A.M. Homes is impressing me. Again. After spending a long time reading a relatively short, light book by Cintra Wilson, in a day I'm halfway through 'Jack.' Granted, a day in which I had more leisure than I've become accustomed to lately. 'Colors Insulting to Nature' isn't going to break any literary ice, but it's funny and its themes resonated with me. 'Jack,' on the other hand, is one of those books that gets into the gristle of human life.
Speaking of gristle, had my T-Giving din-din today. That's a joke, no gristle was harmed in the ingestion of that meal.
Worked in the morning (of course) and headed to my in-laws. We were 'hosting' but at my in-laws. They have more space, so Frau Lobster cooked (masterfully) in their kitchen: the bird, the gravy, the mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean caserole (extra fried onions, excellent), with others chipping in sides and dessert. My Dad brought shrimp to go with some gourmet shrimp cocktail sauce I had from trying some gourmet bloody mary mix.
Blue Crab Bay's cocktail sauce is good, but their 'Sting Ray' bloody mary mix is good enough that even cheap vodka won't spoil it. I'd say skip the vodka and drink it like V-8, but they make it thick enough to stand a 1:4 spike, and without the vodka I think it might be a little too much like drinking really spicy ketchup.
So we ate too much and got sleepy, our duty as Americans. I know, we were supposed to do this on Thursday, but fuck it. If Ben Franklin had his way, we'd have turkeys on our dollar bills and, for all I know, bald eagle on the platter.
Em and her cousin did a puppet show, my brother-in-law's high school 'party' was recounted again (I have a neighbor who went, who still loves to tell stories about the best party he ever went to, though I think his stories may have some revisionism in their history). My mother-in-law was (again) appalled at the legal ramifications if the cops had really nosed around the party, which mainly resulted in his pitching career in high school baseball being sacrificed on the alter of the five-keg 'party.'
When I was in high school, there was a clique who seemed to constantly be going to 'ten-keggers.' I have seen zero evidence that anyone has ever held or attended a high school drunk-fest with ten kegs. One or two is usually enough to bring the undivided attention of local constables; three is enough to bring in the state-level Alcoholic Beverage Gestapo. Five kegs and charge admission, you're damned lucky not to be in jail. I think the 'ten-keggers' were about as real as capped teeth and Nebraska Man.
I got to hang with Mo some while Frau Lobster got ready to hang with some friends and de-stress from cooking a Thanksgiving Dinner for the Mayflower. Em came later (side-trip to Grandpa Calvin's to raise heck with more cousins). My Mom skipped it because she has a cold nasty enough she was worried about passing it along.
She still sent the desserts, a couple of pumpkin pies, a pecan pie and an apple crisp, so I guess if whatever put her under the weather is food-communicable, we'll all be reaching for Kleenex and SudaFed (now an official narcotic where I live).
Oh, and I came home to find, in the snail-mail, a package from my friend in Zurich. He included a little of everything from ads for the new Audrey Tauttou flick I've been looking forward to, to movie listings from Zurich (surreal enough to make me wanna move), weather reports to scare me off, and Calvin & Hobbes translated to German.
Oh, and '100 Bullets' comic books. I've seen them, but never read them. Surprised the come with his endorsement, I'll have to read them and see. I'm a really-late-comer to comic books. I didn't read them as a child if you don't count my Dad's Pogo collections. Oh, and I'd read Doonsbury collections. Read the first comic book (at least the first that wasn't a collection of newspaper strips) when I was thirty-something and a friend published one of his own. He and some other friends turned me onto 'Milk & Cheese' and other 'grown-up' comics. '100 Bullets' always looked like fairly genuine 'pro-military' type stuff, but the note indicated it's a comic-book answer to film noir. Since I either love or hate 'noir' stuff, I figure the comic books have at least a 50/50 shot of amusing me. If it's a bum steer, it'll be a first from the guy who turned me onto Lionel Shriver, John Cheever and at least contributed to my exploration of A.M. Homes.
Oh, he also included an article clipped from a a magazine headlined 'Chuck Palahniuk Does Not Attend Fight Club.' True enough, and natural since I met Jay through Chuck. He also sent some Christopher Hitchens clippings, which is a common point of contention. I seem to recall him thinking Hitch has sold out to the 'right,' where I tend to find Hitch a bit left-wing (at times), but in all cases we both agree Hitch at least bothers to back his shit up. If he's wrong by either (or possibly both) our lights, at least he'll be wrong with some research and thought.
1 comment:
Hunnit Bullits isn’t blindingly amazing, but Azzarello is doing a pretty nice *continuing* plot (meaning you aint gonna get much of the gist of the story that has started from issue 1 – and not the norm in comic books) and occasional comes up with a real damn fine line. Risso, while a mixture of Frank Miller and Mike Mignola, does some fine work in the illustration department.
Pogo was ‘the bomb’ though.
And yeah, Hitchens, I’m perfectly willing to disagree with him cuz he knows his shit. As do you. Few do.
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