I love having Tuesdays to myself.
I don't have to worry about finding space for the exciting New Releases, although I do get pumped about new titles, and seeing what is being regularly replenished.
I finished Fun Home this morning, enjoyed perusing
the shelves here in Zero-Dome, and have been impelled to use the fleeting hours to read/write El Gran Novela americana.
But whom shall I use as inspiration?
Use this fun (and questionable) algorithm to find out whose writing you emulate!
According to the past five blog entries I have here at Moving Prepositions, I, like, write like :::
David Foster Wallace (haven't read him yet),
Cory Doctorow (ditto),
Nabakov,
and the oh-so-horrid Lovecraft (also never touched, save the copies of a Lovecraft tribute that I counted, packed up and returned)
I have yet to decide whether this is:
1. all that credible (what with the simplicity of web-programming these days)
2. an obstacle I steer to avoid in shaping my own words
3. none of the above
4. all of the above
The store has acquired a pet. Last Thursday, I noticed a fat little inch and a half of Monarch larva feeding his way through the wilting of our weekly floral arrangement. By Friday, our florist had made accommodations for the tiny pest with plenty of milkweed and oregano (whose floral buds are remedial!). When I opened the shop on Saturday morning, the creature had fattened up to about 2 inches, and flung his poop all over the new David Mitchell title and the remaining copies of the third Stieg Larsson. He continued to munch and as Attenborough says, deeeeficate until yesterday, at around 4:30 pm, when he crawled to the underside of a faded sunflower to pull one of these.
Enjoy the linkage today! I had fun throwing it in. Too bad the "IWRITELIKEATRON" can't take my hypertext into account.
Incidentally, is anyone out there interested in/familiar with Storyspace?
From the site, you'd think people who place a high-value on word-structure would hire a decent web-designer, but I'm more interested in the software.
Oh and this entry?
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Adventures in Kitty-sitting
I'm cat-sitting for some teacher friends who live near the bookstore.
Zero is a former tom who sheds fine white hairs on a sparsely decorated, but very nice two bedroom overlooking Fulton Street. Zero has a tabby-vest and apparently, his poop smells terrible, but so far, we've been quietly enjoying company. This is Day 1.
I am still reeling from the physical demand of last week.
The bookstore had a huge party for David Mitchell, whose latest Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet (a Dutch colonialist, so I infer it is pronounced "dazoot") enjoyed a rave on the cover of the New York Times Book Review (by Dave Eggers, no less). We scrambled to make the store perfect, and plenty of folks noticed--the perfect part, not the scrambling.
I've been a fan of cold pasta these past few weeks, they're a nice alternative to cooking in a kitchen that is too narrow not to conjure hell when we broil chicken, boil eggs and melt cheese. I threw tri-color rotini, 1/2 a jalapeno, 2 pepperoncini, celery, fresh basil from the roof, pine nuts and turkey bacon together. Lunch for a week, bam.
Also, MayaBee started getting stuffy so I pretty much consumed two heads of garlic. No vampire bites for me!
I also wanted to share the notion of a watermelon salad that I tried at the FOJBBQ.
Long-lost-Long-Island's mother hollowed out a watermelon, sliced some plum tomatoes and red onions; poured 1 part balsamic (maybe red-wine), 1 part olive oil; and sprinkled fresh black pepper, good salt, and feta cheese. Suh-nap, that was tasty.
Any other delicious cold salads I should be trying?
Zero is a former tom who sheds fine white hairs on a sparsely decorated, but very nice two bedroom overlooking Fulton Street. Zero has a tabby-vest and apparently, his poop smells terrible, but so far, we've been quietly enjoying company. This is Day 1.
I am still reeling from the physical demand of last week.
The bookstore had a huge party for David Mitchell, whose latest Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet (a Dutch colonialist, so I infer it is pronounced "dazoot") enjoyed a rave on the cover of the New York Times Book Review (by Dave Eggers, no less). We scrambled to make the store perfect, and plenty of folks noticed--the perfect part, not the scrambling.
