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What I'm Reading Now
A long time ago, when I used to spend a lot more time online than I do today, I had a nemesis called Anne Lamott. Anne Lamott wrote a column for an electronic magazine called Salon.com, which at the time was a bustling hub of light iconoclasm and liberal Christianity, or something like that.
I'm sure there were far worse columnists on the payroll, but Anne Lamott consistently rubbed me the wrong way because she was conviced that her multi-braid hairstyle made her the "cool mom," and then as now I felt strongly that one should refrain from calling oneself a "cool mom" on any national news and commentary platform. Or was it dreads? I can't remember now. She wasn't really my nemesis, because she had no idea I existed and I never interacted with her other than hate-reading her column whenever I remembered to check for new ones. There was really nothing to it, except that I found her intensely embarrassing, with the boiling, choking, utterly useless secondhand embarrassment of the deeply insecure.
Anyway, I picked up her 1993 memoir Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year at a Little Free Library in Jacksonville, AL recently, and I'm trying to still the rolling of my eyes and sit with it in sympathy, possibly to prove that I'm not as petty now as I was in my twenties. It's not going all that well, but I'm trying.
The book itself is ok. You can see that Lamott is turning up the dial on a selection of her second- or third-worst thoughts in order to reassure her readers that they aren't monsters, which is a kind thing to do even if it doesn't always make for my personal favorite books. Then as now, I have this dislike of motherhood memoirs because I always imagine being the kid in them, now in middle school, with some gleeful homeroom galoot shout-reading all those heartfelt lyrical descriptions of my infant beauty and/or gushing bowels as I unsuccessfully pretend not to know what he's talking about. Maybe what I like best about it is that it's a window onto the world of 1989, when baby Sam was born. This world is sometimes hilariously similar to and sometimes far from our own, but there's probably a lot of interpersonal variation in which details will make you feel which way.
Some Other Books I've Read Recently
Charles Johnson's Middle Passage is noticeably funnier, and a more ripping yarn, than you would expect from a book called Middle Passage. Maybe that's the only description it should have.
The Great Turkey Walk is a middle-grade charm bomb from Kathleen Karr, about a fifteen-year-old called Simon with no head for figures but a decent sense for birds, who in the year 1860 gives up on taking a fifth crack at the third grade to seek his fortune herding turkeys from Missouri to Denver with the help of a few friends. This is a well-researched historical novel that is also funny and fun, where grim realities and wacky mishaps are treated with equal aplomb in Simon's immediately believable and lovable narrative voice.
I wasn't expecting a lot from Nightlight, the Harvard Lampoon parody of Twilight (also found in Jacksonville), but it hooked me right away. The end isn't as good as the beginning, but I thought it had a good ear for what was funny and weird about Twilight.
What I Might Read in the Near Future
A few days later, in a completley different Little Free Library, I found a book called The Submissive by Tara Sue Me, and now I'm skeptical all over again. Can a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey possibly be as funny as a parody of Twilight? More to the point, will this one be? I'll find out when I find out.
A long time ago, when I used to spend a lot more time online than I do today, I had a nemesis called Anne Lamott. Anne Lamott wrote a column for an electronic magazine called Salon.com, which at the time was a bustling hub of light iconoclasm and liberal Christianity, or something like that.
I'm sure there were far worse columnists on the payroll, but Anne Lamott consistently rubbed me the wrong way because she was conviced that her multi-braid hairstyle made her the "cool mom," and then as now I felt strongly that one should refrain from calling oneself a "cool mom" on any national news and commentary platform. Or was it dreads? I can't remember now. She wasn't really my nemesis, because she had no idea I existed and I never interacted with her other than hate-reading her column whenever I remembered to check for new ones. There was really nothing to it, except that I found her intensely embarrassing, with the boiling, choking, utterly useless secondhand embarrassment of the deeply insecure.
Anyway, I picked up her 1993 memoir Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year at a Little Free Library in Jacksonville, AL recently, and I'm trying to still the rolling of my eyes and sit with it in sympathy, possibly to prove that I'm not as petty now as I was in my twenties. It's not going all that well, but I'm trying.
The book itself is ok. You can see that Lamott is turning up the dial on a selection of her second- or third-worst thoughts in order to reassure her readers that they aren't monsters, which is a kind thing to do even if it doesn't always make for my personal favorite books. Then as now, I have this dislike of motherhood memoirs because I always imagine being the kid in them, now in middle school, with some gleeful homeroom galoot shout-reading all those heartfelt lyrical descriptions of my infant beauty and/or gushing bowels as I unsuccessfully pretend not to know what he's talking about. Maybe what I like best about it is that it's a window onto the world of 1989, when baby Sam was born. This world is sometimes hilariously similar to and sometimes far from our own, but there's probably a lot of interpersonal variation in which details will make you feel which way.
Some Other Books I've Read Recently
Charles Johnson's Middle Passage is noticeably funnier, and a more ripping yarn, than you would expect from a book called Middle Passage. Maybe that's the only description it should have.
The Great Turkey Walk is a middle-grade charm bomb from Kathleen Karr, about a fifteen-year-old called Simon with no head for figures but a decent sense for birds, who in the year 1860 gives up on taking a fifth crack at the third grade to seek his fortune herding turkeys from Missouri to Denver with the help of a few friends. This is a well-researched historical novel that is also funny and fun, where grim realities and wacky mishaps are treated with equal aplomb in Simon's immediately believable and lovable narrative voice.
I wasn't expecting a lot from Nightlight, the Harvard Lampoon parody of Twilight (also found in Jacksonville), but it hooked me right away. The end isn't as good as the beginning, but I thought it had a good ear for what was funny and weird about Twilight.
We sat at a table with Tom and some other ordinaries. They kept asking probing questions about what my interests were. I gently explained that that was between me and my potential friends.
It was then that I saw him. He was sitting at a table all by himself, not even eating. He had an entire tray of baked potatoes in front of him and still he did not touch a single one. How could a human have his pick of baked potatoes and resist them all?
What I Might Read in the Near Future
A few days later, in a completley different Little Free Library, I found a book called The Submissive by Tara Sue Me, and now I'm skeptical all over again. Can a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey possibly be as funny as a parody of Twilight? More to the point, will this one be? I'll find out when I find out.
