Poesy the Monster Slayer

Poesy the Monster Slayer, by Cory Doctorow and Matt Rockefeller, is a charming illustrated book telling the story of Poesy, an imaginative and resourceful girl, and her battle against various fantastical nightmare creatures. It hits a delicious middle point between the kid's perspective (fight monsters that only rise up when the adults are asleep!) and the adults' (please will this kid just sleep through the night without getting up to loudly play).

I liked the illustrations, the creativity, and the double-reading: it offers a storyline for kids and a sly behind-the-scenes storyline for grown-up interpretation.

This post's theme word is picaro (n), "a rogue; an adventurer." Kids' books often cast the starring child as a picaro, when it is plain to any observant adult that they are a chaotic villain.

Live theatre, sort of

WHEREAS the ongoing pandemic and various other elements of environmental, social, political, economic, and biological disaster loom large, and

WHEREAS the rational fairly strict self-quarantine (of those who are able) has, since March, severely limited occasions to socialize and gather in groups for the purposes of mutually enjoying culture and company, it is

HEREBY ACKNOWLEDGED that having so many performers shift to an online method for displaying their art to a geographically disparate crowd has, in fact, WIDENED this reader's ability to financially support the artists she loves while appreciating their performances in real-time.

Everything's on a screen, and frankly having to see my family only in delineated, buffered, pixelated windows feels much more limiting than having to see live performers in windows. Realistically these performers would have been mostly inaccessible because they were not touring my locality; so I find a tiny sliver of redemption for 2020 in the broader access to live art. The rest of 2020 should consider itself still on blast for its shortcomings.

This post's theme word is rort (n), "a wild party." I have tickets to watch shows three nights this week, from the comfortable pajama-clad rort of my own sofa!