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.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
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.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Author event
I just returned from a dinner on the UES with an emerging young author who has written a young readers' novel that might remind readers of Gaiman's Coraline, where a young girl travels into a different world while living within the realm of a strange house belonging to a strange family. Of course, there is an adversary in the world within, and this particular brand of magic gave me a serious case of the heebie jeebies as I rode the train to the dinner hosted by Penguin Group for Young Readers. It was good company, and the author is a former teacher who worked in one of the smallest school districts in Wisconsin, although I bet most of her students can spell Wisconsin (maybe even Massachusetts or Connecticut).
She was quite kind and flattered, having done a week-long whirl of dinners in L.A., Chicago, NYC tonight--to meet her agent face to face for the first time (and schmooze with us and Pengy.) Tomorrow morning, it's South Carolina and then back to her hometown. There is a lot of work going into the marketing of the book, and it's interesting because unlike most of what I've looked at in the past two months or so of pulling Y.A. novels out of the box--this is a book by strong writer that paints a Pieta of sorts--Young Readers see this trope with C.S. Lewis et al., only the delight is in the terror she brings with antique ghosts.
Tomorrow night, Ted Conover is reading at the Strand. His new book on roads, Routes of Man drives me through some country I've never considered while watching all of America out the window of Poppa's white Dodge van. Right now, I'm with him on a frozen river that is literally a rite of passage for a gang of forty teenagers that have grown up in a Himalayan valley almost 12,000 feet above sea level and who have all "maxed out on the education in Reru, their medieval hamlet, and were taking advantage of the cold to get out of Dodge." Conover is not so swift on the ice, while these kids have grown up tested by and testing the river that runs off the Indus. Cradle of civilization be damned, I've already been deep into Peru, where the "uncontacted" are still considered. The nuggets of knowledge are plentiful, although at times I think the writing gets a little tangential, but maybe that's just New York City commuting with me--funnily enough, DJ Random Play (itunes) is bringing me Fela Kuti's "He Miss Road."
I can never remember which imitates what, art or life.
She was quite kind and flattered, having done a week-long whirl of dinners in L.A., Chicago, NYC tonight--to meet her agent face to face for the first time (and schmooze with us and Pengy.) Tomorrow morning, it's South Carolina and then back to her hometown. There is a lot of work going into the marketing of the book, and it's interesting because unlike most of what I've looked at in the past two months or so of pulling Y.A. novels out of the box--this is a book by strong writer that paints a Pieta of sorts--Young Readers see this trope with C.S. Lewis et al., only the delight is in the terror she brings with antique ghosts.
Tomorrow night, Ted Conover is reading at the Strand. His new book on roads, Routes of Man drives me through some country I've never considered while watching all of America out the window of Poppa's white Dodge van. Right now, I'm with him on a frozen river that is literally a rite of passage for a gang of forty teenagers that have grown up in a Himalayan valley almost 12,000 feet above sea level and who have all "maxed out on the education in Reru, their medieval hamlet, and were taking advantage of the cold to get out of Dodge." Conover is not so swift on the ice, while these kids have grown up tested by and testing the river that runs off the Indus. Cradle of civilization be damned, I've already been deep into Peru, where the "uncontacted" are still considered. The nuggets of knowledge are plentiful, although at times I think the writing gets a little tangential, but maybe that's just New York City commuting with me--funnily enough, DJ Random Play (itunes) is bringing me Fela Kuti's "He Miss Road."
I can never remember which imitates what, art or life.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Story hour
I'm with my cousins and visiting the grandparents in Aspen. Thankfully, we were all able to fly in on the same day (despite the snow). My flight from LGA went fine, even though my cab driver dropped me off at the terminal for US Air instead of United forcing me to use my New York walk in Queens so that I could get to the terminal in time (I was early).
The first few days of sitting for Adena (Baby turned 1 year old on Monday) were a bit harried. Like most infants, she cries the second her mother is out of sight. I've been getting her out of the house, into the stroller and making tracks around the neighborhood, but it's hard for her otherwise. I had been trying to convince Grandma that it's okay to take a baby and a stroller on the bus, so that I could get Adena to the library for some board books (which, go figure, are in short supply at this house).
Arguments why I can't/shan't:
-Nobody takes strollers on the bus
-I don't know where the library is
-I won't be able to get home.
But I had already done my research (Google Maps is the best!), and refuted Grandma's thoughtful points.
Today, I managed to hitch a ride with Mary Norma while she went to City Market, but I left the stroller at home thinking it might not fit on the bus. Adena and I arrived at the library about an hour before it was open, but I kept her busy with a walk towards the Nature Center, a quick stop in Clark's supermarket (where I let her help me with self-checkout and press buttons). I was beginning to regret not bringing the stroller, she's 17 pounds and I am not used to maternal duties, but I was not about to call and bother Grandma.
