School is incessant. Essays pile up. Standardized tests becloud the horizon. My feet are unfailingly wet. Either my children have hydrokinesis and practice on my socks, or they are careless around water. Despite the times, Friday saw the release of Jasper Lee’s Mirror of Wind LP. Jasper’s most well-known music is on the score for … Continue reading That Time of Year You May In Me Behold
My Ántonia Willa Cather 1918 A vision of the American West that was already gone when this went to print. I love novels from this period. Cather makes the scenery come alive, similar to what Wharton does in Ethan Frome, though often achieving opposite effects. To oversimplify, one could say Ántonia is hot and Ethan … Continue reading Recently Read: January Edition
I’m reading J.H. Prynne’s The White Stones for the first time and while enjoying it, I often find myself feeling lost. I don’t find that a negative response; I have often felt that way with works that have become favorites. There are themes and images that connect across the poems and I’m just barely getting an overall … Continue reading to be warm and tired/without some impossible flame in the heart
Too Loud a Solitude Bohumil Hrabal 1976/1989 This was recommended by a friend who went to Czechoslovakia and had this book recommended to him by a bookstore clerk as representative of the nation’s literature. Solitude is just over 100 pages and reads a little like Kafka, and a little like Beckett. The book deals with … Continue reading Recently Read
Shelf of Fame 2016 Books I found particularly moving, thoughtful, or useful this year. Fiction Dracula: Bram Stoker I love Gothic novels. I’ve read this maybe four or five times. The more I read it, the more I enjoy it and all its strengths and weaknesses. Gulliver’s Travels: Jonathan Swift I had read a children’s … Continue reading The Year in Reading 2016
Last night, I was thinking about the blog and how I’ve ignored the blog. I sketched out something like the old monthly updates that Quinn and I used to do. He updated today after a long silence, so I took it as some synchronicity not to ignore. Reading I ordered The Horror Hall of Fame … Continue reading Just like the ones I used to know…
You can read Quinn’s post here. Check out The Laboratory #4! Reading V. After finishing War and Peace, I felt I had enough time to finish another longish novel before school begins. While teaching, I read shorter novels because my reading is interrupted so much by work. So far, V. is what you expect from … Continue reading Catch the Spirit, Catch the Quinn
You can read Quinn’s post here. Reading War and Peace My big summer reading project. This is the third start as I’ve had to set it aside for teaching duties. I’m close to finishing (Book 11 of 15, plus two epilogues). Slowly I’ve been catching up on the great Russian literature I’ve missed. Epic, but … Continue reading Wherein I play catch-up to the Quinn again.
This is the catalog for episode three of The Laboratory, part of The Outrider Podcast. If you’re not sure what this is, start here. Episode 3 began with our discussion of our unique failures in handling the last prompt. Jason wrote a paragraph or so and I wrote over 2,100 words of a still unfinished … Continue reading Your story has to be about asking questions, not coming up with the right answer or There’s poop on the floor: Laboratory #3.
Stephen McClurg 