A podcast about books & life — not necessarily in that order
No posting from me today, dear readers! I’m exhausted/hungover from last night (we get up at 5 a.m. e.s.t., so we didn’t get a ton of sleep after Obama’s acceptance speech). Maybe I’ll fire up a double feature of Undercover Brother and Coming to America on the computer, but first, a coworker and I plan to celebrate the election by scoring some lunch over at the Chicken & Rib Crib.
Barack on.
I haven’t finished loading up my new iPod yet, so I wasn’t able to play James Brown’s Living in America during the drive down to the polling station this morning. I fell back on Prince’s Sign o’ the Times (should’ve gone with America from Around the World in a Day). To make up for it, I offer up some JB:
To provide some more Obamatude, I’ll only play funk, soul and R&B in my office stereo today. Up first, Sly & the Family Stone – Anthology!
Now go vote! And then dance like there’s ass in your pants!
Update! Next up: the soundtrack to Brown Sugar.
Vote Lando!
Even Peeps are getting in on the post-racial vibe in America! Go, Obama!
See the whole Lost in the Supermarket series
I’m perplexed, dear reader. Of virtue (pp. 646-653) starts with a promising thought — that it is not in a crisis that we learn who a man is, but through his day-to-day actions — and somehow evolves into a celebration of assassins. In between, we learn that the ritual suicides of Indian wives and Gymnosophists is a “miracle” because of their “constant premeditation through a whole life.”
Montaigne appears to contrast this will-to-death with Christian peoples’ professed belief in fate. That is, while M.’s contemporaries paid lip service to the idea that your number was called long in advance, they still panicked like chickens with their heads cut off during battles.
I suppose M.’s point is that it’s one thing to say you believe something, but another to integrate it into your life:
Except for order, moderation and constancy, I believe that all things are achieveable by a man who in general is very imperfect and defective.
Ha-ha. And I didn’t even go into his celebration of men cutting off their own junk out of spite or abnegation.
* * *
Bonus! To paraphrase Of a monstrous child (pp. 653-4): “A couple of days ago, I saw a particularly messed-up Siamese twin. I also know a farmer who was born without ‘nads. Must be God’s plan. And quit being so provincial; if it happened, it must be part of nature!”
What I’m reading: The Spy in the Ointment, by Donald Westlake. I checked this book out of my local library around 25 years ago, and I decided to go back and check to see if it’s still there. After they computerized the system, they threw out the old sign-out cards, so there’s no sign of when I actually took this one out. But I think I was around 11 or 12 years old. It’s a hoot of a caper novel, so I’ll probably return to some of those Dortmunder novels that I was too young to understand.
What I’m listening to: Mind How You Go
What I’m watching: Not much. Watched the third episode of Mad Men (season 1), and am still sorta eh about it. I guess the aspect I find the most interesting is the way the female characters are all portrayed as stunted, crippled personae. But maybe I’m more fascinated by the way that, at certain angles, Jon Hamm resembles Steve Carrell with a much smaller nose.
What I’m drinking: I’m out of Plymouth gin, so it’s back to Wet by Beefeater.
What Rufus is up to: Having his Saturday night bath and smelling nice and fresh. Oh, and playing with his new hedgehog toy, which I’ve alternately named Hedge Fun and Hedgie Murat.
Where I’m going: Atlanta in a couple of weeks, but nowhere this week.
What I’m happy about: Getting out to the Giants game on Sunday!
What I’m sad about: The realization that I’m likely never going to see my copies of Grant Morrison’s Bible John comic, having lent them to Chip Delany a number of years ago.
What I’m pondering: Lydia Hearst: Hot or not? Broken reflection of Heather Graham or not?
Virginia Heffernan has a nice piece in the NYT Magazine about Amazon’s Kindle e-reader. The biggest complaints I hear about the Kindle from tech geeks is that it needs to have an color touchscreen with a high-powered browser, cellphone service and maybe a camera. Which is to say, they miss the point. It’s an e-reader, not an e-everything. I agree with them, of course, when they say it’s a butt-ugly piece of design.
Ms. Heffernan does a good job of explaining how the Kindle’s “limitations” are what define it as a great device for . . . reading books. Which I do a lot of.
In short, you get absorbed when reading on the Kindle. You lose hours to reading novels in one sitting. You sit up straighter, energized by new ideas and new universes. You nod off, periodically, infatuated or entranced or spent. And yet the slight connection to the Web still permits the (false, probably, but nonetheless reassuring) sense that if the apocalypse came while you were shut away somewhere reading, the machine would get the news from Amazon.com and find a way to let you know. Anything short of that, though, the Kindle leaves you alone.
And alone is where I want to be, for now. It’s bliss. Emerge from the subway or alight from a flight, and the Kindle has no news for you. No missed calls. It’s ready only to be read. It’s like a good exercise machine that mysteriously incentivizes the pursuit of muscle pain while still making you feel cared for. The Kindle makes you want to read, and read hard, and read prolifically. It eventually makes me aware that, compared with reading a lush, inky book, checking e-mail is boring, workaday and lame.
The only thing she doesn’t touch upon is what I consider the Kindle’s game-changing aspect: the ability to download free samples of e-books rather than having to buy the whole thing. There are a number of books that I’ve decided not to buy after checking out their first 30 or so pages on the Kindle. In some cases, I decided I simply didn’t like the book enough to buy it; in others, I’ve passed because the formatting of that particular book hasn’t looked good on the device, or because a translation isn’t the one I wanted (Amazon’s Kindle store is a little hinky when it comes to books in translation).
The weather was really wonderful yesterday morning, so we decided to take Rufus on an extended walk around Skyline Lake. I don’t recall ever walking all the way around the lake when I was growing up here, but I enjoy meandering around with our boy and looking at the environs. I’m sure I won’t in wintertime, but I’ll cut down his food a little so he doesn’t pack on the pounds.
Anyway, in the last third of our walk, we stopped for a few moments at the lakeside and I busted out the iPhone to take some pix. Here’s the best one:
After, we went down to our weekly farmers’ market. It’s the last one till next May, so Rufus made sure to stop by all his regular booths and get lots of affection. In our conversations with other shoppers, we found four different families that have owned greyhounds in the past. Which is freaky, is all.
Anyway, no Wawayanda hike today, as we’ve got tickets for the Cowboys/Giants game, so here’s your cute pic of the week of Rufus Noir, Ace Dogtective:
We didn’t get as many trick-or-treaters as we did last year, so Rufus had an easier evening than I’d anticipated. He barked like a maniac everytime the doorbell rang, of course. I’d put his leash on him and open the door, at which point he’d invariably wag his tail and try to get all the kids to pet him or put their faces close enough for a good lick.
All in all, he had a better day than Jill Rappaport’s dog:
Liger bites man. Really hard.