Tag: reading

Reading

I was on my back for two weeks, foot in the air, recovering from surgery. Access to the net was limited to my phone, television, and iPad mini. It’s a laugh, isn’t it? A real first world blues statement to say how much I was limited and then share how much access I actually enjoyed. It’s a position of privilege.

What I meant and I should have written, I wasn’t able to sit down at will and jump on the ol’ laptop and do my usual surfing and posting and reading. I’m very much an organic, stream of consciousness, writer, though.

Anyway, modern television is an abomination to me. Just my tastes. I’d turn on and surf channels. We don’t have cable or satellite (again, my privilege talking), but have a smart TV with net access and an over-the-air digital antenna. I was amazed by the number of shows like “People’s Court” and “Judge Judy” are out there. We’re a copycat society. Startling number of shows about pawn shops and towing businesses, too. The standard American AM talk shows still exist, spouting vapid enthusiasm about cultural trends, getting serious for a minute of weather and five minutes of news before going back to the giggles about “Wicked” or Billy Bob Thornton.

So I read and slept and binge-streamed old favorites, along with one new one, “Band of Brothers”. Two of books were older novels I’d purchased at used-book stores on whim. These were “Down River” by John Hart and “Utopia” by Lincoln Child. Both are page turners, with the former firmly entrenched as a well-written potboiler to my mind. Love that expression, ‘potboiler’. The other was a new Jackson Brody novel by Kate Atkinson. I’m a JB fan, and a KA fan, as is my wife, so she went on the waiting list, got it for us, and let me read it first.

I enjoy how Atkinson has aged Brody. He used to see himself or get discussed as a protector of women. Now he found himself being judged by a court of women. He’s less driven, more reflecting.

What’ve you guys been reading? Probably more recent stuff, right? Amazing number of excellent books out there, waiting to be devoured.

Cheers

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

I was thinking of a cozy mystery series based on pizza. I decided to challenge myself with ten titles for the series.

Family Size Murder To Go

A Slice of Death

Murder with Extra Cheese

Pineapple, Pepperoni, and Death

Deep Dish Murder

Personal Pan Killer

Pizza, Salad, & Murder on the Side

Three Slices of Death

Killer Delivery

Chicago Style Murder

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: Sunumny

It’s Sunday, September 22, 2024. First day of autumn, aka fall, in the northern latitudes. Sumumn is still visiting Ashlandia. Chilly last night at 52 F at our place, the high will pop into the low 80s F today. A relatively windless day, sunshine baths a blue sky where lonely moon offers a pale version of its waning self high in the western sky.

Haven’t read any news this morning. Was just involved with other matters and felt no great urge to jump into war, disasters, politics, tragedy, or weather. I instead read more of my library book, Slough House, by Mick Herron. Entertaining and distracting, it’s just what I required with my Sunday morning cuppa coffee.

Although I’ve been reading about bots and AI off and on recently, a cat inspired today’s song. Messing around with Papi, the ginger blade, so named because of his slender shape, brought the song up. Papi is well established in his ways. After eating, he washes up and then comes for some skrive, which is flooflish for sritch-love. He only stays about eight minutes and then abruptly whirls and leaves. As he departed today, I told him, “Domo arigatō,” after he left the session, continuing, “I appreciate the visit. Come again.”

Click, The Neurons recalled “Mr. Roboto” by Styx and began playing it in the morning mental music stream (Trademark rusty). The song, which seems like it’s about a man who is a robot, came out in 1983. I was stationed on Okinawa, Japan in 1983. As with many Americans stationed over there in the military, domo arigatō was one of several common Japanese expressions we’d learned as part of that experience. So that song was instantly and hugely popular with a segment of the personnel. Later, I had a young friend when were stationed in Germany who loved this song. He’d played the drums and keyboards, sing the lyrics, and act as a robot during parts of it. Yes, a crazy, memorable dude.

Enjoy your day, stay strong, be positive, and vote blue in 2024. Here’s the music, and awaaayyy we go. Cheers

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Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

My wife related that she and her coffee group were talking about their required high school reading.

There’s a background to this. They go to StoneRidge Coffee in downtown Ashand after exercising at the Y three mornings a week. Their favorite barista, Shawn (sp?), had been on a big reading kick, reading many novels that we consider classics, like Catch 22 and Catcher in the Rye. Today he announced that he won’t be working there any longer because he’ll be teaching high school in Grants Pass. My wife’s group wondered if that’s why he’d been on a reading tear.

They couldn’t remember what they’d read in high school, though. They did recall that they had to read The Pearl by Steinbeck and several of Shakespeare’s plays. The only one they remembered reading was Romeo & Juliet.

After being told this, I recalled reading MacBeth and Hamlet. I also recalled reading The Red Badge of Courage, Beowulf, Call of the Wild, excerpts out of Dante’s Infernal (as we knew it in school) and The Red Pony. I mentioned that what I most remembered reading, though, were short stories. I vividly remember reading A Jury of Her Peers, The Girls at the A&P, The Visitor, Greenleaf, and The Lottery. They each made quite an impression on me. Besides that, there was some Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, and then poems by Frost and Whitman, and essays out of Walden: Life in the Woods.

It’s all a bit sketch, though. Because I enjoyed reading fiction on my own and read Catch 22 and Catcher in the Rye. Papillion was big as a novel then — this was before the movie — as was the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, and Stranger in a Strange Land. Besides that stuff, I was reading a lot of science fiction and fantasy, along with spy thrillers (think Fleming and Le Carre). Then there was Jaws by Peter Benchley, and other popular fiction like that, such as Fear of Flying, Portnoy’s Complaint, In Cold Blood, The Onion Field, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Bell Jar, The Drifters, Centennial, The Thorn Birds, Hotel, Airport, The World According to Garp, Cancer Ward, and Herzog.

