In Which I Submit To the Dungeon Crawler Carl Universe, Such That I Am Now A Donut Hole

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Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

LITERALLY WHY AM I CRYING?!? This series is about a dude who runs around in boxers and a leather jacket and his ex-girlfriend’s cat on his shoulder! WHY DOES IT HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS?!?

I think I could have held the line against Feelings if I’d stopped at Book 1. Dungeon Crawler Carl was mostly simply fun--in a really fucked up way, I mean. Y’all, that Hoarder Neighborhood Boss thought she’d died and gone to hell because she was a bad person! I was, as they say, appalled.

Interestingly, that scene is set up to reward the reader who isn’t simply rushing through the text to get to the next explosion… as long as they’re not already literate in Spanish, I guess. I can read Spanish if it’s easy, but my older kid can’t, and when we were talking about the book she hadn’t thought that scene was especially affecting, but THEN she admitted that she hadn’t bothered to translate the Spanish, either. When I told her what the Hoarder had been saying, she was all, “Yeah, omg that’s fucked up.”

I also think it’s interesting that the two most messed up scenes in the entire series, that Hoarder one and the goblin baby one, are both in Book 1. At the end of Book 1, and then much more heavy-handedly throughout the rest of the series, we start getting kicked in the teeth by the concept that the NPCs are beings, too, with their own thoughts and feelings and interior worlds, etc., so the idea of horrific violence against them no longer works to elicit even horrified laughter.

I think it takes about that same amount of time for us to realize that Carl isn’t just an action-adventure meathead, and that even though Donut still has her psychotic cat-like tendencies, she’s going to grow emotionally. 

Although--several characters throughout the book call her a child, or child-like, but I don’t feel like that’s an accurate description for how she is, or especially for the relationship between her and Carl. She’s very much exactly as a cat would be if they were suddenly actually a person in a fur suit, and I think that is a major part of why I love this book so much. At its core, Dungeon Crawler Carl is genuinely just a book about a guy who really, really, really loves his cat. And if you, too, have powerfully, aggressively, wholeheartedly loved an animal companion, I feel like you’re going to recognize that and you’re going to get why that’s important. Like, my cat, Spots, is not my baby. She gets on my nerves. She’s spoiled and completely unreasonable. I would also murder an actual human in cold blood to protect her and I doubt I’d even feel bad about it afterwards.

This isn’t my first series in the LitRPG genre, although it’s close--I’ve read the Ready, Player One series, but that’s about it--and I’m definitely not as into the passages about stats and loot boxes and character classes as I could be, although I’ve played my share of DnD so I understand it. And the books where the premise switched to Pokemon or Mario Kart were not as fun as the dungeon fantasy ones. Is the trains premise meant to mimic an RPG genre? Surely not Ticket to Ride, right? Although now that we’re talking about it, a Settlers of Catan book would be SICK!

Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Carl’s Doomsday Scenario is where the stakes got a lot less like simple fucked-up fun and more like we are torturing these people in such a heartbreaking manner, because it turns out that my meathead Coastie is actually a really good guy who’s had his goodness taken advantage of for too long, and the stuck-up cat brat is actually the pet mom that she herself should have had, and she knows it. Like, genuinely how does the exact same book have me exclaiming both “HEY! IT’S UNETHICAL TO GENOCIDE AN ENTIRE PLANET!” and “HEY! IT’S UNETHICAL TO GIVE AWAY YOUR PET!” I mean, both of those sentiments are obvious, it’s just funny that they’re both themes in the same book.

And the sentiment of beating your head against the wall of whatever unfair limit is and always will inevitably be thwarting you, with no hope that it will get better, but still you beat your head against that wall and proclaim that the wall will not break you, you will break that wall--that’s always the human condition, I guess, but it feels especially like the human condition these days.

Walking the tightrope of portraying that the AI/Dungeon has taken the most stereotypical (and therefore demeaning/dehumanizing) elements of human pop culture for the dungeon while also portraying that the creatures embodying these stereotypes are actually whole beings worthy of compassion (and not, you know, of having all their babies bombed to death) got a little wobbly here--I just don’t know if there was a way of depicting the murders of goblin sex workers that would have successfully walked that tightrope--but I think I got what Dinniman was going for. None of the portrayals were as abject as Book 1’s Hoarder Boss or those goblin babies, but I’m still pouring one out for good old GumGum tonight.

