At roughly the All-Star Break, here's my kill count for summer reading:
Speaking With the Angel, ed. Nick Hornby
The Pearl and The Red Pony, by John Steinbeck
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
As much as I liked that last one, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to give Senor Steinbeck a rest for at least a year. I think that The Pearl/The Red Pony (Divinity School Used Book Sale, w00t!) dulled the edge of East of Eden for me, because I could really mark Steinbeck's flaws in his two novellas, where as before I didn't think he had any flaws. I decided that I don't like the way he passes judgement on his characters. The Corrections served as a kind of foil, because Franzen takes the same stance on every one of his characters: condescending distance. In East of Eden, however, I couldn't shake the feeling that Steinbeck had every character numbered in the order that he liked them best. It made the whole book seem a trifle transparent.
For the Cape Cod trip, which starts today (so no blog until next Saturday, like that's really going to disrupt the status quo), I'm bringing The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson, and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins. The first is a non-fiction recount of a series of murders at the 1890 World's Fair in Chicago; specifically, in Hyde Park only a couple of blocks from where I live. Recommended by John's mom, actually, which he doesn't know about.
What have I been up to besides work and reading? Not a whole lot. Monday, Kristen and I ran 7 miles for the first installment in our training for the half-marathon on Thanksgiving morning, the Turkey Trot (long-sleeve t-shirt? I'm there.). It was a hard out-and-back on the Greenway, which we run on all the time but never at dusk. I discovered that I like running there better at 7 at night. The runners and bikers there aren't the chatty moms and stroller-pushers we pass in the morning. The dusk-folk are lone runners, work-a-day bikers, and even when we were passing people I felt like I was running in solitude. It turned out to be the most pleasant run I've had in a long time, despite the fact that Kristen got sick from it afterwards. It's easy to forget how nice July weather in Georgia can be when it's not 3 in the blistering afternoon.
Last weekend I went with my mom to American Sampler, which is the folk art place in downtown Roswell. They've been sending us these quaint postcards for years, and we finally decided to go to their Christmas in July open house. I tell ya, that place is two sacks of Precious Moments figurines away from being the quintessential kitsch store. However, it redeems all the cute trite with some really.... well.... creepy stuff. On every shelf you'll see your usual American Folk woodcuts and jugs and porcelain, and then you'll see one instance of a creepy doll or an insane snowman holding another snowman's head on a stick or a bisque-fired Satan lamp. As it turns out, it's almost all independently hand-crafted stuff, and some of these down-home amateur artists must also be amateur goths. Some of the stuff in there tickled the Halloween bone in me. Also, when I left, the really butch shopkeep gave me a flyer for Folk Fest: a 3-day Folk Art Festival in Mid-August. Free t-shirt if I come Friday? Call me Jasper.
Despite the prominence of Folk and free t-shirts in my life, I'm feeling a bit restless. I should be enjoying the summer because I get to see Kristen every day and Thomas is home for most of the summer and, truthfully, my job is pretty good-- I have very few funny work-is-hell stories to relate here (save for the conversation I overheard, while busing tables, about how UPS women are some of the hottest women you'll ever find in a tight pair of brown shorts). But I miss losing myself in something I'm really interested in, and for the time, I am wishing that I were in some performance piece. Nicole from Anarchist emailed me the other day (one of my blog photos of campus might be used for the Parents Weekend brochure? Do I get a free t-shirt?), and it got me missing the peformance high. Hopefully, I can just tuck that craving away for the remainder of the summer and just enjoy the Retta.
Finally, I think I now prefer Rachel Harris to Michael Ian Black on I Love the '90's. Damn. I need a Furby in my life.
Speaking With the Angel, ed. Nick Hornby
The Pearl and The Red Pony, by John Steinbeck
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
As much as I liked that last one, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to give Senor Steinbeck a rest for at least a year. I think that The Pearl/The Red Pony (Divinity School Used Book Sale, w00t!) dulled the edge of East of Eden for me, because I could really mark Steinbeck's flaws in his two novellas, where as before I didn't think he had any flaws. I decided that I don't like the way he passes judgement on his characters. The Corrections served as a kind of foil, because Franzen takes the same stance on every one of his characters: condescending distance. In East of Eden, however, I couldn't shake the feeling that Steinbeck had every character numbered in the order that he liked them best. It made the whole book seem a trifle transparent.
For the Cape Cod trip, which starts today (so no blog until next Saturday, like that's really going to disrupt the status quo), I'm bringing The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson, and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins. The first is a non-fiction recount of a series of murders at the 1890 World's Fair in Chicago; specifically, in Hyde Park only a couple of blocks from where I live. Recommended by John's mom, actually, which he doesn't know about.
What have I been up to besides work and reading? Not a whole lot. Monday, Kristen and I ran 7 miles for the first installment in our training for the half-marathon on Thanksgiving morning, the Turkey Trot (long-sleeve t-shirt? I'm there.). It was a hard out-and-back on the Greenway, which we run on all the time but never at dusk. I discovered that I like running there better at 7 at night. The runners and bikers there aren't the chatty moms and stroller-pushers we pass in the morning. The dusk-folk are lone runners, work-a-day bikers, and even when we were passing people I felt like I was running in solitude. It turned out to be the most pleasant run I've had in a long time, despite the fact that Kristen got sick from it afterwards. It's easy to forget how nice July weather in Georgia can be when it's not 3 in the blistering afternoon.
Last weekend I went with my mom to American Sampler, which is the folk art place in downtown Roswell. They've been sending us these quaint postcards for years, and we finally decided to go to their Christmas in July open house. I tell ya, that place is two sacks of Precious Moments figurines away from being the quintessential kitsch store. However, it redeems all the cute trite with some really.... well.... creepy stuff. On every shelf you'll see your usual American Folk woodcuts and jugs and porcelain, and then you'll see one instance of a creepy doll or an insane snowman holding another snowman's head on a stick or a bisque-fired Satan lamp. As it turns out, it's almost all independently hand-crafted stuff, and some of these down-home amateur artists must also be amateur goths. Some of the stuff in there tickled the Halloween bone in me. Also, when I left, the really butch shopkeep gave me a flyer for Folk Fest: a 3-day Folk Art Festival in Mid-August. Free t-shirt if I come Friday? Call me Jasper.
Despite the prominence of Folk and free t-shirts in my life, I'm feeling a bit restless. I should be enjoying the summer because I get to see Kristen every day and Thomas is home for most of the summer and, truthfully, my job is pretty good-- I have very few funny work-is-hell stories to relate here (save for the conversation I overheard, while busing tables, about how UPS women are some of the hottest women you'll ever find in a tight pair of brown shorts). But I miss losing myself in something I'm really interested in, and for the time, I am wishing that I were in some performance piece. Nicole from Anarchist emailed me the other day (one of my blog photos of campus might be used for the Parents Weekend brochure? Do I get a free t-shirt?), and it got me missing the peformance high. Hopefully, I can just tuck that craving away for the remainder of the summer and just enjoy the Retta.
Finally, I think I now prefer Rachel Harris to Michael Ian Black on I Love the '90's. Damn. I need a Furby in my life.
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