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Monday, November third, 2008
Chapter 5 of The Golden Compass -- now things are starting to get really interesting. Sylvia and I are both on the edge of our seat. I really like the way Pullman drops hints about what's going on -- very graceful, they are not so cryptic you can't easily pick up on them, but they are not hammered into your ears either. A bit like reading a good whodunit. And at the end of the cocktail party scene, the transition to Lyra fleeing from Mrs. Coulter's house was handled very well. This book just feels elegant.
 (Note from an adult reading a kids' book -- it was such an eerie feeling I had, to be identifying with Mrs. Coulter as I read her cruel disciplinarian lines to Lyra before the party. I can't recall ever feeling this way though I've read many children's books with authoritarian adult figures in them.)
posted evening of November third, 2008: Respond
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Sunday, November second, 2008
Saramago posts today on the subject of politics. On the eve of the presidential elections in the United States, this brief observation does not seem out of place. Some time back, a Portuguese politician*, who at that time bore the responsibilities of prime minister, declared for whomever would like to hear it that politics is, in the first place, the art of not speaking the truth. The problem is that since he said that, there has not been, to my knowledge, a single politician, from the left to the right, who would correct him, who would say no sir, the truth is going to be the sole and ultimate objective of politics. For the simple reason that only in this manner can the two be saved: truth by politics, politics by the truth. (I'm pretty uncertain about the translation of the last sentence: I'm translating the preposition "con", which usually means "with", as "by", because I'm not sure how else to make sense of the sentence.** Please let me know in comments if you know better.)
 * The politician in question is António Guterres, as near as I can tell (based on a reference in this editorial from Lusopresse). I am tentatively translating Saramago's "governo" as "prime minister", since that was Guterres' position.
** Update -- Never mind, now I looked at the Portuguese source of the post (which I had been reading in Spanish) -- the preposition translated as "con" is "pela", which is Portuguese for "by". This makes me more confident in my translation of the Spanish.
posted evening of November second, 2008: Respond
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Ever since I posted the video of Harry Gibson playing "Harry the Hipster" several months ago, I get Google hits searching for his more famous song, "Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?" -- frequently enough to make me curious. So I went and looked it up. Cool tune! And since today seems to be a good day for posting YouTube videos (here chez READIN), let's put another one up. Take it away, Harry!
posted afternoon of November second, 2008: Respond
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Slacktivist posted this video yesterday, with the note that there are only three more days -- well today there are only two more days; and this is the perfect version of the perfect song for this moment. I had totally forgotten about Tracy Chapman, glad to be reminded.
 Mmm... that makes me want to hear Bob singing this song. Here he is in 1964: (Dylan is 25 in this video; Chapman is 28 above.)
posted morning of November second, 2008: Respond
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In Hovering Flight, Chapters 15 and 16 -- as Addie struggles with cancer and with chemotherapy I feel like she is finally starting to come through as a character -- still very much an odd bird, but I'm starting to understand her well enough to identify with her, and with Tom. And in parallel I'm thinking that Scarlet (who is now grown up) is beginning to understand her parents as people rather than just as cryptic "parents". By that token the writing in these chapters strikes me as more mature, more fully developed than the writing in Chapters 7 and 8 -- Scarlet is again (mostly) absent from the story, but there is no drought of character. I wonder if it would be possible (and if it would be worthwhile) to argue that the narrator "grows up" in parallel with Scarlet -- that Scarlet getting to know her parents enables the reader to know them with a fulness of human character. Would it be appropriate to call this a Bildungsroman?
 (And a nice bit of continuity at the end of Chapter 16: at the party celebrating Addie's newfound artistic success, "And there was Scarlet, watching them all and smiling...")
posted morning of November second, 2008: Respond
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Lots of long, vivid dreams this weekend! Last night I was in a sort of huge video game/maze type of setting -- the introduction is our hero disembarking from a futuristic train into a deserted station lit with purple neon and reminiscent of If on a winter's night a traveller... -- he goes downstairs and out through a turnstile and sees too late that he has dropped his wallet in the hallway of the station. The action is trying to figure out how to get back into the part of the station where his wallet is: the turnstile is built so there's no way of jumping it, and when you go into the station's entrance you are in a completely different place, very crowded with Pokemon-style figures (the ones I remember best looked like Militank). I spent a long time going up through levels searching for the train platform (because I knew how to get to the exit from there) and being blocked by the figures, which were not actively opposing me but were behaving like a crowd -- moving with no regard for where I wanted to go and not allowing me to push past them. Occasionally I would get within sight of the platform but there was always some obstacle preventing me from getting there.
posted morning of November second, 2008: Respond
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Saturday, November first, 2008
 Ellen on the porch with a pumpkin. Hallowe'en parade at Seth Boyden school: Sylvia as Hermione.
posted evening of November first, 2008: Respond
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Two extremely vivid dreams last night about very mundane activities, taking the dog for a walk and making tea for breakfast. Ellen and I were walking both dogs around the block. Somehow Pixie got off the leash but we were unconcerned and went on walking Lola until we got back to our door. There waiting for us on the lawn were two big doggy-poops which I needed to throw away. Yuck. When I woke up Pixie was anxiously waiting to go downstairs and out to the yard -- it was the middle of the night but I let her out figuring (a) the dream had some prophetic element and (b) the M&M's which Pixie snuck last night had given her diarrhœa. After I got back to sleep I was called on to make some mint tea for Sylvia's breakfast. Easy enough right? But somehow I kept doing things wrong, like using coffee instead of hot water, mixing up the creamer with the kettle, pouring hot water into a mug that had holes in it... This went on for ages and I don't think in the end I was able to make a cup of tea.
posted morning of November first, 2008: Respond
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Friday, October 31st, 2008
via The Wooster Collective comes news that artist Alëxone has launched his own web site, alexone.net. I had never heard of Alëxone before but am anxious to find out more. Beautiful images, strongly reminiscent of something but I'm not sure exactly what.
posted morning of October 31st, 2008: 1 response
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So I had this dream last night in which I was hosting a dinner party. My food strategy was to go to a dealer in prepared food, and buy roasts of beef -- several of them, I think I probably bought one roast for each guest. Then I realized I needed a side dish so I picked up a little take-out container of mac and cheese. Got home and I started carving up the beef. It was taking a long time, and I realized the dish of mac and cheese wasn't going to be enough, so I made a container of instant mac and cheese to supplement it. Also I thought a vegetable would be nice so I opened a jar of pickles, and sliced some rich cheese of some kind for an appetizer. Somehow everybody had arrived and was at the table, so I served them plates heaped with roast beef. Forgot the mac and cheese which I had left warming in the oven, and the pickles and cheese never made it to the table either. Everybody liked the roast beef but there was way too much of it, and people drifted away to other things... I have a clear memory of asking Sylvia if she liked the dinner and her saying she did, so it was not a total failure I guess.
posted morning of October 31st, 2008: Respond
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The Virginia Quarterly Review publishes a newly translated 