I've been a fan of cold pasta these past few weeks, they're a nice alternative to cooking in a kitchen that is too narrow not to conjure hell when we broil chicken, boil eggs and melt cheese. I threw tri-color rotini, 1/2 a jalapeno, 2 pepperoncini, celery, fresh basil from the roof, pine nuts and turkey bacon together. Lunch for a week, bam.
Also, MayaBee started getting stuffy so I pretty much consumed two heads of garlic. No vampire bites for me!
I also wanted to share the notion of a watermelon salad that I tried at the FOJBBQ.
Long-lost-Long-Island's mother hollowed out a watermelon, sliced some plum tomatoes and red onions; poured 1 part balsamic (maybe red-wine), 1 part olive oil; and sprinkled fresh black pepper, good salt, and feta cheese. Suh-nap, that was tasty.
Any other delicious cold salads I should be trying?
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Martha kept talking about a Heat Wave
I've let this blog get mighty slack.
It's been months, and while there may not have seemed to be much to tell, I get the urge to cram a whole story in this space. Fear not, gentle reader, I will spare you the digest of the changing seasons.
We are only just in the thick of summer, and while last week kept citizens' hopes up in the high seventies, the Fourth of July forward has been pure misery. I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but 100 degrees Fahrenheit melts all sense of hyperbole.
The weekend itself was lovely. Thanks to Uncle James' graduation celebration, I've connected with long-lost cousins in Brooklyn. I wish I had a better handle on this whole extended relation business, because the way I see it, family is family. Perhaps one day, my grandchildren will try to figure how they are related to my first cousins' grandchildren.
Anyways, this particular bloodline grew up in Long Island, and her own first cousins throw quite the an annual Let Freedom Ring-er.
I brought a Napa Cabbage Slaw, but when I heard the guest-list topped 200, it hardly seemed worth mentioning. I love visiting folks without pretense. Rather than sitting in the shade of the Beach house, I got along with the other side of my new cousin's line (matrilocal, wassup.) There was plenty to eat, plenty to drink, plenty to do.
It's been so long since I've been to the beach (I hardly think a spring day with Coney Island amusements counts).
We danced long into the night, but at around 11, the Brooklynite/Twentysomethings felt it was time to turn in. (I had to close shop on Monday). We said goodbye to the folks holding down the beach house and found some comfy couches to crash into at one Aunt's homebase. Falling alseep was easier said than done.
One of the long-lost cousins (who shares my hometown!) felt that everyone getting ready for bed signaled intense desire to crowd around a laptop and watch a movie! In addition, there were the adorably little yappy house dogs that reminded the guests who was boss. I reached at sleep, while I stretched out in the air-conditioning, finally nodding off around 24:00.
Around 2:30, the hosts finally stumbled home. The dogs announced this, as well as kitchen lights and it was all I could do not to eavesdrop to hear how the party had ended.
This particular 4th had been special because it also celebrated the hosts' daughter's High School Graduation (woo, teenagers!) Apparently, things were starting to get out of hand so Mama Host made a judgment call and kicked the inebriated teenagers out of her house and onto the beach of Long Island Sound. Drinking, smoking, getting loud, I'm sure we're all familiar with the circumstances upon which memorable parties usually end.
So then, things get dark again, and I drift into dreams once more.
At 3:00am, the proud graduate comes and wakes up Long-lost-Long-Island-Cousin, and asks her to come back out to the beach house. Did they decide to have a nightcap?
No gentle readers, apparently some other responsible adults had forgotten their daughter's flip-flops at the beach house and driven back to retrieve them (they were facing a 10 hour drive back to Buffalo, I guess the flip-flops were important).
When these responsible adults had left the beach house, it had been locked up and dark. When they returned, the lights were on, the door was bust open and the music was blaring. Luckily, one of the responsible adults is an officer of the law, and he must have made it very clear to the young hedonists that B&E is illegal and seeing as how the culprits were all at least 18 years of age, they would be tried as adults (and I'm not sure he had to explain much further). Then, they phoned our hosts, which explained the 3 am wake-up.