I was also involved with the Junior Great Books program for several years, and was required to read their books, stories, and essays, muddying up memory a little more. Further complicating it are courses in French, Russian, Jewish, and American literature in college.

All those books and titles start running together after a while, you know? At least for me. I admire those who can keep it all straight.

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: believing

Goorning folks. I thought it was time we blended good and morning as a greeting and just use goorning. Economical. Cuts down on those extra syllables weighing us down. “Goorning. Hoyadoin?” Hoyadoin is another blend.

Today is July 22, 2024. It’s a Monday. 76 F with smoke painting the blue sky gray, today’s high will be in the mid to upper 80s again for us. Smoke is worsening through the day, as it usually does. We started with our air quality charting as ‘moderate’. We’re edging toward unhealthy. An alert has been issued. There’s also a fire warning issued because the land is so dry and hot winds are picking up.

I spent the morning outside while it was cool and the air was healthy friendly, so I’m writing late today. Picking up on the news, the big stuff for the U.S. at this point is President Biden dropping out and Veep Harris announcing that she’s chasing the nomination. At this point, we expect an uphill fight. Kamela is not the incumbent President and its positives. But she’s part of a good administration, a strong one. However, she has things against her as viewed from some circles: female, other than white, young, from California.

Those negatives are bullshit, of course, but this is the United States, home of the free and land of the bullshit. Vice President Kamala Harris is intelligent and passionate and has garnered several significant endorsements. The Nikki Haley Voters PAC endorsement really pleased me. Close behind is the six governors endorsing her. And for what it’s worth, a Times article claims that the change from Biden to Harris has fired up support for Dems in the tech industry.

After reflecting on all of this, I convinced myself that I’m a Kamala Harris believer. It’ll be a tough fight. I’d like to see her debate Trump. Naturally, we can expect every legal machination possible thrown at her and her ‘legitimacy’. Hope the SCOTUS doesn’t get involved, because my faith in them is in the dumpster.

Besides all of that, what Trump and the GOP represents is just unaccepted. Project 2025, while not a coherent document, displays dangerous counter-democratic and outright hateful, bigoted ideas. Agenda 47 is loaded with ideas meant to exclude people based on who they are. Sorry, but that’s fucking unacceptable. Most of us agree with that; the ones who don’t want to drag us back to the stone age. They must be stopped.

As my wife and I were both avoiding delving into the news last weekend, I spent a lot of time perusing book lists in the NYTimes. They had created a reviewer’s list, and then a reader’s list. My wife is a big reader and when I read the reader’s list, I thought that she had read almost all of them. So I went through the list with her. She’s read 88 of the 100. Most that she didn’t read were non-fiction. Several of the fiction books she hadn’t read are in the house awaiting her attention. Well done to her, you know?

BTW, she doesn’t agree that “Demon Copperhead” should be #1. She’s not a fan of the book.

We also went off to the library yesterday to pick up more books and another jigsaw puzzle. The week’s activities are becoming set.

We my thinking about Kamala Harris percolating, it’s not surprising that “I’m A Believer” is circulating in the morning mental music stream (Trademark qualified). Neil Diamond wrote it, and the Monkees had a hit with it back in 1966. But I have the Smash Mouth cover of it from 2001 in mind. They did it for the movie Shrek but it solidly charted in the U.S.

Stay positive, be strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. Be a believer. Here’s the video. Feel free to sing along with it. Coffee has made its way into my systems. Here we go. Havagooday. Cheers

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Monday’s Wandering Thoughts

We’re watching “Black Matter” on Apple TV. Don’t confuse it with “Dark Matters”. The plural of matters makes it a completely different matter.

This series is based on the Blake Crouch novel of the same name from 2016. We read the book back when it came out. Now it’s fun, trying to remember the novel’s plot and comparing it to what’s going on in the television job. Like a pop culture memory test.

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The Writing Moment

Finished editing and revising the current novel in progress. It’s either the sixth or seventh iteration. Doesn’t matter.

My vision for it has clarified through the process of writing and then reading and changing it. One storyline was excised as meandering, dull, and convoluted. Firmer insights into relationships, terminology, and setting crystallized, leading to more slices. Explanations and clarifications were thinned. Characters and relationships found sharper evolution.

All good. I enjoy the manuscript and that means something to me. It is lengthy and meaty, and I wonder and worry about its length. But then I shrug, because nothing emerges for me to deliberately remove.

Now I’ll begin editing and revising again. This time I’m pursuing more of the novel’s voice and feel. I suspect — it’s a feeling — that this will be the last go around. And then I’ll begin pursuing publication.

A friend — another writer — asked me what titles I would compare it to. And gosh, I came up with nothing. I have some vague notions. Historic fiction, science fiction, and fantasy all combined in this speculative effort. And it has stories and characters embedded in it whose stories I’d like to pursue. Like Humans. Humans’ are in the book’s forefront and background, as they were moved to isolation in a forbidden zone long before events in this book. They are important to the novel because the primary antagonist is a Martian who loves Humans and conquers others to spread Human cultures. That’s one reason the rest of the civilizations consider her so dangerous. The other is that she’s proven difficult to kill.

There’s also the main character’s stepmother and her complicated story. I’d like to pursue exploring her and how she developed into the person she is. Then, there’s the main character’s relationship to his sister, and what happened to her in parallel to him, and where she is and if she’s still a cat.

But then, there are also so many other projects sitting in the wings, waiting for me to come back to them. And they’re all stories, concepts, ideas, which interest me.

It’s all fun, reading, writing, editing, imagining, thinking, the life of a writer.

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