Our Patriotic Duties

After a busy, rush-rush-rush week, we spent the Fourth of July:

1. Sleeping til 9 (OK, 9:30 for me, actually).
2. Reading books.
3. Grilling dogs.
4. Enjoying the view.
5. Feeling the breeze.
6. Not shopping.
7. Chopping up a cherry tree.*
8. Tending to plants.
9. Using no gasoline.
10. Flying the flag.

*Tree already long-dead.

Oh, the Irony

The box from Amazon arrived - unexpectedly - two days early. All along, I'd been looking forward to it.

"Woo-hoo! It'll arrive Wednesday, just in time for the long weekend," I thought to myself, when the shipping notification pinged its way into my inbox.

Miraculously, we have no plans this holiday weekend. And I'd intended to spend it reading, at least for the most part. Maybe taking in a fireworks display, if we can find one.

But because I can't wait, I tear open the carton, and get started. One book, in particular, had been high on my list of must-reads, and I pulled it from the box in anticipation.

I cracked open the cover, and started reading the Foreword. It was short and snappy, and it took me until the end to realize it hadn't been written by the author. No matter.

The Introduction beckoned. And so I began reading.

And reading. And reading.

After a while, I bristled at the author's style.

The Introduction plodded on and on, in long, unbroken paragraphs with nary a subhead in sight.

I skimmed ahead - a 15-page introduction?! - and then I put it down. I ached for something more sound-bitey, more fragmented.

The book in question?

Distracted: The erosion of attention and the coming dark age, by Maggie Jackson.

Guess the dark age is already here.

(But don't worry, Ms. Jackson, I'll pick it up again.)

Hot Child in the City

That old Nick Gilder song always runs through my head during the sticky, summer-swelter days, like the one that's on tap for today.

Today, despite the heat I'm headed into Philadelphia for a day of fun that includes checking out the Rittenhouse Square Fine Arts Show with a friend, and standing in line for the David Sedaris book-signing event at Joseph Fox Bookshop in center city.

The art show is one that I've visited before but not for many years. Fine artists set up their wares under canopies, and you can talk to them about their work and approach and what inspires them. There's one artist whose painted wooden boxes are a unique collaboration with her artist husband. There are a few on her website that look just wonderful, but I have no idea of the price.

In a unique twist on the usual book-signing for Mr. Sedaris - which I've heard can involve standing in line for four (four?!) hours - the bookstore has collaborated with nearby merchants to throw a block party in his honor. Aside from making the wait more tolerable, it could be provide a fabulous people-watching venue.

More to come...

State of Affairs

Stuff that is on my desk, but probably should not be:

1. Expired Frida Kahlo exhibit ticket from March.
2. Spectacularly gorgeous wrapping paper from a gift a friend gave me last week.
3. Golf balls.
4. Trouser socks.
5. One book I've finished, two others I've abandoned.
6. Old sudokus.
7. Three new crochet hooks.
8. Stray photo from my First Holy Communion party, where I look not so much holy, but more as if I'm plotting revenge.
9. Dead PDA.
10. Phone number of cleaning service.

Taking Names

Last night, a friend and I went to an author event at the Free Library of Philadelphia and heard Jhumpa Lahiri read from her new book, Unaccustomed Earth.

During the Q+A, Jhumpa talked about the subject of her characters' names. I was struck by how she said that she keeps lists of names, "I need them," she said, noting that she pores over lists of names for any that speak to her.

I knew someone in college who kept a list naming everyone she knew or had ever met. At least as far as she could remember when she began documenting them. I thought this was an odd practice, the cataloging of people from your life.

But I suppose a name can also trigger memories: of a long-forgotten event, a personality trait, a funny story.

In Jhumpa's case, names help shape a character's history. A birthplace as indicated by a geographically popular moniker. The struggle with being saddled with what others mock as a "strange name" throughout a childhood in America.

