Christmakkuh 2012

One of the most iconic moments in the original Star Wars movie was the moment the Millennium Falcon jumps into Hyperspace, and the view from the cockpit is of stars streaking by in unbroken lines. That’s exactly how Christmas felt this year; one continuous blur. Our Christmases are always a bit of a rush as we drive the width and breadth of NY state to visit family and relatives, but an ill timed project deadline and last minute work crises left me trying desperately to balance work  and family time. In this circumstance, it was akin to trying to juggle Buicks. I was so busy, I purposefully didn’t bring my camera, relying instead on my meager smartphone[i] (so, sorry for the picture quality here.)

Christmas in Manhattan (Ok, I cheated with this pic which is from a real camera in 2009)

We flew into NYC to see my sister and her husband. I love Manhattan at Christmastime. No better place in the world. We only had a day and a half there, but we crammed it fairly full. We had a fantastic meal at the Fig and Olive the first evening, and went out for drinks in the Meat Packing District, which is a lot nicer than it sounds. We walked under the High Line, though sadly we didn’t have time to check it out. One of the things I love about NYC is that it proudly wears the layers of its history[ii].

One drink makes you smaller, Old Street - Meat Packing District, the High Line[iii]

The next day we went on a grand tour, with an extended sojourn through Central Park. On the way we passed through neighborhoods in a variety of Christmas décor.

, Christmas Décor, Somewhat Creepy Sign[iv], On the Move through the upper East Side

Central Park is such a wonderful nexus between things I enjoy…urban planning, public spaces, natural areas, wildlife, history, etc. It never fails to amaze me that such a dense city has such a large and naturalistic feature at its core. We entered through the Engineer’s Gate and walked a bit around the Reservoir before heading South through the Ramble toward the southern end of the park. No matter how many times I walk through the area, the simple genius of Olmstead and Vaux’s vision is still somewhat inspiring, especially given the time in which it was developed…long before we had invented the smothering barrage of planner jargon to apply to the open space and walkability concepts it embraces.  The King Jagiello statue has a great history behind it, but out of context it is possibly the most overstatedly badass depiction of Poland I have ever seen. There really should be an exclamation point after the “Poland” carved on its pedestal.  For one of the most urban areas in the world, there is a surprising amount of non-domestic wildlife in Central Park. I stopped a birder briefly and asked him what he’d seen, and a lot of the species he named were things I would never expect to see anywhere near human civilization[v]. I tried to maintain my air of nonchalant NY cool while internally counting species.

Reservoir panoramic, POLAND!, Belvedere castle, Bridge and Archway, Lake Vista

The Bethesda Terrace is one of my favorite places in the Park. It speaks to a different time in its ornate grandeur, but also to the level of concerted effort that has been expended in recent decades to renovate the Park back to its former grandeur. The delicate tiles of the Arcade ceiling gleam like they were just installed.

Bethesda Terrace, Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, Concert in the Arcade, Park Musician

The tourist quotient increases exponentially as we got to the Mall, but it’s still a grand thing to saunter down. My wife, the geologist, stopped to admire the exposed bedrock along the way. Personally, it just all looked like pieces of schist to me[vi].  

The Mall, Skating with Skyline, Festive carriage, Festive carriage.

The normal horse drawn carriages explode in holiday décor this time of year, each one its own unique little mobile piece of flair. We meandered down through the City and then got some ice skating in on Citi Pond, amongst the Christmas shops under the shadow of the NY Public Library building. You really couldn’t cram much more Christmas into this scene[vii].  I even managed to stay mainly upright on the ice.

 

Radio City Musical Hall, Christmas Shops at Citi Pond, Shops at Citi Pond, Ice Skating at Citi Pond

After a brief stopover at the venerably NY Public Library main branch, we dashed back home to change for dinner and a show. We had booked last minute, third row (!) tickets to Nice Work if You Can Get It[viii]. It was a decent show, but our thrill of being in the third row was somewhat lessened by getting the understudy for Matthew Broderick instead of Mr. Broderick himself. The Gershwin tunes were still pretty fitting for an evening in NY, but the potential to be inadvertently spat upon by a celebrity was to elude us that evening.

