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Dumb fact for today: By admitting to a couple of books I’ve had marked as “in progress” but have actually really long dropped, I glance up to discover myself sudden at 105 books read thus far in 2009. Since last year’s list eventually went to 178 overall, albeit with dropped/discarded books factored in, this does seem like a bit of a jump—especially given the amount of writing I’ve been doing, simultaneously. Work hard, play hard?;)
One way or the other, I remain stupidly proud of my ability to both read fast and retain exactly as much as I need to (which sometimes ain’t too much, depending on the author). I have slowed down a bit on the concentration scale, granted; time was, I could read an entire 300-page paperback in an hour, if left uninterrupted. These days, it’s more like an hour and a half, or maybe two hours—and since “uninterrupted” is an absolute thing of the past for me, I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised.;)
Similarly, I’m somewhat startled to realize that between rewrites, other noodling and actual input, I’ve already made 500 words today. This bodes well for later on, hopefully…
In other news, Mom and I have been discussing the idea that it would be good for me to have a lap-top, so that I could prospectively clock more words per day while still being able to get out and about—spend these huge three-and-a-half-hour chunks while Cal is on afternoons at Surrey Place writing/revising, for example, rather than just taking notes, reading or (on occasion) sleeping. The best prospect is to try and get a second-hand MacBook from Carbon Computing, then outfit it with the same programs I have on my home iMac, and use a thumb-drive to transfer stuff back and forth; she’s willing to go fifty-fifty on it. Sounds great to me, I must admit—but I guess we’ll just have to see.
Going through my piles of set-aside crap, meanwhile, I discovered an article my Dad had sent me about the (fairly) recent death of Dorothy Porter, an Australian poet who wrote novels in verse whose first-person declamatory attitude—all direct statements and sense-drunk observation—had the raucous, deliberate immediacy of rock music or dramatic monologues. My first experience of her work, strangely, came through my film criticism—I did a capsule review of The Monkey’s Mask, a not-particularly-great adaptation of her best-selling Lesbian detective story, mainly notable for the fact that it showcased a not-yet-out Kelly McGillis miming down-and-dirty cougar sex with a bemused young butch with a nose-ring.
Later, Dad sent me her book Akhenaten, which I mainlined during a Heretic Pharoah research-jag; going by their descriptions alone, I’d love to read some of her other stuff (maybe Wild Surmise, a science fiction narrative set around the moons of Jupiter, or El Dorado, in which a serial killer of children regularly publishes poems in The Age). Her style reminds me a bit of Peter Carey, especially in novels like The Tax Inspector; he too has a way of making almost any story seem immediate in an ultra-modern way, no matter the era he sets it in or the language he uses to tell it.
So here’s a piece by Porter, from Akhenaten. it’s really hard to separate any of them out—each one leads to the next, gives the previous context; she often “takes the piss and stirs the shit”, too, as she said she wanted to, which makes them pop in strange ways when seen all alone. Therefore I’ve gone to one which kicks off the section marked “Akhet-aten, Regnal Years 6-12”:
The 13th Day of the 8th Month of the 6th Year
I watch
Aten being born
in the spreading blood
of the horizon
a shining child
He’ll come to my scented tent
call me to my gold chariot
and ride behind me
hugging my waist
while We name the boundaries
of His City.
Aten,
this day is too hot
to touch.
the cliffs are bowing to us
the desert has laid out
a carpet embossed
with burning stones
I can’t look at it
instead, my God,
I’ll drive blind
my horses, Your horses
Your light, my light.
One way or the other, I remain stupidly proud of my ability to both read fast and retain exactly as much as I need to (which sometimes ain’t too much, depending on the author). I have slowed down a bit on the concentration scale, granted; time was, I could read an entire 300-page paperback in an hour, if left uninterrupted. These days, it’s more like an hour and a half, or maybe two hours—and since “uninterrupted” is an absolute thing of the past for me, I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised.;)
Similarly, I’m somewhat startled to realize that between rewrites, other noodling and actual input, I’ve already made 500 words today. This bodes well for later on, hopefully…
In other news, Mom and I have been discussing the idea that it would be good for me to have a lap-top, so that I could prospectively clock more words per day while still being able to get out and about—spend these huge three-and-a-half-hour chunks while Cal is on afternoons at Surrey Place writing/revising, for example, rather than just taking notes, reading or (on occasion) sleeping. The best prospect is to try and get a second-hand MacBook from Carbon Computing, then outfit it with the same programs I have on my home iMac, and use a thumb-drive to transfer stuff back and forth; she’s willing to go fifty-fifty on it. Sounds great to me, I must admit—but I guess we’ll just have to see.
Going through my piles of set-aside crap, meanwhile, I discovered an article my Dad had sent me about the (fairly) recent death of Dorothy Porter, an Australian poet who wrote novels in verse whose first-person declamatory attitude—all direct statements and sense-drunk observation—had the raucous, deliberate immediacy of rock music or dramatic monologues. My first experience of her work, strangely, came through my film criticism—I did a capsule review of The Monkey’s Mask, a not-particularly-great adaptation of her best-selling Lesbian detective story, mainly notable for the fact that it showcased a not-yet-out Kelly McGillis miming down-and-dirty cougar sex with a bemused young butch with a nose-ring.
Later, Dad sent me her book Akhenaten, which I mainlined during a Heretic Pharoah research-jag; going by their descriptions alone, I’d love to read some of her other stuff (maybe Wild Surmise, a science fiction narrative set around the moons of Jupiter, or El Dorado, in which a serial killer of children regularly publishes poems in The Age). Her style reminds me a bit of Peter Carey, especially in novels like The Tax Inspector; he too has a way of making almost any story seem immediate in an ultra-modern way, no matter the era he sets it in or the language he uses to tell it.
So here’s a piece by Porter, from Akhenaten. it’s really hard to separate any of them out—each one leads to the next, gives the previous context; she often “takes the piss and stirs the shit”, too, as she said she wanted to, which makes them pop in strange ways when seen all alone. Therefore I’ve gone to one which kicks off the section marked “Akhet-aten, Regnal Years 6-12”:
The 13th Day of the 8th Month of the 6th Year
I watch
Aten being born
in the spreading blood
of the horizon
a shining child
He’ll come to my scented tent
call me to my gold chariot
and ride behind me
hugging my waist
while We name the boundaries
of His City.
Aten,
this day is too hot
to touch.
the cliffs are bowing to us
the desert has laid out
a carpet embossed
with burning stones
I can’t look at it
instead, my God,
I’ll drive blind
my horses, Your horses
Your light, my light.