When the library opened it was story hour, so we sat for a few about bears and hibernation.
Then we picked out a few board books and one picture book, and hit the road. I guess I'm used to walking the big blocks, because we were at the other end of town/bus depot in no time. In other awesome timing, we arrived just as our bus did-- I realized I would have been able to bring the stroller-- and baby fell asleep on the ride home. Since I didn't have the stroller, I figured it'd be fine to get off at the short-cut/hospital and hike the hill over to Meadowood, she napped until I started to pull off her snowsuit.
Tomorrow, there are even more cousins coming to visit, which will make Friday's day off totally sweet. I've been reading and watching plenty of movies in the time between.
It's a shame about Howard Zinn, but I guess this leaves a vacancy for a new historian. I'm glad I took the chance to hear him speak a while back.
Speaking of departures, a coworker is leaving the bookstore. He resigned in poem form, so I responded in kind. He'll be gone when I get back to Greenlight.
This one's called,
"Re: Pre-meditated Resignation for the Kindly Folks, Yes....ah, well!"
Lifting her coat off the wary hook,
beneath her breath
chuckling,
though the evidence is long gone
as with the help which reached high
or updated clues in creation,
she spots a stain on the shelf
where the broth or stew
once brimming with ambition,
reached the consummation
of containment and
left a smile.
The first few days of sitting for Adena (Baby turned 1 year old on Monday) were a bit harried. Like most infants, she cries the second her mother is out of sight. I've been getting her out of the house, into the stroller and making tracks around the neighborhood, but it's hard for her otherwise. I had been trying to convince Grandma that it's okay to take a baby and a stroller on the bus, so that I could get Adena to the library for some board books (which, go figure, are in short supply at this house).
Arguments why I can't/shan't:
-Nobody takes strollers on the bus
-I don't know where the library is
-I won't be able to get home.
But I had already done my research (Google Maps is the best!), and refuted Grandma's thoughtful points.
Today, I managed to hitch a ride with Mary Norma while she went to City Market, but I left the stroller at home thinking it might not fit on the bus. Adena and I arrived at the library about an hour before it was open, but I kept her busy with a walk towards the Nature Center, a quick stop in Clark's supermarket (where I let her help me with self-checkout and press buttons). I was beginning to regret not bringing the stroller, she's 17 pounds and I am not used to maternal duties, but I was not about to call and bother Grandma.
When the library opened it was story hour, so we sat for a few about bears and hibernation.
Then we picked out a few board books and one picture book, and hit the road. I guess I'm used to walking the big blocks, because we were at the other end of town/bus depot in no time. In other awesome timing, we arrived just as our bus did-- I realized I would have been able to bring the stroller-- and baby fell asleep on the ride home. Since I didn't have the stroller, I figured it'd be fine to get off at the short-cut/hospital and hike the hill over to Meadowood, she napped until I started to pull off her snowsuit.
Tomorrow, there are even more cousins coming to visit, which will make Friday's day off totally sweet. I've been reading and watching plenty of movies in the time between.
It's a shame about Howard Zinn, but I guess this leaves a vacancy for a new historian. I'm glad I took the chance to hear him speak a while back.
Speaking of departures, a coworker is leaving the bookstore. He resigned in poem form, so I responded in kind. He'll be gone when I get back to Greenlight.
This one's called,
"Re: Pre-meditated Resignation for the Kindly Folks, Yes....ah, well!"
Lifting her coat off the wary hook,
beneath her breath
chuckling,
though the evidence is long gone
as with the help which reached high
or updated clues in creation,
she spots a stain on the shelf
where the broth or stew
once brimming with ambition,
reached the consummation
of containment and
left a smile.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Overdue
I guess I've always had a problem with procrastinating, which is why I've let way too much time pass since my last real update.
For the sake of being succinct, I'll have to gloss over the goings-on since--oof, before Thanksgiving?
I spent what felt like five minutes in Miami, and then drove up to Amelia Island with Daena to spend some QT with the Weinkles. 'Twas a lovely visit and the little cousins are now getting to be bigger little cousins.
Which reminds me of my stokifying news, I am off to spend two weeks watching the little cousins and hanging out with Mary Norma and Julian. I'm excited to have the time off from receiving at the store, which has been doing well in the post-holiday-madness lull.
Greenlight's Team Awesome kicked butt over the gift-giving madness, mostly because of our staff's perspicacious handselling. If you'll allow me to play my own piano, I am the resident YA expert. Customers looking for young adult literature find themselves at the register with armfuls of my recommendations. Most of what I suggest are titles I read when I was a youngin'. I tip my proverbial hat to Mom and Pops on that one.
