A spate of mediocre books. I will admit it, I lapsed and took another JD Robb "in Death" book out of the library, the latest Thankless ...
Every time I do this, it just parallels my lack of will power to say no to a bag of chips in the cupboard or a container of ice cream in the fridge. Neither leave me with a long term feeling of satisfaction or with a sense of doing something meaningful. As I wrote after the last JDR popcorn, she hardly ever introduces any sci fi new features into her story. It has long since become a riff on Dallas and Rourke and the crimes could have happened any time.
And as for my reading on tangent, I whipped through Dashiell Hammett's Thin Man today, a snow day, but the snow never hit double digits and I'm sure with a tad more dedication and drive, I could have made it into work. Here is that rare example where the movies were better than the book. I can easily imagine Powell and Loy as Nick and Nora, but the facial expressions aren't there. The movies have such physical flirting tension that just is superficially introduced in the book. In fact, it often could be interpreted as matrimonial sarcasm rather than fast paced repartee.
So on to Lillian Hellman's memoir.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Political Junkie that I am
As usual, I found my own Christmas present and presented my family with the bill. I pre-ordered Love and War by Mary Mataline and James Carville from Amazon and finished it last night. I wanted to read it to understand how two political polar opposites could live together as I will affirm, I could never envision myself doing and have actually checked potential mates off my marriageable list for such a divergence.
Maybe meeting each other so late in life, definitely sharing the same career, and eventually figuring out that a home base and raising kids is more important than most other things has kept them together. I was also surprised at the fact that they were actually married three times: first in a raucous NoLa wedding on a Thanksgiving when everyone assumed it was some kind of political stunt over 20 years ago; a vow renewal on their 10th anniversary; and finally in a small Catholic church, exactly 100 years to the month of when James' grandparents were married after Mary converted.
It is the latter part of the book I loved the most. Granted, political junkie that I am, I loved the insights of both campaigns and their friendships with the powers and wannabees from both parties, but the reconciliation and comfort of a home in New Orleans, a commitment to to rebuild this wondrous city to what it was pre-Katrina, and the flavor of partying that pervades NoLa was what I enjoyed the most.
I cannot fathom how the managed to avoid each other during the Gore/Bush Florida recount and the visceral hatred and accusations that ensued. But on the other hand, I cannot appreciate Mary's idolization of Dick Cheney. In fact, I am strained to even understand her devotion to Poppy Bush. I just cannot idolize any particular politician of either party. To me, they are all flawed and bear no resemblance at all to Founding Fathers and 18th Century political philosophers.
I was surprised to find quirks about Mary that even I would find impossible to live with: a menagerie of cast off feral cats and rag tag dogs, and even pet rats, her preference to run the air conditioner while opening all the windows and lighting a fire in the fireplace would drive me to distraction. Here I only expected to find James' traits annoying. Towards the end, he acknowledges there are certain basic family concerns that tend to make a father and husband a tad conservative.
Yes I have plenty of dogeared corners of quotes I wanted to lard my review blog with, but perhaps another day. Other readers are in the queue to read the book and I am fried from my own political intrigue lately to write much more than this. So I will revisit this blog another day to add those wonderful religious and personal slants that resonated.
By the way, the one slant that I will cede Mary won hands down, is the book alternates with sections, in different type fonts, of Mary's and Jim's view of what is happening in their lives. Mary writes better, more humorously, more cleverly, but just as politically extremely. I agree with the final tally: Democrats love humanity but hate individuals, Republicans favor doing favors for individuals rather than pontificating about mankind.
Maybe meeting each other so late in life, definitely sharing the same career, and eventually figuring out that a home base and raising kids is more important than most other things has kept them together. I was also surprised at the fact that they were actually married three times: first in a raucous NoLa wedding on a Thanksgiving when everyone assumed it was some kind of political stunt over 20 years ago; a vow renewal on their 10th anniversary; and finally in a small Catholic church, exactly 100 years to the month of when James' grandparents were married after Mary converted.
