The Twenty-Seventh City - Jonathan Franzen
Franzen wrote The Corrections, one of my favorite novels, and this was his first novel. It’s sprawling and messy and reminded me of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth for its emphasis on racial and political issues through characters. It wasn’t as awesome as The Corrections, but you can definitely see his style evolving. And it’s good in its own right. [3/5]

I am on the verge of finishing a couple books, but classes start tonight so I promise nothing!

The comments are possibly the funniest part, especially the people who - um - don’t get it.

[HT: Jeffrey Overstreet]

If you are afraid of failure you will ultimately create safer, smaller things than God made you to make. You will seek to save your life, but you may well lose it. Indeed, the secret of practices, patience, purposefulness, and real partnerships is that they all require us to embrace risk, and therefore lead us to the question of whom we ultimately trust. Do all these ‘p’s pay off in the end? Followers of Jesus know the answer.

On the basis of these rhythms, the cosmic realist novel develops a distinct syntax of its own. Typically, the prose is lyrical and crisp–rich without being lavish, sumptuous but not florid. These books find the fewest strokes with which to paint the freshest image. “She watched blue shadows on his white shirt stretch and shrink as he moved,” Dillard writes. But the economy of language is not merely pretty. It calls to mind the classical Chinese poets– like them, commanding attention by demanding it. This prose promises to be experienced as poetry. It engrosses when it engages.

I thought this film was rather good, despite all the people who were ready to jump down the filmmaker’s throats, and so far Rotten Tomatoes is agreeing with me. Don’t trust the trailer - which is mightily awful and sensationally misleading - and just go see the film (but don’t take the kids).

Ergo, I give you Culture Log.

I’ll be blogging several links and quotes and things per day that I find interesting. It’s all completely subjective. Tumblr doesn’t provide commenting features, which I’ve fallen progressively more out of love with anyhow, and it makes it very easy to quickly blog all kinds of media. Culture Log has an RSS feed, so feel free to subscribe . . . or not. This is mostly for my own edification and for anyone else who wishes to look over my shoulder and see what I’m reading.

I got home around 1:30 am, which was kind of a bad idea since I had to be up before six to pack and shower and catch a train. But we did all of the above and made our train with a few minutes to spare. By eleven we were in Albany with my Mom.

We went to the Tulip Festival in Albany’s Washington Park. I have to say that I lived in the general Albany area for twenty-one years, but had never really gone to the Festival except once to see my aunt dance, and we didn’t stay past the performance. Oh, my. Mom says the paper reported that 30,000 people were there; you could have fooled me, and I walked around in a bit of a daze, saying I had no idea there were that many people in Albany, period. There were street fair-style food vendors (we had gyros and split a funnel cake), booths for all kinds of crafty pursuits, bouncing castles, a petting zoo, two stages with bands, and a whole bunch of artists, which we enjoyed very much and even bought a Japanese-style cherry blossom painting by an artist from Massachusetts. We wandered about for a bit - the weather was sunny and warm and perfect - and then headed back to the house.

We spent the afternoon sitting around and chatting with Mom, mostly about politics (yes! us!), and then headed to Marmora Cafe, on River Street in downtown Troy. Now, I went to school in Troy for four years, and there wasn’t much to eat there, it seemed. A good Chinese restaurant and a loosely middle eastern restaurant, plus some pizza joints and the local brewpub (which, admittedly, was great), seemed to round it out. So I’m always a tiny bit dubious of Troy when it comes to eating, mostly because everything that’s sprouted up there in the three years since graduation is in areas of town I’ve never managed to be able to find very easily.

But, hurrah! We walked into Marmora and the owner said he was out of food. Disappointed, we started to turn away, but he said he thought he had a little bit left and could probably make us a nice platter. We almost left, but then decided to go for it, and fifteen minutes later there was a huge platter with tabouli, a lot of different kinds of hummus, baba ganoush, cheeses, strawberries, some kind of falafel ball with a sweetly spiced beef inside, and pita wedges. We ate like kings and thanked the owner profusely before driving out to the Colonie marina for a boat ride with the Womers. All in all, a perfect Saturday.

On Sunday we got to go to Terra Nova - always a treat - then went to my aunt’s house for Mother’s Day chicken and some time with the family. We had to leave pretty early to catch a train back, which got us home by 7:30 or so. Naturally, I cooked up some dinner and we watched The Machinist, which neither of us had seen, though we both distinctly remembered watching the trailers when it was coming out. It was less creepy than I thought it would be, but more than Tom thought. Whatever the case, it was beautifully shot and very solid. It was also very hard to watch Christian Bale, who lost something like 60 pounds for the role. He looked so emaciated. And to think, he did it again for Rescue Dawn. That man is one committed (and brilliant) actor.

