and in other news ~

[lookingland]

a whole bunch of not-work getting done this morning. who can work on a saturday anyway?

i need to go to confession later this afternoon, so it's hard to get focused on anything but that. meanwhile, i keep surfing around mindlessly.

~ * ~

starting writing episode xxvii last night (in Art's voice). i don't know Art very well, so this will take a lot of massaging. anyone on my flist from ohio? anything particular about the way ohio-people talk that i ought to know about?

truth still is, i just get tired when i try to think about how to tackle Reconstruction these days. it's like that critter in The Thing when the guy's head falls off and sprouts legs and skitters away ~ and here's me with a blow torch saying: "you gotta be effin' kidding."

problem is, i don't want to torch it, i want to make friends with it and keep it in a nice-lined box and make it wear a funny hat and call it booboo-fritter.

didn't i just say in a post earlier that i don't tend to talk about my writing as if it were alive? so much for that.

~ * ~

i've also decided that if i hope to get a move-on with regards to the 50bookchallenge i'm going to have to give up on doctorow. so pathetic. i managed to read a dreadful victorian novel positively oozing purple prose and laughable dialogue, but couldn't make it past chapter three of doctorow's award-winning The March. sigh and piffle. i've no idea and am tired of speculating. back to the library you go, silly book. hey, i tried.

now i'll need to find new books to read. i've lost my list (ha!). i may just go browse the shelves and pick things off ~ it's seemed to work well so far ~ i haven't loved everything i've read, but i've found some interesting stuff. the new Montmorency should be out by now, come to the think of it (yup, just checked ~ unfortunately it's gotten feh-feh reviews...hmmm). i'd also considered reading more sigrid undset, so i may yet pick up Kristin Lavransdatter. nobel prize winner vs. lurid children's book? tough choice.

(now i want to go to the bookstore!)

~ * ~

we will now conclude this mindless entry with a nice picture.



the Rouen market about 1873

Comments

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

that's interesting ~ my theory is that it's an early westward melting pot that assimmilated quickly ~ you find populations without especially pronounced regionalisms in areas early settled by a variety of people who then intermarried and watered the speech particularities.

hmmm ~

[la-vita-nuova.livejournal.com]

I agree up to a point...is Chicago considered an early westward melting pot? They definitely have an accent there.

[lookingland.livejournal.com]

i think that's partly because Chicago was less likely to intermarry ~ it was deeply segregated culturally for a long time with a particularly dense italian population that did not play with others (and for a lot of reasons!).