Shel’s Comments (group member since Mar 05, 2009)

Shel’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

Sounds like a majority of yay's so far are for:

Saturday July the 23rd through the 30th

or Saturday July 30 to Saturday August 6.

Maybe a final vote... then we can start planning other details, like the where's.

I'll be there... if the event in Minnesota this year, I'll drive up with my big-ass telescope...

Skyquest XT8 Dobsonian Reflector Telescope with parabolic primary optics which sounds suspiciously like a Pu-36 explosive space modulator but I promise, is not.

Ok, so let's pick a week.

How about a Saturday to Saturday in July?

Saturday the 16th to Saturday the 23rd?

Or the 23rd through the 30th?

Or Saturday July 30 to Saturday August 6?

My personal vote is 16th to 23rd, right smack in the middle.

What week did we want to do it this year? Sorry if I'm behind on that one...

Minnesota is great in the summer. My best friend from college lives there and it's apparently quite the outdoorsy place with a ton of lakes and watersports ... (I usually visit her in the cities)

She could probably help us find some locations, or at least provide colorful commentary on what we do find.

I could help with some of the organizing this year...

no allergies, no vegans, just two kids who would totally love you forever.

My son loves chocolate, my daughter is a vanilla/white chocolate type. You know, because you asked. ;)

I, too, am really impressed by the early 20th century manifest destiny type of voice you have going on, JE. You did a great job capturing the voice of exploration and starting over. With so many characters in the book trying to do just that, it fits perfectly.

That's fine, JE. We will pick you up at O'Hare and go straight out. At 3:30 it shouldn't be too awfully horrible terrible, traffic wise.

My kids' favorite restaurant of all time is Francesca's. I can tell they will love you. But either will be perfectly fine with us.

Lou Malnati's, JE, is pretty much the best Chicago deep dish you can get. Other people like other places (some people swear by Gino's East), but most of us go for Malnati's.

Hi,

I'll be there! :)

Why don't you pick the place, Elizabeth -- and JE, the time is up to you and your schedule. I was planning on heading out in the early afternoon to do what we can to avoid traffic so Owen doesn't lose his mind in the car. :)

Chris wrote: "Moby will indeed kick our asses. And we'll be better off for it.

As for Madame Bovary, I know I risk charges of heresy, but I can't stand it. I admire Flaubert's writing ability--he's a truly ..."

I agree, Chris. I love his writing, but I couldn't even start part 3 of Bovary. It's like he gave her a lobotomy at the end of part 2.

Holy cow, that's confusing.

I listen to single-instrument music. Bach's cello concertos, usually, or Chopin's piano concertos. Also, there must be the smell of coffee nearby.

I find it interesting that we think we can "know" anything about Poe's personality. Personality is a construct, and we can't "know" Poe in that way any more than we can stand outside our selves and describe our selves.

All we have are his words and how they affect us. Everything else is projection, conjecture and assumption.

I nominate Swanny and whomever else is available to lead the discussion on MD, since it's a pretty big book and maybe the awesome responsibility of leading a discussion needs to be parsed out.

I'm up for Brothers K and would be comfy helping to run that one, too.

Oh! Wait. I guess we all have to agree to do it, right? ;)

I'm in, no matter what the book. I have a refreshed commitment/focus to both writing and reading

It would be fun to read Brothers K here but I don't think we'd get through Moby Dick...

As I read through this thread, something surprised me: the similarity between Moby-Dick and some of the structure, and meandering, of Infinite Jest.

It was amazing, really - the way it started out about attention to the body, attention to the way things move, the way you have to pay attention, and then moves into this cross-generational tragedy of him not making anything of himself and it boils down to this horrible moment of understanding: his father thinks he's ok, but nothing great.

And there the guy is talking to his son about how great he knows his kid is going to be if he would just stop crying and pay attention to how he puts down the book... oh and by the way we're moving again...

I just finished the chapter (in IJ) where the father has that monologue "at" the son about tennis and legacy and it was just gut-wrenching and sad and hard to read. Anyone else remember that one?