The next morning, we all lounged and got to know each other over bagels and schmear, and then I caught a ride to the LIRR and rode into the sweltering city and my very busy job.
The week has been swell. The bookstore is doing fine in the summer, especially since we've installed 2 new A/C units that help keep things cool while browsers crowd the shelves. I rang up a special celebrity yesterday, but in the interest of preserving his privacy, I'll only mention he had good taste and spent a nice chunk of change.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go shower for the third time today.
It's been months, and while there may not have seemed to be much to tell, I get the urge to cram a whole story in this space. Fear not, gentle reader, I will spare you the digest of the changing seasons.
We are only just in the thick of summer, and while last week kept citizens' hopes up in the high seventies, the Fourth of July forward has been pure misery. I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but 100 degrees Fahrenheit melts all sense of hyperbole.
The weekend itself was lovely. Thanks to Uncle James' graduation celebration, I've connected with long-lost cousins in Brooklyn. I wish I had a better handle on this whole extended relation business, because the way I see it, family is family. Perhaps one day, my grandchildren will try to figure how they are related to my first cousins' grandchildren.
Anyways, this particular bloodline grew up in Long Island, and her own first cousins throw quite the an annual Let Freedom Ring-er.
I brought a Napa Cabbage Slaw, but when I heard the guest-list topped 200, it hardly seemed worth mentioning. I love visiting folks without pretense. Rather than sitting in the shade of the Beach house, I got along with the other side of my new cousin's line (matrilocal, wassup.) There was plenty to eat, plenty to drink, plenty to do.
It's been so long since I've been to the beach (I hardly think a spring day with Coney Island amusements counts).
We danced long into the night, but at around 11, the Brooklynite/Twentysomethings felt it was time to turn in. (I had to close shop on Monday). We said goodbye to the folks holding down the beach house and found some comfy couches to crash into at one Aunt's homebase. Falling alseep was easier said than done.
One of the long-lost cousins (who shares my hometown!) felt that everyone getting ready for bed signaled intense desire to crowd around a laptop and watch a movie! In addition, there were the adorably little yappy house dogs that reminded the guests who was boss. I reached at sleep, while I stretched out in the air-conditioning, finally nodding off around 24:00.
Around 2:30, the hosts finally stumbled home. The dogs announced this, as well as kitchen lights and it was all I could do not to eavesdrop to hear how the party had ended.
This particular 4th had been special because it also celebrated the hosts' daughter's High School Graduation (woo, teenagers!) Apparently, things were starting to get out of hand so Mama Host made a judgment call and kicked the inebriated teenagers out of her house and onto the beach of Long Island Sound. Drinking, smoking, getting loud, I'm sure we're all familiar with the circumstances upon which memorable parties usually end.
So then, things get dark again, and I drift into dreams once more.
At 3:00am, the proud graduate comes and wakes up Long-lost-Long-Island-Cousin, and asks her to come back out to the beach house. Did they decide to have a nightcap?
No gentle readers, apparently some other responsible adults had forgotten their daughter's flip-flops at the beach house and driven back to retrieve them (they were facing a 10 hour drive back to Buffalo, I guess the flip-flops were important).
When these responsible adults had left the beach house, it had been locked up and dark. When they returned, the lights were on, the door was bust open and the music was blaring. Luckily, one of the responsible adults is an officer of the law, and he must have made it very clear to the young hedonists that B&E is illegal and seeing as how the culprits were all at least 18 years of age, they would be tried as adults (and I'm not sure he had to explain much further). Then, they phoned our hosts, which explained the 3 am wake-up.
The next morning, we all lounged and got to know each other over bagels and schmear, and then I caught a ride to the LIRR and rode into the sweltering city and my very busy job.
