Scott Douglas’ Terse Bloviation

Instant Love by Jami Attenberg

#2. Lost Memory of Skin, by Russell Banks

That’s the beginning of almost every answer I give in this lengthy podcast with Jay Johnson. Some of the answers improve after that. Meanwhile, my voice deteriorates noticeably over the hour; that’s about as much talking as I usually do in a day.

With that promo, how can you not be tempted to listen?

Toward the end of last year I started wondering how many books I finish in a year, so for lack of a more convenient place to keep a list I’ll keep up with, I’ve decided to do so here.

I recently joined the first book club of my life, and have the sense that doing so will, oddly, result in fewer books finished, because I’ll always be focused on getting one done for the monthly meeting and maybe then want to take a break from what might come to feel like assigned reading. (I don’t recall reading a lot of books other than textbooks during the school year in college, for instance.) Anyway…

#1: Why Read Moby-Dick, by Nathaniel Philbrick.

I’m out of copies of The Little Red Book of Running, so have removed the buy-from-me post that used to live below. Thanks to everyone who ordered directly from me. This little start-up called Amazon still has some they’d be happy to sell you.

Read about running’s shaman.

And Amby Burfoot likes it.

As do Running Times (shocker!), Washington Running Report and Competitor.

Maybe you will too.

Part 1 of an interview about it. Part 2.

If you’d like to buy a signed copy, write to me.

“If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish’d for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.”
—Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Henry IV

In other words, I’m quite enjoying the new Feelies album, their first in 20 years. You put it on, you think, “Yup, that’s a Feelies album, happy to hear it repeatedly.” I wonder how much of that is because of their sparse output. If they had been putting out records every two years the last two decades, would it be more, “Eh, another Feelies album. Why do I need to get it?”

But they didn’t, so the new one is a welcome ennui ameliorator.

My story on Bill Squires is available online.

Yesterday Stacey had a piece of coconut cream cake at 5:30 p.m., two hours before dinner. I called this “pressert.” Did I make up a fun word?