The Cheeseblog

It’s a little rainy, like May should be. May showers bring June flowers, right?

On our camping trip, we had to make emergency trips to Pemberton to buy more supplies (bigger tarp, new stove, more beer, again with the more beer) and on one such trip we noticed that the Pemberton Public Library was having a book sale!

I picked up a copy of Timothy Findley’s first novel, The Last of the Crazy People and spent a day reading it. It’s only 281 pages long. It was absolutely superb. Subtle and powerful and engaging. I also grabbed A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe but I haven’t really started it yet.

I picked up a book I’d never heard of, The Weight of Winter by Cathie Pelletier, without really reading the back cover. It had that trade-paperback look to it so I thought it was safe (mostly the books at the sale were Clive Barker and John Grisham. And there were three copies of A Man in Full) The other day I took The Weight of Winter for bus reading but I could only mush through about 5 pages; it was so cutesily written. Plus, the author used quotation marks to denote both dialogue and thought. I hate that. If I think somebody is talking, I don’t want to have to figure out that now they’re thinking. Pet peeve.
So then, in mid-gag on the bus, I took the time to actually read the back:

The wacky back country universe of Mattagash, Maine – a logging town of some four hundred souls just north of nowhere – sprang to delightful life in Cathie Pelletier’s first two novels. Now, THE WEIGHT OF WINTER guarantees Mattagash a permanent place in the literary landscape somewhere between Spoon River and Lake Wobegon – with all the heartfelt life of Fannie Flagg’s FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE WHISTLE STOP CAFE.

Yeah.

Strike one: it’s the 3rd novel in a series.
Strike two: literary landscape.
Strike three: wacky back country universe.

I’ve never read the Fried Green Tomatoes book. I bet it is really good. The Lake Wobegon books are good, I know this. But TWoW set out to invade the “literary landscape” inhabited by these good books and comes off – in the first 5 pages, anyway – as a bumbling weirdo. Not in an interesting way, just in a sort of “oh you smell a little. Don’t sit next to me” way. It’s a fine line.

Now I have to go to work. Happy Fridee.

This is what some camping looked like:

Well you might have forgotten, so I’m reminding you. Rob Brezny’s horoscopes rock the GD planet.

Welcome to the Happiness Season, Aquarius. The entire universe is now conspiring to provoke in you an abiding sense of joy and well-being. You can resist, of course; it’s your God-given right to use your free will to repel this influx of contentment. But in case you decide to cooperate with the cosmic trend, here are a few helpful thoughts to propel you. “Happiness is a state of going somewhere wholeheartedly, without regret or reservation.” – William H. Sheldon. “I’d rather be a failure at something I enjoy than be a success at something I hate.” – George Burns. “Happiness is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” – Helen Keller. “Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” – Anonymous. “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.” – Bertrand Russell.

Please, may my ashes be stored in the body of a Duck?

First, a Taco eating contest. Mmmmm! Tacos!

Second, the story of the grape tomato, a tasty, strange fruit/vegetable. Says one man: “I was not a savvy businessman. If I was, I would not have named it ‘grape tomato.'”

And finally, because I became transfixed this morning with JR Country music radio, here are the lyrics of “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” by Big & Rich. You can imagine how bad it is by reading the words. But it’s actually 10 times weirder than it reads. Fake hip-hopping southern-accented Dodge commercial singing and spoken-wording…I kept waiting for one to ask the other if his truck had a Hemi or start babbling about how he was “lovin’ it…”

This “new country” scares and fascinates me.