"They've built their nests..."

...in the chimneys of my heart, those swallows that you lost."

Reading "Another Roadside Attraction." I've read Tom Robbins before, but I never considered him one to risk a passage so nakedly romantic. Or am I misunderstanding it? Maybe the all his shenanigans are simply covering that vulnerability. There was, you know, the whole Bernard Mickey Wrangle/Princess Leigh-Cheri lovefest. If "Love" is the appropriate word. Infatuation. Maybe the shenanigans are in service of it. Maybe I'm clinging to the wrong piece of driftwood.

Anyway, it's been a long time since I've read "Still Life With Woodpecker," and I was in a different frame of mind then. So I might be misinterpreting things. But anyhoo. This moved me.

Out of Touch.

I review Brandon Tietz's forthcoming novel Out of Touch here. Click, and enjoy.




When you're done clicking and enjoying, purchase it from the intersphere, perhaps here. Here as well.

This post is abbreviated because my hands are cold and I've been typing for a while now and my thermostat is set @ 59 degrees because I am cheap and I am afraid the world will run out of fossil fuels and I'm not having that on my head, no sir.

How Some People Like Their Eggs.

Received a copy of How Some People Like Their Eggs by Sean Lovelace for Christmas. A truly thoughtful gift! I can't recommend it highly enough. Especially the title story, which, appropriately, and amusingly, and beautifully, details how some people like their eggs. General Patton, in particular, delighted me.

It's not an easy thing, being able to transplant yourself so readily into another's skin, even for a paragraph. I had no doubt I was inside Patton's mind. Or at least the caricature of Patton's mind. I read this passage aloud to people who will sit still long enough to be enraptured. If they fail to be enraptured, they are clods and I have no use for them. It is cruel, but life is cruel. Buy this book.

By the way, Happy New Year. And Merry Christmas. And Happy Thanksgiving. And Happy Halloween. And Happy Birthday to: Monica Bellucci; Mark Hamill; Xzibit; Evan Rachel Wood; myself.