• The Lacunaby Barbara Kingsolver – I was a bit upset that this didn’t win in TMN’s Tournament of Books. I’ve read parts of this here and there but I haven’t had time to finish it. (For the record, I was also upset that Let The Great World Spin didn’t win.) Barbara Kingsolver just won the Orange Prize for The Lacuna and from what I’ve read so far, it was definitely deserved.
• Citrus County by John Brandon – I’m currently reading this for therumpus.net Book Club. I’m more than halfway through the book and I’m certainly intrigued by it. I’ll be posting a review as soon as I’m done.
• Big Machine by Victor LaValle – This is LaValle’s second novel and has some sci-fi themes. This has been recommended to me by a few different people and I’ve also seen it on a few summer reading lists.
• The Turn of The Screw by Henry James – I’ve read this before but I recently picked up a copy and decided I needed to read it before I would be able to put it away on my bookshelf. This is one of those “you absolutely have to read” books. Not kidding. At all.
• The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Flaming – More Sci-Fi. Fiction somewhat based on early 20th Century history? Time Travel? Yes, please. I’ve heard and read both good and bad reviews for The Kingdom of Ohio and I’m not very hopeful that I’ll enjoy it. I’m determined to give it a go though.
• Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel – I loved The Life of Pi and I’ve been trying really hard to avoid all the bad hype surrounding Beatrice and Virgil. I’m hoping this wasn’t a waste of money…

I have other books that I’ll be reading. The next selection in the Book Club ships soon so I will be throwing in a review of that at some point.

What is on your summer reading list or what are you currently reading?

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If all works well, you should be seeing the photoset I’ve started on Flickr. If, for some reason, you can’t see it, click here and you can see the set on Flickr.

She was born on 5/6/2010 at 8:56 PM. She weighed in at 7lbs 2.5oz. She was 20 inches long! I’m super excited to be an uncle!

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Read

I finished reading Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky. It was…I don’t even know how to explain it. It isn’t really a book, a novel; it’s just one giant, continuous interview. It wasn’t anything spectacular, taken by itself, but given that the interview is with DFW, it was amazing. It’s amazing and wonderful, confusing, and really hard to describe. You get some pretty interesting insight into Infinite Jest and what DFW was going through and thinking about while writing it, but you also get some inside info on his other works. I think it is just awesome to be able to see DFW as a normal guy, even though he’s a really fucking brilliant guy.

I also caught up on my stack of The New Yorker. I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t even had time to enjoy any of them, but I was finally able to get all caught up. I’m really glad that I didn’t have to give up my subscription when I moved to the boonies, even though I had to stop getting The New York Times. It’s rare to find a NYT around here, even on Sundays. When I do happen to find one, I usually grab it as fast as I can and run home, my inhaler hitting my lips as soon as I walk into my apartment and then I sprawl out on the living room floor absorbing every awesome detail of the Sunday NYT. I haven’t found one in awhile though.

I also caught up on my subscription to Popular Science. I like indulging the science geek in me, especially if there is something along the lines of particle/quantum physics in there, which isn’t as rare as one might think.

I’ve also started reading a new book.

I’m only 30+ pages in and I’m already in love with Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann. I don’t know why I didn’t buy this sooner; it has been on my list of books to read for almost a year, maybe more, but I just recently picked it up after it lost in TMN’sTournament of Books. I’m still a bit bitter that Wolf Hall won because I did not really enjoy that at all. I still have to read The Lacuna; it is currently sitting in my duffel bag, untouched since I stashed it in there before my last trip to my parent’s house a few weekends ago.

I just name dropped a lot of stuff so if you can’t get some suggestions from that, maybe you all should just come over and browse through my bookshelf.

What’s on your reading lists? What did you read this weekend? I’m trying to find some interesting non-fiction to read since most of my reading list is filled with fiction. I think the David Lipsky book has been the only non-fiction I’ve read since last year. Any suggestions?

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The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano (Cover)

The Savage Detectives follows two experimental poets, Ulises Lima and Arturo Bolano, during the 70s in Mexico City and spans all the way to the 90s, following them on their journey through Europe, Israel, and back to Europe. It isn’t just about the two poets, but more about the poetry movement that they are considered the leaders of, “visceral realism.” The novel is filled with characters who live and breathe poetry. Their poetry is about their chaotic lives, the chaotic world around them. The novel features dozens of narrators, which can sometimes get confusing if you aren’t keeping track (this is why I keep a reading journal) and names of famous poets are dropped everywhere.

