reading

thursday 13: week 19

thirteen things that have nothing whatsoever to do with one another edition

1) anyone wanna go to the desert with me and get real high and visit the integratron? that's right folks, it's the only "acoustically perfect tabernacle and energy machine sited on a powerful geomagnetic vortexin the magical mojave desert" or the whole united states for that matter... looks fuuuun!

2) tasty salted pig parts anyone? if you're in san francisco and get a chance to head to the ferry building please stop into boccalone. get a salumi cone. or a panini. get something!

3) where is my corvette summer (tequila, grapefruit juice, lime juice & tonic)?

4) i've been sick for a week but managed not to miss a run. thanks to my komodosport vibrams my thighs and butt are sore but NOT MY HIPS OR BACK. whoop!

5) friday parker wasn't feeling great and was complaining about going to school. i overheard lorenzo earnestly advising her to go: "how are you ever going to get a good job parker if you don't go to school!?"

6) danny is at the movies with the kids and i am here at home. ftw!

7) listen to the romance of wolves by roma di luna. fer reals ya'll.

8) watch george w. bush: the 9/11 interview if you missed it on national geographic (the link is part 1 of 3). you probably know how i feel about gwb (i'm disgustingly leftist) but this was er, more human maybe, than i'd seen from him before. found myself crying through a few parts of it, unable to imagine the weight of being IN CHARGE that first day.

9) seriously j-wow's new boobs? seriously?

10) wore those shoes to mike's wedding. LOVE.

11) my five year old can listen to any song he wants anywhere in the world, anytime. this, i tell my father, is what has changed music in the past 50 years.

12) is it fall yet? it's so difficult to work with chocolate in this weather. gah!

13) read this book review on npr and i'm totally intrigued. anyone read this?

book summary 2010

in 2010 i read 7 works of non-fiction (5 crime-ish) and 7 works of fiction 9 (one children's lit). most memorable book: seductive poison. hardest to get through: homicide. quickest read: some girls. longest read: the passage.

12/30 some girls by jillian lauren
12/4 seductive poison: a jonestown survivor's story of life and death in the people's temple by deborah layton
11/18 the passage by justin cronin
9/15 emily's runaway imagination by beverly cleary
9/1 fodor's belize
8/1 homicide: a year on the killing streets by david simon
6/8 i'll fly away by wally lamb
6/2 in cold blood by truman capote
5/7 death's acre by bill bass
4/26 oranges are not the only fruit by jeanette winterson
4/8 written on the body by jeanette winterson
3/24 under the dome by stephen king
1/25 venus in furs by leopold von sacher-masoch
1/7 stiff: the curious life of human cadavers by mary roach

zee library or another bracing post

has anyone read anthony browne's children's book into the forest (not to be confused with the also fantastic and dark jean hegland's novel into the forest)? one of the kids picked this up at the library today and i must confess, i sort of love bizarre, dark, and vaguely haunting and perhaps inappropriate books for kids (dear mili by maurice sendack anyone?). i suspect the creepiness of this story went over parker and lorenzo's heads but this is one i'll sit and look at tomorrow on my own. 

and, for not the first time i stumbled on a great rental at the library: the proposition, a film written by nick cave, starring ray winstone, emma watson, william hurt and guy pearce (from memento). this film is set in the outback of australia in the late 19th century and is completely disturbing...but well done. very violent, but not without cause...

'When?' said the moon to the stars in the sky

'Soon' said the wind that followed them all

'Who?' said the cloud that started to cry

'Me' said the rider as dry as a bone

'How?' said the sun that melted the ground

and 'Why?' said the river that refused to run

and 'Where?' said the thunder without a sound

'Here' said the rider and took up his gun

'No' said the stars to the moon in the sky

'No' said the trees that started to moan

'No' said the dust that blunted its eyes

'Yes' said the rider as white as a bone

'No' said the moon that rose from his sleep

'No' said the cry of the dying sun

'No' said the planet as it started to weep

'Yes' said the rider and laid down his gun

-nick cave & the bad seeds 'the rider song'

pardon the boring bloggyness, or lack there of. all recent drama has been taking place only in my dreams and fantasies. my real life has been fairly mellow, tremendously busy but mellow-ish and domestic. or as domestic as my life ever is.

