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Getting Old, an Ode to Presidents’ Day
Two years ago I started reading books about WW2. One after the other. I zeroed in on The Battle of the Bulge. I found these books enthralling. I even struck up a conversation with an old man while browsing the military history aisle at McKays. He recommended a book. So I bought and read that…
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Play it as it Lays
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion My rating: 4 of 5 stars Here’s a line from Play It As It Lays—“Hear that scraping, Maria?” That should be the sound of music to you.” You might have guessed the scene—an abortion.An abortion done in a room of a house by a man we can…
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The best of ‘22
or,
the inner sanctum5—The surprise book of the year. The Good Earth had a couple things going against it from the outset. One—the aforementioned William Goldman dig. And two–it’s a ubiquitous bookstagram darling.Now, this second thing shouldn’t even be a thing.It’s my own, and often misguided, contrarian instinct to doubt the wisdom of crowds—which in this case is…
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The not quite best of ‘22
or the OLI
This is my sixth year of formally tracking, reviewing and officially selecting the best books of the year. Year one (2017) I used the verbiage notable books, and I included ten books. Each year since I’ve gone with the straightforward best of, and have limited it to five books.BUT– I read so many unforgettable books…
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Tales from an Uber driver
Hell is other drivers I picked a woman up at a coffee shop the other day. She was there with someone, and I was taking her to work. I didn’t know this initially—obviously, she explained everything during the ride. People love to explain things during their ride. I saw them parked in a truck, waving,…
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the queen is dead, boys
I understand the impulse not to speak ill of the dead. It sounds nice. We don’t speak ill of the dead is one of those annoying platitudes that make any objection to it feel inherently immoral, and even worse–juvenile. The same way we never actually call a newborn baby ugly, of course everyone’s baby is…
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Road to Erudition
I read The Sentence last year, and sometimes a book is so bad it lingers, and festers. I’m also frequently reminded of it on Instagram. My IG algorithm is almost exclusively books–-pictures of books, bookstores and booksellers, book quotes, and in general the book aesthetic. There is a burgeoning niche internet book culture, aptly named…
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Tales from an Uber driver
Death by a Thousand Platitudes “You must love meeting new people”. This is something people (apparently) adamantly believe about Uber drivers. The money is secondary, really, to the opportunity to spend on average 15 minutes with 20 or so strangers a day. This must be true for some drivers, solely because of the sheer amount…
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Maybe the world needs a little magic.
Even though I was involved in the conversation with Tommer that spawned this idea, my belief in the overall idea didn’t necessarily start there. I have tried to live my adult life by the idea that the world needs more magic because it’s mostly absolutely terrible and frightening. I’m obsessed with unicorns, cryptids and the…
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Origin Story 2
I had nothing to do with the creation of Garbage Pail Care Bears. BUT @tommer and I have for some time now thought our conversations worthy of more scrutiny and exploration. Narcissitically we mulled a podcast (that no one would listen to), but have instead landed on a blog (that no one will read). Grantland…