3:4, 64:18
3:4, 64:18
PSA I only just noticed I accidentally posted a Random Walk entry a few days ago without its accompanying text. (They don’t all have commentary, but this one did. Insert eye-roll emoji here.)
Fixed. Here ya go.
30:12
7:5
48:15 Shelf 48 is Davenport Central. (nb and tmi: I’ve done some reshelving since starting my Random Walk, so the contents of Shelf 47 have shifted one cubby to the right.)
31:19 I loved the TV series, but the books really are much better.
11:14 I’ve been a fan of Erin Belieu since her first book, Infanta.
57:5 Should be called “The Twentieth Century So Far,” since it came out in 1949. (Another Macmillan book, which had been lurking quietly for years — and is now the newest member of my towering TBR pile…)
Sidewalks of Minneapolis #3
The Mall and Humboldt.
15:47, 61:8 The Authors’ Book was Macmillan’s style book for authors. A history of the company, a summary of the publication process, instructions on how to format a MS, and a glossary of terms. From when my father worked there in the ’50s.
I posted something about The West Wing a few days ago. (Oh, it was two weeks ago? Okay.) I trimmed a lot from the original draft because it felt too tangential. Well, here’s that tangent.
The Magical Powers of a New Shirt: on The West Wing, language, and violence.
4:22 The world my wife moves in, and what moves her, as choreographer and mover.
19:11 As part of my concentration in college, I studied the impact of public and private spaces on culture. This is about the modern proliferation of spaces that are nothing and nowhere.
21:30, 25:20 Two Irish writers in Vintage International editions.
As a life-long Thoreauvian, this is fucking hilarious, and spot on.
62:26, 32:20
1:7, 26:3
Okay, my hair is entering the Stargate-era James Spader zone. Soon I’ll be in full-on Hardy Boys territory. It’s only a matter of time before I’m a White Russian away from passing for The Dude’s stunt double. (Or El Duderino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.)
From his front porch, our neighbor across the street just finished playing Bach’s 3rd Cello Suite in C. My father’s favorite finger exercise.
My wife and I sipped wine in the window and applauded.
Overhead, three hawks rode a thermal, casting their shadows on the street.
4:1 Gift from my aunt to my father, who loved dictionaries (and spoke seven languages, the bastard).
5:1 Part of my self-guided tour of Medieval history. During lunch breaks at shitty temp gigs in the ’90s, I’d take the skyway to graze the stacks and surf bibliographies.
I used to think I’d missed my calling. Later I realized I simply never monetized it.
28:22 Poor old fool. Bold but deranged scholarship. Such hubris. Tempus tacendi, Nuncle. (O but what an ear!)
32:13 Hoban’s last novel, and one of the few I haven’t read. I’m saving it: there won’t be any new ones, and you can only read something for the first time once.
52:1, 23:29
The sidewalks of Minneapolis #2
S Washington Av
55:11 Storm is largely responsible for the practice of formally naming tropical storms. Such a clean, sharp writer. I highly recommend Earth Abides and Names on the Land as well.
3:13 This was a crucial book when I was a typographer. And Bringhurst is an excellent poet.
💬
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.
—Thomas Pynchon, born on this day in 1937, and who’s been sporting a face mask for years:
62:9, 47:14
