Month: July 2009

big if

big ifMark Costello’s novel Big If is populated with some of the most interesting, most contemporary, characters. Walter is a moderate Republican atheist working in insurance. He has the habit of crossing out GOD in his dollar bills so that the statement reads IN US WE TRUST. He has two children: Jens, who has grown up as a software programmer, writing code for and pondering the morality (or immorality, or amorality) of the monster game he has developed; Violet has grown up to work in the Secret Service. Vi is assigned to the VP, who is running for president and will have to go to the Democratic primary in New Hampshire to jog (surrounded by security), eat at a McDonald’s (surrounded by media), and shake hands with the common people to get their vote. Jens’s wife, Peta, is a realtor assigned to manage a supposedly boring building now being attacked by a group of violent right-to-lifers. Gretchen, Vi’s superior, has separated from his douchebag boyfriend, but his son has found the boyfriend’s address by Googling himself, and now wants to spend time with his father. Before Lydia married Secret Service agent Lloyd Felker, her talent agent said, You’re not supposed to marry your own agent. And I’m your agent! He’s not that kind of agent, Lydia said, and her talent agent said, Oh my god, is he a literary agent? How will you be able to feed yourself?

Big If, published in 2002, was a finalist for the National Book Award. I wonder what novel it came up against. Costello’s novel was funny and touching and relevant enough to have won.

And the back cover has a blurb from Jonathan Franzen, saying the book is filled with “inside dope”. I mean, come on.

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Next: probably Eden Express. I’m still reading The Blind Assassin, but it’s too rich, I can’t devour it all at once.

I’m also interested in this book:

random

The last good non-fiction book I’ve read was Watching the English by Kate Fox. Pop sociology for the win.

english

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In other news, a story of mine is being considered for a fantasy anthology, but the editors are asking for a major edit. I’ve already edited it, re-sent it. Hope the new version does the trick. We’ll see. ;)

Congrats to Paolo for receiving that acceptance letter. Hooray!

new poem

In the (e)mail:

Eliza, thank you for your recent submission to THLR [The Houston Literary Review].  I’ll take “News About the End of the World” for [the] September Issue.


Yay. :D

I’ll link once the issue goes live.

oldie

The guy at the computer shop played “Closing Time” to check my new purchase’s sound quality. This is my favorite song, he said. I said, Yeah, that’s a good song.

He said, You know this song?

Uh, yes.

Weh?

Uh –

I must have been in high school when this song came out.

* * *

I’m puzzled. Well, look, it’s highly probable that I was also in high school when Semisonic released this song, because we’re probably in the same age bracket. Why the hell do you look so surprised?

Do I look like I belong to the Miley Cyrus generation?

I’m offended.

* * *

Anyway. So this netbook thing. Pretty cool. I got the Lenovo S10-2, and it’s quite affordable. I was offered a free upgrade to 2 G for my RAM. I didn’t even ask. And I spent my lunch hour trying to think up ways of seducing Lenovo’s salespeople to give me something extra. (It probably wouldn’t work anyway.)

* * *

And I am officially broke in 3, 2, –

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At least now I can safely retire my trusty Toshiba that has served me for more than five years. It’s still working, but there’s gunk on the screen and it emits this weird smell when I open it (hopelessness, probably, the smell of old technology). Also, it only has 30 G as hard disk memory. And only one USB port.

But at least it has a floppy disk drive.

* * *

See, if you remember goddamn floppy disks, you’d know “Closing Time” and Walkmans and Discmans and buying cassette tapes at the record store because they’re cheaper than the CDs and listening to the Top 40 on the FM radio every morning and not really understanding what Wi-Fi is. Internet access with no cables? What? Get out a here.

Unlike this idiot.

* * *

It gets kinda scary when some people don’t know the things you know. People who don’t know what floppy disks are are being born every day. It’s a damn invasion. Now I know what my father felt when somebody said “Brooke Shields” and he said “Blue Lagoon” or whatever the heck film that was, and I said “Suddenly Susan”. We were mystified and scared by the things we didn’t know.

* * *

I suddenly realized how sucky our office internet connection really was when I tried the Wi-Fi in the condo, and it allowed me to Tweet faster. I mean, it’s Wi-Fi, it’s not even WiMAX.

Don’t tell me you don’t know what WiMAX is. Google it. You’ll have a nerdgasm.