Today my catalog of books hit 700 (its now at 702). The 700th book was The Collectors by David Baldacci, a signed first edition first printing.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/jbeckhamlat

Including a signed copy of Myra Beckinridge by Gore Vidal (1968), [1st ed.] from a used book seller in Beverly Hills (from the Northridge Public Library). I had read about Vidal, he seemed very frail, and it was cheaper having library marks. In a way that makes it more interesting, how many sat reading this very book spilling gin . . . one of those famed 20th century titles . . .

Not that I have even cracked it, I just finished a fine Simenon (3 Bedrooms In Manhattan). It was my light read while attempting Pynchon's weighty AGAINST THE DAY, which is enthralling. The new light -only in that is its not physically as heavy as the Pynchon -- -- paperback is INSECT POETICS, about bugs in literature. A fascinating chapter on ants v. bees in Vergil's AENEID. Ants plunder while bee's produce (find a dead beetle or rotting apple opposed to buzzing flower to flower and creating honey). Ants administrate (ROMANS); bee's create . . . .

A picture I took last summer:

Bees fly in splendor and brightness, ants, well are underground burrowing.

There was a non bug statement that I liked as well: Augustus took Rome from a city of brick to a city of marble.

from ugly Caterpillar to beautiful butterfly . . . where is Gregor Samsa? gone buggy. [next is a chapter on performing insects featuring a flea circus, I hope to learn how the little devils were trained ]

ah for the joys of summer...

;-)

I see a lot of blue between the last picture and the previous post. Scroll.

A Partridge in a Pear Tree!

27 December 2006

Here are some pictures from the holidays. Starting with Santa arriving in November's FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS PARADE, the Hancock Center Tree, then some from our apartment.

What do you think?

Now its been 4 months since that crazed knife waving urologist worked on me. Last week he told me: "this is progress as expected, come back in 6 months."

BUT WHO CARES!

Tis the day after Christmas, cold and clear. I am going to make a pre-new years resolution. To find interesting quotes and what not and post them often. For now one will do. I ordered the book TIN DRUM by Gunther Grass. He's one of those you should read something by I feel, and I have not. The title came up in a few things as I read, then I was looking for a list of first lines. Can you beat this:

BOOK ONE
The Wide Skirt

Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me.

So you see, my keeper can't be an enemy. I've come to be very fond of him; when he stops looking at me from behind the door and comes into the room, I tell him incidents from my life, so he can get to know me in spite of the peephole between us. He seems to treasure my stories, because every time I tell him some fairy tale, he shows his gratitude by bringing out his latest knot construction. I wouldn't swear that he's an artist. But I am certain that an exhibition of his creations would be well received by the press and attract a few purchasers. He picks up common pieces of string in the patients' rooms after visiting hours, disentangles them, and works them up into elaborate contorted spooks; then he dips them in plaster, lets them harden, and mounts them on knitting needles that he fastens to little wooden pedestals.