I wanted to pass on this extended quote from Bohumil Hrabal’s I Served the King of England because it captures the element of his comic madness. Ditie, a (short in stature) waiter-in-training at the Golden Prague Hotel and Restaurant, asks a traveling salesman representing a tailoring firm from Padubice why he cuts strips of parchment […]
Author: Dwight
I finished Loving by Henry Green yesterday and my opinion on it seems to change each time I think about it. I enjoyed the novel but at the same time I got the feeling I was being duped. The abrupt, fairy-tale ending only added to that feeling. At the same time, though, I couldn’t help […]
Awkward silence: an uncomfortable pause in conversation, causing tension or unpleasant feelings. Example Me: “I just found out today one of the guys at work had a prominent role in a TV show a few years ago.” Family: “Really? What show?” Me: “To Catch a Predator” awkward silence
We were finally able to announce that the company I work for is being acquired. Thanks to regulatory rules, the long nights and weekends I worked pre-acquisition are only a warm-up for the fresh hell of the next two months. Instead of a recap for the year I want to look at my recent discoveries […]
I finally finished the audiobook of William Gaddis’ J R and thoroughly enjoyed it. I recommend it, especially for anyone that has wanted or tried to read it and felt overwhelmed at keeping so many unattributed conversations straight. Narrator Nick Sullivan provides distinctive voices for each character. Think of it as the color-coding Faulkner wanted […]
Posted for no other reason than I watched “Seven Chances” with the family last night and the boys wanted me to replay this scene (when they could speak between laughs, that is). TCM had Buster Keaton as their feature star a couple of months ago and the boys became huge fans. As zrsio, the uploader […]
In his own words: The Paris Review interview with Terry Southern in 1958. INTERVIEWER: I’d like to ask you some questions now about the work itself. You’ve described your novels as “nonrepresentational.” I wonder if you’d mind defining that term? GREEN: “Nonrepresentational” was meant to represent a picture which was not a photograph, nor a […]
The Physics of NASCAR: How to Make Steel + Gas + Rubber = Speed by Diandra Leslie-Pelecky Foreword by Ray EvernhamA few Saturdays ago I was sitting in the library while my boys were deciding on which books to check out when I saw this book in a science display. After leafing through a few […]
Many thanks to Sheila O’Malley at The Sheila Variations for posting on the stage play An Iliad, playing at The Court Theatre in Chicago. There are more video excerpts on YouTube (see the links shown at the end of the clip) about the play, definitely worth checking out. Sheila links to a review by Chris […]
After seeing glowing reviews of the works of Bohumil Hrabal, I thought I would read one of his books. Expect to see several more posts on his works over the next few months—I thoroughly enjoyed Too Loud a Solitude. Welcome to the world of Haňtá, a trash compactor in Prague, turning out compressed bales of […]