Happy Halloween! An estimated 67% of Americans will give out candy today, according to the National Retail Federation. Tomorrow is the day that those who celebrate will venerate their dead, followed by turning our clocks back an hour on Sunday, and voting on Tuesday, where hopefully we will not turn the damn country back a 100 years or more. 1. Election countdown With five days until Election Day, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris both have viable paths to the White House. Polls show the race is neck and neck — and could be decided by small numbers of voters in a single battleground state. The candidates are focusing on seven key states in their final campaign sprint: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia. Trump was in Wisconsin on Wednesday, where he broke out the props and seized on a garbled remark by President Joe Biden that seemed to insult Trump voters as “garbage.” Biden has denied calling Trump supporters “garbage,” saying his comment on a call Tuesday had been misinterpreted. 2. It's The Economy Several economists and officials have told CNN the economy has finally pulled off a soft landing, in which inflation is tamed without a recession — an exceptionally rare achievement. Gross domestic product, which measures all the goods and services produced in the economy, expanded at an annualized rate of 2.8% in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That’s a slightly weaker pace than the second quarter’s 3% rate and above the 2.6% rate economists projected in a FactSet poll. Wednesday’s report comes after earlier data showed the economy added a whopping 254,000 jobs in September, inflation is a whisper away from the Federal Reserve’s 2% target and consumer confidence jumped this month by the fastest clip since March of 2021 — all signs of a robust economy. The bad news is that this doesn't seem to sway voters, but it will make the initial path for the next president easier. 3. Extreme weather At least 95 people have been killed by severe flash floods in Spain, according to authorities on Wednesday, as emergency responders scramble to find dozens of missing people. In the worst-affected region of Valencia, 92 people were killed and around 1,200 are thought to still be trapped, local officials said. Separately, Taiwan’s largest storm since 1996 made landfall today with heavy rains and damaging winds equivalent to a Category 3 Atlantic hurricane. The storm, known as Typhoon Kong-rey, has killed at least one person and injured dozens of others. This will be a task for the next administration to face--will they be up to it? So have fun today because the next week gets very scary indeed.

Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich

This is a devastating book to read. It goes a long way to explaining why Russia invaded Ukraine, why Crimea just wasn't enough, and why even when Putin is gone the problem will remain. This is the first book that I have read by this author, but this is her fifth book about what it is to be Russian, the last in her series of investigations of the psychological make-up of the Soviet people, which she shows was conditioned by perpetual war. She has written about the Second World War as remembered by female veterans and by orphaned children, about the Afghanistan war, and about the traumatic Chernobyl disaster, combated in a war-like manner. The finale deals with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, inducing multiple civil wars in the former Soviet republics, military stand-offs in the constitutional crises of 1991 and 1993, and the war-like criminality and terrorist attacks of today. This book stands out for its wide historical scope: We hear the voices of people who survived the Stalinist labor camps of the 1930s, lived through the Second World War, and experienced postwar Soviet and then post-Soviet history, up to the present. Alexievich arranges this vast material so as to yield a unique insight into the failure of the post-Soviet democratization. shows that above all they were psychologically misguided. From 1985, under the auspices of glasnost’, the newspapers were abruptly filled with photographs of anonymous mass graves, vivid testimonies to the horrible crimes committed by the Soviet regime. The avalanche of historical revelations in the press was so jarringly at odds with official historiography that in 1988 my high school’s graduation exam in contemporary history was cancelled. No one knew any more how to evaluate and grade students’ knowledge of Soviet history. This is the backdrop against which modern Russia was crafted, and Ukraine is the first to suffer the consequences, but perhaps not the last.

A Family Affair (2023)

I have been trying to watch romantic comedies that have accomplished actors in them in order to sift through what might be acceptable and what might be painful, and the cast here includes two Academy Award winners (Nicole Kidman and Kathy Bates) as well as Zac Efron--so the acting is reasonable, but the script is weak, and the overall result is less than the sum of its parts. Kidman plays a successful writer who's husband dies years ago and she has not had a significant relationship since then. Her daughter, Zara, has creative aspirations, but is afraid of the shadow her mother's shadow casts, is working as a gopher for a successful but untalented actor who is emotionally immature and not at all nice. So when her mother and he start a pretty torrid affair, Zara has a lot of issues with it. That is essentially the plot, and it plays out more or less predictable across a 90 minute story line. My recommendation is to skip it, unless you really love one of the actors (I think Kidman is pretty spectacular, but even so, she really couldn't prop this up), or your bar for enjoyment of romantic comedies is very low (again, I think I fall int his category, and yet I struglled with this one).

