from california to the new york island...or the other way around, in my case.
This morning I started reading Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw by Will Ferguson. I'm really liking it. It's funny and covers a lot of ground and time and history, but just sort of feels like it's ambling along, rather than shoving information in my face. So far it's talking about Victoria and its history and neat places...and not-so-neat places.
Isn't that a lovely thing to do on Independence Day? You know, read about the history of another country.
Of course, compared to last year, when John and I saw fireworks from Battery Park in NYC over the Statue of Liberty, nothing is going to sound that great. There's a huge chance that we will, in fact, never do anything that patriotic again. We're not even trying. There's supposed to be fireworks off the pier at this beach we like to go to, but the parking there for an event would be a layer of hell Dante could have never imagined....possibly because he pre-dates cars...no matter, the parking would have been hellish and we're used to the Disneyland fireworks. (How could some dinky Roman candles off a one-ended bridge ever compare to that?)
I did happen to catch Sarah Vowell on Book TV reading from her book Assassination Vacation. She's really funny, in a might-be-my-new-hero kind of way. And her book is about American history (you should really check it out) and is on my list of books I fully intend to read but just haven't gotten around to yet. It's right up there with Dostoyevsky. Don't give up hope Fyodor, I'm still coming for you, my long-winded, Russian darling.
So I felt like I was given a sufficient brush with the American past. Because I watched 45 minutes of Book TV. Whoever said I wasn't easy to please?
We went to see my grandmother today. After Ms. Vowell finished her reading and started signing books for people in some San Francisco bookstore, I started getting ready to go out. As I was brushing my teeth (I frequently do this while brushing, actually), I wandered across the hall into the kitchen, leaned back against the microwave and stared at our refrigerator magnets. I have a collection of those state magnets they sell at big gas station/travel center places that I got on my trip to CA with Sara in '03 and on our trip out last summer. (Incidentally, I've lost Georgia and never bought Nevada because we went through it right before stopping in LA, which meant not seeing any of the places that sell them anymore.)
As I stood there staring at my broken map, listening to the hypnotic swish swash swish swash of the brush across my teeth, I remember a puzzle my grandmother used to have. This was my grandmother in Tennessee, my dad's mom. She had this jigsaw puzzle of the US. (It alone is the main reason I know where any of the states are.) It was the kind of kids' puzzle that has a backing and you have to fit all the pieces inside it. Of course, the states don't really fit together like puzzle pieces, so there was also the outline of the individual states on the backing. I can remember lining up Tennessee and California over their respective outlines so that they looked like the only two states in a vast void of cardboard nothingness. That's how far it is to Grandma and Grandpa. That's how far it is to Fred and Patricia. And Mary Belle and Cliff. And the beach. And Disneyland.
I think Tennessee was green. And West Virginia was blue.
Isn't that a lovely thing to do on Independence Day? You know, read about the history of another country.
Of course, compared to last year, when John and I saw fireworks from Battery Park in NYC over the Statue of Liberty, nothing is going to sound that great. There's a huge chance that we will, in fact, never do anything that patriotic again. We're not even trying. There's supposed to be fireworks off the pier at this beach we like to go to, but the parking there for an event would be a layer of hell Dante could have never imagined....possibly because he pre-dates cars...no matter, the parking would have been hellish and we're used to the Disneyland fireworks. (How could some dinky Roman candles off a one-ended bridge ever compare to that?)
I did happen to catch Sarah Vowell on Book TV reading from her book Assassination Vacation. She's really funny, in a might-be-my-new-hero kind of way. And her book is about American history (you should really check it out) and is on my list of books I fully intend to read but just haven't gotten around to yet. It's right up there with Dostoyevsky. Don't give up hope Fyodor, I'm still coming for you, my long-winded, Russian darling.
So I felt like I was given a sufficient brush with the American past. Because I watched 45 minutes of Book TV. Whoever said I wasn't easy to please?
We went to see my grandmother today. After Ms. Vowell finished her reading and started signing books for people in some San Francisco bookstore, I started getting ready to go out. As I was brushing my teeth (I frequently do this while brushing, actually), I wandered across the hall into the kitchen, leaned back against the microwave and stared at our refrigerator magnets. I have a collection of those state magnets they sell at big gas station/travel center places that I got on my trip to CA with Sara in '03 and on our trip out last summer. (Incidentally, I've lost Georgia and never bought Nevada because we went through it right before stopping in LA, which meant not seeing any of the places that sell them anymore.)
As I stood there staring at my broken map, listening to the hypnotic swish swash swish swash of the brush across my teeth, I remember a puzzle my grandmother used to have. This was my grandmother in Tennessee, my dad's mom. She had this jigsaw puzzle of the US. (It alone is the main reason I know where any of the states are.) It was the kind of kids' puzzle that has a backing and you have to fit all the pieces inside it. Of course, the states don't really fit together like puzzle pieces, so there was also the outline of the individual states on the backing. I can remember lining up Tennessee and California over their respective outlines so that they looked like the only two states in a vast void of cardboard nothingness. That's how far it is to Grandma and Grandpa. That's how far it is to Fred and Patricia. And Mary Belle and Cliff. And the beach. And Disneyland.
I think Tennessee was green. And West Virginia was blue.
Labels: books.
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