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook is the book where it’s probably the easiest to get lost, because not only is there a complicated train system that Dinniman explicitly says you’re not supposed to try to figure out but it’s definitely super weird that you can’t figure it out, but also I’m personally less interested in crafting tables, chats, gems, and just all magical items in general. I did surprisingly enjoy some of the train mob battles, though--very Train to Busan-ish! I got VERY invested in the Katia/Hekla storyline, though--Iceland is so messy!

Also, how many other crawlers do we feel like have been invited to become part of a secret society and just can’t tell anyone?

The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Gate of the Feral Gods makes the switch from Monster of the Week to Big Bad format, which is a little bit of a bummer for me, because if given the choice I will ALWAYS vote for Monster of the Week, and yet my series are ALWAYS trying to Big Bad me! Sam and Dean, I really did want you to just keep fighting wendigos and vampires and ghosts for 16 seasons!

Also, I know I excused the prostitution storyline from Book 2, because I get that the AI/Dungeon Planners are taking the worst/most stereotypical versions of human pop culture as their premise, but Dinniman. Must we have ANOTHER sex worker storyline?!? Two sex worker storylines is too many sex worker storylines. Make Juicebox a regular waitress and stop being weird.

Oh, wait. If you count Samantha that’s three sex worker storylines. Dinniman, you’re starting to reveal too much about your psyche. Like, this is becoming My Dad Wrote a Porno levels of unconscious revelation.

I do appreciate, though, that at least we’re not getting any sex/romance storylines with Carl, thank goodness. Let me enjoy his competence and developing character arc in peace, please! Plus the emotional growth of his platonic life partner, Donut. I’m worried that at some point they ARE going to break him, but until then my favorite thing is watching him craft a complicated plan to save everyone, and then throw bombs at it until it works.

I also remain very worried about Donut’s Constitution.

The Butcher's Masquerade by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Butcher’s Masquerade leans very hard into the discomfort of existing in a universe that is built upon the oppressed as status quo, with bullying evident all the way from top to bottom. This universe is built upon the goal of no matter how low you go, you should always have a dog to kick. And we’re starting to see how some of those dogs are and have been fighting back, and how it’s starting to maybe pay off.

Also, even a Dungeon Crawler universe has lawyers!

Also also... poor Prepotente.

The Eye of the Bedlam Bride by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I know for sure that I'm a basic bitch, because Prepotente shrieking out of nowhere will never not be absolutely hilarious to me.

I never played Magic the Gathering or Pokemon, so the premise of this book is a little bit lost on me. But I still haven't figured out what the train game from Book 3 was supposed to be, either--Ticket to Ride? Chutes and Ladders?--so it's fine. My mind definitely skimmed over all the card game rules talk, though, so I'm glad that Donut was paying attention!

It feels really unfair that not only are the aliens trying to kill Carl, but they're also trying to existentially torture him, as well. But at least they've got the excuse of being villains--what on EARTH was up with Bea?!? WHY IS SHE SO CARTOONISHLY EVIL?!? Genuine question: is she a sociopath? She has to be a sociopath. Seriously. Who DOES this?!?

It's interesting, though, that everything revealed about Bea paints Carl as a guy with a good heart who was just floating through life. If he'd ever paid attention to or emotionally invested himself in Bea, there's no way that he wouldn't have noticed all that she was up to. And not to victim blame, but I can't help but feel a little sorry for Bea. Her machinations were absurdly easy to suss out by someone who paid the least bit of attention to her--I mean, the CAT sussed them out!--so how little attention could Carl have been tossing in the direction of his very own live-in girlfriend to not have clocked a single bit of it.

How she didn't try babytrapping him is beyond me!

But anyway, in Book 1, Carl was a video game character. The writing was fine, but he, as a person, didn't have a ton of depth. It's wild that even though this scenario is terrible, this is the most alive he's been since he was a little dude holding his mom's hand and looking out at the Grand Canyon. This is the most love he's given and received. The most family he's had. He's got a devoted platonic life partner who shares his goals and is a true peer and companion. He's got a purpose now. He's passionate. What he's doing is important.

