Monday, Monday

 Nice surprise in the mail today. I also read ETNA (Paul Yoon) (Fabulous about a bomb-sniffing dog trying to go home), and am reading DODGE CITY by Patrick Dewitt. 

Movie-wise I saw the enigmatic YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING, and WICKER, also surprising. 

Had a great time handing out candy at Josh's house to over 200 kids. Fabulous costumes. We ran out of candy an hour before it ended, 6-8. One kid was dressed as a pimp in a purple suit with a top hat and a sparking cane. Yikes. 

Finished THE DIPLOMAT, which I loved. The six main actors are so terrific in this. Watched the MATTHEW PERRY doc, which was so sad. Also a great doc on SCTV. I can't believe they made each show for $7000 with no writers. A third one on Norm McDonald and started one on Maria Bamford, who I have scarcely heard of. This is the era of the documentary.Getting ready for THE GILDED AGE, BLACK DOVES, and NOCTURNE.

Weather continues to be gorgeous.

What's new there?  

FFB

 I only kept a record of books I had read for a year or so in 1987-88. Phil gave me a journal and I wrote them all down. It is truly a list of forgotten writers-many of them were hot stuff at that time.

Whatever happened to Margaret Drabble, Alison Lurie, Lee Smith, Thomas Williams, Peter Taylor, Doris Grumbach, Jane Smiley, Charles Dickinson, Mary Gordon, Gail Godwin, Marge Piercy, A.S. Byatt. Pat Barker. Does anyone read these writers now. These are all so called "literary" writers. There many who are gone but not forgotten: Pat Conroy, Alison Lurie, Sue Grafton, Truman Capote, But do the genre writers survive any better? My list of 20 mysteries I read that year seem more familiar. And, of course, a lot of writers are still around Joyce Carol Oates,  Alice Hoffman etc.

Who doesn't deserve to be forgotten?  

Wall Cano, FROM THE NEW YORKER

 https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-writers-voice/souvankham-thammavongsa-reads-wall-cano

A family from Laos lives in a basement apartment where cardboard covers the windows. The mother leaves one day but life goes on and the kids attend school. The father doesn't read so he is more dependent on the 10 and 8 year old than you'd like.  A science project breaks his heart when he doesn't win it. The kids already understand their new world better than he does.

TracyK 

Jerry House 

Kevin Tipple 

George Kelley 

Monday, Monday

 

I hope you are having weather like we are. Day after day of 68 degrees and sunny. I don't remember such a stretch before.

I saw two good movies FJORD and SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. Jane Austen never lets you down although the Ang Lee on of the nineties was better. This has such a dark palette.  

Reading AETNA, about a bomb sniffing dog trying to get home after the war. I could not get through the Russo book-UNDER THE FALL. 

Still trying to improve my balance at PT but I am beginning to think it's hopeless.

TV-MAIGRET, SMALL PROPHETS, Finished SLOW HORSES, which was terrific. 

Kevin worked his butt off, got all As and is transferring to U of M in January. Wisconsin was fine, but his friends are at Michigan schools. Now he just has to decide on a major.  Plus being an instate student will save money.

What's new with you?  

Short Story Wednesday: Dr. H.A. Moynihan, Lucia Berlin

                                        Josh and Kevin 15 years ago

I was in a bookstore on the Upper West Side in Manhattan when a friend pulled A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMAN off the shelf. Many years later I have still not finished it but the stories are great. This one concerns a middle school student who is expelled and as punishment has to help her grandfather in his dental practice all summer. His abiding interest is in making false teeth so she helps him make a set for himself by pulling all his teeth after he passes out from the pain. Or passes out from the drink. She uses teabags to stop the bleeding. They are a perfect replica of his teeth. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

MOnday, MOnday

 Resting up after our long drive home from Madison. What are you up to?