It is the latter part of the book I loved the most. Granted, political junkie that I am, I loved the insights of both campaigns and their friendships with the powers and wannabees from both parties, but the reconciliation and comfort of a home in New Orleans, a commitment to to rebuild this wondrous city to what it was pre-Katrina, and the flavor of partying that pervades NoLa was what I enjoyed the most.
I cannot fathom how the managed to avoid each other during the Gore/Bush Florida recount and the visceral hatred and accusations that ensued. But on the other hand, I cannot appreciate Mary's idolization of Dick Cheney. In fact, I am strained to even understand her devotion to Poppy Bush. I just cannot idolize any particular politician of either party. To me, they are all flawed and bear no resemblance at all to Founding Fathers and 18th Century political philosophers.
I was surprised to find quirks about Mary that even I would find impossible to live with: a menagerie of cast off feral cats and rag tag dogs, and even pet rats, her preference to run the air conditioner while opening all the windows and lighting a fire in the fireplace would drive me to distraction. Here I only expected to find James' traits annoying. Towards the end, he acknowledges there are certain basic family concerns that tend to make a father and husband a tad conservative.
Yes I have plenty of dogeared corners of quotes I wanted to lard my review blog with, but perhaps another day. Other readers are in the queue to read the book and I am fried from my own political intrigue lately to write much more than this. So I will revisit this blog another day to add those wonderful religious and personal slants that resonated.
By the way, the one slant that I will cede Mary won hands down, is the book alternates with sections, in different type fonts, of Mary's and Jim's view of what is happening in their lives. Mary writes better, more humorously, more cleverly, but just as politically extremely. I agree with the final tally: Democrats love humanity but hate individuals, Republicans favor doing favors for individuals rather than pontificating about mankind.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
It Pays to Re-request Books that You don't Pick up at the Library
So it was with Lillian and Dash by Sam Toperoff. The hold expired when I was savoring Brave Genius for weeks on end. (Unbelievably, the fine was only $3.60.) And the real life Nick and Nora was still waiting on the shelf for me.
I love Thin Man movies with William Powell and Myrna Loy as the Nick and Nora and from my point of view, there are never enough film festivals of these wonderful double entendre repartee movies. But I have never read anything by either Lillian Hellman or Dashiell Hammett, let alone never heard of Toperoff. Toperoff's books are not to be found in our library network and even on Amazon his reviews can be counted on one hand despite having written books with interesting titles about the Pittsburgh Steelers, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. Meanwhile, I have reserved a copy of the Thin Man and a collection of Hellman's plays
This biographical novel is a segue for me, still looking for stories stuffed with lust yet with intelligence and wit. But, it is a wonderful contrast to Brave Genius as well. Dash's involvement in WWII was basically an attempt to recapture his youth, not anything that was motivated by higher values; Lillian seemed manipulated, first by movie producers and Hemingway to film the Spanish Civil War and then by FDR and his son to do a propaganda piece that was very pro-Russia. Both ended up before HUAC, bizarre given their arguments about FDR
Lillian and Dash had years of separation in their decades long love affair: she filming the war in Spain and Russia, he enlisting in his late forties and being shipped off to Alaska, she writing for Broadway plays, he trying to get work and stay sober in Hollywood. Dash was married, Catholic and easily tempted, as was Lillian, but Jewish. Her writing flourished under his advise. They did the 21, he won $23,000 at the '41 Santa Anita Handicap. I am easily lost in fantasy of a love story with painful lows and dizzying highs
Did Hammett or Toperoff write the letters to Lillian? Does every man say the same things to the woman he loves the most? "To never see you again is a fate I deserve ... still I can't imagine living out my live -- our lives --and never again spending an evening with you ... To never see you again would be impossible for me. So how and when becomes the issue, and those are entirely up to you. I'll wait ..." and again "I miss your face. I miss your brains. I miss you. I have always missed you." Such simple words stop me cold.
