Last Week's Reads

You'll forgive me if my weekly copying/butchering of Nick Hornby's playbook is a little sparse this week with the holiday and all.This year I'll spare all of you the sarcasm about the celebration of colonial White oppression. No rants on the great U.S. of A.'s foundations on the principles of rejected religious extremists. No, not even "Happy Thanksgiving--have a blanket!" jokes. Just last week's...

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Movin' On Up

ITEM ONEIt's taken a couple of years, but The Wife and I seem to have achieved a semblance of financial stability. Of course, it has to happen right before the holidays. We're simultaneously overjoyed and dismayed to find ourselves in a new consumer bracket, one that includes small pieces of antique (but functional)...

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Last Week's Reads

Shamelessly copying from Nick Hornby's playbook, and doing a botched job at that, I give you last week's reads:Carol Emshwiller, "Killers"Joyce Carol Oates, "Thanksgiving"Harlan Ellison, "The Few, the Proud"Jonathan Lethem, "Access Fantasy"Doris Lessing, "Outside the Ministry"Doris Lessing, "Homage for Isaac Babel"I loved "Killers" from the Oct/Nov issue of F&SF. After reading it, though, I have...

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Fan Mail

Hot damn, who'da thunk? This was forwarded to me from the offices of AMERICAN NERD.I enjoyed your article in defense of 80s Chicago. I could have written it myself. I'm almost done with a doctorate in music composition (all but dissertation) and I've always appreciated all eras of Chicago, early, eighties, and even recent. I think the misunderstanding about the "jazz-rock band that sold out" meme...

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

I never claimed to be Honest Abe.You Are A Little HonestSometimes you do the right thing, but not oftenYou prefer to look out for yourself most of the timeBut sometimes honesty does get the better of youHere's hoping you answered this quiz honestlyHow Honest Are Y...

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Last Week's Reads

Once again, bastardizing Nick Hornby's playbook, I give you the stuff I read last weekJohn Cheever, "The Enormous Radio"Joyce Carol Oates, "Poor Bibi"Cory Doctorow, "Return to Pleasure Island"Alison Lurie, "Counting Sheep"Kelly Link, "Some Zombie Contingency Plans"I know what I said and I have been reading some Doris Lessing this week. I just couldn't git 'r' done, unfortunately. I was off to a...

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Threes

Ed Bradley's passing was sad. Hearing about Jack Palance was sad, too; this was a piece of my childhood gone this time (If I saw THE EXORCIST at 8, you don't think I would've seen SHANE?). But, now Gerald?? "Casanova" pretty much defined my love life in the late 8...

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Enough Putzing

Have you voted yet? Go on, go. I'll wait.Last week was the work week from hell (So far it's better this week, thanks for asking) that started off badly when I got some bad news from the Old Neighborhood. Yeah, that whole youthful I'm Gonna Live Forever vibe? Gone. Oh, it'd been slowly wearing away anyhow, what with drinking herbal tea, listening to Satanic smooth jazz, and bitching about local...

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Last Week's Reads

Again, borrowing--then crossing out lines with a black Sharpie, writing notes on the side, and adding my own rules to--Nick Hornby's playbook, I give you what I read last week.Sarah Zettel, "Kinds of Strangers"Jonathan Lethem, "The Dystopianist, Thinking of His Rival, Is Interrupted by a Knock on the Door"Harlan Ellison, "Chatting With Anubis"Neil Gaiman, "The Daughter of Owls"Neil Gaiman "Shoggoth's...

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

See? That's twice in a row, so it's weekly again. (Well, at least for now.)You know, I put my counseling/mental health books away a long time ago, but from what I remember, these results don't seem right. Then again, a cold-reading from a psychic hotline often produces better results than one of these online things. Maslow Inventory Results Physiological Needs (34%) you appear to have everything...

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