The Fetishist by Katherine Min

I did not realize that the author had died before this book was published and that it was published posthumously. I hope she is happy with it as it turned out, a work of raging against the machine, a fantasy about striking back at the white patriarchy that takes what they want when they want it, and then spit it back out. The vision of control that JD Vance and his cohorts yearn to return to, where women stay at home, do as they are told, and are inevitably crushed under the weight of male ineptitude. There are three stories of three larger-than-life characters woven loosely together. Alma Soon Ja Lee is a woman of South Korean heritage and a world-renowned cellist, but when we meet her she is struggling with MS. She falls into a coma and in her coma relives her love story with her former fiancé Daniel Karmody. Daniel is a violinist and the fetishist of the novel who has damaged Alma and countless other Asian women through his objectification of them; when he re-experiences his love for Alma he also experiences deep regret for how badly he treated her. And finally there is Kyoko Tokugawa, a young Japanese-American punk rocker who blames Daniel for her mother Emi’s suicide and kidnaps him with the help of her partner Kornell; she plans on killing Daniel in her late mother’s basement by forcing him to eat the poisonous Japanese fish Fugu, or pufferfish. Well, it doesn't quite go that way, but a girl can dream.

Sandra Lee Design

I took a class with Sandra Lee Chandler at the Chaska Area Quilt Club's fall show this year, and I was very impressed with her as both an artist and as a teacher. Here is what she has to say about herself on her website Sandra Lee Designs: "With over 35 years of teaching experience and multiple accolades as a textile artist under my belt, including serving as a Bernina Ambassador, Aurifil Color Builder Designer, and appearing on The Quilt Show and Quilting Arts TV, I've learned the secret of happiness - there is no pre-written pattern to life! This realization, in conjunction with my strong passion for fiber art and teaching, propelled me to create Sandra Lee Design, a Creative space where makers can gather to experiment, collaborate, and inspire one another to push their creative boundaries. There is so much more to art than just the end product Art is vibrant and diverse, and it holds the power to serve as a reflection of what means the most to you." I took a class to make a jacket, but her identified specialty areas are making denim quilts and clothing and teaching the Sashiko and Boro methods of stitching. She is an avid upcycler who has a great eye and shares her thoughts and ideas freely. I would highly recommend taking a class with her, and I would travel again to do so myself.

Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

This is a somewhat deceptive book to read, with the text boldly stated and at times revolting, and then there is the subtext of "how did we get here?" that at least for me was harder to reach, but once I saw it, I saw the whole book in another light. And so it goes with the concept of "motherhood" as opposed to parenthood. There is a whole march on the right towards stripping women of every right they have, starting with autonomy over their bodies, and then moving on to losing all autonomy altogether--but wrapping it up as the gift of motherhood, that their destiny is not just to bear the children but once they are free of the womb an individuals that literally anyone could raise, that no, it is then up to them to bring them to adulthood. The idea is that it is their destiny, when in actuality it is just a way for men to exert control over women in all spheres of their lives without seeming like the angry controlling masters they wish to be. This is such a story, a woman who has a child she just isn't up to the task of raising on her own, what she does as a result of that, the mistakes that she makes, the unhappiness that she lives, and how hopelessly wrong it is for us to pursue such a path. It you see women in this light you will not be pleased with this book, and if you don't it might knock you off your axis for a bit. It is well worth reading and thinking about.

