My TV viewing for the summer has been limited. It consists of:
I never get tired of Flight of the Conchord’s Boom Song. I can watch it over and over again and still laugh. But I also like their rap, which I recommend you watch forthwith:
Update: Kat pointed me to Mel’s video blog. Awesome.
Check it out: This week’s issue of the Bohemian has my restaurant review of Le Bistro in Petaluma.
Le Bistro
By Joy Lanzendorfer
I had heard a lot about Le Bistro in Petaluma. After all, the restaurant, sitting unobtrusively on Petaluma Boulevard South a few blocks from downtown, has been there for 19 years. When people talk about Le Bistro, they mention owner and chef Corey Basso. Many call Basso a first-class chef, even a genius, but note that he is particular about how Le Bistro is run. One woman on the reviewing website Yelp compared him to the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. It all sounded a little intimidating, like I was going to a restaurant run by some sort of brilliant culinary dictator.
UPDATE: I re-posted this entry because the comments were broken before. It’s a long story. But now you can comment on it.
… reading the last Harry Potter.
It was worth it. It’s an extremely satisfying ending. She gives you everything you want, ties everything together, and makes you feel like you’re leaving the characters in a good place.
It’s a remarkable accomplishment, really–especially considering the high expectations for the end of the series. Imagine having the whole world speculating about your book like that. It would be hard to get all those voices out of your head. Many writers would have buckled under the pressure.
I think these books will hold up over time. They are good.
The ending didn’t make me cry though.
So I’ve been nattering on about going to Peru on here. That’s still a trip I want to take someday, but I decided it would be extravagant to buy a house and go on a big vacation in the same year. It’s cheaper and just as fun to do something else I’ve wanted to do for a long time–go on a cross-country road trip.
Here’s our potential route, Southern first, then Northern:
We would spend roughly a day in each state, with the exception of Texas–too big to do in one day–and Kentucky–we would stop and see Kyle’s family for a few days. Since we can’t see the entire country, we decided to concentrate on the South, and will be making a nosedive to New Orleans, and then up through Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and back along the North.
This way, by the time I get ready to do another big trip, I’ll be over my “airplanes are a pain in the ass” mode, and will be more open to flying more than 10 hours.
We are going to be winging a lot of this. Few or no hotel reservations, just drive and stop whenever. I know how boring parts of it will be. But here’s the thing: We plan to be completely wired the entire time. As long as there will be cell phone coverage, we will be on the Internet and e-mail. We may even have a GPS with us. I’ll have books on tape and knitting and my laptop. We’re getting one of those coolers that plug into the car, so we will have snacks. It will be an adventure, Jack Kerouac style! (Only in a car with the Internet.)
Some of the things I plan to visit on my trip:
Las Vegas
The Georgia O’Keeffe museum in New Mexico
Aztec ruins in New Mexico
Austin, Texas
The Texas Conspiracy Museum
New Orleans
Faulkner’s house in Mississippi
Kyle’s family
Memphis, Tennessee
Graceland
Hannibal, Missouri (Mark Twain!)
The Rocky Mountains
Salt Lake City
Some park in Utah–maybe Zion?
Any other suggestions of what we should see? In particular: Is there anything to do in Kansas?
On Saturday, Marcia and I went for a hike at the Jack London park in Glen Ellen. It was a gorgeous day–if a tad too warm. We saw the ruins of the house of a famous writer, a mountain, vineyards, lots of dragonflies, and lizards–including the blue-tailed skink. We tasted blackberries along the trail, side-stepped poison oak, and were almost attacked by a giant butterfly. Then we ate our sandwiches by a green lake. Finally, on the way back, we had a good long look at a baby deer, which was eating a tree. It still had its spots and reminded me of Quill.
That settles it. Jack London Park is officially my favorite Sonoma County park.
Pictures:
Woman sketching the park.
Old tree.
The green lake
Weird thing sitting in the lake. Marcia and I couldn’t figure out what Jack London used it for.
Another shot of the lake.
Red dragonfly
Ever wonder what would happen if great works of literature were disguised and submitted to publishers today? In today’s market-driven advertising-controlled literary world, would the great writers of yesteryear be rejected along with the rest of us?
Turns out, the answer is yes. Writer David Lassman sent typed chapters of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to 18 literary agents and publishers, changing only the titles and character names.
