Say The Wrong Thing

It happens often that I'm reading some item on the internet and they lose me. I don't mean by that I fail to understand anything. They'll say something that, more than just rubbing me the wrong way, makes me lose all faith in their ability to credibly convey the information they purport to have. I think to myself, "if they're dumb enough to say that, the rest of this is a waste of time that I'm inflicting on myself." I had one of those the other day.

I got into it because of a comment on some other article I wanted to prove was wrong. There would have been no point in proving it to the idiot who said it, of course. It was only worth proving to myself. The comment I respected no more than a loose dog on the street, and a loose dog on the street I would not consent to engaging in a debate with. Now, this point concerned the new San Francisco 49ers football stadium. I wanted to prove, if possible, that it was not publicly financed. The answer on that is complex, although the team would have you believe it's more simple, I think.

Poached!

I was upset the other day by something that could happen all the time to me, but which luckily happens almost never. I had reserved a couple of books by Harry Crews, an author of note. His books are dark, funny and disturbing. I'd read one of his books a while back, and was eager for more. Finally I got back to him (after reading a number of other books that I was also very eager for), and really liked "Feast Of Snakes".

The Los Angeles Public Library does not have a lot of Crews' books. For many of them, only one copy is in the system and it is a reference copy at the main branch downtown.The others will have, at best, one copy that can actually be checked out. I guess that shows their estimate of what the demand is for Crews' work here. They maybe aren't so far off. He's not JK Rowling. It would be nice if they had a couple copies of each of his books for a city of millions.

Dunzo (Done-zo)

At long last I have finished "Atlas Shrugged". In recent days I had drawn near to it, seeing the end get closer as the chapters melted away. In the stretch run, I always get very enthusiastic about books again. I love them at first and in the end. In the middle there is fatigue and disinterest. The same thing happens with movies. I'm engrossed until I've met the characters and learned of their plight. As they wrestle with it, I grow bored. As resolution looms, I come back.

The second act was rather protracted with this book. It runs over one thousand and sixty pages, which is a lot. The first few chapters had me, and then there is just a lot of middle with this thing. You have the heroic railroad magnate Dagny Taggart and her fellow industrialist friends beset by a lot of stupid, softhearted socialist types. That's basically it. They struggle for the right to do business for profit instead of for some misguided notion of altruism. Oh, and the angular, handsome Dagny hooks up with a bunch of her colleagues (not that I begrudge her that).

About There

As I ease up on watching my VHS tapes, I gear up on watching movies via other media. That still has left me with enough time to mount a new push towards finishing "Atlas Shrugged". I have really hit the stretch run, at long last. I suspect it will be no more than a day or two so long as I keep my resolve. I am quite eager to move on to something new. In fact, I have ordered up a trio of books that I expect to be light and enjoyable, so I do hope I finish the task at hand as promptly as I expect.

The real hump that I have gotten over is the infamously long speech given by one of the book's central characters near the end. There's no need to get really in depth on the content or the context of the speech in order to impress on you the severity of it. It takes most of a 70-some page chapter, and there are no breaks. There are absolutely no breaks in this speech. There is not one moment where the person stops speaking for any reason. It's all a straight monologue.

Why Not?

I was thinking about something kind of strange yesterday. I had recently watched a couple of Roger Moore's James Bond movies, and I was struck again by the relationship he has with M's secretary, Miss Moneypenny. Her job in the office consisted of three things, seemingly. First she'd say how Bond had better go in to see M right away, or that M was in some kind of mood. Last she'd caution Bond to be careful. In between was her unrequited longing for Bond.

In the universe of these films, every woman wants Bond, regardless of how old and decrepit he is (and Moore particularly was not looking great by the 80's. With most women, Bond gives them what the want. The cost is that they die somehow at the hands of people who just want to kill Bond, but Bond does give them what they want. With Moneypenny though, he never does. For whatever reason, she's the one woman he refuses.Why is that? Isn't she good-looking enough for him? I guess she's too close to his own age or something.

Long Haul

I am drawing nearer to finishing "Atlas Shrugged". As I write this, I have perhaps two or three hundred pages to go out of what I believe to be over a thousand. I have read books that long or nearly so before, but this is probably the most difficult read I have yet embarked upon (not counting ones which I began and gave up on in more youthful days). I will be terribly delighted when I can put this thing behind me, as much as I have enjoyed it.

By all rights, I should have been done with it long ago, and not just because I could have been more consistently applying myself. I'm not going to make some excuse out of having other things to do or of my interest level waxing and waning. Those are things that happen to everybody, and if they've happened more this time, it's just because there's been more elapsed time during which they could happen. It's a long book, that's all.

Failure To Read!

I did something yesterday that I usually don't. You see, I've been reading "Atlas Shrugged" for the last nine weeks. I had tried to read it years ago, but failed to get very far. It's a long book, and at times an especially difficult one to read. Much of it I enjoy a great deal, and I see something even in its philosophy (though I wouldn't myself go as far as Rand). Still, there are those tough stretches, and it's VERY long, so I just couldn't finish it in the amount of time the library permits.

