06.24.09
The TBR pile.
I keep forgetting all the things I need to read, so for the sake of posterity, here’s my current To Be Read List…
Along For the Ride, by Sarah Dessen
Bound By Your Touch, by Meredith Duran
White Witch, Black Curse, by Kim Harrison
Jellicoe Road, by Melina Marchetta
Fragile Eternity, by Melissa Marr
A Victory of Eagles, by Naomi Novik
Love You Hate You Miss You, by Elizabeth Scott
Something Maybe, by Elizabeth Scott
Stealing Heaven, by Elizabeth Scott
Not out yet::
The Fire King, by Marjorie M. Liu
Frostbitten, by Kelley Armstrong
06.21.09
And maybe a can of Irn-Bru.
I’m having a rather lethargic, lazy Sunday afternoon, yawning and fighting off the tendrils of a headache. I had a few drinks at the regular dive last night, while sitting next to a handsome Scotsman. With pleasant, blunt features, he bore a startling resemblance to Daniel Craig and had the loveliest accent. He was on his way to being foxed, planning to either be drunk or hungover as he boarded a plane for Nassau at 10 this morning. I wished him well in the endeavor and came home to my pajamas and the comfort of my bed.
The night before, I’d joined several people for a friend’s surprise farewell party on the Upper West Side. And despite being surrounded by the young, the vivacious, the beautiful, my pajamas and my bed were, again, the most attractive option. But still, that night my nerves jangled, and energy pulsed in my veins. Not like the sleepy, languid sensation of enjoying the Scotsman’s smile as I sipped at my Amstel. I watched a deliciously tall athlete make the rounds with the women in the room, marveling at his unabashed attractiveness and charm. Out on the sidewalk, with the night going by as swiftly as the cars, I admitted to an actress that I’d once had a crush on her good-looking and equally famous husband, and she tipped her head back and laughed, eyes dancing with mirth as she declared she’d clearly made the right choice in spouses. I was home in bed after midnight, but woke obscenely early on Saturday morning, unable to indulge in a few extra hours slumber.
Now, I want nothing as much as I want a nap… and perhaps the “right choice” of my own.
Taking a shot at Hot Shot.
I almost didn’t pick up up Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ 1991 novel Hot Shot from the library, because of its generic romance novel cover. No, not the shirtless hunk with the bosomed maiden, but the anti-bodice ripper covers that have been churned out of late…generic pastoral scenes or flower sprigs. This one featured an idyllic lake with a solitary rowboat and a huge shock of purple flowering bushes. And it colored my perception of what the book might be about. However, having had experience with Phillips before, and flipping through the first few pages, I put my reservations aside and checked it out.
I’m so delighted I did!
It’s funny that cover designs are so important to this genre, to the point where it doesn’t reflect what’s on the inside. Nowhere does a rowboat or flowering plant figure into this story! I wouldn’t even call it a “romance novel,” though romance is a definite element. The driving thrust of the tale is Susannah Faulconer growing and coming into her own. That actually tends to be a theme in many of Phillips’ book…the men are important, but not as important as the heroine finding her way and discovering what she wants out of life.
In this particular case, Susannah’s journey takes place during the ’70s and ’80s and the early rise of the personal computer industry. It celebrates brash ideas and geek culture and name checks Apple’s Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, as well as IBM and Atari. There is more talk of processors and chips and motherboards in Hot Shot than there is throbbing members and heaving chests. It’s a wonderfully well-researched novel about friends pursuing a dream. Phillips is actually stellar at pulling one into a world. I remember how effortlessly she painted Hollywood in her debut contemporary, Glitter Baby, and she does something similar here.
I was reading Hot Shot at dinner, on the train, before bed, and finished it up this morning, all with a sense of deep satisfaction.
06.15.09
Chariots of fire.
I was at the annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party on Saturday, and, unfortunately, the weather wasn’t really conducive to getting my bbq love on. It fluctuated between rain and clouds, the air bearing a faint chill. But what was remarkable, unexpected, and so very New York, was a parade of Hare Krishnas and other assorted Radha/Govinda devotees down 5th Avenue, right past Madison Square Park. Desi, black, Latin, white… clad in saris and lehengas and panjabis. They were celebrating Rath Yatra, a huge Indian festival for Jaganath, a very specific version of Krishna.
