Blog about Blog about 3

Posted on by Biblioklept

  1. There are 30 days in April. On 1 April 2018—Easter Sunday and/or April Fool’s Day—I declared on my cursed blog that I would write something on the blog every day this month. I failed to write every day on the blog in the month of April; specifically, I did not post stuff on April 13, April 20, or April 24.
  2. (Not a reason for not posting on any of these dates but fun: April 13 was a Friday the 13th; April 20 is 4/20; April 24 is my cousin’s birthday).
  3. On the 1 April Blog about post I specifically hunted down the Fool card in the Rider-Waite tarot deck that I keep out for fun. I always thought tarot was foolish silliness, even if I found some of the aesthetics attractive, before a third or maybe fourth rereading of Gravity’s Rainbow prompted my buying a deck for research purposes. The deck figures heavily in Pynchon’s novel, providing a mystical and indeterminate contrast to the novel’s motif of mathematical precision. At some point I start flipping a card every day—not as some kind of superstitious soothsaying totem, but rather for fun. I don’t know. I scattered some of those cards into these posts when I photographed books; every card was a card I flipped that day, aside from The Fool.
  4. This morning I flipped the Two of Wands, a card I like. I like most of the Wands suit (and generally dislike the Swords suit; the Cups are my thing though). It’s in the pic above, which is a lazy attempt at an organizing principle for this post, which is not The Last Blog about post, but the last one for April 2018. (Tomorrow is May 2018).
  5. I mean what I mean is, Trying to blog every day was rewarding but also exhausting. I was surprised at some of what I wrote, even a little tiny small bit happy with some of it, and I still have a slim deck of ideas on deck. I think I’ll try to do one or two of these a week, and at least do one on Sundays.
  6. So I said above (by said I mean wrote) that I used a picture as an organizing principle for this disorganized post. The pic is of a loose stack of books that I’ve read or am reading or intend to read or have maybe halfway sorta given up on. It’s a pile that needs organizing. So, from top to bottom:
  7. I reread Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance this month and loved it. I almost started a reread of The House of Seven Gables after reading it—and typing this out now, I realize that that’s what I’d like to read soon, actually. One of the favorite posts I did in this Blog about series was on making a cocktail Hawthorne’s narrator drinks in the novel.
  8. I picked up Players after reading DeLillo’s The Names, which I wrote about early in these Blog about posts. It’s been hanging out unattended for a few weeks and I’m sure I’ll get to it in 38 months.
  9. I said I’d finally read Middlemarch this year, but I find myself unwilling to commit after two or three chapters and am irritated with myself in my constantly transferring it from room to room without reading it or shelving it. Maybe I’m only interested in it because it is monstrous. (I love big fat monsters; make me read Middlemarch).
  10.  I wrote one of these Blog about posts about Gerald Murnane’s story “Stream System.” I have another thing sketched out for his story “Stone Quarry” which is like this wonderfully satirical take on metafiction. I’m mostly enjoying reading this book slowly. I hate the drive to read too fast.
  11. I read The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector maybe five or six years ago and I pulled it out the other day because I think I’d like to reread it, because that’s what I like—rereading—I mean, I’ d prefer to reread Middlemarch without all the hard labor of, like, reading it first. But then I realized I’d never actually finished it. So I need to read it so I can reread it.
  12. I got the Hob Broun in the mail today and I’m going to quit writing this stupid fucking blog and go read it now.
  13. I’ll do another one of these tomorrow if I feel like it, but not if I don’t feel like it, and if I don’t not feel like it, maybe.

Published by Biblioklept

2 thoughts on “Blog about Blog about 3”

  1. Hey man. Really big fan. Your blog has a heavy influence on my reading life. Just wanted to tune in to say thanks and cheer you on! Middlemarch is very good, and I think you’ll like it, but I think of it has more like a mosaic than a baggy monster. Each chapter is a perfectly formed subset or piece in a huge portrait of a specific time and place.

    Liked by 2 people

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