Wednesday, April 21, 2010

time lapse

I stopped writing in this blog for several months.

Since then I have:
Turned 30
Become single again after 3+ years
Found a new full-time job and career path
Sold my car and most of my furniture
Moved to Brooklyn, where the slate is clean. Mostly.

I never stopped reading though. New Yorkers are great readers. You would wonder where they find the time but the answer is: on the subway. And sometimes on the bus.

As mentioned previously, I was thinking about picking up Dry, by Augusten Burroughs. This is by far and away his masterpiece. I enjoy all of Burroughs' work but it's mostly just funny stories, some with no real cohesion or conclusion. Dry holds a mood like the best works of art do, like the way the intensity of the opening credits in Do The Right Thing never lets up. It's gripping and relentless, yet still manages to be funny more than on occasion. You can finish it in a day, but yet it's not a trifle. Highly recommended.

I am even more in love with Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a story, like so many others, of newcomers dreaming grandiose dreams and living big, sweeping lives in the city that never sleeps. When I began it, I had not made up my mind to move. I finished it in my Brooklyn bedroom, spring rain rattling the windows. It's a modern myth, an ambitious epic that lives up to what it sets out to achieve. One of my all-time favorites, perhaps.