Angela Lovell – Blood Drunk

Books, FLYMF Alums

I’ve been meaning to mention this for a long time, but FLYMF alum Angela Lovell has published a young-adult vampire novel, “Blood Drunk.”

As she describes it on her website:

With summer waning quickly before the start of his senior year, a family emergency forces Blue Knightly to leave his small Midwest town and travel to New York City to locate his rebellious sister. From the morgue to Central Park to the underbelly of New York, he quickly discovers the big city is the least of his concerns as he reluctantly takes sides within a warring faction of vampires to unravel the mystery of his sister’s disappearance. In their underground world of abandoned subway tunnels, Blue finds himself falling for a femme fatale vampire whose vibe is seldom clear. Not knowing who to trust, Blue finds himself battling not only the undead, but his own heart, as the family crisis escalates and every decision could be his last.

I picked up a copy for my cousin for Christmas, and I look forward to ordering my own as soon as I can shake a few bucks together. I’m sure it’s extremely creative, dark and hilarious.

Angela’s very funny story, “I’ll Have My Rapist with a Side of Cranberry Sauce” was published in FLYMF’s Greatest Hits. Her other contributions to FLYMF include The Lawnballers, Never Judge An Artist By Her Vagina Dress (Or Lack Thereof), The Troll Made Me Do It and her excellent Whorescopes series.

Review: Philip Larkin, Collected Poems

Books

This full collection of Larkin’s poems exhaustively explores his main preoccupations: death, sex and a sense of being set apart that’s simultaneously embraced and lamented. He’s at his best when the loss is leavened with humor, as in the famous Annus Mirabilis. Several of the poems suggest deep relationships with women, but many more objectify them, often in a juvenile “every woman excites the flesh” manner.

On whole the poems are excellent, though. They contain wry, understated takes on social living and limitations. The contradictions he suggests are fun to spend time with. However, for first exposure to Larkin, I would suggest “High Windows,” which contains most of his best poems.

Favorites here include “Mother, Summer, I“; “At thirty-one, when some are rich”; “MCMXIV“; “High Windows”; “Annus Mirabilis“; “This Be the Verse“; and “Vers de Societe.”

“Kids Mean Money”

Well Worth Reading

“What we’re talking about here is the financialization of public education,” said Alex Molnar, a research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education who is affiliated with the education policy center. “These folks are fundamentally trying to do to public education what the banks did with home mortgages.”

As the New York Times shares, for profit-education looks like the next big scam. I’m sure everyone will be suitably chastened when the bubble blows up in seven years.