Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Game 35: Knuckling Under



This is the book I am currently reading.



This is the Most Important Boy Who Ever Was, eating his First Birthday Cake.

Behind 8 innings of two hit ball from knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, and homers from Papi and the Bad Man, Boston blanks Detroit, 5-0.

Another brilliant Bill Moyers Journal this week, when he outlines carefully the silliness of deep textual analysis of Jeremiah Wright while McCain’s Whack A Mole buddies, Hagy, Robertson, and Falwell, get a pass. Also a solemn acknowledgement of the fifth anniversary of Mission Accomplished, and the rogues gallery of idiots , profiteers, and war criminals who brought us this misguided disaster.

Finished “Not Exactly What I Was Expecting”, the book of six word memoirs from the famous and the ordinary. It was brilliant, as I knew it would be. I can’t get over what a good idea it is, and the book is a great, quick read. I’ve never come up with one I was happy with-I sent in one that I cribbed from Kurt Cobain.

“Wrote Without Thinking, Thought Without Writing”, maybe.
Or “Soulless corporate drone dreams of prose”.

Also finished that book on the 1973 baseball season with the long title that I can’t recall, along with “Ball Four” for probably the 20th time, recently. Now reading “Absolute War”, a look at the Soviet side of World War II.

Now listening to Jhumpa Lahiri on NPR’s Book Tour. I loved her first two books, but this one is all short stories again, so I’m kind of not in the mood for it. Not right now. She, along with so many others, just depresses me with her brilliant, crystalline prose.

I actually went ahead and cancelled my XM. It’s a fine service-there’s nothing wrong with them, just getting a signal is such a pain. That’s $20 something a month I can do something else with. This will free up some time, as well, as I’ll just have to catch the Sox whenever they pop up on TV, and otherwise just follow them by box score and summary. Kind of old fashionedish-back in the day, I used to tell myself I would cut out each box score from the newspaper and paste it into a scrapbook, but I was never disciplined enough.

I have been blogging every single day, which I promised myself before I was going to do and never did. So that’s something. It would be something else if I were any good, or had something to say. That would be nice.

I can’t help but feel like, on some level, this is just whining. Whining and whining and whining.

2 comments:

  1. I would never consider it whining, or "whining and whining and whining". For me, it is a nice place to stop by and read. Makes me smile, or think about things in a new way, or consider watching baseball for some other reason that just the beautiful boys in tight suits. I wonder how you can read as much as you do...I love it, but no way could I plow through this many books in so little time. Wow, is all I have to say to that.

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  2. Well, the time is stretched out...it's not like I read them all yesterday. I guess I'm a quick reader, all things considered.

    Reading for me is like breathing-I find it hard to imagine not doing it.

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