saturday's fare

the choice of miss potter (and not harry potter, as one lady nearby excitedly quipped to her man) for my afternoon watch. it was made delightful by making peter rabbit, benjamin bunny, et.al. come alive. there was something missing, i couldn't quite put my finger on it. perhaps a story undercurrent tamed, downplayed? perhaps that seeming homoerotic exchange between beatrix and millie?

a mint and improperly-priced paperback of the year of magical thinking by joan didion. i have been waiting for this book to come out in soft version. was thankfully oblivious to sordid slex and real traffic. thankful too for the lights on the bus kept on - i nosed through four chapters. finished the entire thing this afternoon. i just want to pry the entire book apart and see how it works. it is not soaked in emotion and for a memoir on death, grief and mourning, it is not sad. what it is, however, is numb. it is a numb book. yet it is puzzlingly celebratory for joan didion's attempt to reconstruct the year since her husband john gregory dunne died is, in its obverse, a commemoration of their four-decade marriage.

it is many things, but i'd rather that they unfold upon the reading.