Monday, March 26, 2012

Book #8 - Why We Broke Up

I just read Daniel Handler's new YA novel, Why We Broke Up.  (For the uninitiated, Daniel Handler = Lemony Snicket)  This novel was illustrated by Maira Kalman (who, I'm learning from her website, just illustrated an edition of Michael Pollan's wonderful book, Food Rules).

It's the story of Min, "arty" high school girl who's fascinated with movies (and as we've learned, those of us reading this blog, I'm not so much with the movies, so I was easily a third of the way through the book before I realized all the film/actor/Hollywood references she made were the product of Daniel Handler's carefully articulated make-believe movie world...) and her unlikely romance with Ed, the co-captain of the basketball team.

Reading this was like reliving (in the most painful and joyous and agonizing and ecstatic ways) high school.  If nothing else, THIS BOOK makes me glad I'm turning forty, and not fourteen.

Great book.

Friday, March 16, 2012

Book #7 - It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy

God bless Laurie Notaro.  No one makes me laugh harder.  Reading the hilarious essays in her newest collection, It Looked Different on the Model: Epic Tales of Impending Shame and Infamy, I laughed out loud till I cried, and I tried breathlessly to explain to the strangers in the lunch room what on earth was so funny.  Here are some examples:

On trying on clothes at fancy stores:
",,,During my most recent visit to Anthropologie, the lights were so audacious I wanted to ask the dressing-room girl if she could turn the setting down from its current 'Cruel' to the next level, 'Barbaric.' ... In the Anthropologie mirror, I saw wrinkles, dents, flaps, bumps and something that caused me to say to myself, 'I hope that's a tumor and not a horn.'"

On kids:
"...[my nephew] Nicholas had just gotten into honors math, which was exciting because now someone in our family besides my father could do fractions, and having an understudy would come in very handy when cutting a birthday cake.  [My sister] told me that he had also joined band and had taken up the clarinet, which we were less excited about.  Not that playing a clarinet is a bad thing, but in a year, when the kid got braces, if he was walking down the street wearing a Mathletes shirt and carrying a clarinet, even I would have to beat him up."

On vans:
"On the way out to the parking lot, my mother pointed to an Econoline three spaces away from our station wagon.  'Don't ever walk next to a van, unless being kidnapped is your goal for the day,' she said, as she dragged my sister by her arm beyond a fifteen-foot radius of the vehicle.  'Only weirdos drive vans.  It's not normal.'"

On coming from a family of non-huggers:
"My father staged a coup in 2000 and started to kiss people hello and goodbye on the cheek, a move that I could only assume was generated on a trip to Italy.  We all just tried to take it very lightly and not get too worked up about it, since they were basically air kisses; he also put up a red, white and green sign in his garage that said, PARKING FOR ITALIANS ONLY.  He was clearly feeling for the Motherland.  We sort of brushed it off when he started incorporating he Psych Hug, which was putting his hand on our shoulder right before leaning in for the kids.s  Not a full hug, but just enough of a wrestling move that you couldn't get easily away without collapsing or igniting a jet-pack."

Man, she's funny.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

On Goals

Many goals we set are relatively arbitrary:  lose five pounds (why five?  why not four?  why not seven?); get to work by nine (why 9:00?  why not 8:43?  why not 9:13?).

Some are set by an external construct (a race you've signed up for; a fun idea that intrigued you), but really, these goals are internally set, internally mandated, internally managed. 

If you do something crazy like set up a blog (where people can/will track your progress) or confide in your colleagues (who might ask you how things are going), then you are more accountable for these arbitrary goals, but it doesn't make them any less arbitrary.

This is all a (relatively) long way of saying that I don't love my forty.forty goals. I love the book one, so much! This goal has already actively changed my habits.  I watch less TV.  I try to get away for 20 minutes at lunch so I can read my novel. I love thinking & talking about what I'm reading, and what I might read next. It's all good. (And I might not reach the goal, and I don't really care  I am still enjoying it!)

It's the movie thing!  Ugh.  Movies.  They take SO FREAKING LONG.  You can't (easily) split them up over four-seven days, like you can with a book.  You have to just BE THERE, watching that MOVIE the whole time.  It feels like an unpleasant amount of pressure.

Am considering the following:
  1. Downgrading my movie goal to something more manageable (20? 10?)
  2. Swapping my movie goal for a running miles per month goal
  3. Accepting suggestions for some other cool thing
Thoughts?

Book #6 -- V is for Vengeance

After catching up (albeit a little late) on the previous Sue Grafton novel, U is for Undertow, I then read V is for Vengeance, Sue Grafton's latest.

A concept Grafton has latched onto  maybe to the detriment of the novels?  Maybe it makes them richer? - is the shifting narrator.  For ages, only Kinsey Millhone spoke in these books.  Now, Grafton introduces the perspectives of lots of other people  sometimes the bad guy, sometimes the victim, whatever.  It adds to the mystery / intrigue, but definitely changes the tone of the books.

Nonetheless (or "notwithstanding"), I love the series, and will eagerly read the next (last?) four.  What will Grafton do next??

Respectfully Submitted,
KCSummertime

Monday, March 5, 2012

Book #5 - A Visit from the Goon Squad

I recently started hanging around a book group, primarily because my favorite professor from college is also participating. I had explained that I was only reading new books this year (so I'd skipped their reading of the amazing & wonderful Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, which I'd read years ago), and was thus nominated to propose a book for March.

From the books I put forth, Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad was the book chosen, and I'm so glad.  Complicated, interesting, timely, musical, funny, bleak and smart.  So pleased to have read it; so excited to discuss it with bright & engaged people!