adj.

I am reading a book called “The Lover’s Dictionary” by David Levithan. It is a small novel about love the narrative is structured into the form of a dictionary. It is interesting. I’m not quite sure if it pulls it off, but it is interesting.

This is one of the entries that I just read:

ineffable, adj

These words will ultimately end up being the barest of reflections, devoid of the sensations words cannot convey. Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.

Good stuff.

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(Please Excuse the Obnoxious Amazon Logos Below)

Lately I have been going to the library a lot and I went tonight because it always feels like a candy store. I don’t go in looking for anything. I just go in with one of those salted caramel hot chocolate drinks (a guilty pleasure and the only time I drink hot chocolate) and a big empty hippy bag, and I spend some time wandering around and looking at, and touching, all the books. For me, this is like yoga or sitting in a mountain meadow or some such inanity.

Anyway, I came home with a pretty good haul tonight and I am so excited that I will share some of it with you.


Darkmans by Nicola Barker
I actually am in the process of reading this one and so checked it out again. I’m eight chapters in and have no earthly idea what it is about, but Ms. Barker is a wonderful writer so I don’t really care.


http://www.amazon.com/Poetry-After-9-11-Anthology-Poets/dp/0971865914/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292307379&sr=8-1-fkmr0
Poetry After 9/11: An Anthogy of New York Poets.
Who likes their urban poetry with a little angst, anger and guilty introspection? This guy!


All the World’s A Grave by John Reed
It is a play and basically he takes the big Shakespeare characters and makes them all hang out together in a sort of crappy mishmash of Shakespearian plots. Gertrude marries Macbeth! Iago manipulates Hamlet! Juliet gets her groove back! I so hope this thing is funny.


On Kissing: Travels in an Intimate Landscape by Adrianne Blue
This is some sort of cultural history of the kiss and of kissing. Who did it when and why and what did it mean and how did it get them in trouble. I love reading books that try to rewrite history around one thing (coffee, tea, apples, etc.) so why not one about the better things that we do with our mouths? I’m game (plus it doesn’t hurt that the author has a name that sounds like a dirty French non-de-plume).



This is a graphic novel that imagines Snow White as Scheherazade in 1,001 Arabian Nights, spinning grim stories to keep herself alive (and it has pretty pictures!).



I Love It When You Talk Retro by Ralph Keyes
A kind of tongue-in-cheek reference book for all the things we don’t say anymore. I think ths book is the bee’s knees!



A People’s History of American Empire by Howard Zinn
I’m not really certain, but I’m pretty sure that this is a history of the United States as if it were written as by Chinese propagandists. Umm . . . I will let you know more when I figure it out.


Just so that it doesn’t seem like I’m making myself out to be cooler than I really am, I won’t read all of these cover-to-cover. What I will do is spend some time with each of them and, maybe, see how it goes. See if a little relationship develops there or not; see if we enjoy one another’s company long enough to make it to the end.


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Fashion for the Literati.

So I know that you know that my birthday is coming up soon (although I am past the age when these things are fun to talk about), but if you were inclined to get me something awesome, perhaps consider these t-shirts with out-of-print book covers on them.

outofprintclothing.com






This link is lifted from dearest Jennica’s facebook page. Thanks Jennica!

Decline to State.

So recently one of Violet’s younger brothers was asking me about the stars on the American flag (he’s 6 and we were at a restaurant that had a lot of flags) and I was doing my best to (quickly) explain that each star is a state and that there used to be fewer states.

Well that seemed to go over pretty well, at least in so much as a six-year-old cares.

The perpetual dork in me was hoping that I would be asked to name all of the states (because I would totally be able to do it).

But then I read this article at NPR.com and I think that I would have felt pretty silly rattling off the state of Desert or Lost Dakota or Transylvania.

A man named Michael J. Trinklein has written the book Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It.

I want to rush right out and buy it! I don’t really care about Star Wars or Twilight or video games or Apple products, but fake states? Yeah, this is the kind of thing that excites me.


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