I’m putting together a list of books I plan on buying so that I don’t end up buying three previously unplanned books next time I go to the bookstore. This list is being placed in my new Moleskine notebook (softcover this time) since that way I know I’ll have it with me.

Some would say, “Eva, you’re not a technophobe or Luddite. Why don’t you just save them as a memo in your cell phone?” You know, I could do that. But I like writing things down in my notebook. I like being able to flip it right open and know what I’m looking for instead of navigating through the phone menus and whatnot.

So far on the list:

• Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker
• The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
• New Moon or Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (this series of vampire novels is HUGE young adult hits. Movie coming soon. I need to read one and see if they live up to the hype)
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy - NOT THE OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB EDITION. Seriously. I might end up ordering the British version through abebooks or alibris if I can’t locate an untainted copy.
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (paperback 9/2/08)

I’ve also got a few good recommendations which I’m writing down (The Outcast by Sadies Jones and A Summer of Hummingbirds by Christopher Benfey), but I’ll wait for the paperbacks on those. I prefer trade paperbacks. It’s a thing (charming quirk?) I have.

While the point of this list is to prevent me from buying far more books than I need, I want to be easy on myself. The whole magic of bookstores (which doesn’t exist in the online environment) is the chance you’ll find that unplanned purchase… the serendipitous discovery that introduces you to an author you didn’t know before or helps you find your new favorite book. That has only ever really happened for me when I’ve let myself get lost wandering the fiction section (though it’s happened in others, too).

The point is that seeing an interesting title or cover will prompt me to pick the book up off the shelf or table - and that’s something that just won’t happen on Amazon. I won’t spend an hour looking at EVERY SINGLE BOOK on the site. I WILL, however, spend an hour looking at EVERY SINGLE BOOK on a bookstore shelf written by someone with a last name beginning with M, N, O or P (for example).

And that’s how I end up with far too many books. I need to start going through my collection and unloading the retired books (I dare not call them unwanted) from my library and getting them out into the world where they might provide happiness to others. I won’t do the BookCrossing thing yet, either since some might be OK for a library and with a large quantity, bookcrossing might be difficult to do. I’d like to just fill up a shopping bag and bring them somewhere and say, “HERE. FREE!”

But I’ve had several friends request that I provide them with a list of what I’m planning on chucking since they might want first dibs. It’s nice to know that they trust my taste even that much. It’s a bit dicey with reading since I’ll read almost anything (almost) and that usually means that my more genre-minded friends will end up disappointed, as will my more literary-minded friends.

YES, I enjoyed both The Satanic Verses and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban equally. Strange, but true. I recognize them both for what they are and enjoy them accordingly. Rushdie for his use of language and imagery and humor… Rowling for the enthralling world she created and her sense of the fantastical.

This is turning into a bit of a soapbox piece. I think I’m just hungry - and a hungry Polak is an angry Polak, as my mother oft quips at family dinners. I went walking after work with my friend/co-worker and I’m now ravenous. But I can only think about soup and toast since my stomach is a little uncertain.

I ran today. Not a crazily impressive distance or speed, but it was good for me. I was proud. And sweaty.

I climbed today. Again, not crazily impressive difficulty or anything, but I did better than last time and that was important to me.

Now I am tired, but feeling good about what I accomplished. Yay, physical activity!

I’ve always been very good about keeping my brain from turning to mush: getting new (purely intellectual) hobbies, learning new things, reading books, watching films, etc. But I haven’t been at all concerned with keeping the other physical aspects of me from turning to mush until fairly recently. It’s exciting and new… like The Love Boat theme song (RIP, Aaron Spelling - you gave us that, too).

In the “no pudding-brain” category, though, I have excitement brewing as well. My friend Sara gave me a guitar and I’m going to pick up where I left off in September and learn to play more than the two chords I still sort of remember. I have some books, I have a few friends who play (and will help me tune the guitar) and a spiffy new chord chart I printed off last night at the suggestion of my friend LJ, who proceeded to share chord progressions. I will figure them out and be able to appreciate them eventually, but I had to give a little “whoa” and mention that my brain doesn’t think in music - or at least not yet.

My history with music is spotty. I took piano lessons with my brother when I was younger, and the teacher was kind of a bastard who criticized my short fingers and inability to play scales properly. So that sucked. Then I played the flute in late elementary and middle school. The music teacher there was also an ass who told me that I shouldn’t be playing the flute since my fingers were too short to reach the keys at the end. So I joined the choir and that was fine - was in the madrigal group, sang a duet once or twice, was in the school musical, but nothing extraordinary. It kept me musically active, but without the crap.