The week has been swell. The bookstore is doing fine in the summer, especially since we've installed 2 new A/C units that help keep things cool while browsers crowd the shelves. I rang up a special celebrity yesterday, but in the interest of preserving his privacy, I'll only mention he had good taste and spent a nice chunk of change.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go shower for the third time today.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Show don't Tell
I believe seventh grade was the last year I diagrammed sentences, identified clauses, and dangled participles. (For more fun on diagramming sentences, click here)
Eighth grade was devoted to literature and expository writing.
Ninth grade explored prepositional phrases and the introduction to decanting a work of creative writing; identifying the elements that ferment into a full-bodied refreshment.
Ninth grade writing assignments were hell and nirvana. I choked on one writing assignment that required me to show, not tell that "the roller coaster was thrilling." I was probably under additional stress considering Biology, World History and the Coast Guard manual stalking my trail through Homework Forest.
Having at that time fewer than 10 years experience riding Roller Coasters, I was tentative in my treatment of building anticipation while a chain announces each foot of an ascent. The carnies with their smiles like a condemned fun-house, only half there. The hairs on the back of your neck reach for solid ground.
It is too late, testing the surety of the foam on the metal bar now, you have no choice but to meet your destiny.
You are ripped from the rules of nature and suspended over a microcosm of delight, but before you have a chance to appreciate its beauty (for the simple fact that it has not floated away!), you are yanked forward through the dark and carried upwards once more.
There comes a point where it seems to be over, the first peak was ages ago, the train will surely creak to a stop. Then, a final toss of heart to throat, and at last, but far too soon, does everything jerk back into place, hissing relief.
I agonized over the pointless details of the assignment. There were over 50 choices for "Show, Don't Tell" topics.
Was I supposed to let my teacher know which one I had chosen in the title? That seemed to forfeit the game.
Was it like a game of taboo where using the words "roller coaster" and "thrill" were automatic losses?
A whole page?
It's no secret that New York is loud, large city. Its cacophony streams throughout each day. Outside my window it includes, but is not limited to: mass transit, thrumming bass, screaming children, raving lunatics, and blaring car horns.
I've grown accustomed to most of it.
The buses help me keep time. The train makes a friendly whooshing sound as it slows to swallow more passengers.
Screaming children are a part of life, and mostly one that tends to be in bed after 11 o'clock. What's more, I've heard the same raving lunatic drop some serious gems on the sidewalk on more than one occasion. Just last week, he was urging some truants to stay in school, lest they end up a crazy mother-snackpack like he.
I even love the satisfying syllables of the freight trucks as they careen down my street towards Flushing, leaving the ground with one sweet "kuh" and falling back down with a "chunk."
I can even handle to incessant car horns of the car-service driver who is lost and wants to make all the sleeping people aware of it. And the whooping car alarms of the sorry fool who thought he would park his car at his front door? Well, I learned that tune in the suburbs.
However, there is one thing I still have not grown accustomed to, (and it is here where I try to show, not tell) the snackpackin' garbage trucks. It is a truly painful sound. Like nails on a chalk board, if the chalkboard was rusted metal and your teacher's nails were collapsing cans and glass bottles (which need to be recycled!) The pistons always already seeming to exhale their last effort, but no, this is New York and there are probably hundreds of pounds of trash left to compact on this block alone.
NYC garbage trucks are nightmares of reality, and I'm sure--if what I learned about Socrates in 12th grade was accurate--Plato would have urged us to stay in the caves, content with the puppetry, so as never to deal with the amount of waste we create in the world.
Eighth grade was devoted to literature and expository writing.
Ninth grade explored prepositional phrases and the introduction to decanting a work of creative writing; identifying the elements that ferment into a full-bodied refreshment.
Ninth grade writing assignments were hell and nirvana. I choked on one writing assignment that required me to show, not tell that "the roller coaster was thrilling." I was probably under additional stress considering Biology, World History and the Coast Guard manual stalking my trail through Homework Forest.
Having at that time fewer than 10 years experience riding Roller Coasters, I was tentative in my treatment of building anticipation while a chain announces each foot of an ascent. The carnies with their smiles like a condemned fun-house, only half there. The hairs on the back of your neck reach for solid ground.