Within the vast ocean of poetry, he identified various currents: faggots, queers, sissies, freaks, butches, fairies, nymphs, and philenes. But the two major currents were faggots and queers. Walt Whitman, for example, was a faggot poet. Pablo Neruda, a queer. William Blake was definitely a faggot. Octavio Paz was a queer. Borges was a philene, or in other words he might be a faggot one minute and simply asexual the next. Rubén Darío was a freak, in fact, the queen freak, the prototypical freak.
“In our language, of course,” he clarified. “In the wider world the reigning freak is still Verlaine the Generous.”
Freaks, according to San Epifanio, were closer to madhouse flamboyance and naked hallucination, while faggots and queers wandered in stagger-step from ethics to aesthetics and back again. Cernuda, dear Cernuda, was a nymph, and at moments of great bitterness, a faggot, whereas Guillén, Alexaindre, and Alberti could be considered a sissy, a butch, and a queer, respectively. As a general rule, poets like Carlos Pellicer were butches, while poets like Tablada, Novo, and Renato Leduc were sissies. In fact, there was a dearth of faggots in Mexican poetry….

The book is broken into three parts. The first part is narrated by Juan Madero, one of the members of the Visceral Realist movement, as he first meets Lima and Bolano and the rest of the members associated with the movement. The second part is a series of first-person “interviews” that follows Lima and Bolano on their journeys through Europe and Israel. The third part is a journal kept by Juan Madero, following a quest to find Cesarea Tinajero in a remote Mexican town. This section brings us back to the 70s, right before Lima and Bolano left Mexico.

After reading Infinite Jest and working my way through 2666, the 600 pages of The Savage Detectives didn’t bother me. It was an interesting read and worth my time, even though it took me months to finish.

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I have a love for reading, verging on obsession, and if I’m not reading something I find myself feeling lost. I always carry at least one book with me everywhere I go, I also carry at least two journals. This might be considered a problem, or it might just mean that I’m anal and like to write things down.

This week I am going to buy the below books. I suggest you check them out as well.

Beatrice and Virgil: A Novel by Yann Martel

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky

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Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky

In his introduction to “Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself,” Lipsky writes that when he pulled out these transcripts a year after Wallace’s death, “one thing kept touching me: We were both so young.” The text is studded with contemporary interjections noting that this independent bookstore has since shuttered, that literary publication has folded. The cultural apparatus that made the ascension of “Infinite Jest” possible no longer exists. All that’s left now are the words on the page — and on the pages of “Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself,” too, with the voices they conjure of two writers talking, talking, talking as they drive through the night. (via Salon)

Do you have any idea how excited I am about this? David Foster Wallace has influenced me in many different ways, in life and in writing, to the point where I’ve almost considered going to Pomona College (where he was teaching when he died.)

The younger Lipsky felt a little bit outgunned sometimes by the success and the teeming intellect of Wallace, though he gives as good as he gets; most of all, Lipsky has in spades the one thing that Wallace always valued most, that elusive thing he used to call “authenticity.” Both the young Lipsky and the older, wiser one who put the book together have it. He is never afraid to say just what’s on his mind, even when he knows it’s going to cost. I’m going out on a limb here, but I suspect that what was also going on was that Lipsky (stable, elegant, and confident as he appeared) never knew, maybe still doesn’t know, that Wallace must have been as jealous of him as he was of Wallace. As irritated at him for being smart, as annoyed at him for being handsome. (via The Awl)

If you have never read David Foster Wallace, I suggest doing so. Infinite Jest is a hell of a long book, but it’s brilliance (genius) is well worth the time it will take to read it. I’m currently re-reading it for the third time; I know, I’m a nerd.

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Hidden in purchased music files from popular stores such as Apple and Walmart is information to identify the buyer and/or the transaction. You won’t find it disclosed in their published terms of use. It’s nowhere in their support documentation. There’s no mention in the digital receipt. Consumers are largely oblivious to this, but it could have future ramifications as the music industry takes another stab at locking down music files.