Patience the Lion, Chrysler Building from the NY Public Library, Times Square

The next morning we leisurely made our way out of the City to our “country estate” in the Catskills, to visit my aunt and uncle on their sprawling farmstead in the Delaware River valley. There are few places I love more on this Earth than that piece of land and the people who live there. When we lost our parents, this place really became the word for home on my lips. On the way out we stopped for some fantastic bagels.  

Tal Bagels, Bagel Spreads, Lox and stuff!,

We got in just in time to be swept up in a Christmas party with an amazing spread, so the rest of the day quickly blurred. The next morning we caught up with family and friends and toured my uncle’s massive new solar array. Between the conservation easements and other watershed landowner programs they are involved with, and this solar array, I do believe that my aunt and uncle are about the most progressive farmstead I know of[ix].  We spent a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with them, including a wild romp through the countryside to surprise friends with carols lead by an Israeli Santa Claus[x].

Party!, Peacocks, Best Bread Ever[xi], Solar Array, Solar Array, Rama Christmas Décor, Christmas Tree, Israeli Santa

Kate and I reluctantly bid everyone goodbye and made our way across the state to Rochester to see her family. I had intended to only be there a day, to celebrate Christmas with them, and then leave on the 26^th. A massive blizzard had other ideas, and I was stranded there for three more days. Given the incredible workload I had to wade through, I ended up secluding myself in a room and coming down for meals. I felt absolutely horrible about it, especially after getting some fantastic gifts, including a restored late 1800’s banjo from my father in law.

Restored Dobson Victor Professional Banjo

It was all a mad rush, but work notwithstanding, was still a good holiday. Next time, I don’t care how much I need to do...I’m bringing the camera.

NOTES

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[i] This taught me many lessons. Primary among them was that my smartphone camera is pretty horrible.

[ii] Houston is more like LA, in a great big hurry to forget whatever meager history it has.

[iii] The High Line is a linear park built on a former elevated train line. This is the stuff urban planners dream about.

[iv] I would expect a sign like this to say Watch FOR Children or even Watch, Children.  Stating “Watch Children” seems like a creepy imperative to stare at kids.

[v] Things like Bufflehead ducks, Northern Flicker Woodpeckers, and New Jersians.

[vi] Though pretty gneiss, actually, if you got to see some cleavage. Ah, poorly wielded geology humor.

[vii] Others must have thought so to, because the same location became the setting for an unbearably schmaltzy scene in a recent Christmas episode of Glee.

[viii] Mostly because Book of Mormon, etc, were sold out.

[ix] They are pretty impressive folks in general.

[x] Some family friends we look forward to seeing each year were not going to be able to make it out while we were there. So we brought the party to them. Imagine, if you will, hearing a knock on your door, and opening it to see an swarthy Israeli (my brother in law Shoham) dressed as Santa Claus, asking to see your wife, and then to have friends jump out of bushes singing Christmas carols. In military terms I believe this is called “shock and awe”.  There was red wine involved.

[xi] My Aunt Merry is one of the most stylish people I know. She sent my cousin Mike out to get some items for the party and he brought back a massive bread-sculpture thing in the shape of a snowman he was immensely proud of. I could see the war between maternal devotion and 

Of Banjos and Men: Music recap 2012

I started out to write a somewhat delayed recap of music from 2012, but realized in the doing that I had little to say. I have never been that in-the-know guy when it comes to new music. For several years, though, as my organic connection to new music has diminished with age[i], I have made a concerted, if somewhat delusional, effort to sample new things each year. Admittedly, it’s less often a direct recommendation[ii], and a review of best-of-the-year lists[iii].  This year…well, this year got away from me a little bit. As perhaps one of the last years before my musical world is dominated by grown adults singing songs about boogers, beluga whales, and sharing[iv], I am a bit sad about this.

