Ice Planet Hoth: A Nice Place to Visit, But I Wouldn't Want to Live There

Will you stand by me against the cold night,
Or are you afraid of the ice?
--Crack the Sky, "Ice"


More snow is descending on Central Standard as I write. Since mid-January, it has been winter time with a vengeance here, ladies and gents. Not much snow since the ice and such a few weeks back, but it has been coldcoldcold. And this house has more gaps in it than...something with alot of gaps in it. So, it's not the warmest house on the block. The ice around the side of my house that man and beast have to contend with when beast has to do what beasts have to do is tenaciously hanging on (and seemingly getting slicker by the day). Tonight, along with temps in the teens, we get maybe two more inches of snow. I hope none of the snow blows into the house through any of those gaps. It is tough going 'round these parts.

I just finished a pretty interesting book: Suttree by Cormac McCarthy. It's a good read, if you like books that are short on any real plot and long on character development. Set in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the early 1950s, it has a sort of Faulkner/Steinbeck-The Sound and the Fury-meets-Cannery Row feel. (Side note: This ain't the Cannery Row Steinbeck knew.) I liked it. Now, on the recommendations of Monkey, Boring Election, and Captain Morgan, I am doing myself a favor and increasing my cultural IQ by diving into East of Eden. Those of you familiar with my profile know that The Grapes of Wrath is one of my all-time favorites. I have enjoyed Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flats, The Red Pony, The Pearl, and the aforementioned Cannery Row, but I've not read Eden. With so many stellar recommendations, I can't miss on this one, either.

I facetiously told Captain Morgan at work today that it was a goal of mine to have read every book written in the English language (including this one, damn Tom Palmer's opinion) by the time I retired from teaching. It's really not a bad goal. Unattainable, sure, but what's wrong with unattainable goals? It beats one of my other life goals: never being arrested (though that's really a pretty good goal, too, I think).

Another interesting recent read: Lost Horizon by James Hilton. This one is sort of Somerset Maugham-ish. Short and exotic, in a Himalayan vein.

So, without further ado, I will read me some lit'racher, as the snow falls softly down. Wish I had a fireplace....

By the way, Crack the Sky=the best Ohio River Valley band ever to play at Hammerjacks, hon. (And I'm talking about the John Palumbo-Vinny DePaul-Joey D'Amico Crack the Sky, here.)