Spring Music

Finally, it makes sixty degrees, and I am starting to warm toward of this year's new music. It is Charlotte Gainsbourg for one. The music by Air, no less. That probably has something to do with it. On it's first 6-7 spins, I'm preferring it to the new Air, actually.
And then, really, after Charlotte, it's all Bill Callahan for me lately. Sick this week, my voice could even growl out the country number, "A Man Needs a Woman or a Man to be a Man" that closes his new record. What a cool voice he has. I always had trouble with some of the real early (Smog) stuff he released, but the last 4-5 records by him have been great, I think. I keep singing the line "Fireworks are wasted in the day/ I set 'em off anyway/ to pass the time/ 'til you return/ with fireworks, more fireworks."

Teacher New Year

A.C. Filling Curtain Like a Dress, South Bend

It's getting close now. I always get a few new year's resolutions in my head around January, but the more serious ones happen in mid April to late May, when I know that summer is coming and I will actually have time to devote to doing more stuff. So I'm trying to think about what to do this summer. Assignments are what I'm looking for, things to assign myself, because that's how it works for me.

My friend Mike is doing a photo project called "Four States." I'm thinking of making this the summer of shooting my Holga more. But of what? I need something tangible. Another project I am working on is "plant bamboo in the yard" and another is "change my guitar strings." Those could take some time, but I might have some left over. Hmm. The summer is my oyster: what to do?

First Cliches

In the car today, 4 year old J says to me "Daddy, the wind is blowing the grass and it looks like waves!" Of course I was about to lecture her on the inability of people to "hear" dead language like the too-obvious "waves of grass," but before I could make my point clear she burst in with "Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a rock star!"

Her first two cliches within a single minute. I was almost proud. But more concerned. I want her to be an oil-painting, fiddle-playing, clogging, documentary filmmaker.

The Compromises of Marriage

Used to be, there would be two bikes on this car. Here is C on her way to the great single-track at Lake Winona, snow or no, and I am left taking pictures in my socks from the porch, chilluns yelling for cinnamon toast behind me. It's enough. No complaints.

The Library Review

Well, it's nice and cold for Spring Break '07, so it's a good time for me to develop my opinions about the new library space. The main judgment, and it's one that I seem to share with lots of folks, is that it's pretty great. I've overheard other people say, and I've thought it myself, that it will "be my new hangout." It is space this town can be proud of--it feels ambitious and progressive and democratic and you can sense these feelings in the people, patrons, you pass in the great hall, above.

It's definitely attracting more business. I'd be curious to hear numbers on that. I know that the checkout desk now has anywhere from 3-4 people working it now where it used to have only two, and the lines always seem longer. When I'm there, it always seems like at least two checkout clerks are busy with patrons helping them something complicated like appealing their immigration status or changing the name on their passport. Probably just seems that way.

But what do I think of the details of this new space is the question I've been asking myself lately. I think I do like the big hall. The light is great, and the feeling that you're someplace important is nice. One major disappointment is the wall of quotes you see on the left side above. They put up a canvas 50 yards long or so and I'm all excited about the possibilities and all we get is this sort of pedantic, officious mess of words. The quotations are nice, but it feels like a lecture. A huge opportunity for public art that could have challenged and identified us wasted. An Eric Tarr or e4 collective work would have been a knockout. Fortunately, the new library gallery space and theater are helping to make up fo that letdown. But still. Grade: B This small reading room is one of my favorite places to hunker down. I can sit along the windows at the far end there and read and it's a great place to see people you know as they walk by. My only real problem with this space is that it serves as an echo chamber for all of the noise generated in the "great hall." Somehow, it feels louder than when you're in the hall itself. Every kid that gets smacked by its teenage parent and then cries gets magnified in there. It's also a little cold by those windows in the winter. Still, it's one of the first places I go to read. It feels secluded except when the latch key kids come there to hang out and flirt after school. They're pretty obnoxious. Grade: B-