Deep down inside, do we think Carl might be kinda happy here in the dungeon?

This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Our anti-capitalist anti-heroes really come into their own on this level. I kind of wish that the Carl of Level 9 could go back in time so I could see how he'd handle Level 1's Hoarder, or Level 2's GumGum, with his newfound understanding of how this universe works. And I think it would be even sadder, because I don't think he *could* have handled them differently!

Is there meaning in suffering, even when the suffering itself is pointless? It's certainly helped Carl gain a lot of leadership skills, I guess! Seriously, though, I feel like this book does have a lot to say about what it means to suffer, to be a victim. Whether you're a goblin baby or a dungeon crawler or are caught up in Donut's Giant Ball spell or are one of 120,000 children trapped inside Lucia's mind or your cartoon villain girlfriend is monstrously manipulating you and you don't even know it, your experience has meaning, and the meaning of that suffering travels beyond just you.

I also love the through-line of those who strive to help the vulnerable. And not just the already desperate, like those on the surface repeatedly attacking the kinder center, but also Katia, who just wants to comfort a terminally ill baby for the time she has left, and Mordecai, who's one of the few game guides genuinely doing his best. Same for Carl's lawyer. It keeps the vast number of those who are thrilled to victimize the vulnerable from feeling too oppressive.

All that being said, though, I genuinely had no idea what was going on in most of the book. And it was fine. I should have just tossed a bunch of bombs at the plot and I could have been like Carl!

A Parade of Horribles by Matt Dinniman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sooo... we're doing Mario Kart, I guess.

Also, boo, Capitalism!

The only other thing I have to say is that Carl REALLY should have gotten rid of that one specific pet biscuit...

P.S. View all my reviews

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How To Make a Wooden Bunting

I originally wrote this tutorial for Crafting a Green World.

This wooden bunting can be hung indoors or outdoors.

I hung mine outdoors, where it looks so happy and colorful!

I wanted to make my outdoor space more cheerful, and this wooden bunting, while time-consuming to create, has added a LOT of cheer.

Want a cheerful permanent outdoor decoration of your own? Here’s how to make your own painted wooden bunting!

Materials

There are kind of a lot of supplies at play here, but you can likely scrounge most of them up from your stash.

• wood. The amount of wood and the size will depend on the size of your individual bunting pennants. I chose my pennant size mostly because I had plenty of scrap wood that fit those dimensions.
• primer. I would have liked a spray paint primer for its ease and efficiency, but I certainly wasn’t going to go out and buy new primer when I already own perfectly good brush-on primer. I used Zinsser Bulls Eye, which was overkill here, but totally fine.
• paint. Since you’ll be sealing it, almost any type of acrylic paint will work. I used craft acrylics, artist’s acrylics, and indoor house paint–genuinely whatever I had on hand! The sample sizes of indoor housepaint are perfect for this project.
• sealant. Again, anything that you’ve got on hand will work, as long as it works with your paint.
• cording. You can use a natural material if you’re hanging this bunting indoors, but an outdoor bunting will need something sturdier. I used nylon clothesline.
• staples. I knew I’d figure out a reason to buy a staple gun someday, and this was my reason! Excuse me while I wander off to staple EVERYTHING now…
• tools. I used pencil, paper, ruler, saw, paintbrushes, and staple gun.

Step 1: Make a template and trace the bunting pennants onto scrap wood.

I made my bunting pennant template an equilateral triangle for simplicity (but I also think that a scalloped bunting would look SO cute!). I calculated an equilateral triangle with a height matching the width of the largest number of scrap wood pieces that I had, and used that as my template. Because board width varies a bit even on boards ostensibly of the same size, I had to fudge the template with some triangles, but it’s not noticeable in the finished project.

Step 2: Cut the wooden bunting pennants.

Pretend my partner is wearing safety glasses and appropriate footwear, sigh. Also, shout out to my seven-year-old picnic table refinish, and this pic of it that has let me know that today is the perfect day to drag out the pressure washer!

You can of course also make these cuts with a handsaw, and put your fingers in slightly less danger by doing so. Regardless of the tool, though, don’t be a Matt–wear your safety glasses!

Step 3: Prime the pennants.

