Loose Motions

Ha ha. The title is a reference to a conversation some of us had a few days ago; I think I'll just let the rest of you wonder about it (and no, it's not a problem currently affecting me, thank you very much).

Anyway, where is everybody? Shall we make more lists? Here are some things, literary and non-literary, currently making ME happy (and I hope you all appreciate the gall involved in creating a NEW POST for my list rather than appending it as a comment to Bizness's post):

1) Not having to teach anymore, particularly because it means I won't ever again have to lay eyes on a certain lumpy lab rat of a boy who only bought the textbook 3 weeks before the semester ended;

2) The tulips in my front yard -- we didn't plant them, so what a nice surprise! Tulips, where there were none before! Just like that! 0 effort, all reward! The tiger-striped ones are my favourite.

3) Frozen treats (and the weather to eat them in): lime popsicles, red bean popsicles, green tea mochi, passionfruit sorbet.

4) The hubbub over Kaavya Viswanathan (age 19)'s fourth-rate plagiarised novel:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/04/23/young.author.ap/index.html

And more here, to lend credence to the accusations of plagiarism:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=512968

I swear I wasn't originally jealous of Viswanathan's big contract, because what's to be jealous of? So some college sophomore writes a shitty book that everyone wants to read -- I do believe any of us could've written such a book as college, if not high school, sophomores. If anything, it made me sad (once again, or still) that that's what people want to read these days. But then, after the plagiarism accusation, when she came out and said she'd read both _Sloppy Firsts_ and _Second Helpings_, and that these books really "spoke to me," I thought, okay, this girl needs to be taken down. To find nothing better to copy, when Dickens and Nabokov and Rushdie and Ian McEwan exist or have existed, now THAT'S a crime.

5) This and other poems by Nancy Willard:

http://maggles.stumbleupon.com/

6) The Martin Amis story in the most recent New Yorker -- okay, at one point I thought I wouldn't be able to finish it because terror clogged my throat and I couldn't swallow my mochi (by the by, do you know that choking on mochi is one of the most common causes of death among old people in Japan?) -- also, now that I think about it, I'm not sure I can list this story as a thing that makes me "happy." Nevertheless, there it is. A thing that keeps me awake at night.

Won't you all come out to play? If not with lists, with amusements of your own?

small bright things

When I move away, I’ll get my own blog and it will be nothing but useless lists. Until then, link-lists (with little to no book/writing related content) and the occasional embarrassing comment will likely be my only contribution to this fine robotblog:

1. Michael Chabon writes about the good his MFA program, with its “regular exposure to the healing rays of healthy disillusion, and in particular the hard-earned skepticism of grown women,” did him. I very much like the end, where Chabon manages to mention Doritos and the smallness of our lives in a single paragraph. (The Doritos-&-life-is-finite combo. actually seems a pretty natural match. Doritos totally freak me out though, for reasons I won’t get into here). [Via Bookslut]
2. I read “Black Hole” by Charles Burns this weekend and was mesmerized. Any recommendations of other graphic-novel/comic series that I should immediately read (besides Optic Nerve, Strangers in Paradise, and Jimmy Corrigan—my only other genuine forays into the genre) would be most welcome.
3. None of the aforementioned comics brings me as much glee as my new favorite. I sure hope there is more to come, and soon. (Click the pictures to make them bigger.)
   
4. The main squeeze and I saw “Thank You for Smoking”last weekend and both dug it (a two thumbs up from the Bizness/Squeeze duo is far rarer than the Ebert/Roeper variety). It was quick and fun; I’m not sure how long it will stick with me, particularly since it seemed to last a little over six minutes. The Michigan theater screening room was totally packed and while I love watching funny movies in full theaters (never were burp jokes funnier than when I watched “Monster’s Inc.” seated behind a class full of kindergartners) the laughter was so riotous as to obscure some of the very hilarity it was in response to. It reminded me of concerts where you can’t hear the singer’s banter over the fans. Let Debbie Gibson talk, people! (Hers was the first concert where I personally experienced this frustration).
5. As hard as I try, and the Squeeze can attest to the fact that I have been trying very, very hard, I cannot grow tired of this song.
   

Please: tell me about the ephemeral pleasures that have recently made you glad for your short, orangecheesefood-fingered time on Earth.