My Newest Internet-Based Diversion (August 2007 edition)

[Yes, there's still time to vote for your favorite modern novels! Go here for that sort of thing!]

From modern novels, to college football, and now to todays topic: sending postcards to strangers. [Note to Self: Is it possible blog lacks thematic cohesion? Nah....]

It all started with a comment from renowned book artist, indomitable scourge of garden pests, and frequent L&TM5K commenter fingerstothebone:

I can't believe I didn't remember to tell you this, but I just received a pretty boring postcard from Finland which reminded me -- you should sign up for postcrossing.com to spread boring postcards all over the world, and to receive boring postcards from all over the world.

And she's so damn right! I should sign up! PostCrossing.com is tailor-made for me, combining as it does so many of my key enthusiasms:

1. Postcards.


2. Learning about new places.


3. Meeting new people.


4. Wasting time online.


5. Meticulously keeping track of things that aren't really very important.


6. Shamelessly trying to get people to read this blog.

The idea is, you sign up as a member and start sending postcards to other members. As they receive your postcards, you go to the top of the queue and other members send postcards to you. How cool is that? [Don't answer that. The proper answer is "very cool."]

Although the well-designed members map (above) shows a pretty global group of people, with predictable clusters where internet use is prevalent (check out Malaysia!), my first five postcards are all going to Europe: Sweden, Finland, England, the Netherlands, and Portugal.

Anyway, I think that this is a very cool (albeit somewhat ridiculous, which never bothers me) concept, and will be participating enthusiastically. And that's all I have to say about that.

College Football 2007: Pre-Season Analysis

[If you are here to talk modern novels, go here. Then you can come back and read this incisive, hard-hitting analysis of the coming college football season.]

All right, football fans! Here's who I like for 2007!

But first, I should clarify that by "who I like" I don't mean "who I think will be successful." No. I am a Ducks fan. We know better than to predict. We simply accept the team we end up with: occasionally brilliant, sometimes awful, frequently frustrating, always entertaining.

Inside the Pac-10

1. The Oregon Ducks. That's, like, axiomatic.
   
   
   
   
2. The Oregon State Beavers. I'm a regionalist, and not much for traditional rivalries. I want to see the home-state lads do well.



3. The Washington Huskies. More regionalism. Plus, Seattle is a groovy town. Plus, I suspect that it annoys the UW fans I know that I am generally supportive of their team, and that's fun.




4. The Washington State Cougers. Though Pullman could not really be called "a groovy town."




5. The Stanford Cardinal. Those guys are book-smart, too. I respect that.




6. The California Bears. I like Cal because they are from, you know, Berkeley. Michael5000 is a hippy at heart.




7. The USC Trojans. You have to admire a machine that works well. Really, really, really well.




8. The U.C.L.A. Bruins. "U.C.L.A." "U.C.L.A." It just sounds good.




9. The Arizona Wildcats. I pay grudging respect to the school where Mrs.5000 got her graduate degree. Plus, they are often easy to beat.




10. The Arizona State Sun Devils, I have no use for. Sorry.
    

Outside the Pac-10

• I have determined to like Oklahoma this year. This is partly to placate occasional L&TM5K commenter DrSchnell, partly in salute to the Oklahoma blogging contigent -- you guys are O.K.!!! -- and mostly because I have found the OU/U of O mini-rivalry of the past few years highly amusing. So I'm rooting for the Sooners, except of course when they play my regional favorite K-State. When they play my alma mater, Kansas, about which I have highly ambiguous feelings, I will hope for a tie. When they play Nebraska or Texas, I'll hope they not only win but run up a humiliating margin of victory.




• I will continue my policy of rooting against every team in the SEC and the ACC. The exception is Auburn, which has a cool name.




• Huge schools like Ohio State and Michigan are just boring. As is Notre Dame. I will root against them.




• I will root for Purdue, because they are called the "Boilermakers," and Syracuse, because they are called the "Orangemen."
  
  
  
  
• Who couldn't be in love with plucky Boise State after last year's season? Almost nobody!





• Oh, and finally, I'm going to try to pay attention to Division I-AA Portland State this year. Not a bad team, interesting new coach, and I could in theory ride my bike 15 minutes and watch a quality football game for a pittance. With several dozen other fans. But still.

