Member: beardo

Could not resist. Sorry, Sweden.

posted by anna_in_pdx at 12:20 pm (EST) on Nov 21, 2012

So how long are you staying in Alberta? Have you relocated there for good? I agree, a real fall is something not to be missed. Portland has a fair number of hardwood trees and a pretty fall but I will never forget how beautiful it was when I was in college back East and visited my grandparents in the Smoky Mountains every Thanksgiving.

I will try to read that article later today. I was out yesterday at various doctor appointments. I will be able to get this "boot" thing off in another two weeks but the physical therapy people warn me that it will be a long road to being completely back to normal.

posted by anna_in_pdx at 11:26 am (EST) on Sep 20, 2012

Thanks! A good laugh really helps the healing process. :)

posted by anna_in_pdx at 2:09 pm (EST) on Aug 20, 2012

Thanks for giving me a windmill to tilt at today! Apparently I need to start blogging again... :)

posted by anna_in_pdx at 12:17 am (EST) on May 1, 2012

No problem, it didn't bother me, and thanks for taking the time to help me out. I've found ILL a little spotty at Henderson -- sometimes they put orders in the for books and never get back to me. I looked on Amazon and they have Morte D'Urban for a reasonable price so I might buy it or wait to see if it shows up as a Kindle edition. In any case, I'll put it on my wishlist and get it one way or another. Thanks for the recommendation.

posted by Lcanon at 12:06 pm (EST) on Jan 30, 2012

I'm not familiar with Ozick--or maybe read one short piece years and years ago. I don't know if you do this, but I sometimes develop prejudices against one writer or another based on almost nothing (a magazine he appeared in, an association with another writer, etc.), I think so that I can discount him without feeling guilty. There's just so much to read, you know, and I protect myself against some of it by drawing arbitrary lines. What of Ozick's do you recommend?

Glad you liked the Cole novel. I wasn't so much distracted as refreshed by the frank references to other writers; it seemed to fit the autobiography/fiction hybrid form he's playing with. Both Cole and Sebald are writing so much about the interpenetration and overlaying of time and influence anyway that the references also seem to work thematically.

I'm reading Bernhard's 'The Loser' right now. I think I like 'Concrete' and 'Wittgenstein's Nephew' better, but this one's also good. Bernhard isn't anything like the other two writers, but like Sebald he likes to play with the mixture of consciousnesses from nested memories. His darkness isn't as measured and equanimous as Sebald's.

posted by GeoffWyss at 8:11 am (EST) on Jan 30, 2012

Your Christmas plans sound great by the way. We have a nice tree, it smells great, and the cats have only destroyed 2 or 3 ornaments so far. Happy holidays!

posted by anna_in_pdx at 6:53 pm (EST) on Dec 16, 2011

Sweden, you must have got up on wrong side of the bed ... ;)

posted by anna_in_pdx at 5:46 pm (EST) on Dec 9, 2011

Well, we sure do love to read in this town, but we're still not really ethnic and don't get in each others' faces enough. :) Thanks for finding that one!

posted by anna_in_pdx at 5:38 pm (EST) on Dec 2, 2011

Um, wow. What a weird essay. i skimmed it (I am still at work) but will probably read it more carefully. Of course I find his knee jerk dismissiveness of Portlanders being Portlanders as really annoying. But he is right in some ways, we never pretend we are as diverse as NYC, it's sort of an unfair comparison... but no we are not as diverse and no we don't have a whole lot of Jewish people although his story at the beginning is a little hard to imagine (wow, how rude of the complete stranger to do that! but I can't imagine he'd just make such an encounter up, so it probably happened - but I am sorry the rude idiot gets to be a poster boy for my city).

