a lot of talk, little action ...

and now, without further ado: stuff from the last week.

READ A BOOK AGAIN
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh: A Novel by michael chabon: Art Bechstein has just graduated from college, broken up with his girlfriend, and has an entire summer with which to play. When his father, vaguely identified as a gangster, asks him about his plans, Art answers:

“I anticipate a coming season of dilated time and of women all in disarray.”

On his way out of the library for the last time, he meets Arthur, intriguing and gay, who absorbs Art into a new friend-group of hyper-real characters and teeming with sexual tension: The mythical and beautiful Jane, who is in love with the rowdy bad-boy alcoholic Cleveland; Phlox, a girl who adopts new personalities with each outfit, punk one day, a Christian the next, Art’s girlfriend one day, his ex the next. Art gets a job at Broadway Books, which is a disgusting haven of mass market titles sold by overweight EMT-wanna bes. It’s a bookstore that Art believes looks like it should sell meat and that the whole book thing was an unfortunate accident.

full review here.

LISTENING TO
Feel Good Ghosts i am madly in love with cloud cult right now, and aside from spinning some fleetwood and lionel vinyl on saturday night, this is all i'm listening to. it's my mp3 musical monogamy. favorites from this cd include: "everybody here is a cloud"; "story of the grandson of jesus"; "journey of the featherless."

OCCASIONALLY READING WORDS ON THE INTERNET
the impatient patient: as a person who was robbed at gunpoint -- as i like to remind people -- i thought this was a really interesting essay, especially the need to write about what happened. granted, this woman's story was far worse than mine [and she concedes that other stories are worse than her's] but i think that a robbery is a robbery and being scared shitless is being scared shitless and having your stuff taken from you, regardless of how it happened or the brutality involved, makes you a little introspective. i also especially got the parts where she's asking why someone thinks they can do this.

foodies make me sick [via]: jessi klein writes about how she needs air, but doesn't consider herself an "airie". "I love menus and forks and appetizers and the anticipation of desserts. But I hate that foodies feel like every meal has to have the same wow-factor as their birthday [bj]. I once tried to make dining plans with a foodie friend and it took over ninety minutes to agree on a place that met all of her qualifications for ambiance, cuisine, and service. You would have thought we were negotiating Israeli borders."