Some Places to Eat in Williamsburg

I am no expert, obviously, and this is going to be a tiny list, but I'm writing it down anyway, so I don't forget and so you know.

For brunch: Egg on Saturday and Diner on Sunday. Egg was only a short wait and the bacon was really, really good, plus they brought me a free donut hole. I had a delicious egg on toast with cheese and tomato. Diner was a little pricey but the potatoes and omelet (as I mentioned in my last post) were, like, transcendental. Pies n Thighs is really, really good Southern food, which I know is sort of ironic for me, since I live in NC, but the biscuits are better than anything I've had here in Charlotte. Same for the BBQ at Fette Sau. I mean, that was the best pulled pork I have EVER had. They sell it by the pound and there are no plates here. You just put it on a paper towel. I want to eat everything off a paper towel now. La Superior had some really good carne asada tacos, perfectly fried tortilla chips, and very good guac. The dirty chai at Atlas Cafe was pretty good (plus, one block away). The sandwiches at Lodge Deli were huge, very good, and contained the spiciest mustard I have ever tasted (perfection!).

On the OTHER hand, the drinks everywhere were WEAK. Come on guys. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DANCE?

Speaking of which, I went to cardio funk today, where I made the following discoveries:

-I know the choreography to Move Your Body (Get Me Bodied?) in its entirety, for absolutely no reason. I mean, for absolutely no reason UNTIL TODAY. I knew this day would come.

-The best thing about class is that moment when you're working so hard and are so euphoric (DANCE! IS! MY! LIFE!) that you realize you have lost conscious control over your body parts and are, I don't know, throwing up gang signs because everyone else is? 

-I lied, because the best part about dance is the middle-aged guy who is breaking it down to chanting ("Melvin! Melvin!") from the teenage girls around him. I mean, breaking it down for real.

-The worst part is the teenager who is throwing her leg in your space. Girl, be aware of your space! Who are you?! Molly?!

Review: Masha Gessen's "The Man Without a Face"

I am back from New York, where I met all my goals for the weekend (eating delicious things, walking a lot, sleeping a ton, chilling with my Juanbro, finishing this book, deciding to skip the Frick). Except for a foray to the MoMA (God, Cindy Sherman's art from the 90s is so creepy), I barely left Brooklyn, and you know what? It was glorious. At this point, I have seen New York, so when I visit, I kind of just like to wander aimlessly and take in some big city energy while stopping to eat brunch as many times as humanly possible (WHY CAN'T CHARLOTTE GET BRUNCH LIKE THAT? I had these potatoes at one point, and Juan asked me how they were, and I turned to him with what I can only assume was an expression of shock and awe and said "f***ing amazing". And I meant it, dudes! Juan laughed at me. I don't even like potatoes that much!). The weather was ridiculously good. I krumped at bars. I introduced Juan to Archer (you are welcome).

As to the book: Gessen's book is an important one, and a brave one given the fates of the various reporters who've previously taken on Putin. If you're looking for a detailed account of the last twenty years of Russia's history, you're better off looking elsewhere (the history here is neither linear nor inclusive), but as a study of Putin's character and motivations and how they've been shaped by and have shaped Russia's politics, it is superb. Putin is like one of those miraculous creatures--walking fish, for example--that are so adapted to the environment that produced them that in any other context they look totally absurd. Putin's personal history is one of mediocrity. He isn't particularly charismatic or intelligent; instead, his great gift is the ability to reflect back on those around him exactly what they expect of him. That's what Gessen means by "without a face"; Putin is someone onto whom others can project whatever they want. I can't even express to you how bizarre his rise to power in Yeltsin's final months was, or how Cold-War-crazy his response the Chechen situation has been, or how blatant his repeated property and power-grabs have been. I mean, he maybe possibly engineered some terrorist attacks to consolidate his power? He possibly stole a billion dollars by putting entrepreneurs in jail? Putin is basically a conspiracy theorist's dream. And the incompetence of these conspiracies! I mean, the arrogance implied by the carelessness with which some of these alleged FSB operations were carried out is unbelievable. Do you remember Alexander Litvinenko?!

