caffeinated.

I need to paintslashdraw more.

The toilet won't quit running water. It stops, but leaks every 8 or so minutes. I keep counting and thinking how much water is wasted. It's 2:14 am and me and Pav can't make it quit.

************



I've been wanting this book... way before I wanted the 'last evenings on earth', but I could never find it. But behold, it was the only Bolano book they had at the library. Score! The story is told by a Uruguayan woman who is wanders in Mexico City hanging with the poets in cafes, not really having family or a steady place to live, but working odd jobs at the university. The story involves her, what seems to be short-lived, but memorable relationships and interactions with people in the city, but more often then not, she is brought back to relive the event of 1968 that she survived in the bathroom of the Literature and Philosophy department at the University. The army invaded and rallied all the students (to what hints to be war and death), but she was the only one who survived in the college and lived 12 - 13 days in the bathroom on water, poetry, and constant sleep. The book starts off proclaiming to be a horror story, but it's subtle and not at all creepified compared to his other stories.

I admire her persona.. she's what most people here, would consider a staggerer: skinny, toothless, no steady income or belongings, drunk at times, but she is known around the city and is offered places to reside, but knows when her stay is overdue. He adds that in Latin America, no one tries to hide they're poverty because it is just part of everyday living. She seems to become disillusioned at the end, but is smart, accepted, and a legend to the young in the city.

It's written sweetly and screams bolano... full of all his literary reference, his own fictitious cameo, and weird cryptic meaning shit. BUT its short and sweet... unlike his later books of bricks.

...it still didn't wear off my crema buzz.. I need to feel sleepy.

Bookstore Blues

So at work, we call the lunatics that come in "flying pigs". I thought I had my share of them... from the guy in the German army jacket who wouldn't shut up about Arthur Doyle and his conspiracies or the army kid in campbell who spent his pant (yes bottoms) money on a military book that he hoped to build missiles in his garage with. Today I had the ultimate pig with wings. I think that if people look loony from the start, it's okay. I can deal. The thing that irks me the most are the sobs who come in and talk to you like they are completely normal people, until they say something that says 'I am really short of my marbles'. Normal looking kid ...really.

He comes up with a meditation book. "have you read this?".. my reply "no, but I have read some books on Buddhism that involve meditation, but not specifically" (Pretty much like me trying to offer a suggestion). Then he asks a couple more reasonable questions... How do you like working here? Seems like a great place to work. What kind of books do you like... etc. Are you hiring?...I give the typical 'No, but you can always bring in a resume and we can keep it on file.' He says, What's your name? Mine is MASON.

Really he seems 'normal', enough anyway. He asks more about the books I'm into and when I say cultural crit or things about media and society, he relates the whole deal to spiritualism somehow. I quit talking cause this dude is not making sense, but whatever. Then awhile later, while I look for a book order, I look up and homie has his right arm up and takes a FAT whiff of his armpit. Like I can hear his nostrils flaring right next to his pit.

Holy f*ck. In my mind I'm thinking maybe I should leave a memo and draw out his face and say if this guy comes in with a resume and his name is Mason, don't hire him, he just smelled his armpit. well maybe that wasn't a viable reason...

Then Mason becomes the craziest dude ever cause of what is coming from his mouth...'do you have any books on Celestine prophecy?',' do you know anything about tai chi?'... I pretty much point this guy to the metaphysical section. He grabs a stack of books, sits in the seating area and instigates on things that I say to other customers, then dares to comment on the books I'm mylaring. Its closing time and I make the announcement.. he says something that I cant hear and don't care to... he waits to be the last guy in the store.. "Did everyone leave?" YEA CAUSE WE ARE CLOSED MF*^(%^*.

Then he wants to put his books on hold that are wet from his sweaty hands... yea I knew his name is Mason. Then every book he pulled from the shelf, he stacks on the top of each shelf of books. Lazy f*(^*. Mason... wtf... smell your armpits, get into my business, disarrange the worst section in the store, and don't buy a thing. Buying nothing is fine, but be a decent human being.



Now for things that made my day... I guess a guy came in to sell his books, but since we dont look at them on Sundays, he left 3 crates of them by the dumpster.



