v4nividivici

reading fever

I’m obsessed with reading lately and I keep thinking about the Paris review and this one column called the YA of yore.

The person who writes those has the most honest voice and gets me stoked about books and is also 100% accurate…….

Taste: impeccable.
Ability to describe accurately: out of this world.
Ability to get me to give a fuck and want to keep reading the article for its own sake and not merely a jumping off point to go consume more literature: surprising. Wow. I didn’t think it was possible.

In other words nowadays when I’m not reading books, I’m reading about books I could be reading.

Really if I’m not reading though it’s because we are sailing or dealing with some sailing related stuff or doing something that must be done or cooling off in the water

It is hot lately but a jump in the water does me much good

Currently I’m reading:

I like weetzie bat so much it’s just a fine work of art and all the hollowness and sugary blitheness seems entirely intentional and even allegorical.

And yeah guess where I discovered it. That’s right. Paris review. The YA of yore column.

I also enjoy the “eat your words” column but find the writing less compelling

Lately I think I may be an aesthete.

Beauty in the form of literature and food and environment (like, nature) and music and art are very important to me

I seek not only beauty in these but also novelty and winks

Weetzie bat winks at me like “do you get it? Do you get what cliches I’m overdoing and what rules I’m intentionally breaking?? Do you get the hypnosis that I’m performing on you right now? Is it working?”

Some questions and thoughts about reading:

I think there is “preparation for life” reading and then there is “triumphantly dancing” reading. Preparation reading is self-help and non-fic not enjoyed but utilized for something. Preparation reading is reading classics as a form of self-education. Triumphant celebrating life reading is reading for the joy of reading and being your own compass of taste (others are merely suggesting but you are always the foremost authority of your taste) and reading to a point where the reading — an act of consumption — becomes active and something you feel you get “good at” as if there is a secret code to finding new delightful reads and to break your own boundaries and to gather even more joy

I keep imagining the perfect day. That’s a day of a lot of cardio outdoors. Swimming or running or biking. Then a shower. Then a book. With treats. And it’s a hot summer afternoon and you do your best to get some shade and to savour a nice breeze. You drink some iced tea. You feel languid and lazy in that French aristocratic way. You feel like a bored English lady in her summer cottage mansion in the country side. But you’re not bored at all you have a book. And not a worry in the world. And you have some sweets. You nibble on them slowly. They’re for the taste because you’re not even hungry. And you’re sprawled over, your body is an octopus and you’re lying down and your body is melting into the heat and the couch. You cannot possibly use less energy. That’s called heaven.

Because imagination is of this world and it’s an exercise in visualization and vivid renderings of physical and emotional sensations on every dimension all happening simultaneously. Reading is a celebration of our ability to do that. Reading is a lot like eating in that way. Eating is multi sensory too. And artistic. And fun. But reading has even more dimensions.

The difference between reading and cooking though is that I feel often that I can cook as well as the restaurants I visit but I don’t often feel I can write as well as the authors I read but

My authors are Michelin 3 star authors.

So that’s probably why.

I want to write like that. Without copying anyone’s tricks in a dead mechanical way. I want my voice to one day become a special voice with a special thing to say. Delightful things.

I’m finding a consistency in my tastes in books, movies and paintings/drawings.

There is a common energy.

It’s blithe it’s fun it’s intelligent but chooses to not care about showing off intelligence but it’s fully cognizant and it’s intuitive and it’s bright and it’s joyful and and and

And my music is quite different

Like the music I listen to…I don’t know.

It touches another layer of me

Maybe a more subconscious thing. Maybe it’s the thing that my other aesthetic leanings are trying to soothe over

When i sing or play the piano I go to a different place. A sad place.

In other news,

Seb spearfished two fish today. A sea bream and a pompano

His very first.

And my very first time cooking fish in the oven

I felt like Julie and Julia. I felt so French

And it turned out so well and I was so proud of my chef instincts. My culinary intuition. It’s sharpening…