The other decent place to read is the "silent reading room," which is glassed off from the rest of the library and contains about thirty leather wingback (is that the word?) chairs scattered randomly. It is quiet in there, but it's too quiet for me, almost. I want to feel like I'm in something public when I go out to read, and this does not give me that. All the chairs are a little absurd, too; they look like a chess board full of kings, and their random organization makes it look they are sadly roaming the small room in search of a fireplace to settle in front of. I feel bad for them, and avoid them, rarely using this room. Grade: B-
And here, Business & Technology, is the best place to set up the laptop. It's a corner that almost always has an open table, lots of outlets built into the tables, and the wi-fi is always fast. What I love most is the light here--great corner windows that let you feel like you're sitting at the bow of a great ship or something. Not too many kids running around here, either, which is nice. I think the name of the department scares them off or something. Grade: A.

Children's Services is a pretty sweet set up. The kids all love it, and this room feels like it got the most attention during the planning stage. I think it feels a little cramped in the stacks, though. A kids' room should feel more open. There are actually places in there that feel like the dead end of a maze. Grade: A-

Okay, so my overall grade is still an A. I'm a holistic grader. I've yet to see the Genealogy dept. because I'm afraid that it will mean I'm old if I go in there. I am curious, though. I also didn't say anything about the bizarre wall separating the Audio Visual dept. from the Art books room. It makes no sense to me. And I've left out the new coffee shop/book shop and the periodicals area. The jury is still out on that, I guess.

Finally, a nice movie for 2007

It had been a slow year for movies this year, but Quinceanera finally made its way through our Netflix queue this weekend. It's just so good. I feel like I want to put the dvd back in the player and press play in the hope that the story will pick up with the characters where it left off. But they're not real. It's hard to convince myself of that.

Sitting up, taking fluids

I guess I'm better. Whatev. I'm well enough to sit up at least. Picked up the guitar, even. How is it that every time I look up the chords to a Wilco song I like, it's always GCD with maybe an Am or an F? How can one guy make so many different cool songs with the same material? Today: "Handshake Drugs," D, G, F.

Slate has a pretty funny four minute segment from the This American Life show that starts on Showtime this Thursday. It's animated by Chris Ware, even. I still think I will prefer the radio version of the show, but that may be because I don't have cable and will never see the Showtime version.

The Horror

Just compare this picture of me from this morning with the one below to get a feel for how I'm doing today. I like the hair, though.

I wish that God or Flying Spaghetti Monster or whoever had designed us so that we had old fashioned pull tabs on our skulls so we could just rip our heads open and pour out the sinus pressure. That seems like it would have been the obvious way to do things.

Shoot me.

I think this picture explains pretty well how I've been feeling the past few days.

Gatorade probably wasn't the best plan of attack; I can admit that now. I was thinking that my electrolytes were low, though, which you can't let happen, ever.

So today I will try Theraflu even though I can't stand the taste of the stuff. If I can get to the co-op, I'll try that throat coat tea too.

Cure me

Oh man am I sick. It's one of those where you are dizzy all the time and feel like you are walking on the moon. It probably wasn't safe for me to drive into school, but I had to put together some kind of plans for class tomorrow--and even Tuesday the way I'm feeling. If you know any folksy cold remedies, let me hear them. So far, I have been sticking to drinking lots of Gatorade, and that's not helping much.

A recent one

Here's a new poem about tee-vee . . . or is it? I have no idea.

Syndication

This is the episode where the guy
recalls scenes from his life
you know what a clips show is
and he relives the one
when he said goodbye to her
at the airport
she got a job in marketing in Seattle
she would have stayed if he asked
and he remembers that and
decides to kill himself.
God, that isn’t funny at all.

What about the one where he
is avoiding his boss at work
because he botched a project
and then runs into him
at a baseball game
there is an awkward moment
someone should tell a joke
and his boss fires him
and he cries right
there at the baseball game.
That is so humiliating. God.

Remember the one where he
doesn’t even get out of bed
the whole show is right there in bed
and he doesn’t even say anything, he
just lies there but his eyes are open
and his mouth is a little open
he looks funny
I wished the phone would ring or something
I don’t even know
what that one was about
I had to leave the room.

