Fizzled

Oy.
So much for being catapulted, sizzling, into a new month.
Could people stop with the (allegedly illegal) neighborhood pyrotechnics at some point?
My niece has to go to summer school today. Let us all take a moment to play the tiny violin of sympathy for 7 a.m. Biology after cherry bombs were still whistling and thudding at 2 a.m. Ugh. I might actually drink caffeine today.

Yesterday was interesting in terms of holiday writing on “tradition;” a piece in our local paper about housekeeping, and the idea that it is no longer hip for younger women to be house-proud aligned strangely with another I read, via Bookshelves O’ Doom, in the Guardian about ‘Girl Wonders’, and the subversive charm of the heroine, she who lived outside the circle of the ‘normal’ and did her own thing. The article points out the tendency of young women to pattern their lives after their fictional heroines. But if my choices were limited between Anne of Green Gables and Nancy Drew… well, that’s not enough of a choice! It makes me wonder who today’s YA girls will be, with the likes of Kaye from Tithe, Flora Segunda, Hermione, Tiffany Aching, Miranda from Life As We Knew It, D.J. Schwenk, Maud from A Drowned Maiden’s Hair, Reason Cansino and myriad others from which to choose.

I love going to Book Moot to look at the Potter countdown, despite the fact that I basically lost… faith with the Potter thing around Book 4, and it was cemented in Book 5 — nevertheless, I will probably see the movie, and read the next book. Eventually. (That ‘eventually’ means I’ll spend months trying to dodge spoilers, but oh well. My TBR list is simply too staggeringly long to bump up a new book just because it just came out. I think. If I hear lots of oohing, I may reconsider…). Our paper had an interesting article on the upcoming movie and the actors involved — and the fact that the three principal characters have buckets of money and have not yet done much with it. A computer? An ice cream truck? It’s just such a change from many young American actors.

The Readergirlz are reading Goy Crazy this month. Though the topic is serious – interracial dating — the novel itself is a perfect summer confection — light and sweet and really fun.

Is it me, or is this latest lamentation about the Sopranos killing off novels just another annoying “[Insert New And Feared Technological Thing Here] will destroy books forever!” song? I’m quite sure that iPhones represent the decline and fall of civilization, yes, yes, they will create a world in which everyone will be on their multitasker phones at all times, and no one will read the next book that isn’t Harry Potter. Whatever. It really aggravates me to hear the questions recirculate — it first was a Big Concern that I noticed back in 2004 — based on statistics provided by book people who merely observe. Their observations seem to be routinely skewed into the panic that there are too many books, too many book prizes, too many “stickers” on books, not enough readers, and altogether not enough else to worry about.

I guess as a writer I ought to be worried about this — certainly when people find out I write (am not yet brazen enough to say “I am a…” when asked), they most often want to commiserate with me on the demise of the reader or the written word. What does one say to that? No, really. What do you say when people talk about how reading, books, literature, etc., are crossing to Gehenna with the ferryman? I need a few conversational… segues. Or else more social skill…