Gessen's book is cautiously hopeful: since the Duma elections in December, Russians have risen up in protest against Putin and his cronies. The problem with Russia is that these uprisings don't necessarily mean much. With elections rigged and the judicial and legislative branches of the government totally in thrall to the executive, there's no system of redress for an increasingly disgruntled opposition and no checks and balances. So, what happens next? Gessen says all such regimes--insulated, out of touch, despised--must come to an end, but when is a much more uncertain matter. 

Some observations of very little consequence.

-Molly has the spatial awareness of Helen Keller, but none of the excuses.

-Wednesday is trash day (TRY TO REMEMBER).

-This weekend I'll be in New York. I hope I can walk a lot. I hope I can go to the Frick (it would be my first time). I hope it's nice. I hope I don't catch a silly old cold. But if I can't, and it's not, and I do, that's ok, too.

-Next on my reading list after "The Man Without a Face" are:

    -Finish "If On a Winter's Night a Traveler."

    -Finish "Empire Falls"

    -"Cloud Atlas", again.

    -"Backroads of North Carolina"

    -"Oscar and Lucinda"

    -"Strangers on a Train"    

I have this thing sometimes where if I really love a book, I won't finish it for a super long time, because I don't want it to end. When I was little, I would do the same thing with my desserts. I would take these pinky-nail sized bites of my brownie or what have you. The best part was when everyone else was done, and I was still working on mine for like ten more minutes.

Writing Notes

One of the things that I come up against often as I am writing is the problem of integrating historical research into a story without sounding like Ken Burns (well, the dollar-store version of Ken Burns) has momentarily taken over narration. 

I know it sounds like I'm about to present a solution to this problem, but actually I'm not, because I don't have one. I'd like to have one. At first I was thinking of doing my craft seminar (due in April! please kill me!) on the uses of setting, but lately I'm leaning more towards this subject. I mean I already know how to use setting, more or less. Also, I'm looking down the barrel of a historical novel once I finish my thesis. So there's that.

Anyway, lately I've been appreciating music I can write to. In particular, I've been finding Django Reinhardt helpful. I think it's such joyful noise...it sort of reminds me that the main objective of creative work should be a sort of joy (and not the feeling that I sometimes get of wanting to strangle something). Actually, it's not quite joy I'm thinking about, it's more like a feeling of being in a state of grace, of perfect order and chaos at once. Do you know what I mean? I'm SORRY things are getting so serious.

Now that I'm coming to the end of my MFA, which is the main reason I started this blog (to keep track of what I was reading), I'm trying to decide what direction to take things in. I've really been digging, for a while, the food-memoir-and-recipe-blog format, where there's a recipe that inspires reminiscing and story-telling. I've been wondering how that would work with books. I mean, we're going to find out together, reader. I hope you're excited to read my pointless musings on life in addition to my pointless musings on books. Don't worry, I promise to stop when this gets embarrassing (hahaha, no, I really don't know how to do that).

So excited to start Masha Gessen's new book about Putin!

It just came out like two days ago and already the Amazon reviews are totally polarized. The Guardian called it clear and brave. I find Putin and his whole weird bear-wrestling thing so fascinating. I'm going to start it right after lunch...it'll be a perfect read on a cloudy day.

PS- I'm trying out a new format with tiny images and wrapped text. It looks better, doesn't it? Right? I mean, when the entry isn't super tiny like this one.

Maya!

Even though normally I am not that into Up All Night, because it's about parenthood and who cares, Maya Rudolph's face last night was so good.

Bonus favorite quote:

Ava, on the song she's playing: “It’s an original composition, titled ‘My Love Is In Idaho and My Heart Feels Like Knives (I Don’t Want to Do The Show).’ ”

Reagan: “What’s it about?”

Ava: “It’s about me, Reagan. And a little bit about climate change.”

Review: Mindy Kaling's "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?" and music, because why not?

I loved the pants off this book. It made me so happy.

It's a memoir, albeit written by an accomplished young woman who has mostly had nice things happen in her life and who makes her living writing comedy. Also, she's a little silly, pretty ambitious, and very awkward (I knew there HAD to be a term for what she calls an Irish Exit). So, that's what's on the page. It's refreshing and just...nice to read a nonfiction book about a woman that isn't tragic, but also isn't fluffy nonsense about the three outfits that will change my life. And she even loves her job! It was inspiring, as a writer, and also as a woman (omg, feminist tear). 