You know, I lived in foreign countries most of my adult life, and sometimes I felt like going off on a rant about how foreign I felt there and how weird and not-me it all was, but what I usually did was not write a long essay justifying this attitude, but call it a "bad Egypt day" and try to shake off this bad mood. Being homesick and out of your element is tough, probably particularly if you've chosen your own exile and had unrealistic expectations of how blissful you'd be. Anyhow, very thought provoking and I will be reading it again - thanks!

posted by anna_in_pdx at 5:17 pm (EST) on Dec 1, 2011

Sure, and we'll post the site on the Beckett thread. Nice to have big reams of info gathered in one place. Good spot...

posted by CliffBurns at 2:25 pm (EST) on Oct 24, 2011

Enjoy the Coast!

posted by CliffBurns at 11:33 pm (EST) on Oct 8, 2011

Sweden! Sweden! Sweden! Oh wait, even the Swedes are saying "self-obsessed and insular" - Switzerland! Switzerland! Switzerland!

posted by anna_in_pdx at 11:19 am (EST) on Oct 7, 2011

LOL I was thinking "Oblivious much?" But you are right, Swedish meatballs are yummy...q

posted by anna_in_pdx at 10:29 pm (EST) on Oct 2, 2011

You are too funny - I need to listen to it when I get home from work. Yeah, what happened to the old school conservatives? I used to enjoy reading On Language back in the 80s when it was written by that evil Nixon speechwriter (name escapes me at the moment). Now all the conservatives don't even speak full sentences - they just use word salads of dogwhistle phrases. At least back then, the enemy had some dignity...

posted by anna_in_pdx at 11:35 am (EST) on Jun 24, 2011

Is someone wrong on the Internet again? http://xkcd.com/386/

posted by anna_in_pdx at 12:53 pm (EST) on Jun 21, 2011

no problem, i have poured some baby oil on that troubled water i hope. Thanks for the heads-up.

posted by MrAndrew at 10:32 pm (EST) on Apr 22, 2011

Thanks for the note re: "Open Culture"--haven't popped by their site in some time and will definitely give them a peek.

Good of you to think of me, lad.

posted by CliffBurns at 4:08 pm (EST) on Mar 23, 2011

Thanks, chum. Chandler and Crumley, the best detective writers there ever were and I look forward to listening in to the BBC adaptations of Ray's noir-soaked tales. Appreciate the tip.

posted by CliffBurns at 3:54 pm (EST) on Feb 4, 2011

Thanks for finding that!

posted by Nickelini at 10:28 am (EST) on Sep 30, 2010

Thanks for the advice. Not a bad idea at all.

posted by ffortsa at 8:51 pm (EST) on Sep 14, 2010

Thank you for moving the mud fight back into the alley where it belongs. ;)

And quite a nice selection of shared favorites, I might add. I'll have to come back to browse your catalog and see what I'm missing!

posted by Makifat at 10:21 pm (EST) on Jun 10, 2010

I was going back through old messages on my profile and realized that I never responded to thank you for the Forster/Austen link. It was funny that you left it then, as I had just read the essay (for the second time) the day before, in a volume of essays on Austen. So I took your message as a sign from the universe and read it a third time, enjoying it thoroughly.

Best wishes, hope your reading is going well these days.

posted by Medellia at 10:41 am (EST) on May 1, 2010

re your posts around july 18 2009. I have recently joined LT and viewed the
discussion on 1001 books to read ... in the literature snobs corner and in all
humility I would like to say you were great. Thanks.

posted by jenkimar at 1:02 am (EST) on Apr 8, 2010

Lol, I love the way you put that. Don't worry, I have alligator skin (in gladiator shoe form no less), so he really doesn't bother me. I quite enjoyed the thread discussion for the most part. Thanks for your concern though, it's sweet of you.

posted by Phlox72 at 9:43 pm (EST) on Mar 15, 2010

thanks for info.

posted by Macumbeira at 4:01 pm (EST) on Mar 14, 2010

Thanks for the tip on Crescent Carnival--I will follow up on it. I know that my mother read most--if not all--of F.P. Keyes books, so she obviously confused two of the titles when she wrote the namesake note in my first year baby book I re-discovered a few years ago when my father died and we were clearing out 60+ years of memories from his home.

