thisnewday

Having FINALLY finished Jay Parini's bio of John Steinbeck--a consumation months in the making and devoutly wished, lol--I've decided to re-read Cannery Row, which I once loved and have a new copy of on my perilously-stacked bookcase, as well as Tortilla Flat, which I also have but had never read.

I've also ordered Sweet Thursday, which was written as a sequel to Cannery Row and was later incorporated into the movie of that title which starred Nick Nolte and Debra Winger. Which I also have on my perilously-stacked bookcase. And which, if the literary landslide doesn't bring me down, I'm also gonna watch.

I'm sort of wondering how I'm gonna feel, this time, about Cannery Row. The first time I read it was during my pre-hippie, bohemian wannabe days, and life has changed, just a little, in the exactly half-century since then. I absolutely loved it then and wonder if I'll still love it now. Same with the movie.

I actually have a Bantam Paperback copy of Sweet Thursday among my perilously piled periodicals. (There are some magazines in there too, I'm almost sure of it. I totally respect and support the responsible use of literary devices such as consonance, assonance, dissonance, and alliteration. And I mention all of them only because I don't want any to feel left out, not because I no longer remember the effing differences between them.)

But the previously-mentioned paperback has such teeeeny, tiiiiiny print that I'd probably go blind trying to read it. So we know the eyes have changed, since our youthful stroll down the streets of Cannery Row.

We're just, you know, not sure about the heart...

LPK
Dreamwidth
11.2.2018

If my daughter questions me about it, I'm gonna say, "E made me do it." 

Which probably won't get me out of the trouble that I've just gotten into. Because my daughter has three kids, ages 2 to 10, and she's heard it all before. Probably heard it three or four times already today.

So she'll say, with rising irritation in her voice, "Do you do EVERYTHING that E tells you to do? If E told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?"

And I'll say, "Welll...I...don't...know..."

And she'll say, now clearly steamed, "What do you MEAN, you don't know?"

"Well, um..." (Now aware that she's between me and the door.)

"You're a grown man! You're my father, for God's sake! I shouldn't have to follow you around to make sure you're not DOING stuff! Like blowing your budget every month!"

Then I'll say, with sudden inspiration, "But it was for BOOKS!" (As if THAT would get me off the hook at this point.)

To which she'll reply, "I don't CARE if it was for the FREAKIN' missionaries in FREAKIN' Guatemala!"

Then, like an afterthought, (and not at all like she's bought into the whole book thing), "What books?"

And I'll say (as if I thought she WOULD let me off, if it was for the RIGHT books) "Well, there's Moments of Being: A Collection of Autobiographical Writing, written by Virginia Woolf and edited by Jeanne Shulkind; Orlando, a novel by Virginia Woolf; and Virginia Woolf, a biography by Alexandra Harris.

Ignoring the crossed arms, the tapping foot, the head shaken in total exasperation, I continue with, "The last one's a hardcover that I got for HALF-PRICE. AND I got 20% off the lot of them!"

She's now at the door, as she turns and says, "Look dad, seriously, I've got three kids in the car, dinner to make, and a real estate business to run. Don't MAKE me take your credit cards and check book."

And with that, she's out the door, tires flinging gravel as she exits the driveway.

Whew! THAT was close!

But even if she'd made good on her threats, I'd still have E to blame.

Because, after all, isn't that what friends are for...?

LPK
Dreamwidth
9.3.2017

Just finished Fredrik Backman's Britt-Marie Was Here.

It's a good enough book, the third one of his that I've read in recent weeks, months.

It's a good enough book, but not the kind of story that I need...

LPK
Dreamwidth
8.18.2017

Been reading actual hold-em-in-your-hand, bound and printed BOOKS for the past month due to internet exile imposed by crashed hard drive on less-than-year-old computer. And so had decided, one 'netless night, to consolidate all Barnes & Noble gift cards, take a trip down to their brick-and-morter manifestation on Erie Boulevard, and browse the biography section.

Which I couldn't initially find because the local B&N has turned itself into an effin' appliance store with about a third of available floor space now turned over to effin' IPad/Kindle/techie crap which meant that something had to go and of course it was mostly the section devoted to literary bio. So, when I did find it, it didn't take much time to peruse the leftovers and, surprisingly, find something I was actually interested in reading.

Now, I have this mostly futile habit of writing down book/song/movie titles I hear on NPR (usually while driving home alone from the casino) on odd scraps of paper such as traffic citations, grocery receipts and gum wrappers and then never finding them again. This time, however, the right synapses had fired at the opportune moment, the mostly random notes were somehow magically at hand as I exited the car, and there in front of me, when I got to the shelf, was Lyndall Gordon's Lives Like Loaded Guns, a recently-published study of the family life and times of Emily Dickinson.

Admittedly, it was a slow read at first--Lyndall Gordon is a research fellow at Oxford University and I'm seriously not used to reading much above the level of Dr. Suess, although this year we did graduate to The Magic Treehouse series thanks to the recommendation of my grandson's second grade teacher who had also very thoughtfully provided a couple of the gift cards.

I'd also retained this terrible--and again futile--habit of highlighting every other line as if preparing for a freshman intro to lit class. It slows me down, results in the total defacement (did I just invent a new word?) of a perfectly good book and necessitates an embarassed apology to anyone I might offer to loan the book to in the future.

Anyway, it took about a week to ruin, er, read that one and I've since acquired and devoured A Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Zelda, both by Nancy Milford. Savage Beauty is also available to loan and Zelda soon will be. (I'm happy to say that I've put aside the highlighter while reading the last two, so they're relatively intact. Relatively so because one day last week, when I managed to sneak away for a personal beach day, I momentarily rested Zelda against my wet swim suit and rippled the bottom of a few pages. Zelda was OK with it, said it reminded her of those warm days and hot nights with Scott on the Riviera. OK, so what if I'm old and she's dead?)

Maybe one of these days I'll actually say a few words about the contents of the books to, you know, confirm that I've actually read and comprehended some part of them. For now, though, I'm just happy to say that I'm once more reading...

LPK
LiveJournal
8.4.2011