Can’t decide what I want to read next. This morning I finished Conversations With Thomas McGuane, edited by Beef Torrey. A name that caught my wife’s eye. Read most of that just before going to sleep. Halfway through By The Book by Pamela Paul, which I read alongside my wife as she watches some intriguing but slow drama in living color on the big screen. I don’t have to pay much attention to keep up and this book is just a rather repetitive collection of author interviews which originally appeared in the Sunday New York Times. Sadly, there are many famous writers I never heard of, which makes me feel just a little – how can I say this gently – a little stupid. The Times will do that to you. Sometimes I read the arts criticism aloud because it is so treacly pretentious.
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And then there’s The Autobiography of Mark Twain by Samuel Clemens. Or vice versa. Whatever, I think of these recollections as The Book Whose Title Must Not Be Spoken. How the words drone on. I pray I am halfway through. It’s an audiobook, so clearly the solution is many more treadmill workouts. Somewhere shady and air conditioned, probably Gold’s Gym. Like to watch FOX News there – one obligatory channel in all Florida gyms. Lucky if it’s only one. Like to watch on mute. I try to imagine what the pundits are saying, how come you need a picture ID to vote but you don’t need a picture ID to buy a bazooka? Guessing you never hear that on Fox. And meanwhile Twain will be droning on about how wonderful he is and how cats are the best pets and all his famous friends and how much his daughter loves him and how hard he scratches his itchy balls. Threw that in just to see if you are paying attention. Felt vindicated when I came to page 200 of By The Book. Christopher Buckley is asked, what book did you feel as if you were supposed to like it but didn’t? “Much as it pains me to say it, The Autobiography of Mark Twain…. [T]his omnium-gatherum is truly and monumentally dull and dare I say, pointless. As Garrison Keillor remarked in these pages in his review: it’s the ultimate argument for burning your leftovers before you die.” So, it’s not just me.
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Do I dare open my copy of the Bruce Jenner edition of Vanity Fair? “Call Me Caitlyn” is already shrouded in plastic upon its arrival. Still have that Rolling Stone with John & Yoko naked in bed. Uncovered on the cover. That’s in plastic. Was thinking about keeping Jenner’s Vanity Fair pristine, one of my grandchildren’s children could get rich selling it. Then I remembered global warming and income inequality and the current political situation and so I dropped the Vanity Fair onto the pile of sedimentary material next to my chair to be investigated at some later date. If you don’t start it, you don’t have to finish it. That’s a rule. Damn that Mark Twain. Oh, almost forgot. Actually once spent an entire day with Bruce. Picked him up at the airport (PDX) and probably took him to Nike. Nice guy,with a sweet smile if amused. That’s all I remember.
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Visited a friend with a fifty-thousand (50,000) volume library. His house is much bigger than mine, true. So, I came home, donated all my poker books to The Little Red Schoolhouse operated by a bunch of grumpy old ladies. They may be friends of the library but I think a couple of glasses of chablis in the morning would help their mood. Donated those poker books to make room for all the new books about writing and memoirs and authors and literature I started ordering on Amazon late at night after a few brews.. Collected fiction and poetry and biographies to create a curriculum for my M.F.A. Skipping the part where I actually go back to school. If I can diagnose my own learning disabilities, then certainly I can bestow an honorary degree.
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Have decided what I’ll read next. Forty years ago I dropped out of law school and a couple weeks ago a friend from that class gave me a copy of Richard Ford’s Let Me Be Frank With You. That’ll be my bedtime read. The fourth book of a trilogy is rarely a good sign but you have to respect a friendship of four decades. And big print helps. Another friend says the book reads like Ford needed the money. “You can finish it in a day,” he told me. I keep a journal of the books I read, not unlike my running diaries, where I keep track of mileage. Keep track of books read and would be nice to race through a few volumes. Slim books are like easy miles, easy to pile up. Which leads me to Pop. 1280, by Jim Thompson, arguably our greatest crime writer. Frankly, often confuse Thompson with James M. Cain. For some reason, Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange thrashing about on the kitchen table sticks in my mind. Coincidentally, just came across a list of books I read twenty years ago. Among them Pop.1280. Which until now, I thought completely new to me.
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Brings up another issue. I am having trouble writing my memoirs because I don’t remember much. Like somebody wiped my hard drive clean with a magnet. I can recall my mailbox combination in Hof, Germany in 1966 (J – two turns to the right – AB – one turn left – F) but very little of my childhood. Which, come to think of it, might not be all bad. Luckily, high school is a complete blank. Like how abuse victims can block out a particularly traumatic experience.
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McGuane reads first thing in the morning for a couple of hours and I am going to start doing the same. But what? Poetry perhaps. A Coney Island Of The Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti is certainly slim enough. With a lot of white space. Fiction perhaps. If so, maybe Suttree by Cormac McCarthy. Somewhat stunned by how many of my favorite authors cite Suttree as a particularly great piece of writing. Like to read interviews and biographies because I can get inspired. So, thinking hard about Erik Bledsoe’s Getting Naked With Harry Crews. An unfortunate title. Guess I’ll read that next. Crews was denied entrance into the University of Florida’s Creative Writing program but later became a member of the faculty there. Seems like I could learn a thing or two. That’s what I’ll do.
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And tomorrow I am headed back to the gym. Maybe the day after. A slow old man with a lengthy, arduous book. What could be wrong with that? Still vertical, still anxious to learn. Damn that Mark Twain and my stubborn nature.