I first read Jhumpa Lahiri's other two books while taking a train to work every day, where I collaborated with colleagues thousands of miles away in India. There was something about the summer heat and the words on the page that made me feel a greater appreciation for India's many cultures and its people.

I am looking forward to seeing what Unaccustomed Earth has in store.

So, Broken Glass is Good?

As reader and fellow blogger fishwithoutbicycle pointed out, when the pressure is getting to you, it all comes out in your dreams.

That was the case for me Tuesday night. I'd been through a several intensive job interviews over the past couple of weeks, the last of which occurred Tuesday afternoon. At least two offers were imminent from two vastly different organizations.

Exhausted, I went to sleep easily and was probably drooling by 10:30.

Later that night, a bizarre dream had me dealing with glass from smashed-up light bulbs (don't ask), a deceased person, and a futile ride up hill on a creaky blue bike.

The next day while out running errands, I took a few minutes to meander around Anthropologie (love their displays, hate their prices).

Their book buyer has a good eye, and I like seeing what titles they have strewn about the place. The first one I stumbled on? Fortune-Telling Book of Dreams.

Just had to look - and the results speak for themselves:

1. Glass: You are due for a change if you dream of broken glass.
   
2. Deceased person: Conversing with indicates the arrival of excellent news.
   
3. Bicycling: Your future is full of opportunity.

Books We Have Known

The bookshelves have been sagging under the collective weight of all the Amazon purchases lo these many years, and so we're divesting ourselves of many books of which we have come into possession.


Herewith, is a random list of five of those books, some equally random comments on their contents or quality, and, potentially, what I was thinking when I bought and/or read the book:

1. It Takes a Village Idiot: Former Entertainment Weekly writer buys a house in sticks, only to be made fun of by locals. Hilarity ensues.

2. How to Be A Star at Work: Don't bother even taking this one out of the library, because the upshot is, there's really only one way, and the key is this: Make lots of money for the firm.

3. Confessions of a Window Dresser: The memoir of Simon Doonan, the mastermind of the Barney's shop windows. Got this in the bargain bin a couple of years ago. A few good anecdotes, but not as good as I'd hoped. The book felt kind of slapped together, like a collage of ideas someone had kept in a shoebox.

4. How Now: A new-agey, feel-good tome that I found amidst the stacks -- at our local Anthropologie store, no less. What was I thinking when I bought this book? I have no idea. What was I thinking when I read this book? "I should have bought the coffee-table book on Parisian style instead."

5. Television without Pity: Far more entertaining to make your own snarky comments about TV shows. Reading others making them? Not so much.

I give up. Good night.

Books: Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

Normally, talking about comedy is uniquely un-funny. Breaking down a joke into its parts, dissecting its language and identifying the tickler that zings the funny bone is seldom entertaining in its own right.

However, Born Standing Up, Steve Martin's new autobiography, is just charming. He writes in that same lilting, observant style that he uses in some of his prior books, like The Pleasure of My Company and Shopgirl.

Martin spends a lot of time inside his own head, but it's like a carnival of the absurd in there, complete with balloon-twisting entertainers and old-time magicians. Family pain that thankfully was resolved. All of which inspired him to be the artist he has become.

But what I like best about this book are the gems he leaves here and there. Quotable aphorisms like:

"Through the years, I have learned there is no harm
in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration."

Along the way, you'll learn what made him a wild and crazy guy, how he started collecting American art, and what he thought about writing for TV.

If you've enjoyed Steve Martin's comedy, or his writing, I highly recommend this book.

Give the Gift of Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri captured my heart this summer with her writing.

During sweltering commutes into the city, while waiting for the train in the hot sun, I clung to every word of The Namesake (still haven't seen the movie) followed closely by Interpreter of Maladies.

She's a writer whose every word contributes to the formation of a character, the person's life, and their feelings.

For me, on my train rides, she created a window into their worlds that I could stare through for hours. A window that I reluctantly shut each time my stop was announced.

If you're looking for a last-minute gift, pick up one of her books and take it home for someone. You just might find that you'll keep it as a gift to yourself.