However, those two summabitches gave me the biggest insecurity issue about my short fingers. My fingers are short (like the rest of me) but not unnaturally so; I certainly don’t have strange puppet fingers or anything. Standard size guitars have proved a bit rough for me to play between short fingers and bum wrist, so I’m really encouraged by the fact that the guitar I got from Sara is a bit smaller than a standard guitar (just not a baby version).

It’s getting late and I have been needing copious amounts of sleep lately. I don’t know what’s up. Maybe it’s the change in the weather - the warm 80+ degree days are not something I’m used to. Neither is the sun. And it was different in California… it was that much-lauded “dry heat.”

Here, in the mid-Atlantic, we have wet heat. And it’s certainly not as sexy as it sounds in other contexts.

While I was in San Francisco, my friend Aaron recommended Christopher Hitchens’ “The Portable Atheist” to me while we were shopping in City Lights Books. I didn’t buy it there (more stuff to lug back) but I did get it when I got home and started reading it this morning since I finished up Michael Chabon’s “Maps and Legends” last night.

In Hitchens’ intro, there was a passage that resonated with me:

…the working assumption is that we should have no moral compass if we are not somehow in thrall to an unalterable and unchallengeable celestial dictatorship. What a repulsive idea! … [It] constitutes a radical attack on the very concept of human self-respect. It does so by suggesting that one could not do a right action or avoid a wrong one, except for the hope of a divine reward or the fear of divine retribution. Many of us, even the less unselfish, might hope to do better than that on our own. When I give blood, for example (something that several religions forbid), I do not lose a pint, but someone else gains one. There is something about this that appeals to me, and I derive other satisfactions as well from being of assistance to a fellow creature. Furthermore, I have a very rare blood type and I hope very much that when I am in need of a transfusion, someone else will have thought and acted in precisely the same way that I have. Indeed, I can almost count on it. Nobody had to teach me any of this, let alone reinforce the teaching with sinister fairy tales about appearances by the Archangel Gabriel. The so-called Golden Rule is innate within us, or is innate except in the sociopaths who do not care about others, and the psychopaths who take pleasure from cruelty.

Yuh-huh. Every time I donate blood, it’s not because I fear divine retribution. It’s because it’s something I can do that will help someone; it’s just considerate (like holding open a door for someone with a stroller, actually leaving a penny in the “give a penny/take a penny” cup, seeing that someone dropped their wallet/keys/money and returning it to him/her, allowing someone to switch lanes during crappy traffic, etc.). From there, it turns into a bad movie starring Haley Joel Osmont, Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey.

Now, in the realm of things that don’t inspire my faith in humanity: automotive body damage.

While I was pulling away from the train station this evening, I heard a THUNK on the side of my car. I pulled over, got out, and took a look - little dent, little scratch… and a softball on the ground nearby. There’s a baseball field somewhat close by, but the field, diamonds, bleachers, etc. are all on the entire opposite side of where the train station is. But there was a little boy just throwing a ball around and he decided it would be fun to throw it TOWARDS the train station where there’s a fun wooden building. SILLY ME, letting my car get in the way of his ball-tossing. Silly commuters, all of us getting off of the train - it could’ve been any one of us. The kid saw me get out of the car, mumbled, “Sorry” and went back to playing. I inspected and rubbed away the dust with my finger, and shot him The Eye. This elicited an annoyed, “Sorry!” (if I’d been closer, I’m sure he would’ve been muttering something like, “Geez, lady” under his breath. That was the tone).

I replied, “Be careful. You don’t want to break someone’s window or put a big dent in someone’s car. It can be really expensive to fix.”

“Sorry.” (back to tossing the ball)

The woman sitting near him (mother? coach?) just looked at me, took a drag of her cigarette, and went back to watching the kids playing on the field across the way. Ugh. I did the “I’m disgusted” head shake, got back into my car, and drove off.

I got home, checked it out closely, cleaned it off, and will do the touch-up paint thing early next week. The next few days are going to be drizzly leading up to a “rain event” on Sunday. Rock.

There was going to be an Elton John song posted here, but that will wait for another day.

That sums it up. It’s what I’m doing. Trying to fit a tent, sleeping bag, climbing gear, sneakers, blow dryer, toiletries, hat, camera, umbrella, books, and clothes for 10 days of wildly varying weather — all into a suitcase and a carry-on. I am allowed 2 suitcases, but that just seems excessive for a 10 day trip.

Rather than being up until 3 in the morning and waking up at 6:30 (that was last night) when it’s my ninth straight day of work (that was today), I’m going to try my hand at going to bed now and getting up a little bit earlier tomorrow to review what I’ve packed with a clear mind before I have ten days of NOT work.

Thankfully, I’m good at spacial orientation (and Tetris) so packing is something I sort of enjoy. But I’ll enjoy it more when I don’t have a headache or brief spells of vertigo because I just really really need to sleep.

