Christina Dy

I should've plugged this sooner. Or at least earlier than now, right before I leave to attend it.

If you all have time, please drop by SLAB and check out between the sky and sea, an exhibit of drawings by brilliant artist, pole-dancer, and good friend, Christina Dy.

wake up

Aww.

HT: Ramon

shoot first sightsee later

So I've been back on my feet for some days now. Spent the weekend seeing friends, having dinners, getting a drink. I don't want to ever get sick again. I'm loading up on multivitamins, getting flu shots next time, and I should be watching what I eat. The last part's the toughest.

Anyway, the past week, when I was still under doctor's orders to stay home, I was lamenting (to myself) the dearth of good reads I've been having for the past months. It used to be that I could finish any book. Nowadays, if I don't get into it by the first couple of pages, I put the book down, and almost never reopen it again. I think it's partly age. You know what you want, you don't want to waste your time.

As soon as I was able to get out, I hit the bookstore and shopped for some books. First thing I found interesting was Thomas Pynchon's Against The Day. Pynchon is one of those guys tagged as one of America's greatest modern writers. Poor guy. He's sometimes mentioned in the same breath as Roth and McCarthy, which is good company. He's also almost as reclusive as Salinger. He does however turn up in the weirdest of places (i.e. cameos in The Simpsons, and supposedly in an interview for Playboy Japan).

Against The Day was published in 2006 and, from what I gather, is a whimsical, cross-genre, multiple-charactered epic that spans the time between the late 19th century (Chicago World Fair, 1893) and the WWI. I'm only on page 20 and I'm still getting the hang of it.

It seems already dense and ironic. So for to balance things out, I bought a Mario Puzo book too. While I enjoyed The Godfather and The Sicilian, and while I at least appreciated the shock value of The Family, this last one, The Fourth K, was just plain boring. It felt like a meandering, heavy-handed, melodramatic treatise on power and the covenant between government and the people. In the beginning of the book, the richest, most powerful man in the world got to be that way by amassing a never-heard-of wealth of ten billion dollars. I read that line, gave thanks for Dr. Evil, and checked when the damn book was published (1990).

+++

I just saw In Bruges awhile ago. Awesome. Everyone should watch it.

So I've been catching up on The Wire. And now that I'm in Season 2, I go, "Hey! Amy Ryan from The Office!" (Of course, her role in The Wire came first.)

And then I just saw Episode 18 of the current The Office season, and I go, "Holy crap! It's Stringer Bell!"

Nice. Who would've thunk to get actors to cross over from these two shows.

I snuck out

With three more days of doctor-ordered bed rest, I went out to meet friends and get some Chinese food. I'm afraid of relapsing for the second time, missing out on more work, people, and real food. So it did take some rationalizing to decide to go out. This wasn't like the last time where, on day four, feeling all good, I decided to get back to work, and went shooting for four days straight. This was a quick, stress-free dinner, and then back to the house to serve the rest of my sentence.

Also, after day after day of playing online poker, going against the computer in Monopoly, The Wire (finally), and left overs, it was either I got out for a while, or I go nuts.

Anyway, here's crossing my fingers. The food was great though.