Brother to Wed Local Cutie

There she is, our Leslee, the future Mrs. Brian Hill! Wow. I think the whole family has been laughing giddily since we heard today--she's just that wonderful.

Brian took her north, way up in Michigan, to make the proposal out on a frozen lake so that the exact place of the asking will eventually disappear, a place they will only be able to revisit in memory.

For some reason, the only pictures I have of Brian and Leslee together are from Germanfest last summer, so pardon the beer--it wasn't Disneyfest.

Man, Brian and I were kids, I swear, yesterday.

Syrup 07

Here are C and Mr. B walking back to the car (parked up there at the barn) after a couple hours of emptying buckets of tree sap and filling up with pancakes. We usually go to one of these in a woods north of town an hour or so, but just heard about this one through the Acres web site, and it's so much better. For one thing, it's free. For another, you have to walk through 1/2 mile of mud to get there, so you know you are spending time with people who really like their syrup--good people. You feel like you've earned your day. And then for another thing they give you buckets and let you trip through the woods collecting sap, and then finally there is Mr. Yoder, who owns the farm and talks to you about trees and whatever.
Some fun stuff going on today--this, and now I'm going to go watch a rugby tournament at the park across the street that I can see from where I'm sitting . And if I don't take too much time C might let me get in my first road ride of the season today, too, since I let her spin this morning. I'm almost glad IU lost last night so that I don't have to be inside watching that boring offense on this pretty day.

Injury update: two to report. Had to call the bike ride off when I hurt my back whilst leaning over to turn on the dvd player. I mean geez, I carry a kid a mile on my back today with no problem, but it's this that gets me.As much as my back is killing me, though, I still probably feel better than the rugby playing kid I saw dislocate his shoulder today. His team had driven all the way from Columbus, Indiana, too. That's the first time I'd watched rugby in person, and it seems designed specifically to cause injuries just like that. Pretty ferocious stuff. My kids will be forced to stick to mountain biking where at least you know the trees aren't trying to hurt you on purpose.

Library Honeymoon Over?

No, I'm still crazy about the place. It's my new office. I'm still claiming it, one Dewey decimal at a time. But yesterday it seemed noisier than usual. I heard more moms telling their kids to "shut up." And the movie I wanted wasn't in. I guess that last one could happen at any library.

The most annoying thing that's occurred to me took place yesterday, when two tools tried out the old "can you give us some gas money?" routine. If my computer wasn't on my lap, I might have thrown them over the balcony. How much money can that scam really make people, anyway? It just can't be as lucrative as checking pay phones for quarters or placing "tiny classified ads" in newspapers. What idiots.

I've been the target of this Abbot and Costello routine at least five, and I think six times in the six years I've been in town, and the cultural anthropologist in me has noticed the following motifs for this particular example of alcoholic/crackhead folklore:

1. They need to get back to Indianapolis, Chicago, or the hospital.
2. They have been to the churches but they got turned away.
3. They went to the mission, but nothing could be done for them.
4. This is not a scam.

Some variations have included the claim that they had "just been jumped" and I could call the cops to confirm their story. Another claimed that he was our neighbor and "for gosh sakes, my wife walks our dog by here every day."

What's tough is keeping your cool and not throwing them off the balcony. I usually try to just turn into a robot that says "no" a lot with no inflection in my voice. I've thought about using humor, like saying "damn, I was just about to ask you for the same thing, man." Or maybe I could say "hey, you missed the part about getting turned away from the churches." But you never know what will set some people off. My brother says the next time he gets this, he's going to offer them some actual gas from his lawnmower can to see what they do. I need to think about this so I can be ready next time to do something more than the effective but dull "just say "no" plan.

New all time favorite song I'm totally serious.

Now it is "True Love Will Find You in the End" by Daniel Johnston. I finally got to see The Devil and Daniel Johnston tonight, a nicely done documentary about the searing tragedy of mental illness and the power of music to make hipsters want to help you through that illness. But they play that song toward the end, and it's the saddest song of all time and you want to take that little song home and adopt it so that you can tell it to play itself over and over for you.

