agent of entropy

78. Loose Woman, Sandra Cisneros. collection of poems. some of it hit home, and some of it was just...unfamiliar. also an odd switch from Milosz's subtlety and dryness, all this writing about love and lust and sex and womanliness. bits that i liked:

"I'm as free for the taking
as the eyes of Saint Lucy" (from "Pumpkin Eater")

"Why not? I'm for emotions running amok tonight,
breaking china and getting fucked.
I'm a regular Notre Dame, I tell you.
Little braindoors and gargoyled gutters,
and the frothy mob with their machetes and clubs
wild about me, I tell you,
positively screaming blood." (from "Thing in My Shoe")

( clips from 'Las Girlfriends' )

this one i think would work best read aloud, performed: ( Black Lace Bra Kind of Woman )

and finally: ( A Man in My Bed Like Cracker Crumbs )</lj-cut.

74. Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, & Literature, Dorothy Allison. almost entirely powerful, amazing writing, the first and last few essays especially. about class, gender, sexuality, writing, about learning how to tell the truth, about living with and through terror and shame of many kinds and coming out the other side, about remaking the world. about family and community, about that sense of home and belonging and the ways in which it can make us strong and rip us right apart, be our hearts and our roots but still allow such betrayals.
i got bogged down in some of the essays more concerned with second-wave feminism and what she dealt with as being first a part of that community and then her ostracism from it (for being anti-censorship, into S/M, butch/femme, for not being anti-pornography, etc)...i suppose it's a very good thing that at least in my life i haven't seen much of that particular ostracism, that the world has changed some, in ways that help heal that rift. but it's worth reading, to me, even if some bits seem more foreign to me ("Public Silence, Private Terror" was a good one) -- many of the essays poke at my brain in ways that it needs to be poked at. and, as always, there's her sharp humor woven through it; "The Theory and Practice of the Strap-on Dildo" made me laugh out loud in the bookstore.

70. Jump and Other Stories, Nadine Gordimer. well-written little stories, from a horrifying "story for children" that's really not for children at all to sideways stories of terrorism and 'regime change', told with an elegant detached narrative from unexpected perspectives.

it was quite good, but can i please read something light and fluffy now?

and also in the really-not-light-and-fluffy department:
simplykimberly had an extra ticket for the play Finn in the Underworld, the last show of the last day of this run at the Berkeley Rep. it's a ghost-story of sorts, and also a story about fears that are large and looming and fears that are right up-close and intimate. and it's really, thoroughly disturbing, and possibly the scariest play i've ever been to.

( notes on the play, including bits about the plot )

...the disclaimer/warning "intended for mature audiences only...contains graphic sexual behavior and language" just doesn't cover it. but...wow. very well done.

65. lyonesse's werewolf novel. three times through, with commentary and all, so i figure it pretty much counts even if it's not actually finished yet. i'll keep up with the reading as it gets written. *grin*

66. Beloved, Toni Morrison. one of those books that's been on the 'i should read that' list for a long time. good, but much stranger than i thought it'd be, and hard and harsh in places. but good.

67. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman. it felt lighter, a simpler story, than a lot of his writing. but, as expected, i quite enjoyed it.

68. The Bone People, Keri Hulme. i picked this one up yesterday evening, read a little, and then woke up at 4am and pretty much just read straight on through until i finished it. i'd say it's good, but i can't tell whether it's very good or if it just happened to match up exactly with where i am at the moment. the writing style's eccentric, fitting spelling and punctuation to the flow of the dialogue and story...and it was just-right, at least for me. there were some turns of phrase or perspective that were startling, not because they were new but because they felt like something pulled straight out of my own brain. eh, so. weird. also, it makes me want to move to New Zealand.

46. Sunshine, Robin McKinley. another on lend from jencallisto, and another that i'm tempted to pick up and re-read not three days after i finished it. magic and vampires and cinnamon buns.

47. The Hundred Secret Senses, Amy Tan. i'm pretty sure i read this before, some number of years ago. she's good, but i think my mind wasn't in the right space for the book to really reach out and grab me.

...and now i'm out of new books to read, again. but i ran into asarwate this afternoon, and he said he'd lend me a pile more, and i should really get back to the library as well. i hear they've got books and all.

I paused on reading for a little while, but paused on recording what I've read for longer. I think I've lost track of some. Also, I think I'm having trouble translating what's in my head (thoughts and writing and descriptions and all) into words that make sense to other people, so perhaps I just won't say much this time around. These were all good, solid, well-enjoyed books.

17. Mockingbird, by Sean Stewart. (same author as The Night Watch.) Loas and magic and family and writing and life. Good book.

18. Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Yeah, I've read it before, but not for quite awhile.

19. A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge. I don't think I had read any of his books before. Read this one on the plane cross-country (back and forth) and in the interstices of time during the visit...an excellent book, and good solid sci-fi escapism for me.

20. A Short, Sharp Shock, Kim Stanley Robinson. Tight, not a long story, but winding. Many things are left unexplained, and that's just fine.

21. Tehanu, Ursula K. LeGuin. I'm fairly sure I read this before, but that was also so long ago that all that was left in my memory was familiarity. I've liked everything of hers that I've read.

Also:
- re-read Strangers in Paradise, which doesn't count because it's already on this year's list once
- keep falling asleep a short bit in to R. Buckminster Fuller's Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth which is interesting and all, but kinda weird.
- read half of Jhonen Vasquez's Squee...and then fell asleep under a heavy blanket on the couch wearing too many clothes and had really very disturbing fever-dreams. *shudder*
- re-read bits of Galen Rowell's Vision: The Art of Adventure Photography, which isn't really a book that needs to be read all at once. some neat stories and some truly amazing photography - a gift from my aunt and uncle one recent Christmas.
- read a bunch of a Harper's Magazine that a friend left behind after that last art-day.

That's all I remember, right now.

10. The Alleluia Files, Sharon Shinn. Ooh! Fluff! But neat, interesting, good fluff! I read another of her books (Jovah's Angel) a few months ago and quite enjoyed it, and I've got get another one waiting for me in the stack from jencallisto.