Hand-painting each pennant on all sides, including the edges, was annoyingly time-consuming, but I got the job done without a single trip to Menard’s, so yay!

Step 4: Paint the pennants.

You could paint these pennants however you like, with fantasy scenes or garden scenes or just polka-dots or other embellishments, but my vision was a single color for every pennant, so that’s what I did!

This part of the project is VERY time-consuming, since every pennant will likely need at least a couple of coats of paint, with drying time in between, and rotation so that all sides can get coated equally. I set this up at a table in my family room and strongly insisted to my partner and two adult children home for the summer that this was a Fun Family Project That We Should All Do Together. Nobody was as enthusiastic as I was, ahem, but everybody chipped in at least a little, and other than one small adventure in which one adult kid managed to find a single tube of oil paint of unknown provenance sneaked into the acrylics and therefore paint a pennant that will essentially never dry, all the pennants got perfectly painted!

Step 5: Seal the pennants.

It took almost a week of chipping away at the project before all the pennants were fully painted, but I managed to seal the whole lot with polyurethane sealant in one afternoon. Choose a sealant that’s rated for outdoor use.

Step 6: Staple the pennants to the cording.

Everybody loves tools, so a couple of my helpers popped back up when it was time to start stapling the pennants to cording. I wanted one long single bunting, so I measured out twelve inches of cording on one end, then stapled the pennants to the cording with a couple of inches between each pennant. 

When we ran out of pennants, I measured another twelve inches at the far end and then cut the cording.

Knot or burn the ends of the nylon cording to keep it from unraveling.

Step 7: Mount the bunting.

Use mounting supplies appropriate to your home’s exterior to mount your bunting. It looks nicest, I think, if a long bunting has several mounting points, so that it’s got lots of lovely looping drapes.

Lol at my partner wearing the exact same paint-splattered basketball shorts and beat-up Crocs on this day. He apparently has a weekend uniform!

Just between us, my brand-new painted wooden bunting is probably just a titch on the gaudy side, but eh, I personally feel like the more colors, the merrier! You could class it up for yourself, though, by limiting the color palette and/or only putting the bunting out seasonally. Which actually gives me the idea of, hear me out… how about a black and orange and purple wooden bunting for Halloween?!? You’d have the most festive front porch in town!

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I Hung a Bunting on the House Because Resale Value is For Losers

But mostly because it brings me JOY!

One of my kids low-key makes fun of my "bunting personality," because I genuinely DO just love a bunting.

I dunno, y'all. They're just so pleasant. And cheerful! And I like making them. And that's all the explanation I feel like is needed.

And that same kid does also give me bunting ideas, so it evens out the mocking.

Anyway, the peace flags that I used to have on the front porch finally rotted away (does that mean that there's peace now orrr...?), and I got the idea to replace them with something that wouldn't decompose like a metaphorical representation of our imminently pre-apocalyptic society, sigh.

And I guess also with something that wouldn't say "PEACE", ahem, but whatever. Y'all know I only hung those peace flags up in the first place because they looked like a bunting.

I didn't want to have to buy anything new for this project, but the beauty of owning too much stuff is that you always have stuff on hand to make other stuff, so my partner in crime cut down quite a lot of our scrap wood (but don't worry--we somehow still have quite a lot of scrap wood!)--

--I primed it--

--and then I snookered the entire family into painting soooo many wooden bunting flags with me:

This was randomly a bigger project than I'd thought it would be (as if every single project I start doesn't turn out to be a bigger project than I thought it would be, ahem), what with the multiple coats and drying time and washing paintbrushes, etc., and the little kid and the partner in crime both noped out near the start, leaving my older daughter/true partner in crime and I to do most of the work--

--but finally I could drag all the flags outside and seal them!

Guess who noped back in when it was time to play with the staple gun, lol. Getting to use the dangerous tools is everybody's favorite part of a project!

Yet another helper noped in when we moved the project out to the yard:

Here's where I started to worry that maybe I should have narrowed my color palette down a little bit...

But it's too late to back out now. When you're nailing something to the house, you have to commit!