Thanks again.

posted by DrewBrowning at 11:41 am (EST) on Feb 15, 2010

Thanks SO much for the link to the Wallace Shawn radio play--I'm heading off to the big city for two days but I've bookmarked it to listen to when I get back. I love radio drama--it is a beautiful and neglected art form. Thanks for thinking of me, chum...

posted by CliffBurns at 1:26 pm (EST) on Feb 7, 2010

Ha! Good stuff...Scalzi's a peach. We'd likely kill each other if we were in the same room but he's always fun...

posted by CliffBurns at 7:26 pm (EST) on Feb 4, 2010

Thanks for forwarding "The Complete Review" site--opinions are mixed, aren't they? DeLillo is one of those guys who tests readers and reviewers. I take him one book at a time: when he's on, he's brilliant and even when he's just "good" or "average DeLillo", he's a cut above just about everyone else. Good to hear from you...

posted by CliffBurns at 11:21 am (EST) on Feb 4, 2010

The international SF stuff looks great and thanks for sending it my way. Also forwarded it to Ian Sales...

posted by CliffBurns at 3:47 pm (EST) on Jan 16, 2010

Hi, Jonathan.
I was up at Mammoth Lakes/Yosemite and away from the Internet.

I'm delighted my review has triggered you to re-read Housekeeping and I look forward to reading your thoughts on it. Dont worry about disagreeing with me, I have confidence in myself and I am not threatened by criticism. On the other hand it is very gratifying to know that someone paid attention to what I wrote---so thank you for your kind words!

You can respond on my profile page or create a thread in literary snobs, perhaps others might join the conversation.

Stuart

posted by semckibbin at 9:58 pm (EST) on Jul 26, 2009

I agree with much of the THIS Magazine article. I'd rather listen to a program on books and writing than Randy Bachman any day. Thanks for sending that my way. Writing has really heated up, thus my absence from LibraryThing. Summer is crrr-aazy around here and, to make matters worse, I'm alone in this big old house while my family enjoys their sojourn on the West Coast. Nothing but work, work, work all day. And old movies at night to unwind. Boo hoo. But if I'm not writing, I'm miserable, so what can I do? Have a fun summer, kid...

posted by CliffBurns at 8:53 pm (EST) on Jul 6, 2009

Hey, beardo.
Sometimes it seems like a miracle that intelligent coversation about books is possible at all. You have to find someone who has read the same book, has something interesting to say, and has the ability to listen and not try to prove he/she is the smartest cat on the website.

I havent entered my library on LT mostly because I feel obligated to post a review (criticism really) to accompany the entry and that takes time. What's important to me is what I think about a book, not that I have it. Looking at your favorites we match on Nabokov; I've read probably 90% of his stuff including translations, interviews, didactic writings, etc.

I wrote a review/criticism of Robinson's Housekeeping, too. I am very interested in your thoughts on that book.

Every Good Wish,
Stuart

posted by semckibbin at 2:00 pm (EST) on Jun 23, 2009

I think that some of the people on the LiterarySnobs group get more involved in their snobbishness, perhaps because it is cheaper, than in their appreciation of literature and related arts. I would like to tell some of them off from time to time but don't think I am up to it.

It seems that you may be up to it. I hope we do not end up, however, in cataclysmic ranting.

Best regards,

Robert

posted by Mr.Durick at 2:31 am (EST) on Jun 20, 2009

Reading your comments (elsewhere) I am pleased to see that among the 30 books we share are some of my favorites. A good book is good no matter when/by whom written, but today's best sellers are not going to make it to the shelves in homes like ours.

posted by Esta1923 at 6:15 pm (EST) on Jun 12, 2009

I don't want to disrupt the flow of the thread, but thanks for your notes on the "A&P" story in the thread on beautiful first lines. I first read that as a college freshman, and it stuck with me ever since. Probably because I worked as a grocery clerk during high school, and it's an experience I can relate to, in all its delicious glory.

posted by Makifat at 2:10 pm (EST) on Jun 3, 2009