cacoepy

“She moved through it carrying her fat book, attracted,...

Fri, 11 May 2012 15:44:00 -0400

“She moved through it carrying her fat book, attracted, unsure, a stranger, wanting to feel relevant but knowing how much of a search among alternative universes it would take.”
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

Recommended Listening [014]

Tue, 08 May 2012 16:29:00 -0400

Recommended Listening [014]

Last Week, I: [002]

Mon, 07 May 2012 17:33:00 -0400

1. Last week, I decided to fundamentally change my reading habits. For the majority of my reading life I’ve stuck to one work at a time, most often a novel, less often a short story collection, and even less often a piece of nonfiction. And while I can’t necessarily imply causality, I notoriously abandon books before finishing them, even books that I enjoy. But earlier this year I read a blog post (for the life of me I haven’t been able to find the specific one or I’d link it) exploring the advantages of working through multiple books and, perhaps more importantly, multiple types of books at the same time. And that’s exactly what I intend to do. I’ll likely restrict myself to one novel, one story collection and one nonfiction book at a time, only taking on a new book after finishing another. Personally, I’m expecting and hoping to see three distinct improvements in myself as a reader:

I expect to finish more (and abandon less) books.
I expect to take and retain more from my reading.
And I expect to take a lot more pleasure in reading.

I’ve started with Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow, The Collected Stories by Amy Hempel and The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer by David Goldblatt and having made progress in all of them, I’ve already found myself more focused and interested. I’ll start to work on more Steinbeck shortly.

2. Last week, I played tennis for the first time this year. My grandfather has played tennis all his life and in his time he was one of the better players in the area. Despite his best efforts, he was never able to inspire me to play as a kid, but in true better-late-than-never style I began playing regularly last year and quickly fell in love with the sport. Waiting out winter was more excruciating than I expected and we finally have weather conducive to playing. I was surprised to find that while I definitely have to shake off some rust, my serve is actually better than how I left it in autumn. I just hope I find enough time to play at least half as much as I did last year.

3. Last week, I made the mistake of walking into a Teavana. In the span of five minutes, Ashley and I were forced to waft three teas, talked into a $7 tin tea container that we will use twice a year, and swindled into spending $23 for 5.5 oz. of a single tea that has turned out to taste like cough syrup. She initially tried to sell us an amount that would have cost $80. I still haven’t been able to replay the events in my mind well enough to figure out just what the hell happened, but it was, hands down, the worst retail experience of my life.

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Album of the week:

Recommended Listening [013]

Thu, 03 May 2012 18:11:00 -0400

Recommended Listening [013]

Last Week, I: [001]

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:31:00 -0400

1. Last week, I discovered not only why John Steinbeck has earned the esteemed reputation he has, but also why he deserves it. My previous encounters with Steinbeck were probably fairly typical — I read Of Mice and Men in high school and liked it well enough, was assigned to read The Grapes of Wrath but did not (I was probably too busy reading Bret Easton Ellis or something) — and until now I had never had any urge to visit his other work. And then, seemingly out of nowhere I had Steinbeck on my mind. In reading Will Oldham on Bonnie “Prince” Billy over the past few weeks, I learned that the name for Oldham’s first musical venture, Palace Brothers, was originally titled Palace Flophouse after the locale in Cannery Row. Around the same time I had found a great deal of truth in one of my favorite quotes of all time, from Steinbeck:

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

And I also found myself presented with an opportunity to read Steinbeck. So I took it.

I read Cannery Row over the course of two days, positively delighting in Steinbeck’s prose. Why had I expected it to be dry and dull? How in the world was it so electrifying and full of life? I’ve read truly fantastic, unfuckwithable pieces of fiction with prose to match — Lolita, Gatsby, Gravity’s Rainbow, Infinite Jest. But the difference between Steinbeck and Nabokov, Fitzgerald and Wallace (less so Pynchon), is that with Steinbeck I get the impression that it is completely effortless, if only for the fact that it’s so damn consistent. Few pieces of prose compare to the first four or five chapters of Lolita, but Steinbeck maintains an incredibly high bar of quality writing throughout all of Cannery Row.

And it’s not just his fiction. I’m currently reading Steinbeck’s travelogue Travels with Charley: In Search of America, which was written near the end of his life and the prose is to die for. It is vivid and evocative, sincere and genuine, and immeasurably funny. I’m not a writer, but if I were I would strive to write like Steinbeck. I admire very, very much the work of the other authors I’ve mentioned, but I’ve never felt like that with their work.