I stayed home from work today with sore sinuses and head, venturing out only to buy groceries. I spent most of the rest of the afternoon watching eight (count ‘em) episodes of Battlestar Galactica, Season 3, which is of course brilliant. We have one disc left and then will probably start watching Season 4 on Hulu. We love the show, but I think we’ll be glad when it ends so we can finish Six Feet Under and start a new drama (The Wire? Sex and the City? The Sopranos? the possibilities are endless).

I’m hoping to be back on my feet tomorrow. Tom has a long, but relatively simple week this week (so far - schedules seem to change maniacally on this project), and I have nothing in particular planned but work until this weekend (which is very full). This is my last week before summer classes start, and I am very much hoping to have finished Moby Dick by Monday night. I’ve made a good dent in it already. Tom is also reading it, and we have two copies so we can both bring it along during the day. Thankfully, it’s none of the stuffy Victorian novel we were expecting. Actually, it’s hilarious and quirky and messy, and we are greatly enjoying it. Good thing, since I’ve got six weeks of studying it up ahead.

We have an awful lot buzzing and brewing, but nothing much to report. Stay tuned.

So I’m going home once that’s done to start trying to gather research for my paper. Not to jinx it, but I’m postulating something along the lines of how the “new” evangelical film, produced by filmmakers from outside “the church”, has a lot in common with the classical definition of kitsch. I think I’ve got a lot to draw on for that. (If you’re in IAM, you know what I mean, but I do have a lot of scholarly work to back it up as well.)

Happily, today was delivery day at the house; the cable guy came to hook up our internet, the new bookcase was delivered, and the refrigerator has finally arrived (hurrah for groceries again!). Oh, and yesterday we got a coffee table, so now I finally have a place to scatter all my papers and set down my cup of tea while I work, since I don’t have a desk. Tom uses our desk and his job requires a lot of papers to be around all the time. I don’t really mind. After sitting in front of a desk all day at work, it’s nice to work from the comfort of the couch.

I have grand plans to spend most of tomorrow writing reviews for three books that only just came in the last couple days, watching a film and writing a review, wading through the five scholarly books I have from the library and tagging what’s useful, hopefully getting the skeleton of an outline down, then heading off to a pre-Tribeca Festival press screening and a friend’s staged reading. It’s times like these that I have a love-hate relationship with being a writer; on the one hand, it’s pretty easy for me to start writing a paper. I’ve gotten past the whole fear-of-the-page thing by now, since I’m always under the gun. On the other hand, it’s surprisingly hard to write scholarly work when you’re used to turning out Paste-worthy snappy writing. Academia seems not to look kindly on wit. My academic prose will never be too dry, but I have to kick myself into big-word mode.

It’s nice to be able to use big words, though. I’d gotten out of the habit.

It’s 2004. The Art & Soul Conference at Baylor University. I’m in the lobby between sessions, browsing at the Eighth Day Books table. Minding my own business, in other words, in sharp contrast to everyone else. They’re networking. All of them. Somehow they’ve managed to meet up over the course of the event, to learn each other’s names. Not me. I’ve kept to myself. I’m a social moth.

“Hey, aren’t you—”

I turn to find a smiling man at my elbow. People are always saying I remind them of someone. Usually a crazy brother-in-law. I start to say, No, I’m not.

“—Mark Bertrand?”

“No, I’m . . . Oh.” Yes, actually. I am.

“I thought so,” he says. “I read your blog.”

That explains it. At least half the people I know, I met through my blog. Only I don’t usually meet them. Not without planning it in advance. The crazy thing is, for a brief shining moment, I feel like a celebrity. Somebody knows me. Somebody’s familiar with my work.

And the thing is, he’s not the only one. I got an e-mail this week from someone who’d read my book and enjoyed it.

“I’ve been reading your blog for a year and half.”

And then you bought my book. That makes you think, doesn’t it?

I can’t count how many times this has happened to me. It’s always weird when you’re meeting someone for the first time and suddenly you realize from the way that they’re acting that they read your blog. And conversely, it’s a bit strange to meet someone and then realize you read their blog.

And I haven’t even written a whole book yet.

I don’t want things to chaaaaaaange . . . Although, who knows, it could be fun.

Those are the two apps we use on a daily basis. Anyone find anything else?

In other news, we are going to Sufjan Stevens’ symphony at BAM tomorrow night, and I have a birthday this weekend.

Also, I am exhausted today. Why? I don’t know.

Life’s so funny.