Deconstructed Banjo

One likes to think of one’s self as still being out on the battle lines of whatever it is we spend our youth rocking against. However, the sheer volume of banjo in this year’s picks betrays the fact that I have become relegated to the role of veteran telling tales on a porch well behind enemy lines.  Even from my distanced view, this seemed like a pretty decent year in music, with a plethora of offerings. However, a lot of the things I was supposed to like[v], like Lana del Rey (hipster Brittany Spears), Of Monsters and Men (Arcade Fire Goes to Iceland), the Jay Z/Kanye collaboration from late last year (or, “In Which Jay Z Waters Down His Brand”), Regina Spektor (Hi, I’m a thinking, and boring, man’s Kimbra) and the Lumineers (Can we be an even blander version of Fleet Foxes? You bet your ass we can) just didn’t do it for me.  Regardless, I did stumble into some interesting things along the way (or interesting things make it through the gauntlet of the popular and find their way to me) this year.  Here’s my top five for 2012(ish).

A Tear in the Eye is a Wound in the Heart – Black Prairie

I simultaneously sampled BP’s 2010 Feast of the Hunter’s Moon and the new 2012 A Tear in the Eye is a Wound in the Heart[vi] and was excited by both. Black Prairie is essentially a Decemberists side project, which guarantees some degree of eclectic/awesome/Portlandy edge to it. However, this album of what I can only describe as apocalyptic bluegrass (probably heavier on the latter than the former) has some serious chops. It mostly skips past Meloy’s somewhat pretentiously anachronistic bent, and goes straight into just really great roots/folk music. Alt-bluegrass maybe?  Regardless, good stuff.  To be honest, as much as I love the Decemberists, if they broke up and Black Prairie kept going, I’d be pretty ok with that[vii].  

Babel – Mumford and Sons

It seemed to me a somewhat of an odd turn of events when English folk/alt-rock/bluegrass band Mumford and Sons exploded on the US scene. Mostly, this was because they are a fairly straight ahead folk/bluegrass/roots sort of group who may not even know what auto-tune is, are pretty much guaranteed to represent the largest portion of old-timey vest wearing folks in any given room, and give the distinct impression that prior to recording that morning they may have been down at some country pub for a pint or milking a sheep or some other equally bucolic English pursuit. When Babel came out in 2012, I had high hopes for repeat awesomeness, which were mostly realized. Not as driving or directly striking as Sigh No More in some regards[viii], it also outshines it at moments in complexity and nuance of sound.  In an odd way, Mumford reminds me a bit of the Beatles…Englishmen who fell in love with an American style, and then went on to be really, really good at it to the point that they advanced the “scene” and paved the way for a lot of similar acts. But with less Ringo.

Voyageur – Kathleen Edwards

I discovered Kathleen Edwards quite by accident when we saw her open for Guster about 8 years ago.  Her style definitely has meandered between Neil Young-y alt-country, Dylan and Springsteen-esque working class blues, and now with her latest release, Dar Williams-esque singer-songwriter influences. She’s a bit of a chameleon, blending into each album to the extent that it’s hard to describe her very well. 2003’s Failer was whisky-rich and gritty like Joplin, 2005’s Back to Me  had a little more Bonnie Rait twang, 2008’s Asking for Flowers channeled more Joan Baez-y moments. 2012’s Voyageur has a distinct Canada feel to it, and at first I literally thought I had put in Dar William’s new album by mistake. However, it has a distinct voice and is wonderfully nuanced and layered. It’s much more contemplative than the down-and-out hard luck stories of Failer, but is just as compelling.  At first I was a little disappointed, but it grew on me more than I expected.

Barton Hollow – The Civil Wars

Yet another bluegrass/folky entry. I am feeling really old at this point in the list[ix]. Well, nothing to do but soldier on. Barton Hollow is a stripped down but powerful country/folk/bluegrass offering with a very contemporary feel. Its focus is on relationship discord, and it dances between delicate understatement and fire-and-brimstone. I like to think of it as Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion grew the hell up, had some heartbreak, and finally started making some decent music.  It’s an inherently intimate album, even if in a predominantly tragic way. Sadly, as acclaimed as Barton Hollow was, it looks like it may have been the last we’ll hear from the Wars. According to wiki, they have “gone on hiatius” due to “internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition”[x].