I love Thin Man movies with William Powell and Myrna Loy as the Nick and Nora and from my point of view, there are never enough film festivals of these wonderful double entendre repartee movies. But I have never read anything by either Lillian Hellman or Dashiell Hammett, let alone never heard of Toperoff. Toperoff's books are not to be found in our library network and even on Amazon his reviews can be counted on one hand despite having written books with interesting titles about the Pittsburgh Steelers, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. Meanwhile, I have reserved a copy of the Thin Man and a collection of Hellman's plays
This biographical novel is a segue for me, still looking for stories stuffed with lust yet with intelligence and wit. But, it is a wonderful contrast to Brave Genius as well. Dash's involvement in WWII was basically an attempt to recapture his youth, not anything that was motivated by higher values; Lillian seemed manipulated, first by movie producers and Hemingway to film the Spanish Civil War and then by FDR and his son to do a propaganda piece that was very pro-Russia. Both ended up before HUAC, bizarre given their arguments about FDR
Lillian and Dash had years of separation in their decades long love affair: she filming the war in Spain and Russia, he enlisting in his late forties and being shipped off to Alaska, she writing for Broadway plays, he trying to get work and stay sober in Hollywood. Dash was married, Catholic and easily tempted, as was Lillian, but Jewish. Her writing flourished under his advise. They did the 21, he won $23,000 at the '41 Santa Anita Handicap. I am easily lost in fantasy of a love story with painful lows and dizzying highs
Did Hammett or Toperoff write the letters to Lillian? Does every man say the same things to the woman he loves the most? "To never see you again is a fate I deserve ... still I can't imagine living out my live -- our lives --and never again spending an evening with you ... To never see you again would be impossible for me. So how and when becomes the issue, and those are entirely up to you. I'll wait ..." and again "I miss your face. I miss your brains. I miss you. I have always missed you." Such simple words stop me cold.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
It's Easy to Keep a New Year Resolution on January 1
Finished the first book of 2014 today, with the sound muted on the LSU Bowl game and the designated chef struggling in the kitchen to defrost a chicken to no avail. Thankfully, the grocery stores stay open on 1/1.
So I even read The Plague by Camus. The story is heavily philosophical, and the pestilence much more than a metaphor. Maybe Camus' existentialism is a bit preachy but not out of character with the narrator Rieux. I really liked those parts but was affronted when he used a conversation with another character to interject an off theme discourse against capital punishment. With that included, the novel seemed a bit too much a personal propaganda or diatribe.
I also didn't really like the sermons of the Jesuit priest, but I have my family-related biases of course. With Rieux defining his life by the service of work, the Catholic overlay, no more a biblical overlay of the purpose of suffering and the Eden curse of work, did not get adequately reconciled.
That said, I will still venture to read more by Camus. Cannot find a copy of Monod's Chance and Necessity in the library network and one of the books I ordered through Alibris has been cancelled. I was thinking the other night of St Exupery's biography that I read several years ago, yet another valiant Frenchman. Maybe I should stick with the French as a theme for this upcoming year.
One additional thought, like many others today not only figuring out new year's resolutions, I looked at my horoscope for the upcoming year. I am most interested in how upbeat my work and career is supposed to be at least through the first several months. Like Camus, I define myself by what I do, do day in day out, and am so much more grateful the past year, that my daily efforts and attempts are noticed and appreciated, unlike those years in my former job.
Well the TV is still on mute but the coverage has shifted to the Rose Bowl. Surprised to see some empty seats. Version two of dinner is being prepared and the dog is quiet. Nice beginning to '14. Now if the blizzard just doesn't materialize tonight.
