new writer, hungry games, geniuses at the keyboard



I think I have found a new author to read: Antonya Nelson.

Checked this out of the library and am thinking of reading it.

She has a short story in the new New Yorker (March 26 issue) called “Chapter Two” which I quite like.

What I usually do with the fiction in the New Yorker is read the first paragraph or so. If it doesn’t bore me or annoy me, I go on. This story is the story of someone telling a story. To her A.A. group. About her very eccentric neighbor. And it hooked me in. I would link in the full text but the New Yorker has made it available online to subscribers only. Since I subscribe I have access to the New Yorker online but it annoys the heck out of me with its antiquated simulated magazine interface.

You know the kind that simulates the turn of a page and has no links in the index or anywhere else for that matter. Nice exploiting of the technology!

Good grief. So I never bother to use it. I just read the magazines when they come in the mail.

Eileen and I went to see Hunger Games yesterday.

I was surprised to find myself enjoying it… much more than the volume of prose it was based on. I continue to maintain the first volume of the books starts weak. I don’t have a copy to re-examine but I do know it took me several tries to get going in it. I recall I was annoyed at the simple-mindedness of the prose style and the fact that there was a cat called Buttercup. Buttercup!

The movie began stronger with a different scene. I believe it was Flickerman the M.C. interviewing the Gamemaster.

As the movie progressed I realized that the subject matter that interested me in these books held some very real possibilities when it became a screen play.

There’s nothing like watching a reality show. Throw in enough bizarre stuff like Wizard of Oz haircuts and outrageous costumes and you have a mirror of just how inane our society can be.

It’s my hope that as they make the next three (3!) of the planned movies that they get nastier about the fact that the pampered rich obtuse people in the Capital who benefit from the work of the people in the outlying Districts are really a portrait of the people actually sitting in the theater and watching the movie.

I have been spending a lot of time with Debussy and Beethoven on the piano. There are a couple of piano pieces of Debussy I have long admired and played but never really learned thoroughly enough to perform: “Danse”

and “Passepied.”

I have been concentrating on them for over a week and thinking maybe this time I’ll learn them.

Last night after rehearsing today’s prelude and postlude I found myself drawn into Bach’s D minor trio for organ.

I love this music. It’s ironic because the slow movement is really the first Bach trio I learned years ago.  I concentrated on the more challenging outer movements. Again I’m feeling perversely like I should learn this music and perform it. Maybe I will.

busysteve

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The John Demjanjuk Case – NYTimes.com

John Demjanjuk, Accused as a Nazi Guard, Dies at 91 – NYTimes.com

I remember following this guy. Turns out he wasn’t Ivan the Terrible, just Terrible.

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Florida’s Disastrous Self-Defense Law – NYTimes.com

“…even a police officer is held to account for every single bullet he or she discharges, so why should a private citizen be given more rights when it came to using deadly physical force?”

FOCUS | Trayvon Martin and the End of Excuses

Bitter little article I agree with.

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patti smith: “for sam shepard”

online poem

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