And it turns out that I DO like the cacophony of colors, at least for the very specific space that is my front porch:

It's not a space that we use a ton, but somehow, now that it's so much more festive, the grill has migrated over here, too, and we do spend more time enjoying it. And see all that blank expanse of ugly brown siding?

I feel like some painted barn quilt blocks in different sizes would look so nice there. Time to see if I can sneak in just one more family project before the little kid goes back to college!

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George Washington Carver Was So Awesome WHY WAS EVERYONE SO MEAN TO HIM?!?!?!?!

George Washington Carver: A Life by Christina Vella
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

ME, worriedly, every so often: "Please don't tell anyone how much I hate Booker T. Washington so they don't think I'm racist."

ALL FAMILY MEMBERS: "Okay, but you're the most likely person to tell someone that."

And fine, it's true, so here we go:

I hate Booker T. Washington. I think he did a really terrible job running the Tuskegee Institute (he did a really great job founding it--he just did a really terrible job running it!), I think a lot of what he said and did was wrongheaded, I think he should have been open to other leaders' ideas of how best to lift up their people instead of just stubbornly following his own personal brand of black-and-white thinking, I think he got distracted by showmanship too often.

But most of all, I hate him because he was really, really, REALLY mean to George Washington Carver for literally no reason. Washington acted like his whole purpose in life was to serve his people, and then turned around and stole away probably the greatest genius of that time and hid him away and made him work like a dog without any of the resources he could have so easily provided and then when Carver created miracles anyway, Washington acted like those miracles were garbage and just continued trying to stomp Carver down.

And for some reason beyond all comprehension, or really just because that's the kind of guy he was, George Washington Carver LOVED Booker T. Washington, loved him and admired him and had so much affection for him, and in return, Washington's every action toward Carver (after, of course, he'd gone to all the trouble to woo Carver into taking that job at Tuskegee) was filled with just palpable contempt. In George Washington Carver: A Life, author Christina Vella writes that every Christmas, Carver made these beautiful hand-painted Christmas cards for all his favorite people. They were masterpieces. Washington always got one, and barely even acknowledged them. But the next year, Carver would go right ahead and paint him another beautiful masterpiece, and Washington would again be all like, "Meh." But after Washington died (yay!) and another guy took over as head of Tuskegee, Carver went to all the trouble to make that guy his very own hand-painted Christmas card, too, because he was just that nice.

And that guy was so touched that he wrote Carver a genuine multi-paged THANK-YOU NOTE FOR THE CHRISTMAS CARD. THAT'S HOW MUCH HE LOVED IT.

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Ugh, Booker T. Washington!

Honestly next I should probably read a proper biography of Booker T. Washington, because right now he exists solely in my mind as a cartoon villain.

He really was VERY mean to Carver, though.

Which I feel like is a pattern that started when Carver was a newborn! Susan and Moses Carver, the people who raised him from the time of his mother’s abduction (at least the official story is an abduction--I’d tell you what I think happened, but I feel like I have already expressed an unhealthy amount of George Washington Carver-centric conspiracy theories in my life and I think I'm already not getting invited to parties about it) to the age of nine or ten, allowed that nine- or ten-year-old to leave home and figure out his own means of sustenance and support when little George, with a knack for learning, decided that an education was what he really, really, really wanted for himself. Vella writes somewhat bemusedly that George didn’t seem to remember much of his childhood and/or would often simply tell some amusing anecdote that he’d contradict in a later interview. She attributes it to absent-mindedness, in that his focus was always elsewhere, but honestly I don’t buy it. As an adult, this dude seemed VERY focused on interpersonal relationships. He treasured his friends, and was kind to fans and acquaintances. I feel like if he couldn’t remember his childhood enough to even give a consistent count for the number of siblings he had, there was a reason for it. And if it wasn’t a memory issue but instead that he didn’t want to talk about his childhood and fiction was easier, well, there was a reason for that, too.

Thank goodness little unhoused Carver met people along the way who did help and nurture and support him, although he clearly witnessed and experienced a lot of trauma, too. And he made his own way. He cleaned houses, he took in laundry, and Vella tells a story in which as a child he talked his way into a job as a personal chef and to cover the fact that he didn’t know how to cook he got the lady of the house to demonstrate how to make every single dish so that he could, as he told her, “make it the way you like it.” And after that, he did!

