Tagged With: Reading
I change the dictionary
Words that should not exist anymore: aggregate optimize premium Words that should exist from now on: struggly pinkle twile
Princess Toadstool and the world of letters
Litquake is happening this week. For those of you who did not, like me, stumble across this in the paper yesterday while waiting for the nice girl to toast your bagel, Litquake is an annual week-long celebration of (I think) local writers. Lots of readings and so forth. I checked out the website today and … Continue reading
James and the giant vocabulary
After years of avoiding him, I’m finally taking James Joyce for a spin. I made the decision once I’d exhausted all my Trollope. After he limped off the floor, I was looking around for a partner and there was James, as usual, sitting shyly against the wall on an uncomfortable folding shelf, watching me eagerly. … Continue reading
It’s just Norma and Franz
About twice every year for the past five years I’ve been taking a stab at reading Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. (And how I wish I could take an actual stab at you, Pynchon, you ornery fucker.) My most recent stab started a few days ago, and for the first time I was delighted to find I … Continue reading
And even, yes, even, yes, Tamora Pierce
From home I brought books. I sold off many others to make shelf-room, and even my Arden Shakespeares, and even The Canterbury Tales which I didn’t like but might need as an English major, and even a Calvino (but I kept Henry Miller to keep Anais company, third shelf down). From home I brought Peter … Continue reading
Mama Cow Man and other stories
I write in capital letters. My cursive was never good for much. Between second and third grade I switched from an experimental hippie-type classroom where we were encouraged to get on with the important business of school–in my case, reading whatever I could get my hands on, puzzling through math problems because they were interesting, … Continue reading
There are shouldn’ts and shoulds
One of my professors likes to remind the class that our favorite authors would not have liked us, had we ever met. “Don’t kid yourselves,” he says, “Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen would not be your friends. They would not invite you round for tea. You are uncouth youthful boors from the underclasses and these … Continue reading
A little zooey
I’ve got the country cousin of a fierce cold. The cold itself would have knocked me on my ass but the cousin is more hesitant and contents itself with scratching its initials on the back of my throat where it thinks no one will notice and stomping aerobically around my head where it thinks no … Continue reading
Hunka broken heater
So things are pretty blissful here in my life, as many of you know now after seeing our new place. The heat is stuck on still, but I’m choosing to look on that as a metaphor for our burning love. I’m so in love with the apartment that I actually mopped the kitchen floor yesterday–not … Continue reading
No Name #226
One of my old favorite boys introduced me to the poetry of Rimbaud when I was twenty. I still idly flip through Rimbaud collections when I find myself in bookstores, hoping that the news of my fidelity will travel back to that boy along the universal psychic pipeline. Then last night in lecture, my professor … Continue reading