But beyond the sheer quality of his style, his writing manages also to be perceptive and sad and touching and universal and hopeful and a true joy to read.

Over the course of the rest of this spring and summer, I hope to read most of Steinbeck’s major work. It’s been a while since I last felt such a connection to an author and such a desire to consume their output, so it’s very exciting. But that’s not all I intend to read this summer and I plan on posting my full summer to-read list soon.

2. Last week, I started cooking. Sort of. I cooked or helped my incredibly talented-in-the-kitchen girlfriend cook three dishes — a refreshing and tasty tortellini soup with zucchini and tomatoes, a very spicy and very cheesy macaroni and cheese, and a traditional Italian sauce and meatballs over angel hair with Italian greens. I suppose I hadn’t previously understood why people who love to cook love to cook. But it really is an amazing thing to be able to take a bunch of separate ingredients and prepare a real meal. It’s another thing I look forward to exploring further over the course of the immediate future.

3. Last week, I learned that being in a long-term, committed relationship means that for every episode of Mad Men you watch together, there are three episodes of The Real Housewives of New Jersey you have to watch together. I’m still trying to work out a formula that tells me whether a life with someone you love outweighs the amount of brain cells the programs on Bravo are responsible for killing every episode. I’ll try to report back.

4. Last week, I heard Alabama Shakes, a blues/garage rock band from Georgia for the first time and immediately made plans to see them this summer. I highly recommend their debut LP, Boys & Girls.

Sometimes it takes less than two-hundred pages to fall in love...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:33:57 -0400

Sometimes it takes less than two-hundred pages to fall in love with a writer.

Thus begins my extended summer of Steinbeck.

Recommended Listening [012]

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:26:00 -0400

Recommended Listening [012]

Recommended Listening [011]

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:20:00 -0400

Recommended Listening [011]

"That’s why when somebody say, ‘when you get to the NBA, don’t forget about..."

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:11:15 -0400

“That’s why when somebody say, ‘when you get to the NBA, don’t forget about me,’ and that stuff… well, I should’ve said to them, ‘if I don’t make it… don’t you forget about me.’”

- William Gates in Hoop Dreams

Recommended Listening [010] Cloud Nothings, Our Plans I...

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Recommended Listening [010]

Cloud Nothings, Our Plans

I remember sending this album to a friend (and mutual Cloud Nothings fan) when I first heard it and beginning with something along the lines of “two songs in and this is really different and really good.” Months later, the simultaneous extent to which it’s different and extent to which it’s good make my brain hurt.

Recommended Listening [009] Silver Jews, Tennessee Punk rock...

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:34:00 -0400

Recommended Listening [009]

Silver Jews, Tennessee

Punk rock died
when the first kid said
‘punk’s not dead.’

"—What do the children say? —There’s a thing the children say. —What do the children say?..."

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:36:53 -0400

“—What do the children say?
—There’s a thing the children say.
—What do the children say?
—They say: Will you always love me?
—Always.
—Will you always remember me?
—Always.
—Will you remember me a year from now?
—Yes, I will.
—Will you remember me two years from now?
—Yes, I will.
—Will you remember me five years from now?
—Yes, I will.
—Knock knock.
—Who’s there?
—You see?”

- Donald Barthelme, Great Days

"She may know a little, may think of herself, face and body, as ‘pretty’…but he could never tell her..."

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:20:45 -0500

“She may know a little, may think of herself, face and body, as ‘pretty’…but he could never tell her all the rest, how many other living things, birds, nights smelling of grass and rain, sunlit moments of simple peace, also gather in what she is to him.”

- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

cacoepy

“She moved through it carrying her fat book, attracted,...

Recommended Reading [015]

Recommended Listening [014]

Last Week, I: [002]

Recommended Listening [013]

Last Week, I: [001]

Sometimes it takes less than two-hundred pages to fall in love...

Recommended Listening [012]

Recommended Reading [014]

Recommended Reading [013]

Recommended Reading [012]

Recommended Listening [011]

Recommended Reading [011]

"That’s why when somebody say, ‘when you get to the NBA, don’t forget about..."

Recommended Listening [010] Cloud Nothings, Our Plans I...

Recommended Reading [010]

Recommended Listening [009] Silver Jews, Tennessee Punk rock...

"—What do the children say? —There’s a thing the children say. —What do the children say?..."

"She may know a little, may think of herself, face and body, as ‘pretty’…but he could never tell her..."

Recommended Reading [009]