I’m so happy!

Sometimes people come up to me and say, “I could write a novel about my life.” I think I have committed the same act of hubris in the blog genre. I am a bad blogger. And I apologize. I am a blog sloth and my blog should be called a slog. I only blog when I have insomnia, and I have been sleeping well lately. But tonight, I’m up, so, let’s see…
I love Zoe Heller’s new book, The Believers, and wrote a review of it in The New York review of Books.
I love Roy Blount’s book, Alphabet Soup.
I realized I had never read Oliver Twist and tried to read it and to my astonishment, I didn’t like it much.
I reread David Copperfield and loved it as much as always.
I tried to read Tristram Shandy for the third time and thought it was brilliant and for the third time did not finish.
I discovered Olivia Manning. School of Love is a beautiful book. With the extra pleasure of sublime descriptions of a cat. Now I’m reading The Balkan Trilogy.
I read a few Angela Thirkell novels, some brilliant, some boring.
I read Pnin for the first time. I love Pnin, the man.
I love the movie Happy Go Lucky.
I love all of Michelle Obama’s dresses and will concentrate on them and the dog whenever possible. I’m only human.
Here is a terrific painting by Helen Wilson that’s in her new show:

By Elizabeth Strout. By far.

what could be more elegant?

(via blog.penpen.ifjar.com)

Did you know that the word MACABRE comes from Maccabee? go to LANGUAGE LOG and you will find this and many other interesting facts about Hannukah, Jamaica and bob-sledding. CLICK HERE

I, like everybody else, have a crush on David Gergen. I, like everybody else, have a crush on Fareed Zakaria, even if he doesn’t sport an eloquent swirl of comb-over. There is something so soothing these days about intelligence that is not afraid to speak its name, softly, modestly, openly. Even on TV.
Now, I also have a new crush, and so should you, on Justin E.H. Smith. He is not, alas, on TV. He is a professor of philosophy and a philosopher who also happens to write for 3quarksdaily, which is how I came across him. He is also a master of parody, by which I mean his work, in its own rareified way, reminds me of Veronica Geng at her best, the highest humorist compliment that can be paid. This sentence alone, from a post called “Divers Quaeries,” originally posted in 3quarksdaily, won my heart forever:
Hi-ho, to all those expert in the arcana of Finno-Ugric inflection: Won’t you kindly let us know how the vocative case is faring in Samoyed?
click here! and enjoy…

I have been teaching a creative writing class at Barnard, and the students are surprisingly good. I’ve read a lot of really good stuff. But I must admit that one of my favorite bits of prose is this sign that hangs in every bathroom in Barnard Hall. If this sign was in every restaurant instead of those dreary threatening ones about the health department and what it is always nagging us about, I think there would be a lot more delicious hand washing and a many fewer colds.

scotch tape…
thank you, 3quarksdaily
as always

I hope the Mormon Church doesn’t find out, but I am a Typophile. I suspected, but didn’t know for sure until I came upon this web site. click here
They have contests! Here is one of may favorite entries in the 3D contest:

It’s by David Williams. I don’t know who he is, except that he is a fine Typophile and I salute him.

I’m still ecstatic!

(photo by David Katz/Obama for America)

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