Wednesday, January 15, 2014

like wha?

Now that I can't tweet, I just have to say my tweets to Scott. It's not the same. Here was one, but he was doubtful that anyone else besides me has this problem:

There should have a name for the disorder when you can't estimate how much salad to make for two people.

I had to eat so much salad just so he would stop busting my chops about how much salad I made and there was still salad left. This is a the cruel world I live in.

There's a glowing piece in the Bee today about Thiemann's restaurant Mother. Pretty exciting. I hope you guys read that review of that weird Oak Park place Arthur Henry's Supper Club. I like that something opened there but when I heard that concept I was like, "wha?!"

Here's more gripping information about me besides the salad thing: I thought I would read more books when I stopped subscribing to the New Yorker but instead I am just watching more crappy TV. Didn't see that one coming. I have been reading this Philip K Dick book with an Abraham Lincoln replicant in it for a while. Even though the book is funny I think I'm avoiding it a little bit. Recommendations?

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just started reading S. the J.J. Abrams creation. It's intense. Like Lost with about 20 more layers.
jamattack!

beckler said...

when you say creation you mean he wrote it?

DaveNinja said...

game of thrones!

Rosalitahead said...

Just started the Morrisey Autobiography. Sucked in from word one.

-N

Jananaknits said...

I think he came up with the concept, but another guy wrote the book, that is the actual book, Ship of Theseus, but I don't know who wrote all the margin notes yet. And I don't know how to use the eotvos wheel. Or which timeline to follow. See where this is going?

Jananaknits said...

I also just finished the new Eggers book The Circle. Kind of intense. Not a future for an introvert like me, but ties right in with your current desire to disconnect and how that is really selfish of you (according to this story)
Jana

Jananaknits said...

I also just read Longbourne which is written from the point of view of the servants in Pride and Prejudice. Not great literature but if you like that era, Downton Abbey type stuff, it's a fun read.
I got ALOT of books for Christmas this year. It's awesome.
Jana

Count Mockula said...

I'm glad to know that about The Circle -- I just got it as a gift.

That review of Arthur Henry's was so hysterical I read it in its entirety out loud to my mom. I think it's fair to say that BAR is probably Pendarvis' least favorite dude.

Anonymous said...

The recent Sedaris is his best in years.

Jed

Anonymous said...

"My Struggle" by Karl Ove Knausgard. He is Norwegian and the book is six volumes (3000 pages), only the first two have been translated to English at this time. An autobiography disguised as fiction. It's really unlike anything else you will read. Don't let the title turn you off, it is intended to be ironic and makes a lot of sense as you read through the books.

KBS

Kate said...

That's interesting. What is the basis of the argument that disconnect = selfish? Solitude and downtime to recharge is the path that some of us (introverts!) need just to deal with the world, let alone share anything of value. Here's to being selfish!

Kate said...

I just read Daily Rituals by Mason Currey. Sac library has it. It's about the ways these extremely "selfish" artists and scientists made space in their lives to create. No tweeting involved!

Anonymous said...

Bibliography of First-Person Narratives of Madness in English (3rd edition), edited by Gail A. Hornstein (South Hadley, MA: Mount Holyoke College, 2005.

JD

Anonymous said...

Available here: http://www.madnessandliterature.org/Resources/bibliography-of-first-person-narratives-of-madness-5th-edition.pdf

featuring: Abrams, Albert. Transactions of the Antiseptic Club. New York: E.B. Treat, 1895

A good start

Stephen Glass said...

Ditched your New Yorker subscription? For shame.

Anonymous said...

I keep forgetting to include links: Transactions of the Antiseptic Club is hilarious.
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006607470;view=1up;seq=13
JD

CM said...

Recommending books is my favorite activity. What are you in the mood for?

CHR

beckler said...

I am the mood for an absorbing novel I guess. Not science fiction. I am interested in the Eggers.

Wait, what am I supposed to do with that bibliography? Are you going through the list and reading them?

Anonymous said...

There are some very intriguing titles in it.

JD

Unknown said...

I'm currently reading The Circle. I gave Al my top 3 books for Christmas: the interestings, the 10th of Dec and Age of Miracles. All fiction.

Thomas said...

Read the Wolf of Wall Street it is the best book I have read in a long time

CM said...

I'll send you some recs on goodreads - CHR

Anonymous said...

Isn't saying your tweets just talking?

-N.

Patrone said...

Have you and I talked about The Group yet? -- Patrone

DJ Rick said...

I had hope for Arthur Henry's when they were still gonna call it Primo's. But when they picked the new name, I was disappointed. To learn that you've gotta cook it yourself....forget it! I can mess up anything in the kitchen.

Scott Miller said...

"Isn't saying your tweets just talking?"

You should tweet this.

Rosalitahead said...

can't I just say it.

Snufkin said...

The Arthur Henry review just made me miss the awesome old school steakhouse in the basement of Harrah's Reno, where you get the actual ambience and the staff cooks everything (really well) at your table.

As for books, I just read that Longbourne book and while it was okay I'm also kinda tired of all the historic re-imagining of classic fiction. Or at least it was a pretty radical thing when Jean Rhys wrote Wide Sargasso Sea and now it's a genre unto itself. I just finished the Luminaries, which won the Man Booker award. But it's 800+ pages and multiple characters/narrators so it took awhile. Otherwise the recent ones I've really liked are Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking (though not easy because of the subject matter), Teju Cole's Open City, Clare Vaye Watkin's Battleborn, Tim Winton's Cloudstreet, and Carol Brunt's Tell the Wolves I'm Home. As far as NonFiction goes, obviously the recent book about $cientology and Robert Powell's This Love is Not For Cowards (about soccer in Ciudad Juarez).

beckler said...

I do want to read gary sheyngart's memoir and I should finally read the immortal life of Henrietta lacks although between fresh air and this American life I don't know if there could possibly be more to know about that story.

I am going to get the circle and I also forgot that scott gave me an alice munro book for xmas which I need to read.

the scientology one i'm sure is interesting but the new Yorker also had a two part excerpt. as an atheist I actually get sick of all the scientology chop busting because it's hard to argue that it's much more silly or harmful than many other religions. to me the origin myths of religion are all similarly ludicrous. not to open a can of worms. I usually keep my atheism to myself except when in the company of scientists.

beckler said...

what's the group?

Patrone said...

Written by the lady who started the NYRB (I think), Mary McCarthy...it's about a circle of Vassar grads trying to make it in 30's NYC. Good shit.

beckler said...

aha! the 30s, when people were smart. I wonder how smart I would have been if I was born in the 30s. my brain would certainly be taken up with less useless crap

Anonymous said...

I think my issues with Sciento are more with the corporate side, the allegations of terrible mistreatment of some folks, etc. Don't care as much about the actual belief system, the profit-mongering or the various myths/lies regarding LRH or anything else. I agree that that stuff is no more harmful than other religions.

DaveNinja said...

The Age of Miracles (by Karen Thompson Walker) is good. A teenage girls life while earth's rotation is slowing.

link to it on amazon

Rosalitahead said...

Davey, I loved that book.
-Natalie

Anonymous said...

Age of Miracles is really good

Jennyo said...

I love book recommendation threads! I always walk away satisfied. The best thing I have read lately is the Goldfinch. It is obnoxiously long but I never wanted it to end. Trying now to get through Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk but it is seriously dude-ish (although very good).