Stray Ashes - JBM

Another entry, another folky singer songwriter. I wanted to go out with a bang and list something more contemporary, but honestly, 2012 was a folky year.  JBM, Mr. Jessie Marchant to his friends, is what I can only imagine is the product of Neil Young and Nick Drake adopting a child, then abandoning it at a particularly dreary orphanage in Saskatchewan.  And maybe they had Ani DiFranco and the prime minister stop by now and again to tell him what a disappointment he was, and not letting him have any of their poutine. In other words, this sophomore effort from yet another Canadian singer song-writer is pretty bleak.  However, it is also compelling and honest singer-songwriter fare and has moments of beauty shining out of the grimness. The sound is less traditional folk, and has touches of reverby sound, like Minus the Bear covering Iron and Wine. Best of all, I found this album completely randomly; it was a free track available on a day when I said to myself “I’d like to try some new music” and downloaded the top 25 free/new tracks from Amazon.   

Others

There were a lot of offerings this year that were decent, or which I really didn’t get a chance to listen to enough to put in the top five. Honorable mention goes out to Dar Williams for In the Time of Gods, Frank Ocean for the appreciated if not loved Orange Channel, Fun. for the inescapable Some Nights[xi], Delta Rae’s alt-country-gospel-folk? eponymous release, Neil Young/Crazyhorse for their retake on classic Americana songs, Leonard Cohen’s Old Ideas, and even Of Monsters and Men (when allowances are made for being Icelandic). I also have yet to give a listen to a backlog of 2012 albums that include efforts from The Shins, Meiko, Sigur Ros, Jukebox the Ghost, Bloc Party, Green Day, Grizzly Bear, Deadmaus, and perennial fave Ben Folds who apparently is incorporating his Five again.

NOTES

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[i] Our parents didn’t become total social outcasts when they had us, they just lost their connection to the evolving soundtrack of the world. I thought in this era of interconnectedness we would not be plagued in the same way…that we would not be stuck with our college playlists for the rest of our adult lives. But being out of contact with people actively driving the entrance of new music, and no longer having the endless golden afternoons of youth to spend listening to new things, my musical space is no longer in the main channel of the worldstream. I, like most of my contemporaries, have been borne by the floodwaters of the years out into the delta, and am spinning in the eddies.

[ii] Hint hint I would love more direct recommendations, musically-inclined friends

[iii] This is hampered to an even greater degree by being a gourmand, rather than gourmet, of music. I can get excited by a pretty wide array of stuff, but am bored to death by the thought of being overly critical/selective like some hipster friends. There are plusses and minuses to this. I actually go to NPR for a lot of music recommendations.

[iv] I had intended to conjure up images of the seemingly omnipresent music for children scene most recently lampooned on Portlandia. However, I find it odd that without clarifying, that description could also fit many contemporary indie bands.  

[v] According to Pitchfork, WBER, even NPR.

[vi] Skirting Fiona Apple territory dangerously close with that rambling title, fellas.   

[vii] Though it would help f they occasionally write a Decemberists-esque song or two, maybe in a bluegrassy bent. Like a ballad about an old-timey banjo man bemoaning the loss of his wife/sheep during the Whiskey Rebellion.

[viii] Like its dark, allusion-heavy, driving tone, and reliance on strength of message through repetition.

[ix] Even worse, this was released in 2011. I’m counting it for the purposes of this list because I picked it up in 2012, and because they may not be around any longer.

[x] Which would also make a good title for the next Fiona Apple release…

[xi] Which managed to be a surprisingly strong blend of Vampire Weekend and every pep rally you’ve ever been to.

My year in books

When I was young I devoured books. My mother told me I taught myself to read...that she found me reading a book one day, and that was that. I'm not sure if that's true or sentimental apocraphya, but a lot of my childhood found me either wandering our land, with my nose stuck in a book, or both simultaneosly. Sadly, adulthood demands its compromises with bellowing voice. I have a hard time setting aside blocks of time to read, and it seems so frustrating that reading almost becomes a chore to schedule. And at least for me, my imagination isn't as immersive as it seemed like it was as a kid. But I still enjoy reading, even if it tends to come in four page spurts every night before I turn off the light.