There were so many little bits of this book that I read five times over just to feel the satisfaction of someone agreeing with me about things that I'm sort of embarrassed to think. For example, she goes into how those zeitgeisty articles about relationships always make her cry ('train your boyfriend like a dog!', 'a key party saved my marriage!') because "this wretched little magazine article has helped convinced more open-minded liberal arts graduates that the nuclear family doesn't exist without some hideous twist, like the dad is allowed to go to an S&M dungeon once a week or something. It makes me cry because it means fewer and fewer people are believing it's cool to want what I want, which is to be married and have kids and love each other in a monogamous, long-lasting relationship." It was also nice to hear someone else say that it's really tiresome the way some married people always talk about how much work relationships are, as if they just invented marriage. Is 'work' really that bad? "We seem to get so gloomily worked up about [marriage] these days," she says. We expect so much of our romantic relationships. All Mindy wants is a pal. All I want is to shake her hand.

I don't know that we would be friends in real life, though. There's a whole section about Mindy's rules for best friendom, like that friends should share clothing and that if on vacation the bed is large enough, sleeping together is superior insofar as it provides the opportunity to talk till you fall asleep. She's so cute, but also really weird to me. Like some rules I was down with 100%, and others I was like "hell no, bitch." Maybe it's because I'm foreign? If I had rules for good friendship, they would be like:

1-Under no circumstance should you ever invite yourself over to someone's home or party. If someone hasn't invited you to their get-together it isn't for a really mundane reason like that they forgot to because you're not the center of their universe. It's because they actively do no want you there.

2-Never lend anyone anything if you can avoid it. Not pens in class and for the love of God not clothing. People never return anything, and if they do, you will catch a fungus and die. Don't ask to borrow things. The exception to this is books, which are public property, obviously.

3-Only ask for favors in life and death situations. Even then, you should always try throwing money at the problem. Ex: You are bleeding to death because you lost a foot (don't ask me why, I'm not the irresponsible one who lost a foot). You would like to ask a friend to use their shirt as a tourniquet. First, ask to pay for their shirt. Then, pass out from blood loss as you try to tie said shirt onto your own stump, Stumpy. Finally, accept help.

A subsection of this rule is that you must bring everything everywhere, because God forbid you have to ask someone for a kleenex or an umbrella or a snack. If you're ever hungry, you will always have a Lorna Doone airplane brownie that's been sitting in your purse for three months. Mmmm, chocolate flavored dust.

None of these rules apply to people you're related to, even if you consider them your friends. By the way, Dad, can I borrow a plane ticket home?

You're probably expecting me to say that these rules seem unreasonable and curmudgeonly now that I've written them down. 

...

...

...

Anyway, Mindy Kaling is hilarious, and I'm so happy she wrote a book to supplement her twitter feed, which I am always reading, even though I'm not on twitter, because ew. Gross.

And now for music! I recently listened to Andrew Bird's new album..."Lazy Projector" is my favorite song from it (it's like halfway down this page...no, I can't embed it...what do I look like, some kind of witch? oh, now we're in a fight). Did you know it was written for the Muppets movie?

"...though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster."

February, at times, felt a little like this:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBIdcUxdgo0?fs=1&feature=oembed] 

Yikes.

And March? March, I barely know you, but I love you just for arriving. There were times I thought you never would.

In February, I finished a draft of my thesis, for better or worse, and handed it in to my advisor, and now I'm working on my craft essay. Then I'll hand that in, revise and hand in my thesis again, this time to readers, and I'll be...basically done with school (except for some presenting and reading out loud which I'm in denial about). I have to admit that my heart just wasn't in the short stories I was working on for my thesis, and that it's an immense relief to work on something purely factual this month. When I work on fiction lately, it reminds me of my very first writing class when I was 15. I handed in this piece of fiction and the teacher said "this reads like a police report." Which it did!

Aside from this Mindy Kaling book that I'm probably typing up the review for right now, I haven't read anything worthwhile in a little bit, but I'm totally on it, you guys. (Can you believe this is the only paragraph in this entire massive post about actual books? I know! This blog is going straight downhill. Soon I'll start posting gratuitous pictures of my outfits. Just kidding! I know no one wants to see my collection of J. Crew lounge pants.)

