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Tuesday, May 16th, 2006
This weekend I finished Absurdistan, by Gary Shteyngart. This book is derivative -- I can hear bits of at least Pynchon, Vonnegut, and Heller in Shteyngart's style -- and its own spark of original genius as well. It is sort of a Catch-22 updated for the invasion of Iraq. What really struck me about it was, it was about the first book I've ever read that struck me as a generational anthem for my specific age group -- Shteyngart is two years younger than me as are his narrator and central characters -- I could see myself and the people I went to school with in the situations of the book, absurd though they were. I bit into the sturgeon kebab, filling my mouth with both the crisp burnt edges and the smooth mealy interior. My body trembled inside my leviathan Puma tracksuit, my heroic gut spinning counter-clockwise, my two-scoop breasts slapping against each other. Misha's descriptions of food and of his obesity work as metaphor on a number of levels -- the only one I can really express is the most obvious surface symbolism of greed and rapine, but trust me that there is a lot more than that going on under the surface. And a bonus quote for the Mineshaft crowd (to whom I very enthusiastically recommend this): when Dror is describing the focus group they held to see if they could get the American public interested in an invasion of Absurdisvanї, he says, We showed pictures of Absurdis, Congolese, and Indonesians at play, picking fruits, frying goats, and so on. More problems. The Congolese are clearly black, so that strikes a chord with all respondents. Like them or not, you got plenty of blacks in America. The Indonesians have funny eyes, so they're Asian. Probably work hard and raise dutiful children. Good for them. Then you get the Absurdis. They're sort of dark, but not really black. They look a little Indonesian, but they've got round eyes. Are they Arabs? Italians? Persians? We finally settled on "taller Mexicans," which is another way of saying we're fucked. Something notable: the book centers on "the second week of September 2001", but the famous events of that week are never mentioned. On the ride home I read some of Cat's Cradle, and was quickly reminded of what an extraordinary book it is. I must have read it through 20 times between the ages of 14 and 19, I know much of it by heart. One of the central wampeters of my karass. Update: Also look at this essay of Shteyngart's, on reading Philip Roth and particularly Portnoy's Complaint. A fine piece.
posted evening of May 16th, 2006: Respond
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Thursday, May 11th, 2006
I'm back in Modesto for a few days, visiting my parents, and how exciting! The book that I have looked through my old bookshelf for every time I have been back here, but never found, just jumped out at me this time. It is Cat's Cradle, with a self-portrait by Mr. Vonnegut on the title page, and an inscription: "FOR GOOD OLD JEREMY ----- (signed) Kurt Vonnegut OCT 12 88"
posted afternoon of May 11th, 2006: Respond
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Sunday, May 7th, 2006
Ellen posted a new entry in Lola's Diary today: You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down.
posted evening of May 7th, 2006: Respond
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Found a good Mexican restaurant in Orange! I reviewed it at Chowhound -- check it out!
posted afternoon of May 7th, 2006: Respond
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[duplicate post]
posted afternoon of May 7th, 2006: Respond
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Saturday, May 6th, 2006
(Well not exactly but) -- Ellen and I saw "Following Sean" last night, playing at Cinema Village on 12th Street. A pretty flawed movie and I wouldn't necessarily recommend dropping everything to go see it; but it's kind of fun to watch it and pretend it was a movie of Vineland instead of what it is. Director Ralph Arlyck made a 14-minute student film in 1969 of his upstairs neighbor's 4-year-old son, Sean, which propelled him to some fame -- the film showed at Cannes with Trouffaut's "Wild Child" and was acclaimed by the counterculture, and denigrated by the establishment. in the 1990's Arlyck looked up Sean and his parents and made this movie. A lot of the movie made me think about Vineland. There aren't really many specific parallels (although I think Sean's grandmother bears more than a passing resemblance to Frenesi's mom), just a general gestalt. (Or in truth that gestalt could have been in large part my own invention -- I don't think there was much paranoia in the script by itself.) The director's voice-over is really grating a lot of the time and ultimately ruins the film IMO. But if you approach it with the proper attitude, tune out the voice-over and imagine your own film, it can be a lot of fun.
posted evening of May 6th, 2006: Respond
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Monday, May first, 2006
This evening I was looking at Rob's blog and noticed that he links to Library Thing. I had heard of it before but never checked it out -- seems like a fun service. So I have started keeping track of my library over there. If I go anywhere with that I will put up some links.
posted evening of May first, 2006: Respond
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Thursday, April 27th, 2006
Lesson with Lisa this evening -- we spent a lot of time going over ideas for the "If you were mine" solo. Really encouraging -- made me feel like I may actually get it soon. Lisa showed me how to do some stuff in the style of Grappelli and recorded some licks for me to listen to and try. Off to practice...
posted evening of April 27th, 2006: Respond
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Friday, April 21st, 2006
Today I am going to the music shop after work and buy a book of etudes, or possibly two. Maybe I will also buy some violin sonatas. The question in my mind is, do I want classical etudes or jazz etudes? Or one of each? Hopefully the answer will resolve when I am looking at the actual books. Update: So the resolution was provided by my sister, who is knowledgeable in the ways of music and said she did not think it would make any difference whether I used a jazz or classical exercise book, and recommended a good store for classical music. So I went to Joseph Patelson's and bought Hohmann's Practical Method for the Violin, book III, and Above the First Position by Markwood Holmes and Russell Webber. The first has a lot of work on scales in different keys; the second has exercises for moving up and down the neck. Also I bought 6 Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Handel; I don't know if I will ever get around to learning them but they should be good fun if I do.
posted morning of April 21st, 2006: Respond
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Thursday, April 20th, 2006
My current project in my fiddle practicing is trying to learn the keys. Right now I'm never sure what key I'm playing in until I get to a resolution, and the key often shifts while I'm playing (if I'm playing by myself) to one of my preferred keys, D or G. I'd like to: branch out a bit, i.e. get comfortable in a wider variety of keys; be able to know what key I'm playing in fairly instinctually; and be able to join in harmoniously when someone tells me they're going to play in a particular key. The path to this seems to be "playing scales" but I'm not totally sure what is meant by this as far as rhythm, timing, etc. What I've been doing for the last couple of days is to play a scale up and down a couple of times starting on a particular note, and then try to play some simple melodies in that key. I'm hoping this will get me where I want to go with enough repetition. I'm also planning to buy a book of études for violin. I'm spending a lot of time listening to the Grappelli tape that Bill loaned me.
posted morning of April 20th, 2006: Respond
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