new book, 10 bones:

it's great because there are pictures? from the 60s?

new shoes, price irrelevant (ahem):

they're great because they are brown leather perforated oxfords. yeah.

i promise the next post will be about some crafty crafts.

trouble ye no more

Just read the most charming little novel, The Clothes They Stood Up In, by Alan Bennett. Mr. and Mrs. Ransome go out to the opera, and return home to find that they have been burgled. Of everything, leaving them with floor to lie on, baseboards to lean against, their opera clothes, and the contents of Mrs. Ransome's handbag. It involves beanbag chairs, dry humor, top of the line stereo technology, and some rather shocking plot developments. What else can you ask for, really. Read it in a day, it's only a little over 100 pages, and the characters are so beautiful. 

And here is what I did today:

bought a golden sweater. and also t-shirts, to be cut apart, torn apart and otherwise beautified.

took the PSAT, and, after discovering that i do prefer wooden pencils after all, walked around all afternoon with a number 2 tucked behind my ear, scribbling out long shopping lists. 

they only wanted to have sex in the rain

This is a quote from Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, which I just read for the first time, and which put me in just the right mood for my upcoming camping trip. All I want to do is hike through the mountains and whisper haikus to the trees. 

"Try to do it without stepping on the aardvark. Don't be a sucker all your life, dummy up, ya dope. Do you see what I mean? My lion is fed, I sleep at his side."

That's not really a haiku, 

but here are a few:

"Talking about the literary life–

the yellow aspens."

"Rocks on the side of a cliff,

why don't they tumble down?"

"The sparrow hops along the veranda,

with wet feet."

And here is possibly the very nicest thing ever said:

"It's a shining now-ness and we've done it, carried America like a shining blanket into that brighter nowhere Already."

Alas, if Jack Kerouac had not died years and years ago, and if I had not been born in the nineties, we would make love in public places, not think anything of it, and scratch poems into cliff faces, and think nothing of that. 

no one belongs here more than you

I read this over the summer, and thought it might make an interesting review. I know it's not recent or anything, and that many of you may have read it, but nevertheless...I thought it could be of interest. There were a few stories within the collection that I enjoyed, like the one about the swim lessons and the one about Blanca the sister. But as a collection, it was boring. All the characters were essentially the same person, just in different bodies. And I got the impression that every character was actually Miranda July. I felt like she was inserting so much of herself into the stories that they were autobiographical. She seemed to be using her stories to showcase her own quirks, and, if I may, flaunt them. Disturbing, funny, and insightful at times, but overall, repetitive and slightly snobbish. 

I have to give her credit for the book jacket. The colors pop, and the simple, contrasted text is bold and striking. And how amazing is it that there are four colors to choose from? 

I've never seen July's film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, or seen any of her performances. The reviews I've read match up with my general opinion of her work–July tends to have this quirkier-than-thou aura. I was wondering if any of you have ever read/seen any of July's artistry, and if you felt the same way.