Typographical Errors

I got this insert today.  Sweet tea sounds delicious.  Sweat tea, I'm not so sure about.

Books Read: January 2009

Reading Nick Hornby's essays about reading inspired me to try to keep a record of what I'm reading. Sometimes (i.e., when I'm not on break) it will skew more academic, sometimes more recreational, although the hope is always that the academic will also be compelling and interesting, and of course, that I will really read those books and not just pretend to. I'll just keep adding to the list until it's February's turn.

Housekeeping vs. The Dirt and Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby

Books of the aforementioned essays from the magazine The Believer. Reading About a Boy as part of my Chris Weitz mini-primer reminded me of how much I enjoyed High Fidelity and drove me to pursue more Hornby. The next time I have a stretch of time to read recreationally, I'll probably tackle some more of his fiction, but these essays were positively delightful. Above all, I really latched onto Hornby's basic philosophy, which paraphrased is basically "Read what you like, because life's too short to read something that makes you miserable." His anti-literary-snobbery stance is refreshing, and made me feel better about some of my literary choices of the past year, namely quitting on Blood Meridian after about ten pages, neglecting to read Housekeeping for class (his writing on the book convinced me that I couldn't have possibly given the book the attention it merits in the time given to read it for class, and made me eager to pick it up when I do have that time) and not feeling the least bit guilty or ashamed for enjoying the Twilight series.

The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

Another exercise that grew out of Weitz assessment. I first read The Golden Compass back when it originally came out, when I was in elementary school, and didn't return to it until last month, when I prepared to watch the movie. Back in the day, I didn't move on to The Subtle Knife because a friend told me that I should wait until the third book came out because of the frustration involved in waiting for the conclusion. Knowing little of the joyous tension that can come from anticipating the release of a book (or movie, or album, or new TV season), I heeded her advice, and hence was no longer interested when The Amber Spyglass was released. It has thus taken the better part of a decade for me to get around to it. I liked the series, and I'm glad that I finally took the plunge and just finished it already. Lyra is a delightful, ballsy heroine, and the worlds that Pullman imagines around her are vividly imagined. It's not supplanting Harry Potter in my personal esteem, but it was a satisfying way to spend a few days.

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

A short mystery by another author who's becoming one of my favorites. Chabon has what many of my favorite authors have, which is an innate sense of history. By which I mean that the manner in which they write fictional histories weaves stories in an epic sense that evokes documented factual history (that is, history by academically trained historians). Though The Final Solution is brief, one gets the sense that among the silences and unfilled gaps in the mystery, is a deeply involved story that Chabon ultimately knows from beginning to end.

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood by Koren Zailckas

Maybe it's weird to say so, but I find stories about substance abuse, fictional and otherwise, unbelievably fascinating. They frequently show life at it's most dramatic and melodramatic, small moments exacerbated or writ large due to the influence of alcohol or drugs. However, even if Zailckas' memoir wasn't about substance abuse, it would still be interesting due to her startlingly clear-eyed observations about what it means to be a young woman in America today. She looks at herself and her peers and draws their misadventures with alcohol out to make points about expected behavior of women as young people, as drinkers, as friends, as protectors that are sad but revelatory when plainly stated.

This is the True Story...

Real World: Brooklyn - MTV Shows

Try as I might, I can't quite seem to stop loving The Real World.  I'm years removed from my own peak viewing era (New Orleans to Las Vegas), but there's something reassuring about the show's tenacity on a network that values youth and novelty above all else.  Working on a paper about the VMAs really piqued my interest in MTV and their constant revitalization versus their embrace of their own history and brand representatives.  Barring some sort of dramatic programming decision on MTV's part, the next few years will see the first housemate born after the initial premiere of the first New York season, which should be a really intriguing milestone for the network.

I love Real World retrospectives, and this one was actually pretty interesting, if a little focused on recent seasons.  Shockingly, this one managed to go an hour and a half without the classic Slap from Seattle (as well as my personal favorite, Dan and Melissa's throwdown in Miami over her opening his mail - it epitomizes the core philosophy that has driven The Real World for so many seasons, namely that twenty-somethings forced to live together will fight over anything and everything). I love the "institutional memory" role taken on by Jonathan Murray - you can tell that he's seen a lot of crazy shit over the years, and he seems to truly love the show and all that has come from it over the years without the mercenary sort of air you get from people like Mark Burnett.  I'm sort of fascinated by the made-for-TV biopic they're apparently making about Pedro Zamora - on the one hand because it seems like a whole new level of self-cannibalization on MTV's part, but on the other because it elevates something that happened on MTV and seems to make the argument that it should be known to people too young to watch it when it happened.  I'll be interested to see what comes of that.

I might actually watch this season, for old time's sake.  Even though the show seems to have gotten trashier over the years, I can still see how a young teen could get something rewarding out of the show.  When I was really into The Real World (like, I bought their behind-the-scenes books, that's how into it I was), I latched onto Melissa from New Orleans and Coral from Back to New York in particular.  At the point I was at in my life, there was something really reassuring about seeing young women of color living their lives and interacting with peers and just generally acknowledging that sometimes it is really difficult to just exist.  I truly believe that there's still value to be gained from The Real World, hot tub shenanigans aside.

Quoted III

"Joyce Maynard, who lived with Mr. Salinger in the early ’70s, wrote in a 1998 memoir that she had seen shelves of notebooks devoted to the Glass family and believed there were at least two new novels locked away in a safe."

- Charles McGrath, "Still Paging Mr. Salinger," New York Times, 12/30/08

This article kind of epitomized the slow news day ("Salinger: Still a Recluse" is not exactly breaking or urgent news), but as a Glass family devotee, the above sentence made my heart skip a beat. I hope against hope that he ultimately decides to share whatever his output has been with the fans who love those characters.