So this will be the 2014 log of books read
January 1: The Plague by Albert Camus
January 5: Lillian and Dash by Sam Toperoff
January 22: Love and War by Mary Matalin and James Carville
February 5: Thankless in Death by J D Robb
February 5: The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammet
April 12: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
April 12: Wild Things by Dave Eggers
April 12: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
April 12: 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
So I even read The Plague by Camus. The story is heavily philosophical, and the pestilence much more than a metaphor. Maybe Camus' existentialism is a bit preachy but not out of character with the narrator Rieux. I really liked those parts but was affronted when he used a conversation with another character to interject an off theme discourse against capital punishment. With that included, the novel seemed a bit too much a personal propaganda or diatribe.
I also didn't really like the sermons of the Jesuit priest, but I have my family-related biases of course. With Rieux defining his life by the service of work, the Catholic overlay, no more a biblical overlay of the purpose of suffering and the Eden curse of work, did not get adequately reconciled.
That said, I will still venture to read more by Camus. Cannot find a copy of Monod's Chance and Necessity in the library network and one of the books I ordered through Alibris has been cancelled. I was thinking the other night of St Exupery's biography that I read several years ago, yet another valiant Frenchman. Maybe I should stick with the French as a theme for this upcoming year.
One additional thought, like many others today not only figuring out new year's resolutions, I looked at my horoscope for the upcoming year. I am most interested in how upbeat my work and career is supposed to be at least through the first several months. Like Camus, I define myself by what I do, do day in day out, and am so much more grateful the past year, that my daily efforts and attempts are noticed and appreciated, unlike those years in my former job.
Well the TV is still on mute but the coverage has shifted to the Rose Bowl. Surprised to see some empty seats. Version two of dinner is being prepared and the dog is quiet. Nice beginning to '14. Now if the blizzard just doesn't materialize tonight.
So this will be the 2014 log of books read
January 1: The Plague by Albert Camus
January 5: Lillian and Dash by Sam Toperoff
January 22: Love and War by Mary Matalin and James Carville
February 5: Thankless in Death by J D Robb
February 5: The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammet
April 12: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
April 12: Wild Things by Dave Eggers
April 12: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
April 12: 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Hello Blog, Remember Me?
Merry Christmas to all of you who haven't heard from me in three months. I am a Slacker. I feel like I am at a bloggers anonymous meeting.
Sunday the made up word of the week in the New York Times magazine was "exhaustence" ... otherwise known as the life of an overworked individual. Not only have I been uninterested in blogging, I have hardly read anything. The book I will review below was due on November 15. I did squeeze in the December book club's reading but since it was to be at my house, and I could make the selection, I picked Miller's play The Price, figuring everyone else would have as little time during the holidays to read as I did. Anyway, a snow storm cancelled the club so who knows if anyone but Pat read it besides me.
On the a review, how novel. Except I read nonfiction ... Brave Genius by Sean Carroll. It's the intersecting lives of Albert Camus and Jacques Monod, both Nobel Prize winners and both active in the French Resistance. It is a fantastic book, scholarly, well written, 504 pages long and thought provoking. It is only that last characteristic that I want to address, and use it as a prelude to whatever books I have time to read in 2014.
Camus wrote for underground newspapers during the War, urging his fellow French citizens to oppose the Vichy regime and bring back national pride. He was writing under an alias, of course, and after the war wrote under his own name. As much as I detest the political bent of every newspaper published today, I was struck by an ideal Camus espoused, urging his colleagues "to write carefully without ever losing sight of the urgent need to restore the country its authoritative voice ... see to it that voice remains one of vigor rather than hatred, of proud objectivity and not rhetoric, of humanity rather than mediocrity." Furthermore, for Camus, a writer's responsibility was to unite the greatest number of people, not to compromise his art by serving those in power who make history.