After making his own way in the world, traveling to wherever there was a school he could learn in, pausing his enrollment periodically as he ran out of money, he finally got enough education to be accepted to Highland College in Kansas. He used the rest of his money to get himself there, but when he showed up, the head of the college was all like, “Oh. Yeah, we don’t actually admit Negros,” and Carver had to simply walk away, broke and with his dreams dashed AGAIN.

I hate you, too, Highland College.

Carver was, if anything, even more poor when he was finally able to attend Simpson College, an art school, and then after that, thanks to a teacher who took him under her wing, Iowa State College. But I feel like Iowa State was where he was the happiest in his entire life. He still cleaned and took in laundry, but Vella notes that his teachers and schoolmates and neighbors would make sure he at least had tons of work, because that’s the only way they could get him to take their money. In 1893, four of his paintings won entry into the Chicago World’s Fair, and Carver was going to get to go see them there. But all his clothes were garbage. So one day, some of his classmates literally kidnapped him off the street, manhandled him into a department store, forced him to try on clothes, and then bought him a beautiful new suit, completely against his will.

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And you guys. I cry every time I tell this story, because it is literally so sweet and SO insane, because Carver basically NEVER TOOK THAT SUIT OFF AGAIN IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE. I mean, like, I’m sure he had pajamas, and he spent a lot of time in a lab coat, but if he was dressed up and out and about, he was wearing that suit. That twenty-year-old suit. That thirty-year-old suit. That FORTY-YEAR-OLD SUIT. It was always clean--Carver, after all, was a laundry man!--and it always had a fresh flower in its lapel, but people started to not be able to tell what color it was supposed to be. It was probably, like, dry rotting or something at some point. And sometimes, someone would be like, “Buddy, you want to get yourself a new suit or something?” And Carver, even after he finally had some money--although he never had money like he was supposed to, because Tuskegee never paid him a decent salary, much less the salary he deserved--would just be like, “But clearly I already have a suit I am literally wearing it right now?”

So here’s the thing: Vella makes very clear that Carver was super happy at Iowa State. Some people were for sure racist towards him but a lot of people were not, he had friends, he had mentors, he was learning and he loved it, he was blowing everyone away with how smart he was and how nice and how good he was at everything, and he already had an excellent job lined up right there as soon as he graduated, because these professors did NOT want to let him out of their sight, he was so awesome.

Enter Booker T. Washington.

And okay, to be fair to Washington, the people of Alabama, Black and white but especially Black, were just absolutely beyond destitute at this time. Anything that anyone could do to help them was a very good thing. But Washington had a very black and white, VERY limited idea of what was best for Black people as a whole, and he didn’t give a fuck that it wasn’t what many Black people wanted for themselves--he was going to do for them what HE wanted to do for them, and that’s it.

And what he wanted to do for them wasn’t so much to offer a proper school education, although to be fair Tuskegee did teach literacy and numeracy, but essentially to offer more sophisticated farming and industrial education. I think it was this weird wanting to serve his people but also hating intellectualism vibe that Vella describes that made him 1) work as hard as he did to woo Carver away from his perfect Iowa State prospects, but also 2) shit on everything Carver tried to do and act contemptuous of all his accomplishments and thwart all his efforts because Carver was clearly very intellectually gifted and treasured intellect, and that shone through as much as his kindness did.

So Washington refused to fund Carver’s teaching lab, causing Carver to resort to garbage picking and DIY to stock it. Carver scored a very prestigious federal grant to host an experiment station at the school, and Washington refused to assign him a consistent staff to work it. When Carver succeeded with the station anyway and published useful educational brochures, Washington refused to have them printed. It got so bad that when Washington learned that Carver had been teaching--for free! in his free time!--an extremely popular Bible study class for the past three years, he immediately shut it down. Tell me one reason why he’d do that that’s not from simple spite!

Tuskegee could have furnished his lab if they'd wanted to.

Also, I’m very open to the possibility that the author is biased against Booker T. Washington and has simply passed it onto me. Like I said, I need to read a proper bio about him!