I knew yesterday I would have to return it, but I expected I'd be able to check it out again. I don't think I was thinking very clearly, though. I brought the book to the library and looked around for a copy already there. I didn't find one. They had the audiobook version, so I took that thinking it might be neat to listen to while waiting to get a book copy. I remarked to the desk clerk that some books can be finished in the amount of time the library allows and some cant. She agreed, saying "depending on the number of pages". She's a real bright one.

Second Stab

By now I think I should be back in LA, but I am undoubtedly quite tired and in need of lengthy recuperation. In anticipation of that, I wrote one more post to last until I am properly rested. It has nothing really to do with Jamaica. You see, I've been reading "Atlas Shrugged". Years ago I made the attempt to read it, but gave up after a few chapters. It is famously long and is regarded by many as a difficult read. I found it so then.

I always meant to come back to it, though I thought that maybe it was a book I would have to buy instead of checking it out of the library. Recently though, I came across it at the library and took the plunge. I reasoned that if I couldn't get through it in the nine weeks I was allowed to have it out, I would just have to buy it, check it out again, or read it online (where it's available in its entirety). It seemed a reasonable plan.

A Side Trip

Yesterday I wrote a little about what I know about Jamaica. It wasn't much. To be honest, much of what I do know is drawn from Ian Fleming's novels about James Bond. At least one of them (The Man With The Golden Gun) is partly set there. As the novels reflect Britain's attitude in the 1950s and 60s, I don't expect I can make much use of that on my trip. That would be a sure way of getting myself into trouble.

Fleming was not especially a politically correct man, whatever his other qualities may have been. Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt and apply that description to Bond instead, but the fact remains that the books contain some troubling stuff about women, and more pertinently, about race. Even as a boy I found myself uneasy whenever Fleming would get to describing people from the exotic places Bond visited. He would have Bond speculating about the person's racial makeup, and it never sounds good.

Fast Reader

I have lately been reading an awful lot. For me that's really saying something. I've always got a book, but they usually take at least a couple weeks to get through. I tend to read only while traveling or before bed, which limits the rate at which I can read. It's also easy to get out of the habit of reading for a while, especially in the middle chapters of a book that is no longer excitingly new. I do still read a lot of books in a year.

As I said, though, I have lately been going through more books. Really I just mean in the last few days. I had been reading "The Onion Field". I had that rather tragic tome for about a month, in the middle of which I didn't get a lot of reading done. As is my wont, I started strong and finished strong. I often finish books in a late night tear as I realize how near I am to being finished. The promise of starting a new book is a powerful motivator.

Back On Top

Something I've always enjoyed is reading comic strips. I think I've mentioned that. It used to be that I could only see what was in the Arizona Republic, which wasn't that many. We had most of the typical funny strips, and maybe four of the serious ones (which were at the bottom of the two adjacent pages and which I then skipped). Today I can more or less read whichever I like. I don't read them all, but I read a fair number.

It gets to be that I cannot handle the burden of reading them. Sometimes it's for a day or two, and sometimes it's for longer. Recently, which things like the big sketch-writing month, auditions and illness occupied a good amount of my time, I was kept from reading my comic strips for much of the last two months. One or twice I made small efforts to get caught up again, but I found that the backlog was most persistent.

I Miss Elmore Leonard Already And Forever

Yesterday Elmore Leonard died. It's bad in a eulogy when you say "I" a lot, because it's about them and not you, so if that happens here I don't mean to twist this around to be about me. I'm trying to pay tribute to an author very dear to me. I used to go to a used bookstore near where I lived in the Phoenix area. I think at the time I was in trouble with the libraries, and anyway I had to buy books when I went away to work at summer camp.

One book I came up with was "Unknown Man #89". It is maybe a less-heralded entry in Leonard's long career, but it was the first of his that I read and it remains a favorite. His efficient writing style and way of emulating real-world dialogue as opposed to the flowery stuff that you can write but not say with a straight face were very appealing. He wrote compelling male and female characters and entangled them in phenomenally gripping stories.

Reading Nook

I had one of those public transit experiences that I don't love the other night. It wasn't that it didn't go as smoothly as it could, because it more or less did. It's just too bad that it couldn't go any better than it did. To begin with, I was going just a few miles away, but it happened to be in a bad spot. Had it been a few miles in one direction, that would have been easy, but it had to be a little bit north and then a little bit west. That effectively doubles the elapsed time of the trip.

The way home was somewhat trickier. I had to walk from my friend's house north, only I couldn't go straight north as the house lies by a dead end. I had to work my way around via a circuitous route which concluded at an intersection which was blessedly quiet. It happens to be someplace not unfamiliar with crime, and this was late at night. It was pretty dead, and I wasn't entirely sorry. The bus came quickly enough.