I'll admit, I haven't read anything by Camus, and they will be on my 2014 list, having already ordered a few from Alibris. He appeals to my sense of challenging the imposed what is when he asks "What is a rebel? It is first of all, a man who says no ... What does he mean by saying no? He means, for example, that things are hard enough, there are limits beyond which one cannot pass, up to this point, yes, beyond it no or you are going too far." Carroll interprets this quote "that by saying no, the rebel is in turn affirming that there are limits beyond which his rights are infringed upon. There is thus something to be preserved, something of value, on one side of the limit. Moreover, these limits and rights belong not just to the rebel but also to others. In the act of refusal, the rebel thereby defines a value ... that transcends the individual, which removes him from his solitude and joins him to others."
There are other lengthy quotes from The Myth of Sisyphus that I would include here, but since that is one of the books I have ordered, I will defer and close by saying how "apt" the opening quotes Carroll selected for each chapter are. When alternating chapters and writing about Monod, he introduces a quote from A. N Whitehead: "In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress towards a victory." And from an unknown source, bringing me back to my exhaustence, "Two things rob people of their peace of mind - work unfinished and work not yet begun." I am sure 2014 will keep me continuously suspended between these two poles of obligations, but hopefully will not freeze my need to write as much as the fall of 2013.
Sunday the made up word of the week in the New York Times magazine was "exhaustence" ... otherwise known as the life of an overworked individual. Not only have I been uninterested in blogging, I have hardly read anything. The book I will review below was due on November 15. I did squeeze in the December book club's reading but since it was to be at my house, and I could make the selection, I picked Miller's play The Price, figuring everyone else would have as little time during the holidays to read as I did. Anyway, a snow storm cancelled the club so who knows if anyone but Pat read it besides me.
On the a review, how novel. Except I read nonfiction ... Brave Genius by Sean Carroll. It's the intersecting lives of Albert Camus and Jacques Monod, both Nobel Prize winners and both active in the French Resistance. It is a fantastic book, scholarly, well written, 504 pages long and thought provoking. It is only that last characteristic that I want to address, and use it as a prelude to whatever books I have time to read in 2014.
Camus wrote for underground newspapers during the War, urging his fellow French citizens to oppose the Vichy regime and bring back national pride. He was writing under an alias, of course, and after the war wrote under his own name. As much as I detest the political bent of every newspaper published today, I was struck by an ideal Camus espoused, urging his colleagues "to write carefully without ever losing sight of the urgent need to restore the country its authoritative voice ... see to it that voice remains one of vigor rather than hatred, of proud objectivity and not rhetoric, of humanity rather than mediocrity." Furthermore, for Camus, a writer's responsibility was to unite the greatest number of people, not to compromise his art by serving those in power who make history.
I'll admit, I haven't read anything by Camus, and they will be on my 2014 list, having already ordered a few from Alibris. He appeals to my sense of challenging the imposed what is when he asks "What is a rebel? It is first of all, a man who says no ... What does he mean by saying no? He means, for example, that things are hard enough, there are limits beyond which one cannot pass, up to this point, yes, beyond it no or you are going too far." Carroll interprets this quote "that by saying no, the rebel is in turn affirming that there are limits beyond which his rights are infringed upon. There is thus something to be preserved, something of value, on one side of the limit. Moreover, these limits and rights belong not just to the rebel but also to others. In the act of refusal, the rebel thereby defines a value ... that transcends the individual, which removes him from his solitude and joins him to others."
There are other lengthy quotes from The Myth of Sisyphus that I would include here, but since that is one of the books I have ordered, I will defer and close by saying how "apt" the opening quotes Carroll selected for each chapter are. When alternating chapters and writing about Monod, he introduces a quote from A. N Whitehead: "In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress towards a victory." And from an unknown source, bringing me back to my exhaustence, "Two things rob people of their peace of mind - work unfinished and work not yet begun." I am sure 2014 will keep me continuously suspended between these two poles of obligations, but hopefully will not freeze my need to write as much as the fall of 2013.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Let's get the overdue books back and the drycleaning picked up tomorrow
As promised yesterday, my best effort today riding the bus to and from work to get Walter Mosley's latest, Little Green, back to the library to stop the overdue charges from piling up. Leaving the books to return with some cash, and big cash to pick up my fall wardrobe with my at home menfolk tomorrow, I can focus all my tension on one spot: the likely chance that my scorers will not finish review grant applications by the 18th. I will get not only gray hair but ulcers from this potential failure.
