Friday, December 16, 2005

 

Vacationing

The quarter is, and has been, over. I've spent the last week doing nothing but reading books and watching movies, and occasionally going to the gym.
I read In Cold Blood, and then I started reading The Heaven of Mercury by Brad Watson, who's teaching our workshop next quarter. I liked the book, but felt like moving on to something bigger, so I stopped after 40 pages or so. I read some essays recently about MFA programs, and the habit of feeding students contemporary authors as opposed to established works of literature. Well, leaving the concept of the "cannon" aside, who decides it and why, I think there's some merit to not reading too much contemporary stuff. It's fine, but I'm starting to feel guilty reading that stuff as opposed to other things.
So I moved to 100 Years of Solitude and though I'm enjoying it (I've read about 175 pages of it) I can't say I really want to finish it. So I guess I won't. I'm at a point where I like to get introduced into a writer's world, but most often I don't really want to stay there. I can choose to read on, just to see what happens, or just move onto something else. Maybe that's how I'm reading now and I should just go with it, I don't know.

Movies: I watched Fellini's Roma, which was great, and also Juliet of the Spirits, which was not so great. And then Midnight Cowboy, in preparation to watch Brokeback Mountain which should be out locally here in the OC this weekend. I read the Ann Proulx story this weekend and I liked it a lot, though her writing style at times was kinda self-conscious and annoyed me, but when it didn't get it its own way it worked.
I went to see Chronicles of Narnia last night because I just needed a Hollywood movie experience and that did the job, and then I snuck into the last half-hour of King Kong, which I didn't choose to begin with because it was three hours of Hollywood and that I couldn’t take. But the last half-hour was just the right length, I recommend to anyone seeing another movie to sneak in and watch the end of Kong, you'll get the point while saving yourself a ticket.

Comments:
Way back whenever, I got tired of checking for something new here, so I decided I would wait for my email to tell me Pitysing was at it again. Sigh. That never happened.
I went on with life...Christmas bahhumbugging et al, and then a trip to NY in January. Today an email from another blogger prompted me to check your blog -
!voila! Frankie had done some writing.
I always smile as I read your work...sort-of-like I know a secret and the world will someday know it too.
BTW...hmmm...wonder why the bloglet never emailed me?
I really want to read that draft.
 
There was a point to King Kong?

How about putting a sample of your writing up on blog.

I can't believe John Weir's book is finally coming out, is he still at Queens College?
 
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