Garfield without Garfield.

How do you make Garfield, the mind-numbingly bad comic strip, actually funny? Take out Garfield. Here is what's left.

50 book challenge?

The Going to Bed Book, Snuggle Puppy, Pajama Time: the N.Y. Times gets a glimpse inside the Sandra Boynton empire. I love how Phyllis Korkki, the reporter, thinks of "a five-bedroom home, built in 1728, sit[ting] on 100 acres of rolling northwestern Connecticut countryside" as merely "comfortable, not lavish." This seems like defining lavish downward - no palm-frond-waving servants? How restrained!

And Graceful, Too!

Benji Discusses His Favorite Topic.

50 book challenge

Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night. Crushing tale of Dick Diver, eminent if somewhat underachieving psychiatrist, and his wife, Nicole, during the crack-up of their marriage and personal sanities (mostly his; hers was fragile already). Especially poignant because of Fitzgerald's personal acquaintance with alcoholism and mental illness, and a troubled relationship. Apparently he wrote sober, though. However he managed to do it, the writing here was astonishing. It seems lame to call it "original," but I have a hard time thinking of anything else I've read that compares. He had a special quality of being able to observe things, and represent them in fiction, as if for the first time. 

 

Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis. Yes, a graphic novel! A girlhood in Iran in the times of the Islamic revolution. Interestingly, the girl's parents were revolutionaries themselves, but not in the religious vein - rather socialist. What a troubled country. This has just been turned into a movie that I would like to see, but will probably not for some months because the cinema is for Benjy/i's parents like unto a distant land running with milk and honey, yet unattainable because HE DID WHAT ALL OVER THE RUG?  Um, also I would like to visit, but that is even a little less likely. I maintain the baby would get a kick out of Isfahan.

He that is Industrious in an Honest Calling, shall never fail of a Blessing.

Who was Aesop, anyway? Link.

R.I.P.

The Doodle is done.

Benji Plays Peekaboo

50 book challenge: Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

A portrait of the egotist as a young man. I'm interested to know how much of a hand Maxwell Perkins had in this one, but even so, Fitzgerald is no Thomas Wolfe. The experimenting with form is what really surprised me - the sudden interruption of the narrative by semi-serious lists, the passages where the story changes into script-like format, nothing but dialogue and stage directions. F. Scott and Zelda are in fact buried in a cemetery near downtown Rockville, Maryland, where by coincidence I will be this weekend. I think this is probably Rockville's most notable quality. I intend to pay a visit.

Pretty Baby

50 book challenge: #3.

Paul Theroux, The Pillars of Hercules. My first Theroux book, The Great Railway Bazaar, I held him to an improper standard - it's like I expected him to be charming or empathetic. He's not. But that's the merit of his books. He's kind of a cranky misanthrope, a cynical idealist. This one is shelfworthy.

Trip to Maryland and Virginia

At Grandmom's house, testing his favorite food on Beth.














At Wheaton Regional Park.




















He can do it all by himself.














Bumpin' up and down in Poppa's little red wagon.