The Sunday Salon

Sir Francis Drake: The Queens Pirate by Harry Kelsey
I finished this biography today about my first ever historical crush. When I was ten I read a highly romanticized account of the life of Sir Francis Drake. This biography is certainly less flattering. Kelsey gives mad props to Drake’s achievements and his kick-assness as a pirate. On the flipside Kelsey illuminates Drake’s many character flaws which include beheading his BFF over a joke taken the wrong way, knocking up a black slave and then abandoning her on an island, not doing what Queen Liz says to loot, taking more credit for the defeat against the Spanish Armada than he deserved, manipulating and abusing his crew, and general thievery, deceit and being a bad-ass. Was Drake a prick? Yes. Do I still have the hots for him? Hell yes. Do I most likely need therapy because of this? Certainly.

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
Oh geez Clarissa – you’re making me crazy. There are really good parts to this novel, but they are buried in letter after letter of the same-old-thing. Today I read letters 56 and 57 and like most of the letters previous it goes something like this:

• Clarissa to BFF Anna – oh my god, my parents totally are gonna make me marry this creep. Here I am in my room being all emo and weepy and no one cares. My sister’s being a bitch and my brother is a dickhead. My mom loves me but won’t have my back and my dad is screaming. Geez… that Lovelace dude they hate is starting to seem way better.
• Anna to Clarissa – fuck them, man. What a bunch of douchebags your family is. I would totally tell them to kiss your ass and go to Lovelace – at least he is hot and rich and popular. Not a lame, cheap-ass like Solmes.
• Clarissa to Anna – omg, Anna. You whore. How dare you talk about my family! Yeah, it is kinda messed up, but they’re my fam! And Lovelace tired to kill my brother and, dick that my brother is, that is so not cool. You’re my BFF Anna, but I can’t just take my money my grandpa left me and ditch the fam’ – I’m a goody goody!

Of course this isn’t an exact transcript. But basically that is what happens again, and again, and again.

Fables: Storybook Love by Bill Willingham
I read the first two parts of this third volume of the Fables series. The first story mirrors some American myths that involve Mountain Jack, the devil, death, and a tarty southern belle. The second issue is the first part of a two-parter and concerns the Fables community being mistaken for vampires! I just love this series to pieces and cannot recommend it enough!