When I left Borders six months ago, I acquired a whole stack of advance reader editions of various books. “Uncorrected Proofs – Not For Sale.” Some of them have been a delightful surprises, gems I probably wouldn’t have found on my own. Some have been more of a let down. The True Story of Hansel and Gretel wasn’t exactly fun, but then Holocaust literature rarely is. And now that I think about it, the slow pace probably suited winter in Poland. The disappointment has been Jake Riley: Irreparably Damaged. The characters are between 14 and 16 years old, but the …
That’s it. I’ve had enough. Time to go. Maybe it was because the right-wing was upset because they lost or maybe it was the belief that if only we change who is in office we could fix the economy. The first option confirms my suspicion that there is a secret society of old rich white men taking over the country. The second affirms my belief that people would rather whine about something than understand it. The fact remains that California is in a financial fix, like everyone I know, thanks to an economy which tanked when Junior took up residence …
Indulged my annual craving for steak the other night. Many thanks to Casey for the restaurant recommendation: steak for me, an oversized baked potato for Ian. After dinner, we meandered down to the beach. Los Angeles beaches, like most of L.A., are this strange hybrid of dirty and supreme image-consciousness. The beach is sculpted flat, but it smells funny, and not just in a salty way. Still, empty, night-wrapped beaches are a good place for conversation, for acknowledging loss, for making plans. The waves broke orange in the city’s sodium lights, but further out they shown in brilliant flashes of …
Finished reading Sabriel the other day, and since then I’ve been trying to figure out what to say about it. It’s definitely not what I expected. Not that unexpected is bad, but the story defies easy summaries. Every time I try to line up the words to say, “It’s about. . . ” it seems too many words have gone on vacation, leaving me unable to adequately explain anything. It’s a good story; the pacing is a bit stately, an interesting choice for something so caught up in Life and Death. Definitely one of the more interesting fictional worlds I’ve …
Excessively tired today, despite sleeping for almost nine hours last night. . . Recently finished reading Lost. The author’s previous two books, Wicked and Confessions Of An Ugly Stepsister, are much better, I think. Lost wanders too much, takes far too long to get to the good stuff. I wanted a ghost story, the supernatural kind, and ended up with a story about a woman who’d had an encounter with grief, seasoned it with a mistake, and then remained paralyzed by it. I suppose the point was that she was a ghost in her own life but it didn’t make …
Saw Once Upon a Time in Mexico last night. Fun movie. Driving home, we decided it was a Mexican movie with an American budget and a Hong Kong action sensibility. Very much the birth of the reluctant hero. By the end of the movie, Antonio Banderas, while still dark and brooding, has found someone to live for – a nation too often crippled by power-mad criminals. He’s on his way to being a modern-day Zorro, only without the funny mask and the penchant for carving Zs on everything. The fun of the movie of course is not just the hero’s …