I copped Ficciones by Borges, Green Eggs and Ham, and Cricket in Times Square. Score!

why libraries are the shit. (meaning spactacular institutions)

I also like this thought...
“the books we’ve loved best are seldom the ones we esteem the most highly—or the ones we’d most like other people to think we read over and over again.”

Back to school.

I will never in my life read Harry Potter. I'm sorry. I did pick up the first book of Unfortunate Events, which I will get around to, when I know I can read all the way until book 17. I guess this book is a bit similar to both of these series (or so it says!) Its for 9 - 12 year olds and its a great easy, but long read about 4 orphaned super unique smart children, who are on a mission to save the world from Mr. Curtain, a power hungry dictator who opened up an Institution for kids to use them to transmit messages that will eventually brain sweep everyone's memory. The characters are awesome, the plot is realistic and its slightly relative to our society, which is that most do not seek the truth and just look to be happy and content, except for select few who see past the world's shinanigans and look to save things that are pure and true. How each child is initiated is also great. The series of 'tests" are odd, creepy, and have different 'right' answers, which show that everyone is smart in their own way.





I never read catcher and the rye, but a coworker suggested these two books that surround the Glass family, who are a very eccentric bunch. Both books focus on the two youngest and two oldest children, who were all part of a wise child radio program as adolescents. Each part is written in the individuals pov and as adults, they each are articulate and intellectual, but have their own oddities and vices, which you can pick up through their interactions and conversations. A really awesome read, although its something I wish I read all the way through at times.

Now time to read school shit. shit.

16 days left of scummer...

It's really time to move out of this hole. Came up to Sf for a two day break and am sad its almost over. [haight for cds. lower haight art walk. free drinks. madness bar hop. toasties breakfast. union street white collar shopping. vintage paper fair for a vargas pinup. park chows. now time for dinner and more drink for alaina's 'not' birthday.]

Amongst it all, I was able to finish a couple swell reads...

I picked this up randomly and on a limb. I think I did judge this book by its cover (despite the fact that he is super popular), which turned out to be really funny. It took me longer to finish then I expected. I really enjoyed the short stories, more than his final essay on trying to give up smoking when in Tokyo, although his insights about Japan were interesting, they were also at the same time a bit ignorant like... its obviously coming from a white, well off dude. I did like how open he was about his sexuality and it wasn't at all over done. I don't think I would read anything else, except I did pick up 'barrel fever' for a couple bucks and will probably get around to it soon enough.

To balance it out..

I got through the first chapter and thought..wtf is a moocow...then when Stephen Dadelus has been wronged by one of the heads of the school and has decided to report to the higher authority about this, it reminded me of my private school and the trivializations of the punishments they used to carry out. I then read on through the next three chapters and thought...why the hell is this thought of as such a great book. For about 10 pages, it was a lot of preaching about God and sins, etc. ouch. But! it soon enough begins to conclude with Stephen's dialogue with his peers about what is art, what is beauty, about his beliefs in himself and with religion and faith ..it becomes fresh and very enlightening. The fact that the character denies and questions the religious views he was brought up in and studied throughout his childhood is familiar and relative.

what the hell

I feel off. way off.

Things aren't right, but there is nothing obvious to tell me its wrong.
What the hell am I doing with myself.

I started reading a couple books that I was really excited about...but then a few days into them, I got bored real bored. Why? no god not now!
I picked up Galapagos by Vonnegut and the premise is good. Survival of the fittest, narrator is a million years forward, reminiscing about the past... characters are told they will die off ahead of time... some interesting characters to start out with...then
Pooop fart... who the hell are all these new people, and why do the things that happen to them have no build up and depth to the situation... 200 pages in and NOTHING absolutely nothing.. let it go..just let it go

Then to compensate I picked up Nazi Literature in America, which is a fictional encyclopedia of 14 different authors, and the first few genealogies were interesting then it got boring too..like same format, same shit...why why why whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.This one I only got about 70 pages in and then I decided its time to let it go.

Now I'm reading Sedaris best shmeller book and its good and funny and too easy.

I'm telling you something is not right.