I don’t know how much I’ll be writing. Maybe a bit, maybe nothing. Maybe it will be all about Twitter.

For now, let’s just confirm that starting Wednesday, April 23, this chick is on vacation.

Yesterday, my friend Sara called me to tell me about a used book sale going on in the next town over. She’d gone earlier and acquired a treasure-trove of beautiful old books for a total of $1.75 ($1 and $2 books for 50 and 75% off!)

Well, I went this morning before heading off to ComicCon, and they were having a bag sale—all the books you could carry in a paper shopping bag would cost you $5 (it was a fundraiser for a local school). Here’s what I brought home (minus one that I gave to my sister):

There are some I’ve heard of and some I’ve never heard of and bought because they looked like an interesting read from a time long gone and are probably long since out of print. To start, there is this gem from one of my favorite wits of all time, George Bernard Shaw (a 1928 publication):

I’m not sure if it’s a serious work or not… that time period was rife with things that would sound misogynistic these days but which were considered quite complimentary almost 100 years ago. I guess we’ll see just how intelligent a woman I am.

The purple cover below just made me smile - a combination of the title, the illustration… the whole cover treatment. Amusing. And it’s from 1909!

Then I found this very cool 1944 edition of Crime and Punishment. I love the embossing on the cover.

I have to admit that I bought this next book for the novelty of the title and the cool logo action. It’s from 1924…

And an interior that removes any possibility of having stumbled across interesting 1920’s erotica… I don’t think “happy ending” had taken on a lewd secondary meaning yet at that point.

And the Tempestuous Petticoat from this post’s title? Well, that’s from 1948, surprisingly. But I love this illustration.

I’m going to sit here for a bit enjoying the look and feel of these. Maybe I’ll even start reading one once I finish obsessing…

Well, today was the first of my two days at New York ComicCon. The annual east coast comic convention at the Javits Convention Center. I was at the booth alone from 3:00 on, so I didn’t get to wander the floor and see what was going on, but I did get some photos. Kind of boring photos since they were taken from the confines of my company’s booth:

In the two images below, I’ve circled a light-saber battle for you. They were pretty far away and I don’t have a true telephoto lens for the camera, and there was a lot of motion and I didn’t have a chance to change the shutter speed since I just saw this craziness happening and NEEDED TO CAPTURE IT.

There was a girl and a guy, both in weird Captain America-esque outfits. Just -boom!- in the middle of the aisle as people sort of scooted around them, totally nonplussed by the sword battle going on in their midst. It’s amazing how one’s acceptance of the non-traditional really reaches new levels here (half-naked women wearing red contact lenses and 8″ high platform boots? Ain’t no thing!)

Yeah. There was that. And lots of other interesting things and people. Thankfully, unlike the last convention I attended, the time passed by rather quickly and before I knew it, it was time to leave. I took the ferry back over to New Jersey and took this photo in the ferry parking lot - that’s the New Yorker building, among others… :

Yup. Rinse and repeat - doing it all again tomorrow, though not for nearly as long. That will be nice; I looked up an old friend from my bookstore days who is a comic book artist and learned that the studio he co-founded has a booth at ComicCon. I went over to say hi to him before I was due at our booth and we chatted for a bit, but I’d like to pop over again and perhaps buy a sketch from him or some such Fun.

Phew. I am planning on spending the rest of the evening watching highly entertaining silliness with my sister and her boyfriend - “Wet Hot American Summer.” From the folks responsible for “The State.” Yes. It’s quite funny.

…since I’ve mentioned my obsessive reading habit. It’s still here; it’s just sometimes a bit overwhelming to write about reading because I do a LOT of it. A LOT.

And I’m not really good at writing about reading. I can analyze ’til the cows come home and write you a lengthy paper performing a close-reading of three lines from Hamlet - but I’m not a good reviewer. This is something I’ve come to terms with and can accept.

Instead, I’ll just mention two books I read this week, quote a bit from them, and make note of the fact that I really really enjoyed them. Good? OK.

Book the first: Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading. One of my greatest regrets from college is that I wasn’t able to take the Nabokov colloquium that NYU offered, like, once every two years. I took the James Joyce colloquium and that was great - but Nabokov does rate higher than Joyce on my literary love list.

So, Invitation to a Beheading is pure Nabokov in terms of his use of language and voice; the plot, however, is allegorical and surreal in a very Kafka-esque way. The very first line of the novel is the pronouncement of the death sentence for the protagonist - from there, it’s a psychological exploration of that waiting game. He knows he’s going to be executed, but doesn’t know where or when, and the cast of characters surrounding him (prison guards, lawyers, fellow prisoners) serve only to frustrate him further and drive him to lunacy.