It is too late, testing the surety of the foam on the metal bar now, you have no choice but to meet your destiny.
You are ripped from the rules of nature and suspended over a microcosm of delight, but before you have a chance to appreciate its beauty (for the simple fact that it has not floated away!), you are yanked forward through the dark and carried upwards once more.
There comes a point where it seems to be over, the first peak was ages ago, the train will surely creak to a stop. Then, a final toss of heart to throat, and at last, but far too soon, does everything jerk back into place, hissing relief.
I agonized over the pointless details of the assignment. There were over 50 choices for "Show, Don't Tell" topics.
Was I supposed to let my teacher know which one I had chosen in the title? That seemed to forfeit the game.
Was it like a game of taboo where using the words "roller coaster" and "thrill" were automatic losses?
A whole page?
It's no secret that New York is loud, large city. Its cacophony streams throughout each day. Outside my window it includes, but is not limited to: mass transit, thrumming bass, screaming children, raving lunatics, and blaring car horns.
I've grown accustomed to most of it.
The buses help me keep time. The train makes a friendly whooshing sound as it slows to swallow more passengers.
Screaming children are a part of life, and mostly one that tends to be in bed after 11 o'clock. What's more, I've heard the same raving lunatic drop some serious gems on the sidewalk on more than one occasion. Just last week, he was urging some truants to stay in school, lest they end up a crazy mother-snackpack like he.
I even love the satisfying syllables of the freight trucks as they careen down my street towards Flushing, leaving the ground with one sweet "kuh" and falling back down with a "chunk."
I can even handle to incessant car horns of the car-service driver who is lost and wants to make all the sleeping people aware of it. And the whooping car alarms of the sorry fool who thought he would park his car at his front door? Well, I learned that tune in the suburbs.
However, there is one thing I still have not grown accustomed to, (and it is here where I try to show, not tell) the snackpackin' garbage trucks. It is a truly painful sound. Like nails on a chalk board, if the chalkboard was rusted metal and your teacher's nails were collapsing cans and glass bottles (which need to be recycled!) The pistons always already seeming to exhale their last effort, but no, this is New York and there are probably hundreds of pounds of trash left to compact on this block alone.
NYC garbage trucks are nightmares of reality, and I'm sure--if what I learned about Socrates in 12th grade was accurate--Plato would have urged us to stay in the caves, content with the puppetry, so as never to deal with the amount of waste we create in the world.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Word Count
Some memories are like tiny splinters in your thumb. A dull pain, throbbing now and again, tells your brain to examine the sensation, and try to squeeze it out from under your skin. Other memories tickle your lower back, and suddenly, your laughter rends the sour silence in a crowded space. Others still simply glow in the branches of the past you can see, hung like candles in the trees. These memories illuminate the forest, but as singular units, don't really call for actions or feelings.
Recently, I remembered flipping through my Florida History book--the history I learned at the age of 9, long before the FCAT.
There were a number of pages that had sky-blue rectangles highlighting a matrix of numbers, subtitled by categories of information. That was the first time I ever learned of a census. My young powers of deduction told me that Censuses took place every ten years, I loved perusing the blue rectangles, watching the population of Florida rise and fall through history, as others searched for gold, and youth, and immortality.
I also remembered being in Pre-Calculus studying logarithms, the last bit of fun before the hell of limits. Of course there was plenty of discussing the practicality of these useful formulas, namely, a sense of the world which surrounds (ah, Nature). When you consider the fact that there's some ridiculously complicated formula to figuring the distance between stars we've actually discovered, it is impressive to consider the remarkably simple application in figuring world population. I wonder if there isn't a star for every soul on this planet, seeing as how we're somewhere halfway between six and seven billion now.
As I aged out of my teens, I remember learning about politics, which are ever evolving. I remember sitting in one of the more demanding English classes, and in a discussion over Jewish Literature, my professor saying it seems ridiculous to reduce politics to conservative and liberal discourses, "Am I conservative, you ask? I say about what?"