This summer, I am hoping to get a CELTA, and move someplace for a year to teach English. My biggest obstacle at the moment is finding Molly a good place to stay until we can be reunited. I'd particularly like the place I go to be Argentina, but we'll see. Moving to South America! It's a pretty radical idea for me. It's not something I would have envisioned myself doing a year ago, but once the idea was in my head it sort of became more and more appealing as time went on. I like the idea of living in a Spanish-speaking country again as an adult, of experiencing a different Latin America from the one I grew up in. So, that's the plan. Subject to change based on mood/events.

The idea of moving to a new place by myself (again) is sort of exhilirating, if poop-my-pants scary. Inevitably, I'm thinking a lot lately about the times I've travelled on my own. When I was 20 or 21, I went to Paris by myself. Just before, I had walked the Camino de Santiago with a little tour group. I had been unaccompanied by anyone I knew, but not alone. Paris was the first time I was really alone. I had like two hundred dollars in cash that was literally all my money in the world, because I'd spent the rest of it on this amazing, life-changing vacation. I stayed at this hotel on the Left Bank (I think it was by the Luxembourg Gardens...I can't be sure because I had a weird aversion to taking pictures back then). It was such a tiny, mom-and-pop sort of place that after a certain hour they just locked up, and you would have to let yourself into the building with your key. One night, I went to see a performance of a ballet, Romeo and Juliet, at the Bastille. It was amazing, of course, but when I went to take the metro afterwards, I realized I'd left my clutch by my seat.

I began to panic. I mean, I didn't know the French word for...anything useful. I ran back into the opera house, all the way back to my seat. And it was gone!

There's this point I reach whenever awful things are happening, where something becomes so awful--my keys! my money! MY MONEY! who was going to help me? DOOOOOOM--that it turns ridiculous and sort of comical. I stood there, picturing myself having to sleep on the Champs Élysées, like my friend Laura had had to that summer we'd been fifteen and in Paris 'learning French' (another time, another time). Having to fight a pigeon for half a croissant and whatnot.

I went to the ticket desk or the help desk or some place like that. And I don't know what I said to the man behind the counter, but I remember he all of a sudden pulled my little clutch out from behind the desk and handed it to me. Jesus, I was so relieved. Can you believe someone had turned it in with everything inside? I know ballet spectators are probably not the most criminal group of people ever, but come on. I was so giddy, so shocked that suddenly everything had turned out ok, that I decided to walk home. I took this long detour through the Latin Quarter, and all around me the city was so beautiful. So lit up, so crowded in parts, with everyone speaking this language that I barely understood, and then suddenly completely empty and all mine for blocks. I just kept thinking: I can't believe everything's ok and nothing at all is wrong.

Ironically, walking home is exactly the same thing I would've been doing if if I hadn't found my wallet, except I would've been miserable. I kept thinking about that too, how sometimes the difference between misery and this overwhelming feeling I had that I was the luckiest person on earth is mostly a matter of perception (if I had lost my wallet, I'm sure it would have been inconvenient, but fine; I'm lucky in that my family is never more than a phone call away, and always willing to help me out when I ask for help) (also sometimes when I don't ask). Even now, when I think about it, I feel some of that same...lightness. I was so grateful to have that whole night, the walk home, my stupid clutch. I suppose I'm writing this down so I can remember that even something that seems like a disaster can turn out ok, one way or another, and so I can remember to be open to seeing the grace in everything that happens. 

*The title of this--let's be honest--emo post is from the famous Elizabeth Bishop poem.

Food things and a story.

Oh, it's been a long month of eating junk (thanks, thesis). But I'm looking forward to cooking again in March... I already have a bolognese sauce recipe I love, but my lasagna only makes me like 80% happy, so I'm definitely going to be trying Deb's incredibly comprehensive directions for putting together a really good one with the sauce I love. David Lebovitz, as I mentioned to someone recently, kinda looks like my dad, if you look at him really quickly in passing...sort of. Sometimes I like to imagine that he's my gay, pastry chef, Paris-residing uncle. That's not weird, right? His recipes are a secret weapon for me, and I'm so excited to try this egg salad. Speaking of eggs, here is a recipe for a NY deli style breakfast sandwich. I really miss those. And chicken tacos, plus a story about Mexico city that make me want to go there!

