A Moveable Feast

Had a dream where a bunch of people had "died", but could still be visited via some kind of limbo cafeteria. At the time, it was a pretty impressive little cosmology.

But then the NEXT NIGHT I dreamt I was at a table with big wigs from DC and Marvel, and had a cheque for ten thousand some odd dollars slid over to me to come work for DC. I woke up before I got Marvel's counter offer.

I thought that was pretty cool.

I blew through "A Moveable Feast" in one day at work. I'm impressed, I didn't have to fight my way to stay awake to read it. There's been a time or two where his tracts on bullfighting and fishing have been good sedatives, but this book, a memoir from a man at the end of his life about the biggest, most famous time of his life- it's no wonder it's a fascinating read.

Particularly fun were the portraits of Gertrude Stein (brilliant but lazy), Ezra Pound (universally beloved amongst the crowd), and F. Scott Fitzgerald (brilliant but sabotaged by his wife- as Hemingway wrote: "Scott did not write anything any more that was good until after he knew that she was insane." <-pretty funny line if you imagine him shouting the word insane.)

I like that he calls his kid "Mr. Bumby" and his cat "F. Puss".

There's a story about Hemingway asking Ezra Pound what he thought of Dostoyevsky, and he replies "To tell you the truth, Hem, I've never read the Rooshians." And so "Hem" is disappointed because he's excited about the prospect of sharing this love with someone he eminently respects, and is dashed to learn he hasn't read it, and by extension doesn't care about it. I've run into that kind of disappointment myself.

I'm pretty sure I could make up my mind on Hemingway and move on now, but I've still got three books on deck to read through. I've just started To have and Have Not, which starts of with an exciting shooting and hooked me in fast. I'm not looking forward to For Whom the Bell Tolls... actually wait, according to the back it isn't about bullfighting, but the Spanish civil war. So maybe that will be better. I'm kinda over reading about bullfighting. And of course I'm finishing everything with The Old Man and the Sea.

(on an unrelated manner- dude! Norm Macdonald is the first guest on Conan tonight!)

I went to see Hanna with a couple of friends tonight, it was good, with a sound track almost as awesome as the new Tron movie (of course it's hard to match PERFECTION). I still talked too much for my liking, but I was a little funny, and more importantly I did get to do more listening than normal, and that was the goal when I headed out the door tonight. But boy do I get sabotaged by the threat of awkward silences.

It's like: "..." (one second)
and then "..." (two second)
(and that's alls I can stands) "Hey okay, how about I say something high-larious?"

But yeah, listening happened, I'm pleased about it.

(on another unrelated manner- The Ted Turner bits on Conan are the best, definitely my favourite part of the program when it shows up- and now I've seen the Norm section. It was a knee slapper. I actually slapped my knee... okay, upper thigh. It still counts.)