Snarling cur!

What on earth have I been up to?

- Beer Drinking - Oktoberfest was last weekend was oom-pa-tastic
- Pen Shopping - Christmas is coming, I know what I'm buying people who I buy presents for... cheap Japanese Fountain Pens! The gift that keeps on giving.
- School - more classes than usual this semester... 3... which is a lot for full time work and school simultaneously.
- Reading - Books for school, mostly. Studying Kerouac for one class, reading Lydia Davis between other things because I find it is pleasant to read in chunks (and pleasant to read in general!)

I was turned on to Book Mooch recently (bookmooch.com), a site for trading books. It is free, and you have to offer up your unwanted books in order to be able to get things traded to you. You pay for shipping when sending something out to someone who requests one of your books (media mail, usually), but other people pay for shipping to send stuff to you when you request it, so it balances out. It is cheaper than buying the books new, or even in a second hand store. It is a nice system. I have gotten rid of a stack of books I didn't want, and scored a few books I did. What I like most about it, probably, is having a productive and interesting way to get rid of unwanted books (ya know, other than boxing them up to send to the thrift store where they will sit around unwanted for a long time). So far I've scored a Helliconia book by Brian Aldiss, some Whitman, a Larry Niven book, and a collection of poetry in Old English.

Writing, for the past month, has been mostly wrapped up in school, and doing re-writes on stuff that one of my professors has been looking at and giving me notes on. I'll be honest: I've gotten two more rejection letters since the beginning of September, but I'm working through the material either way because that is how you have to plug, plug, plug.

It has been torture seeing advertisements for "The Darjeeling Limited" on television and not having one of the limited-release theater locations anywhere within reasonable driving distance. I am very much looking forward to seeing that particular piece of cinema.

I realized, the other day, that I haven't done anything serious with music in a number of months. I wonder if I'm just too busy, or if it is more that nothing is occurring to me where musical ideas are concerned... as though I've simply run through my creativity tank at the end of the day. That is, indeed, something to ponder.

Bookstore, Shall we ever decline?

The modern Bookstore. Ah yes. I'm partial, of course, to Borders, though I won't say I haven't found things I've enjoyed at B&N or even the wretched other store locally (I shall not name it).

I think I enjoy these stores so much because I can still remember times of waiting for things to come back from loan at the library, and ordering books from the local "book store" in our rural town(s). Ah, the book store.

It was an old, old two story house with a vague sense of "Victorian" swoop and a big comfy wrap-around porch. It sat across the street from a fire station and a big corroded barn. Both stories were book filled, and the books you purchased were a sort of function of what they had in stock. I trusted them to stock good stuff, and really never questioned if a book would be good or not.

I was first exposed to science fiction there.

The modern book store, well... to think I can walk in with a book in mind, and the chances are, it's there, waiting for me. The books I buy are calculated, now. I hear something about them, and nab them up.

No more the random. Well, at least, not until yesterday. My wife and I were at Borders and she was buying a present for her mom and a book for herself, and I was confronted with the fact that, "Hey, these books here are 'buy two get one free.' I was the one! I got to pick a book and it would be free!" I didn't really know any of the books on the table (all except "Eats, shoots and leaves," yet I can't bring myself to read a book about grammar and punctuation). I settled on a book called "Through a Glass Darkly" by Karleen Koen.

I've never read it, never heard of the author. It's a thick tome, and I'll read it, I'm sure. I think if you ask the advice of any writer on "how to write," first they will say, "read." Oxford's notes on admission into their English program state that the applicant shall have read widely and voraciously.

In that way, I should mention I was also given a Sony Reader as an early Christmas present. Surprising? Not at all, but exactly what I wanted. I've been piling books on it as well, random smatterings of bookitude from Austen to Asimov. Still not out of the A's. Lots of things to read, though. Interesting thing I've been forced to consider in my time with the Reader: Will this whole advent of techo-reading (if you prefer a less sci-fi term, "ebookin'") finally catch on, after the 5th effort by major manufacturers? Might there come a day when a weekly trip to the book store no longer be practical or commonplace for avid readers? From the moment, with the limitations of online bookstores, it doesn't seem terribly likely, but on the other hand, probably every book is made digital before it is printed on paper, these days... something to consider.

Anyway, there is a point in all of this... this is a great season for reading!