Despite the popularity of the e-readers (namely Amazon's Kindle), I'm pretty sure the codex format has staying power. Kind of like vinyl hasn't ever lost it's value. Cassettes and CDs are out, mostly because they don't last in the long run. Even DVDs are something of the past as more and more tune in online. As technology is ever moving forward, it's clear the e-readers will evolve. Certainly, there are issues with the proprietary nature of Amazon's monopoly on certain titles (and who's to say the publishing industry won't experience it's own version of illegal downloads?) But I know some of my customers are Kindle users, and they still like the feel of turning pages, so they're happy to visit the brick and mortar and friendly faces.
Speaking of turning pages, I've had some delicious texts in the past couple of weeks.
Amy Hempel's Collected Stories were remarkable. A truly gifted teller, she made me laugh and made me cry.
Dave Thomas's Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell is a rather engaging account of the business relationship between David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.
Katherine Dunn's Geek Love is simply a full meal (and a unputdownable tale of geeks and freaks).
I'm reading Melanie Watt's new novel Alice I Have Been a fictional/history of the real-life Alice Liddell, and it is positively fascinating, to the point that I missed my subway stop the other night.
I also picked up Chris Moore's new novel Bite Me: A love story, which picks up the saga of Abby Normal, everyone's favorite adolescent goth who gets into some sticky situations when Chet, the vampire cat unleashes his undead fury on San Francisco. 'Twas cute, a good Chris Moore novel.
One thing I did not care for was Jonathan Dee's new book The Priveleges. He wishes he were Tom Perotta. Unfortunately, there was nothing about Dee's hideously wealthy characters in a financial setting similar to this one, that stuck with me. Reviews say each of the characters must come to term with their personal ethics, but I found nothing redeeming or tragic in their lives, it seemed rather trite to me. The only good thing about the book is the first chapter, in which Dee's writing is a strong demonstration and description of a "typical wedding." I'm not sure who The Privelegesis written for, and maybe that's part of the reason I didn't like it.
That's all for now. Tonight is Asian Film Fest with some pals. We're watching Wild Zero and Riki-Oh: The Story of Riki.
For the sake of being succinct, I'll have to gloss over the goings-on since--oof, before Thanksgiving?
I spent what felt like five minutes in Miami, and then drove up to Amelia Island with Daena to spend some QT with the Weinkles. 'Twas a lovely visit and the little cousins are now getting to be bigger little cousins.
Which reminds me of my stokifying news, I am off to spend two weeks watching the little cousins and hanging out with Mary Norma and Julian. I'm excited to have the time off from receiving at the store, which has been doing well in the post-holiday-madness lull.
Greenlight's Team Awesome kicked butt over the gift-giving madness, mostly because of our staff's perspicacious handselling. If you'll allow me to play my own piano, I am the resident YA expert. Customers looking for young adult literature find themselves at the register with armfuls of my recommendations. Most of what I suggest are titles I read when I was a youngin'. I tip my proverbial hat to Mom and Pops on that one.
Despite the popularity of the e-readers (namely Amazon's Kindle), I'm pretty sure the codex format has staying power. Kind of like vinyl hasn't ever lost it's value. Cassettes and CDs are out, mostly because they don't last in the long run. Even DVDs are something of the past as more and more tune in online. As technology is ever moving forward, it's clear the e-readers will evolve. Certainly, there are issues with the proprietary nature of Amazon's monopoly on certain titles (and who's to say the publishing industry won't experience it's own version of illegal downloads?) But I know some of my customers are Kindle users, and they still like the feel of turning pages, so they're happy to visit the brick and mortar and friendly faces.
Speaking of turning pages, I've had some delicious texts in the past couple of weeks.
Amy Hempel's Collected Stories were remarkable. A truly gifted teller, she made me laugh and made me cry.
Dave Thomas's Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell is a rather engaging account of the business relationship between David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.
Katherine Dunn's Geek Love is simply a full meal (and a unputdownable tale of geeks and freaks).
I'm reading Melanie Watt's new novel Alice I Have Been a fictional/history of the real-life Alice Liddell, and it is positively fascinating, to the point that I missed my subway stop the other night.
I also picked up Chris Moore's new novel Bite Me: A love story, which picks up the saga of Abby Normal, everyone's favorite adolescent goth who gets into some sticky situations when Chet, the vampire cat unleashes his undead fury on San Francisco. 'Twas cute, a good Chris Moore novel.
One thing I did not care for was Jonathan Dee's new book The Priveleges. He wishes he were Tom Perotta. Unfortunately, there was nothing about Dee's hideously wealthy characters in a financial setting similar to this one, that stuck with me. Reviews say each of the characters must come to term with their personal ethics, but I found nothing redeeming or tragic in their lives, it seemed rather trite to me. The only good thing about the book is the first chapter, in which Dee's writing is a strong demonstration and description of a "typical wedding." I'm not sure who The Privelegesis written for, and maybe that's part of the reason I didn't like it.
That's all for now. Tonight is Asian Film Fest with some pals. We're watching Wild Zero and Riki-Oh: The Story of Riki.
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