Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Movieland (1930)

De la Serna was an avant-garde Spanish writer who seems to be pretty much unknown these days, at least in English.  This reprint is from the always-interesting Tough Poets press; I end up backing a lot of their books and then not reading them, or at least at once, but I read this one.  BAM.  Kudos to the proprietor, Rick Schober (who is definitely reading this--hi, Rick) for unearthing all these interesting books.

Read more »

Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975)

There are two problems that one could justly raise about this series: first, that it has absolutely no sense of drama, very few character or plot arcs, not a whole lot of cause and effect, even.  There's something that feels almost postmodern, or possibly like outsider art, about this series of events happening without a lot of rhyme or reason.  There IS one overarching plot--Widmerpool's Progress--but if plot is what you're looking for, I doubt that would be enough.

Read more »

Adventures in Civic Duty

 So I had "jury duty" this week, sort of.  I definitely accept this responsibility.  The US really asks precious little of us (aside from, indirectly, WORK WORK WORK UNTIL YOU DIE), and I feel it is not an unreasonable demand.  Plus, maybe a courtroom will be like in an Ace Attorney game!  Think how fun that would be!  Well, but I can't help feeling that there HAS to be a more efficient way to do it than this: there's already a trial in progress, so the hundred or so of us need to just sit there ready to fill in if something happens to one of the jurors.  So we do that for a few hours.  There is no need for a substitute.  And then, BOOM, jury duty over.  Not very exciting.  Although--not to brag--I am told that in a few months I will receive from the county a check for nine dollars.  I'll see you peasants later!  For me, it's up up and away!

Read more »

Anthony Powell, Hearing Secret Harmonies (1975)

Welp, here we are.  The end!  Powell wrote one book every two years for twenty-four years--impressive discipline for sure--and now: it is over.  Blah!

Read more »