justing.net

Week Notes No. 46: Mixed Diversions

By Justin G. on 25MAR12WED

Finished a book and started another two books.

1. Books

   • I started reading On the calculation of volume, I by Solvej Balle, and the story opens late enough in the sequence of events that the main character accepts her predicament. I just love that she’s so matter-of-fact about the bizarreness of it all, and I’m intrigued by all of the examined mundane detail. This is gonna be good; I can’t wait.

     ¶ Even the formatting of the paragraphs, no indents with an empty line between, reinforces the story. The visual weightiness of that choice underlines how challenging it has been for the narrator to get this written out and emotionally processed. Each experience or realization, contained and contextualized in its own paragraph, has been a huge effort. The reader is dropped right into each new installment of her endlessly looping existence. They can stand alone too, like a microblog post, and still work. I am in awe.

   • I read the introduction and first chapter of The Notebook by Roland Allen, and I must confess to finding the style choices to be not at all to my taste. The font choices seem common and suggest the book is self-published. The number of fonts used reinforces the idea. But the book is not self-published. Is it some new trend? I have no idea. At least the contents are grabbing my interest.
   • Finished Sedaris’s Theft by Finding. After success found him and he moved to France, his entries grew from jots to full vignettes. They can be quite funny for a book that is a raw diary, only lightly edited. There are a few quotable lines later in the book, good turns of phrase or memorable description. I laughed at his mal-Frenchism of the pot calling the kettle black–I would stumble into a phrase like that too! His writing has become less rickety, more self-assured. Even so, I find the later chapters less useful as a guide for my own journaling. They’re quite ambitious for a diary entry, but maybe someday I’ll be sitting long enough to write similarly. Overall, I enjoyed the book.
2. YouTube
   • NHK Okinawa Ramen, part 2 looks so good.
   • NASA Lunar Eclipse on 3/13, hopefully it’s clear where you are.
3. Television
   • The X-Files Season 1 continues. More monster of the week episodes than I remembered. But then I looked back on what I thought about those early seasons and I remember thinking that last time.
4. Music
   • Chromeo Adult Contemporary (Deluxe), it’s very good.
   • Lane 8 Brightest Lights is good. Room Service Festival is good too.
   • State Azure Night City is good to read to. FAWM#3 ‘Cloud Cover’ track from scratch was alright.
   • The Rosen Corporation Watching, Feeling, The Waves.
   • Raw Escapes Jeremy Nattagh Live Instrumental was good and in a beautiful setting.
   • Martin Stürtzer Space Ambient Liveset Home Concert 70, keeps the good stuff going.
5. Links
   • Netflix-codes.com (via Recomendo) looks like it might be super useful for finding something to watch in Minoan labyrinth that is Netflix’s (terrible) UI. If I don’t report back, send someone with a string.
6. Events
   • An Art of Manga exhibit is coming to a museum near me. That could be cool to go see.

To Reply: Email me a good book you read recently.