|
03/23/01
I like Dave Eggers. But i would fight to defend the rights of those who don't. Even though the phrase "omit needless words" sounds like a call to arms to me (see previous entry regarding my literary tastes).
Today, I get to meet Mr. Miéville. And fawn all over him, presumably. He's ruined me for other authors. Hope I don't spit food at him or something.
I love geckos. I had a Tokay gecko for years--I called him Gollum, and at night, he would make an outstanding croaking noise. I lived in Galveston, so there were plenty of juicy bugs to feed him. I also had a flying gecko for a short time. He died of mouth rot, a terrible fungal disease of captive reptiles.
03/21/01
Exchange on Metro bus #10 yesterday:
Extremely Drunk Man: "'Cuse me suhhhr... wha tymeizzit?"
Me: "Ten after twelve."
EDM: "Huh?! Yr uh guuurhl? Cackle cackle. Don look like no guurhl..." (mumbling) "... dunno..." (pulling out bottle of beer and drinking at one go) "...people are weird."
His head then flopped down on his chest in such a way as to make me think he had no vertebrae. Yes, indeed, my friend. People are weird.
03/16/01
What is it that makes me like a book? The obvious, great writing, is not so simple as it may seem. For instance, I think the following passage is extraordinary:
".... It is not the current which pulls us but the city itself, its weight sucks us in. Faint shouts, here and there the call of beasts, the obscene clash and pounding from the factories as huge machines rut. Railways trace urban anatomy like protruding veins. Red brick and dark walls, squat churches like troglodytic things, ragged awnings flickering, cobbled mazes in the old town, culs-de-sac, sewers riddling the earth like secular sepulchres, a new landscape of wasteground, crushed stone, libraries fat with forgotten volumes, old hospitals, towerblocks, ships and metal claws that lift cargoes from the water."
... while some might find it overdone and overdetailed. It's from Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville, by the way, which just might be the best book I'll read all year.
The whole book is like that, and you'd be justified in saying that it's messy. But I love that kind of dense, puzzling prose. Give me difficult characters with unclear motivations, grotesquely crumbling settings, and a stew of bio-mechanical references--give me Mervyn Peake! Realism leaves me flat most of the time, unless I'm glutted on lush, fat books and in need of the literary equivalent of plain white bread.
Speaking of Mr. Miéville, I hear he's running for Parliament, on the Socialist ticket. I wish more authors would run for office. Wait. No I don't.
03/15/01
Today's art: A very pleasing accidental representation of the earthquake.
Doing a bit of thinking about tunicates today. Some are sessile, some pelagic, but all are calm processors of their environment.
Suck it in, squirt it out.
Repeat.
03/11/01
Things settling slowly back into normal track. Aaaahhh. (Re)discovered a couple of things about bachelorhood: that I can happily eat toast morning noon and night, that there is a limit to my ability to play Diablo continuously, and that I am quite tidy by nature.
And about non-bachelorhood: that I really like Jen's company all the time, that I eat much better when other humans are involved, and that PS2 games are still fun (they didn't seem so when I was on my own).
Work sucks, but home is great. Jen has a theory that you can only have two out of three of these optimized at any one time--house, job, and love life. So I'm more than happy to sacrifice job on that altar.
It's interesting to go in to work each day when you're as close to quitting as I feel. Each conversation becomes loaded, each meeting held up against a huge, invisible balance sheet. Great coworkers? Check. Bad meetings? Check. Lousy, incompetent managers? Check. Free books? Check. It adds a sort of weight to everything that happens, and makes each day somewhat frazzling.
03/05/01
No way. So just when she's set to come home, the hugest snowstorm in the world blankets the Northeast. She said she feels like Odysseus... can't get home.
I will attach snowshoes to my customatix and trek across the frozen wastes of Philly to get her.
I will hijack a UPS plane and parachute out over western PA.
I will build a snowmobile from a weed-whacker and a TV tray.
I will melt the snow with my heart, turning all of New England into a tropical paradise for one day.
03/01/01
QUAKING: A short tale in the tradition of inevitable post-disaster group therapy
The best story of the worst of yesterday's earthquake is on Allen's page. And the best picture was taken by Brooks, in the midst of a deliciously geeky mess.
My experience was decidedly less dramatic, but still utterly frightening. I was on the 17th floor of a downtown Seattle office building, and when the rolling started, the building was swaying and jerking dramatically. My office mate and I just held onto each other until it was over. Then the idiot building management evacuated us out onto the streets. As I stood in a tall canyon of potentially deadly glass panels, I decided the office was safer--plus I needed to get to a phone to call Jen, since my cell phone was dead and all the pay phones had long lines of people waiting.
So I trudged up 24 flights and reached my office, lungs burning and legs trembling. Then, of course, there was no calling anyone, since "all circuits are busy" in an emergency. I grabbed my car keys, sent Jen's mom a quick email to let her know I was OK, and headed for home to check the house and Speedy. All was well.
And all is well. Very few people were hurt, and only one guy died, of a heart attack. I could sympathize.
|