I remember learning that seeing as how the government is run by a bunch of human beings, it can turn into giant mistake machine and really stomp a mud-hole in the middle of my life-crises (to which I have the right as an American). I learned in an abstract way that the government does many things that I happen to dislike, on that I'm sure we have some common ground.
These memories all flickered into my present mind while I sat in the bask of neon at Los Hermanos and hearing a person at my table claim ignorance of what a U.S. Census actually is, and then question its importance.
While the United States Constitution is full of bullshit like-- oh I don't know, the right to for you to vote for the wrong guy, and the right for you to open your yap, the right for me to take my handgun and shoot you in the face when you piss me off, and the right for me to shutthefuckup when the fuzz bully club my ass for murder--it also has very simple straightforward guidelines like the number of senators from each state, the whole "born in this country" thing, AND A FRINKING POPULATION COUNT EVERY TEN YEARS.
Why do citizens feel the need to snub this simple survey? The internet already knows everything about you anyways.
Recently, I remembered flipping through my Florida History book--the history I learned at the age of 9, long before the FCAT.
There were a number of pages that had sky-blue rectangles highlighting a matrix of numbers, subtitled by categories of information. That was the first time I ever learned of a census. My young powers of deduction told me that Censuses took place every ten years, I loved perusing the blue rectangles, watching the population of Florida rise and fall through history, as others searched for gold, and youth, and immortality.
I also remembered being in Pre-Calculus studying logarithms, the last bit of fun before the hell of limits. Of course there was plenty of discussing the practicality of these useful formulas, namely, a sense of the world which surrounds (ah, Nature). When you consider the fact that there's some ridiculously complicated formula to figuring the distance between stars we've actually discovered, it is impressive to consider the remarkably simple application in figuring world population. I wonder if there isn't a star for every soul on this planet, seeing as how we're somewhere halfway between six and seven billion now.
As I aged out of my teens, I remember learning about politics, which are ever evolving. I remember sitting in one of the more demanding English classes, and in a discussion over Jewish Literature, my professor saying it seems ridiculous to reduce politics to conservative and liberal discourses, "Am I conservative, you ask? I say about what?"
I remember learning that seeing as how the government is run by a bunch of human beings, it can turn into giant mistake machine and really stomp a mud-hole in the middle of my life-crises (to which I have the right as an American). I learned in an abstract way that the government does many things that I happen to dislike, on that I'm sure we have some common ground.
These memories all flickered into my present mind while I sat in the bask of neon at Los Hermanos and hearing a person at my table claim ignorance of what a U.S. Census actually is, and then question its importance.
While the United States Constitution is full of bullshit like-- oh I don't know, the right to for you to vote for the wrong guy, and the right for you to open your yap, the right for me to take my handgun and shoot you in the face when you piss me off, and the right for me to shutthefuckup when the fuzz bully club my ass for murder--it also has very simple straightforward guidelines like the number of senators from each state, the whole "born in this country" thing, AND A FRINKING POPULATION COUNT EVERY TEN YEARS.
Why do citizens feel the need to snub this simple survey? The internet already knows everything about you anyways.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Internet is for funsies and new werds that make yew miss spell.
The internet is for funsies and made up words, which is a dignified way of avoiding the truth that if it weren't for the taboo of pornography, there would be no internet as we know it--the hyperactive information sharing imaginatorium of sex.
I imagine the internet a bit like the chapter in Hitchhiker's Guide when Slartibartfast gives us the guided tour to Magrathea, with vast staging areas devoted to adorable kittens and 633k 5p34k (geek speak, if you have to ask).
I like the parts of the internet that don't include Comic Sans and believe in a dictionary, or at the very least, little red dots that second guess your aptitude as a good speller.
In homage to hypertext and what hypertext was nonce, the interwebz is good for bopping around like Mario on little clouds of knowledge and bonking your against bricks for extra points.
So, while I was doing some research on Travesties by Tom Stoppard, I bounced around between some Dadaist, Leninist and Marxist Websites, I found a literate blog that had a meme that looked like funsies.