How about you, gentle reader? Who are you rooting for this year?

Inform My Reading List! Episode II

[The Results of the Classic Novel Voting are here.]

This Week: Modern (1950-present) Novels


OK, on to the poorly-defined and poorly-named category of Modern Novels! With this category, the process gets a little murkier. With books this recent, any notion of which books are The Great Books (problematic as such notions are, yadda yadda yadda) is still very much in flux. So, anything goes. This makes trouble, because I can't really drum up anything like a complete ballot for you. It would be enormous.

So Here's How We'll Roll

I'm starting things off with a basically random list of novels that I haven't read from the last sixty years. You aren't limited to these. As you, the voters, suggest additional titles, I'll add them to the list. You can vote for as many as you like, or you can restrict yourself to three favorites and give them two votes apiece. Knock yourself out, and thanks for playing.

Possible Options: (Remember, you are not limited to these)

• Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1 votes)
• Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina (2)
• Amis, M., Money
• Andric, Bridge on the Drina (2)
• Atwood, Surfacing (1)
• Barry, Cruddy (1)
• Basu, Opium Clerk (1)
• Bellow, Herzog (1)
• Blume, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (3)
• Blume, Then Again, Maybe I Won't (1)
• Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (4)
• Byatt, Possession (1)
• Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1)
• Caudwell, Maybe Thus Was Adonus Murdered (1)
• Carey, Oscar and Lucinda
• Carey, Jack Maggs (1)
• Chandler, The Long Goodbye (2)
• Connell, Mrs. Bridge (1)
• Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory (1)
• DeLillo, Underworld (1)
• DeWitt, The Last Samurai (2)
• Eggers, You Shall Know Our Velocity (1/2)
• Ellroy, American Tabloid (1)
• Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides (1/2)
• Fforde, The Eyre Affair (2)
• Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (1)
• Ghosh, Hungry Tide (1)
• Grass, the Tin Drum (1)
• Greene, The End of the Affair (2)
• Greene, The Heart of the Matter (1)
• Greene, Our Man in Havana (2)
• Greene, The Quiet American (3)
• Hoban, Ridley Walker (1)
• Hosseini, The Kite Runner (1)
• Irving, The Cider House Rules (1)
• Ishiguro, The Unconsoled (2)
• Kemal, Memed, My Hawk (1)
• Keroac, On the Road (2 1/2)
• Krauss, The History of Love (1)
• Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies (2)
• Lessing, The Golden Notebook (1)
• Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy (1)
• Marquez, Autumn of the Patriarch (3)
• McCarthy, Blood Meridian (2)
• McEwan, Atonement (1)
• Miller, Tropic of Cancer
• Moore, Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove (1)
• Moore/Gibbons, Watchmen (3)
• Morrison, Song of Solomon (2)
• Morrison, Sula (2)
• Munro, The Beggar Maid (1)
• Murakami, Kafka on the Shore (1/2)
• Nabakov, Despair (1)
• Nabakov, Lolita (2)
• Nabakov, Pnin (3)
• Naipaul, A House for Mr. Biswas (1)
• Naipaul, Bend in the River (1)
• Naipaul, Suffrage of Elvira (1)
• Narayan, The Financial Expert
• Oates, We Were the Mulvaneys (1)
• Oates, Marya (1)
• Ondaatje, The English Patient (1)
• Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion (1)
• Pamuk, My Name is Red (4)
• Percy, The Moviegoer (1)
• Pynchon, Crying of Lot 49 (2)
• Robinson, Housekeeping (3)
• Roth, American Pastoral (1)
• Roth, Goodbye Columbus (1)
• Roy, The God of Small Things (2)
• Rushdie, Midnight's Children
• Saramago, The Double (1)
• Sebold, The Lovely Bones (1)
• Seth, A Suitable Boy
• Smiley, A Thousand Acres (3)
• Stegner, Angle of Repose (3)
• Swift, Waterland (2)
• Tan, The Joy Luck Club (1 1/2)
• Tutuola, The Palm-Wife Drinkard (1)
• Updike, the other Rabbit books after Rabbit, Run (3)
• Wilson, A Bottle In the Smoke (1)
• Yolin, The Devil's Arithmetic (1)
• Yoshimoto, Kitchen (1)

Suggested Books that Michael5000 has already read, so don't waste your vote!

• Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
• Bechdel, Fun Home
• Calvino, If On a Winter's Night a Traveler
• Capote, In Cold Blood
• Eggers, A Heartbreaking blah blah blah
• Eugenides, Middlesex
• Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars
• Miller, A Canticle for Liebowitz
• Morrison, Beloved
• Murakami, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
• O'Brien, The Things They Carried
• Roth, Portnoy's Complaint
• Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

All right! Hit that comment button and VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!

Inform My Reading List! The Classic Novels

The voting for classic novels is now closed!!

Except for me. I've picked out the twelve from the list that I would have picked if I was one of those boring people who choose their own books. Here they are:

1) Pere Goriot; 2) Labyrinths; 3) Don Quixote; 4) the Big Sleep; 5) Madame Bovary; 6) Dead Souls; 7) Ulysses; 8) the Trial; 9) Death in Venice; 10) Remembrance of Things Past; 11) Street of Crocodiles; 12) Candide.

Add me and a few Monday stragglers to the votes that have already been counted, and you get:


The Winners!

1. The Brothers Karamazov, 9 1/2 points.
2. Huckleberry Finn, 9 points.
2. Candide, 9 points.
4. The Big Sleep, 8 points.
5. To the Lighthouse, 7 points.
6. The Stranger, 5 points.
6. The Process, 5 points.
6. Don Quixote, 5 points.
6. Ulysses, 5 points.
10. Crime and Punishment, 4 1/2 points.
10. Cry, the Beloved Country, 4 1/2 points.
10. The Scarlet Letter, 4 1/2 points.

What Now?


I will start the first book, probably the Brothers Karamazov, this weekend. And I'll continue reading books off of the list (including these 12 and the winners from the other categories), in more or less random order, until I run out. I will do little book reviews on this blog for your heckling and second-guessing pleasure.

Note that I do not intend to burn straight through these without interuption. I'll always read at least one book of trashier pedegree between Book List books. So, I figure we're looking at two to three years worth of reading.


Many thanks to everybody who voted for the classic novels! Now, let's get cracking on the modern novels!

Clown Poppies

[Still time to vote for your favorite classic novels! The ballot is two posts down. Stand by for modern novels starting Tuesday.]

Some pictures of my beloved clown poppies were recently featured over at My Dog is Chelsea, so I thought I would inflict a few on y'all here as well.

Here's the deal with clown poppies: they're ephemeral.

They generally bloom in the morning. Oftentimes, they start to fall apart by the early evening. By the next day, there is nothing left except possibly a few red petals on the ground.

I can usually get six or seven plants to grow a year. They bloom for about a week, around the spring solstace, and then they're gone.

Hard not to see some metaphorical potential in all this.

Brazzaville versus Burgerville

[if you are here about the book list thing, go here and vote! Then come back and read this one; it's very droll.]

Do you ever do that thing where you see or hear one word with your eyes or ears, but a different word goes into your head? Sure you do, everybody does. I'm just not articulating it very well.

(In fact, there should be a word for this phenomenon. I encourage you to suggest a word for it in the comments.)

Anyway, whenever I see a sign for local burger joint "Burgerville," my brain thinks "Brazzaville." I know. I'm a freak. But whatever. I have created and will now share with you this:

Faceoff: Brazzaville versus Burgerville

The Basics:

Brazzaville: Capital city of the Republic of Congo, population 1.5 million.
Burgerville: Chain of fast food restaurants in Oregon and Southwest Washington, with 43 stores.

Founded by:

Brazzaville: The French Explorer Pierre Savoignan de Brazza, in 1880.
Burgerville: Entrepreneur George Propstra, in 1961.

Motto:

Brazzaville: “Unite' - Travail – Progress.”
Burgerville: “Choose fresh, local, sustainable; choose Burgerville.”

Under the Shadow of:

Brazzaville: Congo/Zaire’s capital Kinshasa, five times as large and directly across the Congo River.
Burgerville: McDonalds, Burger King, and other national fast food chains.

