Monthly Archives: December 2010

Bye, 2010

A few days ago, I was in my usual corner at the coffee shop when a girl approached me to ask for a light. “Sasha, right?” I nodded my Yes, smiled brightly. I did not recognize her. An awkward pause ensued, and I wished she would go away. She waved her lit cigarette around, said, […]

December 2010 Reads

Ah, goodbye December, and with it, 2010. It was a good month for reading. There were a lot of delicious books, and only a handful of duds. It was a chill kind of month, and I’m thankful. Sure beats being harried as the year comes to a close. I’m optimistic enough to think that this […]

As much as I can allow myself on The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

How is everyone? [A perfunctory question. Yes, I am self-involved this holiday season. And frantically tying bloggie loose ends.] Aherm. Last Christmas Eve, if I wasn’t gorging myself with fruitcake or cram-wrapping children’s presents, I was thinking about how I could possibly talk about [that block of paper on top of that block of wood,] […]

“. . . be a crowd unto yourself—”

[beautiful artwork by M. Lewandowski] ♦ “. . . it is not enough to withdraw from the mob, not enough to go to another place: we have to withdraw from such attributes of the mobs as are within us. It is our own self we have to isolate and take back into possession . . . […]

“Art, you see, is not interested in your suffering.”

From Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things, novel by Gilbert Sorrentino, a rather wild ride of a book — a satirical, funny, occasionally crass and coarse, unfortunately very insightful, and just plain weird and hyperactively written view into the New York art world of the fifties and sixties: . . . the confrontation with the demons does not […]

Having reached the last page of The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, a look back:

Ah, the end of an era. Or, well, a 732-page book. I have finally finished reading The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis. And, given how scatterbrained I am when it comes to short story collections, I do want to pat myself on the back for finishing this in record time: six months. Imagine that. Now […]