2004-05-11 - 9:51 a.m. Have been carrying around this book since Saturday, reading little passages every chance I get. It is a captivating diary of three weeks out of Nathanial Hawthorne's domestic life, and though it could be anyone's journal of 20 days with a five-year-old, it is Hawthorne's, so it is wry and thoughtful and literate. Reading it gives me the same feeling as seeing those depression-era color photos in the NY Times Magazine this week. Somehow the color makes the people all the more immediate, not this sepia-toned rarefied American myth. Similarly, reading about Hawthorne's son's wetting his bed and wanting an orange and loving his bunny rabbit makes these distant, long-dead people come alive in a way they wouldn't if they were referenced in a novel or more serious work. I've always had this conception that people didn't become so child-centric in this country til the 1950s...that country folks of the early days of America were detached from their children, expecting half of them to die anyway. But you read something like this, and there is no difference between Hawthorne, with his goofy indulgence and laser-like attention to Julian, and some Upper West Side soccer-parent. Finally got the first issue of Ladies and Gentlemen magazine in the mail. It's a big, vinyl-L.P.-shaped fanzine with an actual vinyl L.P. included. I got it cuz of the Robert Pollard interview and the Hold Steady and Wrens tracks although my turntable isn't working so it's an abstract pleasure of ownership above anything else. OK, this article in the stupid Post says that women who wear skirts on a first date are "trying too hard," and then go on to suggest wearing...stiletto heels or a nice summer dress. Huh? Speaking as someone who is trying to incorporate more skirts into her everyday wardrobe, I'd say that stiletto's are gross and hard to walk in, and skirts are actually quite comfortable and take very little effort. thoughts? (7 comments so far) previous - next blog archive contact