It was so surreal. To be standing there, the taint of beef brisket on my tongue, reveling in meat and Americana, as the parade thundered by. I spied the rath with the Jaganath/Subudra/Balarama murthis, though I was too dumbstruck to get a picture of it. And then I found a relatively quiet patch of sidewalk and called my mother, who told me that Jaganath must have wanted me to see him, to receive that blessing. “At a barbecue festival? While I’m eating beef and pork?” I scoffed. She laughed, paraphrasing Sri Ramakrishna — a sentiment about good deeds and good intentions outweighing one’s diet.
I’ve never been a particularly religious person… at least as an adult. As a child, I was a huge Krishna fan. I had a calendar from New Vrindavan up on my wall, with a luminous picture of the baby Krishna, and I used to offer him sugar cubes and raisins and dutifully recite my prayers. Faith was so simple then, something achieved by rote and ritual, something I never questioned. The older I’ve gotten, the more of an atheist I’ve become. Too cynical, too bitter, for God and too horrified by things done in his name.
And yet… I do feel lucky to have seen the rath go by. Maybe, just maybe, I do feel a little bit blessed.
06.14.09
not the sounds of silence
I define my neighborhood by the noises outside my window. By the obnoxious revving of a motorcycle engine and the loud bursts of Spanish from the barber shop next door. The laughter of children out well past their bedtime, their high, sweet voices speaking too fast for me to pick out the words. The Mister Softee truck jingle, which has burrowed into my skull and echoes through my ears even when there is no ice cream man to be seen. My neighbor’s power saw, hewing through wood as he continues to beautify the back garden… only there is nothing beautiful about the high whine, a wailing like a dying cat. The bus, pulling up to its stop just a few feet from my front stoop, its doors opening with a sunken whoosh and muted metallic beeps like a miniature air horn. The trash truck pulling up to the curb, sounding like one enormous grinding gear. Cars whizzing by and footsteps on the sidewalk. The rhythmic thumping of little boys throwing a racquetball against a building’s brick facade. The heavy boom of bass as a low rider slinks by, blaring reggaeton from the speakers.
There is never true quiet in Queens.
Sometimes I want to clap my hands over my ears and drown it all out, scream, “Shut up,” out my window. Only to realize that the absence of the cacophony, also means the absence of life.
06.05.09
Things wot i need.
At some point, if I ever have monies again, there are things I need to indulge myself in. For posterity, here is a list:
A new cell phone, preferably one with a keyboard
A new coffeemaker
A computer chair (the kitchen chair I’m using is SO uncomfortable)
A CD tower
A new purse
An iPod
Clothes in my current size
A DVR
Blueberry cake and a kitten solves everything.
For my “subway book” this week, I’m rereading The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare. Sometimes, I can’t believe it was written in 1958 and how well it stands the test of time. It’s definitely one of my comfort reads, a book I run to like its lead character, Kit Tyler, runs to the meadow and Quaker Hannah Tupper. I almost forgot to get off at Grand Central, I was so engrossed… even though I’ve read it so many times that I’ve lost count. It never seems to lose its impact; I empathize with Kit feeling boxed in and alien and unable to express herself. I love how she doesn’t even realize her growing attraction to the captain’s son, Nat Eaton. It’s a perfect, classic romantic set-up, and such a good book about being true to yourself.
And I have to admit, another one of my longtime favorites, The Primrose Way, by Jackie French Koller, bears a strong resemblance to it. Both are about headstrong, educated young women who come to live in a Puritan settlement and find themselves learning and also rebelling. There’s an outbreak of devastating illness. The persecution of suspected witches is also addressed in both novels, and there’s secondary characters engaging in secret, repressed love, to boot. Ack, when I say it like that it almost feels like Koller ripped off her predecessor… but I don’t necessarily think she did. I think there’s a standard set of tropes for books set in that era that authors –especially Young Adult authors– tend to use.