Now.

This is a real story about the time my mom made me strap a pillow to my ass so I would agree to put on my rollerblades and skate down the street. I have chosen to tell it to you through the magic of a drawing I made on my Ipad. 

My parents were always trying to get me to exercise when I was a kid, because they are MONSTERS. They have in common with each other (and the adult me) that they're not-very-diplomatic realists and pragmatic in a way that is often sort of extreme. That tendency really found its nadir in this particular moment. I was like, "I don't want to learn how to rollerblade. I feel like I'm probably going to die." Most parents would've dismissed the idea that I was going to die, but my mom was like, "Yeah, you're probably going to fall a lot. Strap this to your butt." Hey, you know one thing that really throws a newbie skater off balance? A large object tied to her ass. Also, a parent who is laughing so hard she cannot speak or breathe.

The end.

Gonna drop like a stone.

Can we talk about how obsessed I am with the Talking Heads song "Sax and Violins" lately?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FJ8x6wnZy8?fs=1&feature=oembed] 

Because I am totally obsessed. It's so deliciously...New Wave-y. I think? It's about more than the song; it's about the Wim Wenders film it came from ("Until the End of the World"; a movie that is probably better in my memory than in reality and that I always felt would've made a really good book...why don't people ever do this?) (Did you know that Peter Carey co-wrote the screenplay?).

You know what I need to read? A really good, tragic romance. Of the non-cheesy variety. "Oscar and Lucinda"? 

We are criminals that never broke no laws. And all we needed was a net to break our fall, you know? No? Yes--

OH MY GOD, get back to work, Ana, your thesis is due in like four days.

This blog is the best ever. Not THIS one, this one.

This one.

It's so thoughtful and well-written. Kate Christensen is an award winning author and bla bla bla. She's really stupendous. 

Anyway, I love her idea for Valentine's Day. It is the business.

"Groups of people should dine lavishly and convivially together on St. Valentine’s Day the way they do on Thanksgiving. Single people wouldn’t have to feel as if they were missing out on “coupled bliss.” Unhappy couples could indulge in a day of social bacchanalia. Happy couples could widen their circle, which is always a good thing. Instead of reverting every year to the timeworn offerings between twosomes of lingerie, roses, and chocolates, making many people feel pressured, inadequate, or left out, it strikes me that it would be so much more fun if everyone just gathered around tables to flirt and make toasts and enjoy one another’s company and feast all together on a traditional St. Valentine’s Day dinner: raw oysters, asparagus, artichokes, fresh figs, chocolate-dipped strawberries… and then have a big, old-fashioned orgy. Just kidding, I think."

Read more at: http://katechristensen.wordpress.com/

A review of book #6 of the Amelia Peabody series by "Michael", standing in for all our moms.

From Audible.com:

"Not half Bad, but get a room!

I like E. Peters' stories of Peabody et. al. As with long series I sometimes get confused as to the chronology of the story [EDIT: we humbly suggest you may be reading them out of order]. In this one, Ramses is a young boy and in some I found him as a young adult [EDIT: we understand that it is confusing when time passes]. The characters are always consistent though. Stories of lost civilizations are usually interesting to me and this one was partially developed and left lots of questions [EDIT: we cannot disagree that the book failed to contain all of ancient Egyptian history, but we love pie!]. 

Really, the only reason I wrote this review was that Emerson and Peabody seemed to spend a lot of time in the sack. I'm no prude, but it seemed like they were "getting busy" in every chapter. Their special moments were alluded to in a Victorian vocabulary; the author was trying to use every subtle phrase to indicate the onset of the physical act. Peabody seemed to be quite horny, but the reader is left wondering just how did they "Do it" with all those clothes, the sand, and the baying of the camels [EDIT: RIGHT?]. Thus, it is requested that more details be provided or that their rabbit-like natures be minimized." 

Dear Michael, I love you.

The Aura

...is a really good Argentinian thriller I watched recently with my dad. Ricardo Darin (from The Secret In Their Eyes, a movie made famous by this blog) is such a good actor. Watching movies with my dad always reminds me of when I first moved to Charlotte and had the super-ultra-plus Netflix sub so that we could watch a movie every.single.night. This was before streaming. It seemed to me at the time that there was absolutely nothing to do in Charlotte, but as it's turned out there's only mostly nothing to do here.

