Followed a link from an old entry to Lynn Peril's review of Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend over at San Francisco Bay Guardian. Which I'd meant to link back then, and didn't, so this is the first I've seen of the site for a while.
They have a politics blog, which (from the entries there now) seems to focus on local/state/national stuff, in that order. And maybe the rest of the world. I should look at it closer before writing stuff about it.
Nah, they'd kick me out of the bloggers' guild.
Is there a bloggers' guild?
This also meant a visit to the Mystery Date site -- not much new there that I noticed -- and also the Pink Think site. Anyone read the book? I'd, um, managed to forget about it too. . .
Not much new there either, but there is a link to Miss Abigail's Time Warp Advice:
Welcome! Take a step back in time as I pull out relevant quotes, tidbits, and words of wisdom from my collection of old advice books in a quest to solve your modern-day dilemmas. The books span from 1822 to 1978 and cover the age-old topics of dating, love, living together, marriage, health, beauty, puberty, sex, etiquette, housekeeping, home economics, and home repairs.
Here, I got a little sample, which I assure you was chosen completely at random and has not hidden meanings or messages whatsoever, cross my heart:
1956: When You Don't Want to Date
"It is discourteous for a boy to ask why when a girl tells him that she cannot do something that he asks. When a boy pushes for explanation of a girl’s refusal, she is justified in kidding him about his persistence, or in simply changing the subject.
"If a girl does not ever want to date a particular boy, she does him a kindness when she gives him no encouragement whatsoever. To lead a boy on, when she never intends to go out with him, does him an injustice and unnecessarily prolongs the refusals. There are many reasons that a girl may refuse to consider dating a particular boy. He may drink, or run around with a fast set, or have a bad reputation, or be the kind of person whom for other reasons she does not feel she can associate with. If he is not datable from her point of view, she will be wise to refuse his attentions courteously but with firmness and finality."
Source: Facts of Life and Love for Teen-Agers
~ p. 307~
And it's as true in 2004 as it was in 1956.
Am at Evanston Public Library, abusing the WiFi. And looking at a hardcover of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, which looks more like a weapon than a novel. Um, anyone out there read this either? I've heard Good Things, and someone I've lost contact with composed a piece based on his work (after securing his permission. . . think he was at SIU at that point?), but never braved any of it.
And that's enough random randomness for one entry, I think.
Either Garrity or her incomparable spouse SuperJoe have read Infinite Jest. Ask them. Oddly enough, I made a crack about that book in class on Thurs...
I read it. I nearly gave myself a hernia lugging the paperback version of it back and forth on the subway. Lots of people hate this book, but I think most of them gave up on it too soon. It took a while for me to get into it, but once I figured out what DFW was up to I was hooked, and the bazillion or so pages flew right by until the slam bang ending.
There is the greatest, most hilarious description of a revenge break-in ever to be put in print in this book, IMHO. That the rest is as funny as anything I've ever read is gravy. So, yeah, I recommend it, though maybe you don't want to carry it around with you everywhere, you know?