Monthly Archives: October 2006

So Beautiful It Hurts.

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But you know what really broke my heart? When you described yourself to me to make sure. Because of how you somehow diminished yourself into one single sentence, in parentheses on top of that (“Quite tall, long curly messy hair, glasses…”). If you really feel yourself to be in parentheses — at least let me squeeze into them as well and let the whole world remain outside. Let the world only be the element outside the parentheses that will multiply us on the inside.
–from “Be My Knife” by David Grossman.

Yearning, and bittersweet, and oh so very, very sexy. It’s almost hard to read it in public.

All Beck, All Day.

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Realized this morning that less than half the Beck I own was on my iPod. (Eh?) So I had to bring a stack of CDs in to work today to get primed for the concert tomorrow.

I forgot how much some early Beck …SOUNDS LIKE… late 60s/early 70s Stones. Sassy lyrics and tone, guitar licks, jazzy blues feel.

Odelay-hee-ho.

I never expected Stevie Nicks.

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There is this boy who lives down the hall from me, who lives in the opposite time zone. When I am leaving my house at the ungodly hours of 5:15, 5:45, 6:15 and the like, he has clearly either just gotten home, or never gone to bed, as he is blasting music and dancing around his apartment, and usually has guests over as well. (Yes, I’m jealous. Let’s move on before I get upset about it, shall we.) Hip-hop, rap, rock, alternative, he plays it all, but generally in the happy, hyper, loud and obnoxious mode. Yet this morning, I found myself stuck outside his door, listening to this sweet lilting chorus “Time cast a spell on you but you won’t forget me…”

I thought “No. Seriously? No. Can’t be!” It was. Stevie Nicks “Silver Springs”, and good morning to you.

A New Batch of Aussie Slang from Casey

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  • That bloke’s crooked like a dog’s hind leg (He’s a crook)
  • That sheila’s a sausage short of a hotdog (She’s stupid)
  • A man worth his salt (He’s a good man)
  • Gidday you old Bastard (A term of endearment)
  • You little Beauty (when something good happens)
  • Town Bike (local slut)
  • Even Blind Freddy could see that (when you miss something obvious)
  • I’ll be right back, gunna go point percy at the porcelain (guys going to the loo)
  • I’m off like a frog in a sock (I’m leaving)
  • Mate, I’m crook (I’m sick)
  • Been speakin into the great white telephone (Been to the toilet)
  • She’ll be right (I/things will be better soon)
  • Your shout (Your turn to buy me a beer!)
  • Piffed a yonny at his noggin (threw a stone at his head) – victorian

Big Screen: The Black Dahlia.

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Some strong acting (Hilary Swank, for one, was wonderful. Completely forgot it was her in every scene). Strong directing (Brian de Palma’s been pretty much a god to me since the first time I saw “Body Double”). Really great illustration of noir. Good movie. But ultimately felt things moved a little bit slower than they could have.

There was one point in particular where a conversation between two people was being conducted soooo slowly and that was already 1h45 into the movie and I thought “This is GOOD, but it might go on forever…” (My dad disagrees; he quite liked the pacing.)

And if I haven’t mentioned it before, Aaron Eckhart’s picture is next to “yummy” in my dictionary…

Duff Says “READ!!” And, sometimes, watch a movie too.

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Always Recommending Almost Anything By

  • Phillip Roth
  • Pat Barker
  • David Lodge
  • Haven Kimmel
  • Jonathan Coe
  • A.L. Kennedy
  • Graham Swift
  • Penelope Fitzgerald
  • Marilynne Robinson
  • Elizabeth A. Lynn

Moving into Greatness
  • David Mitchell, particularly “Black Swan Green”
  • Michael Cunningham, particularly “The Hours” and “Specimen Days”

Fun and Foibles in Academia
  • Michael Malone “Foolscap”
  • Richard Russo “Straight Man”
  • Michael Chabon “Wonder Boys”
  • Michael Frayne “Headlong” (not exactly academia, but feels like it)
  • David Lodge (pretty much all his books)
  • William Boyd (the novels are not IN academia but his characters could easily go there)

Good Things Come in Pairs
  • Ann Patchett “Bel Canto” and Niall Williams “As It Is in Heaven”
  • Nick Hornby “High Fidelity” and Tom Perrotta “The Wishbones”
  • Joan Didion “The Year of Magical Thinking” and Philip Roth “Everyman”