The French Connection:

Brazzaville: Capital of French Equatorial Africa until independence in 1960.
Burgerville: Sweet Potato and Yukon Gold French Fries are always big sellers.

Landmark:

Brazzaville: Nabemba Tower, tallest skyscraper in Central Africa.
Burgerville: “Last Burgerville for 24,700 Miles!” billboards.

Natural Resource Use:

Brazzaville: Major port for natural resources of the Congo Basin, including rubber, timber, and agricultural products.
Burgerville: Makes major fuss about using ingredients from the Pacific Northwest region, including beef, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables.

Recent Problems:

Brazzaville: Unrest in the 1990s caused thousands of civilian deaths and sent refugees streaming out of the city.
Burgerville: Planned expansions into Central Oregon and Seattle markets have apparently been postponed.

Weaknesses:

Brazzaville: Underdeveloped social and physical infrastructure; unemployment; poverty.
Burgerville: Annoying oldies music; half-hearted 50s diner theme.

Prospects:

Brazzaville: Congo's economic prospects remain largely dependent on the country's ability to establish political stability and democratic rule.
Burgerville: Whether Burgerville's regional popularity will allow it to compete against much larger competitors, with their buying power and economies of scale, only the future can tell.

There. I hope that helped.

Inform My Reading List! Episode I

I'm always trying to live up to my overeducation. Recently, totally of my own volition and with no midterms hanging over me or anything, I actually read some books about history and philosophy and stuff. Some of them didn't even have pictures. It's been great. Not only does this kind of thing make me feel all erudite and shit [gratuitous profanity included for blog-rating purposes, also for humorous bathetic effect], but it helps me keep up with Mrs. 5000 and her fancy-schmancy Ivy League book-larnin'.

So, you ask, what comes next in my program of self-insmartification?

Here's the plan. You, the L&TM5K readers, will help me pick my reading list for the next year or so. This reading list will consist of 10-12 Classic (Pre-1950) Novels, 10-15 Modern (1950-present) Novels, 4 or 5 Seriously Old Books, 8 or 9 books of Serious Non-Fiction, and just to round things out, 3 or 4 Fantasy/Sci Fi epics.


This Week: Classic (Pre-1950) Novels

(OK, sure, "Pre-1950" is a sketchy category. Get over it.) My methodology for this section was to look at a bunch of books with titles like Great Books You Should Have Already Read, Stupid, and to list out old novels that kept reappearing. (I haven't listed books that I've already read.)

Your Mission

Hit that comments link and Vote! Let me know which of the following books are (or aren't) worth reading. And, if you've got a few minutes on your hand, tell me why you think so. (And yeah, you can definitely suggest titles that aren't on the list if you want.) Oh, then tell your most bookish friends to come do the same.

(Don't read the old stuff? No problem! Come on back next week for the modern novels!)


The Titles

• Balzac, Pere Goriot
• Borges, Labyrinths
• Camus, the Stranger
• Cervantes, Don Quixote
• Chandler, the Big Sleep
• Clark, the Ox-Box Incident
• Crane, Red Badge of Courage
• Dickens, Great Expectations
• Dos Passos, U.S.A. Trilogy
• Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov
• Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
• Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom!
• Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (sez Blythe)
• Faulkner, Sound and the Fury
• Fielding, Tom Jones
• Flaubert, Madame Bovary
• Goethe, Faust
• Gogol, Dead Souls
• Hammett, the Maltese Falcon
• Hardy, Mayor of Castorbridge
• Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles
• Hawthorne, the Scarlet Letter
• James, Portrait of a Lady
• James, er, rather: Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• James, the Ambassadors
• Joyce, Ulysses
• Kafka, the Trial
• Lawrence, Women in Love
• Mann, Buddenbrooks
• Mann, Death in Venice
• Mann, the Magic Mountain
• Maugham, the Razor’s Edge
• Paton, Cry the Beloved Country (sez Mrs. 5000)
• Proust, whatever they are calling “Remembrance of Things Past” this year
• Schulz, Street of Crocodiles (sez Mrs. 5000)
• Stendhal, the Red and the Black
• Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
• Tolstoy, War and Peace
• Twain, Huck Finn
• Twain, Tom Sawyer
• Voltaire, Candide
• Woolf, To the Lighthouse