Reading: A Heartbreaking Work of yadda-yadda-yadda, read below
Music: Anti-Flag
TV/Movie: Grand Hotel
Link o' the Day: McSweeney's Internet Tendency

I asked yesterday if people listened to the commentary tracks on their DVDs. I'll probably write up my thoughts by the end of the week. In the meantime, the question is still out there... do you check out the commentary tracks and other extras on your DVDs?

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Spring is obviously here in New England. All one need do is look out the window and watch the rain whip by at a fevered pace. Spring is such a messy sort of season, but a welcome sight just the same. Soon we'll be setting up the planters on the porch. I'll drag the rocking chair out and maybe a little table of sorts so I have a place to read or pick at an instrument. Soon, so very soon, the fishing rods will come out. I'll reorganize the tackle box, maybe get a new reel.

And maybe we'll try to get some serious spring cleaning done.

Ha!

Well, we'll try at any rate. We're both packrats. We have too much junque and not enough places to put it. Maybe this year we can come up with a strategy to either a.) liberate ourselves of a lot of extra stuff, or b.) a more effective manner of storage.

Or both.

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So I'm slowly going through David Egger's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Most of my reading time is caught on the bus whilst going to and fro work, so I'm not as far along as I probably should be. It's an interesting book just the same. It's a piece of autobiography with many of the trappings of fiction, but it's also very... perhaps exceedingly so... self aware. The author evens discusses this in one of the longer introductions in literary history. So far it's a charming conceit. The question is, will that same device hold up as the book progresses.

The main story of his life, or the narrator's life (honestly... people don't know if it should be shelved with biography or fiction) is the sudden death of both parents and the raising of the youngest brother who starts out at around 8 years old. It's very well written, and so far artfully constructed. It's keeping my interest, and generally I don't really read books about personal tragedy and overcoming adversity and so forth. Not unless there's a Ring of Doom and a volcano involved. (my loss, I'm sure.)

In any case, I can tentatively recommend it.

What I find more interesting about Eggers is his McSweeney's Quarterly Review, and other McSweeney's-related publications. This guy is playing games with the standard publishing models, and looks like he's having a lot of fun with it. He seems to have a good eye for writing and editing as well.

Which brings us to today's link: McSweeney's Internet Tendency which hosts several interesting bits of writing, blogs, McSweeney's store, info on the 826 Writing & Tutoring Centers, and more. It's worth a good, deep browse.

Cheers!

--John