Saturday, March 13, 2010

I'm still reading nothing in particular, but that's okay. I enjoyed as much George Eliot as I could today at the doctor's office until the eye dilation drops kicked in, but tonight I jumped from reading about building a cold frame in my back yard to some of a Keats biography to grading essays about All the Pretty Horses to remembering this John Ashbery profile from a New Yorker that came out like five years ago and of which I had dim memories of enjoying. So I find it on their web site and print it and sit down to read it at midnight and I'll be gosh-darned if it doesn't start out like this:
He read the newspaper. He dipped into a couple of books: a Proust biography that he bought five years ago but just started reading because it suddenly occurred to him to do so, a novel by John Rhys that he recently came across in a secondhand bookstore--he's not a systematic reader.
How funny is that? This article was calling out to me across the years--well, five of them--because it knew something about my state of mind right now. So, this is what I'll be reading for the next half hour or until I fall asleep, I guess.

4 comments:

Dawn Potter said...

This kind of thing is always happening to me. It's so strange, isn't it?

Mr. Hill said...

Oh, it's so strange. It always makes me look up and go "Hey! Did you see that?" to the empty room.

Scott's Dad said...

All I need is two reminders that you are more intelligent than me. First: the list of the books you read...and understand.
Second: the fact the New Yorker has for two weeks rejected my proposed caption in the weekly cartoon contest.
Oh, there is a third reminder. My poems can be understood by non-English teachers, a sure indication they are lousy.

Mr. Hill said...

you really need to start running those captions by me before you send them out, Dad.