Before I forget (because that does have a tendency to happen), I've been reading some Primo Levi lately. He was held up as a paragon of the genre by my law school friend in the discussion that prompted the entry I wrote about two years ago about whether or not Elie Wiesel's Night was good or not. I think I did a fair job of defending my position ( Read more... )

The A.V. Club’s Q&A this week was about art that’s “worth the effort,” as in art found challenging/difficult, but ultimately rewarding in the end. Some of the staff listed Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Catch-22, which I think are excellent examples. Naturally, I mostly was thinking about books, but the more I thought about it the more I ( Read more... )

- So we got ourselves a second cat this weekend. We went into the shelter with a plan and promptly abandoned the plan in favor of the new kitteh. We walked by his cage while he was sleeping and first thought he was oh so handsome (silver tabby with tawny points). Then we saw his name was Carl Sagan and were like, "Dude, this cat's name is Carl ( Read more... )

I'm going to risk looking like even more of an unfeeling creep for not being more emotional about Mike to all of you because I'm going to talk a little about how heartbroken I am about the death of an animal. Not even one of my pets, an animal that didn't belong to me, I haven't seen in nine years, and who probably didn't even remember me. The ( Read more... )

So Coke Panda's got to be miffed about their #61 ranking this year in the US News list. That's ten spots lower than the lowest ranking they had while I was there. But this is a cynic's game and they must have not buttered up to the right people. Or forgot to send someone the right gift basket. I was going to say that maybe US News found out ( Read more... )

LiveJournal has switched to a spring banner motif...as I look out my window and see a fresh couple of inches of snow on the ground. Blargh.

I've put The Faerie Queen to bed, so now I can get on with the rest of literary life. Right now that means some books about Shakespeare (some criticism, some history), Ovid because I think all my online ( Read more... )

I'm not sure how committed to writing about the following in a public forum I'll stay, but I figure I'll keep going until I don't feel like it anymore. Yesterday I found out law school peep and semi-frequent commenter on this lj mathwhiz78 was found dead at his house in Minneapolis. It has not been made known to me what the cause of death was, however in ( Read more... )

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention anything about the new Sabres ownership. It's probably a little ridiculous how excited everyone is to have ownership with a pedigreed fan of the team and not simply a businessman looking to buy a sports team. Terry Pegula is committed to not only keeping the team in Buffalo, but to bringing us Stanley. It's a ( Read more... )

Still working through The Faerie Queen. So much so I've had to renew it from the library, which doesn't happen to me too often. I've also not wanted to start anything else while reading it to encourage me to be diligent. I'm past the language barrier by this point, but as I suspected I'm not always interested in what's actually happening in the ( Read more... )

In honor of Valentine's Day, enjoy these dramatic Shakespearean performances about love, courtesy of Second City and the Sassy Gay Friend:

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