Unbearable Lightness

Day 206, unless I've lost count, of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and Micah is reading The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, because he is interested in Milan Kundera, and because he wants to finish it before the serious, relentless reading of graduate school begins (6 books in just 1 of his courses) later this semester!  And before student teaching begins, followed by teaching a section of freshman comp.

He was also looking for The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but couldn't find it.  I have found it, the unbearable lightness of being, but in the positive sense, via that euphoria that has survived a brief uncharitable feeling toward the mulberry trees* that spring up everywhere some bird poops seeds.  (I love birds, I love seeds, I love trees.  A mantra born of laughter and forgetting.)

At Babbitt's, we had Immortality, but nothing else.  Hey, immortality ain't a bad thing to have!

I had recently put The Unbearable Lightness of Being on the New Arrivals shelf by the door, so, evidently, it had recently sold.

At Babbitt's, we have, by the way, a zillion new arrivals.  Really, a zillion.  Count them.  And no shelver.  Sigh....

*Feeling a bit guilty about that mulberry, thanks to Kim, I should link you to a poem in Apparatus, called "Mulberry Tree."  Yes, it's the "backyard along the fence" mulberry tree that's poking up among the morning glories in yesterday's less-than-charitable blog entry.

A Lovely Tumble

Day 205 of the "What (as in books, print magazines, and/or coincidii) are you reading, and why?" project, and this, as you can guess is a coincidii hodgepodge hump-of-the-week post.

Or, as I refer to this particular morning glory photo, a lovely tumble.

Mary, a great reader of books, actually ran out of books on her birthday and 1) requested The Cookbook Collector at the library and is on the waiting list and 2) is catching up on her magazines.

Speaking of magazines, 1) my guilty pleasure* subscription to Vanity Fair ran out, and I am not renewing it, 2) literary magazines keep me busy, and 3) I just re-read "Riding the Happy Train," by Judith S. McCue, a review in The Common Review (print magazine with online presence) of Generosity: An Enhancement, a novel by Richard Powers, because of the word "hyperthymia," defined by a character in the book as a condition of being "excessively happy."

OK, 1) I am excessively happy, and 2) this is an actual condition, a feeling of serene wellbeing, possible if your thyroid is whacked out, as mine is occasionally, that is, whenever I am reading my Merck Manual, 8th edition, 3rd printing, March 1951.  Don't ask me why.

OK, I'll tell you why.  Thyroid vulnerability runs in my family, and is rampant in the Great Lakes region of the Midwest, where I grew up.  Put the two together and you get goiter, especially if sometime in the past a houseguest left a canister of uniodized salt in the house, and you and your family just used it as regular table salt, until stress on the body (childbirth) caused a little fever, then, and thyroid enlargement, later, together with a brief interlude of hypochondria induced by reading an outdated Merck Manual.

Fear not!  1) We now have plenty of iodized sea salt; iodine is the prevention and cure for most of this kind of thyroid problem 2) I am already over my hypochondria 3) and, while I did look like a cross between Nikita Kruschev and Buddy Hackett as a baby, I was not, as my mother had at first feared, a cretin, which is a serious thyroid problem, and 4) I am still excessively happy, but I consider this a spiritual state.  Plus there is some really, really old iodine in the medicine cabinet.  If I have to, I'll drink it.

Wait!  I have a topic?!  Oh, yes, books.

Speaking of guilty pleasures*, I was eating/reading What Feeds Us, by Diane Lockward, at the rate of one chocolate/poem a day, and then I gorged on it and finished it today, while my computer was doing a full scan for whacked out thyroid problems.   It is a lovely book, full of beautiful food, funny and human moments, and a lost boy that keeps breaking my heart.  Plus fiery breasts.  There are bees on the covers, on peaches and sunflowers, and scary bees stinging people intermittently.

Coincidii of the bees: 1) one is crawling down the throat of yesterday's morning glory 2) bees form a vestment in Sarah J. Sloat's poem "Vestment," announced in her blog yesterday as being taped for Whale Sound, which you can find at the right on my blogroll.

Coincidii of the blueberries: 1) when I resumed reading What Feeds Us today, it was with the poem "Blueberry"--Be a glutton and stuff in a handful, your tongue,/ lips, chin dyed blue, as if feasting on indigo--2) soon after reading about blueberries in Mythology and Milk.

Wait!  Is that a mulberry rearing its annoying branch up through the morning glories?  Yes.  I hope they strangle it.

A Bee in My Bonnet

Day 204, and today several people came into the bookstore looking for very specific things, for a reason:

1) another woman found Graham Greene's The Quiet American for a local book group, an excellent new paperback edition, the sort I covet, for the light but sturdy feel and lovely graphic.   Happy to covet my neighbor's book, and let her have it.

