Summer and Reading

The heat index hit a blistering 105 degrees today and even my own heat-loving self felt the need to state the obvious:

"It's like a fucking oven out here!"

It was so damn hot and humid last night it was hard to breathe sometimes and the Amazonian wetness soaked through your clothes in 10 seconds flat. It was for this reason that I was somewhat surprised to find myself being persuaded to attend the fireworks that they have at Coney Island every
Friday night in the Summer.

"Why THIS Friday???? Even my boxer shorts are crawling up my arse to get
inside and escape the heat!".

It was THIS Friday because Alma and I have lived 20 minutes away from Coney
Island for the last 5 years but have never managed to get there for the
fireworks for some unknown reason - well, not an exactly unknown reason, the
truth is I love Coney Island in the winter when the amusement parks are
closed and a cold wind howls through the boardwalk but in the summer it is
crowded and stressful for a blind guy

I’m finding myself doing more and more stuff like this - a kind of reaction to feeling like your time is limited. I’m reading about 3 books a week (no, I’m not kidding!!) as I know that 10 years from now (but maybe sooner) reading will be a chore and not a pleasure.

Last week I finished a travelogue and history lesson about the Great Plains of America by Ian Frazier called The Great Plains. He writes wonderfully and humorously about some of the more peculiar things that happened in the days of the old West. He also has a strong affinity for Native American culture which made the book a good companion piece to one of my all time favorite books Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.

I also finished an interesting but poorly written biography of the Dalai Lama, actually it wasn’t that poorly written, it just fell into the trap the some biography’s fall into, it read like a university dissertation and not a good book.

Finally, I finished Women by Charles Bukowski. This is the second Bukowski novel I’ve read (Post Office is the other one), and I gotta say that though I enjoy this guy, it’ll be a while before I read anymore of his stuff. This book was basically 95 chapters of drinking, women, cunnilingus and vomiting. The whole thing was like going on a five day bender, it’s fun but by the end you run out of steam and need a break.