Digest 7

Wow, it's been awhile since I did a digest, I guess. Frankly, it's only been 8 days since my last blog post, but that one was a 9 year old post, and I'm feeling bad about that. This one will be a bonus digest, because I am also going to give updates on some other repeating topics on this blog.

First things first. The kids left for Maine early on Sunday morning, so one of the things I did that day was sit down and read the entire New York Times, including the Book Review on Poetry. It was information overload. I can't remember a single thing that I read, except the review of Patricia Lockwood's new book of poetry, which I now want to read. Actually, I read an article about Lockwood in the New York Times earlier in the year, and in reality, I just want to be friends with her.

I don't usually buy poetry. In fact, I can only think of one book of poetry that I have purchased not-for-school in my life. Actual Air by David Berman. I love it. That link takes you to Amazon. This one takes you to a site where you can read his poems.  (I just remembered that I bought Ferlinghetti's A Coney Island of the Mind in high school, and I love that one too)

Berman was in a band called the Silver Jews that I liked in college. He also wrote poetry and did illustrations for the The Baffler Magazine. The Baffler was started by one of my predecessor station managers at WHPK, Tom Frank, when he was at UVa, and I suspect that he met Berman there. The Baffler has had an erratic career but Tom hasn't. He's the author of What's The Matter with Kansas? Anyhoo, the good news about The Baffler is that they've settled down and built themselves a website, and yesterday they posted all of their archives on-line. If strong cultural criticism is your bag, you will be elated to dive into this. Also, here's a David Berman poem from issue 3.

In other new reads, I just finished reading Where'd You Go, Bernadette (this time I linked to Powell's Books, because I was feeling guilty about linking to Amazon.) It was a good book. Very fun, light read. The main character Bernadette Fox is really likable (to the reader, but not too many people in the book) and the way in which her mental illness is handled is really great. Here's the problem: The narrator is her 15-year old daughter. I am really tired of 15-year old girl narrators. They are a literary crutch. You have one of those and you can call yourself adult fiction and YA, you have a smart, articulate narrator who is old enough to know about "stuff" but not old enough to have any actual complexity and experience, so everything that happens to them, they can just react with a fresh naivete. They are trustworthy and loving, and have gotten through puberty but are not having sex or complex relationships. They are also boring. And just as irritating as you remember girls being when you were 15. I wish Bernadette had been the narrator - - complex, messed up, genius -- totally unreliable as the narrator. It would have been a much better book. The other book that I just read that did this is Tell the Wolves I'm Home, and it was the same problem. Not reading any more books where the narrator is a 15-year old.

Okay, other stuff, in a nutshell. House: Going great, pictures coming. Mayoral candidates: Going to have to skip around for reasons I will explain in the next post I do about them. Movies: Saw the new apes movie. Watched After Sunset again. Watched Going Deep with David Rees, which is awesome. Have I written about anything else? No? Anything you want me to write about?