Happy Earth Day

So if I'm writing on my unplugged laptop during Earth Hour, is that ok? Well I suppose it'll have to be since that's exactly what I'm doing. I figured I'd be skipping Earth Hour this year because I was going to be out in Mississauga with the parental unit. But I made good time on the way home, so I walked in the apartment door just around 8:20 - plenty of time to light a few candles and prepare myself for this hour where we pay tribute to our lovely planet Earth. (I know, it's easy to be cynical about the idea of turning off the lights for one hour out of the year, but I'll resist the temptation. For one, my footprint is pretty tiny for much of the year anyway as I'm not a huge energy consumer.)

My week of reading neglected New Yorker short stories has turned out quite well. (There were also a couple of non-fiction pieces that I had set aside, so it was good to complete those.) I was able to throw into the recycling bin about seven issues, not to mention enjoying some wonderful stories in the process. One, "Awake" (available free online, and not even from the New Yorker) by Tobias Wolff, was, amazingly, from an issue way back in 2008! I have no idea why I've held on to it for so long - not to mention how since I was living in a different apartment back then, meaning I must have moved the issue with me. What folly! There were two glorious pieces which I'm glad I hadn't discarded before getting around to reading them (and both, interestingly, appear to be novel excerpts): "The Gangsters" by Colson Whitehead (whose fantastic novel The Intuitionist was one of my favourites from a few years back), and Jennifer Egan's "Ask Me If I Care." Egan is not a writer I've read before, but based on the strength of this fantastic piece of writing, I'll be seeking out more of her work. And I most certainly will read both the Whitehead and Egan novels.

It actually was a good New Yorker week all around for me as I was lucky enough to deal with one of the editors of its book blog, Book Bench. Results of my help/work should appear sometime in the coming week. It was quite heady for me to deal with someone that carried the newyorker.com e-mail address, not to mention the anticipation of seeing my small contribution appear online. I've been a New Yorker magazine fanatic (and oft subscriber) for about 20 years, so it's always been a dream to have some contact or connection with it. (In my early 20s, it was my dream to one day work at the magazine.) I'm actually quite giddy about it! It allowed me to end the week - which was already a pretty darn good one, what with seeing both Norah Jones and Catherine MacLellan in concert, as well as catching up with an old high school friend - on a wonderfully high note. (And adding to the general excitement is that I'll be back to being a city cyclist, courtesy of my parents who have given me an old but rarely used bike that was taking space in their condo locker. It just needs a few modifications: new tires, fenders, a bike rack, and some front and rear lights. I should be up and running - and thus freed from the Toronto Transit Commission - by the end of the week. Happy days indeed are here again.)

This and that

(Of course I started writing this post yesterday morning, but only now - on Tues. - am I actually getting around to finishing it and posting...)

Not sure I mentioned this at the beginning of the year, but I've decided to keep a list (and, thus, a tally) of the books I'm reading this year. It's something I've never done - and, as a result, whenever I'm asked at the end of the year by various literate friends (it's a small list...) how many books I've read over the course of the year, I usually do a best guess-estimate. But I figure by compiling a list of completed books - I'm also maintaining a list of books I haven't managed to finish, as well as a film list - I'll be armed with meaningful, irrefutable stats!

I was steaming along quite nicely through the first two months of the year, completing about (I'm not at home as I write this, so I don't have access to the list) 11 books. (I think there were two books I started but never finished.) But I seemed to have slowed down considerably since the beginning of March. For example, just this past weekend, I turned the final page on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, which took me a full two weeks to read. It's not even *that* long of a book, but I had quite a bit of social stuff over the past couple of weeks that took me away from my reading couch. And this week, I'm not going to start a book until toward the end of the week, which will slow down my progress. Good thing I'm not obsessed with the final tally.

But why no books this week? Well, I'm presenting myself with another reading goal: to (finally!) get through about eight or nine New Yorker short stories that have been piling up in the apartment. It's funny, when I first subscribed to the wonderful magazine as a teenager, I used to begin with the fiction. However, since I resubscribed about three years ago, I've mostly devoured the excellent journalism, and left the fiction until last. (Except those rare occasions when one of my fave authors, such as Bolano or Murakami, would have a story.) But since it usually takes me the full week to get through an issue, another would arrive in the post before I had a chance to read the fiction. (It might also reflect my current reading interests: I seem to be more partial to longer fiction than shorter.) As a result, I've been stockpiling issues with the intent of eventually reading the short stories. Since I've been in purge mode, the accumulated magazines are getting on my nerves! (I'm a good candidate for an e-reader, as long as the New Yorker offers an e-subscription - which I'm sure it will.) Thus, I feel it's finally time to reduce the pile. I'm aiming to read one story a day - so basically a week or so to be done with the pile - before I start a novel.

In the queue (courtesy of the TPL, where both are "in transit"): Bolano's Monsieur Pain and the new  Ian McEwan, Solar.

Wanted: One clever person

I know my readership isn't massive - not to mention I've asked this question to at least two people who I know read my blog (neither of whom could help me; not that they're aren't clever in their own right, of course) - but maybe a stray, smart reader can help me decipher this cartoon in the current issue of the New Yorker. I mean, sure, New Yorker cartoons aren't necessarily supposed to be bust-a-gut, laugh-out-loud hilarious, but at least they tend to be on the droll side. And, at the very least, comprehensible. But this one has me totally stumped. Can anybody help?

Reward to be considered. Not to mention my gratitude (which, if you think about it, is a reward in itself).