No, I totally love living here, why do you ask?

*cries quietly*

Here it is on the 'flix.

Food and travel things.

One of the things that I read about a lot is food. I am thinking of every once in a while gathering up things that I'd like to try out sometime in my kitchen so that if you, my dearest reader, like cooking, you can try them too.

Things like Nigel Slater's chicken curry, Food52's lamb merguez, or vegetable curry. Banh mi (mon amour!) or sardine pate (for real) or carrot soup with miso, or spaghetti with braised kale or this salmon from the Goop newsletter a few weeks ago (no link? no link!) (again, because it was delicious, except for the collards it was wrapped in, which were weird) or another Ivy-style chopped salad (ol' Goopy has the best recipes, coupled with the worst health advice).

I hope you're all cooking something so delicious this week that you just end up eating it over the stove because you sort of forget to sit down.

Meanwhile, when it comes to travel, let me introduce you to the Ateneo Grand Splendid bookstore in Buenos Aires. I want to go to there.

On the passing of Wislawa Szymborska

I love that when she was asked why she had published so few poems, she said: "I have a trash can in my home."

Here's a poem of hers:

Nothing Twice 
by Wislawa Szymborska 
translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak

Nothing can ever happen twice. 
In consequence, the sorry fact is 
that we arrive here improvised 
and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber, 
if you're the planet's biggest dunce, 
you can't repeat the class in summer: 
this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday, 
no two nights will teach what bliss is 
in precisely the same way, 
with precisely the same kisses.

One day, perhaps some idle tongue 
mentions your name by accident: 
I feel as if a rose were flung 
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you're here with me, 
I can't help looking at the clock: 
A rose? A rose? What could that be? 
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day 
with so much needless fear and sorrow? 
It's in its nature not to stay: 
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer 
to seek accord beneath our star, 
although we're different (we concur) 
just as two drops of water are.

Book Review: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Hi! HI! Hi! This morning, because I needed to WAKE UP, I decided to forgo my usual espresso and take a caffeine pill instead. The package claimed that one caffeine pill=one cup of coffee. They must have meant this cup:

Anyway, I feel like I'm on speed. In the minute since I published this I've found no less than 5 typos. So the lesson is: don't take a whole caffeine pill. Maybe take half and see how it goes. I guess I should have known. Saved by the Bell totally tried to warn me.

Moving right along (because I can't stop moving)...

To borrow a ratings structure from Reading Matters, I'd give The Shadow of the Wind 3 out of 5 stars...it is (very much) a good read. If it sometimes seems a little amateurish, the kind of book that just barely holds together, it more than makes up for it in terms of sheer verve. Zafon is an ambitious, imaginative writer, and if his Gothic sensibility, his rather adolescent views on love, and his linguistic acrobatics sometimes are more of a negative than a positive, well, you didn't want to read another book about middle-class midwesterners experiencing spiritual malaise anyway, did you?

The Shadow of the Wind is set in Barcelona in the forties and fifties: a bleak place, ravaged by the Spanish Civil War, which is an enduring darkness in the background of the story. It's a story about a boy who finds a book called (eponymously) The Shadow of the Wind in a mysterious library called The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. One of the rules of the cemetery is that the first time you go there, you pick out a book that becomes yours forever: it's your job not to forget it. The copy of The Shadow of the Wind that Daniel (that's the boy, our narrrator) finds turns out to be extra-special, because it's the only existing copy. It was written by a man called Julian Carax, who may or may not be dead. In any case, someone has definitely been going around burning his books. Why this should be is the first mystery Daniel encounters, and it leads him to unravel the larger mystery of Carax's tragic life and possible death. The more Daniel learns about Carax over several years (he's an adult by the time we get to the meat of the story), the more the two men's lives come to resemble each other. Zafon's book is a lot about loving books, and about how they come to shape our lives in both abstract and concrete ways. It sounds pretty great, doesn't it? It is.

What I didn't love about the book: the characters can be a little one-note, especially the women, who have little to do aside from love and be loved. No one seems to have any serious ambition aside from the single, consuming romantic passion. And once you go evil, there's nothing about you that can be redeemed. Technically speaking, Zafon often has a character gives us some information that, though relevant, the character shouldn't or couldn't know. The supernatural explanations for some of the plot points struck me as a little lazy (I mean, a Cemetery of Forgotten Books? How? Why?). His metaphors are just awful (maybe it's the translation?). Like a fat man in a tutu dancing in an otherwise normal performance of Swan Lake. See what I did there?    