For the last several years, my friend Joel has provided a summary of the books he'd read in the previous year. The sheer volume of books he reads consistently makes me wonder whether he's either cloned himself, or never leaves the house. Seeing as I know from his fantastic sojourns around Tennessee that the latter isn't true, I remain with no other option than to believe the former. (I for one welcome our new overlord and his unholy clone army). Anyway, this year he read 74 books. Not only that, but he accompanied his post with some his amazing photography. I'm almost ashamed to make this post after reading his, but such is life. I hope he find this the sincerest form of flattery as I blatantly mimic his post again this year, picking some shots from the year that somehow match my paltry list of books (13 and a half).

Symbolic picture of my journey to reading this year, battered by life on all sides. And reading is a lighthouse. For some reason.

This was sort of a meh year in books, not only in number but in content. Even with three Cormac McCarthy novels in the mix, I just didn't read much this year that really blew me away as being amazing satisfying. It felt the same in terms of photography. I really didn't produce a lot that I thought was really good stuff. Here's to better luck next year.

Tales of the Jazz Age – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald is usually good for some good characters, but this book was a bit forgettable. I mean, literally forgettable. I had to go back and remind myself what it was about. It was a lot like a b-sides album for Great Gatsby or the Beautiful and the Damned.

Green light (get it?)

Empire of the Summer Moon – S.C. Gywne

This sweeping story of the rise and fall of the Comanche and Quanah Parker was comprehensive, but teetered dangerously between sensationalistic portrayals of the Comanche as soulless savages and the opposite extreme detailing the injustices done unto them by the white settlers. When the author wasn't in either manic or depressive mode, it was very engaging. Overall though it reminded me of a history class where one kid constantly has to interject and tell everyone how awesome ninjas are, while another one has to break into self-righteous rants, and the professor just lets them go at it. In other words, it reminded me a lot of Erik Larson. I find history interesting enough without sensationalizing it.

Prairie Grasses

Child of God – Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy is perennially one of my favorite American authors. However, his proximity to favorite seems to move proportionally with which book I'm reading. His western novels, including the Border trilogy and his masterwork, Blood Meridian, are for me the epitome of the 20^th century American novel. His books of the South and the Appalachians just don't draw me in to the same degree. Child of God is an incredibly disturbing book, and an incredibly well written one. As with his other novels, the place is as much of a character as the actual characters. But as with other entrees on the list, the novel seems more of an exercise in characters, and less in a story that touches on universal themes. It's uncannily creepy anti-hero is written with a beginning subtlety that's similar to the self-deception and understated nuance of Ishiguro's characters. But it just doesn't go anywhere near as far as I would like it to, while still going way past where I'd like it to go in another more grisly direction. Still an amazing work, just not overly enjoyable.

Mingus Mill, Great Smokey Mountains

Zone One – Colson Whitehead

I had really really high hopes for this book, which promised to be a literary, true literary, take on zombies. I'm a little zombied-out these days, but I still have a hard time turning down a good zombie book. It's incredibly well written in places, but ultimately just doesn't rise to literature grade. It's really a fan-fic zombie/apocalypse book with a lot of graduate-level English shoveled on top. For what it's worth though, Whitehead's style and pacing are quite good; it's just the lack of a better story to go with it that hamper this book. The “twist” near the ending playing on racial stereotypes was heavy-handed and lacked artfulness.

Junction

Boneshaker – Cherie Priest

It is very rare that I don't finish a book. I did not finish this rambling mess of a book. I like steampunk as a now somewhat passe design aesthetic, but that's about it. I read Moore's excellent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but honestly, I think that was really the high tide point for the genre, and many wouldn't even call it steampunk. I kind of got the impression that to enjoy this book, one had to be a pretty big steampunk fan...like, dress up in sprockets at comic book conventions sort of big fan. Either that or you were new to our language, and thought this was a particularly engaging clockwork repair manual. To me, unfortunately, it was just really bad fan fiction-esque drivel.

