Cross Eyed by Sarah Allen.

Although she sells this book as a collection of short stories, I think it should be billed as a collection of vignettes. 

If you read this, would you wanna keep reading?

If you read this, would you wanna keep reading? It's from a novella I'm working on, but this is killing me...do I start here, or do I start at the beginning? I wrote this part as a middle part, but I think it would make for a more interesting beginning, which would give me more room to play with the timeline and expose different players and motives in a more dramatic manner...any advice would be appreciated. :-)

Distortion by Lucie Smoker-A Book Review.

So, this seems like an almost impossible story to mess up. It has a little bit of all my favorite things; murder, mystery, romance, rock and art. But that's about all I enjoyed in this story. 

What's the story about? It's about Adele Proust, an up and coming artist in Houston's Montrose District. She's got baggage, but strong and empowered by her talent and her friends, she's moving on through life. And she's doing great. In the beginning, she falls in with Greg Fowler-a super hot, womanizing lead singer for The Fury-Houston's hottest post punk band. On their first date(so to speak) a fire breaks out at the club and she stumbles on to a corpse and is able to remember that scene so well that after the place burns down, and the cops kick her out of the area, she is driven to go home and paint it while Mr. Fowler writes a song next to her. And then this story takes a dive. And it only gets worse as the story progresses.

Beat The Reaper, by Josh Bazell

"Great book if you want a quick, fast paced, witty and intelligent read. I enjoyed it thoroughly and I definitely recommend it. Full review under the picture. 

A poem-The Moon

It's when the moon starts to glow 

Through the clouds late at night

An honest attempt 

To give light to the dark

And the world is all quiet 

Except for the moon and I 

That's when I cry out 

for reason

Or even some chaos 

A rustling of leaves 

Or a chirp from a bird

Or something in nothing

This silence just might be

The most deafening noise

That I've ever heard

Sometimes, I just wanna shout at the world

And make the birds and the leaves

Spring back to life

But I'm afraid that

I don't have all that much to say

So to what would this world be stirred?

Not sure why I'm shouting

Think I may need the attention

To have someone notice

I'm alive and I'm hurt

To hear a "Hello" 

Or maybe they'll miss me

Or maybe my kiss

On their lips has been missed

And another day of that would be nice

It's been almost a decade

Since I first met the moon

And I'm still all alone

Still staring at this luminescent sky 

And wishing this night would end

And these thoughts  get no further 

No matter how fast they race

No matter how much I try

I wake up wishing I hadn't

Reaching for my cigarette

And coffee

And conversation 

Or just another reason not to die

They're getting harder to find

Those reasons I gathered 

over the years

 I could stack in my back pocket

To look at in the storm

When the moon is blocked behind  gray clouds

But

My pocket's empty now

And it makes me wanna scream

I need a reason for tomorrow

But it feels like this won't change

Like I'm stuck here with these thoughts

And all this pain

And no refrain from this song

That won't stop playing late at night

I hate to be awake

There's tiny pains that I can't stop

Like my body's done with me

And cells are dying off

My body's giving up as well

And I know that I've neglected it

So I can't blame it 

Should it cease to work by dawn

I guess I'm just broken 

Inside and out

And hoping for a fix to the problem

A tool I could buy 

Screws to hold me tight

Or maybe a stronger bead of solder 

A fix that might last. 

And if not

Then maybe something to put an end to the rot

A bullet?

Some pills?

A song for the dark!

The moon is too bright

And the clouds are too thick

And this silence is tearing me down

The coffee's too bitter

And the smoke's choking me

And this talk is just going around

In circles like the moon

And won't ever end

Like the reach of the moons

Outstretched hands

Holding me captive 

And keeping me company

Book review-An Object Of Beauty By Steve Martin

     I had no idea what I was stepping into when I picked this book up. To be fair, I only wanted to read it because Steve Martin wrote it. I saw him on The Colbert Report, and he talked so little about it. I passed it several times in the bookstores, thinking next time I'll pick it up. Then I found it in the dollar store, and had to buy it. Then it sat unread in my room for 6 months. With nothing left to read, I started it a month ago...

     What I will say is this; This ain't no comedy. It ain't the three amigos, and it sure as hell ain't Bowfinger...this is a beautifully written story of a world I never knew existed. And of one incredible woman who lived it entirely, loved it wholly, and seemed untouchable by its ever grinding gears.
I was afraid my complete lack of art world knowledge would render this unreadable, but the author describes these paintings in a manner even I could understand. And the little history lessons about the paintings shows his passion for the theme. 

     Now, the Story is about Lacey Yeager, as seen through the eyes of her friend, co-conspirator, and one time lover. Lacey Yeager is an up and coming art dealer, who gets her start at Sotheby's Auction House, and begins to develop a knack for guessing which pieces will sell best, and which will flop. She is by far what I would call the epitome of an anti-hero, in which I mean that I don't like her, but I do love her. In that everything she does is wrong, but not so wrong. I understand. She gets herself into trouble, and I wanna forgive her for it...but trouble has a way of catching up with us all in the end.

     The majority of the story is set in New York, and I think Steve Martin has done an incredible job of capturing the city. The author also crafts some of the most beautiful sentences I've read in modern literature. A great many paragraphs are glided through as if they were poetry. His timing is impeccable, and his characters were almost all so well developed that I felt I knew them and how they would react to certain situations. 

     To be fair, he lost a star for the ending. I didn't care for it. It was...well, you read it, and you tell me. I just didn't care for it. Though to be fair, I never like the endings. I hate when I'm done with a book. It's just the worst feeling ever. But it helps when the ending gratifies at least a bit.
Kudos Mr. Martin. I'll definitely be looking out for more of your work.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

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