Upside Ann

Sioux Falls in Soux Falls. Worth a stop.  I wish I had walked across to the other side of the falls.  I stayed on the "parking lot side" - probably because Zupe was uninterested in extending his time here.  (This should not serve as a caution about the intrinsic "lack of interestingness" in the falls.  Zupe didn't want to spend time viewing Yellowstone.  Couldn't get him to see a paint pot potting for all the tea in China.  I think it has to do with being 15.)  From the perspective I had, the view of the fall always included civilization - a train trestle, old buildings, skyscrapers, light poles... The other side would have had a background of trees, park, lots of people.  (Hmmmm.  Better?)   If the falls were more remote and more part of nature, I believe they would be more impressive.  They are not huge.  There is no dramatic drop of water - but a series of steps against the same pink quartzite we saw at Pipestone. If yo...

  I should have warned you to sit down first.  Sorry.  Sometimes, I amaze myself.  

 Remember how it took me weeeeeeks to re-read Burning Angel?  I polished off Cadillac Jukebox in 3 days.  OK, maybe 4.  But one of those days I was incapacited by dental anguish and benzodiazepines.  Mobsters. Murders. Politicians.  Old girlfriend.  While you might not make sense of this warning until after you're in the middle of the book, the following quotes contain spoilers.  Maybe I shouldn't tell you  Maybe you wouldn't be able to peek ahead in the narrative on the basis of these quotations if they just seemed like throw-away prose.  Sorry.  OK.  I'll edit a couple out.  (Done.  You are safe.) First - a description of one of the "button men"- Mingo Bloomberg.  I met him - maybe you did too? - in the last novel.  I don't think I met his eyes, however. I let my eyes wander over his face.  There were tiny back specks in the blueness of his eyes, like pieces of dead flies, like microscopic traes of ev...

 A short zombie story written in the apocolypse described originally by R. R. Haywood.  Two quotes.  One I thought was funny and one I take as a warning to myself...  You can decide which is which. "Where do we put her?" "Ditch?" "That's grim." "Got a better idea?" "....Hedge?" "Yeah.  Let's pretend that's less weird." "Not until the silence stopped sounding like safety and started sounding like loneliness."

A book of short stories.  Plenty of women.  Plenty of men having sex with women...sometimes with multiple women - though not at the same time.  I did not understand these stories.  I'd follow the plots - and was interested in a few of those - to reach the end to find a paragraph or two of philosophy that left me completely lost.  I'd like to think that if I learned Japanese and read the book in its native tongue, I'd "get it".  I know better.  My only hope was to read it as part of a literature class and be able to listen to a guided discussion of what I just read.  Obviously, I wouldn't be participating.  Please, if you read it- pick one story and help me through.  I will read it again.  I mean, look, I re-read a 350-page novel to learn who "Charlie" is.  In the meantime,.... "Yesterday is two days before tomorrow."   That is as deep as I go today.

 As you might expect in a book that presents a love story between gods of the Underworld (Hades and Thanatos) with goddesses of nature (Persephone and Asphodel), the interesting quotations center on love and death.  I have long known I am not a romantic person.  (I had romance in my youth.  It was glorious.  Today, I'm tired.)  And as far as romantic stories go, I am no judge.  I found this one weak.  I much preferred the romantic fantasies of Sarah Maas.  Maybe because her female characters are so bad-ass and Asphodel - eh - whiny?  Thanatos, as a character, felt limp.... though he had one great exchange.  "I am not a plaything.  I am a force of nature.  And I don't like ostentation.  I find it looks redundant on me." "Redundant," Del sneered.  "What does that even mean?" A cloud passed over the sun, swathing the cottage in shadow, and he locked his eyes on hers.  "Death need not prove it should be ...