2010 Tournament of Books

http://www.themorningnews.org/tob/let-the-great-world-spin-v-miles-from-nowhere.php

R.I.P. Sparklehorse

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/03/mark-linkous-aka-sparklehorse-takes-own-life.html

Woof

"No! You don't bark in an office!"

-- Woman in the office next to mine, to her two little dogs who have been wandering among my papers and legs much of the day, and right now.

Song of the Day

"No Easy Way Down" -- Dusty Springfield (prompted by Mark Eitzel's live version)

-- and while we are at it, you and I, listen to the rest of the album too (Dusty in Memphis)

Dream

Fitful night, but must have slept, unless this really happened:

Sitting in the stands, some stands, two women maybe 23 years old sit next to me, one of whom is wearing some kind of YALE t-shirt. I comment on it to her: "I don't see that many of those out here, and yet there are a couple of other people in the stands wearing YALE t-shirts."

Then walking around some plaze among tall buildings, I notice more people wearing YALE shirts, and then sitting in different stands, many people with such shirts, some of which seem like a uniform -- either a sporting team or YALE laundry workers.

Suddenly green paint drips on me from the sky, and huge cannon bursts of green paint globules are launched from cannons behind us, to splatter against the tall buildings around us. Now it becomes clear: the Yale graduates are hear to watch the YALE sneak attack on these buildings, hoping to besmirch the honor of Princeton. (Neither institution is anywhere near, nor do the buildings seem to have anything to do with Princeton.)

That's why. Why'd you think?

Lyric of the day:

Oh please don't you rock my boat
'Cause I don't want my boat to be rockin'.

"Satisfy My Soul" -- Bob Marley

Faith and food

"Father . . . what are we to do?" . . .

"Sleep!" cried Father Brown ". . . Do you know what sleep is? Do you know that every man who sleeps believes in God? . . . it is an act of faith and it is a food."

from The Innocence of Father Brown

Overheard near the elevator

"Well, she's not a woman, let's put it that way."

Dream: Malibu Wildlife Search

Walking in sand dunes along the beach near Malibu, California, though out of sight of the water. I reach the top of a small rise. To the east at the bottom of the little hill is a large animal that I decide is a tapir. I become aware that I am looking for one of the largest animals in the world and that it is around here. I am narrating my journey, as if in a nature documentary, though there seems to be no point in doing so: no camera, no recorder, no phone. The "tapir" is not much like a tapir, and there seem to be two of them. It is the size of a hippo, and hippo-like, but where the nose flap is on a tapir, it has a foot long truck like an elephant's.

The tapir are not the large animal I am looking for.

Turning around at the base of the hill, where I have to return, a very large alligator has buried itself into the sand, like it would were the sand water, floating at or just below the surface. The alligator is dangerous.

I am aware that none of these animals are native to Malibu.

The hill seems to get steeper, and I am having a hard time not slipping down the sand towards the alligator. It seems inevitable that I will.

Pick Up Lines At The Gym Of Questionable Utility

1.

Woman exercising. Man standing next to her.

Man: [inaudible]
Woman: What's your name?
Man: [inaudible]
Woman: Rambo?
Man: [inaudible]
Woman: Well, nice to meet you Rambo.


2.

Man and woman enter steam room. Man, very large, very loud voice.

Man: I believed that for 48 years, but it only took 2 hours for me to learn the truth. All that stuff they say about Jesus Christ, it isn't true. But most people don't want to learn the truth. That's okay. Whatever floats your boat. I'm interested in the truth.

Woman: How did you learn the truth?

Man: Oh, lots of scholars who had done studies and stuff. You probably believed in Santa Claus too. I believed in Santa Claus when I was a kid. A large white man with a beard and flying reindeer. You can believe in Jesus Christ too.

Woman gets up to leave.

Man: ?

Woman: Oh, I was in here before, and it is too hot to stay longer. Have a nice day.

Him and George Plimpton

A memoir written with Google Maps (pretty cool):

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=117518500794242822937.00046c27922ecb66b6fca&ll=40.438586,-76.970215&spn=3.787431,7.064209&z=7

Hazards of the life of international intrigue

from the story "The Beach Murders" by J.G. Ballard:

"The meeting at the nudist colony on the Isle du Levant had not been entirely fortuitous."

