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READIN

Jeremy's journal

Listen, this process called poetry is an exercise in imagining memory, and then having that memory snare and cherish imagination.

— Breyten Breytenbach


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READIN

READIN started out as a place for me to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly) how to design a web site.

There has been some mission drift here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of the main things I write about here are reading books, listening to (and playing) music, and watching the movies. Also I write about the work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.

The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.

See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.

READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

🦋 Slumber Party

Tonight 5 (or possibly 6) 7- and 8-year-old girls will be sleeping in our house, which is 3 (or as the case may be, 4) more children than we've had sleeping over here at once before. That's right, it's Sylvia's first sleep-over party! Fingers crossed for no major problems to occur, and for me and Ellen to be able to get some sleep of our own.

...Hmm, this is not promising: more than half of the girls, including our own little girl, are picky eaters.

...Well, dinner over -- some of them did not eat much but that doesn't seem to be affecting their spirits much. They've played out in the yard, they've done some crafts (origami), they've made bags of popcorn and sweets, and they're watching their movie ("Sherlock Hound vol. I").

...And, the girls are in bed. There was quite a lot of noise a little while ago and Ellen or I had to go in and give them some talkings-to. But the noise is lower now, I think they're on their way to sleep.

posted afternoon of May 24th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Sylvia

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Looks like putting up a wish list was a good idea -- my birthday present from my parents just arrived in the mail, and it is volumes 1 and 2 of The Music of Kentucky: Early American Rural Classics. Great stuff too -- the fiddle music is incomparable.

posted evening of May 23rd, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Music

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

🦋 Little Dieter Needs to Fly

This is a good movie without, I think, being in the same league as Herzog's best stuff. The main two good things in the movie are: the personality and charisma of Mr. Dengler, who is kind of a natural ham; and the camera work and composition of shots. It is a good decision of Herzog's, to let Dieter talk through most of the film. Herzog's narration is not very useful; and his decision to have Laotians and Vietnamese in the film but completely without speaking parts and frequently posing as statues, just seems bizarre to me. I think I'm going to take a pass for now on watching Rescue Dawn.

posted evening of May 22nd, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about The Movies

🦋 Two movies to look forward to

Today I read about two movies -- neither one will be coming out for a while yet, but they both sound like something to look forward to.

  • David Lynch is collaborating with Werner Herzog on My Son, My Son: a "horror-tinged thriller" based on Œdipus Rex. This has every potential to be a fantastic movie; or it could also possibly stink.
  • Jonathan Demme is going to be directing a biography of Bob Marley, taking over from Martin Scorsese, who is leaving the project. This is just fine with me; I like Marley and I think Demme makes the best movies about music. (Scorsese's are good too, but I prefer Demme's.)

posted afternoon of May 22nd, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Werner Herzog

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

🦋 Box Set

My package arrived in the mail today! -- Well it arrived Monday, no-one was home to sign for it; I picked it up at the post office this morning. (WTF? There is now overnight parcel service from Shanghai to New Jersey! This totally boggles my mind. Makes the large sum the seller was charging for postage seem much more reasonable.)

And, well, it seems legit. I have not yet popped a disc in the player to watch it; but all the dvd's are there, and marked as region 0. It weirds me out a little that I can't find any reference to this collection (The Master of Cinema: Werner Herzog Collection) anywhere on the web except for Chinese e-bay auctions. It's a pretty recent collection, includes a movie from 2005. This seems like it might be a signal of piracy but I can't figure out what the incentive is for pirates to produce a 24-dvd collection of Werner Herzog, with obscure titles and professional-looking packaging and everything -- the target audience seems tiny. (Also weirding me out is the inclusion of disc #23, My Best Friend by Patrice Leconte. Which one of these dvds does not belong?)

Well unless somebody convinces me it's unethical, I will be buying more box sets from this seller -- s/he has collections of all the classic directors I'm interested in.

Title list below the fold.

