Visiting with Old Friends

As my to-read pile dwindles, I've been compiling a list of books that I intend to re-read in 2011.

1. The Dark Tower series - A long time favorite of mine, I've been thinking about re-reading the Dark Tower off and on for years.  I've read and re-read the first four countless times.  In April, I'll be walking the long road to the Tower once again.
2. The Elric saga - Michael Moorcock's albino with the soul-sucking sword is another series that I've been dying to re-read.  In fact, I discovered it during the long drought between Wizard in Glass and Wolves of the Calla.  I'll be re-reading the original books, not Fortress of the Pearl or any of the lesser Elric books that followed.
3. Perdido Street Station - China Mieville's new weird masterpiece has been begging for a re-read almost since I closed it the first time.  Like the other books on this list, I'm anxious to write a review on Goodreads while it's still fresh in my mind instead of being blurred by the passage of years.
4. The Earthsea Trilogy - Ursula LeGuin's tale of a young man's journey through his magical career is a book I wish I would have read a decade before I actually did.  Ged's passage through life is one I'm eager to experience for the second time.

Those are the volumes I've identified so far.  Others that I'm considering are Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, and Dashielle Hammet's Red Harvest.  We'll see how things go down.

Barbed Wire and Testicles Don't Mix

Catchy title, no?  I thought of it today while I was straddling the top strand of a barbed wire fence while walking in the woods with my dog.  Luckily, there was no mixing. 

Belle and I got a good walk in this morning.  I took some hawk pictures I'm fairly happy with (forthcoming) and Belle got to visit one of her vast pieces of territory that doesn't lie within the confines of our neighborhood.  I also availed myself of my parents' kitchen in their absence and made a bacon and apple butter sandwich.

I also entitled this entry This Flea Market Might Actually HAVE Fleas.  Here's why:
When I was a kid, the Pevely Flea Market was a magical place where a kid could score piles of old comics at the standard 25 cents each or 5/$1.00 price.  Many a summer Sunday saw me pile into the car with my brother, my mom, and Grandma Schwent.  I'd go in armed with ten bucks and return with a stack of comics and entertainment for a week's worth of lazy summer afternoons.

The decline of the Pevely Flea Market started when they erected a building in the center.  Instead  of being a communal yard sale where people could ditch things cluttering their basement, the Flea Market suddenly became a place where people were trying to actually make money.  It has been in a state of decay ever since.

Yesterday, I had some time to kill and visited it.  Apart from the accursed buildings, it was a ghost town.  I entered the buildings and it immediately reminded me of Bartertown from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.   Gone were all the deals, replaced by bottom feeders trying to sell used DVDs for fifteen bucks.  Sadly, Tina Turner was nowhere to be seen.

Definitely feels like Friday

It seems like this week is taking forever.  I cursed this morning when I remembered it was only Thursday.

I'm slowly emerging from my post-Hyperion funk.  I picked up the first omnibus in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun yesterday.  I tried reading it a few years ago but circumstances got in the way and I abandoned it.  It's going good so far.  I'd forgotten how dense Gene Wolfe's prose was.  Once I get a little more distance from Hyperion, I'm going to put on my writing hat once again.

Belle apparently has a potential suitor, a pity since she's both spayed and hates most other dogs.  The strange old lady that lives at the top of the road told me yesterday her dog tries to escape her gaze and go up to the road every day around 4:45, the time I take Belle on the second half of her territorial survey.  The dog's name is Hannah.  I didn't ask why the woman would name her male dog Hannah.  I'll save that for another time.  In the mean time, she assured me he's all male.

Who would anyone steal that?

For about fifteen years, a lone yucca plant has grown in the rocky diaspora along the top of my road, presumably the product of a bird depositing a yucca seed there.  Last night, it was gone, dug up by person or persons unknown.

Why would anyone dig up the yucca plant?  It's not as if yucca is hard to come by.  If they're trying to help the environment, they should look in the belt of woods between 55 and Concord.  Yucca plants have been running wild there for years.  I might have to launch an investigation when I get home from work.

Post-Hyperion Funk

I finished the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons yesterday. I haven't been so engaged by an epic since The Dark Tower ended. The Cantos are now one of my measuring stick works, the ones I judge subsequent books against. Now I'm having trouble getting interested in any of the books on my to-read pile. None of them feature The Shrike, The Ousters, or seven pilgrims traveling to the Tombs of Time.


In other news, a couple months ago I added a security question to my Goodreaeds profile to cut down on the riffraff, most of which are too lazy to type anything in the message field. My security question is "What is your favorite insect?" The answers haven't been very varied. The overwhelming answer is praying mantis. I'd say out of the twenty requests I've gotten since adding the security question, fourteen have been praying mantis. Others range from scarab beetle to dragonfly, although one answer was a Kafka reference and my favorite was "I'm too busy killing them to see what kind they are."

Isn't it too early for this?

I was sitting outside and reading Fall of Hyperion during my lunch break when I felt something tickle my hand.  I looked to find a tiny black spider crawling on it.  I blew it off and returned to reading.  Isn't it too early in the year for the creepy crawlies to be emerging from their winter hiding places?

As I mentioned early this week, The Hyperion Cantos is phenomenal.  I haven't felt this attached to a story since reading the final three Dark Tower books.

In other news, I visited my Grandma in the hospital yesterday for the second time since she had her stroke.  She's doing really well, about 1000 times better than last week.  She still has trouble with names and finding the right words.  Her swearing procificiency has improved dramatically, though.  She said shit three times and damn it at least ten.  And she's good at using her Grandma catchphrases like "forever more," "bless your heart," and "I'll be darned."  It's good to see her progressing.  I was there about three hours until she made everyone leave so she could watch Dukes of Hazzard with my Grandpa on CMT.

The junk atop my bookcase... and more junk I'd like to have there

From left to right, top shelf:

1. A replica of the 1960's Batmobile
2. A spent shell casing from some WWII artillery
3. My Pedro of Los Straitjackets mask
4. My WWII era gas mask, courtesy of a trade to Don Kincaid for a metal detector and a book about samurai philosophy
5. A samurai statue from Garden Ridge
6. A small white box containing a trilobite fossil from last year's rock swap
7. A post card from the Superman museum
8. two microbrew bottles that look like medicine bottles from the 1800's
9. A mug depicting a man picking his nose
10. My memento box

Second shelf:

1. Futurama postcard
2. Stegosaurus and T-Rex Carrie gave me for Valentine's Day in 2009
3. Triceratops and Brontosaurus, same source

Crap I'd like to display on my bookcase:

1. Rusty old lantern or carbide lamp
2. Clunky, steampunkish welding goggles
3. Large fossil or geode
4. The other four Los Straitjackets masks