positivity

Leah just got back from a big presentation at school with beaming success and it mandated a capture. The sun is out today, brightly, but the warmth didn't really come with it--upper 30's this morning.

This means I will have to bundle up a bit more than expected for Critical Mass tonight. Also, this will be the first Mass with the new camera so that should add to the adventure. I love my bike.

Started reading another book in the Hard Case Crime line last night, Lucky at Cards by Lawrence Block (this is the first re-print in over 40 years). The first book I read in this series was by Block, actually--my old friend Lorien sent it, randomly, from Fairbanks last year and thus piqued my interest in this publisher and genre once more. It is these gritty, hard-boiled pulps that always teach me the most important things about writing (and I always forget that they are going to). They are so deceivingly simplistic; these should be the models of how I work a story. Raw honesty: truly brilliant. And the tone, the voice! Take this line, for example: "she was a bottle-blonde with bedroom eyes and a Hollywood body." This book is not a pale emulation of a genre, it is the genre.

Speaking of art: watched Pan's Labyrinth last night, Leah had never seen it. Next up from the queue is another beam of positivity, Hunger with Fassbender. After this, though, we get a shitload of Simpsons DVDs. Oh, and my two orders from Criterion: Yi-Yi and the Tarkovsky Solaris.

I have rambled enough. Cheers.