Stirred Wood

Japanese Fairy Tales – Yei Theodora Ozaki

Since the advent of Kindles and smartphones in my life, I have been reading a larger portion of classics. To be honest, this is mostly because 1) they're often free as public domain works, and 2) part of me is still making the mental transition between reading good solid paper books, and being willing to pay money to read virtual books. While this seemed an odd choice stacked up against the volumes of literary masterpieces, it ended up being an interesting study in cultural value systems, which sounds interminably boring, but is the same basic idea as reading manga and saying “wow...the japanese have a thing about tentacles”, but in more literary and less penetrative context. The fairy tales at some points seemed oddly jarring due to the lack of cultural underpinning they were based on, which sparked some interesting thoughts about how we use stories to explain and enhance the underlying cultural values of a society. I could digress into Durkehim's totemic principle, but that really would be interminably boring. What I found most interesting after having read this book and thought these thoughts, was in subsequently reading about the author/translator. According to wiki, “...Ozaki came from an unusual background. She was the daughter of Baron Ozaki, one of the first Japanese men to study in the West, and Bathia Catherine Morrison, daughter of William Morrison, one of their teachers. Her parents separated after five years of marriage, and her mother retained custody of their three daughters until they became teenagers. At that time, Yei was sent to live in Japan with her father, which she enjoyed. Later she refused an arranged marriage, left her father's house, and became a teacher and secretary to earn money. Over the years, she traveled back and forth between Japan and Europe, as her employment and family duties took her, and lived in places as diverse as Italy and the drafty upper floor of a Buddhist temple.” The Author, it seems, embodied the bridge between the two cultural traditions, which casts the book in new light as well.

Lotus Blossom

The Orchard Keeper – Cormac McCarthy

The second of three McCarty novels this year, it's another Tennessee novel. Place seems not only a vivid and tenable character in McCarthys novels, it also seems a force on the author's writing itself. Compared to the broad sweep of his western novels, his Tennesee/southern novels feel like the forests and ramshackle buidoings they explore exert a pressure on the writing as well as the characters. This is a testament to the solidity of place in McCarthy's work, but it's less enjoyable. I feel like I must almost be an apologist for McCarthy in these books, which is absurd because they still stand against some of the better American literature of their era. One just has to work a little harder to dig out the beauty. I don't know a lot about Cormac McCarthy as a person, but from reading most of his works, I have learned three potential things about him: 1) He loves the West, 2) he's somewhat scared of Mexico, and 3) he has an underlying disdain for Appalachia. None of these may actually be true, but comparing his westerns to his easterns, my take away is mostly that his westerns were healthier books for him. Orchard Keeper was better than Child of God, as it has an interesting set of characters while also having a fairly interesting story of bootlegger era Tennessee.

Foggy Treeline

Cat's Table – Michael Ondaatje

I really liked this book, which isn't altogether surprising, as I really like Ondaatje. It is an exercise in characters, but in a surprisingly expansive scope for a book that mostly takes place among children on a boat. It reminded me a bit of a much better written version of the basic story archetype from The Kite Runner. Ondaatje's more sweeping novels (Anil's Ghost, The English Patient) are a bit more serious, but I actually enjoyed the humor, even with tragedy underlining, of this book. The story of a boyhood passage is really the story of a passage from boyhood, and Ondaatje nails the changing voice of the narrator with style.

Boy and Sea

Kings of Infinite Space – James Hynes

Let me preface this by saying I work for a fairly bureaucratic organization in Houston, Texas. I know all the jokes about government (though we aren't really one), and government workers. I've told the jokes. This books starts off as a fairly smartly written satire of the unbearable lightness of being-in-a-cubicle in a Texas bureaucracy. At some point it devolves a bit from satire into over the top oddness. There were parts that were very well written, and parts that were just hard to read. Overall I can honestly say it's my favorite book about Texas bureaucrats that also involves zombie-esque horror and human sacrifice. Other than that, it had some fun moments, but overall was not a favorite.

