comp lit and mediaphilia
(My link on Pinterest apparently doesn’t work anymore, so I no longer know where this is or who took this photo. If you know, I’ll happily credit.)
I still don’t feel totally at home in any of the bookstores here. That’s probably a good thing, because now I don’t buy books in quite the quantity I used to. (Not that it’s not still a problem.) But it also means that I’m missing one of my main third places – the other one being my bathtub, which isn’t all that great here, either (I have to cover the drain with duct tape in order to fill the tub). I still go to them happily, but they’re just places where I look, not places where I know where things are, where I get the culture of it, where I recognize the cashiers (except that at one of the nearby bookstores, half of the employees went or still go to my graduate program). I want a comfy place again, but I guess that just comes from spending 22 years going to the same store, so maybe it’s not all the Greater Boston bookstores’ fault.
Still, though, when I don’t think about the fact that I have next to no business training, no money, and lots of fear, I want my own bookstore. Continue reading →
Posted in books
Tagged books , bookstores , boston , prague , wishful thinking
Jan · 16
So I requested City of Dark Magic on Netgalley mostly because I saw it took place in Prague, and that was really all I needed. Prague is awesome. I loved studying there. I loved walking around there. I loved eating there, a lot of the time. So much cheese!
Anyway. So I got this book and completely disregarded the synopsis. That’s probably good, because I’m not sure it would have grabbed me. But the book itself did. You can take a look at the plot synopsis by clicking on my link to Amazon, so I’m just going to jump into all the reasons this book totally, like, speaks to me, dude, and also why I want to be in the movie adaptation (I also want to play Karou in the movie of Daughter of Smoke & Bone , because hi, that shizz was one of the best books I read all of last year. LOVED IT. Anyway.) Continue reading →
Tagged books , new adult , prague , review
Jan · 08
After a few traveling snafus, I am home, relatively over my jetlag, and happy to be here. I feel different than I did when I left. Calmer. More focused. More driven. Less dramatic. Unconcerned. Pudgier, too, but that will change when I start working out again. And less attached.
I am home again, but I am not in the same place I was when I left. I have a new job, and I am happy not to have the dark cloud that was the unhappy prospect of returning to a job where I no longer felt necessary, wanted, or useful. I have been reading a ton since I got home, and I am pretty disinterested with my Netflix account and even the wireless I just installed at my parents’ house, where I am now living again until I graduate and move to my grad school city. I have only seen one of my friends since being home, and that made me really happy, and there are a few more I want to see, but I don’t have this incredible need to see people. I’ve never had that, really, but where I’ve lacked an actual want to be around other humans all the time, I’ve always had a feeling of obligation to do so. Now I don’t. Though that’s not to say I don’t love people, obviously. But it’s nice to feel as if I can just be myself and be with myself, and with my family, and in general not feel the need to be doing something, whether it is a social activity or homework or a job activity or a phone call or any of the many chores I seem to assign myself for no good reason. This is, I hope, the end of my workaholic days. At least until I am actually someone who works. And, given my academic plans, that won’t be for close to a decade.
At the moment I am listening to the new CD I had waiting for me in the mail when I got home (signed unreleased Greg Laswell album “Good Movie”) and culling through my to-read list, which has gotten way too far over 200 books again. Damn Prague for making me want to read and write so much. More and more I am relishing the idea of getting to the point where I can be a writer , one who can cite her inspirations and influences and who spends months reading biographies, philosophies, novels, poetry, whatever, all in the pursuit of understanding the themes and issues she wishes to explore in her next opus. I am finding it especially hard to delete things, even though 215 books is an impossible endeavor when you consider the rate at which I add new books to the list (many, weekly) and the rate at which I read (less than many, monthly), because of that fantasy. There are books I know that I will not read anytime soon, but I don’t want to forget them; or I already own them; or I know everybody has read them and I need to, too; or I want to read them both for personal interest and for the way they will inform projects that I think would be interesting.
Also, something I realized in Prague, and just lately in general. I don’t like to say that I’m writing “a novel.” It has too many implications, and it’s also been an unfair thing to say as of late, because for the last academic year I did no real work on any of my “novels” whatsoever. Also, it makes people who are not writers ask things like, “what is your novel about?” which is an annoying and unanswerable question. I realized that I always say “project.” Because I work on too many things at one time, and because I work in different genres and also try to combine genres. Because before I’ve published at least one “book,” I don’t think I have the right to use a word like “novel.” Do other people feel this way, or am I just silly?
Posted in writing
Tagged books , happy , home , identity , novel , prague , publishing , summer , summer reading , work , writing
Aug · 05
I completely stole that image off of Google, sorry. But it’s where I was this afternoon, and it was awesome. It houses the museum of Czech cubism, and it is the second museum that I went to just on a whim, knowing nothing about it and thinking that I actually would be underwhelmed, and instead I loved it. My favorite artist was Emil Filla . I want a print of his work, or an original if I can have whatever I want in the world, when I have a home to decorate. And the museum itself, in the House of the Black Madonna, is a cubist building designed by one of the Osma, the group of eight Czech cubists.
I realized that one of the biggest reasons for travel and for visiting galleries and museums is a completely hedonistic one, and I feel guilty about that. But I also feel like it’s inevitable. Why do we learn about other cultures, why do we eat new foods, and why do we discover new artists except to enjoy the experience? But is it cheapened if I think about how I want reproductions of Dalí’s plates in my kitchen, and how I want Torres-García and Filla and Renoir prints on my walls, and how I would love to be able to afford to be an art collector, and how I’d like to cook this or that, and how I prefer cava to other wines and champagnes, and how I want to go to Ireland to learn how to sing and then incorporate that into the songs I write? Or is that in fact the most authentic way to travel? I hate these arguments, but I can’t help thinking of them.
Posted in adventures
Tagged "philosophy" , art , culture , museums , prague , travel
Jul · 30
I find picture-taking and photo-uploading completely exhausting and unexciting, which is why I don’t do it more often.
Karoline and me with Arnost Lustig after hearing him speak
You gotta love a city with a giant metronome at the top of a hill.
Especially when the view from the metronome is fabulous.
Bars with awesome names must be remembered always, even if you do not go inside them.
It is important to know that the real Budweiser is not made by Anheuser-Busch.
I spent this weekend in the rain in Cesky Krumlov
Many Czech buildings use sgraffito , which from far away looks almost like a layer of wallpaper laid over the actual edifice.
The Cesky Krumlov castle!
The castle there has bears!
This is the view from up there.
Tagged magic , photographs , prague , summer
Jul · 26
about things the ftc wants me to tell you
things the ftc wants me to tell you
internets i read foodie and health links friends library and information science links literature, publishing, and writing links socio-cultural-political-racial etc links style, design, pop culture, and everything else
foodie and health links
friends
library and information science links
literature, publishing, and writing links
socio-cultural-political-racial etc links
style, design, pop culture, and everything else
read me elsewhere book reviews
book reviews
special features resources pour vous
resources pour vous
Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
Join 868 other followers
RSS - Posts
RSS - Comments
I am going to start a side business in being everyone's bra fairy godmother. The world needs my help.| 23 hours ago
october nick hornby copycat wp.me/pkfk8-C3 | 23 hours ago
Your Pinterest board is useless if you pin the same things repeatedly and don't curate.| 2 days ago
grammar kvetch (tumblr)
i read everything (tumblr)
if you want, you can buy me presents
my bookshelf
tweeter
« Oct
october nick hornby copycat
on rating books
september nick hornby copycat
the blog tour of miss k
august nick hornby copycat