Update: Note if you're thinking about buying this, many of the titles will not play on a US region DVD player -- the seller claims they are region 0 but this is false in many cases. Also some of the discs have screwed-up aspect ratio.

posted morning of May 21st, 2008: 1 response

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

🦋 Summertime Salad

Ellen made this salad for dinner last night, and it was very tasty. She remembered it from a Greek restaurant she ate at when she and Sylvia were in D.C.

Watermelon and mint salad

  • Watermelon, cut into bite-size chunks
  • Bucheron, cut into small pieces (the restaurant used feta cheese; Ellen used bucheron because it was on hand. I think the goat cheese was great.)
  • Scallions, chopped thin
  • Kalamata olives, pitted and cut in half
  • Fresh mint leaves

Mix everything together in a bowl and serve. The juice from the melon will combine with the cheese to make a fabulous dressing.

posted morning of May 20th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Recipes

🦋 Robyn in Ridgewood

Woo-hoo! Robyn Hitchcock is doing a tour of the northeastern US in July; and on Saturday the 12th he will be playing at The Blend* in Ridgewood, not far from here. And I will be there watching him. Other dates:

  • July 9th: The Iron Horse, Northampton, MA
  • July 10th: The Linda (WAMC Performing Arts Center), Albany, NY
  • July 11th: Stephen Talkhouse, Amagansett, NY
  • July 13th: John & Peter's, New Hope, PA (Hmm: maybe I could go to this show as well.)
  • July 15th & 16th: The Turning Point, Piermont, NY
  • July 17th: World Café Live, Philadelphia, PA

*Which looks like a nice venue! I had never heard of it before just now.

posted morning of May 20th, 2008: Respond

Monday, May 19th, 2008

🦋 Story Idea: "Never Forget"

All I have at this point is the background; I think a good, science-fictiony story could be written with this background but I don't have characters or events yet. A method of memory-enhancement has been developed, I think a genetic-modification method, that leads to a world in which people do not forget anything. However people want to forget a lot of their painful and traumatic memories. So: a method of memory transfer has been developed (note the passive voice: this story is not about these developments, they have already happened in the past), which can move memories between hosts. The memories cannot be deleted -- what is a memory without a host?

A new profession springs up of "bearer of unwanted memories". Practitioners are reviled, kind of similar to how our society looks at prostitutes. People with no other way of making money sell their services at memory-transfer labs. The affluent visit these dens of ill repute to rid themselves of memories of rape, shame, abuse, criminality. The story is about one of these memory hosts and how he gets through the day with all the ghosts in his head.

posted morning of May 19th, 2008: 2 responses
➳ More posts about Writing Projects

🦋 Irises


Our irises are blossoming this year! Last year the plants grew but produced no flowers. The bulbsrhizomes are from The Presby Memorial Iris Gardens in Montclair, where you can get a mixed grab bag during bloom season for cheap.

posted morning of May 19th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about The garden

🦋 Dream blogging

Last night I was reading Thomas Pynchon's new novel (!), Stockton (!!), out loud to Sylvia (!!!). Alas I cannot remember any of the content. The curious thing about the book was that it had these metallic spinners embedded in it with a word or words on each side; but no explicit direction for how to use them. The reader needed to experiment with each one as he came to it, and see how its words could be integrated into the surrounding text. The largest of these spinners contained the entire final sentence of the book, with several possible ways of constructing it.

posted morning of May 19th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Dreams

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Check out Ellen's writing at Patch.com.

What's of interest:

➪ Patrick Nielsen Hayden links to Bob Rossney linking to a video that I need to watch.
➪ Elizabeth Royte has a great piece in today's NY Times about public drinking fountains.
➪ Robyn on the radio: "Paul Morley's Guide to Musical Genres", featuring a Hitchcock interview, aired last night on BBC2. Listen to it here.
➪ Is the skeleton also gummi?
(Other links of interest at my Google+ page. It's recommended!)

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