Thusly,
Hardback, trade paperback or mass market paperback?
Hardcovers are excellent collector's items. They collect lots of dust.
(I'm sure serious readers amass plenty of each.)
Waterstones, Borders or Amazon?
Whiskeytangofoxtrot is Waterstones? If it is an independent bookseller, I'm into it.
Bookmark or dog-ear?
I dog-ear galleys and bookmark editions in print, out of print or not belonging to me.
Alphabetize by author, or alphabetize by title, or random?
The progeny of philosophers and booksellers, I first put my books in sections and rearrange the flow between shelves according to my humor. The alphabet is only necessary until the books come home with me.
Keep, throw away, or sell?
And give away. And steal from friends.
Keep dust jacket or toss it?
Screw top or flip cap?
Read with dust jacket or remove it?
Am I reading on the train? Is it a big art book? Does it belong to the library?
Short story or novel?
Both please?
Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
Wiz kid.
Buy or borrow?
Just as long as you're not one of those assholes who confuses bookstores with a library where you can sit and take up space sipping your latte, making notes and cracking the spine.
Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
What is this? Amateur hour?
Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading?
I envy the fact that some people can actually schedule parts of their days for reading. I tend to do it in my twenty-first century version of "spare" time.
Favourite series?
I found this meme on a stranger twenty-something's blog and she is apparently Canadian, which has me wondering, if it's pronounced "aboot" why not "fave-oo-rit?"
And I bet she missed out on some serious Sweet Valley High action.
Favourite YA book?
I wish Judy Blume could re-write Are You There God? It's Me Margaret with cell phones so that these impressionable young things wouldn't have to rely on Twilight for the prelude to their nascent sexual awakenings.
Favourite book no one has heard of?
I hate this question. If no one has heard of the book, then how the hell are there printed copies floating around?
Favourite books read last year?
Richard Feynman.
Favourite book to re-read?
I haven't re-read much since I was 12.
Do you ever smell books?
You don't?
What are you reading right now?
1921 about New York City baseball, but I can't read just one.
What are you reading next?
New Yorker perhaps.
I imagine the internet a bit like the chapter in Hitchhiker's Guide when Slartibartfast gives us the guided tour to Magrathea, with vast staging areas devoted to adorable kittens and 633k 5p34k (geek speak, if you have to ask).
I like the parts of the internet that don't include Comic Sans and believe in a dictionary, or at the very least, little red dots that second guess your aptitude as a good speller.
In homage to hypertext and what hypertext was nonce, the interwebz is good for bopping around like Mario on little clouds of knowledge and bonking your against bricks for extra points.
So, while I was doing some research on Travesties by Tom Stoppard, I bounced around between some Dadaist, Leninist and Marxist Websites, I found a literate blog that had a meme that looked like funsies.
Thusly,
Hardback, trade paperback or mass market paperback?
Hardcovers are excellent collector's items. They collect lots of dust.
(I'm sure serious readers amass plenty of each.)
Waterstones, Borders or Amazon?
Whiskeytangofoxtrot is Waterstones? If it is an independent bookseller, I'm into it.
Bookmark or dog-ear?
I dog-ear galleys and bookmark editions in print, out of print or not belonging to me.
Alphabetize by author, or alphabetize by title, or random?
The progeny of philosophers and booksellers, I first put my books in sections and rearrange the flow between shelves according to my humor. The alphabet is only necessary until the books come home with me.
Keep, throw away, or sell?
And give away. And steal from friends.
Keep dust jacket or toss it?
Screw top or flip cap?
Read with dust jacket or remove it?
Am I reading on the train? Is it a big art book? Does it belong to the library?
Short story or novel?
Both please?
Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?
Wiz kid.
Buy or borrow?
Just as long as you're not one of those assholes who confuses bookstores with a library where you can sit and take up space sipping your latte, making notes and cracking the spine.
Tidy ending or cliffhanger?
What is this? Amateur hour?
Morning reading, afternoon reading, or nighttime reading?