Headway

I am presently about half-way through "Wuthering Heights." I believe I said a while back that I was reading it. Well, I have been at it for a while. There was the interruption to read that book about ballet, and the rest of the time it has been slow going. Bronte wrote in rather flowery, now-antiquated language, and it takes me a while to wade through it. Moreover, the story has failed to keep me coming back consistently.

I have managed to read it at least once a week, when I head to my improv class on the train and connecting bus. I have been even more motivated to read with my headphones beginning to falter so badly that I don't have the patience to use them. That being the case, I don't have my music and podcasts when I leave home, so it's the book more often than usual. I have, then, been making fair progress.

The Kind Journalism

I have for some time been very fond of pole dancing. I've even done a little bit myself, although in that regard I remain entirely a novice. As a fan, I've gotten somewhat familiar with the art and the sport of it. It's such an impressive feat of athletics and artistic expression that I'm badly frustrated by those who mistake it for stripping or anything of the kind. It's an amazing thing to see, and those who do it are incredible human beings.

Still, it is poorly understood by most and commonly derided in mainstream media. I figured this would hold true when I laid eyes on a pole dancing profile on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The stipple portrait showed a dancer stretching. The continuation of the article showed the same dancer performing in a color photograph (thus proving how times have changed at the staid journal of record for matters financial).

The Setup

I was thinking today about what might be called my online overhead. This is the amount of time dedicated to things online no matter what the day holds in store. Mainly what I mean is reading. This is the time I spend reading online before I get to any actual productivity. I think that there must be some input before there can be any output, and so I don't regard this as lost time so much as an investment in later achievements.

There are my emails, of course, and relatively few of those are ones that require some kind of reply, but that is the first thing I'm looking for. The next most important thing after that is news. I get a few different emails which convey some aspect of the day's news to me. One comes from the Daily Beast and paints a general picture. Several more come from Politico, and cover some part of the political world. After those news emails are a variety of others which are progressively less important.

The Interrim

I was very pleased with myself the other night, because I finished Graham Greene's "The Quiet American". It had been one of those books I'd wanted to read for a long time, because it seems to come up from time to time (perhaps not among my friends exactly, but certainly in other sources of media), and I always hate feeling ignorant because I haven't read something or seen something like that. Finally I got to "The Quiet American", and I read it in reasonable time.

Often when I am reading, I have great enthusiasm at first that wanes through the midsection of the book and ultimately picks up again near the end. With this one, I remained engaged all the way through, and read from it most days until I was done. Routine is the key, I find. I was surprised at how quickly I got through it, although I ought to have guessed considering how relatively brief it is. Maybe I expected re-reading more in order to comprehend it.

Finished Off

Sleep has been rough lately. I have admittedly not been doing as well as I'd like at getting to bed at a decent hour or, consequently, get up at a decent hour (barring circumstances where I'm expected to be somewhere by others, which has not been a problem). Also problematic has been the time in between. I have been more restless than usual in sleep, struggling to stay asleep as long as I believe I need to be asleep.

I have as a result embarked upon numerous days lately with less than a full head of steam. I have also had episodes such as I did yesterday morning. I found myself vigorously tossing and turning at around four in the morning when I had hardly gotten to sleep by two and had intended to grant myself sleep until noon. It was evident that what I was doing was not restful, and so I might as well do something until I was again fit to rest.

More On Books

I have been getting a reasonable amount of reading done lately. I have recently finished "Johnny Got His Gun" and am reading the more upbeat "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead", which relates the ups and downs of musician Warren Zevon's life. Many chapters of his life are rather ugly, but they remain more pleasant than the story of the former book. I'm getting through it rather quickly, and am eager enough to lug it around with me in spite of its unwieldy size and weight.

I expect I won't be long in finishing it, which leads me to entertain ideas of what I may read next. There's always a flourish of great excitement when that time comes along. Any book is possible from some recent work to a classic to some slender tome of pulp. I could attempt to work down the pile of unread books in my possession  as I was doing when I read Dalton Trumbo's book, but it is tough to get enthused about something old. We'll see about that. If I rid myself of all the books I don't want to have around, the survivors make appear to be more appealing reads.

Assortment

With yesterday's sales and acquisitions at the used bookstore, I am as interested in ever in reading. I have those books I bought to read, and I feel revitalized by having removed from my inventory some books that I was not eager to read. I feel the weight of every book in my possession. Each one that I have not read is one that I want to read, and all the books yet to be read create a crushing pressure that actually makes me read less. Better almost to not have any books but the one I'm reading.

Presently I'm reading "Johnny Got His Gun", and I've been on it a little while. I have a hard time fitting in reading at home, as there are many other distractions and necessary things to do there. It works out better for me to read while traveling, as I have to make use of all the time on buses and trains somehow or another. Even there may be found distractions. I have to leave my headphones behind in order to not resort to music or podcasts on my phone.