Digest 4

I know I owe you an update on what I've been reading but this week, it might be easier to tell you what I haven't read. For one thing, I didn't read The New Yorker's last issue. It was the Fiction issue, and I cannot stand short stories. I don't know why, but I find short stories to be very irritating, even the good ones. Even the David Sedaris ones. Okay, technically, those are essays, and I do read them, but I don't like them anymore. In my mind, short stories are bon mots, toss off stories meant to demonstrate literary prowess and evoke strong emotions. Mind you, I haven't read a short story in years, so I could be completely wrong, but I just do not like the form.

For new readers of this blog, you should know that I don't like soup either. Or sandwiches. First one: Not a meal. Second one: too much bread.

Okay, back to reading. Other than the novel I am working my way through, I haven't been reading anything too heavy. The Beyonce article in the NYT T magazine. (She's so awesome) The zombie spaceship story. I read the first part of the maternal depression story but it was so, well, depressing, I didn't read the second part.

It was a pretty New York Times-centric reading week, I guess. For example, I also read this Buzzfeed article about how many times Maureen Dowd has written negatively about Hillary Clinton. Short answer: a lot, like 73% of the time. Which annoys me only because Maureen Dowd annoys me. I actually don't read her column. In fact, the number of NYT columnists who annoy me is probably higher than the number of columnists that I like. Let me check. I like Collins, Krugman, Kristol, Blow and Ta-Nehisi Coates, when he guest-writes. I don't like Friedman, Dowd, Douthat, Brooks. Okay, so it's a tie. I will throw Joe Nocera and Mark Bittman in the "like" column and Frank Bruni in the "don't like" column. Actually, Bruni is a "sometimes but don't usually like."

What's my point? I don't have one.

Now, on to the Oakland Mayoral race. I am not much further along than I was last time on figuring out who the candidates are. Here's a helpful wiki page, though. There are 18 candidates at this point. That does not include a fake candidacy by a dog named Einstein. I will do a separate post on the candidates, but you'll have to read up on the dog yourself. "Shake" Anderson is up first.