  1. urlLink This guy's ad from a weird porno gay personals site : are there words enough to describe my joy? 2. urlLink Sullywatch . A blog dedicated to reading Andrew Sullivan's work and revealing its flaws and contradictions. The overall tone is pretty mean, and I think misses much of the point of why Sullivan is such a beautiful genius, but it's an addition to the Sullivan world. 3. Running With Scissors : Tom Hoppe sent me Augusten Burroughs's memoir for my birthday and I read it this weekend in about 8 hours, straight through.
It's a wonderful read. Hysterically funny, touching, bewildering and catching the absurdity of youth in a way that I think we can all relate to, even if our parents aren't Anne Sexton wannabes. I don't much care for "funny books," as you all know, but this works for me because it's essentially in the form of short stories (there is no real chronology to events, and trying to piece one together based on the ages he asserts at various times left me feeling retarded). The reason I keep thinking about this book now though is not so much that it was brilliant (it was) but that Mr. Hoppe said he sent it to me because it reminded him of stories I tell about my family. Melissa Izzo says that she also thinks it sounds like my family. I don't know how I feel about this.
My family is nothing like this. Well, okay, so there are a few pedophiles in my family, and a lot of crazy drunks, and yes I grew up in a house full of crazy people who shit in the sink and swore nonstop in Finnish. But, I mean, really .
. .
am I that bad? 4. Dale Peck. After our conversation a while ago, spurred by Ben's quote from a Dale Peck article, I remembered reading some good reviews of Peck's own fiction, and decided to try it out and see if he has any reason to say Faulkner is a bitch.
So I picked up urlLink The Law of Enclosures as well as his collection of criticism, urlLink Hatchet Jobs . Peck writes some fucking beautiful prose. I'm really impressed. Here is a sample: Later, after she learned Henry really was dying, and after she learned he would live, she thought that sometimes you walk right into language as though it's a chair out of place in a dark room: a word, an expression you live with all your life can become suddenly, completely unfamiliar.
That night Beatrice stumbled over death, but it was dark, and she was tired, and she believed she had stumbled across love. 5. urlLink Gretchen Wilson's song, "Redneck Woman. ": this is something of a guilty pleasure for me. On occasion I like to switch the radio over to a country station in hopes of hearing something I like. I used to listen to country exclusively (until High School, in fact) and nostalgia draws me back in. The fact that patriotism and pop-rock seem to be all that country singers care about these days makes me sad and I long for a return to the days of Country & Western music, when songwriters wrote songs with narrative stories. Marty Robbins, Hank Williams, Garth Brooks were all great storytellers more than great musicians, and I miss that. This song is not very good. In fact it's pretty shitty. But I just can't help it. I have a soft spot in my heart for songs for the working class that shout out a big Fuck You to the elitist hipsters who run not only the music world but life in general.
Wilson's song doesn't rise to the level of that great anti-intellectual ode to sweaty "real work" that is Aaron Tippin's urlLink "Working Man's Ph.D." but it does feature this delightfully sexy and proud line (about fancy lingerie): "Still look sexy/as sexy as those models on TV/I don't need no designer tag to make my man want me.
You might think I'm trashy/a little too hardcore/but get in my neck of the woods/I'm just the girl next door. " What is best about my obsession with this song is that it is apparently the most popular song in the history of country music ever or something and is on any time of day on at least one of the three country stations I can find. This makes it surprisingly easy for me to indulge in a little trashy good fun. 