2) a fellow had read the Chicago Tribune article on 5 great Midwestern novels and came in looking for them, along with anything by Jonathan Franzen.  I found a couple editions ofWinesburg, Ohio for him right away, after thinking I might not because my friend Kim had just found a $1 copy on the half-price cart.  He chose the attractive Modern Library hardback, small, but with the heft of true literature.  He found another book, too, but I can't remember what, so it was probably one of the ones with Sinclair in it, which puts up a mental block that then sets me off on that memory of always getting Main Street and The Jungleconfused because their authors are Sinclair Lewis and Upton Sinclair, complicated by the fact that I am old enough to remember Sinclair gas stations and the big green dinosaur on trips to Ohio to see the grandparents, and once you get lost in dinosaur land, the Midwest is gone forever.

He did not find Franzen's Freedom, announced in the feature article to which the 5 midwesterns was attached, because it is brand new, as of today, nor The Corrections, which we have had several copies of in the past.  (But after he left, I found the sudden arrival of a Franzen hardback on a little pile on the floor.  It wasThe Discomfort Zone, a memoir, and I've put it on the new arrivals shelf by the door for when this fellow comes back.  On his bicycle.  With his helmet.)

And a family came in to cool off before the official start of the hot and humid farmers' market, Tuesdays on the street in front of the store, and walked out with

1) Barbara Kingsolver, both The Poisonwood Bible and The Prodigal Summer, and

2) our fabulous first edition, first printing of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, by David Foster Wallace, and so were treated to the story about Babbitt's Books being Wallace's favorite bookstore.

And tonight, I cannot get the spacing to work right on this post....a bit of a bee in my bonnet.

And that's my own morning glory with a bee down its throat in a photo taken by my son before he went back to college again.

Post-Retirement...Mistress...er, hmm, what I meant was...

Day 203 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and I got to chat tonight with Sue, a retired teacher, which, right there, is the answer to the "Why?" question.  She's been reading a lot ever since she retired, because she can!  Because she has time!  Because she's retired!

Right now she's on the third book of the Stieg Larsson series.  OK, this doesn't count (only for my purposes) because she's reading it on Kindle.  She had a cross country trip to Seattle and thought she'd try out the Kindle her kids gave her for Christmas back when she wasn't retired, and didn't have time 1) to figure out how to use it and 2) to read.

She's read 4 of the Harry Potter books, because she never read them before, when she was relentlessly preparing classes, grading papers, and supervising the school newspaper.

She's read The Postmistress, a World War II novel by Sarah Blake, about, well, yes, a postmistress, but also two other women, and she's read The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, which she liked a lot, even more than The Postmistress, about which she sounded sort of lukewarm.  But Kathryn Stockett liked The Postmistress, I see, in an interview with Blake posted at Amazon.com.

And in between reading these books, she picks up David Sedaris.  She and her husband read him constantly, cracking each other up with snippets they read aloud.

So, yes, she'd happily married, and not anybody's mistress.

Sweet Corn, Sweet Blues

Day 202 of the "What are you reading, and why?" project, and today I encountered people in search of, and finding, Illinois history and military history books at Babbitt's.  And much, much more, including $1 pulp fiction in a bin out front.

It was a very busy weekend in Normal, Illinois, home of the Sweet Corn, Sweet Blues festival, sponsored by WGLT, which also sponsors Poetry Radio!

On the first day, my son and I biked into town and partook in the Good To Go program of free valet bicycle parking.  We both signed up for the Trek 7100 bicycle raffle (pictured at the Good to Go link.)  We did not actually eat any of the marvelous steamed sweet corn, but we smelled it.  It and the kettle corn popcorn.  Mmmmm.

On the second day, I went back to the sidewalk sale at Garlic Press, a fabulous kitchen store, and got the little red star ceramic candy or appetizer plates of my heart's desire, bargaining them down to 50 cents a piece.  Like a flea market!  Or medieval town fair!

I also encountered, in a poem brought to my poetry workshop in the rare book room, a book, a particular book, Saving Jesus from the Church, by Robin Meyers, mentioned (and pictured) earlier in this blog, where Jesus is seen with the usual crown of thorns and an unusual gag of duct tape.  Poor him. What lovely irony to encounter those words on a Sunday, in a poem.

As it happens, the author is coming to uppity town Normal October 29-30 to give a free lecture, "Jesus: Galilean Sage or Supernatural Warrior," at 7 p.m., on Friday night, and to conduct a workshop, 8:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday, "The Underground Church: Raising the Body by Corrupting the Empire," both events taking place at Heartland Community College.  You can learn more, or sign up for the workshop, at the hosting church, New Covenant Community.  Click on the rolling announcement.