It’s hilarious, frustrating as hell because you’re in the same boat as Cincinnatus (the protagonist), and I enjoyed it thoroughly. There’s a great segment where the narrator calls attention to our process of reading the book:

So we are coming to the end. The right-hand, still untasted part of the novel, which, during our delectable reading, we would lightly feel, mechanically testing whether there were still plenty left (and our fingers were always gladdened by the placid, faithful thickness) has suddenly, for no reason at all, become quite meager: a few minutes of quick reading, already downhill…

I found myself smiling while reading that passage since I do read that way; feeling ahead with my right hand and deriving pleasure from feeling that there are yet pages and pages to read. This isn’t the only reason to enjoy it–there’s a gem of some sort on every page (IMHO). But I really enjoy Nabokov.

Then there’s Paul Auster. He’s another one–I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve ever read by him. And I’ve read a good bit. Not everything yet, though. That’s a goal. The most recent thing I read was Oracle Night which I purchased at The Strand a couple of weeks ago. I started reading it on Saturday night and finished up on the train today.

But I’m realizing that I should hold off on the Auster-love for tonight and hit the hay since I have an early morning tomorrow…

• Violet is a repository of beautiful things. They sent me a “Penmanship” themed newsletter last week… and I am in absolute lust with these two items:

On the left, Cards for a Year… “40 cards and 42 envelopes. Each card is imprinted with an icon; text inside the card states the occasion.” Simple… perfect. I love the look and feel of these types of cards - just heavy white cardstock with a single iconic image. It plays right into my esthetic.

On the right, Punctuation Cards. Each card has punctuation marks letter-pressed onto it in bright colors. Striking!

• Then, there’s the new Portishead CD, “Third.” It’s been my soundtrack for the car/train/walk/computer since Saturday afternoon. It releases on April 28th, but some songs have been circulating on music blogs - and here are two that are in my top 4 from the album (so far):

  Portishead - Machine Gun
  

  Portishead -We Carry On
  

• Portishead will be performing at Coachella. So will a plethora of other musical acts I enjoy. Luckily, I will be attending Coachella, so I will get to benefit from all of these musical acts I enjoy performing in once place over a span of three days. Here’s another band I am looking forward to seeing - Cut Copy. They’ve a very retro 80’s feel to them which I enjoy… it’s not world-changing, but it’s fun. Especially around the 1:14 mark. I might be posting sample songs from several of other bands over the next few days:

  Cut Copy - Future
  

• I finally acted on the LibraryThing early reviewer email that I get every month and decided to throw my name in the hat for a few review copies of forthcoming books. I got an email today notifying me that I will be receiving one of them: Love Marriage by V.V. Ganeshananthan. It sounds right up my alley.

“‘In this globe-scattered Sri Lankan family, we speak of only two kinds of marriage. The first is the Arranged Marriage. The second is the Love Marriage. In reality, there is a whole spectrum in between, but most of us spend years running away from the first toward the second.’
The daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, Yalini finds herself caught between the traditions of her ancestors and the lure of her own modern world. But when she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers, Yalini is forced to see that violence is not a relic of the Sri Lankan past, but very much a part of her Western present. … (show rest)

While Kumaran’s loved ones gather around him to say goodbye, Yalini traces her family’s roots—and the conflicts facing them as ethnic Tamils—through a series of marriages. Now, as Kumaran’s death and his daughter’s politically motivated nuptials edge closer, Yalini must decide where she stands.

Lyrical and innovative, V. V. Ganeshananthan’s novel brilliantly unfolds how generations of struggle both form and fractures families.”

• Here’s a super creative move: this spiffy perfume tester technique from Givenchy. Elegant, eye-catching, and a bit unusual: ribbon. Three styles of ribbon, actually, each pre-printed with the name of the three fragrances in this new line (which they’re treating like a wine - complete with a vintage). Long enough that you can tie it around your wrist/hair/purse strap.

The fragrances themselves are a bit too strong, too floral and too “my summer mink is at the cleaners” for me (and I realize that that might mean something different to different people… I guess it’s my shorthand for something that’s cloyingly sweet and reminds me of extremely wealthy older women).

And yes, I did actually hear a woman utter that sentence once upon a time. It was surreal.

I love this photograph of my friend Michelle’s daughter, Juliette.

I snapped it today while she was crawling up onto my lap - and I just gave it that soft glow in Photoshop.

My only issue is that my knee is in sharper focus than her face, but I will learn how to take better pictures using this new camera with time and practice and by reading through the various books I have.

That’s another nice thing about working for a publisher: access to books I can USE in real life (not that I don’t love fiction, too). I’ve got the field guide for my camera (Nikon D40), and a whole slew of Photo Workshop books.

Still, for an amateur shutterbug attempt, I do like this photo quite a bit.

I’ve been playing with the camera. And reading about it. And taking pictures of various things in my bedroom. Like my books.