Don't know what this is about

http://www.amazon.com/tag/marriage/forum/ref=cm_cd_dp_rft_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1FLZG3A5ENHEC&cdThread=Tx2ASQYOV6N0BVC

Best Sellers

Compliation of best seller lists for the century.

http://booksofthecentury.com/

2009 Jambalaya Award winners (under construction)

The most interesting books I've read for the first time in 2009 (in the order read):


2666 -- Roberto Bolano
Revenge of The Spellmans -- Lisa Lutz
Seasons Of Migration To The North -- Taye Salih
The Journal of Jules Renard -- Jules Renard
The Tremor of Forgery -- Patricia Highsmith
The City and The City -- China Mieville
The Ax -- Donald E. Westlake
Jeff In Venice, Death In Varanasi -- Geoff Dyer
Inherent Vice -- Thomas Pynchon
Right Ho, Jeeves -- P.G. Wodehouse
Housekeeping -- Marilynne Robinson
Disgrace -- J.M. Coetzee
Jane Eyre -- Charlotte Bronte
Await Your Reply -- Dan Chaon
Then We Came To The End -- Joshua Ferris
Stoner -- John Williams



Honorable mention:

The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes -- K.C. Constantine
The Cold Dish -- Craig Johnson
How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read -- Pierre Bayard
Miracles of Life -- J.G. Ballard
Defeat: Napoleon's Russian Campaign -- Phillipe-Paul de Segur
The Dart League King -- Keith Lee Morris
Lush Life -- Richard Price
The Genius -- Jesse Kellerman
New Selected Poems -- Mark Strand
The Act of Love -- Howard Jacobson
Selected Stories -- Robert Walser
The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Vol. 1 1929-40
My Father's Tears -- John Updike
The Old Man And Me -- Elaine Dundy
Erased -- Jim Krusoe
Child 44 -- Tom Rob Smith
The American Painter, Emma Dial -- Samantha Peale
Hard Rain Falling -- Don Carpenter
The Anthologist -- Nicholson Baker
The Pillowman -- Martin McDonagh
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius -- Ray Monk
The Dawn Patrol -- Don Winslow

2009 Reading

In reverse chronological order:

Stoner -- John Williams
The Monster In A Box -- Ruth Rendell
The Dawn Patrol -- Don Winslow
Then We Came To The End -- Joshua Ferris
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius -- Ray Monk
Nonsense Novels -- Stephen Leacock
Phoenix Noir -- Patrick Millikin (ed.)
Await Your Reply -- Dan Chaon
And Here's The Kicker: Conversations With 25 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft (Extended Edition) -- Mike Sacks
Jane Eyre -- Charlotte Bronte
The Pillowman -- Martin McDonagh
The Crime Writer -- Gregg Hurwitz
Hard Rain Falling -- Don Carpenter
Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer -- Richard Holmes
The American Painter, Emma Dial -- Samantha Peale
Things The Grandchildren Should Know -- Mark Oliver Everett
The Anthologist -- Nicholson Baker
Disgrace -- J.M. Coetzee
The Art of Harvey Kurtzman -- Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle
Exit Music -- Ian Rankin
The Invention of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America -- Steven Johnson
Episodes: My life As I See It -- Blaze Ginsberg
Underground Classics: The transformation of Comics into Comix -- James Danky and Denis Kitchen
The Hook -- Donald E. Westlake
Child 44 -- Tom Rob Smith
Housekeeping -- Marilynne Robinson
As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires -- Bruce Weber
Equivocation -- Bill Cain
Right Ho, Jeeves -- P.G. Wodehouse
The Brutal Telling -- Louise Penny
Inherent Vice -- Thomas Pynchon
The Ghost Soldiers -- James Tate
Erased -- Jim Krusoe
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Jeff In Venice, Death In Varanasi -- Geoff Dyer
The Ax -- Donald E. Westlake
The Old Man And Me -- Elaine Dundy
Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage -- Stephen Budiansky
My Father's Tears -- John Updike
The City and The City -- China Mieville
My Man Jeeves -- P.G. Wodehouse
Tropic of Cancer -- Henry Miller
The Price of Blood -- Declan Hughes
Dark Places -- Gillian Flynn
The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Vol. 1 1929-40
Selected Stories -- Robert Walser
The Act of Love -- Howard Jacobson
New Selected Poems -- Mark Strand
The Tremor of Forgery -- Patricia Highsmith
Nobody Move -- Denis Johnson
Somebody Owes Me Money -- Donald Westlake
Cat's Cradle -- Kurt Vonnegut
The Journal of Jules Renard -- Jules Renard (ed., tr. Louise Bogan & Elizabeth Roget)
The Genius -- Jesse Kellerman
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher -- Kate Summerscale
Chess Story -- Stefan Zweig
A Likely Story -- Donald Westlake
Lush Life -- Richard Price
Purloining Tiny -- John Franklin Bardin
Seasons Of Migration To The North -- Taye Salih
The Dart League King -- Keith Lee Morris
Defeat: Napoleon's Russian Campaign -- Phillipe-Paul de Segur
Beat The Reaper -- Josh Bazell
Miracles of Life -- J.G. Ballard
The Pilgrim Hawk -- Glenway Wescott
Revenge of The Spellmans -- Lisa Lutz
How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read -- Pierre Bayard
The Yankee Years -- Joe Torre and Tom Verducci
Rock and Roll -- Tom Stoppard
The Silver Swan -- Benjamin Black
The Yellow Admiral -- Patrick O'Brian
The Cold Dish -- Craig Johnson
The Ghost In Love -- Jonathan Carroll
Pinocchio -- Carlo Collodi
2666 -- Roberto Bolano
Jar City -- Arnaldur Indridason
The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes -- K.C. Constantine