Happy Erosion

The Cinnamon Peeler – Michael Ondaatje

This was an impulse buy along with another Ondaatje book I read last year. It is a dense book of poetry, rich with visual imagery and interwoven themes. But let me emphasize the dense. I had to reserve this collection for reading at times other than right before bed when it would have made my head explode. As with a lot of other Ondaatje works, it deals with issues of personal origin and change, and was very rewarding. A light read, however, it was not. I could have probably burned through a couple more books in the time it took me to put this one to bed. But I'm not sorry.

Wood layers

The Rough Riders – Theodore Roosevelt

Another free-on-Kindle work, this was just damn enjoyable. A bit more dry than some of his other works, but still written with that famous Roosevelt mix that can only be described as equal parts thoughtful, dedicated scholar and rambunctious, mustachioed Tyrannosaurus. I started reading this in the bar of the Menger Hotel in San Antonio, mostly for the somewhat pretentiously self-involved idea of it being cool to read a Roosevelt work while drinking in the same bar where he actually drank and recruited some of his rough riders. The Menger is a historic place and its bar is pretty much given over to Roosevelt memorabilia. Like much of his work, it's less a pure history, and more a no holds barred bear hug of a love letter to a time and place. I can deal with some of the less than PC elements, because Roosevelt is just such fun to read.

Alamo Plaza, San Antonio

Roughing It – Mark Twain

For me, Mark Twain has the distinction of being an author I admire, but whose books usually don't do much for me. Unlike Roosevelt, whose books on travel and the west are filled with exuberance that ages well, Twain's humor is a bit corny in a lot of places. Roughing it was worth the read, but you get the feeling that it was probably a lot more hilarious when things, and people, were a bit slower. Still, when he's on, he's on, and this story of intercontinental travel is definitely on in places.

The Hiking Party

Suttree – Cormac McCarthy

Yet another slog through a McCarthy Tennesee novel. I am caught between the feeling that I should have read all his western stuff first so it didn't get shaded by these books, and the feeling that I'm glad I got hooked on him first, and then quietly came down from the rush with these lesser works. Of the three this year, however, Suttree was the best. While still a character-focused book without an epic storyline, it's the pinnacle of McCarthy's Tennessee novels. The place is almost the primary character in this book, and the tension between it and the Buddha-esque protagonist as he winds his way through a collection of its denizens is palpable. The counterpoint between Suttree's spartan existence on the rundown fringes of mid-century Knoxville and the tragedies of his past play out in his struggle to remain a shepherd of his fellow men in his own flawed way, among the almost oppressive weight of their surroundings and failings. It's much more reminiscent of the “we went to Mexico and then things went bad” stages of McCarthy's westerns than the odd and claustrophobic Child of God and The Orchard Keeper. This was not an easy read though...the writing, at times, is almost as speaking in tongues as Joyce in Ulysses. What is fantastic, though, is his ability to mirror his character so artfully by the change in style throughout the book. It wasn't my favorite McCarthy work, but in terms of the writing alone, it is one of his best accomplishments.

The Hardtimes

Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

Speaking of dense, I was not expecting Conrad's story to be as dense as it turned out to be. I was expecting something more along the lines of Jack London and the usual straight ahead adventure stories of the era. While Heart of Darkness has those elements, it also is undeniably nuanced and layered. A lot of other Conrad novels don't really aspire to that level of writing, so I was pleasantly surprised. This is another of my list of “I was supposed to read this in High school but didn't” books. To some degree it amazes me the level of books we feed to our children, and the comparative level of books we end up reading ourselves. At least I hope kids still have to suffer through things like Siddhartha and Ethan Frome. (Though not Tess of the D'Urbervilles which was just straight up horrendous.) It's often far better fare than the crap we consume. But I digress. Heart of Darkness was really good stuff.

Hollow and Leaf

My list of books for this year, which is already behind schedule, looks to be a bit more promising and include a bit more authorial variety. Up next is Cather's My Antonia (which I'm already in love with after only the first chapter), Murakami's 1Q84 (which may very well kill me to get through due to its ponderous bulk), Enduring Love and Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan, The Wilderness Diaries of Everett Reuss in counterpart to the Journals of Lewis and Clark, and the new Justin Cronin novel. We'll see what else comes along...