What a movie that is, though. I feel like I want to send him a check or something now. My favorite part is when he has moved to a small town to get a handle on his problems and a couple of fans who have no idea he is living there drive by a guy being attacked by dogs so they help kick the dogs away and then they say "are you Daniel Johnston?" And he says "yeah, do you know who I am?" And then they all start a band. Yes, the world is that small.

It has to be "the 0ughts"

We still have a couple of years before we have to decide this, but at the end of the decade, people are going to start referring to the past ten years as "the [something]s." To my knowledge, there is still no broadly accepted term in vogue, so I am going to suggest one: "the 0ughts."

Now, what you can't see in this font is that the "O" in "0ughts" is not an "O" but a zero! That's where the cleverness comes in! What's so wonderful about this name is the way it takes the authenticity of the old-timey word "oughts"--as in "pass me my thirty-ought-six" (which is a kind of gun, I think) and blends it with the endearingly annoying novelty of "'Leet Speak" by using a number(!) in the spelling. Old and new. Hi and low. I can't wait for 2010 now.

A Day in the County

So, the library had its annual "Day in the County" photo contest yesterday and I completely forgot. Kind of a bummer. As a result, I have only this snap to show for the day. I hope it gets in.

Mr. B Cleans Up

I go to get this guy at daycare yesterday and he's sitting having a snack when I get there and he goes "My ready dad" and then immediately knocks over this big cup of water. "My sorry Dad. Where my towel?" Kids, man, dang.

Something beautiful about this.

Click the image to see it at the original site. Makes me wish we had a subway. The closest equivalent we have is Glenbrook, probably. [From The Online Photographer]

TAL Trailer

This is the true ache of not having cable. The trailer for the new This American Life teevee show is online now and it looks so good. The feel of it reminds me something of the old Errol Morris movie Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control. [link]

Freezing Fog!

That's a new one, "freezing fog." Apparently, it is treacherous enough to warrant closing school today. Just look what it has done to my garden! So be careful out there. And around 9:30 look out for the "thawing fog," which can be just as bad.

Make the most of your day; I'm going outside to build a fog man now.

My snow day

This poorly exposed photo documents the first 20 minutes or so of my Valentine's snow day. It was just enough shoveling for me to think "hey, a little shovelin's not so bad." Then I realized that for the first time in six years we wouldn't be able to just drive our monster station wagons over the snow drifts down the drive. I bet it took me and my $5 shovel (pictured) close to an hour and a half before we were done, with no breakfast in me even. And I finished right when morning cartoons were over, of course, so 2 year old Mr. B turned to me just as I slumped into a chair with a banana and said "Da-ad. I wanna play you. Duck Duck Firetruck!" And Duck Duck Firetruck is not a game you can play half way, either. But it was a swell day. All that snow.

Crash is not a good movie.

I never saw Crash when it came out because I like to think I have developed a good sense for what movies are good or bad simply from seeing some of their publicity. Yesterday was a snow day and today was a snow day, though, and sometimes watching "big" movies is a fun way to celebrate those kind of days.

But instead, it was bad, and here is the main reason: non-diegetic sound. That is, it relies on music and sounds that aren't generated from the action on the screen itself as a substitute for true emotion. The use of non-diegetic sound isn't necessarily why Crash is bad, but it was a big early clue for me that it would be. I mean, when there is a scene, and it it supposed to be an intense interpersonal exchange, and in the background you hear this thick, sludgy layer of synthesized soundtrack, it means that they are trying to manipulate you using something other than whatever dramatic interest and tension they have invested in the characters. It's a cop out, in other words. And they use this all the time in Crash.

Take away the music, and you'd have some pretty boring stuff going on, I think. Really, what is so devastating about the epiphanies experienced by the characters in this movie? Here's a short list:

Shop keeper guy: if you shoot someone's kid, you really should not have done that.

Locksmith: it is so great when your children are not shot by unstable immigrant entrepreneurs.

Matt Dillon, bad cop: women will not like you if you touch them inappropriately.

TV director's wife: even if a cop is a bigot, he might try to save you from a burning car.

Good cop kid: sometimes, when angry strangers reach for their pockets in a violent manner and it is late at night, they are not reaching for guns.

Sandra Bullock: you should not be shallow and materialistic.

TV director: people are bigoted against blacks, and that is partly because some black youths steal cars.

The other cop guy: I'm not sure what he learned.

Ludicris: maybe I don't always live up to my ideals about not stealing from other black people. I should really examine the way I live because I am ashamed of myself.

It's not just the obtuseness of the message that I dislike, but the ham-fisted way the movie uses bizarre coincidence after coincidence, cute children, and a melodramatic soundtrack to make it all come together. Ultimately, I think it was popular because by saying "You need to see Crash," people could tell themselves that they were enlightened on the subject of race. But could any movie about race in America really leave you feeling this good and this hopeful for the possibility that we can all be brought together? Is it that easy?

Wow, that's quite a rant.

Poetry Out Loud is on

For anyone reading this who plans to compete in Poetry Out Loud, you might be wondering if today's (and probably tomorrow's, I'm thinking) school closings will affect it. The answer is no; snow cannot stop poetry--poetry thrives in it, in fact.

So things will go as planned on Thursday. Try to show up at rm 711 around 3:00 so you can sign in and get a room assignment. Try to bring four copies of the poems you plan to recite. If you have questions, email me at my school address.

Advanced Bad Poetry

The class I'm taking now is actually called just "Advanced Poetry," but so far I have been writing mainly bad poetry at a highly advanced level. It's intense. The best thing about the class is that it puts you in this place where you find yourself driving your car in silence a lot, just trying to think in some kind of poetic language that might come in handy. It's a nice way to live, but perhaps not a safe way to drive.

The professor, George Kalamaras, is someone I wish I could have as like a poetry version of a life coach. Shouldn't there be such a thing? Shouldn't we all have a poetry life coach in our lives that we can touch base with, a person to call at 3AM when you can't write because you're too happy? I wonder how much that would cost.

The last class I had with a workshop in was a creative non-fiction class where your peers would be critiquing your 4,000 word essays, and it could be uncomfortable at times. But poetry is condensed language, and I'm finding that workshop in this current class provides me with condensed anxiety. Maybe anxiety isn't the right word, but it's not far off.

So far, of the five or six poems I've assembled, I think I like two. Of those two, only one probably deserves to be liked. I'm spending today trying to mess with a poem for Monday. It's okay. It starts out clunky, but that doesn't bother me yet.

Currency

There is a currency in this town

in a lack of information.

We dole it from card catalogs

rescued out of the old library

while it was being forgotten.

We traffic in this stuff,

where the weird neighbors live,

how garden hoses left under the snow

carry ice to your bathtub,

and who moved your great aunt

from the assisted living center

during the Alzheimer’s wedding.

She was just starting to like it there.

This week, the suicidal teen

gives his mom three hundred dollars

so she can buy a car he won’t worry about.

He asks only for the van in the drive.

Maybe he can get something for it

before she forgets and lets

his brother drive it into the river.

Look at me, watching the football.

I'm a little surprised to be sitting on the couch watching the game tonight, but here I am, and it's pretty good fun--wow, what a cool run the guy named Wayne just had.

I grew up liking just college sports, IU basketbll mostly. I think rooting for big professional outfits made as much sense to me as rooting for companies like IBM or 5/3 Bank. I still feel that way; there just doesn't seem to be enough of a relationship between the players and "the people."

But that's different today. So many people have this game on their minds that it does feel like a significant shared experience. So significant, in fact, that I think schools are calling for 2 hr delays tomorrow just so that kids can stay up late to watch the game. At least that's my assumption--I can't think of any other reason for the mass delays.

So anyway, this is fun. I've learned a few things. For example, my ol' lady just told me she heard that the quarterbacks all have 2-way radios in their helmets. I never knew that.

UPDATE: The wife points out that schools are probably delayed so that little Timmy and Sally don't have to wait at the bus stop when it's 0 degrees. I'm not sure that two hours is going to make any discernible difference, but the appearance that matters.

I wonder how the hard core road cyclist I saw today is doing. It's true: I saw a guy zipping by the house in full winter gear. I wanted to run out there and pump my fists at him, but it was too cold. I've ridden road in the twenties and mountain biked in the teens, but this guy was crazy. He didn't even have a balaclava covering his face. I admire the guy because most of my favorite riders are the tough guy Spring Classics riders, these Belgians who ride in the snow in shorts and short sleeve jerseys.

How I spent my snow day.

So I didn't know school was canceled until I walked into the main office and asked whether or not today's faculty meeting was called off. The school secretary looked at me with this "Hill is such an idiot look" and said "there's no school."

Of course, I had noticed that the halls looked rather empty, but I guess I thought I was just an early riser and beat most folks to school or something. Oh well. It's fun to be at school when it's empty. I got some work done, left, and now I'm at the new library, which is practically like totally my new favorite place in the entire world.

Looking at the drawing above, I am sitting in a comfy chair outside the windows on the second floor, and have my laptop putting all the power of the interwebs at my disposal.. There are fewer people in real life than you see in the picture, though. I dunno. This place just kills me. The power of architecture to help define a city should not be underestimated.

Opening Day!

Main Atrium, ACPL

I'm going to go ahead and declare myself the first person to blog about the new library that opened here today. I also plan to have the first overdue library book there, too.

I should have grabbed a better picture than this, but it was tough with an armful of coats and the occasional kid. But anyway, it's a great place. I can't wait to get to know it. It has scale, coziness, and lets the light in, too. I really like what I've heard about something called the "silent reading room," because I'm all about silence, but I wasn't able to find it today.

Do you have favorite people?

Jim and Terry, Carmel (2002)

I can't believe Jim Merithew called me last night. When Jim calls, you don't even care that you were sleeping; you're just glad to know that he still thinks about you some times--I mean, seriously: he lives in California, with a job people want, in a flat that overlooks Lake Merritt and off to the Marin headlands. He has an M6, and the pictures he takes with it always make you laugh, and he smiles when he talks and you have a crush on his wife. In other words, this is a guy who has plenty of reasons to not remember his Midwestern friends, the ones who let him win all the stop-sign sprints during road rides, the ones he could talk about Traverse City with.

I just feel all lucky.

Snow!

Our garden Buddha looks pretty content with the snow that fell last night, and I am, too. I can't tell you what a nice thing it has been today just to have snow outside the windows and in the sole of my boots. And just when I'd started to think that this could be a snow free winter.

J Dilla changed my life.

Not really, but that's what it says on the shirt I want to get. And I'm almost feeling that way this morning after downloading some dude's J Dilla "tribute" that he put together and posted to the Animal Collective forum. It's 70 or so minutes of his work producing and a few tracks from his own albums and it's pretty awesome. I knew I liked the album Donuts he released just before he died, or right around there, but this just takes it to another level.

Maybe I like more hip hop than I realize. Could be. Some music, like opera or free form jazz you always kind of assume that you might grow to like when you're older, that you'll get it some day. It never occurred to me that this would happen for me with beats and rhymes.

This tribute has some pretty low language, but not a whole lot that I haven't been heard to say on the golf course. A little more disturbing is the way some of the lyrics treat women, but I deleted most of those songs from my playlist because that stuff truly takes away from the music. I'm such a champion for women everywhere.

But I'd love to be a dj producer like dilla. I mean look at that picture. Your life would be to hang in rooms full of lp's and instruments and electronica and you would get to fiddle around all day with your art. I think it's also the attitude you'd get to project--dj's never smile in their pictures, but they're not frowning, either--they just look deep, like their beats have connected to something sublime. But being an English teacher is really cool too. I too am connected to the sublime.

I just have to get this shirt now, though.

David Skalicky at the Kachmann

Here's David watching Mee Kyung Shim emote about his photography at the Kachmann opening on Saturday. Mee did a good job expressing what most of us were feeling. I think I'd seen most of David's images online, but it was nice to be around them in person for once. Individually, they all look like pieces of stories, and when they are assembled on a gallery wall, your mind tries to fit them into some kind of narrative arc, and the places this exercise takes you can be jarring. But in an invigorating way. There is some tenderness in these, too. Together, they could be scenes from some slightly ominous Midwestern bildungsroman, innocence and experience.

Many of his images remind me of the "untitled film still" series from Cindy Sherman, a good thing:Untitled #96, Cindy Sherman

I love knowing that these stories happened around here. It makes your local landscape feel a little more fertile knowing that people like David can use a life in Indiana to come up with things that surprise you.

Early album of the year prediction.

I know that I let some of my enthusiasms get the better of me sometimes, but I'm going to go ahead and predict that Panda Bear's album coming out in March, Person Pitch, will be my #1 for 2007. How do I know? From hearing the first track, streamed at the Paw Tracks site. It's got this high choral chant in the background that reminds me of the soundtrack of Akira in the climactic scenes, when Akira is breaking lots of stuff, and in the foreground is Panda singing this kind of Beach Boys melody. Plus, the song has clapping in it, like many of my favorite songs.* I just keep hitting play over and over. Panda Bear, if you don't already know, is one of the main fellers from Animal Collective. [link]

* That reminds me of this great bit by the old radio team Bob & Ray where they ask this kid what kind of music he likes and he says "Oh, whip songs mainly. Songs with whips in them." You kind of have to hear it, probably.

A funny You Tube

Stop motion will never die. It starts off fun, and gets better as it goes. Music is kind of cool, too [link]

2006 Favorite Book Learnin'

I don't know if I can rank these, but these were the most enjoyable reads for me in 2006, in alphabetical order by author or title or maybe not in any order.

The Road, Cormac McCarthy
I finished this a couple of months ago now but I can't stop thinking about it. C read it over the holidays and had dreams about it in which she was hiding by the side of the road from cannibals and running through trees, starving. The clarity of his prose (that phrase is such a book review cliche, but it's all I can think of) continues to be just to the bone. His next novel, if it continues this pattern, will have to be written entirely in sentence fragments .

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
Finally, I read Jane Austen. I had no problem reading chick books when I was 11--girls were always telling me that I couldn't read Are you there God? It's me, Margaret and similar stuff--but this backward part of me always assumed I wouldn't relate to Austen. I outgrew that sentiment a long time ago, but never got around to her. At last, I got the prodding I needed when this novel was on the list for a course I am teaching this year, and thank goodness; this is just one of the wittiest books I've ever read. It's got me tempted to go on a year of Brit Lit, re-reading Anthony Powell, Kingsley Amis and Henry Green, especially. But where will I get the time? I will sleep less. Yes. That is my new year's resolution: to sleep less.

The Sounds of Poetry, Robert Pinsky
Sometimes I think I read as many books about reading poetry as I read poetry. It's just hard to escape the feeling, when you're reading poetry, that you'd be catching onto something if you only knew a little bit more about conventions, traditions, contexts. This is the most helpful book I've ever seen on how to understand, yes, the "sounds" of a poem. It's so clear, so to the point. Can be read in an afternoon.

The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene
I think it's a rule that I have to one book of his on this list every year.

The Road from Coorain, Jill Ker Conway
Another book that I read for a class this year, a memoir that writes beautifully about some uglier parts of Australia, something that always attracts me because I too live in a place where you have to look hard to see beauty (but it's there, I think).

Saturday, Ian McCewan
Man, lots of Brits on this list, it seems. Boot said it best.

Up in Michigan, there was no snow.

But there was also no television, and no internet, and that made it pretty great too. The wife is swearing off television for the new year and there's something about new year's that fills me with optimism and the thought that I can do the same. I just spent ten days without it, at least, and it was a positive thing. I might miss The Office a little, and I like 30 Rock some too, but not that much.

I love this picture. C took it while driving back to the lake place late one night. It reminds me of the poster for David Lynch's Lost Highway. Man, I hope I get to see Inland Empire this year.