Last night we went to the Co-op to finally join, which we did, enticed by the proximity to our own home and the impressively inexpensive food; the produce is not too much cheaper but much fresher than surrounding grocery stores, but it is local and organic, and everything else there (meat, cheese, snacks, drinks, bulk grains, the list goes on) is so much more cost-effective than anywhere else in the vicinity. I can finally get Clif Bars (an integral part of my daily diet) for $1 apiece.

The co-op here works differently than the one to which my family belonged in Albany, which allowed non-members to shop at higher prices. At the Park Slope co-op, only members can shop, and each adult member of the household has to work one 2 3/4 hour shift every four weeks, which comes out to 13 shifts per year. So, between the two of us, we need to work 26 shifts per year. And my husband, who is amazing, is working something like six shifts this week and next to get us ahead. He worked one today already and is going back to work another this afternoon.

In other news, our New Yorker hard drive came at some point this week and the guy who runs the photo studio below us had received the package, so he caught us on our way out the door last night and handed it over. It’s great. I’m so excited that all the original cartoons and ads are preserved. If you like the New Yorker, or just like good writing, I think it’s well worth the cost.

Fall sparks creativity, I think. Tom and I have suddenly both started new writing projects. Here’s to hoping it lasts.

Saturday we slept in and cooked breakfast, then went to a small screening of the film Tom worked on in February (just us, the directors and their wives, and the writer). So much fun. It’s great to see something that you were deeply involved with coming together.

We came home and watched Fracture (Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling), followed immediately by Primal Fear (Richard Gere and a mind-blowing Edward Norton) - in doing so, we inadvertently were marathoning movies by the same director. Despite its melodramaticly stupid name, Primal Fear is probably the better movie - but Fracture is worth renting.

On Sunday after church we went shopping, then cooking, and then had a few people over for dinner. I made dijon-dressed new potato salad and hamburgers, and Tom cooked the hamburgers on our new indoor electric grill. They were pronounced by two present as “the best hamburger I’ve ever had”. So, a success for us. We make them with beer and Worcestershire sauce and onions and jalapeno peppers, and I think it makes a difference. Stayed up late discussing life.

We’d originally planned to go to the beach on Monday, but we just didn’t feel like making the long train trip and decided to go out to brunch (Los Pollitos II on 5th Ave in Brooklyn - cheap and yummy) and then went to Prospect Park for a few hours to read books and watch people flying the biggest kites I’ve ever seen in my life, with 8-foot wingspans. I finished Lolita - what a crazy book, but I bow at the feet of Nabokov. Came home and turned the leftover meat into tacos and watched The Wind Will Carry Us, an Iranian film that was surprisingly lively and funny. I was expecting something much more akin to other films I’ve seen from roughly that part of the world - slow, quiet, focus on the cinematography - but this was much funnier, with great dialogue.

I guess this is the start of the school year, which is the start of fall, which means everything starts in earnest again. I got up and took the long route running this morning, managing to cover over 3 miles, mostly running - a record for me, as I have a lot of trouble breathing and I’m trying to push through it. I think I’ve come to understand the concept of pushing through a “wall” better, though. Once you get past it, you start to feel like you could run forever.

Also, we’re returning to small group for the first time in a year, since we got married. We’re trekking out to Jersey City tonight. It’s sort of our old small group (though almost none of the same people), so we have grand hopes. It’s not a long way for me from work, but it’s a little longer for Tom, from Brooklyn; still, it takes a little over an hour, and we spend that much time getting to places in Manhattan.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go back to IAM’s weekly Wednesday morning breakfast-and-discussion-group, from which we sort of took a break when I couldn’t go any more because of my job and Tom was working more consistently. But we’ll hopefully be back.

Tomorrow is also our first anniversary. :)

Click on the image to go to my photostream . . . the individual photos are linked from there.

As you can tell, I’m really into still life.

In case you missed the memo, we were in Boston for a couple weeks and then in Albany. We had a wonderfully relaxing and rejuvenating time. I will soon be posting sort of a “roundup” of what we did (I wrote our activities each day in a Boston City Moleskine). But briefly, in many ways we did the literary loop of the general area, including Cambridge, Concord, and a whole lot of historic areas, plus a couple of concerts, a lot of phenomenal foodie experiences, and plenty of just sitting in TeaLuxe and reading. I finished a lousy book and a much better one and started two others. And we froze in the chilly Massachusetts weather; not that it was very cold, but we were in sweltering-NYC-mode when we packed and didn’t have enough sweaters. C’est la vie. Oh, and my brother successfully graduated from high school. We are officially old.

I have been up to my ears in work of every variety since I got back and have barely had time to relax, so more later.