Category: literature

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What it is: 4/7/08

What I’m reading: Wrong for All the Right Reasons, by Glenn Dakin. My pal Tom gave me this collection of Dakin’s comics a few years ago, and I kept getting put off by the clunkiness of the first few installments. I tried it one more time, and made it past their sci-fi/superhero trappings to reach some lovely and poetic strips about an aimless life and the wonders of the visible world.

What I’m listening to: Veneer, by Jose Gonzalez (not as good as his new album, In Our Nature)

What I’m watching: Miss Guided. I have a crush on Judy Greer. There, I’ve said it. Oh, and Amazing Grace, starring the guy who played both Mister Fantastic and Mister Miracle. (For the record, it was structured poorly, starting in 1797 and using extensive flashbacks to 1782 to show Wilberforce’s early battles to get slavery abolished in the British territories. Near as I can tell, the only reason to assemble the story that way was so they could introduce the hot wife-to-be early on in the movie. The story would’ve been far more effective if it had been told linearly, with a “15 years later” title coming up after Wilberforce’s initial failure in Parliament. Oh, and Albert Finney should’ve had more screen time. On the plus side, the guy who plays William Pitt is named Benedict Cumberbatch.)

What I’m happy about: Getting to see my friends for brunch on Sunday.

Samuel R. Delany and Dennis

What I’m sad about: Dog toys made with such shoddy workmanship that Rufus tears them to pieces within minutes. Last night, we had to stop him from chewing on the plastic squeak-insert in his toy bunny, which he’d received 4 hours earlier. And don’t ask what happened to his toy crawfish.

What I’m pondering: Whether to cobble together a new design for this blog.

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Writing and Blogging

The NY Observer has a funny article about how there’s no “career path” for writers nowadays, because they can’t work their way up from magazines into high-paying jobs as ‘intelligentsia’ or something, the way they once could. Oh, and writers can’t get expense accounts anymore. I was entertained by its clueless aspiration for a world almost 50 years gone. Or, as this commenter put it:

This reads like a bunch of bitter, entitled, anonymous people trying to rationalize their failures in a piece that is itself a rationalization of its own failures. If there were any numbers or statistics even remotely associated with this bogus trend piece it might be worth discussing, but it’s just empty and lazy.

Anyway, here’s a piece from Donald Pittenger on the use(lessness) of editors, which parallels the Observer article in a neat way. At least, I think it does, but I got no sleep last night, so I may be clutching at straws.

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Hot Chip

Happy birthday / April Fool’s day to Chip Delany! Thank you for keeping faith in my abilities as a publisher, long after a sensible man would have given up.

Samuel R. Delany and Dennis

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What It Is: 3/31/08

What I’m reading: Desolation Road by Ian McDonald

What I’m listening to: Odd Couple, Gnarls Barkley

What I’m watching: NCAA hoops

What I’m drinking: nothing, after reaching double-digits in Hendrick’s & tonics last week in Philadelphia

Where I’m going: no traveling this week!

What I’m happy about: Amy & Rufus didn’t kill each other while I was away last week.

What I’m sad about: Davidson fell 3 points short of reaching the Final Four. But this post about the sheer joy on display in Western Kentucky’s first-round buzzer-beater win helps me get over the sadness.

What I’m pondering: How to write a convincing evocation of a place I’ve never been.

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What it is: 3/24/08

What I’m reading:Little Nothings: The Curse of the Umbrella, by Lewis Trondheim

What I’m listening to: Drunk with Passion, This is How it Feels, and Pure, all by the Golden Palominos

What I’m watching: Blades of Glory, unfortunately

What I’m drinking: Not a durned thing

Where I’m going: Philadelphia, for a pharma conference

What I’m happy about: Getting to see some of my pals down in Philly (both locals and work-friends who I tend to see only at conferences, but would hang out with in non-work scenarios)

What I’m sad about: Being away from my wife and my doggie for a few days.

What I’m pondering: How to describe the multiple levels of messed-up-edness in Sunday’s visit with my uncle, who had bypass surgery a few weeks ago. On the plus side, he seems to be recuperating pretty well. On the minus side, it appears that, in addition to my having to worry about hereditary cardiovascular issues, I’ll also have to be on the lookout for the mental instability that my dad and his brother share.

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What it is: 3/17/08

What I’m reading: During the weekend, I finished Love & Sleep, Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha comic and Darwyn Cooke’s The New Frontier. I’m continuing to work on Retired Racing Greyhounds for Dummies. I have 6 weeks until the third volume of AEgypt gets reissued, but this week’ll get spent pounding out the April issue and designing an advertiser’s supplement, so I doubt there’ll be much book-reading going on.

What I’m listening to: Dummy, by Portishead

What I’m watching: 2nd season of The Wire (two episodes remaining), No Country for Old Men, and Super Bowl XLII Champions: NY Giants DVD

What I’m drinking: Tim Horton’s coarse grind (French press style), a gift from my pals in Providence

Where I’m going: nowhere this week

What I’m happy about: Rufus is doing much better on the stairs.

What I’m sad about: Closing the crate door on the poor guy when I go to work in the morning, even though lots of people — including veterinarians and greyhound owners — told me not to get upset about doing it.

What I’m pondering: Whether I should get a microchip implanted that will give me an electric shock anytime I go more than 3 days without writing back to e-mails from friends or family. I feel like a heel lately.