As a heavy user of the public library I cherish the fact that there is a branch of the NYPL so close to my high school that I can go run to it on my lunch hour without even putting on a coat or hat. It seems to actually lie within the boundary of the school itself.
It's been a good month at the library already. Since Jan 20 I've gotten
Movies: loudQUIETloud--the Story of the Pixies Reunion Tour, Franz Lang's ' M' (didnt watch it), a Shonen Jump anime (couldnt get into it), Spike Lee's 1963 documentary Four Little Girls (simple and skilful telling of one specific aspect of the civil rights movement, including valuable on camera footage of the victims parents who were very reluctant to talk at first, and, from a wheelchair, the 95 year old ex-Governor George Wallace).
Books: Richard Russo's That Old Cape Magic (great beginning, slow middle, same as Bridge of Sighs), Biafra Revisited (which explains Nigeria in the 1950s was a virus that seems to be the inspiration to every bad African government since then: Liberia, Idi Amin, Rowanda, et al), The Professional Lesson Plan Book ("stop planning the day before and become a great teacher") , What Succesful Math Teachers Do (totally generalizable to any high school teacher -- a very businesslike, tabular cataloging of 74 research articles, including ones from journals in Eastern Europe that they must have had to translate! Written by a Stuyvessant High School math teacher, Daniel Jaye)
Albums: Electric Light Orchestra Greatest Hits, First Monkees album (with a dozen added versions, demos, and tracks, revealing historically but not good music), two by Talib Kwali, Lil Wayne's Tha Carter II, Mission of Burma (reunited) Onoffon, Madvillain's Madvillainy, LCD Soundsystem The Sound of Silver, and Brazillian 1960's weirdos Os Mutantes.
The only Russo book I've read was Straight Man, which I really enjoyed. I don't read many comic novels, but I think that they often drag in the middle. Straight Man did some. (In fact, it's hard for me to finish most comic novels. I never finished Garrison Keillor's latest one, and I really like his stuff. Modern comic novels seem to me to be good for a few laughs, but then they get tedious.)
Wallace lived to be 95?!
Posted by: Peter | February 12, 2010 at 10:22 PM