The accidental theme of the week seems to be events in and about Washington D.C. Seriously, even the Pinkerton book I read last week mostly took place in D.C. And the Capitol was prominent in the news, too, as frat boys lit up the joint in order to celebrate the death of some notorious bearded man or something. Frat boys have a legendary antipathy towards beards, I'm told.
Anyway:
For Mother's Day, I got my NPR-worshipping mother The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. "I saw her on The Colbert Report/Daily Show," says Mom (To her, they are the same show), "She looks exactly the way I would have expected." She made this comment in approval of Vowell, obvs.
Still more literature on U.S History, because I love to gaze hypnotically at my country's navel. Thus, I've been reading Paula Giddings' When and Where I Enter. Ida B. Wells is now my personal icon. She was a sh*t-stirrer in the best possible way.
I finished Drama City by George Pelecanos this very morning. There is nothing like an operatic shootout between D.C gangsters to get the blood pumping. Pelecanos was a producer on The Wire, and reading this novel makes me want to devour the whole series during a solitary weekend. It is hopeful, human, elegiac, and violent without getting off on violence (although one character does get erect after stabbing women and watching rotwielers shred one another to pieces. Parental Warning).
Finally, Lawler Books sold Etendre y Hablar, a 1961 Spanish Language textbook. It's full of some very nostalgic illustrations, totally demonstrative of a certain conservative era at the tail end of the 50s, I guess. Stylistically, the sketches remind me of the opening credits from Bewitched. I'm guessing this aesthetic is the reason why the book sold. Certainly, it is not the most up-to-date Spanish primer. [Spanish Phrase of the Day: No sé lo que tengo]
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