I look at bookshelves in bookstores now, over-saturated with paranormal romance for younger readers. It’s kind of freakish, because you see this wall of black covers with flowers or fairies or artfully photographed female faces and they all blend into one another. Even YA books I like, such as Kelley Armstrong’s and Melissa Marr’s fall into this trap… and you’re hard-pressed to tell that the pages inside might actually be something unique. More often than not, they aren’t. I miss the days when kids were reading books like The Witch of Blackbird Pond or things by Ellen Raskin or Madeleine L’Engle or Lois Lowry. This is the kind of stuff that lasts forever.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
05.09.09
Philosophical question for the day…
How many Yum Yum Thai restaurants does a one block radius really need?
‘Cause, really, 46th Street…? Three is a bit excessive.
(Note that I have yet to patronize any of them. I mean, how would you CHOOSE?)
05.03.09
Waking up with a great read.
I just finished The Awakening, by Kelley Armstrong, the second novel in her young adult-targeted Darkest Powers series. And I basically tore through it. I started it while I was out last night, continued it on the subway, read a portion after I got home and was safely ensconced in bed, and then wrapped it up around 8:30 this morning. Which is exactly the opposite of what happened when I found myself reading Kim Harrison’s YA offering, Once Dead, Twice Shy a few months ago. That one went on my Do Not Finish list because I didn’t care about the heroine, didn’t care about the story, and felt it was unnecessarily dumbed down and derivative…as if Harrison felt she had to filter and distill her writing. Armstrong gives off no such vibes and, indeed, Darkest Powers actually fits pretty seamlessly in with her adult Women of the Otherworld books. It’s the exact same universe, with the exact same world-building, just with a younger set of characters. But Armstrong only makes passing references to characters readers may know from the other books. The Awakening features a nod to Eve and Savannah and also makes reference to the Pack, but lets Chloe, Derek, Simon, and Tori all stand on their own.
In addition to creating a rich, textured expanded universe, Armstrong is really great at getting a reader to turn the page. That’s important, especially in the over-saturated young adult market, where every author and their mother is writing a supernatural series these days. The way The Summoning ended had me on the edge of my seat waiting for this book, and the way this book ended had me, again, seriously screaming for what comes next.
I’m also delighted to see that Melissa Marr has released a third book, Fragile Eternity, which follows Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange. I’m not a huge fan of books about the faerie, especially in an urban setting (I think we can blame Laurell K. Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series for SCARRING ME FOR LIFE), but Marr has a lyrical yet very minimalist style that really drew me in. She doesn’t feel the need to wax on and on; each word is used with care and measure. And, just like Armstrong, her characters are strong and memorable. That’s definitely next on my To Be Read pile.
But to bring it back to Kelley Armstrong and her books…there’s never been one I regretted buying the instant I saw it. ::knock on wood:: The Awakening is hardback, and I didn’t even blink. I picked it up and took it to the checkout, knowing it wouldn’t be a waste of money. In this day and age, where we all have to watch our spending, it’s truly wonderful to know that her books are a good investment — and a damn good time!
04.30.09
Random NYC moment: the HDG edition
Going along with the mishmash nature of this blog, this is just something I need to get down for posterity, because it amused the dickens out of me.
First, the set-up: When I lived in Manhattan, I pretty much had a standard route to work. Roll out of bed, cross Third Avenue, walk up 39th. So, I used to pass the W hotel (both the Court and the Tuscany!) every single day. And almost every single day, I passed this really hot door guy, whom I decided was a cross between Ricky Martin and Alec Musser, who briefly played Del on All My Children. For the sake of brevity, he just became Hottie Door Guy. (Who wants to walk past a guy and think “Hey, that’s the Ricky Martin-Alec Musser bastard love child guy,” right?) Mind you, I never talked to Hottie Door Guy. He was just part of my daily routine. Glance over, admire, grin, keep moving…nothing too overt. Being that I’m not, like, a stalker or anything.
Since moving back to Queens, I’ve obviously given up that standard walk to work. (Or at least swapped it for another and included a train ride.) But I was in the city last weekend and actually saw Hottie Door Guy on Saturday, by the hotels, which cracked me up. Because I haven’t seen him in months, right? But wait, it gets better! Today, I’m walking home, in Queens, literally a block from my apartment…and there is Hottie Door Guy. Walking his dog! Yes. He apparently lives here. In my new neighborhood.
Hi. Larious.
In a city this size, with this many people, it never fails to amuse me that you can still find familiar faces.
