Scattered thoughts from today
1. Bookstore sales are a good thing. Bookstore sales with everything 30% off are especially good. And thus it was that I ended up this evening with Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair, which several friends recommended; Cole Swensen’s Goest (the talk about it in the poetry blogosphere got me interested, but it was this poem that sent it to the top of my to-buy list); and The Rough Guide to Reading Music and Basic Theory, which I spotted on the music shelf and snapped up as part of an ongoing initiative to increase my overall musical literacy.
2. I’ve been feeling vaguely unwell all day, like I’m on the verge of coming down with something, so tonight I’m going to bed early. But with a stack of new books, ha ha!
3. The Alcohol Quiz (cheers, Rana!) says I’m a martini:
| You Are a Martini |
 You’re not a total lush, but you do like your drinks strong. For you, drinking is an art. An experience to be relished. That doesn’t mean you don’t get really really drunk. A few strong martinis, and you’re dancing on the bar! |
It’s true that I like a nice vodka Gibson every so often, but I’ve never actually danced on a bar. (Mildly inebriated karaoke is another story.)
4. I was going to write a whole post satirizing this delightful news item ("Gay book ban goal of state lawmaker", Birmingham News, 12/1/04), but I think it satirizes itself just fine, don’t you? I mean, consider:
An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries.
A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle."
…Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed.
"I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said. …
He said that would include nonfiction books that suggest homosexuality is acceptable and fiction novels with gay characters. While that would ban books like "Heather has Two Mommies," it could also include classic and popular novels with gay characters such as "The Color Purple," "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Brideshead Revisted."
I suppose Rep. Allen also wants to bury the Iliad (it’s not easy to maintain that Achilles and Patroclus are Just Very Good Friends), Sappho’s poems, Plato’s dialogues (the Symposium being an early and classic example of "promoting homosexuality"), most of the rest of ancient Greek and Roman literature on general principle, the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales on account of the Pardoner and his friend the Summoner (arguable, but a case can be made), Dante’s Inferno (see canto 25), Shakespeare’s sonnets, Whitman, Woolf, Proust — whoops, did we just censor half the Western Canon? I think we did. Oh well, too bad. Anything to keep other people from reading things we don’t approve of ourselves.
(Something I was told this summer, which encapsulates for me why my future profession is important to democracy: "In any library, you should be
able to find something that affirms your beliefs and something that
offends you. If you can’t find both, we’re not doing our job.")
You know, on second thought, I think I’ll have that martini after all…
Oh. My. Lord.
To quote Ruby with the Eyes that Sparkle in Cold Mountain:
“This world won’t stand for long! G-d won’t let it!”
Hey, Amanda, let me know if you have any queries about that music theory. I’m afraid I’m rather an expert…
Rep, Allen—well, he’s just depressing and I have to hope that the people of Alabama have the good sense to recognize his ridiculousness. It’s not much to stake one’s hope on, true.
jwb