Booze is lovely.
Nowhere is this sentiment more clearly expressed than in the Surrealist classic, A Night Of Serious Drinking, by Rene Daumal. Daumal was a friend of Alfred Jarry's and a fringe member of the Surrealist Movement. This book is especially good to read while drunk. It is about being thirsty, something which I think we can all relate to. I would recommend this book to drinkers, Surrealists, and anyone else who will listen to me. You can get this at the library. If your library does not have it, then request an interlibrary loan.

Change a child's life: READ to them.

Also exceptional reading:

Pere Ubu, by Alfred Jarry

Book Snobs Unite!!!

Add to this thread!!!

Just finished Haruki Murakami's latest 'Kafka on the Shore.' Not his best, if you ask me, and suffering under the weight of a poor translation. Still worth reading, though.

Thanks Green Throat! I've thought about looking up Pere Ubu before but I'll look into both.

Been slowly( never seem to have time to sit and read) making my way through several bios on Arthur Rimbaud and translations of his work (I'm sure that the translated works don't do justice to the poet).

I'm glad you're enjoying my work.

LFab, if you haven't read the Graham Robb bio of Rimbaud, give that one a try.

Sorry, Rimmy, I don't mean to talk about you like you're not here.

Jarry's play is actually called Ubu Roi, the main character being Pere Ubu. There's actually an off-off-Broadway play in NYC right now called JABU, which is supposed to be a combonation of Ubu Roi and Jarry's life story. Oh, and it's a musical! Tix are only $20. I'm gonna try to go this weekend, since it's closing in a few weeks. I also just booked a hotel in DC for mid-April to go check out the Lautrec/Montmartre exhibit at the National Gallery. Anyone else planning on going?

I read that one. Excellent, I thought.

It's okay, I'm not.

Dude, why not come to Snake's for DCLF??

When is it?

No definite date set, but it's either April 9, 16, or 23.

A field trip to the Lautrec/Montmartre exhibit has been discussed.

I'll be arriving in DC on the 16th (my birthday!), and leaving the following day...

Aw, fuck! We've gotta have it that Saturday.
Get you all sorts of bent.

I'm pretty bent as it is.

Mr. Rimbaud, you are right. I screwed up on the title, but I'm sure about this one:

The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicyicle Race by Alfred Jarry

Nice work for an ether-sipping, absinthe-addict dwarf!!

Indeed!

I've been reading lots of glass distributors catalogues lately.

I’ve been running with scissors.

I've been playing with fire.

No time to wallow in the mire

I'm your Venus, I'm your fire; pure desire.

I spend most of my time trying to connect to the Internet.

Looked at a couple of posts in this thread...I'm outa here.

Back on topic (my apologies as usual)--
My boss is out of the office the rest of this week so I've got the place to myself.
Catching up on my reading, which currently means rereading Tim Powers' Last Call.

Oh, and LFab, concerning the Rimbaud translations...I looked through a bunch of mine and my advice is to learn French.

I hear this one is pretty good, although I haven't read it myself as of yet:

That's definitely the best I've seen.

C'mon baby, bite my wire.

The companion volume I Promise To Be Good: The Letters of Artur Rimbaud:

I don't have that one yet, but it's at the top of my list.

I need to get both volumes, hardcover if possible. The only translation I have is the Paul Schmidt version.

I have Mason, Schmidt, and Fowlie.
Mason is definitely the best, though I prefer to consult the translation only when I'm totally stuck.

I don't know French, unfortunately, so I'm stuck with the translations.

'Maus' was good.

I read a lot of holocaust literature a few years ago. Good course I took in college.

Ursula K Leguin.

She's the Stoltzi- Stoltza- that Russian dude- of her day... at least, when she writes in the setting with the Ekumen in it... (her fantasy is on a par with Gene Wolfe as well though.)

Read The Dispossessed- do it now before you all die.

We are 3 million years overdue for the next mass extinction.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c...MNGFIBN6PO1.DTL

I'm considering getting the I Promise to be Good collection--or I might just pick it up at the Lieberry! Every penny wasted is one less for the absinthe fund!

BTW,Abby, I believe the Robb bio was the first I read. I'm currently finishing up Rimbaud: Presence of an Enigma by Steinmetz. It's a translation of a french edition with some gramatical errors and cumbersome translations at points.

Hmmmmm......talk about synchronicity!

I read that article yesterday.

The end of the Mayan calendar (12/21/12) is nigh.....

I'm reading the not-quite-sequel to the last book I read, onacuz it leads to a third book by the same author that combines the two books.

Normally I'm not a fantasy kinda gal. In fact, normally I'm not even a fiction kinda gal, but I'm having a lot of fun with this stuff.

I need to move to a Vegas casino like Howard Hughes.

Ha! I was Just gonna say that!


Those mayans... so fucking smart, they all died.


Gotta put things into perspective.

Is "Maus" the holocaust "comic book" with the mice and cats? If it's the one I'm thinking of, it was very interesting. Very unusual format for a work on that subject.

I'm reading The Scarlet Letter (somehow I never read it in highschool). I'm really enjoying it.

Yes, that's the one.

I've read both Maus 1 and Maus 2 and they are fascinating.

You can't be serious.

The Mayan are NOT dead.

The last time I was in Mexico, I bought a gorgeous Huipil from a very nice Mayan woman.

If you are refering to the ancient culture that built the stone pyramid structures in Tulum, Uxmal, and Chichen Itza (to name a few) - then yes, that culture has come and gone. But the Mayan as a race are NOT dead.

That would be like saying because the Victorian Era has long past, the Brits are dead.

While the Roman Empire has crumbled, the city of Rome is still teeming with ROMANS!!!

I just finished Madame Bovary. I think it was burnt.

Well I just ordered I Promise to Be Good.
I'll let you know if it's any good, Rimmy.
Though I suspect I'll enjoy it.

Also, on the advice of a friend whose advice I rarely take, I ordered Lamb : The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Looks pretty fun.

Abby - have you read Live From Golgotha?

Pretty funny....

No, but now I'm gonna have to go look...

If I can find it this w/e, I'll send it to you.

Danke, chica.

Golgotha is upstairs in the bookcase,
no searching needed.