed reading this book for many reasons, but I have to admit I don’t think the premise held together at the end.

The author supposedly quit his job to follow the duck trail but the last two (or maybe three) chapters he spends following oceanographers around instead and doesn’t even see any ducks (or other plastic animals) and barely remembers to squeeze mention of them into a few paragraphs. Which, I get it, the ducks are a dead end, but it’s the whole premise of your book…

Also I don’t want to be overly judgemental but he definitely did that thing that men do when they freak out about being fathers for the first time, abandon their family for a personal quest and then figure out they enjoy being a dad and having a son, etc. Just. Ugh.

Anyway! I need to get through some more Little Free Library books so I can swap them out again, so I’m going to start reading Seasons of the Wild by Sy Montgomery, which is a collection of essays about nature throughout the year, etc. It’s much shorter than Moby-Duck so I should be able to read it quick enough.

On a personal note, I really enjoyed putting together the book log post for Moby-Duck, and I’m definitely going to do that regularly.

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.