Home
Absurdistan - Gary Shteyngart
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 1735
Highly amusing, but light. Very light. Some of the observations - about "Golly Burton" (Halliburton) are doubtless both damning and true, as are numerous of the observations about Post-Communist Russia and it's various splinter states. But somehow - well, somehow I felt that it lacked an enduring quality. Not a keeper, not one to put on the shelf and reread again at a later date, straight to the bookstore for credit.
I find it hard to believe that it was a "Book of the Year" nominee, but maybe it was a light year.
You can read more about it (spoilers, be warned) at the Wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdistan_%28novel%29
Bronze 1943-D Cent
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Lost
- Hits: 1743
Now the article tells you about the sale of one that was found, but I'm filing this under "Lost" because, really, how many of these bronze or zinc pennies are still out there? Maybe even in your pocket as you read this ...
Outbid Again!
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2079
I can't afford this cold snap, long days spent searching through eBay, so many items....
I flag the ones I want, bid at the last minute, increase my bid (beyond my means, but that's the point of auctions, isn't it?), am the high bidder, but only for 3 seconds, am finally outbid and DAMN IT I've lost another auction.
Small consolation, it was nothing I really needed, it was far more than I intended on spending, I was more caught up in the desire to spite the other bidders, I should get a premium, my involvement in this auction (as in so many others) doubled the final selling price....
Bastards.
There are more auctions today, maybe I'll win, if not there's always the small consolation of the "Buy It Now" button, 3 "Buy It Now"s = 1 lost auction.
On a happier note the accordion sold, up on Craigslist and Kijiji for under 12 hours and the buyer showed up, paid cash, the accordion is gone for surprisingly more than I expected. The Blowtorch, the Painting have as well been sold, although payment and pickup is delayed by travel/the weather, all sorts of obstacles, the Harp promised last week to an interested party, the reminder sent out today:
"Oh, Where is the bard that would strum my strings?
There's only Jack Frost and his icy fingers;
An aeolian harp on who's antique frame lingers
His Frozen breath. ..."
I couldn't be bothered to write a full Icelandic epic like some scholars I know, it's a swap after all and there's only so far I'm willing to go for a hand carved dolphin or porpoise.
Now on to Absurdistan, the novel of choice at the moment, 6 pages in and it's delightful, possibly (and like the auction let's not get our hopes up..) fine recompse for the last 2 books I've suffered through. We'll see.
Vintage Hohner Accordion
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: For Sale
- Hits: 3599
Playable, generally makes a braying noise like a dying donkey but I'm not sure if that's the instrument or the way I'm playing it.
Now the kid want's an electric guitar for Christmas, and you, the loving and doting parent, are contemplating buying it for him.
Probably the electric guitar is your way of apologizing for the lack of time you spend with him, you rationalize it by saying that maybe he'll do well and learn to play and be the world's next Kurt Cobain or John Lennon, but let's be real, he probably won't. Maybe he'll play it a few weeks, maybe, if he's determined, he'll learn to play the first few bars of "Stairway to Heaven" or "Smoke on the Water" before getting bored with it and putting it in the closet, to be dug out and sold at a loss at next years garage sale.
Or maybe he will do well at it. He'll take 1/2 hour lessons every week ($35.00 per lesson, $1470 per year...) and in a few years be hanging with the popular kids at school, smoking crack or pot, drinking, getting piercings and tattoos and fathering illegitimate children all over town while you work even longer hours and see him even less because there are that many more mouths to feed ("and where does the money go?" you wonder, but he's gotta pay for that drug habit somehow) and you just want to help out while the kid gets on his feet. finds a job or a band and makes his way up to becoming a famous rock star.
At night, you'll poke your head in his bedroom, there will be the Jim Morrison or Marilyn Manson posters over the futon on the floor, dirty laundry everywhere, blackened sheets or a Union Jack hung up over the basement window but he won't be there, he'll be in jail or at the bar and so you'll just have to say "I love you, son" to an empty room.
And it'll all be because you bought him that Electric Guitar.
Or maybe you could buy him an accordion.
Page 756 of 882