I envy the fact that some people can actually schedule parts of their days for reading. I tend to do it in my twenty-first century version of "spare" time.
Favourite series?
I found this meme on a stranger twenty-something's blog and she is apparently Canadian, which has me wondering, if it's pronounced "aboot" why not "fave-oo-rit?"
And I bet she missed out on some serious Sweet Valley High action.
Favourite YA book?
I wish Judy Blume could re-write Are You There God? It's Me Margaret with cell phones so that these impressionable young things wouldn't have to rely on Twilight for the prelude to their nascent sexual awakenings.
Favourite book no one has heard of?
I hate this question. If no one has heard of the book, then how the hell are there printed copies floating around?
Favourite books read last year?
Richard Feynman.
Favourite book to re-read?
I haven't re-read much since I was 12.
Do you ever smell books?
You don't?
What are you reading right now?
1921 about New York City baseball, but I can't read just one.
What are you reading next?
New Yorker perhaps.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Book man
On Friday, after a late closing, I went to an art auction fundraiser for the next Swimming Cities expedition. I ran into some of the folks who helped build Greenlight, and was able to procure a couple of free tickets to the Armory Show, which ran until this evening.
The exposition was huge, taking place at Pier 94 along the Hudson. The area itself is a bit subway-challenged, but getting there wasn't difficult. I arrived a bit too late to see everything, but I stuck to the Modern Art galleries, which I think are more fun to think about.
If you've grown up with an understanding of religion, it isn't hard to appreciate the driving force behind much Western art. I could spend ages looking at paintings of Maria and her nino, the same basic elements reworked thousands of different ways, brought into the world of artifice by so many consciousnesses.
But when you're at an intimidatingly large art show all by yourself, it is way more fun (and perhaps slightly less pretentious) to peruse a few key booths and wonder not only what gave the artist cause to cast aluminum and steel into a cylindrical shape and varnish it with candy-colored enamel, but how the gallery decided that someone might want to spend $20,000 on a stack of said shapes.
My favorite exhibit was a collection of mens' faces carved out of old Bybels and other black leather-bound books stacked into an appropriate medium.
It was just something to do after a lovely brunch with some lady friends, but any chance I get to pound the pavement down the big blocks in Manhattan, I hop into my comfortable walking shoes and do it. There's an aspect of Manhattan that is hardly appealing--the rampant entitlement to materialism leaves a funny aftertaste (although for parts of Brooklyn to find itself above smacks of hypocrisy). Still, there is a thrill I get from the steel giant, a pulse that is hard to read. I suppose that's what I love most of all, walking out of time with the center of the universe.
The exposition was huge, taking place at Pier 94 along the Hudson. The area itself is a bit subway-challenged, but getting there wasn't difficult. I arrived a bit too late to see everything, but I stuck to the Modern Art galleries, which I think are more fun to think about.
If you've grown up with an understanding of religion, it isn't hard to appreciate the driving force behind much Western art. I could spend ages looking at paintings of Maria and her nino, the same basic elements reworked thousands of different ways, brought into the world of artifice by so many consciousnesses.
But when you're at an intimidatingly large art show all by yourself, it is way more fun (and perhaps slightly less pretentious) to peruse a few key booths and wonder not only what gave the artist cause to cast aluminum and steel into a cylindrical shape and varnish it with candy-colored enamel, but how the gallery decided that someone might want to spend $20,000 on a stack of said shapes.
My favorite exhibit was a collection of mens' faces carved out of old Bybels and other black leather-bound books stacked into an appropriate medium.
It was just something to do after a lovely brunch with some lady friends, but any chance I get to pound the pavement down the big blocks in Manhattan, I hop into my comfortable walking shoes and do it. There's an aspect of Manhattan that is hardly appealing--the rampant entitlement to materialism leaves a funny aftertaste (although for parts of Brooklyn to find itself above smacks of hypocrisy). Still, there is a thrill I get from the steel giant, a pulse that is hard to read. I suppose that's what I love most of all, walking out of time with the center of the universe.
70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.
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