On to Little Green ... unlike J D Robb whose "in death" series I can no longer finish, there is something about Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries that is always fresh, violent, racial but fresh. Mosley has a clear, authentic voice for place and time and although I find it alien, it is believable. Easy has certain primitive ethics that are never breached given drugs, crimes, seedy friends as well as antagonists.
Little Green is a dupe, a pawn, against whom the turmoil of late 60s California hiipiedom is played out. Drug money, free love, and subcultures of opportunistic sellers and changing family values is played out. Easy himself is broken and more than half dead as the story unfolds. He recovers to find his key value is maintaining a family structure, a sort of last ditch Daniel Patrick Moynahan quest before the ghetto culture completely dissolves into fatherless homes, drug dealing, pimping and gang violence. As bleak as this story is, the reader knows it will only get worse and Easy and his side kick Mouse for all their abilities to dodge bullets and best bad guys are the Don Quixote and Sancho Panza of their decade.
On page 163, Mosley succinctly describes the voice, culture and fears of his heritage: " He and ,I as different as we were in age and temperament. had been reared in the same atmosphere: the ether of perpetual vulnerability and subsequent lifelong fear. Black people in America at that time, and all the way back to our first conveyance, the slave ship, had received common traits. From the so-called white man, these attributes were merely hair texture, skin color, and other physical characteristics. But our true inheritance was the fear of being notices, and worrying about everything from rain collapsing the walls around us to the casual glance that might lead to lynching. We -- almost every black man, woman, and child in America -- inherited anxieties like others received red hair or blue eyes."
Easy and Mouse's and many supporting characters share this common DNA and express their actions as dominant genes
On to Little Green ... unlike J D Robb whose "in death" series I can no longer finish, there is something about Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries that is always fresh, violent, racial but fresh. Mosley has a clear, authentic voice for place and time and although I find it alien, it is believable. Easy has certain primitive ethics that are never breached given drugs, crimes, seedy friends as well as antagonists.
Little Green is a dupe, a pawn, against whom the turmoil of late 60s California hiipiedom is played out. Drug money, free love, and subcultures of opportunistic sellers and changing family values is played out. Easy himself is broken and more than half dead as the story unfolds. He recovers to find his key value is maintaining a family structure, a sort of last ditch Daniel Patrick Moynahan quest before the ghetto culture completely dissolves into fatherless homes, drug dealing, pimping and gang violence. As bleak as this story is, the reader knows it will only get worse and Easy and his side kick Mouse for all their abilities to dodge bullets and best bad guys are the Don Quixote and Sancho Panza of their decade.
On page 163, Mosley succinctly describes the voice, culture and fears of his heritage: " He and ,I as different as we were in age and temperament. had been reared in the same atmosphere: the ether of perpetual vulnerability and subsequent lifelong fear. Black people in America at that time, and all the way back to our first conveyance, the slave ship, had received common traits. From the so-called white man, these attributes were merely hair texture, skin color, and other physical characteristics. But our true inheritance was the fear of being notices, and worrying about everything from rain collapsing the walls around us to the casual glance that might lead to lynching. We -- almost every black man, woman, and child in America -- inherited anxieties like others received red hair or blue eyes."
Easy and Mouse's and many supporting characters share this common DNA and express their actions as dominant genes
Sunday, September 8, 2013
I Can't be a Slacker, but I am a Recluse
Well, I will write two abbreviated book reviews and a longer apologia.
