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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.
Hoy no pasó nada. Y si pasó algo es mejor callarlo, pues no lo entendÃ.
Getting to the end of part I of Savage Detectives -- I am wondering what to make of it in the context of the book as a whole. Part I seems to me like a Beat novel, like a Kerouac novel with some adjustments made for era and culture... I don't get a sense of a moving plot, more like a developing atmosphere. What are the qualities of this atmosphere? Sexual longing is everywhere; failure to connect with others (even with Rosario, who is making it as easy as I can imagine it being with anyone), insecurity/lack of confidence, hedonism. I'll be interested to see what role the Fonts play in the rest of the book; they are certainly the most enigmatic figures in this first section.
Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan and John Kahn -- they are Old & In The Way. An hour and a half of live music from The Boarding House, July 23, 1973. Many thanks to YouTube user MyInnerEyeMike99, who uploaded the tape, and to Janis, who gave me the link.
posted morning of November 10th, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Music
A question that occurs to me as I read GarcÃa Madero's diaries: Is he slumming? My initial take on his situation is, he's coming from a comfortable family background -- I can't really tell if his uncle is wealthy or just middle class -- but at any rate in a different economic class than the poets he is hanging out with. There are several scenes early in the book where his lack of familiarity with the street is on display. Not really sure how important a role differences of socioeconomic class play in this book but it is worth keeping in mind.
I was thinking about this while I read the December 7th entry, Jacinto Requena telling him about Belano's new wave of purges from the visceral realist movement, and it occurred to me that another way GarcÃa Madero is on the outside looking in, is he's not a published poet -- I get the impression most of the other poets in the movement have been published, and that GarcÃa Madero sees the movement as a way to get his foot in the door. When he asks Requena if Belano said anything about him, I can hear a beat before Requena replies, nobody was talking about you for now.
Making my way through part I of Savage Detectives I am being reminded strongly of a question that bothered me when I was first reading the book. The meat of the book seems to be in part two, which follows the visceral realists in their diaspora from 1977 - 1996; that is sandwiched between the much shorter parts I and III, excerpted from GarcÃa Madero's diary in 1975 and 76. I had trouble relating the two books to each other the first time around -- this time I am trying to keep an eye out for clues...
Another thing I wondered about: Who is the author who (in the fictional world of the book, in 1996) compiled all these bits of writing -- is it GarcÃa Madero? He would have access to the diaries of course. I am forgetting now whether the pieces in Part II are supposed to have been written by GarcÃa Madero or by the various characters. Another thing to look for hints to.
...to me, Athena’s suckers felt like an alien’s kiss—at once a probe and a caress. Although an octopus can taste with all of its skin, in the suckers both taste and touch are exquisitely developed. Athena was tasting me and feeling me at once, knowing my skin, and possibly the blood and bone beneath, in a way I could never fathom.
Montgomery will be leading a live discussion of octopus intelligence on next Tuesday, November 16, at 7pm Eastern. Register at Orion magazine if you would like to participate.
Sylvia and I went down the street to La Galera for lunch today -- tasty... Now I am floating on a pillow of pupusas and pollo guisado and rice and beans.
posted afternoon of November 6th, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Sylvia
(Made up on the spur of the moment this evening and worth remembering. It takes about 15 minutes including prep time.) A vegetarian pasta dish (vegan even, if you omit the grated cheese at serving time); for those who prefer it with meat, lamb or veal would probably go nicely in place of the beans.
Rigatoni and yellow and red
Heat salted water for the pasta.
Prep: chop a small yellow onion, a yellow bell pepper, some carrots and a yellow summer squash into bite-size pieces. (The carrot pieces should be smaller.)
When the water is nearly at a boil, heat a skillet over a medium flame. Add about a Tbsp of olive oil. When hot enough that the onions will sizzle a bit, add the onions and some salt and stir around.
Add the pasta, preferably penne or rigatoni (or wagon wheels or shells would be good, too), and a little bit of olive oil to the boiling water. Return to a boil and lower heat.
As the onions start to cook, add the carrots and some turmeric and some oregano. Keep stirring occasionally. Add the bell pepper and the squash and a little more salt.
Heat a little bit of water in a saucepan over a low flame. Drain and rinse a can of canellini or kidney beans and add to the saucepan with a splash of soy sauce. (I used kidney beans, which were the "red" -- the dish would perhaps not be as visually interesting with cannellini but I expect it would taste very nice. Broccoli would also add some nice visual/textural diversity.)
Everything should basically be ready at about the same time, 10 minutes or so after you returned the noodles to a boil. I served the noodles and vegetables in one bowl and the beans on the side because of certain family members who are not partial to beans; or they could all be mixed together. Tasty with grated asiago cheese and red wine.
posted evening of November 5th, 2011: Respond ➳ More posts about Recipes
One of the most pleasant aspects of reading Savage Detectives, I am finding to be ease with which I can identify with the narrator and his scene, can picture myself in the crowd of real visceralistas and wannabees -- picture myself perhaps not as GarcÃa Madero, who is after all just a kid*, certainly not as Lima or Belano; but as a minor character, a walk-on. It is an escapist pleasure, I am taken out of myself and out of my immediate world while I am reading (and really, it seems worth pointing out that that is an aspect of the experience of reading almost any Spanish-language text for me).
Without even spending any time/mental energy on the GarcÃa Madera - Rosario sex scene (which believe me, could divert enormous quantities of both), it is worth considering how much like or unlike reading pornography this reading experience is. I'm going to assert that they are unlike in some key ways; but given first that feeling of imagining yourself in a character's boots (and, well, in his whatever) -- how will the distinction be drawn?
*Hm, and all of a sudden I find I am casting blogging friends of mine in some of this book's key roles...