Still, I had a hard time putting it down once I got over the little flaws I mention above. I'm excited to see what Zafon does next.

Molly's 2012 Resolutions

Someone recently asked me if Molly had resolutions for 2012, and I was like: well, of course! Here I transcribe some things she told me.

-MOR RATS

Molly has these mice from Ikea. They are the only toys she has ever loved. In 2012, she wants a room to be filled with them, so that she might walk in there and bask in their presence. Wait...that's not a resolution, that's a...

-CONSOLIDATE POWER; TURN MASTERS AGAINST EACH OTHER

Wait, what?

-EAT MOR TRASH WITOUT THROWIN UP

That's more like it. I mean, if she's going to keep eating all of my trash the least she could do is to not force me to clean it up after she regurgitates it on the carpet.

-STOP SNORS

Ever since we revoked Molly's invitation to sleep in our room, she's been really paranoid about her snoring. And with good reason. She sounds like a freight train rolling into a station. In hell.

-STOP BEIN CREEP

It is really creepy when my boyfriend and I are making out and Molly comes over to stare at us while violently wagging the lower half of her body and generally drawing attention to herself.

-CACH DEERS

She's been so close! (Not really.)

1491 by Charles C. Mann

This was actually quite a different experience from reading 1493. For one thing, it had a lot more material to cover, and as such, compared to the other book, I was left with so many more questions (I guess it's not really a bad thing per se when a book makes you want to learn more about whatever topic it covers, though). It was also more...political, I guess, is the word I would use. I feel like before Mann wrote this he must often have thought "If I had a nickel for every time someone regurgitated some completely wrong-headed notion about Native Americans, I could definitely break a coinstar machine." I also have a complicated relationship with coinstar machines, so Imaginary Charles Mann has my sympathy. And he's right: everything you've learned in school about Native Americans is probably pretty wrong.

There's a little passage early on in the book, when Mann is describing the Siriono people of Bolivia, that I'm going to quote here because it so perfectly encapsulates what I think is the main argument of 1491: 

"Before Columbus, Holmberg [who first sudied the Siriono in the early 20th century] believed, both the people and the land had no real history. Stated so baldly, this notion--that the indigenous peoples of the Americas had floated changelessly through the millennia until 1492--may seem ludicrous. But flaws in perspective often appear obvious only after they are pointed out. In this case they took decades to rectify."

Native civilizations of the Americas were largely exterminated by European diseases, often before making contact with European people (diseases moved across the continent faster than the Europeans themselves), and so the accounts that we have of these societies are often those written by Europeans, and are descriptions of these peoples after they'd been devastated by various epidemics. What seemed to Europeans to be a virgin, untouched wilderness (both in North and South America) was often the result of millenia of Native American stewardship that had only recently been disrupted by societal breakdown.

It's only in the last century that we've begun to get a better picture of what the Americas were like before the Europeans arrived here. Complex societies to rival those of the Old World flourished and passed into obscurity many times over before Columbus ever set foot on Hispaniola. For centuries, much of this history has been obscured, much of it lost. Who knows what those cultures and their people would have contributed to humanity if they'd ever been able to interact in the same way that European, Middle-Eastern, and Asian cultures did over so many centuries? That loss is, as Mann himself says, a tragedy on a scale that is probably unequaled in history.

I mean, at least we still have the Mayan calendar, though! Happy investiture of Bolon Yakte' K'uh next year, guys! I hope a meteorite doesn't kill us!

(Yes, that prophecy thing is also nonsense.)

Evenings Alone/ Review: In Other Rooms, Other Wonder by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Because I live with my boyfriend, it's only about once or twice a week that I have dinner by myself. The result of this sudden onset of absolute freedom is that I get really giddy and always make the wrong choice. My thought process goes like this:

"C isn't home! I could eat ANYTHING. ANYTHING in the WORLD. I could drive to Huntersville and eat there."

*Spend twenty minutes researching restaurants at a totally unrealistic distance from house*

"ANYTHING AT ALL."