Here’s how it works. During the buying process a username and transaction ID are known by the online retailers. Before making the song available for download their software embeds into the file either an account name or a transaction number or both. Once downloaded, the file has squirreled away this personal information in a manner where you can’t easily see it, but if someone knows where to look they can. This information doesn’t affect the audio fidelity, but it does permanently attach to the file data which can be used to trace back to the original purchaser which could be used at a later date.

Retailers aren’t talking, but there’s ample proof of what’s transpiring. Using simple file comparison tools it’s possible to verify this behavior by purchasing identical songs using different accounts and see if they match. I emailed support departments for several retailers asking if they would acknowledge these actions and inquiring about what specific information they are embedding. Only 7digital responded saying they don’t use any watermarks. What retailers won’t say publicly is that the major record labels are requiring this behavior as a precondition to sell their music.

Certain record labels have aspirations to use this hidden data to control future access to music in a return to DRM (digital rights management). The labels yearn to control where you can listen to your music and this could be a backdoor for them to achieve it. When personal libraries are stored in the cloud, it becomes possible to retrieve this personal data and match it to a user identity. If the match is successful the song plays, but if not, access can be blocked through a network DRM system such as the one Lala patented (which is now owned by Apple).

You can see a list of which providers are selling clean vs. dirty mp3′s here.

(via TechCrunch)

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Magic Hat Spring Seasonal

I had this a few weeks ago and I am now pretty obsessed with it.

Rising Moon Spring Ale

From the makers of Blue Moon. I really love their seasonal beers and this is no exception.

Brawler by Yards Brewing Company

I have never tried this one but Brawler has been on my list of beers to try for a little while now, so as soon as I can find it, I’m chugging one.

Holy Moses White Ale

You have no idea how much I love GLBC.

Yuengling Black & Tan

This is a staple year round but it seems to taste a bit better when there is a nice spring breeze.

Your Easy Lovin’ Ain’t Pleasin’ Nothin’ by Mayer Hawthorne

I’m not exactly sure why this reminds me of Spring but it is catchy as hell. Take a listen.

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United Countries of Baseball

I’m really excited now that baseball season is kicking up again. You know how I know this is going to be an awesome season? Because this happened on opening day:

Now that the games have started, it is time to get your gear ready for games. Nothing special here, I’m thinking of comfort and things that you wouldn’t mind getting beer spilled all over, and possibly some mustard.

Yankees 3/4 Sleeve

You can grab this 3/4 sleeve here at the MLB shop.

Yankees Fitted Cap

I prefer fitted caps to adjustable ones, they look cleaner and you don’t have to mess with that damn strap. You can grab this one here at the MLB shop.

JCrew Bootfit Jeans

Do not, for the love of God, wear Denim shorts. Wear khaki shorts. But I prefer jeans, like these ones from JCrew.

Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars

Nothing is more comfortable than a pair of Chucks. If you want to keep true to The Sandlot, go with PF Flyers.

Rawlings PRM1275

A true fan sits down the side or in the outfield hoping to catch a foul or a homerun. You’re going to need a mitt, like the Rawlings glove above.

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Ratio M by Brooklyn Industries

I don’t think that many people understand how much I love math so I think that I should get this shirt, Ratio M by Brooklyn Industries ($36). It could also be an interesting, albeit nerdy, conversation starter.

The Wikipedia article gives a nice rundown as to what the Golden Ratio is, just in case you are unfamiliar with it. I could talk all day about this but I will spare you the nerdy rant that is going on in my head currently.

Gasius Buster by Good Hood Store

I can’t convert British Pounds to USD and honestly I am too lazy to use Google right now. Sorry! However, you should still check out this shirt featuring a throwback from childhood (if you’re my age or older).

JCrew Fall 2010

I’ve been keeping my eye on the internet to get a sneak peek of JCrew’s Fall 2010 line. I’ve been hearing great things about it and I’m super excited to get a better look at some of the pieces.

The Field Mechanic’s Jacket

The Fireman Hoodie

The Sueded Fleece Workwear Cardigan

The North by Northwest Vest by Crescent Down Works for J.Crew

The Russell Moccasin Co. Thula Thula “PH” Boots

The Aberdeen Fair Isle Sweater

Via The Pursuit Aesthetic

I will leave you with a song that has been stuck in my head all day, thanks to my roommate for making me listen to it over and over and over again.

Walking On A Dream by Empire of The Sun

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