But you know what? Carver took Washington’s contempt and Tuskegee’s garbage and with them, he performed wonders. He genuinely saved Alabama, and the South as a whole, with his research and outreach. Enslavers had used their access to free labor to monoculture cotton to such an extent that the land was completely devoid of nutrients, and so everyone who was still trying to live off the land had resorted to simply growing more and more of that same monoculture just to chase any kind of profit. People were malnourished because they’d converted their kitchen gardens to cotton. Same with their livestock yards. Part of Carver’s extensive research and outreach was finding nutritious, cheap crops and livestock that fed people, turned a profit, and also healed the land. Sweet potatoes. Hogs. PEANUTS!!! People were also longing for more elevated lifestyles but weren’t sure what that would consist of, so were spending their precious money on stupid stuff like fancy clocks and organs that represented culture to them (tangent, but I thought this detail was VERY interesting, because way north in De Smet, South Dakota, the Ingalls family was also spending their precious money on a stupid organ!). So Carver researched methods of making beautiful paints cheaply from the local soils, then taught everyone how to paint their homes and furnishings so they could have pretty things around them without wasting their money.

Another tangent: all throughout the book, Vella just keeps on referring to Carver’s “woman’s voice.” She genuinely goes out of her way to bring this up ALL THE TIME. Carver meets someone famous--they must be surprised to hear his woman’s voice! Carver gives a lecture--people probably thought it was strange hearing a woman’s voice! At one point, I swear she is absolutely giddy because Carver met a woman whom she says had an unusually deep voice, and she’s genuinely all, “OMG I BET IT SOUNDED SO WEIRD! BECAUSE HE SOUNDED LIKE A WOMAN AND SHE SOUNDED LIKE A MAN! AND WHEN THEY TALKED TO EACH OTHER IT WAS LIKE THE OTHER PERSON’S VOICE SHOULD BE COMING OUT OF EACH OF THEIR MOUTHS! HAHAHAHAHA!!!”

So anyway, I kept reading her taking these shots at Carver’s voice and being all, “Dude! Why is she obsessed with saying he sounds like a woman?” So I got on YouTube to see if there are any videos of Carver speaking.

There are. And fine, he sounds like a woman. Just… Vella acts weirdly excited about it, okay?

Anyway, *I* was very excited in the book when Booker T. Washington died, even though it caused Carver to go into genuine mourning for months and also donate half a year’s worth of his pitiful salary to a memorial for that asshole. I’m just so mad at how much of his life he gave up for that man.

There’s another whole weird part of the biography concerning how Carver apparently also gave up another huge chunk of his life to massaging people with peanut oil, because it got published in the newspapers as a miracle cure, causing people to show up from everywhere all the time asking him to, and he was too nice to say no. It’s super weird, though.

Another weird part: although everyone online seems to think that Carver was queer because he was life partners with the lab assistant he had late in his career, Austin W. Curtis, Jr., Vella does not think that this was true at all. Honestly, she low-key makes Curtis out to be a villain who made secret deals behind Carver’s back to profit off of their professional partnership and their friendship. Instead, she puts forth the VERY convincing case that Carver was queer because he was deeply in love with a much younger man whom he met through church stuff. He wrote him obsessive letters for years, letters in which you can literally feel the agonized longing, translated into Jesus-speak. This besottedness went mostly unreciprocated, poor dude. Honestly, I think Carver was probably aroace. His letters of religious fervor to that dude did sound pretty sexy, but I dunno, religion can be weird like that.

Eventually, Henry Ford befriended Carver and built him the fanciest of fancy labs. But you guys, you might as well go ahead and start crying with me again, because by then, Carver was too frail to get much use out of it. He just always worked so hard, and I feel like he never got exactly what he deserved out of life. I guess he’d be proud of his beautiful George Washington Carver Museum at Tuskegee, although I’m low-key mad about it, but his other memorial is literally at his enslavers’ house sooo…

So… I dunno, you guys. All I know about George Washington Carver I learned from his national park site and this biography and some really sketchy online content that I do not believe. People are such weirdos. So, did Vella do me dirty? Is Booker T. Washington actually awesome and now I hate him for no reason? Was Curtis really Carver’s lover and Vella simply won’t say?

Is it super weird that she kept saying he had a woman’s voice? I mean sure, it’s high-pitched--okay, it’s remarkably high-pitched--but she’s being weird about it, right?

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