He got 12 rejection. No one offered him a book contract. Only one of them recognized Austen’s work.
Penguin, which republished Pride and Prejudice last year, described the work as a “really original and interesting read” but not right for them.
The literary agent Christopher Little, who represents JK Rowling, said it was “not confident placing this material with a publisher”.
These people are not doing their jobs. They don’t recognize Jane Austen? Even more troubling, they can’t recognize brilliant writing when they see it? Makes you wonder what else are they missing.
Thanks to Marcia for the link.
The Guardian has an article by Sarah Crown talking about her experience judging a poetry contest. In it, she discusses what it feels like to read nothing but poetry for three weeks. Because I’m in the process of judging a contest myself, I related to this article, particularly this part:
About halfway through the fortnight I ventured, blinking, from my house to visit the supermarket for supplies and, without consciously intending it, found myself in a bookshop, where I feverishly bought a stack of novels. I placed them on the corner of my coffee table where they sat taunting me.
I am not reading poetry. I’m reading self-published juvenile fiction and adult literary fiction. Overall it is fun and I am enjoying the process. However, reading a bunch of books I normally wouldn’t have picked is also making me a little antsy–especially since right before I got the books to judge, I bought several new ones that I want to read. Now the new books are taunting me, all shiny and untouched on my bookshelf. I keep stealing a paragraph here and there of my forbidden book and then putting it down and sighing and picking up the book I’m supposed to be reading. And then doing it all over again. And again. And again.
It reminds me of being an English major.
As some of you know, we have been very close to buying a house this week. It was a small house within walking distance to downtown. We liked it, even though it was small. It had all the requirements: A cute older house in a great neighborhood with a place for my office, a place for Kyle’s computers, a second bedroom, and a backyard. It was small, yes, but real estate is expensive here. It was painted funky colors, but that is easy to fix. It was a blank slate of a house, the kind of place you could fix up and make into your own. A good starter house.
All last week, we prepared for the offer we would make. We knew the house had been on the market for almost a year, so we thought we could offer much lower than the asking price. It all looked good. We got a realtor to represent us and asked my parents to come down and look at it. My dad has built several houses, so I wanted him to check it out before I made the offer.
But as soon as I walked in on Saturday, I was … unexcited. No matter how logically I could see how the house would work for us, I didn’t feel that spark that I have felt every time something is right for me. It is a yes! feeling, a sense of things sliding together and clicking in place. I knew I would marry Kyle almost immediately because of the spark. I know when clothes fit me well because of the spark. When I saw Quill, I was so sure of the spark I didn’t even want to look at the other kittens in the cage.
And yet, here I was thinking of buying a house, and there was no spark. I couldn’t figure out why. My reservations about the house were few: I didn’t like how close the house was to the neighbors. I was concerned that it didn’t have much of a re-sale value since a house that small can only sell for so much in any market. I thought we might outgrow it too quickly. Still, if the spark were there, these would have been minor concerns.
I wandered through the house, trying to pinpoint what my problem with it was. I liked the place where my office would be. I liked the kitchen. There were more closets than I originally thought. We could build me bookshelves. We could plant a tree to block out the neighbor. There were even original hardwood floors. What was wrong with me?
My dad had no major concerns about the house except that the floor was springy. When you walk on it, it flexes slightly beneath your feet. But he thought it had to do with the way the wood was beneath the house. We told the realtor we would meet with her at 10 a.m. Monday morning to make an offer.
And then on Sunday morning, my dad told me that he realized why the floor was springy: termites. He was almost positive that was the problem. It made sense, too, because the house had recently been tented. Obviously, it would be foolish to buy a house with floors that are little more than Swiss cheese.
My reaction when I heard this news was not sadness or even disappointment. It was relief. I saw that I just didn’t want that house. I still don’t know why. I learned, though, that next time I want a house, there has to be the spark. It has never let me down.
Kyle’s newest TechTarget article is up: How remote management saved me an emergency flight overseas. Excerpt:
They say timing is everything. This is especially true when you plan a server deployment. When crucial equipment arrives at the wrong time, it can ruin even the best plans. Even so, good planning and a good infrastructure can make up for even the worst timing. For a good example of this I only need to recall our last corporate retreat.
Like what you see? Read more here.
