THE DIRIGIBLE OF AUGUST
I talked to Ram last night and he made me feel a lot better about my various anxieties. (Yes, mom, he is good at that.) I'm not feeling nearly as frantic as I was yesterday. I'm sure it didn't help to put on Elliott Smith and turn off all the lights after I read the USA Today's projections on the possibility of nuclear war in Pakistan and India. That was pretty silly.
I started reading The Mysteries of Pittsburgh yesterday, and I assure you that it's the kind of book where suddenly you've read 50 pages, and then 75, and then 100. Even books by very funny people like David Sedaris seldom make me laugh aloud. Now that I think about it, David Sedaris is the exception, but still, good old Michael Chabon had me giggling every few pages. It's an entirely different feel from Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, maybe because there's a (very) little less narrative control, or more likely because the voice hasn't developed entirely. Last year a friend from Governor's School sent me a paragraph from the first few pages of the book which I have read and re-read in almost every bookstore ever since. I haven't encountered any other sentences like it, but then I haven't had the opportunity to fetishize all of them yet.
Also, it is about summer, and young people, and Pittsburgh. This indicates to me that all of you reading this should read it now. (I'm going to make you read it in autumn anyway, so why not read it when it's more season-appropriate? Besides, it'll only take you a day.)
I talked to Ram last night and he made me feel a lot better about my various anxieties. (Yes, mom, he is good at that.) I'm not feeling nearly as frantic as I was yesterday. I'm sure it didn't help to put on Elliott Smith and turn off all the lights after I read the USA Today's projections on the possibility of nuclear war in Pakistan and India. That was pretty silly.
I started reading The Mysteries of Pittsburgh yesterday, and I assure you that it's the kind of book where suddenly you've read 50 pages, and then 75, and then 100. Even books by very funny people like David Sedaris seldom make me laugh aloud. Now that I think about it, David Sedaris is the exception, but still, good old Michael Chabon had me giggling every few pages. It's an entirely different feel from Wonder Boys and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, maybe because there's a (very) little less narrative control, or more likely because the voice hasn't developed entirely. Last year a friend from Governor's School sent me a paragraph from the first few pages of the book which I have read and re-read in almost every bookstore ever since. I haven't encountered any other sentences like it, but then I haven't had the opportunity to fetishize all of them yet.
Also, it is about summer, and young people, and Pittsburgh. This indicates to me that all of you reading this should read it now. (I'm going to make you read it in autumn anyway, so why not read it when it's more season-appropriate? Besides, it'll only take you a day.)
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