*Spend another twenty minutes looking up a really complicated recipe for souffle and writing down ingredients. As soon as that is done, lose desire to cook.*

"I mean REALLY. I could eat a raccoon and no one would even know. I could throw the bones in the creek that runs past the back of the house."

*Wonder why that would even occur to anyone. Possibly, hunger is making me delirious? Look at watch, realize it's 9:30 and too late to eat out. Get angry.*

"I mean, everyone is so unreasonable."

*Eat junk food. Feel ill. Am full of regret. The end.*

Anyway, let's talk about books. I finally, finally finished the totally wonderful Mueenuddin short stories. This book was shortlisted for the Pulitzer last year, and even though I usually end up sort of hating (because I'm a contrary, obstinate person) the books they pick, this was great. It's a series of short stories about all kinds of different characters associated with a Pakistani feudal family: the Harounis. Mueenuddin is equally effective and sensitive whether he's describing KK Harouni (the family patriarch), or an old gardener on one of the Harouni estates. To me, this ability to see people so clearly across class lines, living such radically different lives, was what was most impressive about the book; the naturalness with which he inhabited such a wide variety of characters (especially considering that this is Mueenuddin's first book). I was full of envy, because this is actually exactly the sort of book I'd like to write. 

The stories are tied together thematically as well: there's a strong current of manipulation. Everyone seems to have two faces: one for ingratiating themselves to the people around them, and another truer one. Desire and ambition are something to be kept secret, to be quietly held in some hidden corner of the self, until an opportunity for realization has been painstakingly extracted. This is especially true for the women (there's many more women characters, as I remember, than men). The other theme here is the static nature of Pakistani life. Maybe static isn't the right word...immobile, maybe. To strive for change or improvement is totally futile. None of the characters that do are able to escape their old selves, their places in the world (to which they were born) for very long. So there's all this manipulation, all this pent-up want, continually wrecking itself against the difficulty of life in Pakistan.

Still, along with this aching longing that is at the heart of the book, there is always some measure of hope, and love. Even if they can't last, those things deserve someone like Mueenuddin to record their passing. 

Some Disapointments.

Sometimes I read books and I don't like them, but I don't think that's reflected very well in the blog. I guess I don't think it's fair to review a book I didn't finish, and why would I finish something I don't love? I mean, life is short or something else equally cliche. Anyway, just in time for X-mas, here are some books that disappointed me this year:

-The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman. I want to love this book; so many people love this book! But no. I'll try again next year.

-Lord Jim. Again, I am disappointed mainly in myself. I guess coming of age in the era of Everyone With Money or Power is an Ammoral Sack of Flesh (and we all know about it thanks to the internet), I have a hard time really grasping the concept of dishonor. I mean, just donate some money to charity and issue a public apology, gaaaawd.

-I didn't love Because They Wanted To. Everyone loves Mary Gaitskill! Objectively, she's phenomenal, but to me personally something about her writing is just very... it's as if her characters are being dissected under a harsh lab light. On the one hand, she sees them (and we see them) so clearly...on the other hand, there's something about it that's a little bit like a violation. I mean, she's amazing. I just prefer, I guess, a softer gaze; incisiveness that does not take so much pleasure in the ability to expose.

-Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar. My dad loves this book. For me this is another try again next year book. I guess I was expecting something more like I, Claudius, or Gore Vidal's Julian (so much drama!). This was a little bit drier (at least, the part that I read). 

-The Hunger Games. I don't think this actually really belongs here, because I thought it was really good. But, at the same time, it's not essential for me. I don't know that I'm going to read the next two in the series. If I had to pick only one coming-of-age in dystopia book for you to read, it would still be The Golden Compass or The Giver. Maybe this would be totally different if I had read this as a teenager, but I didn't think it had anything all that interesting to say. Reality tv sucks, you know, and we're all exploitative jerks, etc. I feel like I've heard it/seen it before. If you really want to make that point, you make Man Bites Dog, which still holds the crown as the most traumatizing movie I have ever seen (that is not specifically a horror movie).

I wish I had read something I really hated so I could tell you about it. I would write something so nasty! But, if you'll allow me to humblebrag for a second, I am basically so good at screening books these days that I rarely get something that is a real dud. It's terrible!