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House of Leaves with a Piranesi Chaser
This one time I read the same book twice in two months. I’ve re-read many books many times–calling you out, Jane Eyre! Usually I put a few years between reading and re-reading but all that changed when I read Piranesi by Susanna Clark. The first reading was one day in October of 2020. It was a quiet day, a happy day. My husband and I had rented a little cottage in the woods for a few days during lockdown. It was our tenth anniversary and at the beginning of the year we had planned to take a two week trip to Italy where we’d gone for our honeymoon, but then…
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1Q84 – Murakami keeping it Weird
A coupla three weeks ago I started 1Q84, a novel by Haruki Murakami. It’s not so much of a novel as a TOME. The page count is just under 1200, and it was originally published as a trilogy. It’s huge. Percentage-wise, I haven’t got very far. My page count is pretty good for as long as I have been chipping away at it. This is going to be a multi-month reading project. I don’t feel like rushing through it–I’m not a booktuber after all so I don’t need to rack up titles read. Books like this are perfect for what you could call “Slow Reading.” A few pages each evening,…
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Strange Food and Beautiful Places
Growing up I had an Italian grandmother. She was born in Sicily and immigrated to Boston with her family as a kid. She spoke no english, and at the age of 16 had an arranged marriage with a fellow Sicilian from the same village. It’s hard to know her exact history because, true to stereotype, she came without papers. But somehow, I grew up eating Hamburger Helper. I’m sorry, Grandma Rose, these things happen. Despite my one degree of separation from Sicily, I had a mostly middle American, suburban upbringing. My parents were raising five kids on one income, and let me tell you, my mother could stretch a dollar.…
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The Ace of Cups – Serenity Now!
Let’s look at the Tarot cards! I have been reading the Tarot for many years and it has offered a lot of self-reflection and insight for me. Plus one or two eerily accurate and specific predictions. I have a modest collection of around twenty decks including a couple of interesting antique decks. Watch a video about one of them that I made here if you are curious to see it. Today I have out my Smith-Waite Centennial deck and we are looking at……the Ace of Cups! A dove, a cup, a fountain, an Escher-like disembodied hand. The hand has a very subtle halo of short rays around it which I…