Goodness knows how much I owe the library, I've had these books forever. First is Hallucinations which I'm counting as one of my one word title themed list. I finished it so long ago, it seems like something I made up, something shadowy and vaguely remembers, ha. It is by Oliver Sacks of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat fame, in case you ever saw the movie, I didn't.
As I was struggling to find an ounce of sympathy or compassion for the various grant applications I was reading this week, I told my young staff that I only worked six months at Mental Health, glibly saying you had to be crazy to work there. Similarly, I was comparing the people I cross paths with at Substance Abuse with former evangelical users. So to seems dear Oliver, trying to credential himself by detailing all the Timothy Leary like drug adventures he had while in medical school. He is not scientific nor erudite and I feel I got no insight whatsoever from reading this book about people who see things.
OK one bad one down. The next that I finished today waiting interminably at the mani-pedi shop is Life Time by Liza Marklund. She is another Scandanavian author who I reckon is riding the coattails of Dragon Tatoo. Once again, I skip over every town and avenue name that is meaningless to me, not wanting to learn anything geographic about Sweden. There was some curiosity in me wanting to see if she could do anything new with the parallel lives structure of novels. She didn't. In fact, it all seemed too rushed and phony at the ending. Was Nancy Drew better or was I too naive at 12?
My reason for not blogging in weeks, nay, months, is work. I come home not wanting to type anything else on the computer after doing so nonstop from 8 to whenever. Nor have I wanted to read after rushing through 240 applications, determining that more than half of them were not ours anyway. So what free time I've had has been devoted to mindless pulling out of crab grass or scraping moss of brick pathways, anything to empty my head of conscientious thought.
Alas, it is now fall. The football pool is back, my menfolk glued to the television for days on end watching MLB and football; I have to wear a coat walking the dog and waiting for the bus; and it's back to making soup for easy weekday meals, first of the season, to use up the glut of tomatoes from co-workers and neighbors.
So, my own Life Time is equally dull and cyclical. On to the latest Walter Moseley which is also seriously overdue.
Goodness knows how much I owe the library, I've had these books forever. First is Hallucinations which I'm counting as one of my one word title themed list. I finished it so long ago, it seems like something I made up, something shadowy and vaguely remembers, ha. It is by Oliver Sacks of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat fame, in case you ever saw the movie, I didn't.
As I was struggling to find an ounce of sympathy or compassion for the various grant applications I was reading this week, I told my young staff that I only worked six months at Mental Health, glibly saying you had to be crazy to work there. Similarly, I was comparing the people I cross paths with at Substance Abuse with former evangelical users. So to seems dear Oliver, trying to credential himself by detailing all the Timothy Leary like drug adventures he had while in medical school. He is not scientific nor erudite and I feel I got no insight whatsoever from reading this book about people who see things.
OK one bad one down. The next that I finished today waiting interminably at the mani-pedi shop is Life Time by Liza Marklund. She is another Scandanavian author who I reckon is riding the coattails of Dragon Tatoo. Once again, I skip over every town and avenue name that is meaningless to me, not wanting to learn anything geographic about Sweden. There was some curiosity in me wanting to see if she could do anything new with the parallel lives structure of novels. She didn't. In fact, it all seemed too rushed and phony at the ending. Was Nancy Drew better or was I too naive at 12?
My reason for not blogging in weeks, nay, months, is work. I come home not wanting to type anything else on the computer after doing so nonstop from 8 to whenever. Nor have I wanted to read after rushing through 240 applications, determining that more than half of them were not ours anyway. So what free time I've had has been devoted to mindless pulling out of crab grass or scraping moss of brick pathways, anything to empty my head of conscientious thought.
Alas, it is now fall. The football pool is back, my menfolk glued to the television for days on end watching MLB and football; I have to wear a coat walking the dog and waiting for the bus; and it's back to making soup for easy weekday meals, first of the season, to use up the glut of tomatoes from co-workers and neighbors.
So, my own Life Time is equally dull and cyclical. On to the latest Walter Moseley which is also seriously overdue.
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