So can we get a books section or what? It is hard to search what people actually suggest. Plus, there's nowhere to place poetry.

Speaking of poetry....


"Tired Sex" by Chana Bloch

We're trying to strike a match in a matchbook
that has lain all winter under the woodpile:
damp sulphur
on sodden cardboard.
I catch myself yawning. Through the window
I watch that sparrow the cat
keeps batting around.

Like turning the pages of a book the teacher assigned —

You ought to read it, she said.
It's great literature.

Anyone reading The Coddling of the American Mind?

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Believe it or not, I just picked it up yesterday afternoon at the library and one of his other books.
But no, I haven't started it yet.

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Just chillin' like Garret Quillin.

Was going on vacation and didn't have a book to read. Grabbed any old Kindle my dad gave me that has dozens of books on it. Found a book
called The Goldfinch. Almost 800 pages long and I am 93% done after just a week. One of the best books I have read in a long time. Came out
in 2013 and they are in the process of making a movie about it that will come out this fall. Highly recommended.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Nice book to just sort of find!!!! I think JORR has read this one, too?

I tell ya what, T-Bone; you don't mind taking on the big ones. You were an English minor, though, right?

I don't mind tackling the big books if I know they will pay off. Yes, you remember correctly I did minor in English. It's paid off big time for me since I still
speak it semi-fluently on a daily basis.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

And people want to dee-six the humanities....

I'm re-reading Atlas Shrugged for the 87th consecutive time. I buy a new copy each time, too.

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That is another one on my dad's old Kindle. He has dozens of classics and more recent ones on there. Is this book worth reading? I've
heard for some that this book is some kind of manifesto on how to live. My wife's sister believes in the themes written in it and belongs to
some kind of group that gets together to discuss it.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Just finished reading The All-Mountain Skier by R. Mark Elling. Fantastic instructional text on improving your skiing. The book isn't for beginners to skiing so pizza/french fry instruction isn't covered.

But if you're a smidge ahead of beginners like if you're able to skid turn/steer then it's very helpful. He starts from the basics of stance/balance on skis and covers your "toolbox" from there. Elling also provides drills to practice topics like edging, balance, turn size, etc.

The last 3rd of the book covers how to ski specific situations - powder, ice, steeps, trees which doesn't exactly apply to us Midwesterners. However, I still enjoyed the information.

oh boy.....triggered thoughts in 3......2......1.......

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Finished The Goldfinch last night and looking for something new. Don't think it will be Atlas Shrugged

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

I live the Kindles. I got one of the first one and have continually upgraded them. I won 2 Fires so this next one will be the first I have had to purchase myself in a long time.
The great things about the new ones is the expandable memory.At first it would not store books,now it does.
You can fit so much on one when maxxed out it is not funny. The only drawbacks I have seen is the fiddly charger interface,the crappy battery and the resale value(nil). The battery thing is easy to overcome.If I am traveling I have two portable chargers in my person at all times.

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When I am stuck and need to figure something out I always remember the Immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"

The Kindle app is great, too. For long books, though, I like reading from an actual book, though it's nice to have a whole library on your device.

I used to be adamant about buying and reading "real" books but have come around on the Kindles for ease of use and carrying. I had a nice book collection that I ended up donating to the local library after I got divorced. I had dozens of classics and other books but really no place to put or display them. I thought it would be better to donate and let the library sort it out. I still have a handful of hard cover books at home that I will one day be able to put on a nice book shelf. A lot of classics including a hard covered version the includes the entirety of Edgar Allan Poe's works.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Just listen to some Rush cds instead of reading Atlas Shrugged. You'll get the jist and you can also sing along with Geddy!

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Just chillin' like Garret Quillin.

I dove into Ayn Rand in college. Can't remember which one I finished and which one I decided "this is terrible writing and stupid". Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead both suck.

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It's most definitely not. It's a self-indulgent piece of garbage. You could read at lest two other smaller and more enjoyable books in the time it will take you read Atlas Shrugged.