what i'm reading: written on the body by jeanette winterson

this was a gift from j3n for my birthday and it's one i'm glad to own on paper rather than digital copy for my kindle. it's a genre that i love and poetic and flowy and about a subject that i find irresistible.

we lay on our bed in the rented room and i fed you plums the colour of bruises. nature is fecund but fickle. one year she leaves you to starve, the next year she kills you with love. that year branches were torn beneath the weight, this year they sing in the wind. there are no ripe plums in august. have i got it wrong, this hesitant chronology?

what i'm watching: life on the discovery channel i'm a huge fan of the planet earthseries and this show seems to be right along those lines (though i prefer an male brit to oprah winfrey when it comes to narration and i see now that this series is available in the original bbc version narrated by david attenborough too.) so far the kids and i have watched the reptile/amphibian espisode and the one about fish. both visually stunning...the footage is truly amazing. (the more i read on imdb, the more irritated i am that discovery isn't broadcasting the bbc version!)

thursday 13: week 4

13 books i love (in no particular order)

1) welcome to the monkey house by kurt vonnegut

2) love in the time of cholera by gabriel garcia marquez

3) ocean sea by allesandro barrico

4) a soldier of the great war by mark helprin

5) she's come undone by wally lamb

6) the plague and the fire by james leasor

7) delta of venus by anais nin

8) helter skelter by vincent bugliosi

9) the handmaid's tale by margaret atwood

10) the martian chronicles by ray bradbury

11) perfume by patrick suskind

12) jane eyre by charlotte bronte

13) the amityville horror by jay anson

and what about you m'dears?

come on baby light my fire

my grandparents bought me a kindle for christmas. i love it. i was a little unsure about kindles when they first came out because there is just something about the weight and feel and smell of a book. that and i'm a book-keeper. only really really shitty books get passed on or donated (left behind anyone?). i have the majority of my college textbooks still. that said, i'm reading a LOT more with the kindle because it can go ANYWHERE. i've been reading in line at the bank, waiting for parker to get out of school, in bed... it holds a bajillion books and in an effort to avoid spending a bajillion dollars this year on books i'm trying to buy only one book a month and read free books once i've finished. my first purchase was stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers by mary roach. a quick and comical ready. *thumbs up* now i'm reading venus in furs by leopold von sacher-masoch. it has curious little passages such as the following:

'why not?' she said, 'and take note of what i am about to say to you. never feel secure with the woman you love, for there are more dangers in woman's nature than you imagine. women are neither as good as their admirers and defenders maintain, nor as bad as their enemies make them out to be. woman's character is characterless. the best woman will momentarily go down into the mire, and the worst unexpectedly rises to deeds of greatness and goodness and puts to shame those that despise her. no woman is so good or so bad, but that at any moment she is capable of the most diabolical as well as the most divine, of the filthiest as well as the purest, thoughts, emotions, and actions. in spite of all the advances in civilization, woman has remained as she came out of the hand of nature. she has the nature of a savage, who is faithful or faithless, magnanimous or cruel, according to the impulse that dominates at the moment. throughout history it has always been a serious deep culture which has produced moral character. man even when he is selfish or evil always follows principles, woman never follows anything but impulses. don't ever forget that, and never feel comfortable with the woman you love.'

impromptu

what i'm reading: the kin of ata are waiting for you by dorothy bryant - bizarre (has anyone else read this?) this is a very fast read, enjoyable but completely uncomfortable at the same time. it has a pervasive creepiness about it that's hard to describe, or shake.







what i'm listening to: third eye blind LIVE and FREE at music in the park tomorrow- flashback (who's coming? taking the train from my house so we don't have to deal with parking. m'kay?) this band, and just a handful of others, definitively sums up my high school years. i can't separate their sound from that time, all the heady emotions of a teenager.


what i'm drinking: wyder's pear cider - yum! bubbly? check. fruity? check. alcoholic? check. it's beer for girls who don't like beer...and apparently beer for girls who also do like beer. went nicely with the medium rare cheeseburger (over a bed of lettuce with sprouts, carrot curls, sauteed onions, tomatoes, and avocado) and sweet potato fries i had at the counter last night. just fyi.






5 funny websites i'm reading: