Now Reading/Listening

Now Reading:

My reading habits are a function of my anticpated moods and literary desires. I rarely buy one book when I'm in a bookstore, more often than not it's more like five or six. Some I'm anxious to start reading as soon as I get home, some I've read about someplace and think I'd like to read, others I feel shame that I haven't read already and buy with a feeling of disciplinary admonishment. This buying frenzy gets worse whenever I get to go to certain stores. My favorite bookstores are the mammoths: Powell's in Portland and Chicago, Tattered Cover in Denver, the Strand in NYC. I get to each a couple times a year (except the Cover, haven't been there in a few years and I feel a part of me dying on the inside) and it's a lucky deal when I restrain myself to an armload bounty of books.

The result is a much fuller suitcase on my return trip and a stack of books on my desk that grows like Joyce's eternal mountain of sand. Having been jobless for three months now and sedentary for one, I've been able to make some progress in the stack. Here are the favorites:

• Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry - epic cowboy saga that earned the author the Pulitzer Prize long before he produced and co-adapted Brokeback Mountain for the big screen. Excellent characters: old Mexican cooks, restless ex-Texas Rangers, sharp-tongued frontierswomen, stubborn cattle, renegade Comanches and the sprawling, beautifully captured territories of Texas to Montana. 800+ pages a bit intimidating at first but once you get into the pace of the novel the pages fly by. Interesting fact: Larry McMurtry used to run with Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs back at Stanford in the early 60s and is included in the list of visitors to Kesey's forest crib in La Honda in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. There must have been something in the water up there cause those cats can write.
  

• Before Lonesome Dove, I read Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth. Not the greatest novel ever published but definitely an instant favorite. From the jacket:

Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality" however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, often in the form of castration.

Very funny, very insightful and VERY graphic. Evoked vicariousness and personal memories at the same time. I'm relieved to discover that some of the more shameful thoughts I had as a child are nearly universal among those raised in Jewish households. Except the castration part; thankfully, that punishment never occured to me or, more thankfully, my parents.

• I've had Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude sitting in a pile of yet-to-be read novels on my desk for about 8 months now. I read and liked one of his earlier novels, Motherless Brooklyn, but it wasn't the life-changing literary experience some made it out to be. FOS seems to be one of those books I know I'll like once I get in the mood to read it: copious late funk/early hip-hop references, kids growing up amid tense neighborhood race relations, set in Brrrrrrooklyn (I was going to just type Brooklyn but my index finger stuttered and I like the way it looks now so...). Unfortunately for you Mr. Lethem, the city of Chicago and Devil in the White City have already got me reeled in so you're gonna have to wait your turn.

Now listening:

My literary and musical shopping habits are very similar. Stacks of vinyl are lighter than stacks of books but still a bitch to make room for in the suitcase. Damn I wish my camera worked. I just found an old hard-cover suitcase while cleaning out my folks' basement and it's sweet. Had to glue some of the stitching back together but it's a total travelling salemsan special. Can't wait to take it on the train.

Anyway, I have yet to remove any of the grains of sand making up the stack of vinyl in my closet but that will change as soon as I take the time to get a record player. No turntable = CDs. So see deez cuts bee-yatch.

• Will Oldham and Tortoise - Chester the Whispering Cabin Boy joins up with the Cool Noise Kids for an album of covers. The material samples everything from Springsteen to Lungfish, Elton John to Devo. Great concept although the end results don't live up to the hype or my own hopeful expectations. Elton's "Daniel" has gotten better with every listen, though, unfortunately, The Boss' "Thunder Road" doesn't hold up. If you're going to attempt to sing about girls and boys seeking salvation in guitars and fast cars you better come strong or not at all. "All the redemption I can offer girl is beneath this dirty hood... You ain't a beauty but, hey, you're alright". Yeah, keep that weak shizz at home, cousin.
  

• Loose Fur - Born Again in the USA

• The Books

• DangerDoom - Just getting around to this summer jam of an album but I like it. A lot. "Stroll across the globe and terrorize the planet in a Bill Clinton mask and them Playskool hammers!" Was everybody else already up on Aqua Teen Hunger Force except me too? Damn.
  

• La nueva Caps y Jones mix - fresh for them Swedish ears. Good for the run around town or the ride home from the party with a car full of kids. Get the local take here. NYC heads - check out the authors here.