I'm reading David Hogg's "I Still Don't Have Pubes"

Ayn Rand was one strange person.

Started a new book last night I found on the Kindle called "All The Light We Cannot See". Another Pulitzer Prize winner like the last one I read so I have some pretty high hopes for it. Trying to force myself to read at least 20 minutes before I go to sleep each night. Seems to help my mind relax and sleep a bit better, although it didn't work out too well last night. Anyone else read this one? Quite a bit shorter than the last book thankfully.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

That looks like a good one. Let us know if it was worth reading--gets rave reviews.

*

Here's a poem by the Gulf War poet (well, he's more than that) Brian Turner:

"Phantom Noise"

There is this ringing hum this
bullet-borne language ringing
shell-fall and static this late-night
ringing of threadwork and carpet ringing
hiss and steam this wing-beat
of rotors and tanks broken
bodies ringing in steel humming these
voices of dust these years ringing
rifles in Babylon rifles in Sumer
ringing these children their gravestones
and candy their limbs gone missing their
static-borne television their ringing
this eardrum this rifled symphonic this
ringing of midnight in gunpowder and oil this
brake pad gone useless this muzzle-flash singing this
threading of bullets in muscle and bone this ringing
hum this ringing hum this
ringing

Hoping to get into it more this weekend. I am only about 15 pages in.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Killers of the Flower Moon. Quite a story about the Osage Indian murders. Wraps in oil wealth and Hoover’s FBI.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Not enough poetry talk. Did u know Tony Hoagland recently past. One of my favorite contemporary poets.

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I am almost done with Probert’s book, the one Mac talks about. The stories are fine, quite repetitive when talking about all his binges and fights. But my big issue is the book is written at an elementary school level akin to Ready Player One. It appears he had someone write it for him, but I swear it is like a third grader wrote it.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Here, Bullet is straight

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(nothing to see here)

Definitely agree.

I did not know that. One of my favorite poets died last year before I had the chance to go see him. All the big ones are dying. Anyway, Hoagland was a guy you could actually teach to high schoolers and graduate students alike. Funny, too:

"Grammar"

Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend,
smiles like a big cat and says
that she's a conjugated verb.
She's been doing the direct object
with a second person pronoun named Phil,
and when she walks into the room,
everybody turns:

some kind of light is coming from her head.
Even the geraniums look curious,
and the bees, if they were here, would buzz
suspiciously around her hair, looking
for the door in her corona.
We're all attracted to the perfume
of fermenting joy,

we've all tried to start a fire,
and one day maybe it will blaze up on its own.
In the meantime, she is the one today among us
most able to bear the idea of her own beauty,
and when we see it, what we do is natural:
we take our burned hands
out of our pockets,
and clap.

This one of his has stuck with me more than any other. I think about it at least once a month. I have a real hard time pinpointing exactly what it is that I like about it. Decay and preservation. That contradiction has always fascinated me.

Maybe I should like it less because it really is a bit on the nose, but i read it at the perfect time in my life so I guess I'll like it forever. Like everything of his, it's just so fucking evocative. Something I strive for and struggle mightly with.

Ducks

A pair of fat, iridescent ducks
struggling to lift
from the green-grey surface of a lake
upon the dentist's office wall
reminds you of the anywhere you'd rather be

as he keeps bringing you back
into the world of gravity
and shrill, bone-corroding drills,
making you pay for all those years
you wasted thinking about

things less real than tooth decay.
In the thin, fluorescent light the ducks
look like an endangered species,
with their heavy, satin bellies
slung low above the pointy waves

but still, their plumage glows,
and you can see that this is the essential
confrontation-pain and beauty
braced against each other
like a pair of teeth,

a tug of war
in which the prize is you
and whether you will swallow or spit out
this contradictory life.

So you relax, lean back, and open wide,
letting science pave the inside of your mouth
with painkillers and gold.
But you keep looking at the ducks

long necks outthrust, intent
on their ascent
towards some distant patch of sky
which won't exist
until they get to it.

Like you, they have a motive,
they have an opportunity.

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