Made In Italy (2023)

Real life father and son Liam Neeson and Micheál Richardson play a father and son who finally force themselves to open up and grieve the loss of their wife/mother, who died in a car accident about two decades earlier. In real life, the actors suffered a similar tragedy when Neeson’s wife and Richardson’s mother, Natasha Richardson, died in a skiing accident in 2009. The parallel is inescapable, giving the movie an undercurrent of sorrow, despite the sun-dappled Tuscan scenery and the slightly contrived circumstances. The son is getting divorced and his soon to be ex-wife is aiming to hurt him--she is selling the gallery he manages out from uner him. He decides he is going to buy it, an act of clear desperation, and to raise the cash he convinces his father to sell their jointly owned house in Tuscany--the place where his mother is from. The house is a wreck, and the father is too, not having painted since his wife died and in the course of fixing it up they work on fixing themselves up as well. It is more of a dramedy than a rom com, to be sure, but as light movies watched while traveling go, I would recommend it.

Night Flyer by Tiya Miles

This is subtitled: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People. Harriet Tubman is one of the ten most famous Americans ever born and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill (Andrew Jackson finally getting his comeuppance, the very antithesis of an American hero replaced by a woman born a slave). Tubman, who was indeed born into slavery as Araminta “Minty” Ross in Maryland, suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of 12 or 13 at the hands of an overseer, which resulted in what sounds like a form of temporal lobe epilepsy. The injury may explain the dreams and visions she later experienced that, along with the sale of her sisters, were motivating factors for her later actions as a woman guided by God to bring her people to freedom. She changed her name upon marrying, at approximately 22 to a free Black man named John Tubman, taking his last name, and her mother’s first name, Harriet. Thus, Minty Ross, the slave, became Harriet Tubman the liberator. She was small, disabled, but a gifted outdoorswoman who was fearless. Harriet is credited with multiple round-trips along the underground railroad, conducting approximately 70 enslaved people to freedom, starting with family and friends, but her mission expanded, and she often talked about being guided and that she received messages about how and where to go to rescue people. During the Civil War, itself, she also functioned as a military scout and spy, and she proved essential in a June 1863 raid into Confederate territory that freed nearly 750 slaves. Even with the end of the war and slavery, she carried on her mission for God, managing a boarding house and assisted living center in her home in the north. Hers is an inspirational story and this version is a wonder to read.

O'Brien's Pub, Shakopee, Minnesota

I was in Shakopee for a work trip and we spent the day in the Shakopee Public Library. So first off, that is a beautiful public building, and we were able to really enjoy being there. It is just a couple of blocks from this restaurant, which looks very much like your usual bar, kind of dark inside, and not much to recommend it, other than that we were a group of about 15 and they happily seated us together, and provided us with seperate checks--with a QR code to pay by, so no having to wait for the whole crew of us to sort through our bills. You can pay traditionally, but this was a huge plus with a big crowd. But that is not why I am compelled to write this review--someone amongst us mentioned that they smoke their own meat, and so after having endures a very mediocre pastrami sandwich earlier in the week, I boldly ordered a corned beef sandwich on a pretzel roll and oh my goodness, it was perfect. The meat was delicious, replete with a deliciously smoky flavor but oh so moist. And with great mustard! I subbed out the fries for a wedge salad--which was enormous, almost a lunch in itself, and I would definitely go back.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

This is a light romance novel of the modern variety, which I have come to really enjoy (in spite of thinking of myself as someone who does not read romance novels). When I read it, I could see where it was headed very early on, yet despite that, I had trouble putting it down. The plot gets off to a slightly improbable start. Phoebe Stone is recovering from yet another failed fertility attempt, and in the midst of licking her wounds from that, she is confronted with her husband leaving her for another woman--one who has just had a baby. So newly divorced Phoebe Stone decides to go to the luxury Rhode Island hotel that her husband wouldn't book a holiday at with her with the express intention of killing herself. She soon finds out that she’s the only guest not attending the week-long, million-dollar wedding of spoiled little rich girl Lila. So even though the tone is one of giving up on both life and happiness, there is a bit of the comical involved. Lila, who is just as self-centered as this sounds, is terrified that a suicide would ruin her perfect wedding, and so she befriends Phoebe, who gradually discovers reasons to cherish life again. It is a mixture of fun and serious in a story that is propelled forward with recognizable characters and when it arrives at a largely foreseeable ending, you can close the book with a satisfied grin.