Favored Among Others
  • “King Hereafter” Dorothy Dunnett
  • “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” Michael Chabon
  • “In This House of Brede” Rumer Godden
  • “Lonesome Dove” Larry McMurtry (and the three that go with it)
  • “The Shellseekers” Rosamunde Pilcher
  • “The History of Love” Nicole Krauss
  • “Gone to Soldiers” Marge Piercy
  • “Birdsong” Sebastian Faulks
  • “The Lords of Discipline” by Pat Conroy (get over the fact that he wrote Prince of Tides and read this anyway)

My Top 7 Books on March 5, 1997
  • “Kim” Rudyard Kipling
  • “Possession” A.S. Byatt
  • “The Engima of Arrival” V.S. Naipaul
  • “As I Lay Dying” Faulkner
  • “The Baron in the Trees” Italo Calvino
  • “Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha” by Roddy Doyle
  • “Speak, Memory” Nabokov

Academically Dense
  • A.S. Byatt
  • Anne Carson
  • Jasper Fforde, the Tuesday Next series (you can read these and just MISS most of the literary references, and they’re still fun, but you can tell when stuff is flying over your head…)

Serious Sci Fi
  • Neal Stephenson “Cryptonomicon” is a great, great book.
  • Maureen McHugh “Mothers and Other Monsters”
  • Mary Doria Russell “The Sparrow” and “Children of God”

Time Travel
  • Audrey Niffenegger “The Time Traveler’s Wife”
  • Diana Gabaldon the Outlander series (I really love the first three, after that it falls off a bit)
  • Connie Willis “Doomsday Book” and “To Say Nothing of the Dog”

Read This Book AND See This Movie
  • Michael Ondaatje “The English Patient”
  • Milan Kundera “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”
  • Nick Hornby “About a Boy”
  • Mark Bowden “Black Hawk Down”
  • Read Stuart O’Nan “Wish You Were Here” and watch “A Walk on the Moon”
  • Read Philip Caputo “Acts of Faith” and watch “The Constant Gardener”

Read This Book BUT do NOT See This Movie
  • Michael Connelley “Blood Work”
  • Cathleen Schine “The Love Letter”
  • Nick Hornby “High Fidelity”

Looks Like Chick Lit But Isn’t (It’s Better!!)
  • Darcy Cosper “Wedding Season”
  • Rebecca Wells “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and “Little Altars Everywhere”
  • Elisabeth Robinson “The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters”

Yes and No
  • Ian McEwan. YES: “Atonement” NO: “Saturday”
  • Zadie Smith. YES: “White Teeth” and “The Autograph Man” NO: “On Beauty”
  • Nick Hornby. YES: “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy” NO: “How to Be Good” and “A Long Way Down”
  • Alice Hoffman. YES: “Here on Earth” NO: “Turtle Magic”
  • Michael Connelly. YES: “Bloodwork” “The Poet” and the first five or six in the Harry Bosch series. NO: Everything written since then.
  • Dennis Lehane. YES: The (4 or 5?) Kenzie/Gennaro books. NO: The stand-alones.

One-Offs
  • Patrick Susskind “Perfume”
  • Martyn Bedford “The Houdini Girl”

Small-Town Blues
  • Haven Kimmel “A Girl Named Zippy”
  • Nicole Lea Helget “The Summer of Ordinary Ways”

Take Me to Another Place
  • Hilary Lifton & Kate Montgomery “Dear Exile”
  • anything by Bill Holm, but particularly “Coming Home Crazy”
  • anything by Sara Wheeler, particularly her Antarctica books
  • Anthony Bourdain “A Cook’s Tour”
  • Bill Bryson
  • Jenny Diski
  • Jeannette Wells “The Glass House”
  • Deborah Copaken Kogan “Shutterbabe”
  • Alexandra Fuller “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight”
  • Bruce Chatwin
  • Bruce Feiler

Books to Consider from Slightly Foxed #11

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  • L’Etranger, by Albert Camus (have I never read this?)
  • Modesty Blaise books, by Peter O’Donnell (a fictional Emma Peel!)
  • Asylum Piece or Julie and the Bazooka, by Anna Kavan
  • Stranger on Earth, bio of Anna Kavan, by Jeremy Reed
  • The Leopard, by Guiseppe di Lampedusa
  • The Papers of A.J. Wentworth B.A., by H.F. Ellis